Tempests and Slaughter

‘You’ll find, as you grow older, that the Tasikhe line can be erratic. There hasn’t been a mage for a generation, but the stories about the family are all about unusual behaviour.’ They had reached the end of the corridor. It opened onto the Fieldside Road, on the opposite side of the university from the river and its road to the city. Waiting for them were two hard-looking men in leather armour. Yadeen handed his pack to Arram and went to talk to them.

At last the master beckoned him forward. The youth tied the strap that fixed his wide hat on his head and plunged through the gate. A bubble of light bloomed from Yadeen’s hand, casting illumination over four horses standing in a roadside shelter. Arram gulped. It had been a long time since he had ridden a horse, and it hadn’t gone well.

‘Can’t we walk?’ he asked Yadeen.

‘If the coliseum master had wanted us to walk, he would not have sent horses,’ Yadeen said, his voice tight. Arram raised the brim of his hat to get a better look at him and understood: Yadeen didn’t want to ride, either. Feeling sorry for both of them, he said nothing more. He let an armoured man try to help him into the saddle three times before he made it all the way. At least Yadeen mounted his horse creditably. ‘Hand me your reins,’ he ordered.

‘Shouldn’t I have them?’ Arram enquired, obeying. ‘You know, to pull on?’

‘That is what I fear. I shall lead your horse. You will hold the horn and try to remain seated.’ Yadeen folded the extra reins in his hand.

Arram looked about. There were so many bits and pieces on the horse’s head! ‘What is the horn?’

‘Mithros, Minoss, and Shakith!’ cried Yadeen, calling on the ruler of the gods, the judge of the gods, and the goddess of seers. ‘Have you never ridden a horse?’

Arram gulped. ‘Once, Master. The second time it wouldn’t go.’

Their guides bellowed their laughter. Yadeen wiped his rain-soaked face with a wet forearm. ‘It’s that thing that sticks up from the saddle’s edge, like a man’s part,’ he said. ‘Grip it before you do fall. And you two, up front!’

One of them had the courage to glance back; the other straightened in his saddle.

‘My student can do more with a finger than you can on these huge beasts,’ Yadeen said. ‘If you cannot behave decently, I shall let him show you. Now pick up the snake-sliding pace!’

Arram gawped at the master. No one but Varice and Ozorne had ever defended him before. ‘Master—’

‘Hush,’ Yadeen said as he urged his horse into a trot. Arram’s horse followed along. ‘They should know even the smallest viper is a killer.’ Arram opened his mouth to ask the question, but Yadeen held up a hand. ‘Ask Ramasu or Lindhall about vipers. They’ll say I can’t teach you about them, for all I cut one off Ramasu once.’

Arram knew vipers. Lindhall had a number of them in the menagerie, and Arram had dissected at least two, carefully, in his reptile class. Arram shuddered. Vipers made him nervous, though Ozorne liked them and had never been bitten.

Instead he asked the real question on his mind. ‘Is your using my Gift going to hurt?’ he called. ‘Me, that is. Will it hurt me?’

‘Not at all,’ Yadeen called. ‘You’ll control the thread. If it gets to be too much, all you need do is ease down on the thread. You’ll see.’ He looked back at Arram. ‘Are you saying you doubt my judgement?’

Arram shrank in the saddle. He knew that tone. ‘No, sir. Not at all, sir.’

By the time he thought his member and balls had been pounded to paste, he saw a bulk even darker than the rainy night looming ahead. It grew larger, until he realized it was a wall, not a hill. Torches with magicked shields stood in brackets on either side of a broad gate. A guard emerged from a small shed beside the gate to open one of its broad leaves, and the riders passed through.

The moment they did so, Yadeen’s power rose to cover himself and Arram with a glimmering shield. ‘Have to,’ he murmured when he drew Arram’s horse up beside him. ‘This is the gladiators’ encampment. They should remain in their dormitory buildings, but it’s always best to protect yourself. Just in case.’

‘But the guards aren’t warded,’ Arram said as they followed their guides.

‘The fighters know what happens if they assault a guard.’ Yadeen pointed. The area was spotted with shielded torches, offering something of a view. ‘This open ground is where they practise. Barracks are over there.’

Arram nodded. Ozorne was going to be so jealous – whenever the emperor insisted that the princes attend the games, Ozorne made sketches of the gladiators and wrote down all the information he could glean. He would give anything to see this, rain or no. ‘What are those things? The big white rolls, the log stick figures, and the barrels?’ he asked, pointing.

‘The white rolls are practice dummies for wrestling and hand-to-hand combat,’ Yadeen replied. ‘The log figures are for weapons practice. The barrels hold weapons. They must have taken the weapons themselves indoors. I didn’t know you were interested.’

Arram was saved from having to explain that the information was not for him, when more guards opened another gate in a massive wall before them and waved them through. ‘The arena,’ Yadeen told him. To the escort he said, ‘We can manage.’

One of them shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, Master.’ He and his companion rode back to the training yard. The slam of the gate as the soldiers closed it made Arram flinch. They were alone in the vastness of the sleeping arena, under the many rows of seats.

The way before them was a tall, wide corridor lit by baskets full of burning coals. Arram’s jaw dropped. An appalling stench reached his nose: at once he was reminded of what he always thought of as the Day of the Elephant, when he had met one in addition to gladiators. The day he had seen a woman die. He swallowed. Part of the smell was definitely blood, human and animal, darker than the scent of blood in his animal dissections. Another part was sweat, and still another was animal dung. It made him dizzy. He held his sleeve under his nose as he clamped his free hand around his saddle horn.

They were passing cells on both sides, large ones, barred with iron. Both smelled equally of dung and piss, but the straw gave away the knowledge that the right-hand cages were used for animals. Arram wondered why anyone would place humans who would fight the beasts in cells across from them.

The huge gate at the end of the temple was wide open. Near it he saw cells far larger than those secured with iron on both sides of the tunnel. These chambers were closed and barred with wood. ‘What are those?’ Arram enquired.

If the stink bothered Yadeen, the master showed no sign of it. ‘The healing rooms,’ he explained. ‘The wounded go in those.’ He pointed to the doors on the left. ‘That’s if they’ve used up the tables in the workrooms on the right. Sorry – surgeries. Don’t be in such a rush to learn about them. You’ll be chopping and sewing men and women soon enough if Cosmas has his way. Got your hat on?’

Arram touched his head. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Out into it, then. I hope they have a dry place for us.’

Yadeen led the way out onto the wet sands as the horses protested. The rain had begun to ease, but winds swirled around the vast structure, pulling at Arram’s hat. In the distance thunder boomed softly.

‘Odd to hear that!’ Yadeen remarked as he steered them towards the lanterns that gleamed ahead. ‘Thunder, so late in the season. The storm gods are amusing themselves.’

They passed the part of the arena where Arram had once sat with his father and grandfather, the length of rail where a man had once shoved him and Musenda had caught him. Arram’s heart pinched in his chest. Was the big man even still alive? And what of Ua the elephant and her rider? He had put offerings of bits of meat at the school’s shrines to Mithros, when he remembered to, and pieces of fruit at the shrines for Hekaja, the Carthaki goddess of healing, just in case, but he had been too afraid to ask those followers of the best-known gladiators if they knew about Musenda or the elephant riders. He didn’t want to know if they had been sent on to the Dark God’s peaceful realms.

Ahead he could see the imperial seats. They stood in the blaze of mage fires over the wall. A shadowed space filled the corner of the stand where it jutted forwards into the sands. A roofed structure had been built over the entire corner to keep the rain off the area.

Nearby was the tunnel used by the imperials and the favoured nobility to reach their seats high above. Torches burned in brackets on the walls, casting their light over large white chunks of stone on sledges. Each stone had to be as tall as Arram.

Yadeen reined up and drew Arram close to him. ‘Keep my kit beside you,’ he said quietly, his eyes never leaving the stones or the half-naked men who stood between them. ‘No one but you must handle either workbag, understand? You will be more aware of the outer world than me. Only touch my shoulder and I will return to it.’

A burly man in a leather vest and kilt trudged out of the tunnel. ‘Are you coming to work or gossip?’ he roared. He was short and squat, with long, knotted black hair wound into a fat roll at the back of his head. His skin was not quite as dark as Yadeen’s, but his eyes were as dark as the night around him. Hammers and chisels hung from his sagging belt.

‘We are settling upon our own approach, Najau! When we are ready, we will consult you!’ Yadeen bellowed in reply.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.