The two l’lendaa raised themselves from the sand to the shrieks and yells from a thousand throats, the claps and bangs from a thousand hands, the stomps and jumps from a thousand feet. They had won after all, despite their lack of weapons, and the people were going crazy.
“He is magnificent,” Aesnil breathed, staring wide-eyed at the two vendraa clothed in her color. “I had never thought to see a man so magnificent. He braved those claws with no more than arrows in his hand, plunging them into the beast without regard for his safety. Such strength and such courage! Should he survive this day, I may well hold him in my dungeons for the time I will wish a child.”
“He has survived,” I said, seeing the second remda slink back on its belly, its mind filled with fear of the two men, of the smell of blood, and of the deafening crowd noise.
“Not quite yet,” Aesnil said very softly, and again I felt that thrill of fear run through me. I twisted back toward the sands just in time to see two more archways opening, this time admitting a total of four remdaa. The cheering crowd noise immediately changed to a concerted scream of rage, unbelievably heightening in volume when three more arrows snicked into the sands, stopped the two vendraa short in their reflexive start toward the weapons. Insane fury blazed from the minds all around us, coming at me in wall-high waves that tried to crush me down. I gasped under the onslaught, unwilling to raise my shield while there was still a chance I might be able to stop the four new beasts, but after no more than seconds was forced to admit the truth: even if I could keep from collapsing under the wave, I could never work through it. I quickly let the shield form around my mind, a sensation very much like donning sound deadeners in a high-tech processing area, and the pressure eased up immediately—just in time for the next thing to happen.
In the midst of the bedlam of yelling, screaming and gesturing people, knots of men with drawn swords appeared, moving purposefully toward what seemed to be prearranged positions. Some of the positions were guard stations spotted here and there around the arena, where fighting broke out immediately between the newcomers and Aesnil’s guard. The sounds of battle were lost in the still-present crowd roar, and the roar rose to cloud-breaking strength when arrows flew once more-to strike the four remdaa as they came within ten feet of the unarmed, double-braced vendraa. Tammad and Cinnan stared at the kicking, howling—dying—beasts for a brief instant, then jumped as one for the swords they had been unable to touch until then. The hilts were already in their hands when it became clear that fighting was also going on behind most of the barred archways, between Aesnil’s vendra ralle guardsmen and others in the haddinn of free men.
“Who are those men?” Aesnil demanded, standing up to glare around her. “How dare they raise weapons against my guardsmen?”
“Chama, the two vendraa . . !” a woman behind us squeaked in alarm, pointing down toward the sand. We turned back to see Tammad and Cinnan, figurative blood in their light eyes, trotting across the sand in our direction, swords held ready in their fists. It seemed clear they intended scaling the eight-foot wall to reach us, though how they intended doing that with Aesnil’s guards and mine to bar their way I didn’t know.
“Stop them!” Aesnil screamed, pulling at her guardsmen’s sleeves and then pushing them toward the wall. “Protect your Chama as you are sworn to do!”
“We shall, Chama,” the head guardsman said, stepping out in front of his men to order them into position. “It would be best, however, if you were to retire now, with those guardsmen assigned to escort you. It is dangerous for you to remain longer.”
Aesnil looked around wildly, saw the six men with drawn swords waiting for her, and immediately began climbing the tiers up to them. I hesitated a bare moment longer to look around, then began climbing after her. The fighting had spread closer and closer to us in the stands, and if I’d tried getting through on my own I never would have made it. I’d have to stay with the Chama until we were in the clear, and then I’d be able to pick my own direction.
The guardsmen formed a protective semicircle, then began pushing their way through the crowds, fighting only when necessary. They were heading us toward the archway we had come in by, but once we reached it we weren’t able to go through. The fighting was so thick and .heavy there that we were forced to the right, past a heavy wooden door, into a torch-lit corridor that seemed to circle the arena from beneath, losing two of our guardsmen in the process. They weren’t dead, just so hard-pressed by some of the attackers that they couldn’t break free. The remaining four men hurried us along the corridor, one holding Aesnil’s arm, one holding mine, all of them deaf to the fact that I didn’t want to go in that direction. I’d intended waiting behind the door in the side corridor until the fighting had stopped or flowed away in a different direction, but the hand on my arm hadn’t allowed me a choice. By the time I tried opening my shield and found that I could, it would have been worse than a waste of effort to feed the man holding me a dose of indifference. I could hear the sounds of fighting following behind us in the corridor, and could do no more than run with everyone else.
We were all breathing heavily and sweating from the heat in little more than a few minutes, but all we could do was keep going. We rounded a curve in the corridor and nearly went sprawling over the blood-spattered bodies of five or six guardsmen lying in front of one of the barred archways, a set of empty chains on a post hanging like a marker over their lifeless forms. Aesnil gasped in shock and the men gripped their swords more tightly, and I flinched at the fear flowing out of all of them toward me. That’s not to say I wasn’t feeling fear of my own, but my own was enough; I didn’t need theirs to add to it.
Once past the bodies we ran more cautiously, expecting to catch up to the fighting at any time. We passed more bodies, two of them men in plain haddinn, and then, from around the next curve, came the din of metal striking metal or stone, and the thud of metal striking flesh. Men shouted and cursed and screamed, and my shield snapped back into place just as the melee came rolling toward us. The guardsmen with us hesitated, too long as it turned out; the mass spread out and enveloped us all, drawing the guardsmen into it and pressing Aesnil and myself back up against the stone of the wall. A minute later the attackers appeared from the end of the corridor from which we’d come, hemming us in completely and adding their own screams and shouts to the din.
Aesnil and I edged along the wall to the left, behind the backs of the giant men fighting for their lives, Aesnil whimpering and hanging onto my right arm with a death grip. I could feel her terror even with my shield in place, as though the emotion went through her skin and into mine, increasing with every added minute of contact. I could taste the terror in the sourness in my mouth and feel it in the heavy thudding in my chest, but there was no escape for us in that rough-walled, doorless corridor. We hadn’t passed a single place where we could stop and hide, and now it was too late. One of those men would swing his sword at the wrong time—or the right time—and we would go down without a hope of defending ourselves.
And then the massed bodies parted for a brief instant, leaving us clearly in view to the men farther down the corridor to the left and out toward a barred archway. They weren’t guardsmen and they weren’t of the attackers in plain-colored haddinn; they were red-clad vendraa, men with hate etched in their faces, and when they saw Aesnil they started toward us.