Page 48 of The Only Way Out Is Up

Star gives a quick dip of his primary optics. [Gratitude: I like her. She is respectful.]

“Okay, that’s fucking creepy,” Weslai mutters behind us. “Why’ve you got it pretending like it understands?”

SEVENTEEN

The door opens.

The noise, which I’d thought loud before, doubles again. In addition to the roar of hundreds of people shouting at the top of their lungs, there’s a voice that seems too loud and deep to be human speaking over the pandemonium.

“Tonight’s challenger!” it says, and I recognize Venci’s cadences. She must be using sigwork to project her words. “A true underdog, hoping to work his way up from nothing! Will this be his first step on the road to glory, or has he run into a dead end? Please welcome Taj and Star!”

Everyone’s shouting, but I can’t make out any of it. Even Star seems to be cringing. Ky gives me an encouraging nod, and Weslai makes shooing motions. I climb a short set of stairs and pass through a ratty curtain.

Venci’s pit takes up the whole building, twenty meters across and four stories high. We’re on a circular walk above the pit proper, a sunken circle ringed by a tall metal fence. Around and above us, spectators press up against more fences on the second, third, and fourth levels, the central gap narrowing in imitation of the tiered city until those highest up are looking almost straight down into the arena. Every available square centimeter of viewing space is packed; there are even children clinging to the fences like monkeys above the heads of the adults, their high-pitched screams adding a soprano counterpoint to the roar.

In front of me there’s a small platform that extends out over the pit, with a gate and a ramp leading down. This, apparently, is where I’m supposed to stand during the fight. Star scuttles forward, and I follow. Once we come into view of the crowd, we start getting jeers. I fight the urge to wave.

“Facing them,” Venci booms, “a fighter who you all should know by now. A competitor as vicious as she is beautiful, swelling her pot with win after win. Still king after twelve fights, it’s Lorrimer and Mordax!”

The jeers turn to screams of approval. Lorrimer comes through the curtain first, a woman with dirty blond hair that hangs low across her face like a curtain, leaving only a slight gap in front of one eye. It’s an odd look, but I don’t have much time to contemplate it, because my attention is riveted on the runic that emerges behind her.

Mordax. It’s twice Star’s size, wide-framed and four-legged, with an upper trunk at the front like a centaur’s sporting four bladed limbs. There’s no head; the primary optics gleam in the center of the trunk, and secondaries run down either flank. It looks mean, covered in articulated plates painted a deep, bloody red and marred with the scratches of fights past. Spikes and flanges with no obvious purpose stud its shoulders and sweep back from its flanks.

I suddenly appreciate why Venci and Weslai were unimpressed by Star. Compared to this thing, he seems… plain. Workmanlike, like a battered set of overalls beside a tailored uniform. I’ve never thought about painting him. Why bother? It isn’t like the Twisted are going to be intimidated.

[Observation: that runic is very large.]

I noticed.

[Further: much larger than me.]

Yeah, I got it.

[Unacceptable: I consider this a failure on your part.]

If I made you any bigger, I wouldn’t have been able to carry you up here. Not to mention that would require more sigils. I’d stretched Weslai’s advance as far as I could. Are you scared?

[Affront: obviously not.]

Then let’s do this.

Star scrapes two of his legs together with a noise like tzing, shedding a shower of sparks. He scuttles through the gate and down the ramp to the pit floor. Lorrimer mutters something, utterly inaudible under the noise of the crowd. There’s something on her throat that gleams with sigwork. I’m guessing it carries her voice to the runic, because Mordax starts forward, prancing down the ramp with a strangely dainty gait.

“Will the champion continue her reign of terror?” Venci calls out. “Or will we see an upset for the ages? Are you ready?!”

The crowd’s roar rises to a crescendo, like a spike of pain in my ears. Venci’s wild laughter cuts through it, followed by a deep bong like a bell the size of a mountain.

“Begin!”

Let it come to you, I send. We have to figure out what we’re dealing with.

[Acknowledged.]

Lorrimer is speaking to Mordax, giving rapid-fire instructions. The big centauroid construct comes straight forward, four arms spread wide like the jaws of a trap. It seems like too simple of an approach, offering its broad chest as a target.

Don’t go for it. A head-on counterattack is clearly what Lorrimer anticipates. Get out to one side.

Star is clearly already thinking the same thing. He drifts to the right and scuttles back and away just as Mordax comes into range. All four of the centauroid’s limbs snap inward, exactly as I’d imagined, in a move that would have hugged any attacking runic to the thing’s chest. Star’s dodge puts him outside the cage, skittering off to one side in a blur of legs. Lorrimer mutters, and Mordax starts to turn to face him, clumsily repositioning one leg at a time. It’s slow enough that I suspect another trap; surely the champion has to move better than this?