Troy Denning - The Verdant Passage

“Tell me, on whom should I place my wager, Rikus or Kalak?” Tithian asked, leaning toward Agis to make himself heard above the din of the stadium.

“Rikus, of course,” Agis answered. He looked toward the King’s Balcony, where Kalak’s wrinkled face could be seen just above the railing. “If you bet on Kalak, you lose-no matter what.”

The high templar raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Agis nodded, then leaned closer to Tithian’s ear. Speaking just loud enough to make himself heard, the noble reported what they had learned from Nok. There was a small risk that Kalak was magically eavesdropping on their conversation, of course, but Agis suspected the king would have other things on his mind at the moment.

Tithian’s face paled, and he slumped back into his well-padded chair. “I suppose I should find this too incredible to believe.”

“Do you?” asked the noble.

The high templar shook his head.

“Then you’re with us?” Agis asked, leaning close to Tithian’s ear.

As a matter of routine, the senator had been searched before being allowed into the gallery and was unarmed. Nevertheless, his command of the Way was always with him. If he did not receive a satisfactory answer from his old friend, Agis was prepared to kill the high templar.

“I never said I would help, only that I wouldn’t stand in your way,” Tithian answered. “I’ve kept my word, as is obvious from the fact that you’re here and my gladiators are down there.” He pointed toward the center of the arena, where Rikus and Neeva still waited his answer to their salute.

“There are no bystanders in this,” Agis said. “You’re either with us or against us.”

Tithian met his friend’s menacing gaze evenly. “I’ll want something in return.”

“What?”

The templar shrugged. “It depends on what you want me to do.”

“What we need should be a simple matter for someone of your authority,” Agis said. “Just get us out of here after Rikus throws the spear.”

Tithian closed his eyes and let an ironic sigh escape his lips. “Agis, I’m not in charge of the security force,” he said. “Kalak assigned that responsibility to Larkyn.”

In the center of the field, Rikus was beginning to fear that he had been right not to trust Tithian. At any moment, he expected a detachment of half giants to rush into the arena, or a pair of magical lightning bolts to streak out of the gallery and destroy both him and Neeva.

He waited. Nothing happened, save that the din in the stands rose to a fevered frenzy. The two gladiators stood motionless in the stifling afternoon heat, the stale odor of the morning’s blood and death lingering in the sands.

At last Tithian stepped to the edge of the porch, where Rikus and Neeva eould see him. He acknowledged their salute by waving a black scarf. “It’s about time,” Rikus growled, spinning on his heel to face the eastern end of the arena.

“Don’t complain,” Neeva countered, also turning. “It looks like Agis was right about Tithian.”

This time, the two gladiators faced the Golden Tower, where the King’s Balcony overlooked the end of the fighting field. A single pair of half-giant guards stood on each side of the balcony, flanking a huge throne of jade. The throne sat at the front edge of the small box. The pate of Kalak’s bald head, his golden diadem, and his dark eyes were barely visible above the balcony’s front wall.

“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!”