Before she could respond a magically projected voice boomed around them. “Fighters! Welcome to the Underground Tour! The winner will receive everything in this life he wishes. To everyone else – there is no second place.”
Chapter Six
‡
Magical transportation. Sure, it was quick, but as Nalah oriented herself to her new surroundings and suffered the two seconds of vague panic that zinged through her until she focused on Esh, Nalah decided she’d rather take the motorcycle everywhere.
One moment they were in the clearing, the next she and Esh and half of the crowd were standing before the gated entrance of a small town. The gate opened and everyone moved forward.
It took only a dozen steps for Nalah to realize, yes, this was a blackout zone. The Guild’s intelligence was right about that. It was…dull. Flat. No bursts of iridescent color combining in the corner of her eye, no almost musical twisting and twining wound tight around her skin.
“What’s wrong?” And only with Esh’s words did it register her feet had stopped and her body was stationary, while people flowed around them.
As attention was the last thing she needed, she got her feet moving again. “Sorry. I was taking it in.”
His face creased lightly in disbelief, but he didn’t call her on it, and they continued forward as they were directed.
The set-up was impressive, especially when you added in most if not all of it had been built without magical help. In rather hilly land, a large tract of forest had been cleared to build a little town. The structures on the edges were shoddily built, their quick construction evident with a glance, but the further in you got the nicer, bigger, brighter everything became.
Esh must have seen something in her face give away her thoughts, because he said, “Outside houses are for staff, the rank-and-file security.”
“Where will the fighters be housed?”
“Close to the middle. Easier for the guards to keep an eye on us.”
As if his words conjured them, the guards became more noticeable. The prevailing theme was big and mean-looking, and armed with bladed weapons. No bows or staffs – no, all of them had knives and swords in easy reach.
They traveled through the town, the buildings in the middle looking less like barracks and more like condos. From here the houses built up into the hills were noticeable, and Esh said, “The guests. The ones who are watching the fights.”
“Beylor?”
“My guess? His house is whichever one looks like the most money went into it.”
That would be the one right in the middle, and it was a monstrous celebration of excess without thought to good taste. Somewhere in there, her mother’s ring was waiting, and a sharp pain lanced through her chest, for a moment the loss of something so precious to someone like that unbearable.
On the opposite end of town from where they entered was a huge building, built abutting the forest. The closest she could compare it to was a coliseum, except this had a roof. “The fights will be held here?” she asked.
Esh nodded, nothing much more to be added to that observation.
“Fighters.” This voice had no magical enhancement, instead relying on an antiquated speaker system. It took moments to locate the source, a man who was standing on a scaffold on the outside of the coliseum. His long, pointed nose and lack of a chin had Nalah thinking cheese and mouse traps. “Fighters! Welcome to the Underground Tour. Congratulations. Only the finest are offered a spot here. You are all to be commended to have made it this far. I am Beylor.”
A natural public speaker he wasn’t. His voice wasn’t squeaky – surprise, that – but he did have the faintest lisp that made any authority he tried to project into his voice a lost cause. Still, the large amount of jewelry, the finery of his clothes, and the fact that he was surrounded by scary looking goons made sure everyone gave him their attention.
“There will be three days of fighting. At the end of the first day, we will have our final sixteen. At the end of the second, eight fighters will be left standing. And on the third day, the King of the Tour shall be crowned.”
The crowd responded to this, loud cheers following suit. Beylor held his hands up for quiet. “You are allowed no weapons, but apart from that, there are no rules. You will fight until one of you can fight no more, and the one left standing is the winner. Are you ready?”
More catcalls, more yelling with now the stomping of feet added. “Between the fights you are welcome to whatever you wish, wherever you wish to go, with again only one rule – there will be no fighting outside of the Tour. Is that understood?”
All around them the guards raised the various weapons, and the cheering was more subdued from minutes ago. Beylor retreated back into the building, and women came forward to start leading the fighters to their rooms.