Gates of Ruin (Magelands Eternal Siege, #6) by Christopher Mitchell (top 10 books of all time .TXT) 📗

‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘You look a little lost. You come to see the new dragon?’

Sable nodded.

‘It’s a disgrace, isn’t it? The damn Deadskins get a second dragon, while we’ve only got one, and the idiot Bloodflies haven’t got any. I heard that the normal rules are going to be ignored today.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, usually, the fights are stopped before any dragon gets killed, but not today. Our boys are under instructions to kill the new beast if they can. That’ll teach the Fordian assholes not to cheat.’

The group Sable was walking with entered a large plaza in front of the huge, stone arena. Buildings around it had been damaged from a recent earthquake, but the arena was still standing. A few Blue Thumbs supporters were picking up bricks and stones from the piles of rubble that lay by the edge of the plaza, and Deadskins supporters were doing the same thing on the far side of a thick line of militia.

‘Stick with us after the game,’ said the man who had been speaking to her; ‘it’s going to get rough tonight.’

* * *

It took nearly an hour to get from the plaza to their seats inside the arena. A quarter of the spectators were Torduans, while the rest of the stone benches were occupied by green-sashed Fordians. The man she had been speaking to was part of a group of around a dozen Blue Thumbs supporters, and she sat among them, trying to blend in. She recognised one or two other supporters as friends or associates of Gantu, and kept her head down. The executions had just finished when they found their seats, and the sands were being cleared of body parts by slaves with baskets.

‘Here we go,’ said the man, rubbing his hands together as a double line of blue-sashed warriors entered the arena from a gate.

The massed Fordians booed and jeered at their arrival on the sands, while the Torduans let out a cheer. Sable’s eyes glanced around the arena. To their left, high up on a raised seating platform, three gods were sitting. She knew two – Felice, the new governor, and Latude, the former. Between them was sitting a third god, whom she didn’t recognise.

‘Who’s that in the middle?’ she said.

‘That’s Arete, the Seventh Ascendant,’ the man said. ‘I saw her at the games last month, when we hosted the Deadskins.’

Sable stared at the Ascendant for a moment. Part of her felt a little guilty that she and the others would be leaving Lostwell without defeating the Ascendants first. After all, Corthie and Kelsey were still in Khatanax, and her niece was being hunted. She wondered how they would react when they learned that she, Blackrose and the others had abandoned them. It wasn’t her problem, she told herself, despite the chiding voice in her head. She had never been accepted as a Holdfast, so why should she help them now?

Her attention went back to the arena as several other gates opened and a greenhide emerged from each. They ran onto the sand then jerked back, the chains linking their ankles to the walls of the arena going taut as they strained to get at the blue-sashed warriors. Half of the greenhides, Sable noticed, were daubed in blue paint, the other half in bright green. The volume inside the arena rose as the Blue Thumb warriors arranged themselves in the centre of the sands, then a chant of ‘Obsidia, Obsidia’ rose up from the benches where the Fordians were sitting. A huge gate was opened, and the head of the black dragon appeared to a roar from the crowd.

‘There it is,’ said the man next to Sable. ‘By all the gods, I hope it dies today; filthy reptile.’

Sable watched as Blackrose strode out into the arena. Her jaws were clamped within an iron muzzle, and chains were attached to her wings and her rear limbs, leaving only her front limbs free. Even so, it was clear to everyone in the crowd that she was a formidable creature, and a few of the Blue Thumbs supporters quietened in awe.

Sable tried to think of her next step. Her entire plan had been discarded, and she cursed herself for not taking one of the many opportunities to free Blackrose that had been presented to her. She could have sneaked into the training facility during the night and rescued her that way, but no; now she was going to have to attempt something that, even by her own standards, was ridiculously reckless.

On the benches just down from where the three gods were sitting, an announcer stood up, his hands raised for silence.

‘Today,’ he cried, his voice reaching every part of the arena, ‘in the presence of the blessed Seventh Ascendant, we shall be witnessing the first contest of the new Deadskins’ dragon – Obsidia!’

The crowd roared again, and many got to their feet, their fists punching the air. The Blue Thumb warriors lined up in front of the three gods and bowed their heads, then they turned to face the dragon. Several were armed with spears and long pikes, and all were clad in thick armour. Blackrose tilted her head at them, then waited. Just out of range on all sides, the greensides shrieked and snapped their claws together, desperate for anything to get close enough for them to kill.

The warriors began to advance, spreading out into an arc in front of Blackrose, their long steel-tipped pikes extended. On the right, four of them rushed forwards, and Blackrose raised her forelimb to defend herself. As soon as her attention was distracted, the warriors on the left launched a barrage of spears at her flank. Most were turned by the thick black scales, but two bit deep and the dragon cried out.

‘Come on!’ screamed the man next to Sable, his eyes bulging and his fists clenched. ‘Kill her!’

Blackrose swiped out with her left forelimb, and one of the warriors was sent flying backwards from the blow.