I was holding my breath for no good reason. The other Devout all sprang into action at the sound of the gong, but Zoealia stood at perfect ease at the base of the hill construct, looking up at the peak as if considering what path she’d take to the top. Move, I urged her silently. I might not be a Summoner just yet – or perhaps not at all, depending on how my time with the Beast Kin and the Warriors went – but for now, she was the one I knew, so she was the one I was rooting for. At the very least, I didn’t want to watch her get squashed in the first few seconds. Also, I’d bet four teeth on her with one of the Healer Neophytes.
“Relax,” Brond said, nudging me. “The Melee Hall is one of the school’s heal zones, just like the Thresher was. If she goes down, she’ll be out of the contest, but she’ll pop right back up and watch with the rest of us.”
I blanched as I considered the implications of his words. “Wait, you don’t automatically heal anywhere on the school levels?” I was still reveling in the relief that Lysander’s glowing cakes had brought; a single bite had not just wiped away the exhaustion of a whole night’s chop marathon but also the burns on my throat and mouth. Obviously healing didn’t happen spontaneously everywhere, or else the fluffy, light squares of pure delight would have been unnecessary – I just hadn’t thought it through.
He shook his shaggy curls ruefully. “Afraid not. The Prophet is the most powerful Healer the school’s seen in fifty years or more, but even she doesn’t have the power to blanket the whole place in healing. Only the Melee Hall, the Training Grounds up on our top floor, and for some reason the Mess Hall are automatic. Well, and the Thresher room while the test is going on, but everywhere else? Watch your step, know your way to the Healer stations, and have a couple of friends you’ve paid a few teeth in advance that can haul your ass there for you if you’re missing your legs or you’ve bled out. If you’re dead for more than an hour, they can’t bring you back.”
It was a sobering thought, and it brought back some of the fear of death. I’d been acting like my death the day before had been nothing but an inconvenience: scary, yes, and troubling in a way that I wasn’t quite ready to dig into, but something to shake off and forget despite all that. Not so, apparently. Zoaelia’s words about losing Demon Pathers to bad contracts came back to me. The Tower was a place with a thousand ways to die, and if I wasn’t careful, that’d be the end of it. I had far too much to learn and master to allow myself to die for good.
In front of us, the Beast Kin Devout, Risahned, was charging up the winding, uneven path toward the top of the hill construct. In just the few moments we’d been conversing, she’d already covered at least five meters of the fifty-meter height, and her silvery snow leopard loped easily in front of her, its claws somehow finding easy purchase on the slick-looking hewn stone planes. Risahned glanced back over her shoulder for a second, and I saw she looked a fair bit like her cat kin, with silver-white tufted cat ears poking up beside her pale green braid, a broad, flat nose that was more feline than human, and vertical-slitted eyes that glowed yellow. She even had faint spots, just like the snow leopard, that dotted her hairline and neck. She also had claws of her own, and she put them to good use as she scrambled up the slope, one hand on her recurved bow as the other helped her climb.
Aphos, the Warrior Devout, was taking a more direct route upward, leaping upward in huge bounds of nearly two meters that entirely ignored the angles and planes of the strange mountain. His long red hair streamed behind him, and that massive, thick sword was strapped to his back without a true scabbard. I could see that their paths would intersect another ten meters up the hill, and I vibrated inside as I waited to see them come to grips. A battle between them could be nothing short of epic. I wasn’t even sure which I hoped would prevail; I wanted to be both of them with an intensity that was nearly painful.
The Assassin Devout hadn’t yet started up the hill. He’d immediately ducked behind a low outcropping at the base, putting himself out of the others’ sight, and he was rummaging in a sack he had looped around one wrist with a focus and feverishness that ignored all else. He was dressed all in black and had a mask and head covering obscuring everything but his eyes.
“What’s he doing?” I asked Brond.
The big man rolled his eyes. “Looking for the right juice, probably.”
“Juice?” I couldn’t have heard that right.
“Didn’t you see him bartering with Dimphae, the Alchemist Devout? Those shifty bastards can’t win a Melee without the right potions. That one there is the worst. I swear he cheats somehow; he’s always got just the right potion at the right moment.” Brond rubbed absentmindedly at a shiny scar that ran from wrist to elbow on his left arm. “Darkspawn whoreson.”
I heard some real venom in his tone, a marked departure from his usual friendly affability. “What’s his name? I didn’t hear anyone say.”
Brond snorted. “He says he won’t allow anyone the power his name would bring. He makes everyone call him Ender. Stupidest shit I ever heard. There’s a Healer that said she heard from someone that he went by Wallace in the Crim, but nobody from his year remembers seeing him there, so there’s nothing but rumor. Forget him. No, don’t forget him – just stay out of his way and don’t talk to him.” He spat onto the floor, his lip curled in a sneer.
I’d heard Father say there was no love lost between the Summoners and Assassins, and I was beginning to see what he meant. Down below, Ender had pulled a vial of sparkling violet liquid from the bag and torn the cork from its mouth, downing it in a single gulp. Zoaelia, meanwhile, still stood right where she had since the start, looking for all the world as if she intended to watch the others climb and forfeit the match. She won’t, will she? I don’t want to lose those teeth. It looked as if she were muttering to herself as she looked up the hill.
I had my answer mere heartbeats later when a loud CRACK split the air and a dense cloud no more than three meters on a side sprang into existence on the side of the arena furthest from Zoaelia and closest to Ender, or whatever his name was. Shards of ice spat from its gray underside, each as long as a sword and just as sharp. The freezing missiles rained down right where the Assassin was crouched, and I flinched, expecting to see him speared through and crushed under the weight of all that ice.
“See? That’s our girl,” Brond murmured. “Elementalist extraordinaire.”
Zoaelia had told me she’d focused on the Elemental path, and now I saw her reasoning. In mere seconds she’d been able to muster a once-in-a-century icestorm out of dry air, inside a building – and she was only a Devout. What would a Deacon or Elder be capable of? Instead of the gore and death I’d expected, though, the black-clad boy this white storm of power was falling on suddenly shimmered in waves of heat as if I were looking at him across a desert, his exposed face and fingertips glowing cherry red. I could feel the warmth from where I sat as if I were sitting near a campfire. The spears of ice lost cohesion in the intense heat and pelted him with slush and water, throwing up thick clouds of steam that obscured him entirely.
“Saint sucker,” Densin swore from where she sat behind me. “That slippery show-off.”
Zoaelia appeared to agree with that assessment, because she broke for the hill and started picking her way upward, her beautiful face stormy. The ice storm vanished, and as she climbed, thick sheets of ice formed themselves around her back, chest, and neck like plate armor. She’d taken her shot at a rival and missed, and now she wanted to get to the top. When the clouds of steam dissipated, Ender the Assassin was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’d he go?” I asked Brond.
He sucked at his teeth and shook his head. “That’s the thing with those Sneaker shits: you never really know.”
Aphos cleared an outcropping that stood higher than his own head, flipping over as he leapt and planting a hand on the lip for that extra little boost so he could land back on his feet, where he found himself face-to-face with a very large, very riled snow leopard. It launched itself into his face and he fell on his back, holding its snapping jaws away from his neck with corded arms. Risahned leapt over them as they thrashed, laughing.
“Give him a kiss for me, Haig!” she called to her snow leopard as she headed up the path. She turned a corner and found herself confronted with a five-meter sheer face before the crest of the hill. Leaping, she caught hold of a fissure with her claws and began hauling herself up the rock face.
Aphos, meanwhile, had gotten his legs coiled up in the cat’s belly, and he heaved, throwing the yowling beast with incredible force against the nearby rocks. It screamed in anger and bounced to its feet, where it faced Aphos, who had gotten up, slinging away blood from a cut on his brow. I tensed, willing him to reach for that incredible sword. Instead, he leapt barehanded on the beast with a battle cry.
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“He could have cut its head off,” I protested. “What’s he doing?”
Galen watched the Warrior Devout with what looked like envy. “Golden Boy likes using his hands.”
“Besides,” Densin said, “Look at the reach on that thing. It’s nearly a meter long. If he swings and misses, he’ll get his throat torn out for him.”
Aphos had somehow gotten the great cat in a rear chokehold, his legs wrapped around its rear hips and tangled in its feet to keep it from getting up and away. The snow leopard hissed and growled as his massive arms tightened around its neck.
“Hey, Ris,” he boomed, a commander’s voice filling the whole hall, “You’ll have to come take that kiss yourself.” With that, he gave a mighty twist and jerk with his whole body, and a wet, sickly crunch punctuated his words. The cat went limp in his grasp, its head lolling impossibly far to one side. He’d broken its neck. Awed oohs rose from the spectators – myself included – but outraged mutters came from the Beast Kin seats.
“That’ll cost him,” Brond said.
Risahned proved it a bare second later, throwing herself at Aphos from the precipice overhead with a scream of pure rage. She’d reached the top, but she was so incensed by the death of her beast that it seemed she couldn’t stop herself. The Warrior Devout had barely freed himself from the weight of the dead snow leopard when she barreled into him from above, knocking him to the stone. There was a flurry of movement between them too fast to follow, and Risahned was keening the whole time, her claws a razor blur. Aphos tucked into himself, but it was no use – she peeled away his breastplate and tore into him, sending gouts of blood in all directions as she tore into him.
The Beast Kin cheered and a double handful of others groaned. They must have bet on him. Risahned was painting the hill with Aphos’s blood and he was barely twitching. She held up something red and glistening, and I realized she was holding his liver. She took a bite, smearing her face with bright red. It was sickening, but I couldn’t look away.
“She’s wasting time,” Brond said out of the side of his mouth. “Bad move.”
Once again, Brond had it pegged. As the Beast Kin Devout ravaged Aphos, a midnight gap in reality no bigger than a pumpkin opened in the air just over her shoulder, and a black-clad arm snaked out of the hole holding a wicked glass knife. It flicked gently around her and was gone, withdrawing into its hole and winking out of existence before I could even exclaim over it. I wasn’t sure what had happened until a curtain of blood washed down Risahned’s neck. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear. She clutched at it and fell next to the gory mess of Aphos’s innards.
“Ahhh, go stick your dick in a geode, Ender,” Galen muttered. For once, I was inclined to agree with him.
“Isn’t that cheating?” I asked Brond.
He gave me a knowing smile. “Best remove that word from your vocabulary, New Boy. There’s no cheating in the War Above – there’s only winning and not winning. Whatever keeps you alive is fair play.”
There was movement above the kill zone, and I jumped to my feet with a yell. Zoaelia had climbed unnoticed to the summit and placed her hand on the marble plinth that stood at its apex. The Summoners around me started cheering too.
“She’s won!” I crowed. I’d make twice as many teeth as I’d wagered from that skinny Healer boy.
“Not yet,” Brond warned. “Look.”
Twin runnels of dripping fire descended from either side of the short marble pillar and crept their way down narrow grooves in the stone across the top of the mountain construct.
“She has to hold the position until the flames reach the bottom of the hill,” he explained. “That’s when the winner is declared. If she can hold off the Sneaker bastard, she’s got it made.”
Another rift in reality opened, and a glass vial twinkled in the false sunlight as it arced through the air to land at Zoaelia’s feet. It shattered with a hiss, and great plumes of green smoke billowed up. I heard her cough.
“Acid smoke,” I heard Densin say. “Nasty.”
“How’s he doing this?” I asked.
Galen looked at me sourly from Brond’s other side, but he still answered, his voice teacherly and grating. “He’s got a pocket dimension. Some of the Sneakers do that. It’s a little closet outside of reality that he can manipulate and move around. The higher-ups like him get it big enough so they can fit inside.”
I marveled at the idea. To simply be able to disappear into nothing and then reappear where you wished? I suddenly regretted that the Assassin Elder had withdrawn his offer to join the Order. It was an incredible power.
A gust of wind swept the hilltop, blowing the green smoke up and away from Zoaelia. Her face was red as if she’d been dunked in boiling water and she’d obviously been holding her breath. She can command the wind without even speaking, I realized. She was impressive. Her hand was still on the marble plinth, and the twin lines of fire were halfway down the hill. She was going to win. Gesturing with her free hand, she conjured a globe of water around herself to shield from any further sneak attacks.
“Risky,” Brond said. “No reason he can’t just open a portal inside that.”
Sure enough, the spinning globe fell into puddles on all sides and Zoaelia dashed out, screaming as she beat at her clothes and face. She was covered in long, blue centipedes and was bleeding heavily from a dozen spots where circular chunks of flesh were missing. Another arm-sized hole appeared right over the victor’s plinth, and Ender’s hand took the spot that the Summoner had vacated, the lines of fire still inching toward the bottom of the hill.
“Come on,” I heard Chorazin whisper behind me. “Shake it off.”
She was trying, plucking the sinuous creatures off herself and throwing them away. She cast out a hand, sending a cloud of frost toward Ender’s exposed hand. He quickly withdrew it, and she stumbled back toward the plinth. But then another centipede crawled up from beneath her robe and tore a hole in her neck right at the jugular. Blood gouted nearly two meters, showering off the side of the cliff, and she pitched to one side, falling with her face right in the stream of molten fire. The Summoners around me groaned and swore. Zoaelia was down.
The Assassin, meanwhile, had put his other hand through his dimensional hole and had it firmly pressed to the victor’s plinth. The twin lines of flame had almost reached ground level.
“Well, that’s it,” Brond sighed. “The Assassins take it.”
“No, wait!” Densin said. “Look!”
Aphos had just hauled himself onto the summit, a trail of blood as broad as his body showing his path up the sheer cliffside. He’d inched his way up somehow while we were all distracted by Zoaelia and the Assassin.
“I thought you were out once you died,” I said.
“You are,” Brond said, his voice awed. “He hasn’t died yet.”
Aphos had one arm wrapped around his stomach, and glistening loops of guts draped over it, dripping blood and who knew what else as he muscled his way through unspeakable pain and approaching death to keep going.
“If Ender has any more tricks left, he’s done for,” Galen said.
Apparently, though, the Assassin Devout had exhausted his potions and bags of biting creatures, because even as Ender kept his hand on the pillar, another small hole opened beside Aphos, a daggered hand darting out to slip between his ribs once, twice, three times.
The Warrior didn’t even seem to notice. He let go of his own guts and they hung to his knees. With a sound that was half roar, half death-groan, he pulled the massive silver sword from his back and jammed it through the dimensional hole past the protruding arm. With a sound like a thunderclap, the blade exploded in all directions. Aphos himself took half a dozen shredding wounds, and glittering bits of blade sparkled in all directions as the metal flew apart with incredible force.
I ducked instinctively and I heard tiny, whistling noises all around. One student in the Beast Kin seats screamed, holding a hand over what had been her left eye just a moment before. There were screams and curses and cheers.
“Everyone okay?” Brond said. “Even the spectators seats aren’t necessarily safe in here.”
All that destruction had come from just a hand’s length of blade exposed to our world; the rest had gone into Ender’s pocket dimension. His two hand-holes had winked out as soon as the blade exploded, severing both his hands, and now a door-sized portal slid open from bottom to top, and a red ruin of a body fell out, studded with a thousand shards of blade. Even as he fell, dead as a doornail, those thousand pieces and all the others scattered about shivered and reformed back onto the hilt Aphos still held.
“That’s a hell of a sword,” I whispered.
He held it high and slapped his other hand onto the victor’s plinth just as the lines of flame reached the floor. The Warrior spectators erupted in cheers, and I couldn’t help but join them. I hated watching Zoaelia lose and I didn’t like losing my bet, but he’d been incredible. That’s what I want to be. Unkillable. Unshakable. Victorious. He was glorious.
“Aphos the Warrior takes the match,” the gaunt Healer elder cried from one side in his tortured voice. “Well done.”
As I watched, Aphos was suffused with a yellow glow like the sun, and his intestines slithered back into place, his gut stitching itself shut. Zoaelia sat up a few meters away, rubbing her face and shaking her head ruefully. Ender and Risahned were getting up too, neither of them looking terribly pleased. Aphos, though, glowed brighter and brighter.
“Oh!” Densin said. “He’s advancing. The match must have put him over the top.”
A concussive blast radiated out from him, sweeping past us in a sweet-smelling wave. Aphos glowed brighter than he had before, and he looked as if he’d maybe grown a handful of centimeters.
“Golden Boy hits upper Devout,” Brond said, sounding rueful. “He’ll be that much more insufferable, not to mention harder to beat.”
“Devout, clear the field,” grated the Healer elder. “Neophytes, you have seen what can be done with study, skill, and determination. Now you will show us what you are capable of. Rise and take your place at the foot of the hill.”
I swallowed hard, and Brond clapped me encouragingly on the back. I was about to take the field with twenty-some-odd other Neophytes, and I was the only one with no mantle and no Mastery.
I’m going to die. Knowing that I’d come back hardly made it better. Still, this was what I was here for, and I was going to do my best. Mustering my courage, I got to my feet and walked forward.