"Swear off your vengeance against my sister!" he shouted.
"Never."
"Then you will die." He muscled the two halves of the staff together. The bolts of green energy fused. She would never escape now.
With a great surge of her wings, Akroma lifted her eyes to the skies and cried, "Ixidor, Creator! I return to you." One more surge, and she pulled free Not entirely free. Her legs were yanked off her body, and they fell, wrapped in green magic. Those perfect, severed things dropped in the dirt.
Wailing, Akroma flew away.
Kamahl stood gaping after the maimed angel.
With a horrid roar, his armies converged in a great ring around him. Spine folk and woody dryads mounded in a protective dome of bough and branch, blocking out the sky and the last, fleeting glimpse of Akroma.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SIBLING ALLIANCES
The world devolved into madness.
Zagorka crouched at the head of the slave pits, clutching Chester's huge neck. Before them, the sands of the arena were full of ferocious wood folk-elves, goblins, centaurs, serpents, and strange plant creatures she had never before seen. They held the sands as though they were declaring a new nation. In their center, a huge mound of animate wood had formed over Phage and Kamahl.
Crazier still, the fans had become fighters. They boiled down out of the stands, attacking the edges of the green army. Most hurled only fists or food, but some few had real weapons and laid in with them. Spectators and soldiers died in the tumult.
The literal height of lunacy was Braids. She leaped merrily along the coliseum rim and called out in a brazen voice, "Join the fun! Place a bet or place a kick! It doesn't matter which. The losers will be dead! The winners will be rich!" Her words broke into cackling. The sound echoed throughout the coliseum, as if the hungry stones laughed.
"It's all right, Chester," said Zagorka, her hand trembling as she patted his neck. "I'll take care of you."
The giant mule gusted a dubious reply as Zagorka wedged herself in a corner behind him.
Kamahl lowered his eyes from the cage of wood and stared bleakly at the sand.
His staff was broken. The last of its green magic sputtered away. Lines of force dissolved from the dismembered legs of the angel, which lay in the sand beside him. There was no blood, no torn tissue. Bereft of the spirit that had given them life, those white legs had simply turned to stone.
Not so his sister. Jeska rolled in the agony of her wounds.
Kamahl went to his knees at her side. He reached for her, but she shook her head violently.
"Get your hands away." She gulped a breath. A wound in her chest sucked air. Clamping her fingers over it, she hissed, "You couldn't heal me before. You won't heal me now. I will heal myself… If you touch me, you'll die."
Kamahl nodded. "Heal yourself, Sister, then come with me."
Her eyes flared. "Never."
"I have won. You cannot deny it. I saved you from the angel. I ended the match standing and could have slain you. You must come with me… or does the mighty Cabal renege on its wagers?"
She gritted her teeth and spat. "Yes, you have won. Take me, but I go as a hostage."
"Listen, Jeska-"
"I am not Jeska! I am Phage!"
"Yes, I see you, Phage, your poisonous skin, your bitter mouth and vicious eyes. I see the husk that you are, a leather shell stiff with scars, but I know who lies within that egg. She is the one I speak to. Jeska, fight your way out of this foul shell. Puncture it, tear it, slough it, step free. I know you are alive in there, Jeska. Fight your way out and return to me."
Phage's angry eyes softened, and her lips spread in a smile-an ironic smile. 'Tear this shell, Kamahl, and all you will find within is hungry darkness. This shell is what keeps you and all of Otaria alive."
"We shall see," he replied levelly. It wasn't working. He had won and yet lost. He had to show her that he truly was on her side. "In the meantime, we have work to do."
"Yes, getting out-"
"No," Kamahl said. "We have an angel to kill."
"What are you talking about?"
Kamahl swept his hand out. "She is sworn to kill you. As long as Akroma lives, you are in danger. We need to go find her."
Phage stared, unbelieving, at the man. "If we couldn't kill her here in the coliseum, how will we ever kill her in her own home-land?"
"I have an army," Kamahl said, idly scanning the dome of wood for some means of escape. He walked to the boughs, set his hands on them, and tried to awaken the power of the wood. The fibers felt dead within his fingers. He was drained, tapped out. Without his staff, the power of wood had deserted him. "You have a few thousand under your command."
"I command no one. Only the First commands the Cabal."
Removing his fingers from the branches, Kamahl said heavily, "It's a good thing Akroma fled when she did. I'm drained."
Phage was suddenly behind him, standing, healed. "Weak, are you? I feel suddenly strong."
Stonebrow faced down a platoon of ivory warriors. Tall and thin, with tapered limbs that ended in spikes, the white warriors strode toward him. They made a screeching sound as they came. Their flesh was as hard as tooth, as sharp-edged and merciless.
Stonebrow turned around, but not to run. His hind legs lashed out. Hooves hit the foremost ivory man, cracking it in half. As the shattered chunks fell, Stonebrow took a bounding step backward and kicked again. The next creature exploded like glass. Its razor shards cascaded around Stonebrow's legs, cutting them.
He could not kill all these monsters that way; they would tear him to pieces.
Stonebrow bounded back once more and kicked. His hooves swept among the ivory men, missing them but striking the marble pillar that held up the center of the chamber. With a shot like lightning, it cracked. Stone ground on stone, and the column caved.
Stonebrow dropped his hooves amid the clawing soldiers. He leaped away. There was time for one more bound before the pillar failed entirely. The stone ceiling cracked and fell. Stonebrow shot out over the threshold. He was still gathering his haunches beneath him when the great slab smashed down on all those white warriors. Stonebrow glimpsed them and their dementia creator in the moment before they were rubble.
With a crackling boom, the slab smashed to the floor. Dust rose in huge, curling walls on each side.
Brushing off his hands, the centaur stomped over the fallen stone, heading toward the First's private chambers. They remained intact, jutting out above the stands and giving the best views. Stonebrow clomped across the slab and hurled himself through the doorway.
The space within was cavelike, with black walls and dark portraits. At the center of the chamber sat an unmistakable chair carved of obsidian. From that spot, the First would watch the games, flanked by his hand servants and skull servants. No one remained though.
Stonebrow looked for other exits but found none. He approached the throne. Across the seat lay a black cloak, which Stonebrow gingerly lifted. He dropped it again, shaking his fingers.
The First must have slipped out of it only moments before, for the fabric was still cold. Deathly cold.
Braids enjoyed madness, but even it could go too far.
All the bets-millions in gold-hung in the balance if there wasn't a clear winner. Worse yet, if all the fans killed each other, who would bet tomorrow?
"Hey! One on one!" Braids shouted as she vaulted down the steps.
Her fist cracked solidly atop the head of a man, one of five who had been pommeling a lone elf. Braids dropped the man and caused the other four to fall back. She leaped onward, and so did the elf.
Braids took the stairs ten at a jump. Whenever a spectator strayed into the way, she merely turned a shoulder and barreled past. Another spring brought her down atop a pile of rubble-the royal box of the First. Someone had done a great wrong. The First did not lie beneath-somehow Braids sensed that-but wherever he was, he would not be happy. Assassination attempts always infuriated him, almost as much as lost revenue. The First had foiled countless assassins but had not suffered a single day in the red.