The burning shot was impossible to miss, and the woman holding her hand up in the back of the crowd gasped as she twisted, but the bolt still found her shoulder. She instantly turned to run from the stands as all eyes were upon her, darting for the railing in back and vaulting over it quickly.
Shiv had already vanished from where she was spectating, watching her little brothers fight down there. Sama hit the sands and slid over to Mohono.
He was barely conscious, bleeding out. Sama ducked her head as she grabbed at the Curse that liked to settle across her face and neck, and dragged it down onto her hand. She had seen that Mohono’s wounds had not been healing like they should have when he got sent below 0, and there was only one reason for that possible in a Blood Circle of Hurn.
The bitch had Cursed his wounds to not heal. Happily, Sama had a much bigger, stronger Curse that was always hungry for such little inflictions, and as she slammed her palm onto Mohono’s chest, the Brands lit up in recognition and hunger, and began to eat the spell that had been laid upon Mohono.
Making a Pendant that could transfer wounds wasn’t all that difficult, and it wasn’t like healing up wounds cost her any money. As blackness swirled and ran into the blue-black lines snaking up her arm, she snarled as the lethal rips across Mohono’s chest closed rapidly, the blood went back where it was supposed to go, torn muscle and skin sealed up nicely, and his guttering inner air recovered as meridian pathways were restored.
“Huh!” he gasped, spitting up blood, and started to get up before her other palm came down on his head and forced him back down.
“Sit there until I’m done,” she ordered coldly, and too used to obeying her, especially when her voice was that cold, he lay sprawled there in front of the crowd, feeling the great tears in his chest closing up, no longer quite so cold, and his bumps and bruises that were swelling and festering were fading, too.
He also noted the red splatter of blood against the inside of her t-shirt, as the three parallel rows of it were hard to miss. He didn’t say anything, turning his head slightly to look at Three-Claws, standing there at the edge of the ring.
Her golden hair fallen across her face to hide the movement of her Brand, Sama followed his gaze to look the same way, glaring at the warty green-skinned troll, with his wiry hair, sausage of a nose, deep reddened eyes, and nailed teeth.
“If I find out you were responsible for this, Three-Claws, I’m going to burn you alive,” she promised grimly, voice carrying quite clearly to him despite the noise of the crowd. “You got anything you want to say to me before Shiv comes back with that woman’s head?”
The troll glanced around, and slowly came over with careful, respectful steps, hands spread in minimally threatening posture. “Was paid a little extra to make sure Mohono got a fatal wound in the Ring, Sama,” the troll hissed carefully in his deep voice. “Doesn’t mean nothing, usually just so someone can take a picture and mock them or something. Happens all the time.”
He could only see one blue eye, but there was a murderous intensity to it that even the experienced troll found daunting.
He had lost two fights in the Circle in the past two years. Both of them had been to her. He was keeping an eye on her hands, and if her golden claws popped up and started to burn, he was going to run and beg for mercy, because that was the only way he was going to live. He had just watched her fight a senior Amazon tonight; when she fought him, he hadn’t seen anything like the hand speed she had displayed against the Amazon.
He had fought a lot of humans, knew that a human who could beat him was a ferociously dangerous person, and took great pride in that fact. Weak humans were made to be manhandled, and some even took being torn apart by him as a proud test of manhood he was most happy to administer to them.
There was nothing weak about this scarred, golden-haired Hagchild. Her golden claws burned like great hacking knives of flame, and he did not want to find them ripping at him with intent to kill!
“You’ve got a nose. What was she?” Sama demanded promptly.
“Smelled like a witch,” he replied instantly. “I think she was Cursing him throughout the match with the Evil Eye, so she could land her real Curse.”
“Who’s in charge of the Ring? These are set up in Ritual. No way they get Dispelled so easily.”
Glumbel thought about that, and then straightened up to his full height of ten feet, sweeping the immediate area with his gaze.
When he moved, it was with great long strides and real purpose. The man he was glaring at shrieked when he saw the troll coming, but he couldn’t make it away from the wall of the Ring in time. Glumbel’s long arms went right through the railing, latched onto his legs, and as the fool screamed, the troll simply hauled him backwards underneath the railing, completely ignoring the bumps and bruises the stout balding human got on the way.
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Half-lifting, half-dragging the man across the sands, Glumbel strode back to Sama, noting thankfully that the kill wound he’d inflicted on Mohono was pretty much gone, and ogryn was looking pretty much unwounded now. “Rickie here was in charge of the Ring, Sama,” he rumbled proudly, lifting the shrieking fellow completely off the ground and shaking him.
Sama grabbed Mohono’s shoulder, and tossed him towards his feet. He anchored and flexed, and went right to his full height, coming right up to Glumbel’s shoulder. He turned around as Sama got up, her hair falling back to reveal her Branded face again, staring at the guy who maintained the Ring.
“Hey, Sama?” the ring official started to speak up from the side.
“Fuck off, Thompson. We got business here.” He wisely shut up and retreated out of the Circle.
Her marked eye, crossed by the Brand and looking very unhealthy, turned on the dangling man, who abruptly stopped squealing like a stuck pig and flailing his arms about. Glumbel politely and effortlessly lifted the overweight, short fellow up so his head was level with Sama’s.
“Rickie, I have a feeling you have something you want to say to me. Otherwise, I’m going to give you to Shiv. When she’s done with you, she’s going to give you to Glumbel.” Sama leaned forward into the sweating man’s face. “You may not know this, but Glumbel has standards. He doesn’t kill in the ring. He doesn’t like being made a tool of by those who want to see him kill in the ring. I don’t think you need to think too much about what trolls do to those who annoy them.”
Glumbel’s arms were more than long enough to allow him to bend over and smile widely into Rickie’s face, and his breath nearly made the man faint.
“You tell me something useful, and you get to live past tonight. You don’t tell me something useful, and I’m going to let you go in public, and then you’re going to die in shadows and a big empty stomach.” She smacked Glumbel’s gut without looking. “Now talk, Rickie. You already know you lost your job. You can either lose your life, or you can stick it to the person who cost you.”
“Fuck. Fuuuuuuuck!” he shouted, balling his fists and screaming impotently. “I knew it, I goddamn knew it. She, she said she could get my little girl into Petri’s Academy. She tested Powered, it was the best chance, there’s no way we make the money to send her there, or have the connections...”
“Do you have a name or a contact?” Sama asked calmly.
“They contact me, I didn’t contact them. They only asked me to fiddle with one of the Rune markers. It’s easy to fix, but the Circle needs to be powered up again...” he half-cried miserably.
“Did they give you a down payment?” Sama asked reasonably.
“Five grand. It’s sitting in my car...”
Sama glanced at Glumbel and inclined her head. The troll snapped his jaws loudly in front of the face of the Ring maintainer, and dropped him to the ground.
“You. What was the bribe?” Sama asked, holding out her hand.
Glumbel growled, but dipped into his custom jeans and drew out a few hundreds with their silver lines, and handed them over. Sama took them and held them up.
“I’m going to go buy some beef with this, cook it up proper, and send it to you. You eat it slow when it gets there.”
The troll’s big mouth opened in an unexpected grin. “You a good cook?” he asked promptly. “Trolls got big appetites!”
“I have you covered.” Sama stuffed the bills into her hip pocket and slapped the troll’s chin. “Off with you.”
Chuckling with a rasping, deeper laugh than any human could generate, Glumbel loped out towards the side exit of the Ring as Rickie staggered to his feet.
“Mohono, escort Rickie to his car to retrieve your winnings. Rickie, stop by Master Vrune’s place in the morning. He’s going to be needing a local delivery driver soon, and you’re going to need a job. Your daughter will be enrolling in Cheffifi’s next term; they take all Powered, and she’ll have much more fun among equals there than being picked on by the snobs at Petri’s.”
“You got it, Senpai.” Mohono placed a big hand on the stunned man’s shoulder, and guided him forcibly towards the exit.
Sama gave Thompson the referee a wave, heading for the wall of the ring, leaping up, out, and over it nearly as easily as going up some stairs. She went right up the stands as people got out of the way, and jumped out and over the back side without slowing down.
------
Sama whistled up in the high registers. Most humans couldn’t even hear it, but she saw a dark head pop up over the cars a few rows down.
Saying nothing, she glided over there, and found Shiv there standing over a slender human woman in her thirties, a rather astonished and fearful look frozen on her face by dint of two stiletto hilts jutting out of her ears.
“Petri’s Academy is a human-only school for training Powered backed by the Church of Imprus, right?” Sama asked softly, reaching down to pick up the woman’s corpse by the neck, lifting her up, and slinging the stiffening body over her shoulder without batting an eye.
Shiv’s emotionless eyes flashed in their depths. “Yes,” she confirmed.
“They offered the Ring’s tech a scholarship for his daughter there. She’s Powered, coming from a poor family,” Sama informed Shiv, as the two of them headed for Grik’s tricked-out truck, red racing flames and all on it. A couple burly forms were waiting for them there already. Grik saw them coming, and swung down the tailgate without a change in expression.
“If you are Powered, doesn’t matter where you are from. If you are human, the Imprusar want you. It was a good deal for them,” Shiv hissed.
“I have to wonder at the timing, and why they would pick out Mohono, other than him being so big and standing out. But there’s no way we’re going to let this stand, right?”
“I know a White Staff who can question her. She shouldn’t have a Geas on her. We’ll see.”
Sama tossed the corpse carelessly into the back of the truck... after Shiv retrieved her knives. Mohono was already heading their way, easily obvious over all the vehicles there. “Make a call to Cheffefi’s to enroll Rickie’s daughter there. Mord, Master Vrune needs a delivery driver for the upper parts of town, right?”
“He does,” the dhatun Blakhamar nodded once.
“He’s got one who owes the Blakhamars a life debt. Kindly instill upon him the seriousness of his position.” The object of said debt was being herded along firmly in front of Mohono, and coming their way, looking as if the world had fallen in on him.
“That won’t be hard. Can get a greybeard to back it up with a Geas, too,” Mord nodded thoughtfully, his eyes grim as they settled on the little man who’d almost gotten his little brother killed.
“I’m sure he’ll agree to anything at this point.”
And he most certainly did...