Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) (15 page)

  
It intrigued Gribly that they removed his gag, and it intrigued him more when they left him chained loose enough for his feet to touch the ground. As they left, one of the big coal-skinned men grabbed his head in a vise-like elbow as if to beat him.

  
Instead, he stealthily shoved a hunk of sweet, heavy bread into Gribly’s mouth.

  
Then all four guards left, locking the door behind them.

~

  
Gribly drifted in and out of a troubled sleep all night. He didn’t dream, not really, but when he woke he seemed to remember hearing a voice and seeing a face that belonged to Traveller.

  
You have done what is needed,
the voice said soothingly.
All you need do now is survive.

  
It didn’t exactly give him the kind of encouragement he wanted.

~

  
In the morning six of the silverguard- different men then the day before- fetched Gribly from his cell and transported him to a dusty room far from the prisons that resembled an underground stable. In keeping with the cleric’s plans, he pretended to be as hurt and befuddled as he had been before meeting the strange old nymph. A spark of hope had kindled in the young thief the night before, and he had nurtured it until it was small but strong.

  
People would die today, and he didn’t plan on being one of them.

  
The dark, warlike men unbound him entirely except for his hands, eyed the large double-doors at one end of the stable intently, and waited. Gribly wasn’t allowed to move or speak, and they made sure that he stood on thick, prickly hay instead of sand. Thunder rumbled overhead, or what
seemed
like thunder.

  
With a startled twitching of the ears, Gribly realized he could hear applause. It wasn’t thunder above him- it was the sounds of an arena!

  
Ymeer had an arena, of course. Like clothes and food and pets, death matches and war games were high-paying enterprises for merchants and nobles alike: the merchants supplied capital, slaves, and animals, and the aristocrats sold their weight in gold to watch daylong blood-baths in the arena every month.

  
So this is how he would die.
It just figures that I’m caught during the monthly games,
the youth complained internally. He was still wondering exactly who or what he’d be forced to fight when he noticed that the guards had stepped back from him and let go of his arms.

  
“How kind,” he told them, turning slightly. With a loud
boom
, the doors in the opposite end of the room parted and swung open. Two men in bloody armor had just been dragged off the field through identical passages. The largest guard lifted a strung bow and aimed a long, black arrow at Gribly.

  
“Your time… here. You go…now,” he growled in a deep, throaty accent.

  
“But I was having
so
much fun,” Gribly protested sarcastically. The guard made as if to fire, his face still expressionless. “All right, all right,” he responded, “I guess we’re not friends, then.”

  
He raised his manacled hands, and the guard shook his head no.
I’m fighting crippled, then.
Turning to face the open doors and the bright, open arena beyond, he hoped the man didn’t plan on putting a bolt in his back when he ran.

  
Stooping low so that his fingertips brushed the hay at his feet, Gribly bent his knees, then shot forward and sprinted past the doors into the blinding sunlight.

  
The world changed instantly from dark to light, cold to hot, quiet to jarringly loud. The sun burned his eyes and kept him from clearly seeing the gathered crowds seated in circular stands around him, but he
heard
them without a doubt. Roaring, shouting, screaming and calling out names, they jeered at what they probably thought was a sorcerer and an enemy doomed to die at the hands of some gladiator or wild beast.

  
At the other end of the open space, a terrifying guttural sound came from the blinding brightness. It was a beast, then.

  
Come on eyes! Work!
Gribly pleaded. Rubbing didn’t help, and his vision was coming back too slowly. A large dark shape was bounding towards him, huffing and snarling, but he just couldn’t tell what it was.

  
It was almost on him. Hoping the sand would answer his call, the boy dove left, letting the arena floor mold around his heels and push him off faster than he could have done on his own. Sand sprayed where he had been a second ago, and the whatever-it-was plowed through empty space, teeth snapping closed on nothing. The crowd cheered with excitement, none of them having noticed his sand-playing.

  
Gribly hit the ground, rolled, came up, and cart-wheeled into a fighting position. His street fighting was good enough, but he doubted it would help him. His point was to survive as long as possible, and if anything had a chance of prolonging his life, he would try it.

  
In those few, tense seconds, his vision cleared. He saw the beast that was his executioner: a greyhound-like animal the size of a horse, with long, floppy ears, wide, slavering jaws, and a hide that seemed to be rotting off its bones. Its legs were muscled and almost catlike, and there were six of them, each ending in five long claws. Blood dripped from its teeth and barbed tail.

  
“Traveller, if you or your Creator are out there watching… I could use your help.” The monster whirled on him, angry at being evaded, and charged. “HELP! NOW!” screamed the wiry thief, stepping backward and banging his heel up against the arena’s side.

  
Nothing happened immediately, and the hellish dog-thing was still coming. Desperate, Gribly crouched low and shoved his hands into the sandy ground, inventing a new use for his gift on the spur of the moment.

  
The hell-dog leaped at him. He ripped his hands out of the ground and stood up, causing the sand directly between them to shoot up in a hard wall higher than he was tall. The monstrous beast slammed face-first into it, crashing partway through and tumbling to a halt. The sand collapsed around it.

  
The crowd shut up like a charm, completely silent from shock. Whispers of “sorcerer!” made their way around the stands, and somewhere above him Gribly heard the harsh laughter of Dunelord Ymorio himself; the only one not cowed by the performance.

  
“An admirable try,” the power-hungry Sand Strider’s voice called out, “but useless. You’re going to die, little thief…”

  
Gribly spun around and stared into the stands. Near the top, Ymorio himself stood under a canopy with his fat, over-painted advisers and silver-clad bodyguards. His arms were crossed across his chest and his scars from his encounter with the mysterious assailant days before were prominently displayed. A hideous grin split his face. He knew he was going to win, no matter what.

  
Gribly spun back. The hell-dog was struggling to its feet, madder than ever.

  
Now would be a very good time, Traveller!
No response. Time was up. The monster was up, snarling and coughing blood.

  
Coughing blood?

  
Gribly leaped forward, hoping to have the advantage of surprise. His feet were coated in heavy sand: perfect weapons with the help of his gift, that connected solidly with the hell-dog’s muzzle and knocked it to the ground. Gribly landed lightly, leaped over the animal’s prone form, and started to run away.

  
That was way too easy…
he thought, and he was right. He spun around, ready for the next attack, and saw that his timely strike hadn’t hurt the beast at all.

  
A short, sharp bronze sword was lodged in the hound’s skull, thrown from above.

  
The lad noticed it at the same time as everyone else in the arena, including the enraged Dunelord. As one, hundreds of eyes looked to the sky, bewildered as to what had happened.

  
High overhead, a dark, flying shape plunged into the arena stands. It collided with the Dunelord and soon the two were locked in an intense struggle, man to man. Gribly stepped back, stunned, as he and the rest of Ymeer’s spectators watched Ymorio’s head snap back at an awkward angle and his body topple to the ground, mangled and crushed by the strength of his killer.

  
Lauro the messenger stood, unharmed, in his place.

  
The Dunelord’s bodyguards didn’t react immediately, either from shock or, as Gribly suspected, because they were on the nymph cleric’s payroll. In any case, Lauro was up there without a weapon, and Ymorio’s scimitar was caught under his limp corpse. The young soldier dodged a spear-thrust from one of the silverguard, then hopped nimbly up onto the raised fence in front of the royal canopy before leaping up into the air.

  
He didn’t fall, but instead kept leaping higher and higher, buoyed on strange, billowing gusts of air.
So he’s some sort of wind strider after all,
Gribly thought. He gaped, amazed that he had never seen it before: that confident gleam in Lauro’s eye, the way he treaded air like water. It wasn’t flying- not exactly- but it was close. Lauro would jump as high as he could, and the wind would carry him. When his motion slowed he would sink back to earth unless he could twist his body and make another lunge, mid-leap.

  
After three such maneuvers, the young warrior dropped out of the sky right next to Gribly, landing solidly (and, in the thief’s opinion, a bit off balance), arms splayed out and knees bent to absorb what little impact there was. Yes, indeed: Lauro was the wind strider.

  
“That, my friend,” Gribly exclaimed, “was way,
way
too close.”

  
“You’re welcome,” Lauro replied, walking over to the dead hell-dog and pulling his sword out of its head. Gribly stayed close in case some over-zealous guard got the wrong idea and attacked them. He’d stayed alive this long, and it wouldn’t pay to take any chances this late in the game.

  
He had never felt so relieved and so nervous at the same time.
Thank you, Aura. Thank you, mysterious Creator I can’t see…
To Lauro, he said, “I guess the old nymph came through, huh?”

  
“Nymph?” the soldier asked, looking surprised. “The cleric is a nymph?”

  
“Oh, guess he didn’t tell you that,” the thief smiled smugly. “I figured it out on my own and he had to show me.”

  
“Well, nymph or not,” Lauro acknowledged, “He’s come through well enough. I’m not sure I like this- overthrowing the rightful authority, and all- but I did it to save your sorry skin, and because where I come from we respect clerics as much as kings. I hope you’re satisfied.”

  
In the seconds they had spent talking, the arena stands had quietly been filling with bronze and silver-clad soldiers in the service of the Highfast cleric. What little resistance was met from the loyalist guards and nobles was put down quietly and efficiently.

  
“I’m fine so far, thanks for asking,” Gribly grinned nervously. “It’s what comes next that has me worried.”