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The arena beasts reveled in their freedom, ready to attack any prey in their confusion. One of the swamp dragons grabbed a merchant out of his doorway and pulled him screaming into the street. A second giant lizard scuttled close and bit his head off.
Drenched in blood and shaking from their battle with the combat bear, Nicci and Nathan stood shoulder-to-shoulder and rallied as a pack of spiny wolves charged toward them. One wolf caught Nicci by surprise, driving her backward as she raised her daggers. Instinctively, she released a ball of wizard’s fire, but the heat rippled up and away from the enormous wolf, deflected by the protective runes branded on its hide.
Recovering, she stabbed her left dagger through its ribs and cut downward, slicing it open. Even though Nicci had delivered a mortal wound, the infuriated creature kept attacking. More wolves piled on her, but Nathan rushed in, decapitating one with a downstroke of his sword. Shouting, he hacked the spine of one, thrust the blade deep into the haunch of another. The maddened wolves did not retreat—but they did die, one by one.
As the wizard Quentin fought, he snarled at Andre, “How do we kill these things? You created them.”
“Yes, I did! Aren’t they magnificent?”
“Magnificent until they tear you apart,” Damon snapped. “Don’t they have any weaknesses?”
The fleshmancer snorted. “If I knew of any weaknesses, I would have removed them, hmmm?”
Elsa tried to work a spell, but was frustrated. “Our magic doesn’t work on them.”
“That is the way they are designed, to be better fighters in the arena. We’ll just have to be superior, hmmm?” Andre said, smiling. “And we are indeed superior.”
Finally, High Captain Stuart called in his archers. Dozens of crossbowmen climbed to the rooftops and balconies of the nearby buildings. They wound back their strings and loaded quarrels. “Aim carefully, but kill them all!” Stuart shouted.
A rain of sharp metal quarrels peppered the rampaging bull, leaving it looking like the pincushion of a greedy seamstress. The beast groaned and staggered, barely able to walk with its broken forelimb. It tottered, went down on the other leg, and crashed to the street.
“Reload!” Stuart yelled. Choosing their targets at a glance, the crossbowmen shot at the scattered animals, and another rain of crossbow bolts killed four spiny wolves and the two swamp dragons. The leopards fell alongside the dead combat bear.
A speckled boar the size of an ox stampeded out of the shadows, and more than twenty arrows barely slowed it. The boar slashed the air with its horrible tusks, and High Captain Stuart killed the thing himself by thrusting his sword through its chest again and again.
As the archers reloaded, Nicci saw the troka of sand panthers emerge from the dark tunnel, covered with blood. They looked much like Mrra, bound to one another from the time they were cubs—but not bonded to her. They loped forward, snarling.
Nicci and Nathan stood side by side, blades ready, as the sand panthers closed in. Their feline muscles bunched, their claws extended to attack.
Stuart shouted, and a storm of quarrels blanketed the troka of panthers, dozens of shafts killing them before they could even spring. The three magnificent cats lay dead on the ground, covered in blood. Nicci felt a sharp sympathetic pain, but she knew it was a mercy that all three sister panthers died simultaneously. She remembered the trauma and despair Mrra had felt after losing her spell-bonded sisters, left alone and alive.
Arrows still clattered on the streets, and the city guard ranged through nearby alleys, looking for stragglers. Dead animals lay everywhere, on doorsteps, in the gutters, out in the open.
“I believe they’re all slaughtered,” Damon said. “The city is saved.”
The ache in Nicci’s heart washed away the rush of energy from the fight.
“They’re all dead,” Elsa replied, shaking her head. “They were so desperate to get away.”
“They were driven to this by the chief handler,” Nicci said, turning to Thora. “What did you expect would happen if they got loose?”
“I did not expect them to get loose,” said the sovrena.
“The air stinks of blood,” Elsa said.
“Yes it does, my dear.” Nathan brushed at his own red-drenched robes. “We all need fresh garments.”
Thora’s face twisted in a rictus of hate. “This was caused by Mirrormask and his rebels. They mean to bring down our society, to cause harm to our way of life.” She gestured to the butchered animals and the dozen or more human bodies that lay strewn in the streets. “And this! If the rebels care so much about the lower classes, then perhaps they shouldn’t have unleashed these wild animals upon the city! Look at all the dead!”
“The people should have just gotten out of the way,” Maxim said. “Now half of our fighting specimens are dead. How disappointing.”
“They only did what they were born and trained to do,” Nicci said. “Chief Handler Ivan lost control.”
“Where is Ivan?” Sovrena Thora snapped. “We need to understand what went wrong.”
Fleshmancer Andre emerged from the tunnels, where he and several city guards had gone. Just behind him, Adessa and two morazeth came out, bloody and exhausted.
Rather than looking defeated or troubled, Andre had a gleam in his eyes. He stepped directly up to Nathan. “Good news for you, my friend. Good news indeed. We must take advantage of this.” He said the next two words with deliberate intent. “Wizard Nathan.”
“What happened?” Nathan asked.
“The sand panthers attacked and mauled Ivan.”
“He is dead,” Adessa announced. “The cats tore him to pieces. I saw it.”
“Nearly dead.” Andre raised a finger. “Thankfully, I used a spell to preserve him at the moment of infinite agony, on the edge of his death. He is suspended there, but the Keeper doesn’t have him yet. Still, we should hurry.”
Nicci was too exhausted and angry to play games. “Hurry to do what?”
“Why, this is your chance, Nathan! Chief Handler Ivan is dying … but his heart is intact. This is exactly what you’ve been waiting for since you arrived in Ildakar, hmmm? The heart of a wizard.”
CHAPTER 50
Bloody after the battle in the training tunnels, Adessa rolled a wooden cart out into the street. One of the wooden wheels squeaked and wobbled as she pulled it along. Its red-stained bed held the burly form of Chief Handler Ivan.
Adessa released the handles and turned toward the bloody form lying in the shadows. “Ivan used this cart to bring butchered meat for his pets.” She smiled at the irony. “It seemed appropriate.”
Taking Nathan’s wrist, Andre pulled him closer. “Come, you must see! What a wonderful opportunity, hmmm?”
Nathan looked down at the body, disturbed. The chief handler sprawled motionless. The tan leather of his jerkin had been shredded by the claws. Fangs had savaged his spine, torn a huge chunk from his shoulder, ripped open his ribs. The three panthers had eviscerated him, and his glistening guts lay spread out. Ivan’s bearded face was twisted, his lips drawn back to expose his teeth, as if caught in a howl. His eyes were wide open and staring—but frozen.
“You were most fortunate, Nathan. If I hadn’t been here…” Andre gestured to the man’s torn abdomen. Ivan looked like a clumsily gutted fish.
“I am not feeling terribly lucky right now,” Nathan said.
“Oh, but you should, hmmm? The sand panthers caused horrific damage, but the rib cage and breastbone protected his heart. The organ is intact—exactly what you need.”
Nicci showed no grief for the man’s bloody and painful end. “He deserved whatever they did to him, but Ivan is dead now, just like the cats he trained.”
She looked around them, where workers with carts were cleaning up the massacre, hauling corpses away, animals and humans alike. The city guard plucked crossbow bolts from the bodies to wash and return them to their store of weapons. Downcast slaves came forward with buckets to wash the blood off the streets, kneeling to scr
ub with thick, stiff-bristled brushes.
“Oh, but Ivan isn’t dead, Sorceress,” Andre said. “I reached him just in time. He was very near death, wallowing in agony, bleeding every drop of life away. I fear his heart had only a few more beats left in it. But I worked my spell and preserved him. I stopped time around his body, so he will endure that last endless moment of pain, on the very cusp of death. I’m sure he desperately wants that moment to end, to slip through the veil into the underworld. But is there any better way for one to remember being alive, hmmm?”
