Princess Jade didn’t go to the horde. The horde came to her.

Despite the anger in her heart and the sword in her hand she couldn’t help but tremble as the thunder of their steeds shook the waters that surrounded Stormwater.

The earth scorched behind them and from across the lake she could hear the cries and screams as they slit the throats of the villagers they’d dragged there.

The men were saying that the lake’s water was turning red, but she wasn’t going to think about that…

A hand touched her shoulder, she reached for it and ran her palm along the wrinkles and veins of her father’s skin.

‘Come Jade,’ he said, ‘the warriors are at their stations, the liquid fire is in its barrels, and the horde is holding off for the moment. Let’s walk.’

Their footsteps led them to the merchant strip - a long curving row of market stalls between the battlements and the town.

The smell of roasted shallots and onions mixed with burning sage and the sound of a luteist plucking the tune of Tinker Tanker Talks The Town.

‘The Rawae festival is soon approaching.’ her father said, ‘it’s funny, certain death awaits us but the people keep asking me to stop by and share in their Rawae meals and give blessings for the season ahead.’

‘Sometimes a little hope means a lot.’

She stopped beside a small stall where the aroma of vanilla, almond and some foreign spice mixed. A small, handpainted sign read…

MERSHAN

Fortune cookies

Dumplings

Truth

Her father raised an eyebrow as she fished a single copper coin from her jacket, ‘You always told me you don’t believe in fortunes.’

‘That’s true, but I do believe in how good those cookies smell.’

He laughed as she picked one from the vendor’s basket and dropped her coin on his desk.

She cracked open the fortune cookie, and glanced inside of it. The words… Death will come …leapt out at her. She crushed the piece of paper in her hand and shoved it into her pocket.

‘What does it say?’ her father asked.

She looked back at Mershan’s stall, but the stall and the figure that ran it were gone.

Jade gazed out at the faces of the people around her, little boys fighting with sticks, a baby chewing on the leg of a deep-fried rat while the kid’s Mum hugged a soldier goodbye. Her stomach dropped. She looked at her father, hair gone white, face wrinkled, eyes missing her already.

‘All it says is buy one, get one free.’

Her father laughed and she tried her best to soak up that happy sound, ‘Even in times of chaos the crafty merchants find a way to get ahead.’

He took her arm and they strolled down the street, trying not to match their footsteps to the drumbeats that came from beyond the lake.

****

SPARROW

Kolja’s arms formed themselves into cannons that blasted a wave of Spaghetti towards Sparrow. The first one caught the side of Sparrow’s shoulder and took a chunk of stoneskin from his bones.

Sparrow winced and threw himself sideways to boos from the crowd above.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

‘That’s why I say never bet on your friends,’ Plankbeard roared into Piggy’s ear from the sidelines.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Piggy said, ‘but I would never, ever bet against Sparrow.’

The roof of Sparrow’s mouth was dry. It almost felt like there were cracks starting to open up on it. He dug his feet into the sand, felt it sift between his toes, and used it as a base to throw himself towards the God Kolja.

The god seemed smaller up close and with stoneskin wrapped around Sparrow’s arms he was able to grab and snap the pieces of pasta that made up Kolja’s body.

He formed his fist into a hammer and sent it straight down the middle of Kolja splitting the god into thousands of pieces of pasta that were sent hurtling across the stadium.

Sparrow took a few deep breaths and looked around. Pieces of pasta were attached to the walls on every side of him. They were starting to vibrate. He knew what was coming, but there was nowhere to shelter from the storm.

Thousands of pieces of pasta descended upon Sparrow tearing stone flesh from his limbs. Everything hurt as the tiny skewers of spaghetti drilled deeper and deeper into his body until his legs, and then his arms gave way beneath him.

His head blurred and blackened and he found his life starting to flash before him. The cold day he was born, the death of his parents, snowflakes settling on the tip of Sparrow’s nose as their bodies were lowered into the ground. His grandma’s hugs. The warmth of her fire as she stirred a bowl of rice noodles, ‘And that is why you don’t leave the noodles in the pot too long young grasshopper they get soggy, here, try these. They are much better.’

And he could taste those noodles, really taste them, the salt of the broth seemed to mix with the salty blood that coated his mouth.

That’s it. The noodles.

Sparrow’s weak knee buckled as he stood, ripping the pasta spikes from his pressure points. He ran towards the central mass of the spaghetti and hurled himself and Kolja into the arena lake.

Underneath the water the spaghetti wrapped around his legs, trying to drag him down into the depths.

Stoneskin wrapped around Sparrow’s skin and his lungs and his eyes while heat blossomed from his hands and dissipated into the water around him.

Kolja went from his pressure points again, targeting the floppy skin on the back of his knee, the joints of his neck and spine.

But beneath the water they moved more slowly and even as they twisted Sparrow’s limbs the water was starting to boil.

The heat didn’t bother Sparrow. He’d sunk to the bottom with his fist still closed around Kolja’s central mass. The Spaghetti god didn’t seem to mind either. His noodles wrapped around Sparrow’s arm, around his neck, and then stabbed at his nose.

But the noodles were getting softer. While blood streamed from his nose, the straws of pasta were floppier and unable to drill through into his skin.

The god seemed to realise this too late. His floppy noodles started to rise, but Sparrow rose quicker.

Sparrow burst from the water to shouts of surprise from the stadium.

‘He cheats!’ Plankbeard screamed, ‘he cheats!’

Water dripped down the soles of Sparrow's feet as he rose above the pond and cupped his hands towards the surface.

A beam of flame scorched from his cupped hands to the lake causing it to bubble and boil even faster. As floppy spaghetti rose from the depths the individual strands blackened under Sparrow’s flame, then disintegrated into charcoal. Strands tried to weave together but with no rigidity, they flopped apart.

Within minutes the surface of the lake was black and frothy with the remnants of the God Kolja. No spaghetti rose from its surface. Piggy was twenty sickles richer and explaining to the furious Plank-beard why he would ‘never, ever bet against Sparrow.’

And Sparrow was on his hands and knees trying to spit the metallic taste of blood from his mouth.

Sparrow stood. His legs shook. His feet twisted into roots and he tried to suck up every nutrient the stadium had to offer. Purple light spread across the chunks of his flesh missing from his back and arms and legs.

The man in the platinum armour ran over to him, throwing his hands in the air.

‘THAT was freaking saucy mate. Y-Y-Y-You bloody decimated him. He won’t be doing that again.’

The guard’s jaw was grinding against his top teeth as he gave the biggest smile of his life.

‘I can call out anyone I like now, right?’ Sparrow said, ‘any god I want to fight, I can fight.’

‘You sure bloody can!’ the guard yelped, ‘but you’re still recovering, w-w–why don’t you take a moment to-’

‘I want to fight the God-Scientest.’

The guard shivered, ‘T-T-The God-Scientest?’

Around the arena faces turned to each other, gods whispered and pointed at him, Is he mad?! He wants to face the God-Scientest. // Suicidal more likely! // I can’t remember the last time the God-Scientest fought. // I can’t remember the last time someone was stupid enough to challenge him!

A vicious grey cloud appeared above the stadium. Lightening shook the air and wind whipped the scraps of cloth that still clung to Sparrow. Leaning against the wind and digging the roots of his feet further into the ground for stability Sparrow peered up.

‘YOU WISH TO FIGHT ME?’ A voice boomed from above him.

‘I do.’ Sparrow shouted into the darkness.

‘YOU FOOL.’

Thunder rippled out from the clouds and a bolt of lightning rippled from the sky to the ground. At the end of the bolt stood the God-Scientest, a beaker in one hand and a thermometer in the other.