Chapter 34

T he first day’s battles are cruel, but brief.

Each of the great warrior battles takes place at the top of the hour and lasts no more than a few minutes of actual fighting—some far less—from the moment the Divhs appear until they’re banished from the tournament field, in triumph or defeat. Then the crowds shift and eddy as spectators abandon their seats for food and drink, and new ones flow in to take their spaces.

But when the Divhs fight, no one moves—not in the stands, nor in the grounds beyond, I suspect. I’ve now seen Divhs both great and small upon the battlefield, and victory doesn’t always go to the mightiest in form. More often it is the sharpest of strategy that prevails—or, as Nazar’s words echo in my mind—those whose instinct is strong enough to border on strategy. Fast wins except when slow and measured takes the upper hand. Big wins except where nimble and cutting works better. The warriors atop the wooden towers seem driven to a frenzy by the time each battle is finished, sweat darkening their tournament clothes, blood seeping from wounds gartered by their tight garments.

Divhs are summoned, they fight, and then they are dispatched back to their cool, quiet plane, while we remain surrounded in chaos. People throng the central platform where the warriors wait, calling out names and waving flags, sending up great cheers when a new set of combatants is called to fight. Money changes hands at every turn, whether warriors are battling or not—wagers appearing to be made on the way a man stands and turns, if he smiles or growls, even on the length of his stride.

I’ve seen two warriors of the Southern Realms carried out on stretchers, their faces a mask of pain. This is the first tournament of any merit for most of them, the whispers surge. Perhaps the line on the houses of yellow, sand, and umber was too quickly made? Flags gather and scatter like flocks of birds, and by the day’s end, I see no more of the dark-green-hued banners. The battle doesn’t come to me this day, however. I have to wait.

But now I perch on my tiptoes along with every other person in the stadium, be they warrior, squire, or freeman. Because Fortiss has taken his position on one of the wooden towers, here to fight as a warrior knight, though he has yet to receive his own band or his Divh.

Instead, Fortiss’s rightful band still circles the left arm of Rihad. The more I think of that outrage, the less I can stomach it. Fortiss would have been banded to his Divh long ago were it not for Rihad and his twisted games.

Fortiss’s opponent is a warrior from the Fifth House, a grizzled veteran twice Fortiss’s age. The older man shows no fear as he curls his right hand to his heart and lifts his left arm high, but I feel fear for him.

The Fifth House warrior’s Divh appears first. It’s large—easily one of the largest of the day, and I slant my glance toward the Lord Protector. Not surprisingly, Rihad is leaning forward from his perch upon the stone ledge, his smile wide with anticipation. He peers eagerly at the monstrous Divh and nods. It is a worthy foe.

Worthy is right. This Divh is apelike, its large, thick arms hanging down heavily to the ground, ending in barrel-shaped fists that knuckle under as the creature uses its arms as a second pair of legs. Its haunches are equally powerful, and those end in viciously clawed paws that scrape at the ground, gaining purchase in the hard-packed dirt. Its head seems unreasonably small for its body—except for the tusks which sprout from either side of its tightly drawn mouth. Its beady eyes—all eight of them—sweep the stands and the grounds before him, waiting for its combatant to appear.

Fortiss curls his right hand to his heart and raises his left arm.

The entire coliseum goes quiet for a long, harrowing moment.

Nothing appears at the far end of the tournament field; nothing appears in front of the wooden towers. I shoot my gaze toward Rihad again, but his grin remains intact. At this distance, I can’t tell if he’s surprised or angered or?—

The air around me snaps tight, like a sheet whipped by a gale.

A roar of an entirely different kind booms over the tournament grounds.

The crowds might be screaming, or they might have fallen silent. I can’t hear anything above the torrent of sound rushing through my brain as I turn to witness the creature that Fortiss and Rihad have now summoned forth.

It’s the hugest monster I have ever seen. Nearly as tall as the coliseum is long, the creature looks closest to a scorpion, but with the head of a lizard and two sets of arms—one with clawed hands at its ends, the other tipped with the cruel pincers a scorpion would typically employ. Its body is covered with a glistening carapace all the way down to its viciously barbed tail, and four sets of slender legs brace its immense body. It rears upright and spreads its wings, its mouth opening horrifyingly wide to utter an enraged hiss.

My gaze leaps to Fortiss as he turns around to see the creature himself, but he shows no surprise. Instead, the two stare at each other a long moment, taking each other’s measure. Then the apelike Divh of the Fifth House screams, whether in annoyance or anger, I can’t tell. But that apparently is all the encouragement that the Lord Protector’s Divh needs.

The creature’s wings snap wide, and it launches toward the center of the stadium. The apelike Divh follows suit, only that beast’s gait is a loping, full-bodied lurch that looks like it’s throwing himself forward on the ground versus truly running. I focus on the center of the tournament field and only then notice that Fortiss and Rihad hold almost identical stances—Fortiss moving forward on the warrior’s platform and Rihad locked in place on his stage, their bodies taut, their expressions focused. Their eyes seeing something other than what is right in front of their faces. They’re both looking through the eyes of the enormous, winged scorpion, and they both grow wholly still as the two Divhs crash together in the center of the field. The fighting between the monsters is frenzied, and though the minutes stretch, both Rihad and Fortiss never move.

In fact, it’s the grizzled veteran of the Fifth House who finally breaks the spell. With a sudden shudder, he twists to the side, and I find my gaze jumping back toward the fight, where I see, to my horror, that the razor-sharp scorpion’s claws haven’t merely grabbed the Fifth House Divh—they’ve gouged the chest of the ape wide open. The wound is deep and vicious, and on the platform, the veteran warrior knight drops to one knee, blood blossoming below his neck.

My gaze shifts to Rihad, but his hand is out, staying the trumpeters who even now are pressing the horns to their lips. Instead, he watches, his face wreathed in feral glee as his monster swipes forward, its blow clearly aimed for the ape’s unprotected throat. At the last moment, the Divh jerks its pincer up instead, clipping its victim in the jaw and spinning the ape in a wide, tumbling arc.

I watch Rihad as he drops his gaze to Fortiss and see the fury in his countenance for a moment as the two stare each other down. Then the Lord Protector drops his hand and the tournament horns finally sound. Guards scuttle out to both men. Fortiss raises his arms in triumph even as the other man swoons on the stage, then both of them lift their left hands again to release their Divhs.

Huge, rollicking cheers roll through the coliseum as a new round of trumpets blare, signaling the end of the day’s competition. Rihad’s monster disappears immediately, but the other warrior’s Divh doesn’t. It moans pitiably, trying to scratch its way forward, only to see his warrior turn and slash his arm out a second time. Then it winks out, no one the wiser of its momentary defection from the rules…a defection born of trying to reach the very warrior who hadn’t been able to protect it.

I stand stock-still as the trumpets crash around me. Everyone is moving, pushing, shouting. The Fifth House Divh is mortally wounded—there’s no way it can survive that hit, no way that its warrior can either, I know it in my bones. I look up at the platforms, but I can’t see anyone standing there. The men have been cleared away like the evening meal.

Fortiss emerges moments later at the bottom of his tower, but the warrior from the Fifth House doesn’t appear. And when the guards come to take us to our horses and escort us to the makeshift tent camp outside the stadium grounds, the Fifth House’s horse remains with his people outside the tower. They all look determinedly cheerful.

I watch for him the rest of the day. The warrior doesn’t return.

“He’s probably been taken back to the First House for rest and doctors.” Caleb leans over our table that evening at the open-air feast on the tournament grounds, his hands around a fat loaf of fruited bread, a steaming meat pie at his elbow. “No one wants to see injury in a tournament, least of all Rihad. And in this case, he literally doesn’t want to see it. Or, alternatively, they’ve spirited away the fellow and his entourage and horse entirely, and he’s getting patched up somewhere in Trilion. It’s not like he’s going to be able to fight any more in the tournament.”

“I don’t think he’s going to be able to fight anymore, period,” I say, staring into my own cup of wine. “He was hurt—badly. So was his Divh.”

“Divhs heal.” Caleb waves his hand.

“That one won’t.”

A burst of chatter and cheers sounds at the far end of the tent camp, and I squint that way. Fortiss has arrived, amid much backslapping and shoulder thumping. He accepts it all graciously, but his manner seems different somehow, reserved.

“He doesn’t look as happy as he might, for someone who just pulled off the impossible,” I observe.

“Who?” Caleb cranes his neck around until he sees Fortiss. “Oh, him. He was ordered to speak to Rihad after the day’s closing ceremonies, and I didn’t get the idea it was for a fatherly hug. Rihad looked seriously angry.”

“He did?” I keep my tone light. “You mean because of the fight?”

“Not the fight.” Caleb laughs. “Are you mad? The fight made Rihad the talk of the Tournament. Rihad , not Fortiss. Everyone knew that Rihad’s Divh would be showing up today, but people had…forgotten, I guess, how big it was. I know I sure had.”

“How long ago did you see it last?”

He screws up his face in thought. “Well, I was pretty young, so I don’t remember much except the beast itself—and that it scared the stuffing out of me. Later, I learned the details of the battle. Believe me, the bards wouldn’t shut up about it. Rihad wasn’t fighting. Like this one, he was running the show, not participating. So that would have made it maybe…” He blew out a long breath. “Ten years ago, easily.”

“He would’ve still been in his prime, able to fight alongside the other warriors.”

“Well, he didn’t. But it’s not as if he didn’t try.” Caleb grins. “I remember the story now. It wasn’t the tournament proper, but right before. He summoned his Divh for an exhibition match. The other warrior fainted dead away.”

I stare at him. “He didn’t.”

“He did. But anyway, he’s not upset about the fight, he’s upset that Fortiss pulled his Divh off the Fifth House’s beast so quickly. He wanted more blood. But! I’m out of wine. And what sort of competent squire would I be if I didn’t keep us well stocked with wine?”

He pushes back from the table and stands, a little wobbly.

“I think we might be good without the wine.” I glance around, but Nazar still hasn’t joined us. The priest isn’t my servant, of course, despite the charade we’re carrying on. He doesn’t have to inform me of his actions.

Still, I find I miss the old man and his counsel as I look around the lavishly decorated grounds.

Once again, Rihad has spared no expense…or someone hasn’t. I can’t fathom how much coin such an encampment costs. Great flowing tents of thick cloth drape the grounds outside the coliseum, one for each house, even all the way down to the lowly Tenth. Unlike in the procession, however, we aren’t segregated by size. That means I’ve been sandwiched in between the Third and First Houses. Now I stare again at the warriors who eat and drink with abandon, welcoming Fortiss back into their midst. There are a dozen of them, ranging from a boy barely older than Merritt to dark-eyed, dark-scowled men in their thirties. I drink from my cup, regarding them all more carefully.

Think of yourself as the enemy, Nazar told me, and I allow my gaze to swing from man to boy and back again. Who would I choose to kill a first-blooded and firstborn warrior knight? Who would I trust among my own company to not only be able to shoot with flawless accuracy over a great distance, but to be able to pull the longbow taut in the first place?

Not a boy.

One by one I rule out the younger members of the First House’s warrior knight base—those who seem too small or weak, or too wide-eyed. Neither bodes well to carry out a murder, especially murder by loosed arrow. And while I never caught sight of the archer who killed my brother, I believe without question that it would be someone who could be trusted implicitly. Someone who has served long and well. That means someone older. Experienced. Comfortable with the idea of taking a man’s life in cold blood, and with following whatever order I give. Someone who understands how to keep his mouth shut.

I sip my wine and gaze out over my enemies. They are many, I realize—the members of the shooter’s caravan who fled when Gent appeared behind me during the attack in the mountains, even the soldiers who were sent out to kill the other warrior knights beyond Merritt of the Tenth. But for now, I cannot think of anyone but the man who was directly responsible for my brother’s death.

It must be one of the three older warrior knights of the First House, I decide. There is no other possibility. I could be facing one of these men across the tournament field tomorrow, looking into the face of a killer. Not just a killer, but a cowardly one. A weak, slinking snake who slithered through the forest on a mission to sacrifice a boy—and would have sacrificed more, I was certain, if he’d waited around to see me hold Merritt in my arms. But he hadn’t waited around. He’d assumed there was no more threat from the Tenth House.

He’d assumed wrong.

Still, to shoot an arrow that far—it had been close to a quarter of a mile—would have taken tremendous strength. That leaves two of the men. Both of those warriors watch everyone around them, especially Fortiss, but they don’t drink. Both of them have food upon their plates, but they don’t eat. Idly, I push my own dish away, my appetite curdling even as I realize that the time for vengeance is not yet here. I will meet them on the battlefield, or I will meet them in the shadows. But I cannot stomach seeing them unharmed and unpunished across the luxurious tent camp.

I step away from the table. I need to breathe the sharp, crisp air of open grounds. Even in this outdoor camp, I feel confined.

No one tries to stop me as I stride quickly between the large tents. I don’t actively try to avoid anyone, be they councilor, warrior, or hired man. But I don’t seek anyone out either. My mind is too full of possibilities, my thoughts too full of poison. I picture the two men of the First House in my mind. Which one killed Merritt? One tall and thin but with deceptively broad shoulders, one built like an ox, his neck as thick as a tree trunk. Which?

I’ve almost reached the outer perimeter when I hear a familiar voice calling to me from behind.

“Merritt! A moment, let me catch up.”

My heart skips three beats, maybe four.

It’s Fortiss.