Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 46

Though the sandstone walls around the training pit were only ten feet high, they seemed insurmountable as Bannon stood on the sands. It was a bowl-shaped arena thirty feet wide. The stone had been hacked, sheer and clean. He would never be able to climb out.

“Sweet Sea Mother,” he muttered, trying to calm himself.

Two of the morazeth had dragged him out of his cell and pulled him along so fast that he stumbled. He tried to cooperate, but they didn’t want to make it easy on him or on themselves. “My friends are coming for me!” Bannon cried out, as if that might frighten them. “We’ll leave Ildakar and go far away.”

One of the spell-scarred women twisted her mouth in a frown. “You won’t be leaving. The wizards worked the blood magic yesterday and restored the shroud. No one can depart from the city.”

Bannon felt a cold twist in his gut. He had been worried about his own plight, not even thinking what might be happening outside. Where were Nicci and Nathan? Were his friends in trouble, too? Were they all prisoners within this city, separated from the world and time? Or had they escaped without him?

One of the morazeth nudged him forward. “You have your own prison to worry about right here, boy. Do well, and you will deserve our training.”

The other woman said, “Do well, and you’ll survive.”

They had led him to the edge of the practice pit, an empty featureless ring with a floor of sand and fine pea gravel raked smooth. He saw no way to climb down into the pit. “How do I—”

The women had shoved him, and he fell, sprawling so hard in the yielding ground that it knocked the wind out of him. He coughed, dragged himself to his hands and knees. “Now what?” he asked aloud, but the morazeth walked away from the rim above.

He turned slowly, looking at the sheer walls. This practice pit seemed simple and basic. Maybe for beginners …

Bannon heard movement above and looked up to see Lila in her black leather over her rune-marked skin. She was barefoot, standing at the edge, studying him. She cracked her knuckles before tugging on a pair of tight leather gloves. “I wouldn’t want to scar you too badly, boy. At least not so soon.”

She sprang over the edge and dropped down into the pit. She landed in a crouch, perfectly balanced. She held her arms loosely, gloved fists on her hips. “I feel a little stiff this morning, and I need some exercise. Fight me.” She flashed her white teeth, but it was by no means a smile. “I’ll reward you for each blow you land on me.” She came forward, and even though she was smaller than he, Bannon took a step back. “And I plan to deny you any rewards this day.”

“I don’t want to fight you,” he said.

“Then you will be very sore and bloody before this session is through.” She lunged toward him, feinted with her left hand, and slapped him across the face with her right. The glove padded the impact, but his jaw jerked sideways and he felt stinging pain.

He raised his forearm to block a second blow, but Lila struck him on the other side of the face. He shook his head, and then swung blindly. He tried to hit her stomach, but managed only to strike her side. He could feel her ribs beneath her skin. Somehow, he sensed that she had let him touch her.

“Do you like the feel of my flesh, boy?” she taunted. “You can touch it all you like … if you can strike me.”

Lila punched him in the center of the chest, but just a light blow to prove she could do it. Then she boxed his ears and danced back. Bannon’s heart was pounding. He held up both of his hands, feeling fear and anger. He didn’t want to be in this place, separated from his friends, trapped in this strange city under an invisible dome. His real concern was inside this practice pit, here and now, facing this lean young woman who seemed to consider pain nothing more than flirtation. He had to survive this training if he was ever going to get free and return to his friends.

Hoping to surprise her, he charged toward Lila, swinging both arms, punching the air with his fists, trying to land any contact. Lila danced from side to side, and he adjusted his approach, using his size and weight for whatever advantage he could. He punched her in the left shoulder, making the morazeth spin just enough that he could drive in with an uppercut that clipped her jaw. It was a solid blow, and Lila reeled backward. She caught her breath, flapping her gloved hands and grinning. “That’s a nice start.”

Then, faster than he could see, she delivered a sideways chop to his kidney, which sent him staggering. Spangles of light swirled behind his eyes. He couldn’t breathe.

Lila swept her bare left foot and knocked his legs out from under him, buckling his knees and giving his shoulder an additional shove as he fell. Bannon slammed onto his back, sobbing for air.

The morazeth was on top of him, pinning his shoulders to the ground. Her face was close to his. He could see perspiration glistening on all the marks across her face, neck, and shoulders. She was laughing. “You’re not very good at hand-to-hand combat, are you, boy?”

“I never claimed to be.” He had gotten into a few brawls as a boy on Chiriya Island, but nothing where his life depended on it. In the scuffles, he had suffered bruises and torn clothes, with his pride injured more than his body.

He remembered the training Nathan had given him in swordfighting skills, and the many monsters Bannon had killed made his talent self-evident. But the old wizard had never spent time training him in fighting with his fists. Bannon couldn’t imagine the erudite and dashing Nathan Rahl bothering with such a lowbrow form of fighting. He preferred his ornate sword as a more noble means of dispatching an opponent.

“I’d rather use a sword,” Bannon said, catching his breath. “But you would be too afraid to let me have one.”

Lila remained on top of him, pinning him down. Her eyes reminded him of the color of a stormy sea. Then she laughed and rolled off of him, springing back to her feet. “On the contrary, that was our next step.” She brushed sand from her bare skin and shouted up to the rim, “Bring me the sword. Toss it down here.”

Within moments, a young man in drab clothes came to the edge of the pit holding a long object wrapped in rough burlap. Without meeting Lila’s gaze, he unceremoniously dropped the package. Lila caught it with a deft move and stripped off the cloth. She pulled out a sword with a simple leather-wrapped hilt, a straight and unadorned cross guard, and a blade discolored from impurities in the steel during its forging.

“That’s Sturdy!” Bannon cried, feeling a leap of hope inside his chest. “How did you get it?”

“Your friend Amos delivered it from the grand villa. He thought we might like to use it as a toy.” Lila turned the sword from side to side. “The blade is as unimpressive as you are, boy.”

Bannon felt the burn of the insult. “Both of us may surprise you.”

“Good. I like to be surprised.” With an expression of distaste, Lila extended the sword hilt-first toward Bannon. “Take it. You’ll need it.” She called upward, “Stick!” The slave boy tossed down a polished wooden pole, which Lila caught. “If you’re a swordsman, prove it. Fight me. Kill me if you can.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Bannon said.

“You will.” Her thin smile flashed at him. “Or I am not training you properly.”

When he didn’t move, Lila attacked him. She gritted her teeth, twirled the wooden rod, and swung at him.

Instinctively, Bannon brought Sturdy up in a clean defensive move, met the wooden rod with a crack that jarred all the way through to the morazeth’s wrists. A flicker of anger crossed her face, and she drew the rod back, more serious now. She swung again, but Bannon felt comfortable with the sword in his hand. He deflected her blow and pushed forward. He would no longer be on defense. He had a sword, his sword, and she just had a little stick. He couldn’t think about what would happen if he did kill this morazeth. He was sure Adessa and the others would punish him.

In the moment of distraction, Lila ducked under his guard and cracked the wooden staff hard across his right thigh. The pain stung, and he nearly collapsed. His leg buckled, but he braced himself, straightened again, vowing to concentrate on this fight, this enemy, and worry about the consequences later.

He drove in, slashing sideways, jabbing with the point and sweeping in a reverse arc. Lila spun and twirled like a tumbler at a traveling carnival show. Bannon met the wooden staff each time she tried to strike him with it. He could tell she was no longer toying with him, but genuinely fighting to the best of her abilities.

And Bannon fought to the best of his.

With a dim sense of peripheral vision, he realized that others had gathered at the edge of the pit above, some morazeth and arena fighters. He didn’t care. He needed to defeat Lila. The red rage behind his eyes reminded him of what he had felt when he fought the Norukai at Renda Bay.

He swung his sword like a scalpel and then a bludgeon. Nathan had taught him that brute force was as acceptable as finesse, so long as it defeated the enemy.

Lila found herself on the defensive now, holding up her wooden staff. Pale chips flew as Sturdy’s blade hacked into the rod and finally cut it in two. The halves of the fighting staff broke, and Lila staggered.

Biting back a roar, Bannon swung his sword at her face, but at the last moment, turned the blade. He couldn’t kill her, couldn’t cleave her head in two. Instead, the flat of the blade struck her cheek with bruising force and drew blood. She collapsed backward, and Bannon was on top of her, driving her down.

He shuddered, realizing what he had done. “Sorry,” he said quickly.

Lila snatched something with a black-painted wooden handle from her hip. He heard the snick, barely saw the tiny needle tip as Lila’s thumb touched the spell symbol carved into the hilt. She poked him with her agile knife, and pain exploded within him. He threw himself backward, writhing in agony.

Lila sprang to her feet, wiping blood from her face. As the thunder of pain throbbed through his head, Bannon heard cheers and shouts from the spectators above. Looking smug, she stood over him and kicked Sturdy away out of his grasp. It slid across the pea gravel and sand.

“A fighter must use any weapon available,” she said. “Winning is all that matters, because losers die.”

After she put away her agile knife, the pain swiftly faded within him. Still sprawled on his back, he propped himself up on his elbows, heaving great breaths, tossing his loose, long hair out of his face.

“That is enough for now.” Lila raised her hand, and someone threw down a rope ladder from above. “Climb after me. It’s time to go back to your cell.”

Though he ached from the fight, barely able to move in his exhaustion, Bannon got to his feet and followed her. Keeping his head down, he climbed the rope out of the pit and looked around at the spectators, who watched him with surprise and even a hint of admiration.

“This way,” Lila snapped, demanding his attention.

They wound through the torch-lit tunnels, past other cells. Down other connecting corridors, Bannon could smell the musk of combat animals, the trained killing beasts kept by Chief Handler Ivan. He felt like nothing more than an animal here.

Lila brought him to the open door of his cell and said in a grudging voice, “That was a good effort. You may be worthwhile after all.”

Bannon didn’t know if he should thank her or not.

She shoved him into his cell, and he stumbled toward his pallet. Lila followed him and closed the barred door behind her. “Time for my reward,” she said. “And yours … if you know how to receive it.”

Bannon swallowed hard, knowing and dreading what she intended to do. She removed the black leather wraps and let them drop to the sandstone floor of his cell. Bannon’s pulse quickened. He blinked furiously and wiped perspiration from his brow. “I think … I think I need a drink of water.”

Lila came closer, planting her hands on his chest. “I’m more concerned with what I need.”

Bannon could feel his pulse thrumming like a drumbeat inside him. With a wistful desperate memory, he thought of the lovely acolytes from Cliffwall, the warm embraces and tender kisses of Audrey, Laurel, and Sage, his first lovers, enthusiastic women who shared him and lifted him to honeyed heights of pleasure … before Victoria had turned them into bloodthirsty forest monsters, who only wished to spill his blood to fertilize the ground.

Lila seemed to be a little of both.

Stepping toward him, naked, with her eyes fixed on him, she laid her agile knife in one of the small alcoves in the sandstone wall. “Don’t forget, it is always here, right within reach. I suggest you not let me think of a reason to use it.”

Then she wasn’t paying any attention to her weapon while Bannon fought an entirely different kind of battle.