Far below the emperor's box, behind the rusted bars and blood-washed floors of the underground cells, Aelric and Valkira stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes fixed on the slit in the gate that peered into the arena.
On one side of the colosseum, the sun carved light across three figures.
Caelvir stood centered, one hand gripping the black-forged hilt of the Sword of Seren. On either side of him were two one-armed men, one missing his right arm and the other his left, both holding short daggers in their remaining hands. Their bodies trembled, their knees barely steady, but they stood.
Valkira's gaze, once venomous and unrelenting toward Caelvir, now bore something else. It wasn't affection, not yet at least, but something closer to respect. It had been earned rather than given. One drop of blood at a time, he had slain Garrik, Hask, and the rest of Brusk's pack. His killings had not been clean or quick, but each had been done with purpose.
Aelric, by contrast, had never changed. His gaze remained soft, quiet, and firm. He did not look at Caelvir as one looks at a beast let loose in a pit, but rather like a man watching the inevitable course of a river.
Behind them, a half-circle of one-armed thieves and broken men stood watching the crack in the wall, where sunlight framed the stage of slaughter. Most were new, raw, and terrified, their minds clouded by confusion.
One spoke, his voice small and uncertain. "There's no way that guy can beat that monster…"
Another added with resignation, "Even if we had both arms, we'd be lucky to live through a fight with Brusk."
A third man's voice wavered with desperation. "Why don't we escape? Maybe… with Lady Valkira's help, we—"
"You'd best throw that thought into the pit," Valkira snapped, her voice sharp and cold. "Escape is not an option, no matter how much you want it to be."
"But they're new," Aelric murmured beside her. "They don't know the rules yet."
He stepped forward slowly. "Thou shall head the call."
The thieves blinked, listening silently.
"Thou shall fight for the call."
He turned and pointed upward toward the colosseum's upper ring. "And thou shall kill by the call."
A pause followed, then a whisper from a man missing both arms. "And if we don't?"
Aelric's finger guided their gaze to a section of the arena wall, where guards stood clad in blacksteel armor. Their chests were emblazoned with the sigil of twisted thorns strangling a rose, with a broken blade piercing its heart.
"They will vaporize you," he said calmly. "Lightning is not a myth, it is the language they speak."
"They are few," Valkira added, "but they can kill the best of us with a single strike."
"And even if you escape," Aelric continued, "you are still property, and the colosseum watches its property very closely."
"We are nothing more than entertainment to them," Valkira said, her voice bitter as she looked up toward the emperor's box. "Our lives mean less than the sand we bleed on."
A desperate man whispered, "Then what do we do?"
"Train," Valkira replied. "Grow stronger. Use the arm you have as if it's the only thing that matters, because it is."
The horn sounded.
The fight had begun.
Dust swirled beneath Caelvir's feet as he stepped forward, his eyes locked on the beast standing across from him.
Brusk stood at the other end, a mountain of muscle, towering and immense, veins like cables across his arms and neck. His axe was an executioner's tool of iron, heavy and stained by far more than just blood. His face bore a grin, teeth broken, lips curled with anticipation.
They charged.
The two one-armed men remained behind, wisely avoiding any attempt at strategy or assistance. They stood still, their shoulders tight, like lambs watching wolves.
Caelvir moved like wind gliding over water.
Brusk came down like a hammer crashing through stone.
The first clash never landed. Caelvir slipped just beneath the swing, his back arching and his feet gliding across the sand. Brusk's axe crashed into the space where Caelvir had stood only a heartbeat earlier, sending a burst of dust and shattered gravel into the air.
Caelvir rotated behind Brusk and swung once to measure his defense. Brusk turned faster than expected and blocked the feint with the flat of his axe.
"Fast," Brusk said, his voice like gravel and smoke, "but not fast enough."
He came again, this time with a spinning chop that threatened to cleave the world in two. Caelvir ducked low, rolling under the blow and coming up with a sharp, upward stab aimed at Brusk's ribs.
Clang.
The axe caught the sword's flat edge, shoving it aside. Brusk growled and followed with a punch, not from his arm but from the shoulder itself, ramming into Caelvir's chest like a boulder.
Caelvir staggered. Breath fled his lungs, but he did not fall.
He slipped left, his sword dancing back into guard position.
The crowd screamed in madness.
They saw a beast and a blade, clashing again and again.
Brusk's strength was overwhelming. His swings made the air scream. Each attack, if landed, could cleave a man in half.
But Caelvir was like water.
He ducked, twisted, and weaved through the arc of the axe.
Once, twice, three times, he slid past death.
He struck when he could.
A quick slash at the arm. A flick at the thigh. Brusk grunted and blocked each one with the flat of his axe or the thick muscle of his body, but his grin had vanished.
He was beginning to feel the creeping annoyance of a mosquito that refused to be swatted.
Caelvir moved like no man Brusk had ever faced. He did not rush. He did not panic. He circled like a wolf, always within reach yet never quite close enough to be caught.
For every two steps Brusk took, Caelvir took one, and still he remained ahead.
Their blades met twice more. Sparks flew. Sand rose like smoke.
Then, they broke apart.
Both were panting.
Brusk's muscles twitched, rage building with each breath.
Caelvir's stance held firm. Sword low. Breath steady and even.
Still no blood had spilled. No death had come.
And the armless men in the underground watched in silence.
"Maybe…" someone whispered, "maybe he has a chance."
But Aelric said nothing.
He just watched.
He watched the dance of sword and axe, the dance of death suspended by a breath.
And far above, Venara watched too.
But that was a different story.