Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) (50 page)

The heat was unbearable. She pulled the gag down and tried to lick her dry lips with a parched and heavy tongue, but the sun drank all the moisture that was left.

She was in an arena. Opposite she could see another gate just like the one she was standing before. On the left and right were two more gates. And all around the arena ran the circular death pit.

The walls of the arena reached high, but the spectator rows went even farther up, deep into the shadow of the rock. The arena itself was a natural shaft in the red stone, wider at the bottom than at the top. Above she could just see the penetrating blue sky and the merciless eye of the sun beaming down the shaft, burning the sand that spilled over into the death pit.

It was loud and hot and stank of men and urine. The scent of blood was strong in the air, and she could taste it on the back of her tongue. Death lurked here in this pit, though the white sand suggested innocence. Excitement vibrated through the walls. She covered her ears against the throb, but it didn’t help.

A flash of silver landed just before her feet in the sand. Ahead, a number of men were fighting and bleeding, to the roar of the spectators. But the fighters had not yet noticed the newcomer. Nora looked up.

A balcony or a booth sat just above the gate she had entered through, partially sealed off by curtains blowing in a faint breeze. She squinted against the brightness.

A gong sounded and a deafening roar from the crowd went up. The veils from the booth were swept aside, and the queen stood in all her golden glory in a sleek black dress and a golden band. She raised her golden-cuffed wrists and silence settled over the entire arena. Nora’s heart skipped a beat as she saw the lady, but more so when she saw who stood behind her. In the veiled shadows she could just make out the dark eyes and bronze skin of…that half-wight, and her heartbeat doubled as her jaw clenched.

The queen pointed to the sword at Nora’s feet with a sweeping gesture.

Nora looked down. Yeah. She understood what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to die.

Everything in her screamed to grab the sword. Grab it and protect herself against whatever was coming. It was a chance at survival. It was defiance in the eye of death. But she hesitated. She recognized the sword. The unfurnished, plain blade. A sleek killing weapon with a hilt heavier than it needed to be. His sword. The half-wight’s. So she stayed on her feet and didn’t move.

Nora watched as one of the fighters pounded another man’s face to pulp before lifting him up onto his shoulders to the cheers of the crowd. Thus weighed down, the victor staggered across the sand to the moat of death and looked up at the crowd, who began to chant.

“
Shinar! Shinar! Shinar!
”

The name of the god reverberated off the walls, making the very stones tremble. A sacrifice to the gods. The people wanted to see blood. They shouted, screamed, yelled for it. Someone must have tipped the fighter off that the queen was present, because the man turned around to look up to the booth. His gaze flickered over Nora dispassionately, maybe assessing her challenge and finding it risible. He sneered, then looked up to the queen, and she nodded ever so slightly. The man shrugged his opponent off his shoulders and into the pit. Nora heard the screams of the man impaled on the spikes, turned her head, and vomited, making a pattern in the sand next to her shoe.

She wanted to just pick up the sword. She really should. The man ahead flicked the blood of his opponent from his hands and came steadily toward her. But what was the point? She was going to die here. There was no way Suranna would let Nora out of this alive. The sword was just another way of humiliating her. Fight for your life with his sword, your mentor’s sword. Shade’s voice rang through Nora’s mind: “
The sword is a symbol for a man’s best part
.” She swallowed hard and her throat clicked dryly. Yeah. No way she was going to pick that thing up. They wanted to see defiance? She pulled her cracking lips apart and grinned at the approaching fighter.

*     *     *

Suranna leaned forward, breath becoming
more rapid as she watched the brawler walk toward Nora. The queen turned to see Diaz’s face. Her full lips were parted slightly, aroused, drunk on her own power.

“What will she do?” she asked him.

He strained against her hold but still couldn’t move.

“She’ll kill him.”

“How?” Suranna licked her lips. “Tell me.”

He shook his head—he couldn’t even do that. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eye.

“I don’t know.”

Suranna turned back to watch.

Gods, he really didn’t know. If Nora didn’t pick up the sword now, she would die. And there was nothing he could do about it. She should pick up the sword now. The man would be on her any moment, and she still wasn’t moving. He knew her to be fast, but she wasn’t going to be fast enough if she didn’t pick up the godsdamn sword now. He blinked as the sweat stung in the corner of his eye. Any moment now. One more step, and the window of opportunity would be gone. One more step. He took a deep breath.

*     *     *

“Take the sword!”

Nora heard Diaz’s shout over the din of the crowd as the man came closer.

“Noraya! The sword! It’s your only chance.”

Pfft. What did he know? She gritted her teeth harder as his voice broke with strain. It was too late now, anyway.

The man’s foot landed hard on the flat blade, grinding it into the sand. He chuckled triumphantly and swung his blood-speckled fist at her. Nora watched it coming. It was like vertigo, she thought. Owen had explained the word to her. It described when you stared down from a height and suddenly felt the urge to jump. She stared at the fist knuckling toward her and nearly wanted to feel it smashing into her face. Nearly. She pivoted away just before impact, slamming her hand into the man’s elbow and, using his own momentum, propelled him forward into the sand, joint dislocated.

For a moment, he lay there winded, his face puzzled as the pain crawled up his nerves and into his slow brain. The noise in the arena dropped in intensity, though a murmur still ran in the background. Any bets would not have been in her favor. But right now, Nora knew, they would be changing fast.

She eyed the big man warily. He lay close to the edge of the death pit, but there was no way she could push him over. She could maybe stamp on his throat and hope to suffocate him that way, but the chances were slim. Besides, this wasn’t about beating him.

She was lucky, though. A second man was coming at her with a sword.

*     *     *

“She has a knack for
putting on a good show.” Suranna smiled at Diaz and stroked his cheek. “You know what will happen to her once she’s bested.”

“She’ll be raped.” His stomach churned with bile.

Suranna’s smile widened as she drank in his disgust.

“There are fifteen men left in the arena, my love.” She licked his upper lip before biting into the lower one. “Fifteen.”

He groaned and closed his eyes. At least she allowed him that while she kissed him. The crowd cheered, and Suranna’s attention snapped away from reveling in his suffering, back to the arena.

Nora had impaled a second attacker on his own sword. As he slid off it into the sand, she gave it a twirl. Diaz strained to see, heart racing wildly. Fourteen men now. Maybe she could make it. If Suranna didn’t order in more fighters, at least Nora had a chance now that she had a sword.

The crowd groaned collectively as Nora threw the sword away, into the sand. She stood waiting as the first brawler got back up to his feet and lumbered toward her, angry at the girl who had made him look a fool. Still. She still had a chance.

Diaz glanced at Suranna, who was watching him carefully. She shook her head.

“You’re right,” she said. “Hope leads to the worst kind of desperation. Let’s even the odds a little.”

*     *     *

Nora jumped at the loud
squeal of a rusty gate behind her. She shuffled closer to the edge of the arena, closer to the pit, wary of what was going to come at her through the gate. The big man was shouting abuse at her, picking up speed, his fat lips sprayed with spittle and his bald head reddening not just with the heat. Nora danced nervously between him and the opening gate. Whatever was going to come through, it wouldn’t make a difference, she told herself. She was going to die here. Her best bet was to make the fighters angry enough that they’d kill her by mistake so that she’d be dead when they took it out on her body. That was the only plan she had. It wasn’t a good one.

The gate shuddered to a halt, and two young men were pushed through it. They stumbled along the wooden plank with their hands bound before them. More sacrifices, then. She turned back to watch the big guy approach and thought about throwing a handful of sand in his face. Would that make him angrier? Probably. But would it make him kill her faster? Probably not, if he couldn’t see properly. Dammit.

“Nora?”

She turned back to the two new victims who had just entered the arena. She saw Shade first, then Owen behind him. Owen, who was running up to her with his hands still bound, his face worried.

“What are you doing?” Her twin brother clutched her arm awkwardly. “Why don’t you have a weapon?”

She closed her eyes briefly and swore.

New plan. Right now.

N
ora fell to her knees
and cast about in the sand for the sword she had just thrown away. There. She snatched it and slit through the ropes that bound Shade and Owen before pressing the hilt into Shade’s hand.

“Keep him alive.” Nora’s lips met Shade’s in a hasty and hard kiss. She heard the crowd roar as they should.

“Er…,” Shade said.

Nora looked at her brother.

“Oh.” Shade nodded, gripping the hilt of the sword tighter. “With my life.”

She swept down and gathered a handful of sand. The big guy was still coming at her, arm dangling at an unnatural angle. She started to run, to sprint toward him, head level with his stomach as though she was going to ram herself into his squishy parts. He was in pain and angry, but he realized through the haze of both that what she was planning to do would bring her into immediate contact with him, and he laughed.

His good arm swung around to beat her, punch her head right off her shoulders. She let herself fall backward and skidded neatly between his moving legs, rolled elegantly, and was up and running before he spotted that she had publicly humiliated him again. He yelled as the crowd laughed. But he turned to pursue her, leaving Shade and Owen alone for the moment.

The sand was treacherous under Nora’s feet, making it hard to run fast. But she needn’t. Let the big guy come close. Nora looked up at the booth and her eyes met Suranna’s, a hot flash of hate tearing through her body.

I’ll give you your fucking show if you give me my brother’s life
, she thought and concentrated on the patch of ground just below the queen’s balcony. She spotted the flash of silver that betrayed the only good weapon in this arena, the only one of quality that wouldn’t break spectacularly when she needed it most. Damn that it was Diaz’s, and damn the symbolism, but right now she needed metal to get Owen out of here alive. The pounding feet behind her told her that the big guy had caught up. She skidded the last meters on her knees, picking up the sword, turned on one knee to face her pursuer, and threw the sand in her fist into his eyes. His good hand went up, and she slashed the sword across his uncovered belly, opening it to let the innards spill out. The crowd went wild.

Nora rose and stood over the felled man, who was clawing his insides together, blood pumping into the sand. She finished him, then raised her blood-tipped sword aloft and pointed it directly at Suranna’s smiling face. That was defiance, bitch. Deal with it.

Shade and Owen had shuffled closer.

“Any strategies?” Owen asked.

“I was going to ask you,” Nora said.

“Just stay alive? Last ones standing win?” Shade offered.

“Is that the only objective?” Owen licked his lips, eyeing the cluster of men before them. “Because then I want a weapon, too.”

“We won’t make it out alive,” Nora answered. “That’s not the point.”

“What did you do?” Shade asked.

“Me? Nothing,” Nora huffed and pointed the sword at the booth. Owen and Shade looked up.

“Is that Diaz?” Shade asked. “I thought they weren’t together anymore.”

Great, so everybody had known about Suranna and Diaz, except for Nora.

“Well, they are now,” she scowled.

Owen was watching her face. “He might not be at her side voluntarily,” he said carefully.

“Looked pretty fucking voluntary to me. So give me a plan, mastermind,” Nora said, aware that her cheeks were flushed and not with exertion.

“You want to take on the queen?”

“Hell yes.”

Owen nodded shortly.

“There’ll be bets on the outcome of the fights. They’ll be turning in our favor. In your favor.” He stepped closer to Nora. “If too much money is at stake, you’ll force the hand of the queen to let us live.”