The woman lunged at him, sword extended in a perfectly straight line for his heart, agile, accurate and very fast. His own blade came up to meet hers, deflecting the thrust with scant inches to spare. He whirled away towards the wall of the pit, jumped, rebounded from the rock, back arched as her blade slashed beneath him, landed on his hands in the centre of the pit then bounced to his feet.
The woman gave a laugh of unbridled joy and attacked again with a prepared scale of thrusts and slashes. He recognised it from one of the Kuritai he had killed a few months ago. It was how they taught him, new tricks every time to sharpen his skills to ever greater heights. He parried her every blow and retaliated with a scale of his own, learned under another master he had once thought harsh but now recalled with fond remembrance.
She was unfamiliar with these moves, he could tell, parrying his thrusts with less fluency than she had displayed in her attack. He forced her back to the wall of the pit, completing the scale by feinting a blinding stab at her eyes then bringing the blade up and around to slash into her thigh. Their swords rang as she parried the blow.
Frentis drew back a little, meeting the woman’s gaze. She was still smiling. The parry had been too fast. Impossibly fast in fact.
“Now I’ve got your attention,” the woman said.
Frentis smiled back. It was not something he did with any regularity and the muscles of his face ached from the novelty of it. “I’ve never killed a woman,” he said.
She pouted. “Oh don’t be like that.”
He turned his back on her and walked to the centre of the pit. They had given him a choice for the first time, and he was taking it.
“This could be a problem,” the woman said, her voice soft, and he realised she was thinking aloud.
“Honoured Lady?” Vastir called down.
“Throw me a rope!” she called back. “I’m done here.” She gestured at Frentis. “You can have this one for the spectacles.”
“He’ll make fine show at the victory celebrations, no doubt,” the master said. Frentis found it strange that he sounded relieved.
“Indeed, most honoured,” Vastir agreed, dragging a rope ladder to the edge of the pit, “I should despair if all my efforts were wast-”
Frentis’s short sword took him in the neck, slicing through veins and spine to protrude from beneath the base of his skull. He staggered for a moment, eyes bulging in terror and confusion, blood gushing from mouth and wound, then collapsed forward, landing on the sand of the pit with a soft thump.
Frentis straightened from the throw, turning to the woman. Death would come now, killing an overseer was a crime they could not forgive, whatever his value might be. However, he was dismayed to find her smile had returned.
“You know, Arklev,” she said to the master, now staring at Frentis in appalled astonishment. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”
The binding came again when she had climbed out of the pit, clamping down hard with enough force to make him stagger and fall to the sands, his scars burning with an agony as yet unknown. He looked up to see her smiling and twiddling her fingers, remembering the warmth that emanated from her touch. This is her! he realised. She binds me now.
He watched her laugh and disappear from view, the binding lifting after a few seconds more torment. The master lingered a moment, his lean features regarding Frentis with a mixture of anger and fear, restrained but still palpable to a man well versed in reading the face of his opponents.
“Your Realm will suffer for your failure to die today, slave,” the master said. Then he was gone and Frentis experienced a sudden certainty that he would most likely never see him again. It was a shame, he had hoped opportunity might arise when he could send him to join Vastir in the Beyond.
He got to his feet as the alcove doors clattered open to admit the slaves. They were joined by a platoon of Varitai. They circled him with spears levelled as the slaves did their work, dragging away the overseer’s bloated corpse, raking the blood from the sand, then disappearing back to wherever it was they went. Frentis had never seen beyond the alcove doors, but from the sounds of pain and toil that echoed through them at night, he doubted there was much he wanted to see.
One of the Varitai, silent as they always were, came forward to place a bundle in the centre of the pit. With that they trooped out in single file, the door slamming shut behind.
Frentis went to the bundle. They always left him food after a fight. Usually a bowl of surprisingly tasty porridge and an occasional serving of well-cooked meat. Starving him would not serve their purpose. In that respect at least, they were just like the Order. Today was different. In addition to the food he had been given clothes, the plain and serviceable tunic and trews of a Volarian freeman, dyed blue to signify his status as a journeyman of some kind, permitted to travel between the provinces. There was also a pair of solid boots, a belt of leather and a cloak of tightly woven cotton.
He fingered the clothing and recalled the burn of his scars. Where will she take me? he wondered, a new chill in his heart. What will she make me do?
In the morning a rope ladder was lowered into the pit. He had dressed in his new clothes, the feel of cloth on his skin strange after so many years of enforced nakedness. It made his scars itch. He climbed the ladder without hesitation, feeling no need for a final glance at his home of five years. There was nothing here he wanted to remember, but even so he knew every fight, every death, would stay with him forever.
The woman was waiting as he climbed from the pit. There were no guards; she didn’t need them. Her fine robes of the previous day had been exchanged for the more modest gown of a mid-status freewoman, dyed grey. His knowledge of this land and its customs was meagre, confined to what he had learned during his journey here after being taken in Untesh, plus whatever scraps of information he had been able to glean from overheard conversations between master and overseer. The colour grey, he knew, signified a person of property, usually slaves but also land and livestock. If a free Volarian acquired sufficient property, one thousand slaves or assets of equivalent value, they were permitted to wear black. Only the richest Volarians wore red, like the master.
“I hope you got some sleep,” she said. “We have a long way to go.”
The binding was still there, but restrained now, a faint tingle to his scars, enough to prevent him tying his new belt about her neck and strangling her, but with sufficient freedom to allow a survey of the environs. The pits surrounded them on every side, a hundred or more, each thirty feet in diameter and ten feet deep, carved into a broad plateau of bare rock, honeycombed with tunnels and dwellings. From some came the sound of combat, from others torture, screams rising into the morning air, overseers directing the various torments as they strolled the rim of the pits. This was a place of punishment as well as training.
“Sorry to be leaving?” the woman asked.
She had left him enough freedom to speak but he said nothing.
Her gaze darkened and he knew she was considering another punishing burn to his scars. He stared back, still refusing to speak, or beg.
To his surprise she laughed again. “So long since I had something truly interesting to play with. Come along, pretty one.” She turned and began walking to the edge of the plateau. It rose from the Vakesh Desert like an island in a sea of sand; when the midday sun ascended to its full height the temperature on the surface was enough to make even the overseers desist from their labours. Caravan routes ran from the north and west. He had memorised all this when they brought him here, back when he still indulged in the dream that he might one day contrive an escape.
She led him to the winding set of steps carved into the western face of the plateau, where it took them the best part of an hour to descend to the desert floor. A slave was waiting with four horses, two saddled for riding, two more bearing packs. She took the reins from the slave and dismissed him with a wave.