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And she was right.

21The Blood Chalice

The Blood Chalice was one of only four Blacksand Arenas in the kingdom of the half-giants. The largest was the Bone Palace in Erydon, of course; the other two stood in towns at the western and southern edges of this realm, though neither was as large as the Blood Chalice here in Tinthrax, gateway to the north.

The place had the look of a beehive with its top cut off at an angle to let more sun in. It could seat five thousand, or so I’d heard, compared to twenty thousand for the one in the capital. They mostly liked natural stone here, but this place had been painted dark red, for obvious reasons. Here and there, reliefs of brutal fights stood out in white marble, and a white eight-pointed star motif appeared in regular intervals around the top, which was ringed with white stone at its rim. It was a handsome building that did ugly work.

I did not long get to enjoy its exterior. As a blacksand slave, I was quickly swallowed by the foul-smelling guts of the Blood Chalice, penned up with the others of my ludus. The smell of blood was just one part of the wicked nose-brew offered here; also notable was that particularly sharp kind of sweat made by those in dire fear. I myself was making no small amount of this sweat as I waited in the darkness and warmth to be led out to likely slaughter.

The crowd bayed and whooped with a noise not wholly different from that kynd make in mobs, but different enough. It was lower. It was not altogether human. If half-giants were truly descended from both kynd and true giants, the sound they made when excited for blood must have taken something from the larger parent.

“Are you ready?” Galva asked me, stretching with her legs in front of her, holding her bare feet, touching her ear to her knee. We all fought barefoot in the arena, at least until we earned some status, which I never would. Shoes were expensive, and we were just animals to them.

“Sure and I’m ready. I’ve left you all my worldly possessions, made my peace with Foxfoot, and had a good poo. How about you?”

She just nodded, came up, and, with a deep breath, stretched back down and put the other ear to her knees.

That fucker Urkus was the master of ceremonies here, a regular town celebrity, and I could hear him saying this or that to get first cheers, and then a laugh, and then more cheers. All nonsense, of course, and beside the point. The point was these karks wanted to be fed more deaths, and the next course was coming.

“You,” said Smacky, pointing at the Holter. I didn’t care for him much, but he was from somewhere near home, and that was something out here. “Try to fight like a Galt,” I told him, and he told me to fuck myself, so all was right in the world. He got to pick up to two weapons and two pieces of armor from a fitting room we could all see. He chose a helmet with a wide metal brim and a shoulder-piece that offered protection all the way down to one elbow. He tried a couple of cheap-looking swords, then settled on a long-handled axe and a javelin. Not bad—if he could throw, he might end it fast.

Problem was, he didn’t know what he was facing or what they or it would be armed with. Might be he’d get a lion, and a good, long spear would be the best choice. Maybe he’d be up against heavily armored kynd, so the mace would be better. Every arena had its own rules, and every festival, too. The Winter Folly was about luck, mismatches, and mistakes.

I heard roaring, but that was nothing new; the menagerie was not so far from our own pens, so the sounds of big cats and bears, and also the hissing of some unseen thing that chilled my blood, mixed in with the shouts, screams, and speeches coming from outside.

I tried to work out what was happening from the sounds.

Urkus spoke, the crowd cheered. I guessed whatever got brought out to them was kynd or giant, something familiar. At least they didn’t gasp, as they did when the hissing whatever it was went out.

Now more speaking, a subdued cheer. I guessed that was for the navy man. They went oooo, then cut it short a few times as, I guessed, one tried for the other and missed. Metal banging, a grunt. A cheer cut short. A gasp. A few yelled things I didn’t understand, the worst of them from some harpy who sounded to have been made of hate and spittle.

Then another rising cheer.

Awed silence.

The silence was weird.

In the middle of it, I heard a whimper.

Now the Holter saying, “Stop! Stop! Wait!” but of course nobody understood him but maybe the Spanth and me, and the Spanth didn’t seem to be listening. Here he was so far from Manreach, and Holt the farthest part of that, and he had only one of Holt’s Galtish subjects to hear his last words. The very last thing I heard him say wasn’t a word but a name.

“Moxie!” he cried out.

Now the Spanth had her eyes open. She was listening.

There was a ghastly crunching sound, and the crowd roared its glee.

“Fuck,” I said. “Moxie? You reckon that’s his wife?”

“No,” Galva said. “His dog. He told me.”

“You were close, then?”

“Not as close as him and the dog. He loved the dog. Left it with a neighbor when he put to sea, before the shipwreck that stranded him and left him crossing the Thralls.”

“Sounds like you were close indeed, if he’s telling you all that.”

“He liked to talk to me. Mostly I listened.”