Will Wight - Of Dawn and Darkness

Both wrists and both ankles were manacled, their thick chains leading to the stone wall. Without even checking, Calder knew they’d been invested. Even if they hadn’t been invested before they were brought to this chamber, they would be by now; the Intent of hundreds of captors and prisoners in this cell over the years. If the chains had held so far, they’d hold tonight.

Besides which, Calder glanced around the room and couldn’t find Urzaia’s black hatchets. They must arm him only before the match, which made sense. He wouldn’t leave without his Awakened blades, especially since one of them was likely his Vessel. Calder and his crew had been disarmed at the door, though fortunately Petal hadn’t been thoroughly searched.

Just in case, Calder took the key from Andel and headed over to Urzaia’s manacles. He knelt down to try the circlet of iron on the man’s ankle. The key wouldn’t even fit in the lock.

He’d known it was a long shot, but he was ready for a break of good luck. He pressed his fingertips against the cold metal and Read…nothing useful. A muddle of Intent with the clear purpose of keeping the latch closed .

Maybe with one of Petal’s charges—

Calder was cut off by bands of warm steel wrapping around his throat, choking his air. He clawed at his waist, looking for his saber, but his belt was empty. He slapped in utter futility at whatever was strangling him, but he might as well have saved his strength. It was worse than steel; it was Urzaia Woodsman’s arm.

“Hello, who are you?” came the Champion’s cheery voice. After another few seconds, his grip on Calder relaxed, and Calder’s vision swam as he tried to keep his breathing under control.

“The Navigator Captain!” Urzaia boomed, and his voice carried surprise and delight. “You made it! Four years is a long time in the arena, but I am fortunate. They only started really trying to kill me last year.”

Calder turned to face the gap-toothed Champion’s smile. Rubbing at his neck, he asked hoarsely, “What were they doing before?”

“Before, the fights were almost fair. I did not think so at the time. But when it suddenly became difficult, I asked why. My Patron told me they could not find anyone to fight me when it was only me against an opposing team. So I have been fighting all of the other teams.”

He laughed when he was finished, but Calder thought back to Urzaia’s fight with the Houndmaster. A Soulbound with the power to create four hounds to fight for him had been considered one full team. He had been enough to give Urzaia some new scars. Picturing the Woodsman fighting an arena full of enemies like that…

His memories were interrupted as he noticed a strange gleam from Urzaia’s eye. He leaned closer, inspecting it, and the Champion noticed. He chuckled, tapping his finger on the eyeball. “It is hard to notice, is it not? I lost the real one…oh, who remembers? But I do not want to ruin my beautiful face with a patch, so I paid an alchemist for a replacement. Worth every mark!”

Calder should have gotten here sooner.

“How long have you been fighting…like that?” he asked. It wasn’t the question he should be asking, but he needed to know.

Urzaia frowned, considering. “More than a year now. Fourteen, fifteen months, I would say.”

Calder gripped the man’s shoulder, which felt like grabbing leather armor. “I know it’s been longer than I wanted. But trust me a little more. Tomorrow, we’re getting you out.”

The Champion patted him on the arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. If I trust a man one day, I will trust him the next, until he gives me reason not to. And here you are! I was right to trust you, yes?”

Calder had to look away, his throat choked with emotion. All this time…all this time, and Urzaia still trusted him.

In the meantime, Andel explained the plan.

“I have to win one more time, yes?” Urzaia grinned. “No problem! If this is the last fight of the Woodsman, I will give them a real show!”

Behind them, the door opened.

Calder straightened immediately, stepping behind Andel. Their previous arrangement may have looked suspicious: Calder the closest, obviously speaking to Urzaia, the Champion grinning like a fool, with Andel standing deferentially behind and Petal huddling in the back. It would be clear that Calder was the one talking with the gladiator, not Andel the Pilgrim. That wouldn’t be enough to get a guard to draw steel, but it might spark some questions.

Into the room came the guard they’d met earlier, the one at the door. And with him, he brought his supervisor.

The man’s rank was obvious. His hair was solid silver, his uniform pristine. He had a four-pointed star on his chest, where a Guild member might wear their crest, and he looked at them like a man deciding which variety of acid to spray on a bunch of sewer rats.

“Who are these two?” he asked his subordinate, gesturing sharply to Calder and Petal.

The guard didn’t have an answer, so Andel stepped in. “Guests of the Order and friends of the supplicant. They’re here to provide a measure of comfort before Urzaia’s last moments. Should they come.”

The supervisor squinted at Andel as though trying to see through his words with sheer force of will. For once, Calder was glad for the man’s mask of a face.

“We do not allow unsupervised access to the arena,” he said, evidently forgetting that his guard had done just that. He extended a hand, palm-up. “The key, if you please.”

Wincing, Calder handed it over. The guard paled, and the supervisor’s face tightened as he gathered his obvious anger. Clearly, Andel wasn’t supposed to relinquish control of their arena key.

“Search them,” the supervisor commanded. “Search the prisoner. And then get them out.”

Urzaia was still smiling, but now it made him look more dangerous than ever. He could snap a man’s neck without losing that smile. “I am not a prisoner. I am a gladiator of the arena.”

“You’re chained to a wall, is what you are. Search him first, see if they slipped him anything.” The man’s gaze stayed locked on Andel, as though he suspected the Luminian Pilgrim would try passing Urzaia something now .

Which gave Calder enough space to step to one side, out of the man’s view, and gesture to Petal. He mimed scooping something out of his pocket and throwing it away.

Her eyes grew wide.

During their first encounter with the guards, they hadn’t been inspected. They had willingly divested themselves of weapons and moved along. Now, based on the search the guard was giving Urzaia, they wouldn’t have the room to hide a needle. Which meant that Petal needed to rid herself of six alchemical charges in a way that didn’t see anyone detained or detonated.

Petal started edging closer to the edge of Urzaia’s bunk, behind the supervisor’s back. The guard had finished patting Urzaia down, and was glancing up to check for his next target.

Before the man had a chance to notice Petal was gone, Andel spread his arms. “I didn’t smuggle weapons in to a gladiator who requested death-rites,” he said, and Calder was certain he only spoke to keep the men focused on him. He was better at this than he had any right to be, as a representative of the Imperial court.

For his part, Calder kept his eyes on the supervisor. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Petal producing cigar boxes and sliding them under Urzaia’s bunk.

One of the boxes scraped over the stone floor, and Calder spoke up, desperate to cover the noise. “Ah! It’s…so…so great to see you, Urzaia, I’m sure you’ll make it out alive tomorrow.”

Urzaia chuckled, and Calder couldn’t tell if he was playing along or if the man was really just that relaxed. “I always have so far. I don’t see why tomorrow should be any different.”