Nico merely nodded. It was the only thanks he could offer. He looked around the enclosed space, saw that everyone was now observing him. He let his gaze drop to the straw-strewn, earthen floor.
A roar rose from the arena outside, the muffled sound passing through a heavy gate at the end of another barred passageway. A woman lying on the floor moaned into the dust.
'May you be with the Dao,' said the priest to Nico, touching him lightly again on the arm. The touch was comforting, human. The monk turned away to see to the woman, and to offer her what little comfort he could.
Nico wrapped his arms about himself, moving the limbs with a delicate slowness. He forced his mind to focus on his breathing. Every time he exhaled, he thought of the agony releasing itself from his body. When he inhaled, he thought of stillness.
It seemed to work, after a while – or at least enough for him to think straight. Thoughts were good now. They could take him away from this place.
So he allowed his mind to drift. He thought of sunny Khos, the cottage, his mother. He wished he could see her now more than anything else in the world.
Time passed unawares. The bars of the cage clattered behind his head. It was the chief whip again.
'That one next,' the man decided, and pointed out the woman being comforted by the monk. 'And that one, the monk, too.'
Other guards prodded the chosen captives with their pronged staves, though keeping at a safe distance behind the bars. 'Up – up!' they shouted.
The monk helped the woman to her feet, still holding her close to him. An outer door slid open in the cage. Together, they stepped into the passageway leading to the gate.
'Stop,' said the chief whip.
The guards pressed against the barred passageway and reached inside with leather-gloved hands. They yanked away the woman's clothing until she stood there exposed to their stares. Purple bruises covered her flesh. Bite marks, too. The monk for his part, was allowed to keep his robe, so that the crowd could tell what he was.
A sword was passed to the monk, and then a small round shield. He dropped them both to the ground. 'I won't fight,' he stated flatly.
The guards cursed and prodded him some more. Still he refused to hold either weapon or shield. Beyond the gate the crowd bayed restlessly. The guards gave up on their persuasions, and tied the sword and shield to the monk's wrists, where he let them hang there uselessly. The man's hands were trembling, though he stood tall.
The gate swung open and thin daylight flooded through. Nico could see nothing beyond outside, blinded by the sudden illumination.
Both woman and monk were prodded out through the gate. Then it closed behind them and the crowd roared.
Nico felt the noise deep in his stomach. It almost loosened his bladder. He clenched inwardly, resisting its urge to empty itself. Blessedly, after a few moments, the sensation eased.
'What will happen to them?' asked another young man, his voice dead of emotion. He did not direct the question to anyone in particular.
Yet it hung in the air, calling out to all of them.
'They will die,' came another voice. A middle-aged man, sitting with three others – soldiers if the scars and tattoos they bore were anything to go by, and the way they sat impassively, as though they had often waited together like this for the arrival of death.
They looked Khosian.
Specials, Nico guessed. He knew from his father's accounts, how those underground fighters were often captured when the tunnels collapsed behind them.
Without pity the soldier stared at the young man sitting across from him. 'Men armed with steel will slaughter them like cattle. Or they may be eaten by animals driven mad by hunger.'
The young man turned his head away, biting his lip.
'There's always a chance,' said another, a woman with the old scars of a branding iron evident on both her cheeks. 'If you fight well enough, the crowd might spare you.'
The soldier snorted, and Nico swallowed around a hard lump in his throat. He thought of the young woman out there now, not more than twenty years old, terrified out of her wits. It could be Serese, or any other girl he had known back home. What kind of world was this, where people hungered to see a human being hacked to pieces for sport?
A scream sounded from outside. The woman. The stadium fell silent.
Her sobs for mercy echoed into the cage – then ceased abruptly. Everyone in the cage looked to the floor to avoid each other's eyes, even the bitter soldier.
The monk was shouting something. Nico couldn't make it out, though the words were angry and passionate. A sound followed, like that from a butcher's stall, and then another. The crowd didn't roar this time.
Nico covered his head with one arm, and cowered beneath it. With every beat of his heart he could feel the pain pulsing from his injuries. Again he sought out other things to keep his mind occupied.
He thought of Ash, and how his master had not come to rescue him from this horror.
Perhaps he had, considered Nico, and he lay dead now in the trying.
But Nico refused to believe that. In reality, he considered the old man to be invincible, a force of nature – and you could not kill a force of nature, merely wait for its passing. Where are you, then? he demanded of his master.
Perhaps Ash hadn't tried at all. Maybe some aspect of the Rshun code had stopped him from attempting a rescue. The code did not allow for personal acts of revenge, so perhaps, too, it did not allow for personal acts of rescue, not when the needs of their vendetta were more pressing.
I should have left you when I still could, Nico reflected. I should have taken my chance, and returned home to Khos and my mother.
For a moment he cursed the day that Ash had walked into his life. But in truth it was a superficial emotion, and he cast it away quickly. He did not wish to be bitter about such things now he was so close to his own end. Ash had been good for him. It was Nico's fault he had allowed things to go this far.
Serese came to his mind. Nico would never have met her had it not been for his master. But again Nico's thoughts twisted inside him; he imagined his friend Aleas dazzling the girl with his charms and good looks, sweeping her off her feet after Nico was gone. He imagined how they would both remember poor Nico – how he had been a friend once, long ago, a strange lad, but with a good heart; and how it was a bitter memory, even now, to think how he had died in that terrible way. We should have tried harder to save him, they would say, before returning to their fine bed to sweat away their regrets.
More bitterness, Nico realized. It wasn't like him, or so he had always thought. But his mother could be like that sometimes. Maybe it was true what people said, and your parents rubbed off on you, no matter what.
Someone was addressing the crowd outside: a woman's voice, loud and imperious. It was the Matriarch herself by the sound of it. She was telling them something about Rshun. Nico realized she was telling them about him.
Sweet Ers, he wasn't ready yet. He wondered if he ever could be. A guard approached and prodded his damaged ribs through the bars. He flinched from the touch, still covering his head with one arm. Another guard jabbed his back.
'All right!' Nico snapped as he struggled up.
They forced him into the passageway, where a black robe landed at his feet. They forced Nico to put it on, the effort almost causing him to black out.
Next, they gave him a short-sword and shield. A guard buckled the shield to the forearm above his useless hand. The men were quiet and professional as they worked, like weary drovers glad to be near the end of their day. None would meet his eye, he noticed.
'Don't put up much of a fight,' suggested one of the guards, speaking close to his ear. 'Let them finish you quickly.'
The entrance yawned before him, fat with the bright daylight. Nico shielded his eyes. Terror surged through him, chilling him with uncertainties, as they prodded him out through the gateway.
*
The sun shone overhead, weakened by a thin layer of cloud. The fog he had glimpsed on his journey to the Shay Madi was gone now, though the sand still lay damp beneath his bare feet. A smell of carnage hung in the air: it
