Shango POV: Day 86

  Current Wealth: 214 gold 1 silver 39 copper

  It had cost us close to a hundred gold to heal Helena, and the worst part was how unsurprising it was. Magic was costly to use, insofar as exhausting its wielder. There were limits to how much could be done at once.

  Which didn’t mean it wasn’t exploitative the amount we were charged. The moment our first magus healer smelled my desperation, I could see their prices increase. And I’d paid them. There’d been no fucking choice in the matter, that was what the weak and desperate did to the strong and secure.

  I stood by Helena and watched as her body slowly mended. Far, far too slowly, as it happened. Corvan had done just barely enough to keep her from dying on the way to her new healer, and they were able to advance her condition even less. By the time it was done she was…Able to heal the rest on her own. Eventually. That’s the promise I received, and Corvan backed it up with a careful study of his own. We took our leave, before I could lose my temper and smash the damned magus’ fucking teeth in.

  “Lucky.” Corvan grumbled, as we carried Helena out. She felt lighter, largely because a considerable fraction of her new armour had been left in the arena as shredded scrap metal. “Just help me take her to the others, they can bring her back to the mansion.”

  I did, and they did. Leaving me in the arena to fight after only a few short hours. The fights were moving quicker.

  The biggest worry with my own match was no longer losing, but rather losing in the same way that Helena had. Finding myself attacked with a paid violence, overwhelmed and taken apart piece by piece. As I stepped out into the arena, I found myself thinking back to Byror and what he’d said, thinking back to the Pithound and what he’d done. There was just no contending with either of them, I knew. And if we weren’t in the clear from their continued focus, then we might as well just give in.

  My mouth was dry, body trembling, and hands equipped with a tool steel sword. A sword, a fucking sword. We’d been contacted before my match, told by the referee that my gun had been discounted for being ‘unsportsmanly’. I saw an enemy behind that almost as surely as Solitaire had, and it ended up being Beam who’d gently reminded us that sports events of any kind had generally disallowed shooting holes in each other, even back on earth.

  God, everything could’ve been a trap, and every trap could’ve been the end of me. But we needed money. I stepped out to get it, heart beating like a drum.

  A big bastard came up out of the other end of the arena, and my blood was basically molten by the time I saw him. Easily Beam’s height, and built like a linebacker. Shoulders like a draft horse, hands like dinner plates, eyes all tiny and mean. He held a giant fucking hammer in one of them, with a round shield in the other. The most vikingy man I’d ever personally seen, or even heard about.

  Magnus was his name, of course, and he had a reputation for doing well in these things, having competed twice before and gotten past round one both times. If there was a person to be bribed into crippling someone, it might be him.

  “I’ve heard about you.” The man grunted, coming in just as the start of the match was announced. “Belahont, yes, rising stars.”

  He spoke with such a European accent I was almost surprised not to see him magnetically dragged towards Africa at supersonic speeds. Politeness compelled me to answer, regardless of our circumstances.

  “Heard about you.” I answered. “Magnus the Dozen, named after the number of men you killed at once in a battle.”

  I had done my research, and I did a little more as I spoke, peering at the man.

  Strength 11, Toughness 11, Speed 8, Alertness 9.

  Those were his big stats, the threatening ones, and they were big and threatening enough already. But I knew that this one probably had ten, even twenty times my actual experience fighting with swords. This did not seem to be a fight that would end well for me.

  He came like a viper, whipping in for my face, forcing me to jerk back, then letting his shield crunch down at my dragging knee. Slower than me, but just as skilled as I’d feared. I felt a jolt of pain, snarled, and limped away from him. The joint wasn’t broken, I thought, but it fucking hurt.

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  “Not as fast as I thought you’d be.” The man grunted, and despite everything the words filled me with relief. People didn’t usually talk to those they intended on ruining, not of their own volition at least.

  “Maybe I’m just trying to lower your guard.” I suggested, figuring that if he was a talker, I might as well get him talking. If nothing else it might distract him into letting me score a hit. He was covered with ringmail, but not plate. A solid strike would badly wound him, especially with my strength.

  “Fought lots of talkers.” The man grunted, slapping my blade aside, then swinging back for my head. I ducked, feeling my armour creak around me. His hammer clipped my helmet, sent me stumbling, but didn’t break anything. He certainly tried to fix that mistake with his next swing.

  My sword came up, which was a fucking mistake. The heavy end of my enemy’s weapon knocked it almost out of my grip, then a second one whipped back before I could react, sending the blade skidding off along the stone floor, leaving my hand empty.

  “Are you looking for a job?”

  I just barely got the words out in time. They were clever, I thought, a nice distraction. Gave the man pause, but that hesitation only lasted long enough for me to move an inch at my sword, then his hammer caught me again and I went down. My back slid along the stone, world tilting, stars dancing before my vision before something caught my shoulder and I turned.

  Without thinking, I moved with the roll, trying to end up with my legs and arms beneath me, knowing that if they weren’t I’d probably be knocked out of the fight before I could get up.

  The hammer caught the sun, and I rolled again just as I did, hearing it hit stone behind me, then I was up, running, looking around desperately before I saw my sword. Then a shoulder caught me and my feet left the ground again. This time I stayed face-up as I went sliding back along the stone, and Magnus was standing over me before I could move, hammer high.

  “I wasn’t joking about the job!” I managed, voice sounding strangled even to me. He didn’t hesitate this time, just swung down. I thought quickly, remembered how easily I’d slid along the stone, how little friction seemed to have grabbed me. I raised my forearm, angled it just right so that his hammer met it with a fleeting contact, then watched as metal glided across metal and his swing went wide.

  Magnus wasn’t as used to fighting men in full plate, it seemed. The man’s balance was broken, temporarily, as he overswung, and I lashed a kick out to his knee to help him lose it entirely. Solitaire had done the move a lot, always vicious, snarling, always precise. I didn’t have nearly his experience, but it seemed physics was on my side, because Magnus went down.

  I was on him almost before I knew what I was doing.

  Weight was weight, right? Wrong. My weight was less than Solitaire’s and Beam’s- not by as much as it once had been, but even the extra muscle I’d gained in Redacle didn’t leave me as tall or broad as them. The armour helped, an extra twenty five kilos of force pressing Magnus down, but the man I was trying to pin beneath it could’ve sprinted with a sumo wrestler on his shoulders..

  He shifted, turned, moved like a coiling snake. Staying on top was a losing proposition unless I did something to offset his ability to turn me off, so I slammed a gauntleted fist down for his face. His head jerked aside fast enough to avoid one hit, but not the second, and the third hit him as cleanly as I’d ever hit anyone at all.

  Magnus must’ve been made out of Pop Culture Viking, because he barely even flinched, but his struggling got a shade weaker, bought me another chance, gave me a few more precious moments to think of something new. I didn’t, though, just kept trying the same old plan. Sometimes I wished I could scheme like Solitaire, then I remembered that I didn’t think the president had been replaced by a clone, and decided to settle for the level of intelligence I had.

  “I’m serious.” I repeated, still hammering down. “Don’t you want armour made of metal that can stop Draconian Bronze, a staff that spits fire and punches through plate?” He hesitated, just for a moment, then grabbed me, leaning up and dragging my head down, twisting me into some lock before I had the chance to resist. Our heads were close by, his strength too much to overcome with the leverage I had.

  It surprised me, then, that he chose to speak instead of starting to twist.

  “What sort of pay?” He asked. “Answer quickly, this won’t stay convincing for long.”

  Sometimes you didn’t need to think of a million plans at once or calculate the length of a man’s cock from ten metres away to have a functional strategy, sometimes you just needed a single good idea and enough versatility and focus to push it through to the end.

  And sometimes you needed to keep from getting distracted by your own cleverness.

  “Five silver a day.” I said, instantly. “Plus free housing, food, we’re holed up in a mansion right now- the Velaharo manor- with room to spare.”

  Obviously he’d heard of the place, because he went a bit still before his voice rang back out.

  “And that’s a guarantee?” He asked, after a second. “How do I know?”

  My heart raced. It cost a bit of money to get into this tournament, and someone who’d entered twice already probably wouldn’t to throw away his chance to win for another year. I’d have to pick my words carefully.

  Then a thought struck me, a really, really clever one.

  “You were paid to hurt me, right?” I guessed. “So I couldn’t continue through this tournament even if I managed to beat you? You know we have enemies, and I know you’re trustworthy because you haven’t been fighting to wound. We need the help, and we need good men we can rely on to give it.”

  Another pause, this one fleeting.

  “Hit me.” Magnus whispered. “Make a show of breaking free and slam your fist down.”

  I did so, moving almost without thought. It was satisfying, how he flattened out across the ground, wind seemingly knocked from him. The match was called soon after.