The Dragon's Dance was being held in a large, rickety wooden arena surrounded by stadium benches, located in the same outskirts of town where the Paver's hidden entrance to their office had been. At Arden and List's insistence, the three outsiders had come to attend the annual spectacle, and with business at the Maiden slowing down, Kiva had opted to tag along.
List did end up signing up for a fight, but true to her word, it wasn't against the werewolf. Instead, she ended up as one of four walk-ons pitted against the band of captured goblins, who were turned loose on the fighters armed with sharpened sticks and clubs to compliment their own claws and teeth.
Valerie actually felt a moment of sympathy for the little monsters. True, they were child-eating vermin spawned from some otherworldly fiend's worst impulses. But they were up against List.
The hellborn tore through the goblin ranks, moving fast and low as her blades crackled with her red lightning. With every stroke, she cut another down, until by the end she was covered almost to the elbows in goblin blood, and grinning like a demon free from the hells. As the fight's announcer, the same bard woman from the parade, called out their victory, List's fellow fighters opted to keep a healthy distance from her on the way out of the arena.
She rejoined them a few minutes later, hands clean, but clothes still spattered with blood, and a wide grin still on her face.
"Welcome back," Valerie said. "That was—"
"Fucking terrifying," Kiva finished.
"I was going to say impressive," Valerie said. "You easily took twice as many as that guy with the broadsword."
"He wasn't half bad," List agreed, still a little breathless as she sat down. "The curly haired kid shouldn't have been there though. Idiot almost got himself killed."
"Do uh, you want to go get changed?" Kiva asked, tapping her own clothes in a spot where List's were covered in blood.
"Hm?" List glanced down as if noticing it for the first time. "Oh. No worries. I've been working out a little magic trick. Watch this."
List spread out her hands, and red lightning coursed through her clothing and down her entire body in a quick pulse of energy. As the lightning passed through her clothing, the blood soaked into it vanished, as if it had all simply evaporated. In an instant, List's clothes were clean, and a faint stench of copper filled the air.
"Wow," Kiva marveled, while Valerie settled for a light clap of applause.
"Handy right?" List said. "Arden helped me work it out. Same basic trick as running the energy through a weapon, just run through clothes, and only with enough juice to give them a jitter and shake out anything that's not supposed to be there. Actually, speaking of the old man, where is he?"
"He said he had to take care of something, and that he'd be back to watch the rest of the fights when he was done," Valerie said.
"That's it? He didn't say what he was taking care of?"
Valerie shrugged. "I didn't think to ask."
List sighed as she plopped down on the bench next to her friend. "You and I need to have a serious talk about how much of his nonsense you just accept without question."
Valerie shrugged again, though now she felt embarrassed. "I trust his judgment."
"Need I remind you his 'judgement' was how you almost ended up fighting Darshan by yourself?" List said. "Look, I get he's your teacher, but he's not infalli—what in the seven hells is he doing?"
Valerie followed List's stunned expression to see the next fighter taking to the arena. A very familiar figured, dressed in formal black attire, and sporting a tall hat. As the bard introduced Arden to the crowd, Valerie's jaw slackened. Then the bard introduced his opponent, and her jaw all but fell off.
"His adversary is a deadly beast from the darkest forests of Trandore!" the bard shouted. "A monster that walks like a man! A predator that hunts with blade and fang! The White Wolf, Slaughter!"
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Six urks working in tandem stepped through the arena gate opposite the one Arden had entered through, bearing a massive iron cage on a litter. They set it down, and all but one of the urks retreated. At the bard's command, the last urk threw open the cage door, and was immediately torn in half as the werewolf from the parade burst free from its prison.
Arden stood with his hands resting on the head of his cane, watching the werewolf as it rent an urk to pieces. The beast was in fact even larger than it had first looked in its cage, easily reaching ten feet tall. Its form rippled with muscle beneath its white fur, which was quickly staining pink as it tore into its first victim.
No one had rushed to save the urk or subdue the beast, so Arden presumed the casualty had been more or less expected from those who'd brought the beast out, and that the fight was still on.
He wondered about the wisdom of that decision. The arena had a barrier separating the spectators from the action, but it wasn't even as tall as the werewolf. Arden could have vaulted the barrier with the right prayer and a running start. The monster could clear it with ease. Maybe the army or Shadefall peacekeepers had measures in place to prevent that. Maybe they didn't. It wasn't particularly his place to worry either way.
He had come here for a closer look at the werewolf. It was time to get one.
Golden light collected on his fingers as he stretched out a hand and released a lance of divine energy. He didn't expect to kill the beast with the blast, but he had at least expected to hit it. Instead, the monster's head jerked up as Arden was preparing to fire, and it leapt to the side, clearing the shot by inches.
It dodged his next blast as well, crouching low before bounding forward. As it landed, kicking up dirt from the arena floor, Arden didn't bother trying to line up another shot. He flipped his cane in his hands, brandishing it like a mace. With a quick prayer, the golden outline of an actual mace shimmered into being around it.
The werewolf lunged, growling out a single word.
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"Slaughter!"
So that was where it got its name.
Arden struck Slaughter across the jaw with his cane, his prayer amplifying the force of the blow and producing an explosion of light on impact that sent the werewolf careening off course. It collided with the arena's wooden barrier, cracking several of the boards as a wave of golden light washed over the crowd.
Slaughter was on his feet and charging again in an instant, but this time, just before it came within striking distance, it veered hard to one side before lunging back in, catching Arden at a surprise angle.
Arden managed to bat Slaughter's claws aside, but the werewolf's maneuver had put him off balance, and he couldn't put nearly as much force behind the blow. Slaughter advanced even as his first attack was parried, forcing Arden onto the defensive.
Years of training took hold as Arden worked to keep his every movement deliberate and controlled. More often than not, sloppiness and desperation went hand in hand with defeat, so he fought meticulously, choosing his moments carefully and striking with swift precision. The butt of his cane danced in time with his footwork, jabbing the werewolf in sensitive spots or cracking it across the face and nose.
He'd long since traded his weapon enhancement for a divine shield, which limited the pain he could put behind his strikes, but that decision also saved his life more than once as Slaughter's claws and fangs raked after him. He'd probably only bruised the werewolf so far. But Slaughter had not put so much as a scratch on him.
All of that was just to take back control of the fight, and create an opening. Once he had one, he slipped around Slaughter while he was mid-swipe, and delivered a blast of divine energy straight to the back of Slaughter's knee.
The blast brought the werewolf to one knee, and Arden wasted no time. Once again summoning the golden image of a mace around his cane, he swung hard into the back of Slaughter's head, driving him straight into the ground.
He didn't give the werewolf time to breathe. With a prayer for strength, Arden dropped down on top of Slaughter, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.
"Time to go to sleep," Arden ordered, and spoke another prayer to drain Slaughter's stamina.
For a moment, it worked perfectly. The werewolf's wild thrashing underneath Arden slowed, became weaker. His growls quieted. His body stilled.
Arden could feel Slaughter's mind as he drained him. Feel the chaotic storm of rage and bloodlust roiling within him. But just as the drain began to quiet that storm, Slaughter's whole body became tense, and with one movement he threw himself backward, forcing Arden to get off of him or else be crushed under the werewolf's bulk.
Slaughter rolled back onto his feet, but this time, he did not attack. His head swiveled all around, as if noticing the rest of the arena for the first time. Arden stood back, wary. There was real intelligence behind the werewolf's eyes now.
"Slaughtered . . . them . . . all." The wolf's voice came out like a snarling, gravely bass, but it was completely intelligible. It blinked, surprised by its own words, and then its burning eyes locked onto Arden. "What . . . did you do?"
Arden raised an eyebrow, but did not lower his guard. His eyes fixed on the badge resting on the shoulder strap of Slaughter's armor. It was the best look he'd gotten of it so far, and now, this close, there was no denying what he saw. The badge was embossed with the symbol of an eye with a spiral iris.
The symbol of the Olwin Monster Hunter Society. Also known as the department of the University of Olwin to which Arden belonged.
"You speak now?" Arden asked.
"Thoughts . . . calm now," the werewolf grumbled. "You . . . help?"
"It would seem so. Though admittedly, it wasn't my intention."
The werewolf gave a growl that might have been an acknowledgment of understanding. He looked around the arena again. "Don't like . . . cage."
The werewolf flexed its clawed fingers one by one, limbering up, and it struck Arden that what he'd been fighting up until this point had been a half-mad monster, driven by killer instinct. Now he was standing in front of something far more aware, and far more able to understand the injustice of its situation.
The barrier surrounding the arena had never felt smaller.
"If you would like to surrender, I can see about negotiating your release," Arden offered.
The wolf bared its fangs. "No . . . surrender."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
Slaughter stalked to the urk he had killed at the start of the fight, and retrieved the corpse's fallen greatsword. He hefted onto his shoulder, his own bulk dwarfing the weapon and letting him easily wield it with one hand.
Arden answered by once again shrouding his cane in divine power.
The fighters squared off for a one last moment of shared understanding. Slaughter intended to carve a path out of this arena, and take bloody revenge for his capture and imprisonment, as well as for being turned into a spectacle. As a professional monster hunter, and Slaughter's official opponent in the Dragon's Dance, Arden simply could not let him do that.
They charged.
Arden's empowered cane met Slaughter's stolen greatsword, and the clang that followed was loud enough to be felt by the people in front row of the stands. Arden's guard was thrown wide open, and he had to summon a shield to block Slaughter's second strike.
The shield held up under the blow, but Arden's whole body rang like a bell from the impact. Slaughter didn't let up, raining blows down on the shield again and again until cracks began to form in the construct.
Rather than try to hold up under the onslaught, Arden shouted a prayer to transfer the energy of his shield into a disarming blast. The shield's energy swirled outward, sweeping over Slaughter's weapon and slicing the blade clean from the hilt on Slaughter's next swing.
Slaughter didn't miss a beat, ditching the now bladeless hilt and immediately pouncing. Arden's first thought was to marvel at the speed with which Slaughter reacted and adapted to the changing circumstances of the fight.
His second thought was that Slaughter had very sharp teeth.
With his divine shield in the wrong spot to protect him anyway, he dismissed it, instead calling up divine armor to shield his entire body, starting with his head as Slaughter's jaws clamped down. Teeth and claws engulfed Arden as he was pinned to the ground, but the armor held.
All thought of strategy and control left Arden's mind, and he put every ounce of devotion and will he had into detonating his armor in a blast of force. Slaughter was flung off of Arden and straight into the air, where he hung completely helpless for the split second before gravity overtook his momentum.
Arden fired a divine blast straight up with both hands, engulfing Slaughter in twin beams of golden light.
The scholar rolled to the side as soon as he completed the blast, and Slaughter's smoking form crashed to the ground where he had been only a moment before.
Arden staggered up and onto his feet as quickly as he could, expecting Slaughter to be on him in an instant.
The werewolf did not move.
He was still alive. His back was rising and falling with every ragged breath he drew, but the monster was in no condition to fight. Burns marred much of his body, and his leather armor pieces were blackened and cracked. One of his ankles seemed bent at a bad angle from his fall.
Arden took the moment to catch his breath, smooth out his attire, and scoop his hat up off the ground. He shook it once to clear it of dirt, and placed it back atop his head with a firm and deliberate confidence. Gripping his pendant tight, Arden prayed for as much strength as Saint Hedwig could give him without burning him up from the inside out.
"You and I," Arden told Slaughter as he raised his hand high, "need to have a conversation."
With an open-palmed slap, Arden drove Slaughter's face into the ground hard enough to make a crater in the surrounding dirt.
Only then, once the werewolf was still, did Arden register that the arena crowd was absolutely losing its mind with shouts and cheers.
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In the stands, Kiva and List stared slack jawed at Arden, who stood seemingly unbothered as urks moved in to drag the unconscious werewolf out of the arena.
"Spirits," List breathed. "Where the fuck has he been hiding all of that?"
"Dr. Siren doesn't like drawing on Saint Hedwig's power more than he has to, and he prefers not to solve fights himself when he can use them to train us," Valerie said.
"About that," List said. "What kind of saint is Hedwig, exactly?"
It occurred to Valerie that List, an amnesiac with no real knowledge of the world outside Xykesh, might not even know the significance of the question she was asking.
"The Saint of War," Valerie answered.