Hunted Warrior (35 page)

When he believed them calm enough to exit without a mass stampede, he gestured for two Garnis to open the Cage. They would be fast enough to quell the humans should panic arise again. He was giving commands to a pair who obeyed without hesitation.

Avyi did as her sister had, clambering over the wire mesh with superhuman agility. It was the Garnis in her, those reflexes and the gift of senses so deep . . . He blinked. Senses so deep that she could extrapolate events, sorting through a hundred thousand possibilities until she found the most likely outcome. Perhaps that was how she made her predictions. He had thought her gift unique and separate, but he had been looking at the end result rather than the process. Her mind was as agile as a Garnis's extraordinary physical prowess. She wasn't predicting the future so much as running through countless scenarios, using bits of clues and nuances hidden to everyone else, until she found the most likely path. They were probabilities that played out over and over too often to be considered probabilities any longer.

She jumped into the fray as the last of the humans cleared out. Mal rushed down the metal steps and through the Cage door. At its center lay Hark, with his head in Orla's lap. Avyi knelt beside them. Hark was bloodied. His leg was twisted at an odd angle. His blond hair had been shaved. The Asters' serpent tattoo wrapped around the back of his skull, with the head at one temple and the tail at the other. It was the ultimate symbol of possession.

Weeping without sound, Orla held his right forearm to the glaring lights. The Thorn that had been the symbol of their union had been torn out. A nasty gash remained in its place—a wound they would both bear.

Hark, however, remained the strangely optimistic, jesterlike man Mal had met briefly in the ruins of the Asters' detonated labs. “Hey, Giva. Mind getting the women off me? I have some serious retribution to attend to.” He looked up at Orla. “And you, quit that bullshit. Crying over me? You're tougher than that.”

“I am,” Orla said, her throat tight with obvious emotion. “But now I'll have to support your lazy hide.”

Mal and Avyi helped Orla get her husband on his feet. “You two aren't going anywhere,” Mal said. “That's an order. We have to find a young Cage warrior named Cadmin, and I can't have Avyi distracted. This is Cadmin's first Grievance. She fights tonight, during the first round.”

Hark's expression sobered. “Pendray, yeah? Young, sorta stout but with sharp features?”

Avyi nodded. Mal saw the pale gold of her skin leech of color. “Yes.”

“I'm sorry. Other than to save my Dragon-damned soul, you've come a long way for nothing.” Hark looked at each of them in turn. “I saw her fall. She's dead.”

CHAPTER

A
vyi's knees sagged until she thought even the sturdy, wide soles of her boots wouldn't hold her upright. But instead of falling, she channeled her disbelief into anger. “No,” she said pointing at Hark. “You're injured. You've been abused. That can't be true. She's
alive
.”

Orla's face was edged with sympathy, but she was too concerned about Hark to offer the reassurance Avyi needed. She turned instead to Mal. His lovely mouth was pinched into a frown that deepened to encompass his entire face. “When have you ever been wrong?” he asked quietly.

“About something this important? Never.”

“And there's no chance something we've done could've changed what you've seen for so many years?”

Avyi shook her head. She didn't want to consider it, even though her contradictory visions about Mal's future made her less than certain.
What special sort of hell is this gift?
She couldn't trust anything that had once been true. The only thing she knew to do was to keep looking. Her faith in the Dragon had sustained her through decades of suffering. Without that faith, she had nothing else.

“Orla, get him to what safety you can.” She glanced at Mal, her heart uneasy. “Are you coming with me still?”

They stared at one another for what seemed to be an eternity. They were motionless. No electrical current passed between them, but a deeper, less distinct jolt of pure emotion. If one person in this world was to believe her crazy, frustrating gift, it was Mal.

“Yes,” he said soberly. “Lead the way. I have your back this time.”

Only instinct now. No direction in mind. Some of the other Dragon Kings followed, likely because of Mal. She'd guess that none of them identified her as the Pet, because her appearance and demeanor had been so changed. That is, unless she'd once touched their minds. Any warrior from the Aster cartel could suspect her. They were only temporary allies, if that. She was in as much danger as Mal.

Mal . . . burned alive.

She shoved the vision away, reached back, and was gratified when he grabbed her hand. They ran together through the underground tunnels.

“Wait,” came Jorvaki's voice. “Listen.”

Avyi stopped cold. She strained the limit of her senses but heard nothing.

A Sath and another Garnis nodded. Jorvaki looked gravely between Avyi and Mal. “People. Thousands of people. I can hear their voices and footsteps, far above us. It must be nearing time for the games.”

“How long have we been down here?” Avyi asked in frustration. “I thought we'd have more time!”

“Apparently not,” Mal said. His voice was calm and authoritative, but she knew his face so well now. He was as anxious as she. “Let's go.”

Another winding corridor turned into a long, straight tunnel that had been hollowed out by what must've been an industrial drill. Twirling scrapes created a dizzying, circling effect all around. Avyi reached back into the quiver and withdrew the Pendray arrow on the first try. It had simply felt right—dangerous and crazy. She looked at their fat, happy fertility goddess impression of the Dragon and . . . saw.

“Cadmin,” she whispered.

She bolted down the tunnel, with Mal's angered voice at her back. She didn't stop, not even when running the length of the tunnel stole the air from her lungs.

At its end she found darkness. There was no light, but there were voices. Whispers from some. Vocal boasts from others. She remembered the Asters' technique of transporting their blindfolded Cage warriors by bus to each combat arena. It was to protect eyes used to artificial underground lights, until they could be slowly acclimated to the brightness of the Cages. This would be even more extreme, with Battersea turned into an arena, lit like a football stadium to contrast against the deep black of the night sky.

Mal snapped his fingers. He might as well have been holding a match, so quiet was the flame. Some in the room hissed. He increased the flame until it illuminated the whole space, which was cordoned off into three holding pens.

Like animals.

They were warriors from each cartel. The ones she, Mal, and Orla had rescued had been marked for death. These Dragon Kings were prime, fit, gorgeous specimens. But, as with the partner of Mal's cousin, Nynn—a man named Leto, who was arguably the most triumphant warrior of all time—these men and women were likely brainwashed. They had fought through individual cartel tournaments to reach this moment, when success in the Grievance would ensure the ultimate reward.

The chance at conception.

It could also mean the ultimate sacrifice. As opposed to cartel matches, which were bloody but nonlethal, these warriors would fight with Dragon-forged swords. To the death.

“Cadmin!” she shouted. “Cadmin of Pendray! I am here for you. I need you to come forward and take the weapons the Dragon has provided for your first Grievance.” No answer. “Cadmin!”

Mal burned brighter, and each Dragon King in their company searched the cartel pens. Some greeted each other with surprised relief, while others snarled insults and damned one another to a lingering death. Mal climbed atop one of the pens. He looked half animal now, with a ragged T-shirt open at the neck. His blond hair was wild. His expression was as feral as it was completely, calmly, forever in control.

Avyi's heart burned with admiration for the man she'd unknowingly chosen to love.

“Quiet! Everyone!” He circled so that everyone in the pens could see his face. “Do you know who I am? I am Malnefoley of Tigony, your Honorable Giva. You may want to fight today, but you will not fight one another. Our people are on the brink of extinction. I forbid you to kill any of our fellow Dragon Kings. Is this understood? Our enemies are the humans who would profit from the strength of our backs and the mysteries of our gifts.”

“Usurper!” came a shout from the masses.

Mal, as if he had a Garnis's refined senses, shone a light on the man who'd cried out the insult. Sath, perhaps? Maybe Indranan? The light Mal flared across the naysayer's face also glinted off the damping collar practically fused to his neck. He may have been wearing it for decades. “There has never been any Giva in the history of the Dragon Kings like me. You take it as a sign of weakness or trickery.” Grinning tightly, he said what was on everyone's mind. “The Tigony. Tricksters. I know what you think. But being chosen as your Giva is a sign from the Dragon. We are dying. Our ways are being thrown to the winds of chaos. The humans are marching us over a cliff, while lining their pockets as long as they can.” Again he shone that flaring light on the man who'd protested. “Do you wish to be a slave forever?”

“No, but I would see my wife bear a child. How do we fulfill the basic needs of our people if we don't fight?”

“Because none of the cartels hold the key to conception,” came a quiet, gurgling female voice.

Avyi ran toward the sound. She experienced the same unmooring sensation she always did when coming face to face with a prediction made real. “Cadmin,” she whispered. “You're here. I thought you were dead.”

“Nearly.” She glared toward some of the warriors in her pen. “Seems a few here feared my abilities even before we stepped into the arena.”

She was just as Avyi had envisioned, but her face was bruised and she lay beaten on the ground. Only her fingers, clutching the wire frame of the pen, were strong enough to lift her upper body and head a few inches off the ground.

“Tell me who,” Avyi said with deadly purpose.

“No. Their time will come.”

Mal seared open the pen, then sealed it again after Avyi and another freed Dragon King pulled the young woman loose. She lay across Avyi's lap, where Mal's gift revealed a gash across her forehead and a deep cut in her left arm. She wouldn't be able to hold a shield.

“I remember you,” she whispered to Avyi. “My mother before my mother.”

Tears gathered in Avyi's eyes as she stroked bloodied red hair back from Cadmin's face. “Tell them. Please.”

With Mal to help Avyi lift the girl, Cadmin faced the three cartel pens. “Many of you are my age, or even younger. Think back. Feel with your heart. Do you remember this woman? Do you remember how she touched you with the softest touch, so that you knew safety and love even before your real mother held you for the first time? Do you remember feeling destined for greatness before you knew the definition of the word?”

Murmurs of agreement and some of disbelief filled the tight room, which reminded Avyi of an abattoir just before cattle were herded in for slaughter.

“Can you feel her? Do you?” The calls of fellow Aster warriors bolstered Cadmin's strength, until she was better able to hold her own weight. Her face revealed awe and something akin to love.

Avyi held her closer, rocking, unable to say what that expression did to fill her with joy. Cadmin remembered her. None of what she'd done was purely in the service of the Asters. The ends had justified the means. She had not chosen the wrong side, not when she'd given such an unexpected gift to so many Dragon Kings she would never know by name.

“This woman helped our mothers and fathers give birth,” Cadmin said, her rough Scots voice unrelenting now. “Listen to the Giva. Listen to me, although few of you trust him and few of you know me. If we fight today, we will live or die. But we will not be rewarded with the prize we desperately want.”