A wave of dirt rose up and slammed into the orc’s legs, sending him stumbling. That spell worked a lot better on bipeds than Elemental Earth Spirits! That distraction was all it took for Rufus to be on him, swinging like he was chopping wood. There was a flash as the orc’s own enchantment stopped a hit, followed by another, and then Rufus had hacked through the orc’s protective spells, and the goblin’s charm stopped the last blow.
The crowd all stood up at what would’ve been a disemboweling axe wound to the guts.
Rufus seemed stunned by the cheering, and from the look on his face, I realized this might be the first time in his life he’d heard anything like that. He lifted one fist and pumped it in the air. “FOR RUDNIK!”
Then the two of them went at it again, and it was a great match. They circled, continuously striking and blocking. Fire lanced and rocks flew. They went for five straight minutes like that, dripping sweat and burning element. I’d underestimated our dwarf, that was for sure.
“Go Rufus!”
The orc managed to hook one of Rufus’ legs with his polearm and yanked him off his feet. Rufus landed on his back, and the orc slashed him hard across the chest. Unlike the orc, Rufus had no extra protective enchantments—that wasn’t one of the spellsany of us Outcasts knew yet—and the hit went straight to the goblin charm.
It was now down to the last good blow, and both fighters were hurting. The crowd was loving it. So, I figured, why not? And started chanting, “Rudnik! Rudnik!” Rade joined in, and it caught on with the fans above. Quickly, the chant filled the quarry.
Rufus blinded the orc with more sand, slammed him sideways with a surge of dirt, then ran up a boulder to jump and put axe to neck so hard that if the goblin’s enchanter hadn’t done his job right, the orc’s head would’ve flown across the arena.
The mighty orc fell, and a star was born.
“Rudnik! Rudnik! Rudnik!”Crowds loved getting surprised by an underdog.
“That ought to be a nice payout.” When Rufus looked our way, I gave him the most respectful up-nod I could, brawler to brawler. There was no way he could hear me over the noise of the crowd chanting the name of his clan, so I said, “Well, now I feel bad for thinking he was a blustering dummy.”
“He’s still a dummy. You were just wrong on the blustering part. That boy canfight.”
A goblin swung his head over the scaffolding from above. They were even uglier upside down. “Put Down Tom, you’re on deck. Time to kit up.”
“Good luck, Carnavon. I promise to not place any bets against you in your absence.”
Eleven
When you grow up in a barge cadre, you fight your brothers and all the other kids aboard; all in good fun, of course. And whenever your cadre lands, and the work is done, you fight all the boys from the other barges too. That’s just how it is. Then, as adults, we keep doing the same thing, just the work gets harder and the brawls turn bloodier, depending on how much drink everybody’s got in them, at least. We do back-breaking labor, then we fight at the slightest provocation, then we go back to work. That’s just the Fogo way, and probably one of the reasons my people have got the bad reputation we do here in the Core.
Except in my experience so far, the Core was actually the meaner of the two places. By that, I mean the nature of the people who lived there, not the realms themselves. Fogo’s unforgiving, and will kill you the instant you get careless, and sometimes kill you even if you’re not, but most of the people who lived there were decent. You could be tough without being cruel. We’d knock a guy senseless over a dumb argument, but the next day, we have to go back to work with him on the same crew, and our lives depended on each other doing our jobs, so no hard feelings. Murder was rare among the cadres, and when we hadsomebody who did real evil, we’d toss them over the side into the lava for everyone’s benefit. If a whole family turned rotten—like the Skerrets and Roches had—we’d banish the lot of them. Our nobles were pricks and we had crooks like Smiling Jemmy, same as everywhere else, but most cadre folk were like one big rough family.
Here in the Core, though, where the population came from a thousand kingdoms and three dozen species, most didn’t like each other much before they got here, and cramming them in tight next to each other didn’t improve those feelings any. Generally, people here struck me as more spiteful and petty. Bloodshed and treachery were common. There was a vindictiveness to this place. It might not all be that way, but the poor parts I’d spent time in were, and even the glorious Collegium was dismissive and unkind.
I suspected that, long ago, the mage fights had become a thing here so the different group’s champions could fight each other rather than the masses having at it. Instead of real battles, which tended to get messy and upset trade, the Nexus Council encouraged magical duels that kept the death toll at a minimum and the destruction confined to one controlled space. Mage fights weren’t just a Slump thing. These were unofficial bouts run by gangsters for the lowest of the low, but they also did this sort of thing in the fancier districts, except those were held in great golden arenas, featuring far more powerful wizards who could put on a real show for the much more respectable audience.
One of these days, I’d be up there too, but tonight, I was fighting for the pocket change of the Under Slump dregs.
Watching the other bouts had been a good distraction. As the ring goblin was checking my protective charms, I began feeling the nerves. I’d fought my whole life, but stopping fists and knees with my face was a lot less frightening than getting pierced withbullets, steel, and spells, which would theoretically be blocked only by the tarnished necklace placed around my neck by a cross-eyed goblin who I was fairly certain was drunk.
I was primarily an enchanter, which meant I had to cast my spells beforehand, binding them to objects to be activated later. I did a quick inventory of my equipment to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and I’d not gotten pickpocketed while awaiting my turn.
On my hip, I had the ceremonial handgun given to me by my old bargemaster, Davis Gax, before I fled to the Core. The ornate thing had 519 carved on the side, a reminder of where I’d come from. It held one of my precious cartridges in its chamber, and the rest were in loops on my belt.
Beneath my cloak I wore a vest that I’d purchased from the market, because it had a great number of pockets and pouches. I kept a small bag of Red on each side for the one invoked spell I knew. I had four different pockets’ worth of enchanted screws ready to scoop and throw, as well as someObscuraballs—which was a simple shadow spell I’d gotten from Rade—and I’d brought a single snail grenade, just in case. That last one I would most likelynotbe using tonight because one of the few rules of the arena was no killing of the audience. Carcalla was displeased by the death of paying customers, and my snail grenades would be an extremely dangerous spell to unleash in public.
Sheathed opposite my gun was the same trapper’s knife I’d been using to carve up the corpses of dead Fire Elementals for the last few years, and next to it were two small copper rods, enchanted with a spell recently taught to me by Azarin. I’d not quite masteredJoltyet, so hoped I wouldn’t need to test it tonight.
Then I checked my charms. The most valuable one—besides the one on temporary loan from the goblins—was the protective bracelet I’d taken off an unfortunate Frunza Tarlev student. Itwould activate automatically to stop a bullet, then required a moment to recharge before it could stop another. I also had the charms leftover from my crawler and trapper days, which would help protect me from poisonous air and extreme heat.
And that cursory pat down was performed by my hands, which were covered with leather gloves that had both been enchanted with another air spell, also of Azarin’s invention. We thought ofAscendandDescendas two different spells, though technically, I think it was just two different effects from the same spell, as supposedly, you can’t really start putting multiple enchantments on a single object until around rank six. Recently, I’d been experimenting with the gloves to see if I could use them for quick movement besides up or down, and so far, all I had to show for the effort was bruises from magically flinging myself into the ground, but the idea held promise.
My corner goblin and I were under the scaffolding, separated from the current bout by a small wooden fence. I couldn’t make out much of what was going on between the cracks, but from the noise, falling dust, and the way everything was shaking, one of the gladiators was using some kind of wind spell and the other was hurling earth. One of these days, this clattery old quarry structure would finally receive enough punishment and fall, crushing dozens of gladiators and a large number of goblins to death in the process. Hopefully, I’d have gained enough ranks to be fighting in the Collegium by then and miss that inevitable spectacle.
The goblin pressed one of his boggle eyes to a gap between the boards. “Ha ha! That one got stabbed in the dick!” The wind died, the trembling stopped, and somebody started screaming for a healer. “Match’s over. You’re next.”
Ignoring the pained wailing outside, I bowed my head and said a silent prayer to Ketekunan, asking that Saint Persistence would grant me the tenacity to win, because we had anadventure to go on and the academy really could use the money. Also, it would help if I could win without using up too much magic, because elements are expensive.Amen. A few minutes later, they opened the gate and I walked out into the quarry to see that two goblins were dumping buckets of sawdust to soak up a large puddle of blood.
