She used the still-hot key to open the lock and swung the door wide, stepping to the side so as not to block or intimidate the fearful women. The shade speaker and the redhead were the first to walk across the threshold, both encouraging the others to follow. They were an interesting pair standing together, the fragile-looking bird woman with the big eyes that saw the dead, and the statuesque redhead with the fearsome gaze that reminded Gilene a little of Tamura.
The shade speaker waved them all out, gave Gilene a low bow of thanks, and hurried away toward the passage she claimed led to the tunnels. The red-haired woman paused. She, too, gave Gilene a quick bow. “May the gods remain merciful to us all this day, fire witch. Thank you.”
A sudden thought occurred to Gilene, and she caught the other woman’s arm. “If . . . when you make it out of the city, and if you face the steppe warriors, tell them you are all of Beroe. That Azarion Ataman keeps his promise.” At the other’s confused expression, she shook her arm for emphasis. “Just do it. Don’t forget.”
The redhead’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t coming.”
“Not yet. Remember, I need to stay behind and take care of any guards so you can reach the tunnels in time.” Gilene offered a rueful smile. “And now you know how I can hold off Kraelian guards by myself.” She gave the woman a light push. “Go on. You can’t linger.”
She watched until the last woman disappeared into the passage’s clot of shadows. If fate was merciful, they would escape the city unharmed to return to their families. If it wasn’t, they’d die in those narrow spaces or beneath a hail of Savatar arrows. Gilene had either saved them from death in the Pit or sent them all to their deaths beyond Kraelag’s walls.
The ash and bone pile that had once been a man was now nothing more than a soot mark on the floor’s wet stone, trampled by the feet of fleeing women. The bones lay scattered in every direction, and she took a moment to kick them all into a corner where none could see them unless they actively searched.
The catacombs’ hush thrummed in her ears, occasionally broken by the cheers of the crowd as they enjoyed bloodshed with their breakfast in the arena above her. Gilene ventured farther down the corridor’s run, past the empty gladiator cells to the stairs leading to the street level and another less squalid passageway dominated by arches and columns.
Kraelian guards called it the Last Journey or the Last Walk. Gladiators marched down its length, prepared to fight to the death, and the Flowers of Spring were carted the distance in a cage pulled by horses. At its end, a pair of gigantic doors stood closed and barred, guarded by Kraelian soldiers. On the other side, the roofless arena known as the Pit, with its baying spectators, waited.
Scuttling noises at the end of the hallway sent her sprinting to a shallow alcove, where she squeezed herself into its space.
A pair of guards appeared, their shadows stretched across the walls where the torches cast sickly coronas of light. They paused, and from her hiding spot, Gilene clearly heard two sharp inhalations.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Those fucking cunts got out somehow!”
A second voice joined the first. “Where’s that fucker Molt? I’ll kill him if he’s drunk in a corner again!”
The sound of running feet warned her they drew closer. Gilene held her breath and stepped into the hallway. The two guards almost stumbled in their surprise. She darted past them, into the passage the women had taken earlier.
“Catch that bitch!”
She reached the hall’s end before it forked in two directions, and waited. Her pursuers rounded the corner, their features promising murder when they caught her. Magic surged through her, a beast leashed on a fragile tether. For a second time, Gilene set it free.
Torches, mounted on either side of the hallway’s entrance, flared bright, their flames stretching toward Gilene as if pulled by a lodestone. At a hand gesture, flames exploded out of the torches, white-hot flares erupting off the twisted wicks as if they’d been dipped in draga blood instead of tallow.
Fire danced in mimicry of Gilene’s hand motions, filling the tunnel with a bestial roar. The guards shouted and turned to run, only to be cut off by a barricade of flame. A final slash of her hand through the air, and the fire consumed the two men in one bright gulp, leaving nothing behind but soot.
Torches guttered and died, plunging the hallway into a thick blackness scented with the caustic odor of cremation. Gilene leaned against the passage wall with a shudder. The urge to retch almost overpowered her. She clenched her teeth against the impulse and pulled the neckline of her tunic up over her nose to breathe. After days in the company of slavers and guards who didn’t care whether the Flowers of Spring had food much less a bath, she didn’t smell particularly sweet, but it was better than the sting of charred human flesh in her nose.
She allowed herself a moment to shiver in the darkness before straightening away from the wall. The Pit awaited her.
No one stopped her as she ascended the stairs from the catacombs to the Last Walk. She wore the illusion of an old male servant. It stood her in good stead as she navigated her way past armored guards, the occasional blood-splattered gladiator, and the beast masters transporting half-starved wolves and big cats to the upper levels. There, the condemned creatures were kept until sent into the Pit. Her heart stayed lodged in her throat, certain someone like Azarion would see past her spellwork and call out a warning to others that something strange was afoot.
She shuffled along until she came within sight of the great doors that opened to the arena. She waited for a lull in traffic before darting behind a stack of wine barrels. From this vantage point, she could watch the doors while staying hidden.
A beast master with his bevy of apprentices and servants surrounded a wagon loaded with a large cage that housed a monstrous bear. The creature paced in the confining space, emitting the occasional roar as it hurled its big body against the bars. Pity for the unfortunate animal strengthened Gilene’s resolve. Animals in cages, people in cages, all to satisfy the Empire’s unending bloodlust.
Enough, she thought. Enough.
She noted the garb the apprentices wore—rust-colored robes with a yellow insignia patch sewn at the shoulder. The patch denoted at which training school the apprentice studied and his rank among the students.
Gilene abandoned her illusion of the old man for that of an adolescent boy dressed in the apprentice’s robes. She waited until the bear wagon stopped at the doors before leaving the shelter of the barrel stack.
The guards unbarred the doors and heaved them open to reveal the colossal expanse of the arena, with its screaming crowds and blood-soaked sand. The wagon rolled forward at the beast master’s shout to the driver. Its entourage walked beside and behind it. Gilene jogged to catch up, playing the part of tardy apprentice but keeping enough distance so the true apprentices wouldn’t notice her behind them. The guards thought nothing of it and waved her through with hardly a glance before pulling the doors closed with a creaking thud.
The crowd’s roar bludgeoned her ears, the scent of gore strong in her nose. A surge of spectators packed the narrow walkways that led to the arena’s seating as well as to the outer ring of hallways encircling the structure where food, prostitutes, and favors could be purchased. Here, it was easy to disappear into the chaos, and Gilene took advantage of it to part ways with the beast master and change her illusion yet again.