"That's our trade," said Braids easily.
"You are scavengers, watching creatures kill each other and swooping in to feast."
Braids laughed easily. "As long as there are killers like you, there will be scavengers like us."
They passed the marketplace and a ring of Cabal thugs who surrounded the coliseum. The line of muscle split to allow Kamahl, Braids, and the fifty commanders through, including Stonebrow. Afterward they closed, barring the way to the rest of Kamahl's army.
He shook his head. "You even knew the particulars of our deal before we struck it."
Braids simply repeated, "It's our trade." She nodded toward the great gates of the coliseum, and they swung wide. The arched tunnel was filled with warriors. They formed a wall to the inner coliseum. To either side rose wide stairways to the stands. "Here's where we part company. Spectators go up the stairs. Gladiators go through the tunnel."
Kamahl nodded. He turned aside to Stonebrow and spoke in hushed tones. "Be ready. You're the one to sound the signal, if need be."
The giant centaur tightened his hairy fist on the horn that hung from his belt. He stared down grimly. "Treachery will be answered in blood."
Braids patted the centaur's flank. "Glad to hear it. Now get a move on. You'll miss the match of the century." Though she was one tenth his size, her shove on his side sent him moving.
The Cabal warriors parted, opening a pathway. Kamahl peered past the crowded darkness to the bright and desolate sands beyond. His sister would be waiting for him there.
Kamahl stepped among the warriors. In the darkness, his staff sparked with green fire and his eyes with red. This would be the final confrontation. The day he had struck Jeska and nearly killed her prefigured the day she had struck and nearly kill him. Now the odds were even. Both bore an unhealing wound. Both had been transformed into power. Kamahl had come to drag Jeska up to life, and Jeska had come to drag him down to death. Whatever happened today, they would never fight again.
Kamahl emerged from the tunnel. He went from a place of crowded blackness into a place of blazing light. The sun was omnipresent. So was the roaring crowd. It swept away all thought.
At the center of the sands was a circle, and in its midst stood a woman. Jeska.
They loved him. "Ka-mahl! Ka-mahl! Ka-mahl!" The crowd had only just laid eyes on this man, this legend-warrior of the pits, warlord of the Auror tribe, slayer of Laquatus, brother of Phage-but already they loved him. Perhaps Braids had done her promotions too well, casting Kamahl as the quintessential hero.
Phage stood at the center of the coliseum and listened as the crowd cheered him and jeered her. She was unfazed, watching the furious work at the betting counters. Money flowed in an absolute cascade from the pockets of the patrons to those of the Cabal. That's what this sound meant, more money for the First.
The First was her true brother. He was the one creature in all the world who understood what it was to have demons in his skin.
Phage lifted her hand clawlike toward Kamahl. The crowd went wild. She squeezed her fingers into a fist, literally wringing more money from the pockets of the spectators. She watched it flow.
The people were living vicariously-fighting, killing, dying, and yet remaining unharmed. They felt like gods peering down upon the plight of mortals, making their bets, lending their minds and souls to those below. What they did not realize was that this spiritual usury made Phage a true god. She could inspire them to fight, could whip them to riot, could lead them to war.
Today, everyone would be a gladiator.
Phage lowered her arm and stared at Kamahl.
He stood a hundred paces away, his staff grounded in the sand. Druidic robes ruffled in the wind. Beneath gleamed his barbaric armor. If anything, his new devotions had made him more muscular. He would be a formidable foe, except that he hoped not to kill but to save. That was his weakness.
Phage shrieked and ran toward him. She glanced into the stands and saw bars descend across the betting windows. It was time to fight. Some fans would rage. Let them. It would only deepen their desire.
Feet were not fast enough. Phage launched herself in a series of forward flips. The world spun end over end. Blue sky tumbled with tan sand.
Kamahl rammed his staff into the ground, and it drew mana. Power surged through the wood, crackled up Kamahl's arms, and filled his frame. He lifted the staff horizontally above his head.
Flipping toward him, Phage smiled. No matter how he blocked her-head, hands, waist, chest-he could not block all. Whatever won through would strike him and rot him to nothing.
"Good-bye."
Rounding out her last flip, she launched herself into the air and hurtled down upon Kamahl.
His arms were locked on his upraised staff.
Phage reached around it to kill.
Kamahl was not there. With an easy sidestep, he had moved out of the way.
Shrieking in anger, Phage raked one hand out to catch his shoulder. His tattered robes disintegrated. It was all she could do.
It was not all he could do. He whirled around, swinging his staff toward her back. She had not even struck ground yet when the stout pole whacked her spine. Air rushed from her lungs and blood from burst vessels. The strike left a welt, but it would take a better hit than that to break her spine.
Phage crashed down in the dust. It caked her face and hands and pasted itself across her sewn-up gut. She scrambled up and spun to face him.
He was already a stone's throw back and still retreating.
The wild ovation of the crowd devolved into hisses and moans. These folk had come to see attacks, not retreats.
Kamahl shouted, "I do not wish to harm you. Sister."
"It is too late for that," she spat and hurled herself toward him again. Sand flew. The welt from his staff was already healing. It had not weakened her body but only strengthened her hatred.
Kamahl would die today. Phage had no brother but the First.
She didn't flip this time, keeping her eyes on him. He would not escape.
Kamahl merely stood, staff in hand to one side. He didn't even brace for attack. Only his robes moved, and the green magic that climbed across his staff. The power peeled away the first of the stalk's hundred rings. It was as though the staff were a tight scroll that unrolled before Kamahl. It eclipsed him for a moment.
No thin shield would stop Phage. She barged toward it like a bull toward a sheet of paper.
Spinning suddenly, the staff rolled itself back together. It spun and snapped, and Kamahl was gone.
Phage dived through empty air, somersaulted once, and came to her feet. She spun, searching for her foe. He was gone utterly. Only his staff remained, standing in the sand as if rooted there. Power mantled it, buzzing menacingly, but otherwise the arena floor was empty.
Cheers gave way to nervous laughter, then to expectant silence.
In that hush, Phage heard Kamahl's voice.
"I will take you with me." The sound jangled with energy.
"You will not!" she snarled.
"If I must maim you, I will take you." He was near that staff-perhaps within it. Had the scroll rolled him in with it?
Phage cautiously approached. "You are skilled at maiming me."
"I mean only to save."
"You'll have to kill me," Phage said, reaching her hand toward the staff.
"We shall see." Suddenly he emerged, boot first.
The metal sole shoved from a fissure in the wood, caught her jaw, cracked it, and flung her sideways in the sand.
The crowd roared. They were on their feet.