The Empire's Ruin, page 29
Nothing happened.
He’d half expected some unseen force to rip the door from its hinges. Instead, she let out a desperate, shuddering breath, then slumped against the wall. The raging heat beneath her skin faded to a bruised yellow. Ruc caught her as she tottered backward.
“Bien—”
She raised a feeble hand. “I’m all right.”
He lowered her gently onto the stool, took the ewer from the table, lifted it to her lips. She took a shallow sip, then another, then motioned it away.
“Too bad,” she managed, “that the door isn’t made out of human skulls.”
Her face was so bleak that it took Ruc a moment to realize she was joking.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” She stared down at her empty hands, as though the answer had been there before she lost her hold on it. “I’ve only used my power”—she shuddered—“a few times before. Never on purpose.”
“And this time?”
“I tried to concentrate, to feel something like what I felt the other night, back at the temple.” She closed her eyes. “I … reached for it, for the power…” She shook her head in frustration. “I don’t have the words for any of this. It was like trying to breathe in a place with no air, or to suck water through a reed, but the reed was blocked.…”
She trailed off.
Ruc glanced around the dark, cramped room, turned back to Bien. “What is your well?”
It felt strange to ask the question out loud, almost like asking How many people have you murdered? Her eyes snapped open. She stared at him a moment, as though the words made no sense, then shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Every story about a leach—from bridge market gossip to the elaborate plays of the city maskers—led, at some point, to the question of wells. Every leach had one, some aspect of the world from which they drew their power. As far as Ruc understood, a well could be anything—stone or salt, wood or water. There were even tales of leaches who drained power from more obscure sources—dreams, pain, the fear of their foes. It was hard to know what to believe, in part because leaches hid their abilities, in part because they were killed as soon as those abilities were discovered. Very occasionally, a leach ended up imprisoned—there were infusions that could blunt their power—but the alternatives—lynching, burning, drowning—were safer. Safer and, to a blood-hungry mob, far more satisfying.
Still, for all the obscurity in the stories, Ruc had always believed that a leach would know her own well.
Bien, however, just shook her head.
“I haven’t been experimenting with it,” she snapped. “I’ve spent all this time trying to deny it.”
Ruc frowned, glanced around the room once more—wooden walls, wooden ceiling and floor, wooden table, wooden stool. “I guess it’s not wood.”
Bien managed a chuckle. “Or it is wood, and I just don’t know how to use it. Or I can only use it when I’m not trying. Or when I’m angry…” She scrubbed her face with her hands. “If I have to be some twisted perversion of nature, I’d at least like to be good at it.” She looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Ruc. I can’t get us out.”
He crossed the small space, knelt down before her, took her shirt in his hands. “If you continue talking about me as though I were a small child or delicate trinket to be transported from once place to the next…”
“All right,” she said, laughing in spite of herself. “All right. It’s cruel to use a woman’s own words against her.”
He started to reply, then stopped. Boots were approaching down the corridor outside. Bien’s laughter evaporated. She met his eyes for a moment, then they both rose to face whatever was coming next. Ruc braced himself for more Greenshirts, more prodding with spears, more abuse, but when the door finally swung open—after what seemed like a protracted battle with the lock and latch—the man standing in the frame didn’t have a spear and he certainly didn’t look like a soldier. He was two heads shorter than Ruc, at least twenty years older, and built like an ill-stuffed sack of grain, the kind of person who would have drawn no attention whatsoever working a booth in one of the markets or drinking late in a tavern. Standing there, however, deep in the hulk of the rotting ship, he seemed utterly out of place, even more so given the four liveried guards looming in the passageway behind him.
He held up a mutilated hand—two fingers had been torn away long ago—in a strange sort of greeting, then scrubbed the sweat from his brow with the palm.
“Apologies! A thousand apologies!” He glanced around the room, ran his fingers through his scraggly hair. “No food,” he exclaimed, shaking his head, “warm water, a day in darkness. This is a—” He paused, tutted his dissatisfaction as he searched for the word. “—a travesty. A miscarriage of the respect owed to the newest members of our … hallowed ranks.” He shook his head even more vigorously. “I tell that woman over and over that this is no way to introduce our newest warriors to the … the valor, and brilliance, and the … the sublimity of struggle.”
Bien studied him. “Who are you?”
“Ha!” the man exclaimed. “Of course! My manners, too—deplorable and only growing worse. I am your trainer, and my name, my name”—he sketched a small bow—“is Goatface.”
Ruc stared.
There were dozens of trainers in the Arena, dozens of trainers for hundreds of Worthy, but only a few were household names: the Nun, Small Cao, Trun Le … and Goatface. Those four had been responsible for training the only warriors to triumph in the Arena, survive the delta, and rise to the rank of high priest. They were nearly as legendary as Vang Vo herself. Every year during the high holy days, as the Worthy hacked one another apart on the hot sand, the streets of Dombâng were abuzz with stories of the trainers, of their brilliance and brutality.
Goatface looked neither brutal nor brilliant. The most Ruc could say for him was that he’d come by his name honestly: his tiny eyes were set too wide in a too-narrow face that tapered into the gray-black of a withered little triangular beard. The notion that he had trained some of the most savage, most feared of Dombâng’s Worthy seemed almost laughably implausible. The hard-eyed men behind him weren’t laughing, however, and neither, for all his regretful muttering, was Goatface.
“Come,” the trainer said, gesturing them through the door into the corridor beyond. “Come. Enough … enough … languishing in this darkness. Allow me to show you to the yard.”
“The yard?” Bien asked.
Goatface pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, as though something inside his skull pained him.
“Did she not explain to you? Has no one explained to you?”
“It’s been explained,” Ruc replied, “that we’re being conscripted into the ranks of the Worthy. Beyond that…”
The trainer shook his head. “I should be accustomed to such … such … indecorousness by now. Some come within these walls willingly, of course, and they, they are treated on their first day as honored guests. The—what word did you use?—the conscripted, on the other hand, are shown no such honor. Toss them in darkness, then give them to Goatface.” He looked ready to spit, then gestured them even more urgently into the shadowy passageway. “Allow me to make what paltry amends I may.”
Bien and Ruc followed him out the open door. The guards stepped back against the wall, allowed them to pass, then formed up again behind them—four men, two armed with loaded flatbows, two with spears. No wonder Goatface seemed unconcerned that they might try to fight their way free.
“So,” Bien said, as they descended a steep, creaking stair. “You will be our trainer?”
Goatface nodded his head without glancing back. “Of course! Few of the others will work with…” He hemmed for a moment, suddenly awkward, then heaved up a shrug. “Forgive the hideous nomenclature, but few of the other trainers will work with the chum.”
“Chum?” Ruc asked, raising a brow.
“A disgusting slur, of course, but it is, regrettably, regrettably, the term down in the yard for those who arrive here … not of their own choice. Those who show the least promise.”
“Why chum?” Bien demanded, a note in her voice that might have been fear or anger or both.
The trainer shook his head. “Those who choose the path of the Worthy spend years in preparation before they step through these gates—sword work, spear work, knife work—honing their bodies and their minds in order to be worthy of our gods. They believe,”—he glanced back, concern in his dark eyes—“falsely, mind you—they believe falsely—that your lack of preparation will render you easy targets, that you will be cut apart in the ring as if you were … well … chum.”
Behind them, one of the guards made a sound that might have been a cough or a chuckle.
“Not to fear!” Goatface continued. “As your trainer, I can promise you this—if you do prove … foreordained to die in the Arena, I will teach you to die gloriously and with honor.”
“How comforting,” Ruc muttered.
Bien walked in grim silence at his side.
The passage led them out through a door carved in the sloping hull of the ship and into a warren of wooden structures built beneath the stands of the Arena, a dim labyrinth that managed to seem both cramped and never-ending. For the most part they walked on wooden planks raised a few inches above the mud. Occasionally there were no planks. When Ruc looked up he could make out scaffolding in the gloom above, and beyond that, blades of light slicing through the gaps of the Arena seating. The boots of the people walking or stomping above rumbled like thunder.
Goatface spoke effortlessly over the noise.
“Storerooms,” he said, gesturing vaguely to locked doors. “Guards’ quarters. Food. Weapons. The Arena is a … city within a city. A veritable metropolis unto itself.”
The trainer seemed always to be searching for the right word, gesturing with the three fingers of his mangled hand, squinting at nothing in particular as though the choicest phrase was lurking somewhere nearby, always just out of sight.
“How many Worthy are there?” Ruc asked.
“The number varies from year to year. On this particular year, you will be pleased to hear, the Arena houses ninety-two.”
Why he should be pleased to hear that, Ruc had no idea. Ninety-two warriors, all intent on Bien’s slaughter and his own. The full weight of what faced them settled down on him like lead.
After what seemed like a long time they reached a door. Goatface stopped before it, rummaged around inside his tunic, emerged with a heavy steel key, and slid it into the lock. When it turned, he leaned his stooped shoulder against the weight until it swung ponderously open. Noise washed over them—grunting, shouting, the hollow thwock of wooden training weapons and the louder crash of bronze against bronze. Ruc raised a hand to shade his eyes from the rich, late-day light.
The space was huge, almost as large as the pit at the center of the Arena, though rectangular rather than circular. The wall through which they had entered was the outside of the Arena itself. On the other three sides of the yard stood wooden buildings of two or three stories. Just beyond them loomed a second wooden wall at least ten paces high. Ruc caught a glimpse of guards moving back and forth atop it, polished helms and weapons flashing in the sun.
It was the warriors ankle-deep in the churned-up mud of the yard itself, however, that drew his attention.
At a glance, it seemed as though every one of Dombâng’s ninety-two Worthy was packed into the yard. Some lounged around the perimeter, chatting, checking weapons, drinking from ladles and gourds, heckling. One man sat on a log, blood sheeting down his face, while another stitched shut a gash across his forehead. In a far corner, half a dozen men and women trained with a variety of stone and iron weights, tossing them back and forth, lifting them from the ground or pressing them over their heads, sweat-slick muscles bulging with the strain. Two or three people were running the perimeter. Most of Dombâng’s Worthy, however, were busy with the furious, holy work of battering one another into the sodden dirt.
Some fought with wooden swords or staves, others with their bare hands. Ruc watched as the largest man he’d ever seen attacked a woman half his size, roaring as he closed in, swinging his fists. The woman ducked the first blow, but instead of retreating, slid close to the giant, reached up to put a hand on his shoulder, the movement incongruously graceful, as though she were preparing to dance, then leapt up, wrapping her legs around his waist, locking her heels behind him. The man bellowed, tried to strike down at her, but she was too close, her arms hooked up behind his shoulders, face pressed against his chest, looking for all the world like a newborn reed squirrel clinging to its mother’s chest. Her opponent battered at her back, but the angle was wrong, robbing him of most of his power, and after a few heartbeats he gave up, cursed, then hurled himself down atop the woman. If the ground had been hard, the force of the blow might have broken her back. As it was, however, the two of them hit the mud with a soft squelch. The man grinned a vicious, broken-toothed grin, grunted, ground his body down hard. The sheer weight of it looked debilitating, but the woman unhooked her legs, shifted her hands, and when the huge man reared up to consider the damage he’d wrought, she struck, snake quick, rolling back onto her shoulders, hauling him close with one arm, then tossing her legs around the giant’s neck. The man bellowed, thrashed, but she tightened her thighs. He managed to rise to one knee, struggled to get his other leg beneath him as his eyes bulged and lips turned purple, then collapsed into the mud. The woman held the choke for another heartbeat or three, then rolled off, stood up, spat out something that might have been mud or blood or both, and kicked the unconscious man casually in the gut.
“Welcome,” Goatface announced grandly, sweeping a scarred hand over the yard. “Welcome. This place is now your home. More than your home. It is a … a sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary?” Bien asked, her voice thick with disgust.
“Indeed,” the trainer nodded. “Indeed. The work we do here is sacred work. This space is a sacred space.”
Unbidden, the memory of Eira’s temple filled Ruc’s mind—the soft light of the white lanterns, the smell of incense and flowering night blossom, the voices twined in hymn and prayer, the polished wood, the tapestries and statuary, the wooden boards of the floor worn smooth as glass.… It was a place—had been before it burned—that raised people out of the mundane, that made them kinder, gentler, better. That had been sacred. The yard of the Worthy was a kennel for animals, a filthy, fenced-in scrap of land where people became beasts.
“I don’t need to tell you, I’m sure,” Goatface continued, smiling his yellow grin, “that at this point any … how shall I put it … changes of heart, any second-guessing of the providence that brought you here, well it’s all … what’s the phrase? Strongly discouraged. It would be imprudent, now that you have joined us, to try to leave these walls.”
“Imprudent,” Bien observed, “seems like a dramatic understatement.”
There were stories of Worthy who fled. They never made it far. The city’s worship of the men and women who joined the bloody ranks had a dark side: a collective fury against any apostates who attempted to escape. Ruc had seen the bodies—everyone who lived in Dombâng had seen the bodies—strung up from the bridges or lashed to pilings. Sometimes the Arena guards hunted them down. More often, the people of the city took the execution onto themselves. Love might be a simple, sustaining meal, but hatred was a delicacy.
“Not that you would desire to leave, of course!” Goatface smiled, spread his arms wide, gestured with his hacked-up hand as though presenting them with a palace. “This is your home now, and these … exquisite warriors are your family.”
That family appeared to have finally noticed the new arrivals. The warriors closest to Ruc and Bien turned first, hard eyes narrowing. Slowly, however, word traveled around the open space of the yard. The fighters paused in their conversations, left off their sparring, slung weapons over scarred shoulders. Gradually, a thick silence settled.
“What’s happening?” Bien murmured.
Ruc started to put a steadying hand on her shoulder, then stopped himself. In a place like this, kindness meant weakness.
Goatface hemmed for a moment. “It is a … tradition. A … how shall I put it? A ceremony of welcome.”
“Doesn’t look all that welcoming,” Ruc observed.
All eyes were fixed on them now. Some of the Worthy were grinning as though they’d been let in on a cruel joke. Others hefted their wooden weapons. Still others just watched, as though they were waiting for Ruc and Bien to break and run. Then, gradually, they began to move, stepping forward or shifting back, until they formed two lines, roughly a pace apart, with an open channel running down the center.
“The Way of Kings,” Goatface said, gesturing.
“Dombâng doesn’t have kings,” Bien pointed out.
“Indeed.” The trainer beamed. “Indeed.”
The nearest of the warriors, a short man with an ugly scar dragging his lower lip down toward his chin, struck his shield with his training sword—once, then again, then again. A few at a time, the others began to join him—pounding fists against chests, blades against blades, the butts of spears onto the few patches of solid ground—until the whole yard was one slow, rolling, percussive heartbeat.
Goatface smiled encouragingly as he gestured Ruc and Bien forward. He might have been inviting them to step onto a well-appointed pleasure barge.
“You will want to move with some … alacrity,” he suggested. “But do not run. Runners are punished.”
“Any other suggestions?” Ruc asked.
“Upright. Try to remain upright.”
It proved even more difficult than Ruc expected.
“Stay behind me,” he murmured to Bien as they approached the gauntlet. Most of the blows would come from the front, and he was larger. No one would be trying to kill them. If all the Worthy died on the day they arrived, there wouldn’t be anyone left to fight in the Arena, no one to go into the delta to face the gods. The gauntlet couldn’t be more than fifty paces long. He took a deep breath, lowered his chin, raised his arms to shield his face, and stepped forward.
