One of the Berangias sisters stepped over beside the capa, her shark’s-teeth bangles shining in the light of the hall’s chandeliers, and whispered into his ear. He listened for a few seconds, and then he smiled.
“Cheryn,” he shouted, “proposes that I allow her and her sister to entertain us. Shall I?”
The answering cheer was twice as forceful (and twice as genuine, to Locke’s ears) as anything yet heard. The wooden walls reverberated with it, and Locke flinched.
“Let’s have a teeth show, then!”
All was chaos for the next few minutes. Dozens of Barsavi’s people pushed revelers back, clearing an area at the center of the floor about ten yards on a side. Revelers were pressed up the stairs until the balconies creaked beneath their weight; observation holes were cranked open so those on the top deck could peer down at the proceedings. Locke was pushed back into his corner more firmly than ever.
Men with hooked poles drew up the wooden panels of the floor, revealing the dark water of Camorr Bay. A thrill of anticipation and alarm passed through the crowd at the thought of what might be swimming down there. The unquiet spirits of eight Full Crowns, for one thing, thought Locke.
As the final panels in the center of the opening square were removed, almost everyone present could see the little support platforms on which they’d rested, not one wider than a man’s hand-spread. They were spaced about five feet apart. Barsavi’s arena for his own private teeth shows-a challenge for any contrarequialla, even a pair as experienced as the Berangias sisters.
Cheryn and Raiza, old hands at teasing a crowd, were stripping out of their leather doublets, bracers, and collars. They took their graceful time while the capa’s subjects hooted approval, hoisted cups and glasses, and in some cases even shouted unlikely propositions.
Anjais hurried forward with a little packet of alchemical powders in his hands. He dumped this into the water, then took a prudent step back. This was the “summons”-a potent mix of substances that would rouse the shark’s ire and maintain it for the duration of the contest. Blood in the water could attract and enrage a shark, but the summons would make it utterly drunk with the urge to attack-to leap, thrash, and roll at the women jumping back and forth across their little platforms.
The Berangias sisters stepped forward to nearly the edge of the artificial pool, holding their traditional weapons: the pick-head axes and the short javelins. Anjais and Pachero stood behind them and just to their left; the Capa remained standing by his chair, clapping his hands and grinning broadly.
A black fin broke the surface of the pool; a tail thrashed. There was a brief splash of water, and the electric atmosphere of the crowd intensified. Locke could feel it washing over him-lust and fear entwined, a powerful, animalistic sensation. The crowd had backed off about two yards from any edge of the pool, but still some in the front ranks were shaking nervously, and a few were trying to push their way farther back through the crowd, to the delight and derision of those around them.
In truth, the shark couldn’t have been longer than five or six feet; some of those used at the Shifting Revel reached twice that length. Still, a fish like that could easily maim on the leap, and if it dragged a person down into the water with it, well, raw size would mean little in such an uneven contest.
The Berangias sisters threw up their arms, then turned as one to the capa. The sister on the right-Raiza? Cheryn? Locke had never learned the trick of telling them apart… And at the thought his heart ached for the Sanzas. Playing deftly to the crowd, Barsavi put up his hands and looked around at his court. When they cheered him on, he stepped down between the ladies and received a kiss on the cheek from each of them.
The water stirred just before the three of them; a sleek black shadow swept past the edge of the pool, then dove down into the lightless depths. Locke could feel five hundred hearts skip a beat, and the breath in five hundred throats catch. His own concentration seemed to peak, and he caught every detail of that moment as though it were frozen before him, from the eager smile on Barsavi’s round red face to the rippling reflection of chandelier light on the water.
“Camorr!” cried the Berangias sister to the capa’s right. Again, the noise of the crowd died, this time as though one gigantic windpipe had been slit. Five hundred pairs of eyes were fixed on the capa and his bodyguards.
“We dedicate this death,” she continued, “to Capa Vencarlo Barsavi, our lord and patron!”
“Well does he deserve it,” said the other.
The shark exploded out of the pool immediately before them-a sleek dark devilish thing, with black lidless eyes and white teeth gaping. A ten-foot fountain of water rose up with it, and it half somersaulted in midair, falling forward, falling…
Directly atop Capa Barsavi.
Barsavi put up his arms to shield himself; the shark came down with its mouth wide open around one of them. The fish’s muscle-heavy body slammed hard against the wood floor, yanking Barsavi down with it. Those implacable jaws squeezed tight, and the capa screamed as blood gushed from just beneath his right shoulder, running out across the floor and down the shark’s blunt snout.
His sons dashed forward to his aid. The Berangias sister to the right looked down at the shark, shifted her weight fluidly to a fighting stance, raised her gleaming axe, and whirled with all the strength of her upper body behind the blow.
Her blade smashed Pachero Barsavi’s head just above his left ear; the tall man’s optics flew off and he staggered forward, his skull caved in, dead before his knees hit the deck.
The crowd screamed and surged, and Locke prayed to the Benefactor to preserve him long enough to make sense of whatever happened next.
Anjais gaped at his struggling father and his falling brother. Before he could utter a single word the other Berangias stepped up behind him, reached around to press her javelin shaft up beneath his chin, and buried the spike of her axe in the back of his head. He spat blood and toppled forward, unmoving.
The shark writhed and tore at the capa’s right arm, while he screamed and beat at its snout until his left hand was scraped bloody by the creature’s abrasive skin. With a final sickening wrench, the shark tore his right arm completely off and slid backward into the water, leaving a broad red streak on the wooden deck behind it. Barsavi rolled away, spraying blood from the stump of his arm, staring at the bodies of his sons in uncomprehending terror. He tried to stumble up.
One of the Berangias sisters kicked him back to the deck.
There was a tumult behind the fallen Capa; several Red Hands rushed forward, weapons drawn, hollering incoherently. What happened next was a blurry, violent mystery to Locke’s untrained eyes, but the two half-clothed Berangias dealt with half a dozen armored men with a brutality the shark would have envied. Javelins flew, axes whirled, throats opened, and blood spurted. The last Red Hand was slumping to the deck, his face a jagged scarlet ruin, perhaps five seconds after the first had charged forward.
There was brawling on the balconies, now-Locke could see men pushing their way through the crowds, men in heavy gray oilcloaks, armed with crossbows and long knives. Some of Barsavi’s guards stood back and did nothing; some attempted to flee; others were taken from behind by their cloaked assailants and killed out of hand. Crossbow strings sang; bolts whirred through the air. There was a resounding bang to Locke’s left. The great doors to the ballroom had slammed shut, seemingly of their own accord, and the clockwork mechanisms within were whirring and clicking. People battered at them uselessly.
One of Barsavi’s men pushed his way out of a crowd of panicking, shoving Right People and raised a crossbow at the Berangias sisters, who stood over the wounded capa like lionesses guarding a kill. A dark streak fell on him from out of the shadowy corners of the ceiling; there was an inhuman screech, and the shot went far awry, hissing above the sisters’ heads to strike the far wall. The guard batted furiously at the brown shape that flapped back into the air on long curving wings-then he put a hand to his neck, staggered, and fell flat on his face.