The circling and feinting went on, faster now. Blade saw that Vosgu was trying to avoid any predictable pattern of movement. He was doing rather well, and against most beginning fighters in the Games he would have been completely successful. Blade had learned to size up opponents in even rougher places than the Games of Hapanu, so Vosgu was wasting his time.
Suddenly Vosgu whirled, his arm straightened, and he threw his spear without coming up out of his crouch. Blade had the clues he needed, and Vosgu's throwing from a crouch slowed his spear. Blade's own spear lashed out, caught Vosgu's in midair, and sent it flying halfway across the arena. Kuka had to jump aside to avoid being skewered by it.
Vosgu stood, eyes and mouth open, completely stunned and completely vulnerable. Blade ignored the gasps of amazement from the crowd, took his time, and threw his own spear with total precision. As he'd intended, the spear opened a gash along Vosgu's ribs, then flew on to strike the sand and stand there quivering. Before Vosgu could recover from the new shock of not being dead or dying, Blade closed in. He slashed Vosgu's swordarm to the bone, then punched the man in the jaw. As he went over backward, Blade knelt beside him, sword's point at his throat.
«I think the best thing for you is to yield,» he said with a grim smile.
Vosgu seemed to agree. He nodded, then Kuka was coming up at a dead run and everybody in the amphitheater was on their feet, cheering, shouting Blade's name over and over again, and throwing flowers, scarves, empty baskets, and everything else that came to hand into the water and onto the sand. Blade rose to his feet, with a sigh of relief and slightly shaky legs. At the moment the audience seemed to have more energy than he did.
This time the Captain of the Games didn't waste any time looking at Blade. «Why didn't you kill Vosgu?» he snapped.
«Why should l?» asked Blade quietly.
That silenced the Captain and left him with his mouth gaping open. Eventually he shut it and did look at Blade, with an open suspicion that bordered on hostility.
«Are you going to-play with your opponents?» Kuka finally said. He said the word «play» as if it was an obscenity.
Blade laughed. Now he understood everybody's problem. The other fighters thought he had a sadistic streak in him, and took pleasure in making his opponents look like fools before he waded into them seriously. Blade shook his head.
«No, Kuka. I'm not a fool, and don't treat me like one. I couldn't expect to do that and live for long. Even if my luck didn't run out, my comrades of the Games would turn against me and arrange my death. I want to live as long as I can in the Games. I do have the skill to defeat many of my opponents without killing them. I'm going to use that skill if I can. Do you have anything to say against that?»
«No,» said Kuka. «I don't. Neither will most of the other fighters. And the people there-«with a thumb jerked toward the amphitheater, where the cheers were still rising. «What they'll say, I don't know. It won't be against you, I suspect. You may get a mighty name for yourself faster than any man in the history of the Games in Gerhaa.» He shook his head. «That's a gift from Hapanu, but like most of his gifts it's a sword with two edges and a life of its own. Don't get cut to pieces by your own good fortune, Blade.»
Kuka looked back at the amphitheater. «Now I'd say you should go over and give those bastards a few words. 'Thank you all' should be enough.»
Blade nodded and started off. He was certainly prepared to thank the people in the amphitheater, if their cheers would make it easier for him and Meera to get out of Gerhaa alive.
Chapter 18
Kuka turned out to be right. Within weeks Blade was the most famous gladiator in the Games, except for a few veterans who'd been fighting for up to twenty years. He was certainly the most famous beginner in the history of Gerhaa.
Some of the fighters were jealous, but only a few could be suspected of harboring grudges. Skroga put it bluntly:
«It'd be different, you wanted to cut up men right and left. They know you don't kill much if you don't have to. They also know you're good enough, mostly you don't have to. So your big name won't hurt them.»
The only real complaint anyone seemed to have against Blade was that he hadn't killed Vosgu of Hosh while he had the man at his mercy. «The ghosts of a lot of beginners would stand up and cheer louder than the bastards in the stands if they saw Vosgu with steel between his ribs,» one man said.
«The bastards in the stands» were a different matter from Blade's comrades. Their favor could raise a gladiator to the heights, but it seldom lasted long enough to keep him there. Blade knew that he was in another race against time, a deadly one, and there was no guarantee he'd win. He didn't even know where Meera was, let alone how to reach her and get her out of Gerhaa.
For the time being, though, he was fairly well off. The crowd seemed to like his style of fighting, even if it led to spectacular displays of skill rather than gruesome piles of bodies for the Horned Ones. The spectacle grew even more brilliant when Blade began to be matched against more experienced fighters. They met him at his own level, and once he and Skroga went at it with sword and shield for a solid hour and a half. By the time they finished, the water between the amphitheater and the Island was practically carpeted with scarves and flowers.
Blade was helped along by a piece of good luck. Three weeks after his first fight was one of the great religious festivals, with more than a hundred fights spread over four days. Blade fought seven times, the last two times as the leader of a team. One team was six men, the other twenty. Only four men in the history of the Games had ever been team leaders their first year, and none the leader of a team of twenty.
That not only helped Blade's reputation among the crowd, it helped him among his fellow gladiators. They now knew he could lead with the same skill he'd showed in fighting. A few still objected to this rapid rise of a beginner, but practically no one didn't trust him or admit his extraordinary abilities.
All this was helpful, but still not enough. What finally opened doors for Blade was gaining a reputation among the noblewomen of Gerhaa.
Blade's first summons to a noblewoman's bed set something of a pattern for the others.
As he marched across the bridge to the Island of Death one morning, he saw something fall to the planks at his feet. It was a lady's golden arm ring, with an embroidered silk scarf trailing from one side and a piece of parchment tied around the other side. He started to step over it, then saw his name written in Kylanan script on the parchment. He picked it up and tied it to his belt, then marched on across the bridge with the rest of the fighters.
He wasn't scheduled to fight until a team event halfway through the afternoon's program, so he had plenty of time to unwrap the parchment and read it. In fact, the message was so short he was easily able to memorize it.
Blade the Englishman
If you are fit after today's battle, show the scarf and ring to the guards at the entrance to the barracks. They will let you pass out. Come to the rear door of the House of Taranda in the Street of the Wheelmakers, between the second and third night hour, and follow he who lets you in.
Blade was folding up the parchment when Skroga came over to him and looked down at the scarf and ring, then at Blade. «It was for you?»
«Yes.»
«Not a surprise to me. Don't hope for too much, and guard your back. Some places in Gerhaa can do more hurt to those of the Games than this Island.»
«I've survived in such places, Skroga. But thank you for your warning.»
«Good luck be yours, then.» The older man turned away without a further word, but some of the other fighters were now staring at Blade. He stared back until the men found other things more worth their attention.