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Spellbinding.
“What is that?” Her voice was an awed whisper.
“I don’t know.”
She wanted to know what Old Man Aster thought of their little party trick, but she didn’t want to look away from her partner.
“Do this,” she said softly. With his senses, she knew he’d be able to hear. “Best fucking show they’ve seen in years.”
The chain rattled between them, dangerous as a snake’s hiss. His jaw was a granite vise and his temple throbbed, pulsing that serpent to life.
The roaring beast was gone, but the seething, outraged man remained. He would not bear this humiliation well. Ny
He’d do so by whatever means necessary.
♦ ♦ ♦
Leto swallowed his anger. To be shackled again . . . chained, for the second time in as many days. Treated like an animal rather than a warrior of worth. Every fiber of every muscle protested. What good was a Garnis who was chained to a Tigony? His reflexes and speed would be useless with Ny
He grabbed her shielded arm and dragged her close. “Now who needs to keep up?”
“Not ideal, is it? Think of something. Quickly.” She was deadly serious.
Yes. Dragon be, yes.
The cheers were growing in ferocity. Across the Cage, Weil and Urman circled one another, pacing, as if taunting Leto with their unencumbered legs. Weil used her long lance to spin practice circles—strikes that would turn deadly earnest in a matter of seconds. Urman held two sickles, without a shield. If he got the timing right, the Tigony trickster could use those sickles as electrical conductors.
“I’ll stand in front of you,” Leto said. “We’ll leave as much slack as possible, to let me move. Weil is the least predictable when she rages, but we’ve trained against her. Urman is the one most likely to fry our brains. Watch my back and make sure you fry them first.”
“How do I do that without taking you out, too?”
The bell rang to signal the start of the match.
“Figuring that out is your job.”
Within seconds, Weil was on them. Pendray warriors had the gift of a rage so intense that it eventually earned its own name: berserker. The Nordic and Celtic peoples worshiped that power. Leto thought it the least graceful method of attack. Not that it mattered when Weil charged in. She spun in what looked like wild circles. In truth, they were perfectly timed and with a precise line of attack. She never faltered or tripped, and her lance didn’t dip as she became a living blender.
Leto countered her with his mace and shield. He snatched out a hand. Grabbed the end of her lance. Pain shot up his arm, from wrist to shoulder. That stopped her momentum. He caught her by the neck and tossed her against the far Cage wires.
The crowd’s appreciation added to the adrenaline of a match coming into its own.
The collars reactivated, which reduced them back to hand-fighting. Weil had recovered, but her lance was in two pieces. She improvised with the skill of a long-trained warrior.
Urman whirled his sickles and edged toward Ny
The collars flipped off and on and off again. And the chain binding him to Ny
“Get behind me!” he shouted at Ny
She obeyed. Instantly. Leto smiled tightly.
“No more hand-fighting for you. Keep out of the way of the mace. Keep your shield up. And dredge up some Dragon-damned fireworks.”
With his gift returned to him, Leto concentrated on keeping the two opponents at bay. Not defeating them. Simply keeping them away from Ny
A burst of lightning shot from Urman’s sickles. Leto took the bolt with his shield. Electricity shuddered up his left arm.
“Leto?”
“Numb. Can’t move it.”
Urman attacked again but Leto was able to avoid it. He was born to Clan Garnis. He was a man fast enough to dodge lightning.
Weil shrieked—that wailing sonic attack. Her voice alone was enough to pierce Leto’s sensitive hearing. She’d burst his eardrums before the match was over. He braced for the strike of her lance, but the clay floor was giving way. His boots slipped. He took hit after hit, where the violence shook from his shield into his numb, paralyzed arm. Only the ball joint of his shoulder directed the shield now. Graceless. No precision. Still he held the position, ready to stay there all night in order to fend off Weil.
Heat gathered at his back. At first he thought it was another burst of Urman’s lightning, come to separate more of his nerves from his brain. But Urman was lying on the clay floor. Ny
That heat increased. Popping showers of sparks shimmering around. A waterfall of light.
Ny
“Get down!” she shouted.
Leto’s knee hit the Cage floor. He pulled the shield over his neck and head. Pure instinct. The concussive blast propelled his face into the clay. A scream ripped through the noise of the crowd. He groaned in pain at that unearthly sound—the sound of Ny
You wanted to see us fight. This is how we fight.
Lights on the octagonal posts burst. Only the crackling sizzle of Ny
When Leto lifted his head, he gri
Leto turned to congratulate his partner, only to find her equally felled. Ny
The chain still co
He dropped his weapons, knelt, and looped the slack chain around his forearm, which was slowly regaining sensation. He grabbed Ny
“Can’t.” She coughed and nearly fell. “Can’t walk.”
“Yes, you can,” he said, fierce and low. “I’m not carrying you, neophyte. You have to stand on your own to accept this applause.”
In truth, it was the loudest applause Leto had ever heard.
TWENTY
Ny
Leto held her hand aloft. The crowd bellowed its approval, in shades and waves of noise she couldn’t process.
She held on to his sweaty, tense shoulders as the official unlocked the manacles binding their ankles.
And barely, just barely, she held on to her sanity.
Her only focus was that she had survived. More than that, she had devastated their opponents. The Pendray named Weil limped out of the Cage, while the Townsend man—some Tigony whose name bounced through her head and slipped free—was carted away by what looked to be medics. Ny