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Why wasn’t she moving? Was it because of her arm? Or had she been consumed by despair?
My hands dug into the wood of the railing as my heart pounded. I was paralyzed with indecision. I had sworn I would get her out of my brother’s clutches. Now she was in even more danger. Should I act? Should I strike?
But if I did, I would be exposing myself and possibly Orcades as well. And Kaye... He arrived today. If I had to flee, what would become of him?
I thought of what my uncle had said to me that morning, then glanced at my brother and Fenyx. Their eyes were eagerly fixed on the horrific game they had set in motion below.
As I looked back down at where Lancelet stood, the glatisant suddenly noticed the two prisoners standing by the gate and began to race towards them, lumbering along on its huge legs.
For torturous moments, Lancelet did nothing. Merely stood and watched the creature as it charged.
Finally, in the face of impending doom and with my hands itching to burn, she moved.
With a lightning-quick motion almost too fast to believe, especially for one so wounded, she rolled, somersaulted, then pivoted with the grace of a dancer as the glatisant skidded across the sand, its jaw already open in anticipation.
As Lancelet nimbly evaded, the beast shook its head and let out an ear-splitting bay, then turned to the cowering prisoner who still remained shaking by the gates, evidently too petrified to run away.
The prisoner's fate was sealed.
There were only a handful of them left now.
Lancelet's face was a portrait of agony as she leaned against the opposite wall of the arena. But I caught the glint in her eyes, the hard set line of her jaw. No, she had not given up.
My eyes fell upon Excalibur. It still lay untouched in the sand. No prisoner seemed willing to pick it up. As if it had become a cursed thing.
The glatisant was on the move again, easily picking off an older woman who could not run away quickly enough to escape it.
Little wonder. Few had Lancelet’s dexterity or her incredible stamina. And the arena was a desert. There was nowhere for the prisoners to hide. All they could do was scatter and run, scatter and run, and see which of them the glatisant would catch up with first.
The torture went on.
Only Lancelet had managed to dodge the gnashing jaws and talon-like claws of the creature not once but three times in succession, moving her lithe form through the arena with a speed that left my heart lurching in both pride and terror.
But soon, the inevitable occurred. The contestants in the deadly dance of survival were down to a mere two.
Lancelet stood on one side of the arena, while the other remaining prisoner lingered on the other side as the glatisant finished feasting on the prisoner it had just slaughtered in the center.
I watched Lancelet clutch her shoulder. Sweat poured down her face. Each dodge and roll she’d made must have wracked her with pain, but she’d persisted.
The seconds stretched into eternity. Finally, the glatisant looked up from its meal. The creature's eyes fixed upon the other prisoner first, a young man.
Slowly, the beast began to move forwards, watching the man like a snake with a mouse.
In a desperate gambit, the young man sprinted not away from the glatisant but towards it, sliding across the sand and grabbing the gleaming hilt of Excalibur.
It was a bold and brave move, and from the murmurs of the crowd below, they thought so too.
I held my breath, hoping the young man would succeed, but knowing it was doubtful.
The prisoner swung the sword upwards with all his might as the glatisant charged forward, its monstrous form towering over him.
The blade made contact with the beast's body, just where its heart should have been.
But the crowd around us shuddered with despair when the sword bounced off the glatisant's hide, as if the sword were a piece of driftwood and not a sharp-edged blade at all.
Excalibur flew through the air.
And landed unceremoniously at Lancelet's feet.
