My pride stung. "I do so because I choose to."
"Why not choose to serve a stronger master?"
"Because his vision is warped and I don't believe in it."
"His vision is that of a better world."
"A better world bought with atrocities will be rotten at the core."
"Perhaps," Hugh said.
I looked into his eyes. "There won't be a tower above Atlanta as long as I live."
"How fortunate for our cause that your life will end tomorrow." Hugh smiled. He thought me ridiculous and so he should.
"Would you spar with me?" he asked. "We have time. I was generous with the Guards."
The offer tempted me. Hugh was an innate swordsman, a one-in-a-million fighter. Sparring with him would be as close as I could ever come to sparring with Voron once again. But I had a bout to fight. Injuring me would play into his hands rather nicely. "I don't have time to give you a lesson." Chew on that.
I walked away.
"I wonder how fast you are," he said to my back.
The blond swordsman struck at me from behind. I dropped under the blur that was his lunge and thrust low, driving Slayer into the gut, from the side up. The saber punctured the stomach with a loud pop and slid deep, all the way into the pressurized aorta. It took all of my skill to execute the thrust. Hugh had gotten my goat after all.
I pushed the blond off my sword. Slayer's blade emerged, coated in scarlet. He sagged to the floor. Inside him, the blood geysered out of the aorta. A normal human would be dead already. But the blond too had the benefit of Roland's magic. It would take him a minute or two to die.
I looked at Hugh. His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes widened. I knew exactly what was going through his head. It was the same thing that went through my mind when I saw a feat of expert bladework: could I have done that?
Our eyes met. The same thought zinged between us, like an electric charge: one day we would have to meet sword to sword. But it wouldn't be today, because tomorrow I had to fight the Reapers. I had to break it off.
"You threw him away. Sloppy, Hugh."
He took a step back. Too late I realized I'd used Voron's favorite rebuke. It had just rolled off my tongue. Shit.
I left. They didn't follow me.
IN THE MORNING THE SHAPESHIFTERS MEDITATED. Then we practiced in the gym.
Jim had given us a short briefing. "The Reapers fight like samurai: one on one. There are no tactics involved. It just breaks down into individual fights. They like flash, but they are efficient."
We all had a job to do. Mine was simple: Mart. I didn't want Mart. I wanted Cesare. But Jim's strategy made sense and I was going to follow it. I'd get a chance against Cesare. I wanted to kill him entirely too much to be denied.
But none of the tactics, none of the strategy, mattered until I knew what sort of blade Hugh had given to the Reapers. He had had ample opportunity to transfer the blade to the rakshasas before last night. He knew they wouldn't be able to resist using the sword, and he didn't want its power known until today.
Roland had made several weapons. All were devastating. Just thinking on it made me grit my teeth. He must've given Hugh the order to assure the rakshasas win at any cost. I wondered if it grated on Hugh.
At two minutes till noon we lined up and marched into the Pit. Sunshine poured on us through the skylights. The shapeshifters came out in warrior form, Raphael included, with Curran in the lead. Andrea carried a crossbow and enough firearms to take on a small country. Not satisfied with her own carrying capacity, she had loaded Dali with spare ammo.
We crossed the floor of the Arena and stepped onto the sand.
Across from us seven Reapers stood in two rows. My gaze skipped over them and fastened on Mart in the center. His sword was sheathed. Damn it. What is it? What did he give you?
I surveyed the rest. Cesare on Mart's left. The huge rakshasa, still wearing his human skin, carried two khandas: heavy, three-foot-long double-edged swords. I'd handled khandas before; not my cup of tea: too heavy and oddly sharpened.
On Mart's right stood the rakshasa's Stone. Ten feet tall and thick, he had the head of a small elephant, complete with wide fans of ears, but instead of a dark hide, his body had the sickly yellow tint of a man stricken with jaundice. A chain mail hauberk of yellow metal suspiciously resembling gold hung from his shoulders. I guessed even elephants liked to go into battle color-coordinated.
On the elephant's shoulder perched a slender creature: hairless, dark red like raw liver, its bony limbs tipped with black claws. It resembled a lemur the size of a short human. Two vast wings spread from its shoulders. His arms held two brutal talwars: short, wide swords.
The second line of Reapers consisted of three fighters. The first was the woman who'd delivered the hair to me. The second was a humanoid thing with four arms, clothed in a reptilian skin of mottled green and brown. The third was Livie.
The reptilian thing was abnormally slender, green, and armed with two bows. Livie had a straight sword and looked scared to death. Her head had been shaved bald. It brought my rage back with crystal clarity. Sure, what she did was stupid and weak. But she was no fighter.
They had no right to bring her into this. She didn't deserve it.
Livie met my gaze. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
They had hunted us like meat. They'd hurt Derek. They'd broken his bones, poured molten electrum on his face, tortured him, and laughed. They killed shapeshifters and forced young girls into the Pit. Their existence was an injustice. They deserved to die. And I would enjoy this. Dear God, I will enjoy this.
The magic was in full swing. The crowd waited, electric with anticipation. A smile blazed across Mart's face. His blade was still sheathed.
Curran shifted his clawed feet in the sand next to me.
Above us on the balcony, Sophia, the producer, held up an enormous yellow stone.
Luminescent, lemon yellow, shaped like a tear, it shone and played in her hands like a living current of gold, capturing the light and tossing it back in a dazzling display of fire.
Sophia raised it above her head - her arms quaked with strain - and shouted. "Let the Games begin!"
The rakshasas' mage weaved her arms through the air.
I swung my two swords, Slayer in my right hand and the tactical blade in my left.
Mart reached for his sheath, clamped it, and slid the blade free, tossing the sheath onto the sand.
A wide blade stared at me, red like the finest ruby.
Everything slowed to a crawl, and in the ensuing stillness, my heartbeat boomed through me, impossibly loud. The Scarlet Star. One of Roland's hellish personal weapons, a sword he had forged over five years out of his own blood. It had the power to fire thirteen bursts of magic.