Michael Foster - She Who Has No Name

Moving his hands over its body, he found it to be,indeed,some manner of muscled and ferocious dog, but it had been wounded and tortured only recently to make it all the more savage. Looking closer, he sensed it to be full of slow-acting poisons. Curious, he thought, for the poison had not had time to affect the animal. Then perhaps it was a test for him: starve him, test him, give him meat-and if he ate it,he would perish in turn. It seemed his captors were playing games with him and he started to wonder if the Desert Queen even knew he was here.

Time crawled by and Samuel began to wonder if he should take action to free himself. Balten had told him to have patience, but howlongwould he need to wait? Then again, without his ring he had no idea how he could possibly do anything at all. Instead, he practised all his old lessons from his days in the School of Magic: the mantras and words of power, the stances of summoning and expending power (as much as the space would allow) and the complex hand matrices-all designed to align him as closely as possible with the weaves and flows of the infinite pattern of existence.

Still, that felt hollow and so he turned his time towards other pursuits. He practised squeezing his fists at the end of his stances, transforming the movements of summoning and casting into strikes and evasions, just as he imagined Horse doing them. With each repetition, he felt satisfaction,for he could feel his blows developing-becomingtighter, faster, more efficient. He could hear his sleeves rippling and whipping in the darkness as he locked his attacks into place and,as the noise became sharper and more violent, he knew he was improving.

He experimented with kicking, based on what he had seen the Koian do, but these felt somehow awkward and he was not sure if they would be effective at all. Still, he had little else tooccupyhis time and he continued practising whatever he could, moving around his tiny chamber in the blackness until he knew its every inch by heart.

When the physical practice exhausted him, he would sit and focus his mind. He sent his senses deep into the stone and found only more stone all around. Looking further, he detected some narrow passages far away and other living things-perhaps other captives-deep within the rock. Occasionally, his visitors would come and check on him, and occasionally, spells would be sent to search for him-powerful spells originating from far outside the mountain-but little else happened in his timeless world of dark and quiet.

Footsteps pounding along the passageway alerted Samuel long before they arrived, and Samuel had time to stand and ready himself when the guards next opened his door. They held torches and called to him,gesturingfor him to come out,and he did so warily, eyeing their daggers with concern, ready to leap aside if required.

Once again, the men bound his wrists and dragged him through an unendinglabyrinthof passageways and tunnels. Quite suddenly, he found himself in sunlit halls, passing women and servants, all of whom seemed revolted by him and did their best to keep their distance. He was not at all surprised and guessed that he must have looked and smelled quite terrible after his stint in captivity. The rotting dog carcass beside him had not helped, as all he could do at the time was wrap it in the rags that had been his bed and stuff it in the corner.

His escort led him down a short flight of stairs and thenopened a large set of double doors. They cut his ropes and pushed him through and it was there that Samuel found himselfinsidea great arena, with perhaps tens of thousands gathered in the seats around him. The sand was stained with several patches of dark blood and so Samuel trod slowly to the centre of the area, still wincing at the brightness of the sun and looking at the crowd all around himinconfusion. The wait seemed painfully long, but it was obvious what would happen next. Surely enough, another door opened and out came trotting six masked and armed desert-men, each bearing a different form of weapon.

He was without his power, and suffering from lack of decent food and sleep, but he hoped he would be able to manage these men with his physical skills alone. The isolation of his cell seemed to have protected him from the thought of having no magic, but now, out in the open and requiring spells, he began to panic. He patted his pockets desperately, hoping for his ring to reappear, but it was a vain hope.

He just had time to thank the fact that he had been practising his attacks in his cell, when another door burst open and a huge lizard came bounding in. It was the same kind of creature that had attacked them outside of Rampeny, but he could see this one clearly and it was enormous. It locked its eyes upon him and came scampering toward him at full speed.

He flexed and tested his muscles andmentally prepared himselfas the thing bore down on him-he had no idea if he was capable of defending himself at all. It hissed, flapping its blue tongue, and snapped at him. Samuel moved aside, surprising himself at how much distance he covered in one spry step, but the thing continued after him like fluid lightning. He leapt high-higher than he intended-but the lizard was also agile and arched its head up, snapping after him. He cleared its mouth by inches and scampered down its scaly back and behind it.

The armed men were waiting and he dashed amongst them, hoping to confuse the great lizard. It had already turned and was after him in a frenzy, and the men fled from its path. Samuel ran at them, for they seemed equally disturbed by the presence of such a monstrosity. They scrambled to be away, but he slid into theshin of theclosest man and kicked up into the front of his knee. The man cried out as his leg bent backwards and Samuel leapt over him, crushing his throat as he passed.

The ease of doing so was a surprise to him, for in his mind he had superimposed the movements of Horse upon himself, and he seemed to be able to match them almost perfectly. He had the man’s spear in his hand and threw it at the furthest fighter, where it buried itself deep into his chest. The desert-man only gasped and fell to his knees, propped up by the shaft of the weapon with his lifeblood gushing out onto the sand. The heavy hammer in his hand dropped to the sand beside him.

The lizard was again upon him and the other four men had scuttled out of its way, so Samuelfound himselfback-stepping to be away from it. He danced behind the speared man and the lizard trampled over the corpse togat at him. He ran for the wall and the thing followed, hissing closely behind with rancid breath. He reachedthe wall and took two steps up it, vaulting back as the lizard crashed into the stone below him, cracking the great stones. Again, he raced down its back and was away while the thing writhed in pain.

The fighters had spread out and Samuel raced past the pulverised and speared body, scooping up the heavy hammer as he passed. The nearest fighter had a spiked shield and net and he threw the latter at Samuel as he approached, hoping to ensnare him. Samuelnowthrew his hammer with his full force, swinging it by the end of the handle for momentum; it carried the net back with it, crashing into the man’s shield and toppling him backwards. Samuel stepped on the shield and kicked the man in the teeth as hard as he could. Three desert fighters remained.

Samuel was off again, pulling the shield with him, feeling his heart now thudding wildly in his chest and labouring for breath, but he could not stop until they were all dead, or it would be his end. The lizard had recovered and was again galloping for him, so Samuel bolted towards the next warrior and manoeuvred behind the man. It took a moment for the desert-man to realise what was happening, but too late for,as he watched Samuel scoot past him, it was already too late for him to run from the thundering lizard’s path. He disappeared beneath it and Samuel was off again, towards the next fighter.