The ‘stadium’ was enormous. It was the single largest building Kaz had ever seen, though he suspected if he ever saw the castle up close, it would be just as big. Stretching high into the sky, it blocked the sun with its bulk, and the sound of many people came from within.
Kaz halted just outside the dense mass of humans flowing into the broad archways that led into the depths of the building, and to his credit, Raff noticed almost immediately, shoving his way backwards to reach Kaz’s side.
“What’s wrong, Blue? You’re awful pale,” he asked, brow furrowed in concern.
“I thought you said his name was Kaz?” Someone else responded, and both males turned to look at the trio of females who were looking back with varying levels of annoyance. Bella was scowling, while Harper’s face wore only a small frown. The speaker, Eve, grinned almost as broadly as Raff usually did, though even she looked like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or punch them.
Raff sighed, ruffling his hair. “I did. Because it is. It’s just…. Blue is my nickname for him. You can’t have it.” He scowled at Eve, who decided which way she was going to go and laughed at him.
“What d’you think, Kaz?” she asked, arching a brow in his direction. “Can I call you Blue?”
Kaz sighed. He wasn’t sure what was going on between the two humans, but he certainly didn’t want to be in the middle of it. Besides, Li was practically radiating hostility as she mantled and hissed at the tall female.
Clapping his hand over Li’s mouth, Kaz gave a weak smile. “I’d prefer Kaz,” he said firmly. Eve’s face fell slightly at his words, but that was better than having Li use teeth wyverns weren’t supposed to have to bite her.
“Let’s just go,” Bella growled, and once again, Kaz thought she would have made an excellent kobold. She was a little taller than he was in his natural shape, and blocky rather than lithe, but kobolds came in all shapes, and her voice was certainly right.
“The lists have been formed,” Harper agreed in a voice that was a little higher than Kaz identified as male human, but unusually low for a female. “We were only able to join because we had your papers. We told them you were retrieving your weapons from the shop after they were damaged in the incursion.”
Raff coughed awkwardly. “Sorry ‘bout that. You were kinda right, though. I needed some new leathers, and Bl- Uh, Kaz here needed a knife.”
“Come on, then,” Eve said, motioning for them to follow. She cut sharply to the left, avoiding the majority of the crowd, to Kaz’s great relief. There were smaller archways set to the side of the larger ones, and the females walked through one of them without hesitation. Only Eve waved cheerfully to the male standing nearby, wary eyes scanning the crowd. He nodded back, though Kaz could feel his eyes on their backs as they entered the shadowed halls.
“I’ve fought in the tournament a few times before. Never got far,” Eve admitted without embarrassment. “I do all right in the individual bouts, but in groups there’s always someone who can get to me while I’m distracted.”
“It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen this year,” Bella said. Glaring up at Kaz and Raff, she added, “Just stay out of our way, and we’ll be fine.” She opened a door with a large wooden plaque hanging from it. The plaque was carved with a neat rune Kaz recognized as the number eight. It clattered loudly as they entered, drawing the eyes of the people already waiting there.
There were perhaps fifty people crammed into the room, and since most of them were large, even for humans, and had on armor much like Raff usually wore, there was almost no space to maneuver. They stood in groups of four or five, and all studied the new quintet, gazes lingering on Raff and the ‘wyvern’ in Kaz’s arms before dismissing the rest of them.
Bella glared back, and if she had been a kobold, her fur would be up and lip curled. That seemed to be how she lived her life, though, and Kaz thought it must be exhausting. Even she didn’t quite dare to shove her way through these looming figures, and led the way to a small open area to one side.
“Your papers say you’re signed up for solo axe,” she said to Raff as soon as they came to a stop. “You’d better not get hurt or wear yourself out so you can’t fight in our battles. Harper can heal scrapes and scratches, but anything more than that, and you’re going to have to pony up for the healer yourself. I won’t be disqualified because you took on more than you could handle.”
Raff glanced at Kaz, but to his relief, didn’t mention that the kobold could do some healing as well. Hopefully, no one would need his help, because the more healing he did, the more he realized just how large the gaps in his training were.
Shrugging, Raff said, “No worries, short stuff. I’ll make sure I finish my fights fast.”
Bella bristled visibly, but Eve set her hand on her companion’s shoulder, holding her back. “Let’s just say no nicknames for anyone, at least until the tournament is over,” Eve said.
Raff grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Speaking of plans,” Harper said, “do we have one?”
Eve glanced around at all of the people pressing close to them and shook her head. “Not one I’d like to get into here.”
Reluctantly, Kaz raised his hand. “I can make it so no one else can hear us.”
The tall female grinned. “Handy! I’d like to know what other tricks you folks have up your sleeves, so go ahead, as long as it won’t drain too much of your mana.”
Kaz promptly traced the rune for sound obscuration on his palm, though he concentrated on imagining a dome of ki falling around the whole group, much larger than the one he’d originally learned. As the ki surrounded them, he felt it drawing on his power, but not enough that he couldn’t make it up in a few cycles, so he didn’t worry about it. It was worth it just for the way it muffled the constant sound of other people speaking, some of them almost yelling to be heard.
Raff eyed Kaz until Kaz nodded to him, and then spoke. “Nothin’ special about me,” he said, lying with so much sincerity that it made Kaz doubt if the large human had ever spoken a word of truth. “I’m not going to pull any crazy tricks out there, but what I hit is gonna stay down. At least it will when I decide it should. Also, I’m a visitin’ Mariner, fresh off the ship Pellis Borne, so you might mention that if anyone asks.”
For a moment, Kaz wondered why Raff had included that last, apparently unnecessary falsehood. Then he realized that if they fought well, other people might become curious about them. If a warrior did well in a luegat, especially one of the ones that were fought as much for honor as territory, females from both tribes would probably ask about him. Did Kaz need to worry about some human female offering for him? The thought was horrifying on several levels, and though he didn’t think that was how human society worked, he couldn’t shake the thought.
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Seeing that everyone was looking at him now, Kaz did as she said and blurted out, “I have a mate!” Their expressions shifted to confusion, and he hastily corrected himself. “A female…wife? I have a wife. Back home. Far away.”
Eve chuckled and nudged him with an elbow. “Move fast, do you, lad? What’re you? Eighteen? And married already. Why are you here, then?”
Kaz gave Raff a wild-eyed look, but the big male had his lips pinched together and amusement dancing in his eyes. He would be no help. “For the tournament,” Kaz said. “Raff mentioned it, and I thought it would be…fun.”
Now Raff let out the laugh he’d been holding in and clapped Kaz on the back. “Kaz is a second cousin or some such,” he said easily. “We hit it off when I visited some family on the way here, and he was looking for a way to make some money so he could get a house for his, uh, wife. He’s a mage, but can handle a knife pretty well, too. Has some neat tricks with mana bolts, and can make a shield over himself and anyone else he’s touching, at least for a bit. His wyvern is well-trained, too. Almost like they share a mind.” His eyes twinkled mischievously.
Bella was looking thoughtful. Kaz’s announcement that he already had a mate seemed to have made her relax, at least. She didn’t look quite as angry as she had before. Or was that wariness hiding behind anger?
“Good to know you’re not defenseless if you run out of mana,” she said almost reluctantly. “Use your mana bolts to take out any archers or other mages. Can you shield yourself and Harper, too?”
He eyed the slim female, then nodded. “She’ll have to stay close to me. But not touching!” Li let out a little hiss of agreement, and all eyes turned to her.
“Does your lizard do anything but scream?” Eve asked, sounding dubious. “It doesn’t have particularly large hind claws, and wyverns can’t bite worth a tinker’s kiss. I did see one once who would grab arrows out of the air. That was something.”
Kaz threw a glance at Raff. The other male had made it sound like wyverns were frightening creatures, and the one Kaz and Li had seen in the beast market certainly was.
Raff coughed slightly. “This one is a female, so the claws are smaller. As you can see. And it, ah, doesn’t scream.”
Bella looked disgusted. “Then what does it do? It’s pretty enough, I’ll admit, but if it can’t fight, it doesn’t belong in a battle.”
Kaz stroked Li, who was torn between pleasure at the compliment and anger at being dismissed. “She’s an excellent distraction,” he told the short female. “But if she decides to attack someone, they’ll regret it.”
“I hope so,” Eve said. “I’d hate to see her hurt because you got cocky. Most people aim to disable pets, not kill them, but that option is open. The rules only say we have to do everything in our power to avoid killing or permanently maiming a fellow combatant, but pets don’t have that protection.”
Oh. That was a relief, though. Kaz had planned to avoid killing anyone anyway, since a battle for entertainment seemed like a ridiculous thing to die for, but it was good to know that his opponents would do the same.
“Li will be fine,” Kaz said, over the rising images of the dragon tearing through mental representations of the many humans in the room, including their new party members.
Kaz gave her a look, sending a mental picture of the glimpse he’d gotten inside the red wyvern’s mouth. It had ridged plates, not teeth, and tearing a chunk out of someone would be a good way to make someone realize that Li wasn’t what she appeared to be. Li turned her head away, shaking out her wings grumpily.
There was a stirring in the people around them, and Kaz dropped his rune as everyone turned toward the door. A male stood there, beard bristling as he bellowed, “Number seventeen and number thirty-six!”
Two groups stiffened, then began to make their way through the crowd. One of them was in the back, and it took a good bit of jostling for them to get through. As the ten people filed out, however, there was a noticeable rise in the noise level outside the room.
“The first battle’s been called,” Eve said. She pointed toward the ceiling. “They’ve had archery going all morning, but most people are here for the head to head fights. We’re as close as it gets to a good melee, but they save that for just before closing ceremonies. That way if someone gets killed ‘accidentally’, it doesn’t interfere with any other competitions they’re signed up for.”
There was a roar overhead, and dust drifted down from the ceiling. It was a bit like being trapped in the mosui city while Raff and Chi Yincang fought Zhangwo, and Kaz eyed the door thoughtfully.
Seeing his look, Eve reached out and patted one of the dirty gray walls, built of blocks of stone almost as tall as Bella and twice as wide. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “This old stadium has stood for hundreds of years. It’s not going to fall down today.”
I bet they said the same about the mage college, Kaz thought, feeling Li’s answering amusement, but he didn’t argue with Eve. At least he could be certain that there wasn’t an ancient being trapped beneath their feet this time. Just to be sure, he looked down, seeing nothing but the normal blotches of mana and flickers of ki representing small lives in the earth below.
Over the next hour or so, six more parties were called, leaving the room empty of all but Kaz’s group and one other. They stood at opposite ends of the room, watching each other. The other group consisted of five humans, all of whom rivaled Raff in size, and they looked distinctly unconcerned. Mana swirled in their bellies, spreading out through their limbs in a way that made Kaz think they probably all had some level of body cultivation.
“Will we be fighting them?” Kaz asked softly.
Harper yawned, patting her mouth with one hand. She had been sleeping off and on since the last group was called, and the room finally grew quiet enough to allow her to rest. “Probably,” she said, then closed her eyes again.
Eve gave her a bemused glance, then smiled at Kaz. Hooking a thumb toward her friend, she said, “This is what happens when you usually work nights and sleep during the day. I can’t remember the last time I saw Harper in broad daylight.”
Bella seemed to have grown even more tense each time a group was called. Now she glowered at the other team, her arms crossed over her chest. “I know a few of them,” she muttered. “The tallest man is Gathrak the Destroyer. It’s a ridiculous name, but he’s a decent fighter. He’s actually in the solo sword tournament as well, and is favored to win. I didn’t realize he’d joined a team this year.”
Raff shook his head. “I’ve heard of him, I think. Got kicked out of a mercenary guild for being too violent, right?”
The female snorted. “That’s the one. A little like Eve, that way, except he enjoys it.”
“Hey,” Eve protested. “I enjoy fighting, too.”
Bella sighed. “But you don’t enjoy hurting people. You’re always upset afterwards.”
“Well, that’s true,” Eve admitted. “A good brawl is just fun, but some people take it too far.”
The door opened, and the large bearded male stepped inside. Looking from Kaz’s group to the other one, he said, “Numbers twelve and twenty, you’re up.”
Eve had told Kaz, Li, and Raff that they were team number twenty, so that meant them, not that that was a surprise. Gathrak the Destroyer moved out, the rest of his group trailing behind him, and not even Bella tried to get in between him and the door.
Once they were all in the hall, the male leading them began to lead the way while speaking in a bored tone. “You should all know the rules, but I’m required to go over them once more. Number one, no intentional killing or maiming.” He gave Gathrak a look. “Judgment will be called in case of death or serious injury, and if it goes against you, you’re out of the tournament in all categories.”
Gathrak’s lip lifted in a sneer, but he and everyone else nodded.
“Good,” the bearded male said. “Second, you can only use what you’re carrying at the beginning of the battle. If you have storage devices, take anything you’ll need out now, because you won’t be able to later.”
Reminded, Kaz pulled his pouch open and removed his new mage blade. It felt good in his hand, and he fed the ki-crystal on the pommel just a bit more energy before tying it to his belt. Li watched, and he could almost feel her balancing the value of the knife against the delicious-looking crystal. He knew she wouldn’t actually eat it, at least as long as it might help keep him alive, but that didn’t keep her from thinking about it.
“Third,” the male went on, “if two or more of your members are rendered unable to continue, you all lose. Remember, this is a team battle, and that means your goal is to keep your whole group ‘alive’.”
Now that was interesting. That meant that while Gathrak might be powerful, it wouldn’t matter if Kaz and the others could take out two of his teammates. Strategy could be as important as strength.
“Last,” the guide said, halting by a large alcove with a gate made of crossed bars covering the far wall. “Give us a show. This is the tournament. Even if you can wipe out the other group in less than a minute, don’t.” He looked meaningfully at Gathrak, then pointed into the alcove.
“Twenty, this is you. Have a good fight.”