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Delighted by the reactions, Rodan flashed his yellow-tooth grin. Anhuset's upper lip curled the tiniest bit. “As I consider myself a fair man, I will grant your request for trial by combat and accept your bid as Lord Pangion's champion.”
This time Serovek couldn't help his shocked inhalation. This he hadn't expected, and his blood froze in veins turned to filaments of ice.
Don't argue or protest what I do or say.
He'd thought at the time her comment had related to the odd remark about marrying him, assumed she'd concocted some bizarre plan with Brishen that might convince Rodan not to kill him if he was offered some beneficial alliance with Bast-Haradis. Every fiber of his being shouted at him to do exactly the opposite of what she demanded.
The king's sinister smile went even wider at Serovek's obvious distress though he kept his attention mostly on Anhuset. “I've already chosen your opponent, one less concerned with the possession of things such as inheritance and far more interested in the basic needs of life.”
“What have you done, Anhuset?” Serovek forced the words past clenched teeth.
This time Rodan did turn to him. “Lord Pangion, Anhuset of the Kai has invoked the law of trial by combat on your behalf and offered herself as your champion.” The smirk he wore turned even more gloating. “I've accepted on your behalf.”
Judicial combat. A fight to the death. If she won, he'd go free. If she lost, she'd die, and he'd die with her. Rodan hadn't gotten Magas. He wouldn't get Anhuset either if Serovek could help it. He knew the law, knew it had been generations since it had last been invoked. The accused was not allowed to fight for himself. There had to be a champion, and the requirement of a fight to the death had a suppressing effect on any would-be volunteer saviors of the accused. Of course, Beladine law hadn't taken sha-Anhuset into account. Neither had he.
“I refuse the champion,” he said. He'd rather face Anhuset's wrath or the ax than watch her die in the arena for the sport of a king and the entertainment of the masses on the pretext of justice meted out for a crime committed. She was a superior fighter with a martial prowess hard to match, but Serovek was familiar with Rodan's machinations, the way he bent the rules and reinterpreted the laws to suit his purposes. He'd make certain to weight the odds in favor of her opponent, whoever that was.
A low growl emanated from his right. Anhuset's eyes were the palest yellow and her lips had drawn back just enough to expose the points of her teeth. The servant, fearing for his skin more than offending someone, took an obvious step back. If the force of her glare could set fire to things, she would have immolated him on the spot.
An unmistakable note of malicious glee entered Rodan's voice. He was enjoying himself at Serovek's expense. That was obvious to all. “You can't refuse,” he said. “I've accepted on your behalf and her opponent awaits her.” He turned to Anhuset. “Are you ready?” She nodded. “The forum is yours, the weapons there for your use.”
Still reeling and horrified over what just unfolded in front of him, Serovek took a second, closer look at Anhuset. She was armored but unarmed. Breast plate and greaves, pauldrons and vambraces, plackart, and beneath it all, a mail hauberk and padded gambeson. With a helmet tucked under her arm, she was fully harnessed but confoundingly enough, lacking a single weapon—if one didn't count her teeth and claws. He'd only glanced at the forum floor with its covering of sand and its high walls but remembered the weapons rack occupying one part, mostly empty except for a few polearms, a sword or two and a solitary shield.
He reached out as she passed close to him, a pair of soldiers behind her to lead her down to the forum floor. The chain connecting his wrist and leg irons rattled as he grasped her arm. “Don't do this,” he begged her in a low, fervent voice. “Stand down.”
She lowered her head to stare at his shackles before lifting it once more to gaze upon him. Her eyes were no longer like the white heat of twin suns but the pale yellow of a harvest moon. Her mouth softened, and for the span of a breath, she leaned into him. “We live for those we love,” she told him in bast-Kai. “We die for those we love. This is a privilege, Serovek, not a sacrifice.”
She pulled away before he could tighten his grip and pivoted out of his reach. He stared at her departing back, shouting her name inside but silent to all others. She would give them their spectacle in the forum. He refused to give a second as a private performance here. He would toss aside that prideful assertion without a second thought later, willing to play the puppet to any of Rodan's demands.
Every seat in the forum was taken, with more people sitting in the aisles leading to them. Serovek stood adjacent to Rodan's chair, not close enough to reach him and do harm without ending up a pin poppet for his archers, but close enough to hear Rodan's commentary to his queen and his closest advisors, his fawning favorites and his most trusted servants. The few occasions he tried to lure Serovek into an argument or commentary, he received only a “Yes, Your Majesty” or “No, Your Majesty,” or the slightly longer “As you say, Your Majesty.” Giving up after several rounds of coolly abbreviated responses, Rodan ignored him.
When their voices reached a dull roar and many began to chant “Begin! Begin!” Rodan finally rose and stepped to the wall that acted as a balcony. One of his sorcerers placed a shimmering stone in his hand and backed away with a bow. An awning stretched over the king, casting him in shade, but the people still saw him and cheered when he raised both arms for their attention. “People of Timsiora,” he said, his voice a sonorous blast that reached every part of the forum, obviously the work of the enchanted stone he held. “Of Belawat and her territories, a man we all know as brave, heroic, fierce in battle, loyal to me for many long years, has unfortunately been accused of treason against the kingdom and sedition against the crown.”
Another roar went up, this one a mixture of disbelieving boos and disapproving whistles. As before, it faded when the king raised his arm. “Serovek, Lord Pangion of High Salure and one of my most valued margraves stands accused of these crimes. Witnesses have come forth to argue against him.” Serovek wondered who these mysterious witnesses were. To his knowledge, only Bryzant had slandered him to Rodan.
“According to Beladine law, he may be tried before a tribunal or...” Rodan paused for effect, and the crowd held its collective breath. Serovek rolled his eyes. “have his innocence or guilt decided in judicial combat. A fight to the death.” This time the crowd held its silence, and the silence pulsed like a beating heart. “Long has it been since we in Timsiora have witnessed trial by combat—a fight to the death—but today we will. A champion has come forth to fight in Lord Pangion's name and Lord Pangion has accepted.”
It was Serovek's turn to growl, and Rodan glanced over his shoulder to flash him a wolfish smile at his obvious lie. The crowd erupted once more, this time with cheers and calls for a fight to begin. The king gave a signal and a gate at one end of the amphitheater opened up admitting Anhuset who, from this distance, looked small but not at all diminished as she strode toward the center of the arena. “My people,” Rodan shouted above the din of unsure cheers, “I give you Anhuset of the Kai kingdom of Bast-Haradis, champion of Lord Serovek Pangion.” The cheers, which had been quieter at first as the crowd gawked and pointed at the formidable silver and gray Kai woman standing tall in her heavy armor, rose to even greater volume when she pivoted sharply to face the king and offered him the Kai salute reserved for a monarch.
Serovek nearly choked on his own spittle when he saw it. He'd made it a point to learn more about his Elder race neighbors over the years, becoming mostly fluent in their language. He'd fought beside them on patrols, fought against them in raids, and diced with them in their barracks. He'd danced with their women during their festivals, rode with their regent into battle against demons, and fell in love with one of their high-ranking officers. The Kai salute was dramatic, sharp, and forceful. A thump to the chest with the fist before the arm straightened and was held stiffly to the side. It was also very similar to a much more vulgar Kai gesture in which the fist opened up to a spread hand before the arm straightened. A subtle change gone unnoticed by those unfamiliar with Kai gestures and lingo, which the king and likely every soul in Timsiora could count themselves. An obvious change to the Kai and to Serovek. Anhuset had just told the king in front of thousands of his subjects to go fuck himself.
She might well lose this fight and die this day as his champion, but she would do so undefeated. Serovek swore in that moment if she perished, he truly had nothing to lose, and Rodan would pay a heavy price for his paranoia.
Rodan gave a regal nod, accepting her insult with all the pomposity it definitely didn't deserve. Serovek clenched his jaw to keep from laughing out loud. His amusement was short lived when the king told Anhuset, “Choose your weapons, Anhuset, for you are about to meet your opponent.”
Dread replaced humor but Serovek's jaw stayed clenched as he leaned to the side like everyone else in the king's party when he signaled and another gate matching the one Anhuset came through opened on the opposite end. The tension in the forum was thick enough to walk on as they waited for someone to enter the arena. Anhuset stood by the weapons rack to make her choice once she saw her adversary.
Someonenever emerged but somethingdid.
A monstrosity the size of a small horse, encased in hard black scales, scuttled into the arena on multiple fast-moving legs that sent showers of sand into the air with its passing. Its long, segmented tail was equal in length to its body and arched over its back, tipped with a barb as big as a dagger and dripped a black liquid which left smoking puddles in the sand. A pair of massive front pincers, serrated along one inner edge, curved in front of its body acting as both shield and weaponry guaranteed to rip apart anything they managed to grab. The crowd screamed together, and several people abandoned their seats, trampling over those in the aisles in a bid to escape.
Serovek's own bellow stayed trapped in his throat, though his eyes ached from bulging from their sockets. A scarpatine, but one of a size straight out of a nightmare, something he'd expect to see in the world of thegalla, where surely they would run screaming too if something like that scuttled across their accursed landscape. The colossal insect danced one way and then the other on its eight bent legs, its belly carving lines in the sand as it reacted to the movements of the crowd surrounding it.
Anhuset had wasted no time choosing her weapons. A straightforward pairing of round shield and long spear with a leaf-bladed spear head and weighted at its butt end by a ferrule for balance. She put on her helmet, pulling it low over her brow. Surely, she was half-blind under so much light.
The massive scarpatine paused in its dance as if waiting, its armor-plated body gleaming dully in the sun. Its tail curved forward even tighter, the tip twitching back and forth as it shifted position, its movements starting to match those of Anhuset, who slowly began to circle it. Suddenly the scarpatine pivoted and lunged, its many legs eating ground faster than any gallop as it attacked her. She leaped out of the way just in time to miss a blow from one of those pincers Her shield took the hit instead, the strike glancing off its rim with a loud thud. Anhuset jabbed with the spear from the side, aiming for a closely guarded soft spot—the top of the insect's head where numerous black eyes on short stalks covered the expanse. She missed in favor of dodging the downward plunge of the barbed tail.
“What do you think, margrave?” Rodan asked in a voice thick with gloating triumph. “The culmination of my sorcerers' hard work and many experiments. Human magic at its finest though we've cleaned the city of every stray dog and cat keeping the thing fed this long.”
