The Combat Codes (12 page)

The day’s trip into the markets, the run up Daeomons Hill, the tour of the steppe and the swim in Lake Dagmar had all served to distract Cego from remembering the incident. Now, though, as the two started down Daeomons Hill in silence, the fresh memories began to haunt Cego.

Cego had been helpless, frozen on the floor as he watched his friend viciously beaten. Weep, who had come so far, was dead because Cego had been unable to do anything.

The moment played over and over in Cego’s head. The sulfurous smell of the red dirt in the yard. Ozark’s spiteful eyes surveying his handiwork. Shiar’s cackle as he threw kick after kick into the little boy’s body. The pleading look in Weep’s eyes as the light faded from them.

Cego had stayed on the ground even after the paralyzing effect of the neurogen had worn off. Knees had tried to rouse him, telling Cego he needed to get up and carry on. But Cego hadn’t moved.

He had watched from the floor as Dozer carried Weep from the yard, the big boy wracked with sobs as he delicately draped the little body over his shoulder. Cego had slept on the yard’s dirt that night, not moving until the next crew physically removed him in the morning.

A tear streaked Cego’s cheek. He turned to his side and wiped it discreetly with his sleeve. He couldn’t let Murray see any weakness.

Cego could tell Murray was trying to help him out. He still didn’t know why the burly Grievar was doing it, but he could see something different in Murray. The man wasn’t in it for the bits—after all, he was fighting for Cego’s freedom, putting his own head on the line.

We fight so the rest shall not have
to.

The familiar mantra was a reminder that this man was the closest thing to home or family that Cego had down here.

The two reached level ground and turned onto a cobbled path that wrapped around the other side of Daeomons Hill. Homes were elegantly built into the slope here, carved and constructed as if they grew naturally from the landscape.

Cego sighed deeply as they passed under the soft glow of the lichens, tendrils growing plentifully along the cave ceiling and casting green currents along the cobbled road they walked along. A curious sort of tree lined the path, with luminous buds sprouting from the ends of each wiry branch.

Murray pulled to a stop in front of a grey home with an oaken door, rapping on it with his fist. A silver-haired woman with a strong jaw and thin lips opened up.

The woman and Murray greeted each other by digging their arms under one another, as if they were fighting for underhooks in a grappling match. Murray looked down to Cego, who was standing silently in the doorframe.

“Leyna, I’d like you to meet Cego.”

*

Cego’s week with Leyna and Anderson was confusing. After his grueling experience at Thaloo’s, he wasn’t used to the many comforts that he experienced in the cozy home.

Like a doting mother, Leyna made sure Cego had every comfort available—delicious foods at all hours of the day, a warm bath at night, and fluffed pillows in his bed.

Leyna constantly fed Cego, telling him he was far too skinny for a growing Grievar boy. After a steady diet of green slop for months at Thaloo’s, his stomach took a day or two to get used to the rich foods that Leyna laid out in front of him. He didn’t let that slow him down, though.

Cego wolfed down every crumb of her delicious cooking, dishes like minced mushroom pies encrusted with beelbub nuts, spiral-root sautés over beds of moss, and fluffy Deep cakes frosted in lichen butter.

Cego didn’t see much of Anderson or Murray that week. The men spent most of the days training in the basement, and when mealtime came, they talked fight strategy. Murray only ate special training-approved dishes that Leyna cooked for him (which looked far less appetizing than Cego’s feasts).

Anderson gave Cego warm smiles and even a pat on top of the head, but the tall, dark Grievar was quiet around him. Once, Cego caught Anderson staring at him, examining him, but he quickly looked away when Cego caught his gaze.

Cego spent several days working with Leyna in her garden behind the house. There, the Grievar lady cultivated a variety of Deep roots, mosses, and lichens that she used in her cooking. She even had a beelbub tree in the center of the garden.

Cego watched as Leyna harvested the luminous nuts from the beelbub tree. She hummed a wistful tune as she worked. As soon she plucked each beelbub nut from the branch of the tree, its glow slowly faded.

“Why does the light fade like that?” Cego asked Leyna. He felt comfortable asking the Grievar lady questions, almost as if he were talking to the lone spectral in his cell again, except with Leyna he got real responses.

“Good question.” Leyna placed another nut into the basket Cego was holding up for her. “Our beelbub tree gets nutrients from the ground—water and minerals that it pulls up in its roots. The nutrients travel to each of the tree’s branches and eventually out to the very ends of each branch to feed the nuts.”

Leyna brushed her silver hair over one ear, which was cauliflowered and studded with several earrings. She continued, “The tree uses some of those nutrients to generate luminescence in the nuts. Out in the Deep caverns, the tree uses this light to attract a bat that feeds on the nuts. The bat then deposits the beelbub seed in another cavern where a new tree can grow.”

“But when the nut gets pulled off the tree, the light goes out. Doesn’t that mean it dies?” Cego asked.

Leyna looked at him with earnest eyes, sensing the sadness in Cego’s voice. “Well, yes and no.”

She explained, “In a sense, it is dead because it is cut off from the tree’s roots, from the ground. But when the nut is plucked from the tree and deposited somewhere else, it grows into a whole new tree. In a sense, it is reborn.”

Cego wanted to ask her if Weep would be reborn, but he held his tongue.

Leyna stopped plucking at the tree and set the basket on the floor. “The worms that eat away at bodies in the earth are the same worms that fertilize the soils for mosses to grow.”

Cego crinkled his face and Leyna laughed. “Something the Ancients said, supposedly.”

“The Ancients?”

“Yes. The Grievar who came before. Before all of this Underground you see today. Before the roads and buildings and stadiums and slave dens and arrays.”

“What was there before all of this?” Cego asked.

“They say there was a time long past when you could still hear the Deep wind, the soft swish of cave bats flying overhead—not just the whirring of mechs eating away at the earth. A time before the great array above when only the gentle glow of lichen illuminated the cavern floors. A time when our Circles were simple formations of rock, wood, or moss spread on the ground, not the overcrowded dens, amphitheaters, and arenas they’ve since become.”

“What happened to all that?”

“Daimyos happened,” Murray said gruffly from the entrance to the garden. “Their historians still brag about everything they gave us when they came Deep. Tech, slaves, language, culture, light. They
fixed
us; that’s what they say.”

Murray walked over to the beelbub tree, running his hand along one of its smooth branches.

“Truth is, they gave us nothing,” Murray said. “They only took from us. They took our quiet caverns, our peaceful darkness, our language, our culture. Same thing happened everywhere else they went—to the Kirothian peaks, to the broken isles of Myrkos—the Daimyos took everything from the Grievar.”

Murray grasped one of the beelbub nuts in his fist and plucked it from the tree.

“Worst of all, now they’re taking the Codes from us,” he growled.

Cego watched carefully as the light faded from another of the nuts.

6

Return to Lampai

Certain attacks may seem potent to the untrained eye. Groin strikes, eye gouges, clawing the skin, ripping the hair: though painful, these acts will only serve to bolster the spirit of the more experienced Grievar. The wild cat scratching at the hide of the great bear will soon find its home in the dirt. When faced with such cowardly attacks, a Grievar should return suit with the force of real
technique.

Thirty-Second Precept of the Combat Codes

A
midst the newfound
comforts and Leyna’s care, Cego nearly forgot that his time in Farmoss was only temporary. The morning of Murray’s fight came as a harsh reminder to Cego that he was still on the precipice of ending up back at Thaloo’s, living his days out in the tiny bunk and fighting for his survival.

Cego swallowed a dose of guilt as he thought about Dozer and Knees sweating in the yard while he’d had his head buried in a plush pillow, thinking about what he’d have for breakfast every day. He’d asked Murray if there was anything he could do to get his friends out of Thaloo’s, perhaps add them to the deal if he won at Lampai, but the burly Grievar had looked doubtful.

Leyna and Cego arrived at Lampai Stadium as the spectral light crested toward the height of its strength. Crowds streamed through the open gates, filtering up the ramped causeways to find their seats.

Cego stared up at Lampai’s towering stone rafters. Carved statues of Grievar champions sat on top of the walls, the light filling their empty eye sockets as they stared out at the city. Cego thought about the old master again. Had he ever fought at Lampai? Looking at the old statues, he almost expected to see Farmer’s venerated face staring down at him.

Leyna led Cego through the gates and into the outer causeway of the stadium. He could already hear the crowd from within, low murmurs giving way to roars of applause.

“Preliminary fights kicked off already,” Leyna said.

Murray’s fight with the Dragoon would be the main event today, scheduled to start just as the Underground’s spectral light reached its height. As they made their way around the causeway, Leyna explained the many sights of Lampai to Cego.

The stadium was sectioned off according to bit-price, which meant the best seats went to the Daimyo nobles. The most elaborate seats at Lampai were set along the edge of the arena at the highest viewpoints. Some of the raised boxes were owned by prominent individuals and elaborately crafted to their tastes.

Of course, the Underground’s most prominent Circle owner, slaver, and overall jack of all trades, Thaloo, had his place up on the rafters as well. It was well known Thaloo was the only Grievar with a box at Lampai. His was designed to look like a tented palace, filled with plush couches, rugs, and servants carrying platters of heartbeat grapes. Cego wondered whether Thaloo was sitting up in his box now, looking down at the Circle with his crafty yellow eyes.

“Don’t worry; nothing worth seeing in there. It’s a plush waste of space.” Leyna dismissed it as they passed by the strongly perfumed entrance to the Daimyo section, which was marked by a series of ornate golden doorframes.

They passed by the entry-way to the cheapest seats, where Grunt laborers bought tickets. Cego noticed that many of the Grunts were packed into the bar outside the entryway. They watched the preliminary fights on boards above the bar, clanking their bottles together and yelling at the screens.

Some of the lightboards plastered across the walls displayed the odds of each fight. Cego’s heart sank as he saw that Murray was listed as a huge underdog, the Dragoon nearly a six-to-one favorite over the older Grievar.

Leyna led Cego to the Grievar section, which was spartan. Beyond the bare basics of vat-jerky and Deep-ale stands, the Grievar had designed their interior as a simple hallway to funnel folk toward Lampai’s true purpose—the fights. The two walked through the Grievar section out to the open air arena.

Cego looked down at the mass of folk slowly gathering for the main event. The crowd looked like a whirlpool, swirling around the circumference of the stadium and getting thicker toward the center of gravity, the Circle. Though it seemed small from this height, the Circle was luminous, attracting a massive beam of light from the overhead elemental arrays. Spectrals sporadically broke from the beam, swirling around it and then jumping back into the concentrated light like salmon spawning upstream.

Cego and Leyna made their way up another aisle. Though Murray had done his best bargaining to get them good tickets, they were fairly far out from the Circle, in the outposts of the Grievar section.

Even though the seats they took were some distance from the Circle, Cego could feel the prickle of spectral light on his skin. He looked around him at the Grievar crowd in attendance. They were quieter than Cego expected, their eyes zoned in on the preliminary fight down below, occasionally glancing up at the massive lightboard in the center of the stadium that displayed the biometrics of each combatant.

The Grievar around Cego joined together in a sudden chorus—
‘Osssss!’
Their deep voices cut through the clamor of the stadium.

Cego was surprised to hear Leyna beside him echoing the call. She smiled at him and motioned for him to join along. The Grievar gave the acknowledgment whenever one of the fighters below showed strength or skill, no matter how subtle or small the action was. They were joining in the fight, letting the light fill them and focus them on the rhythm of combat.

In comparison, the other sections of the stadium were far less controlled. Spectators hooted and hollered as their favorites gained control, or booed and spat on the ground when a fighter they had bits riding on lost. Folk constantly ran to and from their seats to make last-minute changes on their bets or to refill their tankards of ale.

Cego could feel the tension building in the crowd as the final preliminary fight ended. The main event was nearly underway.

He wondered what Murray and Anderson were doing right now. Maybe waiting in some tiny locker room in the bowels of the stadium. Was Murray warming up, hitting pads as Anderson called out combinations as they did in the basement? Or maybe Murray was sitting calmly with his eyes closed, breathing deeply as Cego had watched him do earlier that week?

Farmer had always told Cego to steady his heartbeat prior to fighting. The old master would say, “Your opponent will know if your heart is racing, your palms sweaty, your muscles tightened, your eyes fearful. You must quiet your heart and all else will follow.”

During Cego’s fights at Thaloo’s, that advice had been instrumental not only for staying calm but also for keeping his biometric data in check so that his opponent couldn’t capitalize on any perceived weakness up on the lightboard.

Cego heard two nearby Grievar talking about the upcoming matchup.

“Murray’s last fight, he already looked worn out then. Like he gave up. Can’t imagine how he’ll look ten years later!”

A second Grievar agreed. “Yeah. My uncle was Upworld, at the Citadel, when he lost. He was such a Mighty Murray fan, still talks about it like he was the one who lost the darkin’ thing. Says the same thing, though… Murray walked into the Albright Stadium like he’d lost already, shoulders sagging, eyes down on the canvas.”

The other Grievar took a swig of something strong, strong enough that Cego could smell it from his seat. “Must be crazy, though, fighting for some boy after all these years. Don’t think old man Murray knows what he’s gotten himself into here. I mean, din’t he even watch the Dragoon’s last fight? He darkin’ put a Knight out in the first two minutes. I’m not talking about some washed-up Knight, either—Hardy was freshly graduated from the Lyceum.”

“Yeah, I remember that fi—” Suddenly, the lights went out.

Not just the huge array over Lampai Stadium; all the lights in the Underground went dark. The crowd quieted, a hush rolling over even the most boisterous fans.

For a moment in the eerie black, Cego forgot that he was in Lampai Stadium with so many other folk. He forgot he was in the Underground even, a manmade city with a constant pulse. Cego was sitting in a massive cavern in the dark, in the quiet. He could hear the Deep wind swishing and chattering overhead, swarms of bats fluttering through the darkness.

Wisps of lights emerged on either end of the stadium—spectrals, dozens of them on each side, floating toward the Circle. Even in the darkness, Cego knew that Murray was walking within one of those swarms.

The lights blasted back on, roaring to life all at once across the Underground, beaming down again on the Circle. Murray was down there, standing on one side of the silvery ring with spectrals buzzing around him. Across from him stood the Dragoon.

Both of the Grievar’s images flashed up on the huge lightboard in the center of the stadium along with their full biometric readings.

The Dragoon was massive: across from Murray, he looked to be at least two heads taller, with long, corded arms and legs. The Dragoon’s signature flux tattoo was in full movement under the light, a black dragon curled around one of his shoulders, breathing a fireball across his back.

The huge Grievar flipped his topknot over his shoulder and smirked, raising his arm to the crowd’s thunderous approval.

Murray looked undaunted. Though by far the smaller and older of the two Grievar, he stood firmly in place, his chest deeply rising and falling as he steadied his breath. With Murray’s shirt off, Cego could see the intricately patterned flux tattoos that started on top of his shoulders and fell down his back and arms, each tattoo like a separate entity moving of its own accord, yet flowing together as if with some unified purpose.

Looking up at the lightboard image of Murray, Cego tried to discern the tattoos on Murray’s bare skin. Usually, the burly Grievar wore a sleeved cloak that concealed all but the last few tattoos on his wrists and hands. Now Cego could see all the designs clearly, rendered fully under the light. A black wolf howling at the moon. A rooster running with rapid legs. A turtle pulling its head into its shell. A silver bear swiping its paws.

Cego turned to Leyna. “What do Murray’s tattoos mean?”

She kept her eyes on the Circle as the two Grievar took their final preparations below. The Dragoon showboated to the crowd by dropping into a split, while Murray stood quietly staring at his opponent.

“Murray’s fluxes are badges gained in the Citadel. He earned some for achievements when we were studying together at the Lyceum, and the others he won fighting for Mercuri as a Knight. It’s not the same nowadays, though. The newer Grievar, like dragon boy down there, they just flux on whatever fits their fancy. Always trying to win the crowd over so they can command a higher bit-purse. Not like it used to be.” Leyna shook her head slowly.

Leyna smiled wryly at Cego as she pulled the shoulder of her tunic down, revealing the same howling black wolf on her skin. “That one was for passing sixth-year finals at the Lyceum—becoming a Knight. Hurt like the dark.”

Cego was astounded to see that Leyna, so caring and warm, had been a Knight as well. He couldn’t quite picture her in any vicious battles or traveling to foreign lands to fight for Mercuri’s borders.

She caught Cego’s wide eyes and laughed. “Hard to imagine this gal a Knight once upon a time, eh? Well, let me tell you, young Grievar… I stood with the best of them.” Leyna looked like she was ready to launch into a story, but a loud tone echoed across the stadium, signaling the light was at its height for the day.

The fight began.

*

Standing under the pillar of spectral light, Murray was confused.

The light felt incredible, beyond what he’d dreamed of every night for the past ten years as he restlessly turned in bed and relived his days as a Grievar Knight. Murray could acutely sense every inch of his body, the connections between sinew, muscle, ligament, and bone, running from the tips of his toes to top of his skull. The light beam blasted away any doubts he had about fighting the Dragoon, the huge Grievar standing across from him, ready to take his head off with a kick.

And yet, the light brought back memories. His last year fighting for the Citadel. So often under the influence of the light that the Circle felt more comfortable than his own bed. Pushing those he loved away in the name of Mercuri and his lightpath. Coach leaving, the team breaking up.

Murray had lived through it. He knew that the light took in more than his biometric feedback, displaying it high on the boards for all to see. Murray knew that the light had taken his life, almost everything he had once held dear. And yet he knew he couldn’t live without it.

Murray was a creature of the light—this was his fate. He embraced the light at Lampai, fully and wholeheartedly, letting it seep into his skin, his blood, his breath, and his heartbeat. He opened his eyes and looked forward at the Dragoon. He was moving toward the huge Grievar then, every muscle of his body in balance as he cut across the Circle.

Anderson had laid out a gem of a game plan for Murray, one that capitalized on every potential factor of the fight. Murray was to stay away from the Dragoon’s long reach, in particular avoiding the jabs and leg kicks that the man could throw to keep his opponents at range. To do this, Anderson wanted Murray to circle the Dragoon, staying just outside of his reach.

Eventually, the Dragoon would be baited to move in with one of his famed flying knees—a leaping attack that he launched to rapidly close the distance and potentially catch his opponent off guard. Murray had watched SystemView replays of the Dragoon’s last several fights, three of which had ended with a devastating knockout due to a flying knee. It was at this critical point in the fight that Murray needed to anticipate the flying knee and go in for the takedown. Get the Dragoon on the ground and get to work. That was the plan.

Murray fully trusted Anderson’s logic. The game plan made perfect sense. It played to Murray’s strengths and the Dragoon’s weaknesses. Murray was at huge disadvantage in the standing game, so he needed to get the Dragoon to the ground. Simple.