Chapter 40 – To Be the Greatest

We climbed up to the level of the stands, and then toward the catwalk gantry above them. Anna paused, looking out over the arena.

“Why did you stop?” I asked.

“They’re calling his name…” she said.

I looked down. Our own battle had taken us into the second round of Storm-Laden's fight with his opponent—not a deep-sea terror like I’d expected, but a broad, muscular elf with a war wedge and two short spears. Storm-Laden had a handful of cuts across his arms and legs, but nothing deep. The crowds chanted as the pair circled each other.

STORM! STORM! STORM!

“They’ve never chanted my name…” said Annalisa, awed.

“They will,” I promised. Surprisingly, I meant it. The precipice arcana burned between her horns.

As we watched, the elf leapt in. Clearly skilled, he feinted left, and thrusted with his right-spear. Fast, too fast, and magically enhanced as my four of dragons confirmed. Yet, Storm was faster. He twisted away from the thrust, seizing the haft of the spear and yanking the elf off balance. He grabbed the elf’s wrist and flipped him over his own shoulder.

The elf tumbled through the air, curled into a ball, and somehow came out of it right onto his feet, grinning.

The crowd roared. The pair weren’t just fighting. They were putting on a show. But without a fixer, Storm would get slowly ground down.

“Anna, let’s get moving,” I said.

With one more look at the bout, Anna scurried up the gantry and helped me up to the platform. I barely got to my feet before the venue security spotted us and headed over, weapons drawn.

“What are you doing up here?” one of them demanded.

Anna dropped into a fighting stance, but I stepped in front of her and held up my hands.

“I have valuable information for the sniffer,” I said. “Proof that the elf is using a fixer. The sniffer will want to know.”

The two looked at each other. It was weak, and I was trying to figure out how we were going to get past them when they abruptly lowered their weapons. I blinked.

“Come with us, seeker.”

I couldn’t believe that worked. I followed the pair, whispering back to Annalisa. “Stay here, make sure that shark doesn’t get up the ladder.”

She nodded, waiting and pacing the narrow landing. The venue security pair led me up the catwalk to a box that overlooked the arena, and I stepped down into it—realizing instantly why they had let me through so easily and the enormity of my mistake.

The sniffer was a seeker. She leaned over the edge of the box, cards fanned out as she performed readings over the fight. Her robes were in pristine condition, and her red hair spilled out down her back. I knew her.

One of the security cleared his throat. “Seeker, you’ll want to hear this.”

She stacked her cards and turned around, freezing when she saw me in my tattered, ash-filthy robes. “Darcent?” she asked, eyebrows climbing in surprise.

“Hello, Drella,” I said.

She had been one of my upper classmates, a seer and a Soul Seeker. A bit of a teacher’s pet, and honest to a fault. She’d been kind to me when I first arrived at the guild academy, but quickly learned I wasn’t the type she ought be associated with. She was the youngest daughter of a wealthy trade family from the upper city. No wonder they’d said this sniffer was immune to bribes. The mountain arcana burned above her brow. Fortitude, strength, immovable.

“I haven’t seen you since… what are you even doing here?” she asked. She put her hands on her hips. “And why do you still have those robes? You know you shouldn’t be wearing them.”

I barked a nervous laugh. “I didn’t have anything else to wear when I left. Look, I’m taking a huge risk coming up here to show you the cheating. Will you at least listen?”

She pursed her lips and glanced back down at the fight. “If this is about cheating, I haven’t detected any sign of it in this barbaric demonstration. And your word isn’t good for much, here or anywhere.

“Ok, first of all, ouch,” I said. “Second of all, you might not be able to sense it, but I can.”

Drella scoffed. “Please, you couldn’t even do proper reading without half your deck blowing up in your face. That’s why they kicked you out, remember?”

I held my hand out and summoned the wills. They fanned out, circling me, then shuffled and stacked themselves neatly in the palm of my hand. Drella rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, I can do that too, Darcent. So what?”

“I’m not here to show you parlor tricks, Drella.” I pulled the top two cards off the deck. This wasn’t a reading, but it had already anticipated my needs. The three and four of dragons. I grimaced. I’d just gotten my ass kicked, but if I wanted Drella to see what I could see, I had just a little bit more hell headed my way.

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I split my will three ways. I sent it into the three of dragons and began to siphon what little reserves I had left into Drella. She stiffened. She knew what I had done, knew what it cost me. Before she could say anything, I sent my will into the four of dragons, and pulled the dragon’s greed back along the siphon. Now, she could see.

Her eyes glazed over with an amber sheen. Now, she was seeing everything. The dragon’s greed would shine a limelight on things hidden or concealed. The siphon would let her pay attention to everything at once.

“Hurry,” I said through grit teeth. “I can’t hold this for long!”

She looked at her own hands, and then out over the crowds, scanning.

“Dragons above! So many pickpockets!”

“Drella!”

“Ok, ok… Fates, you’re right! I can see them!” she waved her retainers over. “There, those two—twins, I think. The one in red and the one in brown with the white cap. They’re working together. One is casting on the elf, and the other is shrouding them both with a protection from divination spell.”

The venue guards followed her gaze until they spotted the pair, and then headed out of the box. Dressa turned to me. “That’s why the Wills couldn’t sense it!”

“Wonderful,” I said, releasing the cards along with a breath. I doubled over, hands on my knees, panting and gulping down air. Dressa stepped closer, and I straightened, ready (so not ready) for a fight.

“Peace, Darcent!” she said, hands up and will calm. “That card combination, I doubt there’s more than a handful of people at the academy—other than the professors, of course—who could manage something like that. You have to come back!”

I shook my head. “Leaving really opened my eyes to the Wills in a way that lecture halls never could have. I’m not suited to a classroom, Drella. My real education started the day I left,” I said. At a shout from the crowd, my stomach dropped. I looked down. Storm-laden was on the back foot as the elf pushed forward, closing in on the half-orc. The ash under their feet had become mud from the blood flowing off Storm.

I cursed. “He’s not going to last much longer. Dressa, I need to stop those mages now.”

“I can’t let you interfere with the fight,” she said.

“It’s not the fight I’m interfering with,” I pointed out. “They’re the ones interfering. We’re just making it fair again.

She pursed her lips. “And I’m sure your reasons are perfectly altruistic. Completely impartial. Darcent, it’s clear you have a vested interest in the orc winning.” But her sense of fairness won out. She sighed and gestured to the two mages.

I grinned and drew the two of storms.

Dressa looked at the card, eyes wide. “Your third suit?”

“My fourth,” I said, drawing on the last of my reserves to activate the counter-spell card.

“Your fourth?!” she hissed as I flicked the card out of the sniffer box. It spun in a wide arc, and when it passed by the pair of mages, they both flinched as if struck. I called the card back and it got to me just in time for the spells to backfire and blow up in the twins’ faces. It knocked them flat, and in the ring, the broad elf staggered.

Storm was ready. Even if he hadn’t known something was coming, the man was an expert fighter, trained by Kridick, that could have trounced Annalisa and I together with the same ease as that swordsman—and done so empty-handed. While his opponent was no slouch, the elf had been relying on magical aid to pull an upset victory.

Storm slipped inside, narrowly avoiding a desperate thrust to his face. He feinted a punch, then slipped again to avoid the counter. The elf overcommitted, and suddenly Storm was off his left side. The orc wrapped his thick arms around the elf’s midsection and heaved them both to the side with his powerful legs and back. It was the same thing I’d seen Annalisa do to the adventurer in the Mop, but elevated to a work of art.

The elf slammed into the ground, and I heard the SNAP of the spear breaking, even over the roar of the crowd.

STORM! STORM! STORM!

The orc rolled onto his knees. The elf was recovering too, but he’d been stunned. Storm grabbed the front third of the snapped spear from the ash, and rammed it through the elf’s belly, lifting him off the ground with the force of it. Blood sprayed into the air.

The crowd went wild, but Dressa looked away, pale. She wasn’t used to the brutality of bloodsport. Her eyes fixed on me and slid up and down. For a moment, I thought she was checking me out, but quickly felt my cheeks heat as I realized it was the filthy robes she examined.

“Oh, fates portend, you’re him, aren’t you?”

“Him?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“The Barrow Knave!” she said. “The criminal running around pretending—not pretending, I suppose, to be a Soul Seeker! I’ll have to report this, you know.”

“Oh, come on!” I said. “I just saved your reputation as a sniffer!”

The mountain still burned above her brow. “Notwithstanding. The guild isn’t going to want you running around in their property. Especially if you’re somehow involved in…” she waved her hands over the arena. “…whatever this was. If you knew what was best, you’d turn yourself in and apologize.”

I grimaced. “I can’t do that,” I said. “In fact,” I continued as I spied Annalisa frantically waving to me, “I need to get out of here. Like, right now. Take care of yourself, Dressa!”

I pushed past her attempts to grab at my robe.

“Darcent!” she hissed. “Get back here!” she looked around for security to detain me, but she’d already sent them after the Mayaz fixer twins. She could summon the wills, but her suits were streams, petals, ways, and towers. Not exactly conducive to combat. Annalisa waited for me on the catwalk.

“I take it our friend is on his way?”

She looked back toward the ladder, biting her lip. “Not just him.”

“Shit. Alright then, I suppose it’s time we made ourselves scarce, eh?” I said.

“We could fight our way out,” she offered, hopeful. I knew running rankled her. Despite the frankly insane odds stacked against us, what she coveted most was the opportunity to overcome them. I barely had the strength to stand on my own two feet. I was going to sleep for a week after this.

“Another time,” I said, pulling her in the opposite direction.

We pounded down the gantry on the opposite side. Luckily, the ladders here went down adjacent to the stands. We were able to make the jump to the nosebleed section without it collapsing under us, though it bucked and heaved with the stampede of fans rushing the pit.

The crowd was easy enough to disappear into. It was more of a flood of bodies, really. Annalisa and I let ourselves be swept along with the tide, until it carried us close enough that we could slip out a side door and into the light of the pale dragons.

We headed south, back to Barrowdown. Annalisa was alive and full of energy (and where she stored it all, I haven’t the foggiest notion). She recounted the fights we’d had, blow by blow. Her own contributions may have been somewhat embellished, but I let her have her fun.

The night had been a success—except for one significant failing.

The Soul Seekers Guild had already been aware of rumors there was some imposter with a set of robes running around the downs pretending to be a seeker. The Barrow Knave, they called me; which I had to admit, had a nice ring to it. The knaves in my deck, ever vain, echoed their agreement.

But now, they would know it wasn’t just a rumor. More, they would know who it really was. And an expelled former member was a very different thing than an unsubstantiated rumor. It was a problem to be crushed. I would have to confront that, and probably sooner than I’d like.

One more enemy. One more hound to keep outside the walls. They wouldn’t find me unprepared. The towers in my deck resonated with that intent. Something within them was close to bonding. I could feel it.

End of Arc III