“Well, let’s get on with it,” Garth announced, and he stood up, casting aside the heavy cloak under which he had kept himself concealed. He pushed his way through the stands and down to the barrier that marked the edge of the fighting field and leaped over the wall, turning to help Hammen down. Instantly half a dozen warriors raced toward him, assuming he was an overeager fan. Garth turned to face them.
A wild cry of delight rose up from the audience, racing out from the point where he was standing.
“One-eye!”
The guards slowed, coming to a stop, looking at him with openmouthed surprise. Garth strode past them as if they were not there. The mob, taken by the fact that he had been sitting with them, broke into thunderous applause as Garth walked across the field to the circle assigned to him for the next match.
The circle was directly below Zarel’s throne and Garth looked up at him, smiling, and saying nothing.
Zarel stood up, gazing down with open hatred, and Garth turned his back in an open display of contempt. The roaring of the mob redoubled.
“He could kill you like this,” Hammen shouted, trying to be heard above the howling mob.
“He doesn’t have the guts to do it now,” Garth said quietly as he stepped into the neutral box. “If he touches me now, half a million will storm this field.”
“Put not your trust in the mob.”
“I don’t, but I do trust their hatred of him.”
His opponent, a young woman from Kestha, came forward and stepped into her box, looking over anxiously at Garth.
“How do you declare this fight?” the circle master asked, looking over at Garth.
“Spell match.”
The circle master turned and looked back at the woman and she gave the same reply.
The fight was over in seconds. Even before she had drawn up sufficient mana to mount a defense, Garth’s mammoth had her pinned to the ground, the woman looking up at the beast in wide-eyed terror. She raised her hand in token of submission and Garth called the great beast off and then conjured it out of existence. The circle master approached the woman to take her spell offered in wager and Garth extended his left hand, palm downward to indicate that he would not accept the wager, the crowd roaring their approval at his chivalrous act.
He walked back calmly to the stands where the Bolk fighters sat. Many of them looked at him with obvious suspicion, but Naru shouted with delight.
“Good, I can still fight you. I thought you run away.”
Garth laughed, and went over to a table set with fresh fruits, cheese, and decanters of wine for the refreshment of the fighters, scooped up a handful of pomegranates and, taking a jug of wine, went over to an empty seat, motioning for Hammen to follow.
Kirlen, sitting upon her throne, looked down at him.
“You missed the morning procession.”
“I thought it best for reasons of health.”
Kirlen laughed coldly.
“It would have been amusing to see how you handled it.”
“No sense in causing trouble.”
“Like last night?”
Garth smiled and, saying nothing, settled down in his seat to watch the show.
The third elimination round started and he was called out immediately for the next round, returning back to his seat less than half an hour later, this time carrying a red spell of fireball taken from his unconscious opponent, the crowd now at a hysterical pitch of excitement, even though it now took the betting of a silver on One-eye to win back a copper.
With the end of the third elimination the noontime recess was called. In the stands the mob milled about, arguing loudly about the remaining forty fighters. Several favorites had fallen early, including Omar of Kestha, who had been rated as one of the favorites, and the legendary Mina of Ingkara, who had been taken off the field minus his feet, which had been bitten off by gnomes while he lay unconscious. The issue was made even more interesting because of the deaths of the fighters the night before, nine of whom had survived the first round of eliminations. Their deaths had upset the more elaborate forms of betting and tens of thousands were less than pleased when black markers were placed next to the names of the deceased.
Since the betting was not just on individual fights, but also on a wide variety of permutations, including combinations of fighters, win averages for Houses, and percentages of wins by Houses during each round, the crowd was in a decidedly less than happy mood. A number of bets placed at the end of the first day had been voided by the deaths, the losses going into Zarel’s coffers, thus convincing many that the Grand Master had set up the previous night’s riots to pad out his own pockets and gain revenge for the unruly behavior of his citizens.
Loud arguments raged in the stands between the partisans of one group or another, occasionally breaking down into brawls that swept back and forth through the crowd and at one point even spilled out onto the arena floor until a line of warriors drove the mob back.
As the noon hour progressed gangs of laborers erased the circles used for the first two series of matches. Only twenty pairs would fight in the next elimination in two sets of ten and new circles were drawn, each circle now twice as big as before, at just under fifty fathoms across. This meant that spells of greater power, which might have been difficult to contain inside the smaller twenty-five-fathom circles, could now be brought into play.
A high clarion call sounded, signaling the end of the noon hour. As the crowd poured back to its seats the catapult wagons came galloping out from the access tunnels and moved around the edge of the arena. The catapults fired more clay pots into the crowd and, as they burst open, wild cheering broke out.
Hammen turned in his seat to watch the show and cocked his head to hear the cries of the audience.
“The pots are filled with more gold,” Hammen announced, his voice suddenly edged with longing, as if he wished to be back up in the stands.
Garth chuckled softly, saying nothing.
As the word of the prizes within the pots spread, the crowds came close to stampeding in their eagerness to position themselves near where the next pot might land. Fights broke out as people piled atop each other in their eagerness to snatch up a single coin, sufficient to keep them in ale or wine for half the winter. The dwarfs lashed their teams around the arena, firing their weapons, and then, pointing to where the pot landed, howled with delight at the antics of the mob.
From out of the access tunnel came scores of young women dressed in diaphanous gowns. As they danced around the edge of the arena they reached into oversize pouches that bounced against their naked hips and tossed handfuls of gold trinkets, and even gems, into the stands. This set off a near-insane frenzy of cheering, which became even wilder when, from out of the north, four dragons, each half a dozen fathoms in length, came soaring in. The crowd looked up, on the edge of panicking, fearing that the great beasts were out of control and intent upon attacking the audience. The dragons, however, flashed into puffs of smoke and from out of the spreading clouds came a heavy rain of silver necklaces, baubles, and yet more coins.
The clouds, after emptying out their rain, drifted down into the center of the arena and coiled in around the throne of the Grand Master. The clouds became one and swirled inward. There was a flash of light, an explosive roar, and there, standing upon his throne, returning from his midday meal, was Zarel Ewine, the Grand Master.
The mob broke into a wild, hysterical cheering and Zarel, turning to each corner of the arena, bowed low.
Hammen, shaking his head with disgust, spit on the ground.
“The mob,” he said coldly. “Now all is forgiven.”
“But not for long,” Garth replied.
The last of the women and dwarf catapult teams left through the access tunnel and a groan of disappointment rose from the crowd.