One moment, Nivea was there. The next, she was gone. It was as though the world had disappeared beneath Ixidor's feet.
The death bell tolled once. Once for Nivea. An amazed hush filled the stands. Half of the undefeated pair was dead, and the other half was down before the novice.
Clutching the sand, Ixidor raised an animal shriek and struggled to rise, at least to get off his groveling belly. He lurched to his side, to his back, not wanting to grant Phage the victory The death bell tolled again, now for Ixidor. He was too late.
The crowd surged to its feet, a thousand fists in the air. The bellow of triumph filled every mouth.
The roar struck Ixidor and curled him like a pill bug. He crouched at last in true surrender.
Nivea was gone. His world was gone.
Carrion vermin swarmed out across the arena. Barbed legs flung sand as they went. They tore into the pile of dismembered warriors.
The bristly beasts swarmed past Ixidor. Some took experimental nips from him but found that blood still ran beneath his skin. He didn't care.
A dementia summoner bounded from a prep pen, her braids flying gladly in the air. She came up beside Phage and bowed deeply to the crowd. A voice above, magically amplified, announced the winner-"Phage, champion of the Cabal by trainer Braids."
Again came that crushing shout. Ixidor crouched beneath it like a man trapped in pelting hail. Everything ceased to exist. Only numbness remained.
They had moved him out of the pit, they must have, but Ixidor could not remember it. He seemed forever to have lain here on the floor of his apartment.
Legs moved past-human legs, booted. Cabal officers ransacked the place. His disks lay in disarray. In one corner, counterfeit coins made a gleaming pile. Ixidor's clothes had been ripped down from hooks and tossed to the floor or seized for payment. Nivea's jewelry "No!" Ixidor screamed and lurched up. He got his feet beneath him and glimpsed the gold and jewels. A meaty hand slammed the case closed, and another crashed down on his head.
Again he crouched on his belly in the posture of surrender. This time, though, he was bound hand and foot and gagged and strapped to poles that dragged through sand. Grit covered his skin and scratched his eyes. Squinting against the glare, he saw two giant lizards ahead of him. They lumbered across the hot sand. Harnesses on their backs creaked as they dragged the travois forward. A couple Cabal stewards walked to either side of the beasts, applying sticks to their necks.
Ixidor tried to croak, "Where am I?" but the gag allowed only a moan.
One burly steward glanced back with annoyance and began upbraiding his comrade. An argument ensued, ending only when the other steward retreated, drew a knife, and cut the leather thongs across the travois.
Ixidor tumbled off, hands and feet tied, gag firmly in place. The sand was hot. It burned his face as he flopped against it.
Ahead, the lizards kept up their slogging pace. They dragged the travois away across the dunes.
Ixidor chewed viciously at the gag. His teeth ground together. At last, he bit through and spit out the sodden rag.
"Where am I?" he shouted.
The stewards and their giant lizards were gone.
Ixidor gulped a deep breath. "Nowhere."
CHAPTER FOUR: SIBLING RIVALRY
Once in a previous life, Kamahl had approached Cabal City. It had been the glorious capital of pit fighting, and he had been a barbarian spoiling for a fight. Now Cabal City and Kamahl the Barbarian both were gone.
A new Kamahl approached a new Cabal city: Aphetto. The settlement inhabited a deep, wet canyon carved by a winding river. The waterway was no longer even visible, trickling through black depths two thousand feet below the cliff where Kamahl walked. He made his way along one of many overhangs. Stone shelves jutted above the snaking heart of the canyon. Mists from below draped each level in gray curtains of moss.
Kamahl strode toward the city's main gate, atop the cliff. From it stretched a number of suspension bridges. One led to the upper plateaus at the center of the valley, where royal estates perched. These lofty aeries were joined to each other by rope footpaths, looking like cobwebs. Another bridge led to the wide lower plateaus with their marketplaces and guilds: the city proper. There, all of Aphetto's conventional trades had their homes. A third bridge led in switchback steps to the fighting pits: the city improper. Kamahl would head down that path.
His sister was there, in the pits of Aphetto.
All during his march across the desert, he had known where Jeska was. The forest's power, its stillness, dwelt within him. In his hand, the century stalk became a divining rod. He need merely sweep the staff through the arcs of the compass, and it dragged him toward Jeska. Even now, the staff trembled toward the cliff's edge and eagerly pounded the ground. Jeska was below.
"Patience," he told the staff. It was a word unknown to him before that morning at the tumulus. Its meaning had only deepened during his long trek across the desert.
Ahead, the gates of Aphetto towered atop the cliff. Horns jutted from the archway, and spikes lined both portcullises below. A full garrison of soldiers manned it. Along the main road stretched a line of folk seeking entry.
Kamahl got in line with the others. He did not wear his armor, nor did he carry his sword. Even his wolfskin cloak was in tatters. Still, with tawny skin and massive physique, his profession seemed clear.
"Another jack," muttered an elderly woman to her mule. They seemed long-time companions. Their hair was the same gray-brown, bristly and bunched, and their shoulders had a similar stoop. They snorted simultaneously.
Kamahl did not respond to them, though his staff pounded impatiently on the ground.
The woman sighed and hung her head. She waved Kamahl forward. "If you're so impatient, go on."
With stony seriousness, Kamahl replied, "I am not impatient. My staff is."
The old woman brayed a laugh. "So say all men."
Kamahl was about to disagree but instead chuckled. "Yes. So we do." He tightened his grip on the overeager pole. "Still, I will wait."
"Suit yourself," replied the woman as her mule dutifully plodded up before the archway. A guard captain waited at a podium there.
The man wore Cabal black, and his face had the rumpled look of a dirty pillow. He glanced up from the ledger he kept. "Name?"
"Zagorka."
The man's eyes narrowed to steely slits. "Not the mule's name, yours."
"That is my name. The mule is Chester."
Through tight lips, the man murmured, "Chester and Zagorka. Business?"
"Zagorka and Chester," she corrected. "And our only business is being an old woman and an old mule."
The captain's nostrils flared. "You can't bring a pet mule into the city."
"All right, it's a pack mule, in the business of moving my stuff."
"There's a ten silver toll on all pack mules."
Zagorka shook her head and laughed despairingly. "What if he's not my mule but my brother?"
"You must pay the toll."
"Can't an old woman make her way in the world without every young man trying to tax her ass?"
"Pay the toll, or go back."
Zagorka's hands trembled before her as if she was about to grab the Cabal officer by the throat. "Don't you understand? I can't pay the toll, and I can't go back."
'Then there is only one option," the captain said, stepping forward.
His knife flashed, and blood sprayed from Chester's throat. The mule tried one last bray, but air gurgled in the wound. His legs seized up, and he dropped to the path.
"Its meat will be sufficient payment," the officer said.
Kamahl had watched all this, certain Zagorka was a match for anything-but not this. She knelt and wailed over her fallen mule. Kamahl knelt too, and his size made it an ominous motion.
The guard captain drew back and barked orders. Cabal soldiers surged up, swords raking out.