Authors: Dean Murray
There were
enough glow bulbs hanging from the ceiling to illuminate the cavern
with the bright, white light of an operating room. Every detail was
thrown into stark relief so that those watching wouldn't miss any of
the fight's nuances.
I stretched my
massive hybrid arms, making sure that I didn't have any residual
stiffness from my most recent injuries. Everything seemed to be in
working order, which was good, because my opponent had just stepped
into the far end of the circle.
Based on his
height, I was up against another worker, but he was more muscular
than my first opponent had been. All of the lamia were muscular, but
this one was built more like a consort than a worker.
It wasn't
something designed to make me enthused about the fight. They'd picked
out someone more dangerous to fight me this time, but there had been
a healthy dose of luck involved in my last victory. I wasn't sure
that I could win a fight against someone who was even faster and
stronger.
Set looked back
and forth between the two of us to make sure that we were ready and
then clapped his hands. My opponent didn't charge forward. I was
pretty sure that this lamia hadn't been there for my last fight, but
apparently news of my tactics had made the rounds and this guy was
adjusting his tactics accordingly.
We moved slowly
towards the center of the sandy ring, mirroring each other's
movements and I started working my way through a threat assessment.
He was big, nearly as tall as me, but massive in a way that told me I
couldn't hope to match him in a straight-up contest of strength. He
moved well too, obviously comfortable with the sand and unintimidated
by being in a fight for his life, but his step was a shade heavier
than I'd expected.
That was
probably a bad sign. It probably meant he was even heavier and
stronger than I'd realized, but it did give me the barest beginnings
of an idea.
Our first
exchange was tentative. He jabbed at me, leading with the claws of
his right hand while I batted the blow away. Against another hybrid I
would have drawn a decent amount of blood—nothing crippling,
but something to begin weakening him. Instead I got only the smallest
trickle of red to show for my efforts.
I darted
towards the lamia and then shifted to the side at the last second. I
wasn't trying to actually score on him, although I did manage to nick
him in the side. I wanted to force some motion into the fight and
test out his footwork.
He was good,
but then I wouldn't have expected anything less from the second
opponent Set had selected for me. He shifted his feet exactly like he
needed to. He didn't cross his feet or do anything else
wrong
,
but he wasn't as fast as he should have been.
He was used to
fighting two-thousand-pound alligators and werewolves. Against
enemies like that he needed to be fast, but even more importantly, he
needed to make sure he didn't get bowled over in the first few
seconds of the fight. If he could get even just one shot with his
venom in then keep his feet, it would be just a matter of time before
he would come out on top.
I couldn't go
toe to toe with him. Maybe Jasmin could have, but I knew that would
just get me killed. Instead I needed to make him fight the kind of
fight that he wasn't used to fighting. I needed to work the perimeter
and make him move around as much as possible.
I started
circling him, varying my speed and tempo, always trying to stay just
close enough that he could almost reach me if he lunged. At first he
was content to just turn in place so that he could keep me from
getting around behind him.
That lasted
until the first time that I started to sprint left and then planted
and went right instead. He'd already anticipated that I'd keep going
left and he committed himself too heavily.
I darted in
close, knocking his left hand away with my right, and then I slammed
the claws on my left hand into the meat of his thigh. I hadn't
expected to be quite so successful, or I might have passed up the
chance to stab him in the thigh and just gone for a clinch from
behind.
I still tried
to get behind him, but now I wasn't quite fast enough to make it
happen and he connected with his elbow to the back of my head. The
blow sent me flying, but I hit the ground in a roll and came back up
in time to just barely avoid being impaled through the chest by his
claws.
He still
managed to catch me with a long, raking attack across the ribs, but I
moved laterally and kept him from landing anything else while I
blinked away the spots in my vision. It had been a long time since
I'd taken that much blunt trauma to the head in a fight and I'd
forgotten the sheer shock of being hit unexpectedly.
My opponent was
feeling his oats and he charged me again, trying to keep me off
balance, but I broke to his left and he couldn't quite keep up with
me with the added stress on his injured leg. Realizing that wasn't
working, he slowed down and stopped in the center of the circle
again, waiting for me to make the next move.
I resumed
circling, feeling out his footwork and response speed now that he was
injured. He was compensating, but I could tell there was a
difference. He darted forward and managed to slice me across the
outside of my arm before I twisted away, but I didn't riposte with an
attack of my own.
It was tempting
to try to make him pay for the blood that was now coursing down my
arm, but I couldn't afford to get sucked into the kind of
close-quarters pounding match that favored him. I needed to stay
mobile and figure out why his footwork seemed different than it had
been a few moments before.
We traded two
more sets of lightning-fast blows, little more than jabs really,
before I figured out what was going on. I was bleeding from my left
arm and the right side of my chest now, but it had been worth it.
The lamia was
compensating for the wound on his leg by anticipating that I would go
to his weak side again the next time I made a move. He was good, he
wasn't committing too drastically, but even so he was a little bit
slower now going either direction than he'd been before.
Part of me
wanted to go towards his weak side again. I'd beaten him off the mark
once before he'd been injured and there was a good chance that I
could do it again. If I could, there was a chance that I could
cripple that leg once and for all, which would end the fight.
It was a
powerful lure. I moved the slightest bit closer, circling to the
lamia's right, to his strong side, and then I sped up nearly to full
speed. He was tracking me right up until I did a stutter step. He was
banking on the fact that I was going to change direction, but instead
I threw myself forward, continuing around his strong side and
slamming the claws on my right hand home in his right leg.
I didn't try to
block his right hand as it came around in an attempt to claw my neck
as I went past. There wasn't time, not if I wanted to land the blow
to his leg, but it was the riskiest thing I'd done up to that point
in the fight.
It's one thing
to duck a punch in a human-style boxing match and know that they
might clip you as they bring their fist back in. It's a completely
different situation when your opponent might rip your throat out on
the backswing.
My gamble paid
off. I managed to stay half a step ahead of him, just far enough away
that the tips of his claws went whistling past my ear, and then I was
back to circling. He was definitely slower now. He was having a hard
time tracking fast enough to keep me in sight, which meant that I
should be able to get much cleaner shots at his legs now if I wanted
them.
I reversed
direction, more to test out his footwork again than because I
expected to generate some kind of opening, and my opponent tripped
himself up when one of his legs caught on the sand rather than
lifting up high enough to cleanly respond to my movements. I didn't
even think about what came next.
I charged in
and rammed him with my shoulder, knocking him off balance even
further, and then I slashed the outside of his right leg with
everything I had. The semi-impenetrable scales that had been so
effective turning my attacks when he was able to angle his body to
turn them into glancing blows weren't up to the challenge now and my
claws tore through flesh with an ease that would have been sickening
if not for the bloodlust bleeding into my mind from my beast.
I jumped
backwards to avoid the lamia's attack, and managed to sink the tips
of my claws into his arm as it went whipping past my face. He was as
good as done and we both knew it. Even now he was trying to get his
collapsed leg underneath himself so that he could face me again.
I looped around
behind him, moving fast enough that he didn't have any chance of
keeping up with me, and then I darted in and savaged his other leg.
He would have fallen to the ground then, but I grabbed him by one
shoulder, steadying him before his legs could completely give way.
"I've won.
He's at my mercy. Go ahead and declare me the victor."
Set met my eyes
with something that looked like sadness in his expression and shook
his head. "I'm sorry, but honor doesn't allow for such a thing.
We've been commanded by our queen to fight to the death."
I opened my
mouth, but before I could get the words out, Set hissed something to
the worker and my opponent thrashed around in my grip. I thought for
a second that the wounded lamia was trying to get one last blow in
and I tightened my grip on him, but the precaution proved to be
unnecessary.
Rather than
trying to hurt me the worker reached up and shoved his own hand into
his chest. I looked at the corpse that had been a person, albeit a
strange one, a few seconds previously and then slowly lowered him to
the ground. I was in shock. I'd never seen anything like it, and
hoped to never see anything similar ever again.
"You are
victorious, Isaac Nazir. Are you ready to claim the boon that
tradition provides for you?"
I shifted back
to human form and shook my head before turning to go, sickened by the
whole proceeding, but Celeste grabbed my hand before I made it to the
entrance of the cave.
"Don't
waste this, Isaac. You may not get many more shots at having the
lamia offer you anything in their power."
She wanted to
tell me what to ask for. I could see the desire in her eyes, but she
didn't say anything else. She just sat there, my hand in hers, and
waited for me to make a decision. There was no way of telling what
made her stop short of actually suggesting a particular request. It
was possible that my words from our first day inside the enclave had
finally sunk in and she didn't want to generate any more ill will
with Set and the rest, but I didn't think that was the reason—at
least not all of it.
The boon was
something that I had earned, something that I'd risked my life to
obtain even if it hadn't been the primary reason for agreeing to
fight. I'd earned it and it was mine to choose.
Even more, she
was right. That had been another close fight; there wasn't any
guarantee that I'd win the next one, not if the opponents kept
getting tougher and tougher.
I stopped and
looked back at Set for several seconds as I considered what it was
that I most wanted in the entire world. Jess certainly, but the
lamias couldn't give her to me anymore than anyone else could. Only
Jess could give herself to someone.
An end to the
war, victory for Alec and the rest of us rebels, but that felt like
it was beyond what the male lamias could provide me. The thought of
scores of lamias descending on the Coun'hij and wiping out
Puppeteer's werewolves with their venom, was tempting, but I was
fairly sure that only their queen could decide to enter the war.
I wanted to
talk to my friends and family, I wanted to learn more about the
lamias, but none of that mattered if I didn't survive the next
challenge match. It hit me like a wrecking ball. That was it, I
needed an edge, some way to survive however many fights I had left
before the queen finally agreed to see us.
"I want
you to train me. That is the boon that I request. I want you to do
everything you can to give me an edge in the coming challenges."
Set looked at
me for several long seconds and I got the feeling I'd asked for
something that didn't mean what I thought it meant by the time he
finally nodded his agreement.
"Very
well, I will come find you tomorrow morning and begin your training."
Isaac Nazir
The Lamia Enclave
Ash and Kristin
were still sleeping when I rolled out of bed the next morning. I
could hear Celeste breathing in her room, but I didn't disturb her.
She wasn't sleeping as much as I was, but she was still sleeping more
than normal.
I couldn't
blame her. Until we were finally granted an audience with the lamia
queen there wasn't anything for her to do other than sit around and
take care of Ash and Kristin.
Boredom had
started setting in a long time ago, but it was more than that. Having
time to think was helping me start to put some of my demons to rest,
which was something that was long overdue. All of that time seemed to
be having the opposite effect for Celeste. There had been a couple of
times recently where I'd been woken up by screams and assumed it was
Kristin again before realizing it was Celeste.
I hadn't said
anything to her about it yet. She didn't seem like the type to
welcome prying questions and I didn't want to trigger any kind of
confrontation between us. Things had been going well enough ever
since she'd helped me out that first night and I didn't want to rock
the boat.