Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (39 page)

The whole thing was probably twice the size of a football field. The stands circled around the entire length and they were completely full. The platforms of the Pinnacles were just as crowded, pirates pushing to the edge to watch what was likely the most anticipated Nonagon match of all time. The roar from the spectators seemed to vibrate the ground and it felt like the sound was trying to crush them.

“Looks smaller from the stands,” Ravan said, with no small amount of apprehension.

On the field, to the side, stood about a dozen other figures, protected by guards, their hands bound behind them. Out front was a small girl, the pink strips in her hair reflecting the desert sun above. Holt’s heart sank. It was Olive and her crew. They hadn’t escaped, and most likely, had been put on the field so that they could be quickly executed once the match was done.

The world felt heavy. It was his fault they were here too.

Masyn and Castor stepped out from a cell next to theirs. Neither of them looked great, but they were moving, though Castor was still holding his shoulder and leaning on Masyn. When he saw Holt, he smiled regardless.

Like Ravan, Holt had never seen the Nonagon from the inside, and she was right. It was imposing.

Nine sections of seats stretched around the perimeter, each with a huge red banner hanging above it bearing the shape of some menacing creature: a wolf, a dragon, a scorpion, and so on, around the entire stadium.

The arena floor was divided into a large circle of metal, surrounded by a ring of dirt. In the center rose the Turret, three hundred feet tall, a tower of latticework full of gears, pulleys, and chains. At the very top sat a giant box full of windows with turnable images that could be lined up to create giant mosaics, like some primitive version of a display screen. Right now it was blank.

Spreading out from the Turret was an obstacle course of old cars and trucks and buses and other obstructions. Some had always been there, others were brought in new for each match, seeing as the configurations had a habit of destroying everything inside.

Menagerie guards wheeled away their cells, while others prodded them backward toward the starting position. Waiting there was the Dais, a metallic pedestal with four closed doors that held the items they would have to use. Each Nonagon configuration came with four unique objects to help survive or disarm it, and somehow, whenever the Dais opened, only those items were present. They must be shuttled up from beneath.

Masyn and Castor stared at the huge crowd with curiosity.

“They want a show,” Masyn said, smiling.

“Well, you’re gonna give them one,” Holt replied.

He told them the plan, and their reaction was different than Ravan’s. What he was proposing, trying to win instead of just surviving, meant more danger. They were on board from the onset. Castor explained to Masyn about the Nonagon’s three rounds, the nine-minute time limits, the different configurations.

“What about the items?” Masyn asked.

“Each configuration has four,” Ravan told them. “You can use them to help you survive, or to disarm the configuration. There are four matching slots somewhere on the machine or out in the field.”

“So they’re like keys?” Masyn asked.

“Yeah, you’ll see the lights. They’re color-coded to match whatever your item is, and there’ll be a receptacle of some kind. Once all the items are in … the configuration disarms. Then you get to do it all over again.”

A loud blast of staticky sound echoed sharply throughout the arena. The crowd silenced. At the far end, near the top of the central section, rested Tiberius’s private box.

Holt could see the tiny figures beginning to fill it. Tiberius’s inner circle, those ranking Overseer and above led the way, followed by Tiberius himself, and a smaller figure. Clearly a girl, and even though she was demure, she carried herself with more presence than the others.

“Avril,” Masyn said with disdain. “She’s just going to sit and watch.”

“We all make our choices,” Castor replied.

“If you ask me,” Ravan said, “she made the right one.”

Holt couldn’t disagree. Compared to the rest of them, Avril had certainly come out on top.

Looking at the box, it was pretty obvious which one was Tiberius, if only because of his guards and the unassuming way he held himself. He stepped toward a microphone, and seconds later, his voice echoed back and forth between the sides of the arena.

“These have been trying times,” he said. “But it has brought us closer. United us. Faust, once more, is a
whole
city.”

The crowd erupted back to life. It was exuberant and triumphant and, Holt thought, relieved. Those who had stood by Tiberius had backed the right horse, and this was their day.

Tiberius spoke again, silencing the crowd, and this time the reaction was less approving. “Amnesty will be granted to all those who participated in the rebellion.”

The crowd roared its displeasure, feet stomped on the metal bleachers, creating a percussive sound that echoed in the air.

Ravan looked at Holt wryly. “Guess that doesn’t include
us.
”

Tiberius waited for the roar to die down. “Power must be taken. Challenging for it is our
way.
The ones who survived are few, yet they are the strongest, and we are made stronger by them. They will bring us all profit and power.”

“Profit! Power!” the crowd chanted once in unison.

“The second half of our creed says that power lost must be retaken. That is why we are here today. The four in the arena have all played their roles in the taking of
your
power. Today … it will be returned. Let the Nonagon begin.”

The crowd roared even more hungrily than before. Holt could almost feel the thousands of eyes glaring down menacingly. The windows of the giant “screen” at the top of the Turret suddenly began to spin. The crowd cheered louder. It was going to show the first configuration, which meant the bloodshed wasn’t far off.

One by one, the spinning windows froze in place, each clicking to a stop and holding a fraction of a giant image that formed one piece at a time. When it was done, a distinct shape was emblazoned at the top of the Turret.

A spider, its legs tensed as if ready to pounce.

One particular section of the crowd cheered louder than the rest, and the banner above them matched the one on the screen. As Holt watched, the banner rose higher than the others. That section’s totem had been called, which meant should it win, their profit would be increased, an exciting prospect. After all, most times, the Nonagon
did
win.

“Tarantula,” Ravan observed. “Better than Scorpion, anyway. Tiberius must not want us dead as quickly as I thought.”

“Two minutes.” A new voice suddenly filled the air from the same speakers that had carried Tiberius’s. It was the two-minute warning, the time until the first round would start. Below the screen, the single hand embedded in the giant timer began to spin, starting at 0, with 120 at the opposite end. The Dais hummed and opened, revealing four items, each painted a different color.

A red, wooden staff, about six feet long.

An orange set of bolt cutters.

A green hand axe.

A blue metallic spike with a handle.

“Look on the field,” Holt told Masyn and Castor. “Find the matching light.”

The Helix looked and now saw spinning lights on different parts of it, in colors that matched the items. Inside an old tow truck there was a blue light. On a rusted storage container, an orange one. At the top of a bus, set on end and stretching almost twenty feet high, sat a red light.

“One minute,” the loud, jarring voice proclaimed, and the cheers intensified. The hand of the giant ticking clock was at the very bottom, pointing to 60.

“I don’t see the green light,” Castor observed, and he was right, it wasn’t there, at least not yet.

“You will,” Ravan answered dryly. “Just hasn’t appeared yet.” Quickly, she went over the details of the Tarantula: the pits, the chains, their general strategy. As she did so, the two Helix actually seemed to grow excited. Holt wondered how long that would last.

“We get nine minutes to disarm it, that’s how long the round lasts,” Ravan told them. “You don’t disarm the configuration in that time, it counts as surviving, and we can’t win after that.”

“Funny how surviving’s become second place,” Holt observed.

“Remember,” Ravan continued, “once you get rid of your key, you can’t use it anymore.”

“Who’s taking what?” Masyn asked.

Holt and Ravan looked at each other, thinking it through, deciding what was best. The Helix’s agility and reflexes gave them an advantage, there was no doubt, but it wouldn’t count for anything if they didn’t match them to the right items and keyholes.

In the end, Castor took the axe and Masyn the staff. They could work together on the green combination lock, and Masyn was the quickest of all of them right now. The red lock was the farthest in; she could use the staff to her advantage in the meantime.

Ravan gave Holt the bolt cutters and took the spike. Both items were meant to help deal with the configuration’s second phase, and they were likely going to need them. Holt’s body still ached, he wasn’t as nimble as he used to be. He just hoped the inevitable surge of terror-induced adrenaline he was about to get would compensate.

Masyn and Castor moved off a few feet, talking in low tones.

“You think they’re ready?” Ravan asked him.

Holt shrugged, watching the two talk, seemingly unintimidated. “They’re White Helix.”

The voice from the speaker filled the arena again. “Ten. Nine. Eight,” it intoned, counting down the final seconds. The crowd chanted along with it, their voices punctuating each number.

“And us?”

Holt looked at her. She was beautiful even now, he thought. “We are definitely not ready.”

The countdown kept going. Holt tensed, gripped the orange bolt cutters in his hand. It was unlikely they were coming out of this alive, but right then, they still had a chance, and that was what mattered.

“Three. Two. One.”

A loud, blaring tone of sound filled the arena as the timer reached 0. The crowd roared. The windows of the giant screen spun crazily, wiping away the spider and replacing it with the numeral 9, the number of minutes they had left. The Turret began to spin. The ground under Holt’s feet began to vibrate.

The Nonagon had begun.

32.
TARANTULA

THE CROWD HOWLED MENACINGLY
as the four dashed over the Nonagon floor. Holt and Ravan separated, headed toward their respective keyholes, while Masyn and Castor stuck together. It was part of the strategy, and necessary to get to the combination lock, which was a Nonagon term for a keyhole that required more than one item to reach, though still only one to disarm. Holt hoped they’d explained the round well enough.

He dodged around and through what was left of a series of buried motorcycles, their handles and front wheels sticking up out of the dirt. Ahead, lines of old cars and other obstructions impeded his progress toward his goal: a rusted storage container, about a hundred yards ahead, an orange light flashing on top.

Without warning, a strange thing happened. The dirt under his feet gyrated and spun, and his pulse quickened as it did. It was anticipated, the Tarantula’s primary trap, and an unpleasant one at that.

Holt leapt into the air as the ground fell away under him into a circular pit with a diameter of about twenty feet, and he knew if he looked he would see the giant orifice of geared teeth at the bottom, ready to chew him to bits if he fell in.

He hit the ground on the other side and kept running, watching as the others did the same, leaping over new pits as they formed. The pits were everywhere and unpredictable.

He double-timed it for the container, dodging around another pit that swirled to life in front of him, saw Masyn and Castor do the same. The combination lock hadn’t presented itself yet, but it would. The Helix would be fine until then.

Holt saw Ravan reach the tow truck with the flashing blue light … right as another pit materialized under her.

The truck was in the center of the pit, but it didn’t move, it was held aloft by a metallic column. Anyone approaching that keyhole would have to somehow get over the pit to reach the vehicle. Ravan had seen enough Tarantula matches to know how the blue keyhole was trapped, and had run all-out for it.

It paid off.

She reached the edge of the pit right as it began to form, which gave her enough space to jump and slam onto the side of the truck before the hole yawned open. The spike she was carrying came to a razor-sharp point, and she punched it through the old wheel well of the truck, using it to hold on. Slowly, she pulled herself up until she was close enough to grab onto the side, barely scrambling up and over into the back, then pushed forward and climbed through the truck’s rear window.

Seconds later, another intense, staticky burst of sound exploded into the air, and the blue flashing light on the tow truck went dead. Ravan had placed her item in the receptacle and unlocked her keyhole. Holt watched one corner of the huge screen spin and then make a square of blue, indicating what Ravan had done.

The crowd under the Tarantula banner booed loudly. The closer Holt’s team got to disarming their configuration, the more profit they stood to lose.

The screen above them now showed 6. Only six minutes left, and they’d only disarmed one of—

From a pit, something exploded up into the air. A mass of thick cables, lined with sinisterly sharp hooks. They were bursting out of the pits all over the arena. Some landed in his path, and he almost tripped as they were reeled back in.

Holt leapt over one strand, landed … and felt searing pain as another clawed into his leg.

He was ripped off his feet and slammed onto his back as the cable drew back toward the pit. The cable dragged him roughly across the dirt, the hook digging into his leg. It would pull him inside the giant hole, and down to the grinding gears at the bottom, and that would be that. The crowd rose to a fever pitch, sensing blood.