The smaller drow shrieked and slashed out with her free hand. Chindra repeated the capture, then threw their entangled hands out wide, yanking the female toward her. Her forehead slammed into the other drow's face. The female's nose flattened into a sodden mess, and her eyes rolled up until the whites gleamed.
Chindra held her grip while the fighter slumped senseless to the stone floor. Then she peeled off her gloves, one at a time, leaving the claws embedded in the warrior's fisted hands. She dropped the gloves and the female together, as casually as she might discard a soiled garment. It was a gesture of magnificent contempt, and the watching fighters stomped and roared their approval.
Their chant swept Gorlist to his feet. He stomped and hooted along with the warriors, shaking his crescent blade overhead in imitation.
When the applause had died down and the fallen fighter hauled off to the healers, he regarded his small scythe and to his surprise and delight, saw that it was ready. The dull-bladed sickle meant for harvesting mushrooms boasted keen edges on its inner and outer curves. It was not the heart-seeking dagger of his dreams, but it was a start.
Perhaps, he thought with a grin, he would test its edge on the bindings of T'sarlt's wretched book.
Sickle in hand, Gorlist slid down the wall. He sauntered down the stone passage, practicing a soldierly swagger. He was nearly home when he heard a faint rustling in a side tunnel-not a foot passage, but a fetid, steep-sloping midden shoot.
Kobolds swarmed out of the midden hole like the rats they resembled. There were at least seven of the two-legged lizards, each nearly as tall as the drow child. Confident of an easy kill, they came on, yapping excitedly.
Gorlist planted his feet in unconscious imitation of his mother's battle stance. He ducked under the first kobold's grasping hands and drew his sickle across its soft-scaled belly. He danced back a step or two, then lunged back to slash the nearest kobold's snout. Before the startled creature could react, Gorlist reversed the blade's direction. The curved tip bit into the kobold's neck and hooked its wind pipe.
The creature fell, gurgling and pawing its ruined throat. Gorlist let out a savage whoop and threw himself at the next foe, slashing in joyous frenzy.
The kobold pack did what kobolds do when faced with unexpected resistance: they fled, squeaking curses. Gorlist stomped on a ratlike tail and cut the creature across the spine. It arched its back in a spasm of agony. The drow child seized one of the kobold's small horns, pulled the head back, and drew the sickle across its throat. He threw the body aside and sprinted after the others. Launching himself into a flying tackle, he brought down one of them-who, in its frantic scramble to escape, tripped one of its kin.
When both slaughters were completed, Gorlist staggered to his feet. He leaned against the stone wall, his breath coming in ragged gulps. For the first time in his life, he felt fully alive.
The wondrous battle frenzy ebbed all too soon. Gorlist took stock of the situation. His tunic and hands were sticky with kobold blood, and he ached in every joint and sinew. Remarkably, he was unmarked by any kobold tooth, claw, or weapon.
Gorlist all but danced back to Chindra's cave. His tutor glanced up sharply. Before he could comment, Chindra strode in. Her brief, dismissive glance sharpened into a soldier's accessing gaze.
"How much of that blood is yours?" she asked the child.
Gorlist's chin came up proudly and he answered, "None."
"Whose, then? No merchant's whelp, I'm hoping. Too short of coin to pay the blood price."
"It's kobold blood."
Her crimson eyes widened. "Dead kobolds in the tunnels. Yours?" In response, he brandished his still-bloody sickle. A grin split Chindra's face.
"A fine harvest!" she crowed. "Five kobolds! How did you learn to fight?"
"By watching you."
Because that seemed to please her, he gave her the salute he had seen so many times, that of one soldier to another.
Her hand flashed toward him like a striking snake and caught his wrist.
"Not that," she said firmly. "Never that. No male may give or get honor among the guard." Her eyes grew reflective. "But there are other ways…" Her gaze focused, snapped to his face. "You would be a fighter?"
He managed a fervent nod.
"Then you will learn as I did. Come."
She strode through the market, Gorlist following like a small shadow. Excitement filled him, moving him beyond a child's enthusiasm for adventure-he had long desired to see the gaming arena-and into the wonder of unforeseen possibilities. Chindra was a soldier, so of course that was Gorlist's goal. But she had first been a renowned gladiator. He would match her fame, and follow her path from its beginning.
Gorlist padded silently after her down a series of side tunnels, narrower than those leading to the practice arena. He did not have to be told why: The better to defend the city should any of the arena's beasts escape- or for that matter, if by some marvel the arena fighters decided to band together in common purpose.
The stone corridor opened, and the arena lay before them. It was a huge chamber, ringed with tiers of seats. Slim walkways crossed overhead. Gorlist gave the structures scant attention. His eyes were fixed on the arena floor. Wondrous beasts, creatures never seen in the tunnels around Ched Nasad, fought and died there.
So, apparently, did drow gladiators. Several fighters sprawled on bloodied stone. Two others hacked at a hideous, gray-skinned creature with long limbs and astonishing powers of regeneration. A severed arm writhed on the arena floor, forgotten. The torn shoulder knitted. A bud of flesh appeared and blossomed into five gray petals. Those grew claws, which flexed and wriggled as a hand took shape at the end of the swift-growing new arm.
"I learned here," Gorlist's mother said, "and so will you."
Joy flared bright in the young drow's heart.
"I will win every fight," he promised.
She laughed and clapped him on the shoulder-a soldierly gesture Gorlist had never seen her offer a male. It was the proudest moment of his young life.
Chindra scanned the warriors who stood to one side, then raised her hand in a hail.
"Slithifar, Mistress of the Ring!"
A tall female looked up, frowning. Something about her gave Gorlist the impression of many snakes, melded by some mad wizard into a single dark elf. Her white hair was plaited into several braids, and she carried a bone-handled whip of leather thongs. Her face was as angular as a pit viper's, her gaze as flat and soulless.
But she lifted one hand in recognition and strode over to meet the newcomers. She and Gorlist's mother clasped forearms in a fighter's salute.
"What brings Chindra back to the games?" the ring mistress asked. "Come to show these younglings how fighting's done?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes," she responded, dropping her gaze to the child at her side.
Slithifar's white brows lifted. "And who is this bloody urchin?"
"Gorlist, Son of Chindra," the soldier said. "He is blooded indeed, and none of it his own."
The ring mistress ran a finger along Gorlist's stained tunic then touched it to her lips.
"Kobold?"
"Seven of them," Chindra lied proudly. "Hacked into fish bait with a mushroom sickle."
Slithifar slid a calculating gaze over the drow child, then turned back to his mother and said, "A worthy feat."
"Worth much," Chindra countered.
They went on in that vein for quite some time. Gorlist wandered over to the railing to watch the fighting. One drow still battled the gray monster, too intent to notice the severed limb slithering up behind him. Long knobby fingers seized the unwitting drow's ankle. The fighter let out a yelp of surprise and pain. Gorlist laughed with derisive delight.
A strong hand landed on his shoulder, lacquered nails biting into his flesh. He jumped, then grimaced. His response, and more importantly, his inattention, was too like the drow below to suit his pride.