I stood at the bottom of the Melee hill and stared at the plinth near the peak, willing myself to reach it, to touch it, to win. I’d seen Father sitting in the back row of the wedge of stone benches assigned to the Artisans when I first walked in and hadn’t looked at him since even though I felt his eyes boring into my back. You’re wrong about everything, old man. This is important, and I will be a part of it. You’d have been forced to make the run of last resort already if you weren’t working in the Tower. You reek of cowardice, and I won’t let you infect me with it. I imagined saying it to his face, and the angry thrill made my mouth hurt less.
My lips and tongue had been flayed strings of meat by the time I’d finished the job well after midnight. Sett and Steg had needed to hold me up as I choked out the final words, spraying blood and spittle, the magic of the Words searing and tearing as they boiled up out of me. The pain had made the victory all the sweeter when the imp had reached a taloned finger through the bars and pressed a finger into the palm of my hand. My skin had burned and bubbled where it touched, and I’d passed out. They’d carried me unconscious to the Healer station, and I’d woken up to that same pretty Acolyte I’d seen that first day when I came back from the dead. She was giving me an uncomfortably possessive look, and this time I managed a weak smile in return. It was a promise I might never get to make good on, but Seven damn me if I didn’t go down fighting. I was going to persist, no matter whether the Guardian really knew me or not.
When we’d gone back to my classroom, the rat cage was torn open and the imp was gone. It looked as if several of the iron bars had been severed with a single bite. No matter: the white scar on my palm said our bargain was struck. I wasn’t entirely sure of everything I’d promised, nor precisely what it would do for me in return – a single day’s frenzied reading could only result in the slapdash skeleton of a contract – but the imp hadn’t immediately eaten my face, so I was hoping for the best. Based on what I’d read, the most likely outcome for such a foolish venture – even for a neophyte with far more training than me – was a messy death. I’d been desperate and I’d been lucky, and I could only hope that I still had a shred of good fortune left for today. The contract had been the easy part.
The Summoner Elder who’d made the deal with my father stood between us new students and the base of the hill construct, looking majestic and wise. “Neophytes, you’ve now had your mantles and beginning masteries long enough to dig into them. Never forget that first Melee: you were no better than beasts, bashing each other with sticks and rocks. We expect better from you now. We expect skill, cunning, and strength. We expect to be surprised.” Her eyes flicked to Maphen. “We will all be watching.”
I was conscious of the Hierophant of every other Order sitting in the front rows of the amphitheater, one in each wedge. This might be a test of learning for the others, but it was a test of belonging for me. Somehow I doubted that all the Order heads usually attended the second neophyte Melee. This was my gauntlet. Either I impressed them here, or I’d be a servant and an outcast ‘til the day I died. Don’t think about it. Focus on the top. You can do it.
“The reward for winning this Melee will be three hours of private instruction from the Hierophant of your Order. Aspects guide and refine you,” she intoned, bowing to us. “Begin!”
She vanished, and the Melee hill stood open and empty before us. No sticks or barrels of weapons this time: we were supposed to show off our masteries. Too bad I didn’t have any.
I bolted straight for the nearest ramp section, and Sett, Aldric, and Tamra were right there with me. No finesse, no real strategy, just a spearhead pointed at the top. Tamra took point, as she was the one with the blade. Aldric’s crystal knuckles were glinting in the false sunlight, and on the far end I could see Sett’s arms and hands had gone stiff with toughened skin. I thanked the Aspects they’d been willing to help me. Aldric had grumbled, of course, and Tamra had seemed confused as to why they were bothering with me, but Sett had badgered them into compliance. Somehow the skinny kid from the Crim that let me beat on him during free days had turned into a true friend. I wasn’t sure I deserved it, but I was deeply grateful nonetheless.
The first slope was clear; we’d gotten the jump on the others, and they were scrambling to catch up. I saw a few other alliances among the red tunics, and most of the greens were moving together en masse. There were fewer bodies this time, as the Artisan and Alchemist neophytes weren’t forced to participate. On the one hand, it was fewer hands that could turn against me, on the other, they’d have likely been the easiest to defeat anyway.
One of the Healers scrambled up the slope to my unprotected left, and I lashed out with a foot, hoping to dislodge the dark-haired girl and send her back to the bottom. Face twisted in concentration and anger, she latched onto my ankle and pulled, and my feet slid out from under me. I can’t go down this easily! With a shout and a rising feeling of desperation, I rolled onto my back to face her as she tried to pull herself up my body to strike at me. I saw a glint of metal on her hand and realized she’d procured brass knuckles from somewhere. Perhaps she’d earned enough teeth to buy them from the Artisans. Certainly they were nothing but bare, unaugmented metal, but I still didn’t want to take them on the bridge of my nose. Even worse, wherever her hands landed on my skin, I felt a leaching numbness. She was pulling something from me, and I was pretty sure it was my health.
I reared back one foot and tried to plant it in her face, but she tucked her face into the crook of one arm and my shoe glanced off the back of her head. My heel caught on her shoulder and pushed her back a little, but it wasn’t the winning blow I’d hoped for.
She’s just a Healer. If you put her down quickly the drain will stop, and it’s not like she has any combat capability. She was no stronger or tougher than she’d have been in the Crim, and I’d won every last one of those fights. Focus. Stop expecting to lose and you might just win. A quick push and twist with my hands put me over the top of her as I slid back down the slope face, and as soon as her face was even with mine, I drove my forehead into her nose. Bone crunched and she shrieked. A quick edge of the hand to either side of her neck left her lolling and semi-conscious, but rather than finish her off I scrambled back up to catch my team. Someone else will pick her off. Racking up kills wouldn’t earn me a top rank; staying alive would, and that was most likely to happen if I stuck close to the Warriors that were on my side for the moment.
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I hadn’t caught sight of the Assassin neophyte, but I saw a green-tunicked body flip up into the air and land at an odd angle, which meant that Chorazin the Summoner neophyte was up to his old tricks, using the Word he’d learned in the Threshing to push his way to victory. Presumably he’d learned to speak it more perfectly so it wouldn’t ruin his mouth so badly as the first time. I hoped we’d cross paths before one of us went down. He had a slappable face, and I wanted to be the one to bloody it.
I caught up to the others, and Tamra shot me an exasperated look. Her sword was bloody and she had a cut over her eyebrow. A red tunicked body was rolling back down off to her far side. “What happened to staying in the formation?” she said.
“I got tripped up. A Healer. Taken care of.”
Her terse nod could have been approval or simple acknowledgement. We knew that even if things went exactly as we hoped we’d need to turn on each other in the end. The Melee fights weren’t supposed to build us as a team, they were meant to toughen us up, let us use our skills, and get us used to dying. If I stopped to think about it, I wasn’t at all sure that was an effective way to prepare us for the Everwar, but now wasn’t really the time for philosophical introspection.
We’d reached a flat area that wrapped halfway around the hill to the right. It was a mess of fighting on all sides. Our early lead was gone, and everyone was taking advantage of the good footing to narrow the field.
Oph and Orm, both wearing their Beast kin green, zeroed in on Sett, with Orm grappling him from the front and Oph hitting him in the knees from behind. I tried not to think too hard about the fact that I’d seen Oph in nothing but a loincloth not too many days ago as I hustled in to help. Orm had Sett on the ground and was flailing at his face with both fists, but Sett’s face had gone hard, and all the other boy was doing was bloodying his own hands.
Then a baby monkey hardly bigger than a mouse popped out of the neck of Orm’s tunic, scurried down his arm, and pounced on Sett’s face. Sett snatched it up and squeezed. A tiny simian head popped off and fell away, and Orm shrieked with rage, redoubling his efforts. He tried to put a thumb in Sett’s eye, and that was sensitive enough that he shifted his head away, grunting.
Meanwhile, Orm’s twin Oph had moved over to Aldric and was twisting and turning to avoid his flashing knuckle blades. Occupied as she was, she didn’t see me coming. I jumped and drove both feet into her side right between the ribs and the hip bone. She slammed into the rock face, and Aldric wasted no time stomping on her skull. I heard a crack and she went limp. I wasn’t sure if it had been her neck or her head, but either way, she was done.
Tamra had finished off one of the other Warrior boys and turned, putting her blade through Orm’s neck. Bright red blood spurted onto Sett’s face, but he just wiped it away and gave his friend a grin as she hauled him to his feet. We regrouped and saw a clear path to a rough, vertical rock face where the fighting had cleared. Without having to discuss it, we all moved in that direction.
Sett went first and Tamra was right on his heels. Aldric and I kept watch for them until they’d climbed far enough for us to follow.
“You don’t deserve this, you know,” Aldric said. He was looking in all directions, but I suddenly knew that with Sett otherwise occupied he could turn his crystal knuckles on me and blame it on someone else later.
I tensed, running through my options. Playing it friendly was the best move for now. “I know, and I thank you. You could have killed me already and not have to worry about it.”
“Don’t remind me,” he grunted. “Sett says you’re worth it.”
“If I place then I’ll get my mantle and mastery, and you’ll have another useful friend at your back. I know how to be loyal.”
He spat on the ground. “Yeah, well… you’d better, because you always looked like a rich little dickhead to me. Up you go.”
I shook my head and reached for the closest handhold. Aldric would never be an easy fellow to get along with. But he hadn’t attacked me when he could have, and I meant what I’d said: I’d remember it.
“Ahhhhh, fuck,” he sighed below me.
Looking down, I saw a spike made of shadow jutting from the center of his chest, and he coughed blood. Over his shoulder I saw that dark-haired Assassin girl Celeste grinning nastily. She gave Aldric a mocking peck on the cheek as he slumped to the ground.
“Help!” I called up to Sett and Tamra. When I looked for them, though, I saw they’d crested the ledge above and were out of sight. I was on my own, and Celeste was reaching for my ankle.
Making a snap decision, I threw myself down at her. That way at least I’d have some control over my trajectory and maybe take her to the ground with me. If I could get in close, a fist to the throat would even the odds.
No such luck. She flowed aside with inhuman smoothness, and my feet jarred into the flat platform, rattling my teeth. I pushed into a roll to keep myself from breaking something. I came back to my feet, and she held her empty hands out stiffly at her sides, a hungry look in her dark eyes. A quick glance down showed that spikes of darkness extended from her shadow’s hands. I can’t just watch her hands. How do I fight her shadow?
“I’m gonna drink your blood,” she said with a smile. I backed away, trying to circle around so her shadow fell away instead of toward me. If she has Shadow Control, at least I know she doesn’t have extra speed or any other Assassin masteries yet. It was a small blessing, but I still didn’t know how I could realistically face her on my own.
Then a blast of air bowled us both over and I had to spend a long, scary moment making sure I didn’t fall off the edge to my death. I rolled to a stop only a hand’s width from a five meter drop. Looking around, I spotted Celeste, who had lost her composure entirely. She scrambled toward a shadowed overhang, and as soon as she reached it her shape turned fuzzy and hard to see. Half a second later I’d lost track of her.
Much as I’d have liked to choke her out, I had bigger problems. Only one neophyte had the capability of creating blasts like that, and he was at the top of the list of threats I’d hoped to save until later. Sure enough, Chorazin came around the corner, resplendent in his purple tunic. His hair was thicker and more lush than the last time I’d seen him, and his teeth were straighter. He showed them off to me. “Hello, New Boy. I never got to teach you a lesson for cheating at chop.”
He was too far away to rush. By the looks of things, he’d really gotten the hang of his Iron Tongue mastery: I knew he’d used his Word at least twice, and he didn’t look the slightest bit hurt. There was no way I’d get close enough to make this a fair fight.
Now or never. Chorazin opened his mouth to knock me to my death, but I beat him to the punch. Pushing the tip of my middle finger into the scar on my palm, I hissed out, “Sluzhivat.”
A crazed, high-pitched giggle sounded out of thin air, and then all Sheol broke loose.