That sparked another murmur among the arena’s occupants. Kylac looked toward Brie, stood frozen in the far corner holding a fistful of bloodstained rags. He felt her gaze flick in his direction before pinning back like everyone else’s to Master Rohn.
“Salveris,” Rohn echoed. “I know the lad. As likely staggered drunk off a tavern stoop, cracked his skull, and was fell upon by scavenging urchins.”
Xarius and a handful of the older students sneered or chuckled. Most of the younger students could only observe in awe.
Traeger himself was not amused. “The trail led here. The evidence we seek will be found here. And when it is, this little empire of yours, and the plague it breeds, will be put to the torch. And I’ll be there, flame in hand, to crush the fleeing rats underfoot.”
Kylac’s father hadn’t built this “empire,” but none could deny it had flourished under his watch. While Talonar was not the only combat school in the city, it was far and away the most renowned. They did not limit themselves here to the practice of brute fighting techniques. Rather, they explored all aspects of death and injury, covering human contest with and without weapons, acids and poisons used alone and in combination, methods of stealth and infiltration overt and secretive, mental exercises of interrogation and deception and skullduggery, the effects of torture and deprivation, and more. Surgeons and healers trekked from the westernmost shores of Alson and the southernmost Kuurian peninsula to learn anatomy and the precise impact of various wounds and diseases. Foreign military commanders crossed tempest seas to share and develop battlefield tactics, siege strategies, and the logistics of troop movement. If it related in any way to the physics or psychology of warfare, it was entertained in a manner both scholarly and practical within these walls.
Given the subject, it was only natural, mayhap, to draw rumor of dealings more sinister. For decades, even before Rohn’s time, the school had been accused of harboring a darker motive and purpose. Yet Kylac’s father and those before him were not without powerful friends. King Galdric himself had visited the grounds and taken private lessons. Several of his personal guard had trained here, as well. Many of the city’s finest pit fighters were forged in this very arena, representing a significant, ongoing investment on the part of their masters. Rivers of coin ran through these halls, breeding envy and resentment among some, but limiting those who dared to challenge Rohn with any open accusations.
Clearly, Magistrate Aarhus and Captain Traeger were beholden to no such fear.
“Your fervor is remarkable, Captain,” Rohn allowed, “if ultimately misguided. The skills purveyed at this institution are tools, nothing more. What men do with those tools is their business. If some murder”—he shrugged—“others defend and save lives. Or is the blade on your own hip merely for ceremony?”
“The blade at my hip is an instrument of lawful justice, duly blessed, and held in plain view. Not some poisoned barb, secreted in shadow, to be plunged into an unsuspecting man’s back for a purse of gold.”
“Most are worth far less, I would say.”
The ever-sneering Traeger cocked his head to one side. “Enjoy your japes. Doubtless, you believe His Majesty will save you. Not this time. The only—”
“Captain!” a watchman shouted from the fourth tier of the arena, at the mouth of a hall that led to Rohn’s personal quarters. A youthful soldier, full of eagerness. He held up what looked to be a jeweled medallion. “Captain, we found it! In the headmaster’s chambers.”
Traeger’s smile stretched so high, it seemed the cleft in his lip might tear further. At a signal, his fellow soldiers presented the tips of their pikes or swords. “Headmaster Rohn, you are hereby placed under royal arrest, for the unnatural death of Salveris, son of Tehric, Governor of Crylag. By order of Royal Magistrate Aarhus, you will attend us peacefully, or die where you stand.”
Xarius drew his swords. Nearly a dozen elder students followed his lead. Kylac found himself clutching a blade of his own, though still in its sheath. He preferred not to think of what might happen should he draw it.
Sweat beaded on the foreheads of Traeger’s watchmen, while their gazes skimmed around in anticipation. The captain’s own face underwent a set of contortions as he reweighed the task before him. Rohn, by comparison, stood deathly calm, unmoved, arms crossed. If he cared whether or not he—or all of them—were to die, there was no hint of it in his visage.
The standoff lengthened, the tension in the air thickening until Kylac feared it would snap like a drawn bowstring. He dared not look for Brie, but hoped she had the sense to flee when the arrow was loosed.
Then his father’s eyes found his, seeming to darken at the sight of his sheathed blade.
“As you will, Captain,” Rohn said, stepping past Xarius with wrists held out before him. “Let us see where this little game of yours will lead.”