Troy Denning: The Verdant Passage

“Oww!” The half-giant pulled his hand away and looked down, astonished.

Sadira started to step past.

“I’m sorry,” the half-giant said, fixing his baggy eyes on her face. “I do remember you from-”

The guard furrowed his brow, and Sadira instantly realized that she had a problem.

“Pegen!” the half-giant gasped. He latched onto her shoulder. “You’re the one who made me look like a fool at the city gate! You killed Pegen!”

“In the name of-” Sadira hissed, cursing her bad luck.

She spun around and swung her cane at the guard’s groin, which on a half-giant was at perfect striking level for her. He groaned and released her shoulder, reaching for the bone club he had left leaning against the terrace wall.

Sadira resisted the temptation to use magic, for she was in plain view of much of the stadium. Instead, she slipped past the guard and ran for an exit tunnel. The half-giant followed, yelling orders for her to stop and threatening dire consequences if she did not obey. The scene evoked a few chuckles from those in the immediate vicinity, but the sound of Tithian’s magically-augmented voice quickly drew their attention back to the obsidian pyramid.

“The rules of the game are simple: the last pair of gladiators able to stand on the summit of the pyramid will win the contest.”

Though Sadira wondered what was happening in the arena, she did not dare pause to look. The half-giant lagged only a few steps behind her.

All around the stadium, loud bangs began to sound from the entryways as the gates came crashing down. Realizing that she was about to be cut off from the streets, the sorceress ducked into the nearest exit. The clatter of chains rang through the rock archway, and the templars at the far end of the tunnel leaped into the street. A huge gate crashed to the ground and blocked the short passageway. Sadira was trapped.

Kalak rose and stepped to the edge of his balcony. “Let the games begin!”

The other gladiators charged toward the pyramid, which a group of templars had levitated into position in front of Kalak’s balcony. Neeva started to follow, but Rikus quickly grasped her shoulder.

“Let everyone else fight for a bit. The gaj will keep them from claiming the prize too soon,” he said, pointing to the top of the glassy pyramid, where the murderous beast still sat. “Besides, if Kalak stays at the edge of his balcony, we might get a clear throw at him from below.”

“What about Agis and Sadira?” Neeva asked. “You can’t attack if they’re not ready.”

“They’d better be watching,” Rikus said.

Ahead of them, Gaanon drew first blood by leveling a vicious swing at a dimwitted baazrag. The furry creature blocked with its trident, its sunken eyes betraying its confusion at being attacked. The half-giant’s axe snapped the weapon as though it were a twig, then sliced the baazrag’s massive torso into separate pieces just below the breast tine. A thunderous roar sounded from the stands.

The female baazrag went into a rage. It threw its twin-bladed axe at Gaanon’s leg, causing the clumsy half-giant to teeter at the brink of falling. The baazrag raised its massive arms and bared its yellowed fangs, then charged. The half-giant’s elven partner suddenly disappeared from Gaanon’s side, then reappeared behind the raging baazrag.

“The elf’s a teleporter,” Rikus noted.

Neeva grunted to let him know she had heard, but seemed otherwise unimpressed.

The elf lashed her whip around the baazrag’s legs. The furry beast-woman fell at Gaanon’s feet. He quickly beheaded it with another swift stroke of his axe.

“Let’s see if we can work our way toward Kalak,” Rikus said, leading them toward the general melee.

The seeming chaos of free-for-all combat was actually comprised of many smaller fights between a handful of combatants. Rikus carefully picked his way past these little battles toward the center of the field.

A few yards from the pyramid, two gith moved forward to intercept the mul and his partner. Keeping their bulging eyes fixed on Rikus and Neeva, the hunched lizard-men moved forward in a stooped gait that could not quite be described as scuttling or loping. Each of the scrawny creatures wore a plumed helmet atop its bony, arrow-shaped head. Mekillot-shell plates protected the vulnerable spines on their backs.

“Let’s make quick work of these two,” Rikus said, bringing his spear to a defensive position. He did not add a warning to watch for psionic tricks, for he and Neeva had fought gith before. She knew their innate abilities as well as he did.

“Don’t waste time talking!” she said, stepping to his side. “Just kill them.”

The smallest gith led the charge, rushing Rikus with a series of awkward hops. The mul brought the creature to a quick halt by threatening it with his spearpoint. The gaunt lizard-man reluctantly raised its spike mace to trade blows. The maneuver, Rikus knew, would soon result in its undoing.

The other gith stopped a few yards from Neeva and studied her trikal with a bulging, lidless eye. An instant later, Neeva’s weapon slithered to life in her hands.

“The damn thing animated my trikal!”

Without taking his eye off his own foe, Rikus shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said loudly, addressing Neeva’s attacker. “It only makes her mad.”

A stout templar with a lined, leathery face stormed into the gallery. The man stopped directly in front of Agis’s chair, blocking the noble’s view of the fight between his friends and the two gith.

“What’s the meaning of this?” demanded the newcomer. He ignored Agis completely and fixed his attention on Tithian.

“The meaning of what, Larkyn?” Tithian asked.

“You closed the gates too soon!” Larkyn said. “Half my templars are locked outside, and the crowd is already growing restless.”

“Is that so?” Tithian asked nonchalantly. He gave Agis a knowing glance.

Larkyn looked at the senator and frowned, but showed no sign of recognizing him. This did not surprise the noble, for high templars avoided the Senate as diligently as senators avoided the High Bureaus. Though their names were certainly known to each other, Agis doubted that they had ever been within a hundred feet of one another before today.

When the noble made no move to rise, Larkyn cleared his throat forcefully.

A sly grin flashed across Tithian’s thin lips, then he cuffed Agis with the back of his hand. “How dare you sit while a high templar stands!”

Agis jumped to his feet with all the chagrin of a subordinate who had forgotten his place. “Please forgive me, High One,” he groveled, bowing to Larkyn. “I was absorbed by the contest.”

Larkyn dismissed him with a wave of his hand, then sat in the chair the noble had just vacated. Agis stepped to the back of the booth and glanced down the stairway. At the bottom stood a knot of two dozen lower-ranking templars. Though it was impossible to tell Tithian’s men from Larkyn’s, Agis could see that one group was blocking the other’s access to the gallery.

Admiring the astuteness with which Tithian had maneuvered Larkyn into the chair, Agis stepped close behind it so no one could see what be was doing. He reached under his robe and withdrew the stiletto Tithian had given him before Larkyn arrived-the high templar, of course, being free from any sort of weapons search. While the noble would have preferred to use the Way, leaving Larkyn alive but incapacitated, his old friend had insisted upon a dagger in the back.

As Agis thrust the blade through the soft chair, a white light flashed from the gateway into which Sadira had fled. It was not particularly bright, neither was it long-lived, nor did it create a peal of thunder. Nevertheless, it was quite visible, and many curious spectators found their attentions split between the combat in the arena and the mysterious pyrotechnics in the stands.