“I hope he stands up when I’m ready to throw the spear,” Rikus said, dipping his weapon to the king. “Even at half this distance, his head isn’t much of a target.”
Kalak did not keep them waiting nearly as long as Tithian had. After the formality of a two-second wait, a half-giant bodyguard motioned the pair to a corner of the arena. As they went to their starting positions, Rikus studied the other gladiators on the fighting field.
On each side of the arena stood six matched pairs. Some were full humans or half-elves, rough-looking men and women who had been sold into the pits to pay their debts or as punishment for a crime. There were also several representatives of more exotic races, including a set of hulking baazrags, two purple-scaled nikaals, and a pair of stooped gith.
Rikus recognized only a few of the other fighters. In the opposite corner stood Chilo and Felorn, a skilled pair of tareks. Like muls, tareks were big, musclebound, and hairless. Their heads, however, were square and big-boned, with sloping foreheads and massive brow ridges. They had flat noses with flared nostrils and a domed muzzle full of sharp teeth. Neither tarek wore armor of any kind, and each carried two weapons: a steel handfork that could serve equally well as a parrying tool or a slicing weapon, and a bone heartpick, a hammerlike weapon with a serrated pick on the front and a heavy, flat head on the back.
To Rikus’s right stood a hairy half-giant carrying an obsidian axe with a head as large as a dwarf. His partner was a full-blooded elven woman armed with a whip of bone and cord. The mul did not know the elf, but the half-giant was a former guard named Gaanon, whom he had wounded in a contest a year earlier. For armor, Gaanon wore a leather hauberk that a normal man could have used as a tent. The elf wore a bronze pauldron covering her left shoulder and a spiked gauntlet on her right arm.
Upon noticing that she was being studied, the elf gave Rikus a twisted smile. The mul did not know whether she meant the gesture to be polite or intimidating, but it made him think she was looking forward to battle. He shrugged and looked away, turning his attention back to his own partner. “Any sign of Sadira in the noble booths?”
“Not that I’ve seen,” Neeva replied. “Don’t you trust her charms to get her into position?”
“I trust her charms,” Rikus said, giving his fighting partner a warm grin. “But maybe not as much as I trust your trikal.”
“I hope you remember that when this is finished,” she returned, giving him a meaningful glance.
A loud creak echoed throughout the stadium drawing the attention of gladiator and spectator alike to the center of the arena. A great bulge formed in the sand as an immense pair of doors began to open. Excited murmurs of curiosity rustled through the crowd, for those huge doors covered a subterranean staging area where Tithian stored building-sized props. They seldom opened unless some special amusement was being raised into the arena.
Today was no exception. As the doors reached their locked position, a familiar orange shell rose out of the pit. A pair of barbed, arm-length mandibles protruded from the underside of one end of the shell.
“The gaj!” Sadira whispered, watching the beast rise out of the prop area.
She stood on the terrace above the noble tiers, having spent the last two hours trying in vain to work her way into position. Unfortunately, because the stadium was so crowded, common spectators had been trying to sneak into the lower tiers since early morning. The nobles had complained bitterly and now the half-giant guards at the top of each row would not allow anyone down the stairs unless someone in a booth vouched for the newcomer.
As Sadira watched the gaj rise out of the pit, she soon saw that it sat atop Kalak’s obsidian pyramid. Hoping that the spectacular object would supply the distraction she needed, she worked her way down the terrace until she found a guard who seemed more interested in the arena than in his job. The sorceress took a deep breath, then boldly stepped past the half-giant’s hip.
A huge hand descended in front of her. “Where are you going?” demanded a deep voice. The half-giant did not look down to see whom he addressed.
Sadira fixed her eyes on the one vacancy in the throng below, then rapped the guard’s knuckles with the pommel of her cane. “To my seat!”
“Oww!” The half-giant pulled his hand away and looked down, astonished.
Sadira started to step past.
“I’m sorry,” the half-giant said, fixing his baggy eyes on her face. “I do remember you from-”
The guard furrowed his brow, and Sadira instantly realized that she had a problem.
“Pegen!” the half-giant gasped. He latched onto her shoulder. “You’re the one who made me look like a fool at the city gate! You killed Pegen!”
“In the name of-” Sadira hissed, cursing her bad luck.
She spun around and swung her cane at the guard’s groin, which on a half-giant was at perfect striking level for her. He groaned and released her shoulder, reaching for the bone club he had left leaning against the terrace wall.
Sadira resisted the temptation to use magic, for she was in plain view of much of the stadium. Instead, she slipped past the guard and ran for an exit tunnel. The half-giant followed, yelling orders for her to stop and threatening dire consequences if she did not obey. The scene evoked a few chuckles from those in the immediate vicinity, but the sound of Tithian’s magically-augmented voice quickly drew their attention back to the obsidian pyramid.
“The rules of the game are simple: the last pair of gladiators able to stand on the summit of the pyramid will win the contest.”
Though Sadira wondered what was happening in the arena, she did not dare pause to look. The half-giant lagged only a few steps behind her.
All around the stadium, loud bangs began to sound from the entryways as the gates came crashing down. Realizing that she was about to be cut off from the streets, the sorceress ducked into the nearest exit. The clatter of chains rang through the rock archway, and the templars at the far end of the tunnel leaped into the street. A huge gate crashed to the ground and blocked the short passageway. Sadira was trapped.
Kalak rose and stepped to the edge of his balcony. “Let the games begin!”
The other gladiators charged toward the pyramid, which a group of templars had levitated into position in front of Kalak’s balcony. Neeva started to follow, but Rikus quickly grasped her shoulder.
“Let everyone else fight for a bit. The gaj will keep them from claiming the prize too soon,” he said, pointing to the top of the glassy pyramid, where the murderous beast still sat. “Besides, if Kalak stays at the edge of his balcony, we might get a clear throw at him from below.”
“What about Agis and Sadira?” Neeva asked. “You can’t attack if they’re not ready.”
“They’d better be watching,” Rikus said.
Ahead of them, Gaanon drew first blood by leveling a vicious swing at a dimwitted baazrag. The furry creature blocked with its trident, its sunken eyes betraying its confusion at being attacked. The half-giant’s axe snapped the weapon as though it were a twig, then sliced the baazrag’s massive torso into separate pieces just below the breast tine. A thunderous roar sounded from the stands.
The female baazrag went into a rage. It threw its twin-bladed axe at Gaanon’s leg, causing the clumsy half-giant to teeter at the brink of falling. The baazrag raised its massive arms and bared its yellowed fangs, then charged. The half-giant’s elven partner suddenly disappeared from Gaanon’s side, then reappeared behind the raging baazrag.
“The elf’s a teleporter,” Rikus noted.
Neeva grunted to let him know she had heard, but seemed otherwise unimpressed.