“There are many here who would be glad to prove your reputation unfounded,” the iynisi continued. “I myself think you do have some skill. We shall see. For your first trial you will face but a single opponent. Hardly a test of your ability, but he will be armed, and you not. If you dispute the fairness of it, you may always forbear to fight, and be cut down without resistance.” The other attendants had gone away while he was speaking; Paks looked around as the iynisi stepped back. With a swift stroke of his knife, he cut the strands that tethered her wrists, and stepped farther back, bowing. Then he turned to the surrounding seats, one arm upraised. “Let the sport begin!” he cried. The spectators rose in their ranks and cheered. The caped iynisi ran lightly to the web across the arena, bowed to the huge spider, and swarmed up the web to the seats above.
Paks, alone now on the floor of the arena, looked about for her opponent. She tried again to call on Gird or the High Lord, but could feel nothing when the words passed through her mind. It was like calling in an empty room. For the first time she wondered whether Gird would even listen. Surely if he could hear, he would help—in something like this—but the words she’d been taught echoed in her head, unanswered. She heard the scrape of boots from the passage by which she had come, and turned to see an orc stride into the lighted space. He wore leather body-armor and helmet, as well as the boots, and carried a short-thonged whip in one hand, and a curved knife in the other. Paks took a deep steadying breath and rocked from heel to toe, loosening her muscles. With her own weapons, such an opponent would have been no problem at all; without even a dagger, she was at a severe disadvantage. Still, she could fight—she reached for the spark of battle anger, and welcomed it.
The orc came to her slowly, with a low, smooth gait unexpected in such a bent shape. Paks crouched slightly, up on her toes, ready to shift any direction as chance offered. The orc grinned at her, and screeched something which the watching iynisin understood, for they laughed. She supposed it was a challenge of some sort. She felt a rising excitement, hot and joyous. Perhaps this was Gird’s gift, instead of his presence?
“Come on, then,” she said to the orc in Common. “Many of your kind have I killed; come join them.”
Closing abruptly, the orc swung the whip at her head; Paks ducked to save her eyes, watching its knife hand. Sure enough, as the knotted thongs bit into her neck and shoulders, the knife thrust toward her belly. She pivoted away from the thrust and caught the orc’s wrist with one hand, jerking him forward. He went to his knees, and she tried to make it to his back. But he rolled as he fell, and she met another slash of the whip. This time the thongs wrapped her legs, and she fell heavily, narrowly missing another thrust of the knife as she twisted away from his hand. He was on his feet an instant before her, aiming another blow of the whip. She scrambled away from it; the iynisin above her tittered.
“Sso . . . we . . . teach . . . to . . . humnss . . . what . . . iss . . . mannerss,” said the orc in barely understandable Common. He grinned again. “For thiss one . . . no sswordss . . . jusst whipss enough.” He swung the whip around his head; the thongs hummed. Paks kept her eye on the knife blade. He edged toward her again. Paks took a deep breath, from the belly, summoned up all the anger she could rouse, and charged an instant before he did. The whip was still in backstroke; she threw all her weight on him, both hands on the wrist of his knife hand. To her delight he sprawled backwards. She tucked as they hit the stone floor and rolled on, still digging her thumbs into his wrist. The knife clattered to the stone. He had already recognized the danger, and dropped the whip to grab for it with his free hand. Paks kicked it away; it skittered across the arena. The orc squealed and grabbed her leg, then sank its teeth in her ankle. Paks let go of the wrist, and reached for the whip. Again the orc anticipated her, and snatched it up an instant before she reached it. She rolled away, taking another hard lash of the whip before she was scrambling for the fallen knife.
This time she reached the prize first; she turned to face the orc with a weapon in her hand. She scarcely felt the whip welts or the bite. She grinned back at the orc as he came. Even now it would not be easy—the blade was short, and the orc’s armor tough—but she, at least, was sure of the outcome. The orc paused, and screeched again in its unknown tongue. The iynisin were silent, except for one voice that by its tone denied a request.
“Did you wish to quit, orc?” asked Paks. “Have I endangered your soft hide too much?” It was the worst insult she knew, for Ardhiel had told her that the orcs’ name for themselves meant iron-skins.
The orc glared at her, baring its fangs and running a tongue around its mouth which was stained with her own blood. Paks spared a quick glance to see where she was. Nearly in front of the spider’s web—not where she wanted to be at all. She slid sideways in a crouching glide. The orc turned to follow her, more slowly this time. She led it around the arena until its back was to the spider. By then the orc was beginning to grin again. She watched how it moved, decided where to strike.
Suddenly she stood at full height and stretched her arms upward, like someone just arising from a comfortable sleep. As she expected, the orc darted in and aimed a vicious slash at her exposed torso. She sidestepped left, taking the force of the blow without pausing, and rammed her suddenly lowered right arm into the orc’s neck. She had shifted the knife blade in that instant to a side-hold, and it slashed his throat from side to side, catching edge-on in the neckbone. The orc fell, blood pouring over her arm as she tried to free the blade. Above her the silvery voices clamored for an instant and were still. Paks rolled the dead orc on his back, and levered the knife free. It had a notch, where the bone had chipped it. She crouched, looking up at the circle effaces, as she tried to catch her breath.
“Well enough,” called the caped iynisi from above the spider’s lair. “It might have been done with more artistry, but the final stroke was admirable. Continue to amuse us so, and you may yet survive. For your next trial, you may keep the knife you have earned. For now, stand against the wall—” he gestured to the wall behind her.
Already the entrance to the arena was filled with heavily armed iynisin. They fanned out around her and forced her back with their pikes. She could not have touched them with the knife, and did not resist. She watched as two of them dragged the orc’s body across the the spider’s web, and bowed as they placed it just beneath the lowest strands. With horrible quickness the vast bloated body came down and grasped the corpse, the huge abdomen bending around it so that Paks could see cords of silk from the spinnerets twisting around and around. Soon the orc was a neatly cased packet hanging in the web. Paks swallowed against a surge of nausea. So that’s what would happen if she failed—she thrust that thought aside hurriedly. Holy Gird, she thought, just help me fight.
As the battle anger left her, she began to tremble. She was terribly thirsty; the orc-bite on her leg throbbed; the whip welts spread a cloak of pain about her. She wondered again how long she had been underground. Surely they knew she was gone—surely Amberion would come looking for her. Her vision blurred, and she leaned on the wall behind her. She had not noticed that the pike-bearing iynisin were gone until the caped one spoke again.