Age of Iron (52 page)

“But you reckon tomorrow will be the end of it?”

“I hope they’ll hold off suppressing the people, kill her tomorrow and end this insane anti-Zadar movement.”

“They won’t kill her. They won’t be able to. I’m off to the tavern. See you later!” Nita left, hips swinging.

Miller looked around as if to check that nobody was listening. “Mal, sorry, I don’t think that sending Silver off was enough. You have to talk to Nita. If killing Lowa doesn’t quieten the people, then they’ll be after the ringleaders. And Nita has very much become one of the ringleaders.”

“Oh no.”

“It’s not too late. She’s one of many. If you can persuade her not to go to the arena tomorrow and to stop spreading anti-Zadar talk, then I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“I’ll try to talk to her. Come on, let’s both go. We’ll catch her at the pub.”

“Are you sure? She’ll be with her friends.”

“Yes, but later she’ll be pissed. We’re best off catching her sooner.”

D
espite it all, Lowa slept until dawn.

She lay on the bed as light chinked through the gaps around the edge of the door, looking up at the brightening ceiling. This would probably be the last day. That was a shame. She wished she really did believe in the Otherworld. To think she’d never wake up again was quite poignant. Almost frightening. Tears threatened, but she blinked them back. The thing was, she liked being alive. Even now, in the arena. Perhaps especially now.

She was buoyed by the adoration of the crowd, but more than that, much more than that, the life of a captive fighter thrilled her. She could rage and kill. In fact she was meant to. She didn’t have to think of others or watch her temper. She didn’t have to sneak and plan, or find food and shelter. All she had to do was kill and kill again. It was why she liked battle. Proper battle, when the plans had all gone to shit and it was fight, fight, fight. She loved nothing more. That was one reason she was so good at it.

She looked around and found that someone had been into her arena-side cell. That was disconcerting. First Spring had crept into the hut in Kanawan, and now this … She was getting old. Now in her mid-twenties, she was no longer the super-scout who woke at the sound of a mouse’s cough. Perhaps it was her time to die.

Whoever had been had left two buckets of water, a bowl of eggs fried with mushrooms, nettles and salt – strangely enough exactly the same dish that Spring had cooked the morning after she’d rescued them in Bladonfort – some bread, a short but well made iron sword and some leather garb: a pair of shorts, laced-to-the-knee sandals and a thick band with four thongs at one end and four holes at the other. They clearly expected her to tie the band around her chest. Her first reaction was that she wasn’t going to go out there dressed like an unimaginative king’s harem’s fantasy fighting girl, but then she thought,
Why not?
. Her fort-breaking camouflage outfit hummed with a multi-layered reek of her own varyingly aged sweat and others’ blood. And, she thought with half a smile, she’d look pretty good in a leather two-piece.

She ate, stripped and washed, then squeezed into the outfit. The shorts fit well but the chest band was tight. Which was fine. Movement was fine, and if her boobs were a bit squeezed, so be it. She washed her trousers and top and laid them on the bed to dry. Maybe, she thought, she could sleep in them that night. She stretched in preparation for the fights to come as feet began to tramp into the wooden arena, first like distant drums, then like rumbling thunder. Finally, as she sat cross-legged on the floor bending over one knee, preparing for battle, her cell door swung open. Bright light and the roar of the crowd flooded in. She stood, picked up the sword and walked out.

If anything, the cheering was louder than the day before. There were perhaps ten thousand shaggy-haired shouting faces in the stepped terraces around her. Spectating on the spectators were the armoured and armed Warriors of the Fifty, plus members of the elite cavalry and charioteers, stationed regularly along the top of the arena wall. Interesting, thought Lowa. The crowd hadn’t been policed like this on the previous two days. It looked like Zadar had become unsure of the mob’s loyalty. Or maybe he thought women were more trouble? An even higher proportion of the noisy throng today were female – shouting, screaming, even ululating. There were plenty of male voices too though, providing a bass rumble and threading a vein of wolf whistles and “phwooaarr” noises through the encouraging cheers. Lowa spread her feet, lifted her chest, raised an arm and stretched out her right flank. The male shouts trebled in volume, which was satisfying.

She turned to see who was in the posh seats above her cell. Ah, this isn’t good, she thought. They contained a less ecstatic crowd. That shit Drustan sat smugly, plus Carden, Atlas, Anwen, Chamanca, Keelin, Felix and Zadar. Even the snivelling captive from the Eyrie was there. And there was a child next to Zadar … Spring! The girl jumped up and waved frantically when Lowa caught her eye. Zadar pulled her back into her seat.

So Spring had gone back to her dad. Lowa couldn’t blame her. With Zadar as a father, Spring would have a life of ease. Assuming he stayed in power, which seemed likely, Spring could do whatever she wanted – lead a band of mercenaries, make pretty pots, travel to mysterious lands, sit around getting fat, whatever. Lowa would have gone home if she’d been Spring.

Zadar looked at her, dead-eyed. He was unchanged. She hadn’t dented his rule, let alone brought him down. She hadn’t even spoiled his day. That was annoying. But what had she expected? He was King of Maidun, she was a lone soldier. Try as much as you like, you can’t change the world on your own because, no matter how important and clever you think you are, there’s so much more to it than just you. She was like one starling splitting from a huge flock. Nothing was going to change and it didn’t matter to any of the other birds.

When they were no more than Spring’s age and wandering, she and Aithne had gone through a phase of killing sheep. If they came across an unguarded flock, the rule was that you had to fire an arrow as high as you could, angled slightly to come down among the grazing animals. Every now and then they hit one. The rest of the flock might be startled for a moment, but soon after Lowa or Aithne had finished off the unlucky sheep, the others would go back to munching away at the grass as if nothing had happened. Today Lowa was the unlucky sheep. Fate’s arrow was zooming down out of the sky, straight for her. Wasn’t her fault, nothing she could do, and nobody would really give a crap afterwards.

She turned back to the crowd. Wave after wave of cheering buffeted her like a warm sea. There were no boos. It felt good. Even if she was about to die. Now, she thought, who – or what – was she going to be killed by?

As if in reply, two big bearded men in leather garb appeared from the door that Tadman usually swaggered out from. One had a nasty-looking hammer, the other some sort of short, vicious stabbing weapon. Lowa checked that she had enough play on her chain and waited. She didn’t recognise them, but they were tough-looking bastards, perhaps newly recruited, probably superbly skilled with their weapons. When they were five paces away she raised her sword two-handed and crouched with her weight on her back leg, ready to spring.

“Danu’s tears, stop!” shouted one, holding out a hand. “We’re here to take your shackle off.” He nodded towards her ankle and held up a thick chisel.

The other waggled his hammer. “That’s all, princess, I promise!”

“All right.” Lowa proffered her chained ankle. “But don’t call me princess.”

“All right, but that’s what they’re calling you.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“People.”

“Why?”

“Cos they reckon you’ll be queen soon.”

“I’m going to be dead soon.”

“Yeah, more people are saying that.”

“Thanks for the boost.”

The men got to work. Once they’d finished, unseen hands dragged the chain back into her cell. It snaked back jingling across the ring.

“Hang on,” said Lowa as the men turned to leave. “Leave your tools.”

“But…” They said in unison. Lowa waggled her sword at them. The blacksmiths looked at each other, shrugged, put the hammer and chisel down on the reed-strewn arena floor, and jogged away accompanied by the laughter and jeers of the crowd … which changed to cheering as a wide gate opened and a horse cantered into the ring, followed by an adapted war chariot. The vehicle had a light chariot’s frame but the bulkier wheels and, more noticeably, the pace-long wheel blades of a heavy chariot. The driver was a slight, long-haired, bum-fluff-bearded boy of maybe sixteen whom she’d never seen before, but she recognised the Warrior.

Dord Chandler was a bald, round-headed, dark-skinned man with a large, powerful frame, stiff black moustache and an attractive twinkle in his eye. Lowa had spoken to him a few times and found that he wasn’t nearly as interesting as he looked. He talked only about chariots and fighting from the back of them. Try to change the subject, and he’d relate it to chariot warfare. “Eggs? Yeah, I like a good yolk but I prefer the new triple wood yoke that Elann Nancarrow and me…” And so on. She hadn’t taken to him. Still, the obsessives were usually the best, and his reputation was strong. So was hers, of course, but only as an archer, and she didn’t have her bow.

So, finally, they’d sent a name against her. She wasn’t meant to walk away from this one. Lowa was mildly surprised. If she’d been organising, she would have spun her death out over the morning – maybe some lions or a better-armed group of captives. Zadar obviously wanted her dead quickly. She turned to the king and waved. He looked back impassively. She changed her wave to a V-fingered “fuck off” gesture. Pretty pathetic, she thought, but the people seemed to like it, going by their noise. She bowed, turning as the crowd cheered some more. She might as well, she thought, enjoy this.

The charioteer steered the horse into a gallop around the periphery of the arena. Lowa picked up the chisel and stood in the centre, sword in one hand, chisel in the other, turning to follow the chariot’s progress. She had an insane plan. Her head told her that it would never work, but the battle lust fizzing in her blood told her head to stay the Bel out of this one. She smiled.

In the chariot, Chandler took a sling from his belt, fitted a stone, swung it about his head and loosed at her.

Lowa pulled her sword back, swung and whacked the stone out of the sky with a
spang!
The stone sailed off into the crowd, who roared their approval.

In front of the castle, below the king’s seats, the chariot turned for the centre.

Lowa ran away from it in a straight line.

“Go to the side! Dodge!” she heard people shouting above the increasingly loud thundering of the horse’s hooves. She reached the wall and veered left. She heard the chariot turn behind her. She sprinted along beside the wall. The chariot closed on her, fast.

She turned to run across the centre. Before she was halfway across she could hear and feel the horse no more than a pace or two behind. She knew Chandler’s shot was coming, so she jinked her head from side to side. A slingstone stung her ear. She saw the horse’s head in her peripheral vision and tossed her sword away, keeping the chisel in her left hand, then sprung into a leap that would have cleared a small man’s head.

At the apex of her jump she drove the chisel down at the horse’s neck.

The charioteer saw her plan and jerked the reins. The horse twisted. Her chisel glanced off a bronze fitting and sliced a short gash in the horse’s shoulder. Lowa fell.

The horse’s flank thumped into her legs. Her arse went up as her head came down and she was falling upside down, the wheel blade flashing towards her face.

Elliax was watching but not seeing. His mind wasn’t on the fight. They’d put him between Drustan and Felix, only one away from Zadar himself but with his feet bound to his seat and his hands bound to each other. What did it mean? When they’d walked him down to the royal section he’d thought that maybe he’d been right before, and they were going to give him some position of power – perhaps they were going to announce it to the thousands in the arena that very day! And then they’d tied him up. What, by Cromm Cruach’s many tentacles, was going on?

Everyone around him was focused on the action. In the ring Lowa, brave but stupid woman, threw her sword to one side and attacked the horse with the spike that the blacksmiths had left. The crowd screamed in excitement, then cried a communal “Whooahhh!” as she completely missed her mark and fell onto the spinning blade of the chariot wheel.

The arena quietened, dust drifted down and he could see her lying prone. Elliax expected her to be in two pieces – those blades were heavy and probably very sharp, and at that speed … But no, she stood. There were massive cheers, including a scream of delight from Zadar’s daughter, sitting on the other side of the king. The clamour subsided as Lowa tried a step and almost fell, one hand going to her right butt cheek where the blade must have hit. The leather of her shorts had deflected it. Good leather that, he thought.

“It must have been the flat of the blade,” said Felix, sounding appalled.

“Do you think so?” said Zadar.

Felix turned to the king. “You don’t think…?”

“Probably not. But be ready.”

What the Bel was that about?
thought Elliax.

Back in the arena Lowa staggered over to pick up her sword. She was badly injured, by the way she was walking. It looked like she was beaten.

The chariot circled the ring. The charioteer climbed forward to stand on the horse, which won him some applause. He put the reins in his teeth and danced a jig, which wasn’t, to Elliax’s mind, particularly good, but it plucked a few whoops from the audience. While the driver capered, the passenger whirled his sling and loosed. It was a good shot, but Lowa dodged it somehow.

The Warrior said something terse to the driver and he climbed back in.
Quite right
, thought Elliax, the show-off jackanapes had work to do. He pulled the chariot in a tight curve back towards the centre, directly at Lowa. She waited, sword in one hand, spike in the other, bouncing from toe to toe. At the last moment she dived. The charioteer was ready. He pulled the reins in the same direction. Lowa hit the ground. She went under the blade, almost clear, but the iron-rimmed wheel ran over her calves, throwing her into a spin. She came to a crumpled stop and immediately a slingstone from the Warrior whacked into her back. She arched in pain.