The hand released enough for him to choke, ‘Makes sense.’ It did make sense, too. That was about as much fight as Pane had showed in his whole life and where’d it got him? He
was just the fool who opened the door.
Bottom of the pile.
Golden had bloodied the old man’s face up something fierce. Drizzle was streaking through the light about the torches, cool on his forehead but he was hot inside now, doubts banished. He
had Lamb’s measure and even the blood in his mouth tasted like victory.
This would be his last fight. Back to the North with Ring’s money and win back his lost honour and his lost children, cut his revenge out of Cairm Ironhead and Black Calder, the thought of
those hated names and faces bringing up the fury in a sudden blaze.
Golden roared and the crowd roared with him, carried him across the Circle as if on the crest of a wave. The old man pushed away one punch and slipped under another, found a hold on
Golden’s arm and they slapped and twisted, fingers wriggling for a grip, hands slippery with grease and drizzle, feet shuffling for advantage. Golden strained, and heaved, and finally with a
bellow got Lamb off his feet, but the old man hooked his leg as he went down and they crashed together onto the stones, the crowd leaping up in joy as they fell.
Golden was on top. He tried to get a hand around the old man’s throat, fumbled with a notch out of his ear, tried to rip at it but it was too slippery, tried to inch his hand up onto
Lamb’s face so he could get his thumbnail in his eye, the way he had with that big miner back in the spring, and of a sudden his head was dragged down and there was a burning, tugging pain in
his mouth. He bellowed and twisted and growled, clawed at Lamb’s wrist with his nails and, with a stinging and ripping right through his lip and into his gums he tore himself free and
thrashed away.
As Lamb rolled up he saw the old man had yellow hairs caught in one fist and Golden realised he’d torn half his moustache out. There was laughter in the crowd, but all he heard was the
laughter years behind him as he trudged from Skarling’s Hall and into exile.
The rage came up white-hot and Golden charged in shrieking, no thoughts except the need to smash Lamb apart with his fists. He caught the old man square in the face and sent him staggering right
out of the Circle, folk on the front row of stone benches scattering like starlings. Golden came after him, spewing curses, raining blows, fists knocking Lamb left and right like he was made of
rags. The old man’s hands dropped, face slack, eyes glassy, and Golden knew the moment was come. He stepped in, swinging with all his strength, and landed the father of all punches right on
the point of Lamb’s jaw.
He watched the old man stumble, fists dangling, waiting for Lamb’s knees to buckle so he could spring on top of him and put an end to it.
But Lamb didn’t fall. He tottered back a pace or two into the Circle and stood, swaying, blood drooling from his open mouth and his face tipped into shadow. Then Golden caught something
over the thunder of the crowd, soft and low but there was no mistaking it.
The old man was laughing.
Golden stood, chest heaving, legs weak, arms heavy from his efforts, and he felt a chill doubt wash over him because he wasn’t sure he could hit a man any harder than that.
‘Who are you?’ he roared, fists aching like he’d been beating a tree. Lamb gave a smile like an open grave, and stuck out his red tongue, and smeared blood from it across his
cheek in long streaks. He held up his left fist and gently uncurled it so he looked at Golden, eyes wide and weeping wet like two black tar-pits, through the gap where his middle finger used to
be.
The crowd had fallen eerily quiet, and Golden’s doubt turned to a sucking dread because he finally knew the old man’s name.
‘By the dead,’ he whispered, ‘it can’t be.’
But he knew it was. However fast, however strong, however fearsome you make yourself, there’s always someone faster, stronger, more fearsome, and the more you fight the sooner you’ll
meet him. No one cheats the Great Leveller for ever and now Glama Golden felt the sweat turn cold on him, and the fire inside guttered out and left only ashes.
And he knew this would be his last fight indeed.
‘So fucking unfair,’ Cantliss muttered to himself.
All that effort spent dragging those mewling brats across the Far Country, all that risk taken bringing ’em to the Dragon People, every bit repaid and interest too and what thanks? Just
Papa Ring’s endless moaning and another shitty task to get through besides. However hard he worked things never went his way.
‘A man just can’t get a fair go,’ he snapped at nothing, and saying it made his face hurt and he gingerly pressed the scratches and that made his hand hurt and he reflected
bitterly on the wrong-headed stupidity of womankind.
‘After everything I done for that whore . . .’
That idiot Warp was pretending to read as Cantliss stalked around the corner.
‘Get up, idiot!’ The woman was still in the cage, still tied and helpless, but she was watching him in a style made him angrier than ever, level and steady like she’d something
on her mind other than fear. Like she’d a plan and he was a piece of it. ‘What d’you think you’re looking at, bitch?’ he snapped.
Clear and cold she said, ‘A fucking coward.’
He stopped short, blinking, hardly able to believe it at first. Even this skinny thing disrespecting him? Even this, who should have been snivelling for mercy? If you can’t get a
woman’s respect tying her up and beating her, when can you fucking get it? ‘What?’ he whispered, going cold all over.
She leaned forwards, mocking eyes on him all the way, curled her lips back, pressed her tongue into the gap between her teeth, and with a jerk of her head spat across the cage and through the
bars and it spattered against Cantliss’ new shirt.
‘Coward cunt,’ she said.
Taking a telling from Papa Ring was one thing. This was another. ‘Get that cage open!’ he snarled, near choking on fury.
‘Right y’are.’ Warp was fumbling with his ring of keys, trying to find the right one. There were only three on there. Cantliss tore it out of his hand, jammed the key in the
lock and ripped back the gate, edge clanging against the wall and taking a chunk out of it.
‘I’ll learn you a fucking lesson!’ he screamed, but the woman watched him still, teeth bared and breathing so hard he could see the specks of spit off her lips. He caught a
twisted handful of her shirt, half-lifting her, stitches ripping, and he clamped his other hand around her jaw, crushing her mouth between his fingers like he’d crush her face to pulp
and—
Agony lanced up his thigh and he gave a whooping shriek. Another jolt and his leg gave so he tottered against the wall.
‘What you—’ said Warp, and Cantliss heard scuffling and grunting and he twisted around, only just staying on his feet for the pain right up into his groin.
Warp was against the cage, face a picture of stupid surprise, the woman holding him up with one hand and punching him in the gut with the other. With each punch she gave a spitty snort and he
gave a cross-eyed gurgle and Cantliss saw she had a knife, strings of blood slopping off it and spattering the floor as she stabbed him. Cantliss realised she’d stabbed him, too, and he gave
a whimper of outrage at the hurt and injustice of it, took one hopping step and flung himself at her, caught her around the back and they tumbled through the cage door and crashed together onto the
packed-dirt floor outside, the knife bouncing away.
She was slippery as a trout, though, slithered out on top and gave him a couple of hard punches in the mouth, snapping his head against the ground before he knew where he was. She lunged for the
knife but he caught her shirt before she got there and dragged her back, ragged thing ripped half-off, the pair of them wriggling across the dirt floor towards the table, grunting and spitting. She
punched him again but it only caught the top of his skull and he tangled his hand in her hair and dragged her head sideways. She squealed and thrashed but he had her now and smacked her skull into
the leg of the table, and again, and she went limp long enough for him to drag his weight on top of her, groaning as he tried to use his stabbed leg, all wet and warm now from his leaking
blood.
He could hear her breath whooping in her throat as they twisted and strained and she kneed at him but his weight was on her and he finally got his forearm across her neck and started pressing on
it, shifted his body and reached out, stretching with his fingers, and gathered in the knife, and he chuckled as his hand closed around it because he knew he’d won.
‘Now we’ll thucking thee,’ he hissed, a bit messed-up with his lips split and swollen, and he lifted the blade so she got a good look at it, her face all pinked from lack of
air with bloody hair stuck across it, and her bulging eyes followed the point as she strained at his arm, weaker and weaker, and he brought the knife high, did a couple of fake little stabs to
taunt her, enjoying the way her face twitched each time. ‘Now we’ll thee!’ He brought it higher still to do the job for real.
And Cantliss’ wrist was suddenly twisted right around and he gasped as he was dragged off her, and as he was opening his mouth something smashed into it and sent everything spinning. He
shook his head, could hear the woman coughing what sounded like a long way away. He saw the knife on the ground, reached for it.
A big boot came down and smashed his hand into the dirt floor. Another swung past and its toe flicked the blade away. Cantliss groaned and tried to move his hand but couldn’t.
‘You want me to kill him?’ asked an old man, looking down.
‘No,’ croaked the girl, stooping for the knife. ‘I want to kill him.’ And she took a step at Cantliss, spitting blood in his face through the gap between her teeth.
‘No!’ he whimpered, trying to scramble back with his useless leg but still with his useless hand pinned under the old man’s boot. ‘You need me! You want your children
back, right? Right?’ He saw her face and knew he had a chink to pick at. ‘Ain’t easy getting up there! I can show you the ways! You need me! I’ll help! I’ll put it
right! Wasn’t my fault, it was Ring. He said he’d kill me! I didn’t have no choice! You need me!’ And he blathered and wept and begged but felt no shame because when
he’s got no other choice a sensible man begs like a bastard.
‘What a thing is this,’ muttered the old-timer, lip curled with contempt.
The girl came back from the cage with the rope she’d been bound with. ‘Best keep our options open, though.’
‘Take him with us?’
She squatted down and gave Cantliss a red smile. ‘We can always kill him later.’
Abram Majud was deeply concerned. Not about the result, for that no longer looked in doubt. About what would come after.
With each exchange Golden grew weaker. His face, as far as could be told through the blood and swelling, was a mask of fear. Lamb’s smile, by terrible contrast, split wider with every blow
given or received. It had become the demented leer of a drunkard, of a lunatic, of a demon, no trace remaining of the man Majud had laughed with on the plains, an expression so monstrous that
observers in the front row scrambled back onto the benches behind whenever Lamb lurched close.
The audience was turning almost as ugly as the show. Majud dreaded to imagine the total value of wagers in the balance, and he had already seen fights break out among the spectators. The sense
of collective insanity was starting to remind him strongly of a battle – a place he had very much hoped never to visit again – and in a battle he knew there are always casualties.
Lamb sent Golden reeling with a heavy right hand, caught him before he fell, hooked a finger in his mouth and ripped his cheek wide open, blood spotting the nearest onlookers.
‘Oh my,’ said Curnsbick, watching the fight through his spread fingers.
‘We should go.’ But Majud saw no easy way to manage it. Lamb had hold of Golden’s arm, was wrapping his own around it, forcing him onto his knees, the pinned hand flopping
uselessly. Majud heard Golden’s bubbling scream, then the sharp pop as his elbow snapped back the wrong way, skin horribly distended around the joint.
Lamb was on him like a wolf on the kill, giggling as he seized Golden around the throat, arching back and smashing his forehead into his face, and again, and again, the crowd whooping their joy
or dismay at the outcome.
Majud heard a wail, saw bodies heaving in the stands, what looked like two men stabbing another. The sky was suddenly lit by a bloom of orange flame, bright enough almost to feel the warmth of.
A moment later a thunderous boom shook the arena and terrified onlookers flung themselves down, hands clasped over their heads, screams of bloodlust turned to howls of dismay.
A man staggered into the Circle, clutching at his guts, and fell not far from where Lamb was still intent on smashing Golden’s head apart with his hands. Fire leaped and twisted in the
drizzle on Papa Ring’s side of the street. A fellow not two strides away was hit in the head by a piece of debris as he stood and knocked flying.
‘Explosive powder,’ muttered Curnsbick, his eyeglasses alive with the reflections of fire.
Majud seized him by the arm and dragged him along the bench. Between the heaving bodies he could see Lamb’s hacked-out smile lit by one guttering torch, beating someone’s head
against one of the pillars with a regular crunch, crunch, the stone smeared black. Majud had a suspicion the victim was Camling. The time for referees was plainly long past.
‘Oh my,’ muttered Curnsbick. ‘Oh my.’
Majud drew his sword. The one General Malzagurt had given him as thanks for saving his life. He hated the damn thing but was glad of it now. Man’s ingenuity has still developed no better
tool for getting people out of the way than a length of sharpened steel.
Excitement had devolved into panic with the speed of a mudslide. On the other side of the Circle, the new-built stand was starting to rock alarmingly as people boiled down it, trampling each
other in their haste to get away. With a tortured creak the whole structure lurched sideways, buckling, spars splintering like matchsticks, twisting, falling, people pitching over the poorly made
railings and tumbling through the darkness.