“I’m impressed,” Jarres told Pol. “I’ve seen only a few men go past the second round with her.”
Shav smiled as he walked to his corner. He bled from multiple cuts around his ears. Bruises pocked his forearms and shins. A few in the crowd crossed to his corner to offer words of encouragement. Stasessun’s fans looked on in annoyance. The mood had taken a turn.
The third round began. Stasessun came forward, unsmiling. She hopped from side to side as the quarterstock watched from between his fists, the unmistakable glint of calculation in his eyes. Her first punch got through, landed square on his chin. He shook it off but did not recover in time to block the two kicks that followed, landing on either thigh. He grunted and watched her, taking hits.
By this point the crowd was subdued. They watched Shav, and waited.
The moment came. Stasessun moved in close, following a right jab with a left shovel hook to Shav’s temple. He caught her fist halfway to its target and, quicker than Pol would have thought possible, caught her under the chin with an uppercut—a gracefully fluid move that lifted her off her feet.
The sound of bone breaking was clear and distinct in the silence.
She landed on the floor, neck clearly broken. Her life bubbled from her lips.
Shav tipped his head to either side, vertebrae popping loudly.
After a short pause, the crowd erupted. Pol yelled with them, cares for the moment forgotten. Men jostled against him, unconcerned that he was elderman and they human. Someone slapped his backside and he did not turn to see who had done it. He pictured Ebn there with him, back to back with the rabble, and laughed out loud. She would never understand the allure of violence, the intoxicating feeling of forcing another to submit.
“Hey!” Jarres yelled in his ear. “You want something to drink?”
“Yes,” Pol answered immediately. The response surprised him. When had he last been intoxicated in public? A year? Two? No matter. Surely Adrash would approve a sacrament in his honor. In return, he would bless Pol with wine and song and violence—perhaps even a new friend in the struggle to come.
“Yes,” he repeated, peering over the crowd to locate Shav. He had no intention of letting the quarterstock disappear without introducing himself. “I will definitely have a drink.”
PART TWO
VEDAS TEZUL
THE 15th TO 26th OF THE MONTH OF SOLDIERS, 12499 MD
THE CITY OF NBENA, NATION OF DARETH HLUM
The Castan Badlands lay beyond Nbena, the fifteenth gate in Dareth Hlum’s five-hundred-mile-long defensive wall of Dalan Fele. Since very few had business in the badlands and no one traveled to the
region for pleasure, most of the routes leading from the capitol to Nbena were ill maintained. Many could be dangerous to the unprepared traveler.
Roads that had long ago become footpaths climbed over the Turilen Mountains and crumbled into the Puzzle Sinklands. Cannibal tribes, descendants of Castan infantrymen who fought in the Third Autumnal War, preyed upon the unwary traveler in the Unes Forest. Though a few villages survived off the minimal trade closer to the gate, their people lived in fear of raiders who came from out of the scrubland. Child slaves moved through Nbena like water through loosely stacked rocks, and none of Dareth Hlum’s governments had been able to put a stop to it.
Vedas and Berun took a winding, eleven-day route to the badlands gate, averaging just short of twenty miles a day. Though the pace did not tax Vedas overmuch, it took several nights to become accustomed to sleeping under open sky, and even longer to accept the reality of travel rations. His stomach grumbled constantly. He measured the fullness of his biceps and thighs, trying to gauge the extent of muscle loss day by day. Perhaps the twenty pounds he had gained in anticipation of Danoor would be insufficient.
Largely out of a feeling of obligation, for several days he attempted to engage Berun in conversation. The constructed man had little to say on the subject of fighting and war, however—little to say, period. When he did speak, he seemed sullen, as though resentful of Vedas’s presence. In an odd way, Vedas sympathized. He had not wanted a traveling companion either, but Abse had insisted.
Thus it was a relief to shrug off the burden of communication, and Vedas wondered if walking in silence would soon come to feel like walking alone.
Five days out from Golna, having seen no trace of raiders or cannibals, he began thinking Abse had exaggerated the perilousness of their route across the nation. He began to hope a peaceful journey would ease the memory of Julit Umeda’s death.
This proved not to be the case. Far from the centers of law, violence found them.
Two men ambushed them as they rose on the sixth morning near the lakeside town of Adres. Vedas met the first, slapping the clumsy sword-thrust aside with his palm and jamming suit-stiffened fingers into the man’s temple, knocking him unconscious. Berun ignored the axe thrown by the second. It clanged harmlessly off his brass shoulder as he threw one of the stones he carried into the bandit’s face, lifting the man off his feet and killing him instantly.
“That was unnecessary,” Vedas said.
Berun shrugged. “They intended to kill us. They would have killed others.”
The bandits wore identical silver necklaces, from which hung a golden pendant in the shape of a fist. Though valuable and by rights the victors’, Vedas refused to remove them.
“They’re Adrashi symbols,” he explained to Berun.
“What harm would it do to take them?” the constructed man countered.
“None. But I won’t dirty my hands with the task.”
On the seventh day, a woman appeared on a narrow pass between the Sawback Mesas and broke a spell before them, rooting their feet in the mountain itself. Quicker than Vedas could have imagined, Berun decoupled the spheres below his ankles and jumped free. By the time he landed, his feet had fully formed. He swept the woman into the rock wall. She rebounded, and then crumpled to the ground. To free Vedas, Berun pulverized the rock around his feet. Vedas’s suit stiffened under the blows, shielding him from injury but for a broken toe.
The woman bled liberally from a shallow wound above her ear, but appeared otherwise uninjured. Vedas tore a strip of cloth from her voluminous robes and wrapped it tightly around her head.
Berun lifted the leather pack from her shoulder and searched it. In addition to a pouch of dried meat and a solid ball of catgut, she had carried with her twelve spells, ranging from colorless liquids in ampoules to waterproofed firestarters. The largest was a tiny porcelain jar sealed with wax.
“I won’t touch them,” Vedas said. The sight of the unknown magic chilled him to the core. “We don’t know what they are. Besides, I’ve heard stories about what happens to men who steal witches’ potions.”
“I’m not a man,” Berun answered. “They must be useful or valuable to someone.” He pressed the collection of spells to his thigh. When he took the hand away, they were gone.
Vedas did not want to kill the fourth attacker, an emaciated young man who rushed at him from a barley field deep in the heart of the Wruna Valley. Vedas disarmed him of sickle and rake easily enough, and aimed a knockout blow to his temple. But regardless of what he tried, the boy would not go under. Eventually Vedas noticed the symptoms: dilated pupils, puffy hands, and a white crust at the corners of his mouth.
Dropma Fever, spread through sweat and saliva. Given the appropriate medicines, a full recovery might have been possible, but the closest village was nearly ten miles back along the road, and the young man was in no condition to lead Vedas to a nearby homestead. Possibly, the whole region had become infected.