Jean Lorrah - Flight to Savage Empire

Zanos’ eyes widened. Mallen had said those last three words in Maduran!

He studied Mallen’s face as they circled, dodging almost by reflex. Mallen smiled again-about to take Zanos’ head off with the trident.

Zanos let his powers deflect the weapon’s course, but the nearest point grazed his right temple.

He suppressed a cry more of surprise than pain, and spun away from the attack, following through with a sword swing at Mallen’s right side as the large man rushed past him. The blow bounced harmlessly off his opponent’s armor.

Zanos pulled himself together, putting his right thumb to the wound, Adeptly stopping the blood. He spoke Maduran to throw you off guard , he told himself, and it worked! A trick you don’t expect the rawest trainee to fall for. He couldn’t be from home -

Couldn’t he? As they squared off again, Zanos recalled his homeland before he had been kidnapped at the age of eight. There were stories about black-haired tribes who lived above the mountain snow line, fierce warriors who had once waged war against his people, and lost. He had accepted the stories as bedtime tales spun by his father for him and his younger brother. But they could be true-

Mallen charged again, swinging the net over his head like a whip. He’s very good with that thing , Zanos thought as he stepped forward, timing an attack to Mallen’s midsection.

Suddenly the net flew from Mallen’s hand. Once again it seemed to spread of its own accord. No one Zanos had ever seen could make it perform that way one-handed!

He couldn’t dodge the seine, so he concentrated, twisting the net into a smaller shape, batting it away with his shield.

But Mallen was on him with the trident, blocking out the sun. Shield met trident as Zanos aimed a thrust at Mallen’s left side, intending to wound him.

Sword tip bounced away from leather armor after striking solid air.

Zanos’ moment of puzzlement was just long enough for Mallen’s left fist to come down on his right shoulder, close to his neck. The blow nearly drove him to his knees-but from the advantage of his bent position, as Mallen prepared for a second blow, Zanos butted Mallen in the stomach with his head, knocking the wind out of him.

The crowd cheered for more, but each fighter was momentarily staggered, seeking to breathe and rest.

Zanos tested his tingling arm-his shoulder was bruised, but the collarbone had not broken.

Mallen’s youth gave his breath back quickly. He made a move toward his net.

/ can’t let him wear me down , Zanos realized. I’ll have to finish him off quickly, or he’ll simply outlast me . He jumped to cut Mallen off.

The black-haired giant laughed as he backstepped, shifting his trident to a two-handed grip. Using it like a quarterstaff, Mallen feinted twice, then swung the blunt end at Zanos’ ribs, under his guard. Zanos deflected the blow’s force, letting it barely touch him as he rolled away.

He’s playing with me. He thinks he can keep me running until I’m tired - but I have advantages he doesn’t know about .

He dodged another blow, came up with his sword- and distinctly felt the tug of something he could not see swing the blade away from Mallen’s unprotected thigh!

He’s countering with powers of his own!

“I thought so,” Mallen said softly. “From the moment I first heard about you, the great undefeated gladiator, I knew you had to be like me-a secret Adept. “

“Are you from Madura?” Zanos asked in his native tongue. By the gods-could this man be as eager to return home as Zanos was?

“Indeed, red-hair,” Mallen replied in the same language. He twirled the trident into an underhand grip, aiming the points at Zanos. “Unlike you, I came to this land as a man, and of my own free will, knowing I could prosper with my powers.”

“But why?” Zanos feinted a sword thrust, then retreated a step. “This is a land of evil!”

Mallen began circling him. “Our homeland is a place of greater evil! The meager powers you and I have are nothing to those of the rulers of Madura. To have stayed in the islands would have meant my death…

or something far worse,” he added, then spun and dived, shoulder-rolling past the net and coming up with it in his left hand, to the applause of the crowd.

Zanos cursed his carelessness, and felt something else. Fear. The fear he had not felt since his early days in the arena. For the first time since he had learned to control his powers, he was in a genuinely even match.

Or was it even? What if Mallen’s powers were stronger?

He didn’t want to kill Mallen-he wanted to ask him about Madura. What was happening there now?

Had anyone from his village survived the raid in which he had been taken-had it been rebuilt? Were there people who could teach him to use his Adept powers more efficiently? What were the terrible things being done by the present rulers?

All Zanos’ memories, even though they were from the perspective of a small boy, recalled a land benevolently ruled by powerful Adepts who called the rain but held off storms, to make their islands green and bountiful. Adepts who healed the sick and injured, and-at least so the children had whispered to one another-had learned the secret of life itself.

“Mallen-I must talk with you-”

“Talk!” The bigger man laughed, guarding himself with the trident as he shook out the seine. “You’re not going to talk to anybody, Zanos the Gladiator- you are going to die . You recognize where my powers come from. You cannot live to tell your friend the Emperor!”

An invisible fist clutched at Zanos’ heart. He staggered, using his own powers to ease the pressure and dissipate the pain-and saw in Mallen’s eyes that the man would do whatever was necessary to rid himself of the danger Zanos presented.

But neither of us can kill at a distance, or the spectators will get suspicious.

The crowd was screaming for action-any kind of action-furious that the two gladiators were still circling and feinting. They wanted blood. And they don’t care whose .

Sensing Mallen preparing to try for a deathblow, Zanos charge-attacked first, swinging his sword in wide arcs. Mallen set himself, riming Zanos’ approach as he poised his trident and flicked the net back and forth like a writhing snake.

Two steps from striking distance, Zanos drew his arm back for a prodigious swing that would take Mallen’s head from his shoulders.

As he felt Mallen’s powers start to deflect the blow, Zanos twisted his wrist and put Adept power behind his effort, guiding the blade past Mallen’s face and straight through the wooden shaft of the trident. His shoulder collided with Mallen’s chest, and the two men went down sprawling.

The crowd leaped to its feet, screaming as the fighters leaped up, a few paces apart.

Mallen now held just a wooden pole in his right hand, hefting it to find its new center of balance.

But Zanos was on his feet-ready to end this match now.

Mallen tossed the pole high over his head.

Expecting it was some Adept trick, Zanos followed its upward flight for a moment-just long enough for Mallen’s net to leap out and wrap itself around his sword.

As Zanos slashed at the net with the sharp edge, his sword hilt was suddenly too hot to handle!

His grip loosened by reflex, and Mallen’s net yanked the blade out of his hand. It landed at his opponent’s feet, and when Mallen picked it up it was obviously no longer hot.

He knows what to do with the powers he has ! Zanos thought, and tried to apply his own powers to the sword-but Mallen broke his concentration with a frenzied assault, discarding the net to use a two-handed grip on the sword, battering away at Zanos’ shield.