by Nicholas Eames
It was said Rose had killed a cyclops when she was sixteen years old. She hadn’t been a mercenary at the time—just a scrappy young girl eager to escape the long reach of her father’s shadow. There’d been no band to back her up, no bard to watch what transpired and record it in song. Only a handful of awestruck farmers were there to see it, but farmers spread gossip like seed, and word of Rose’s exploit grew quickly. She’d become a celebrity almost overnight, earning herself the moniker under which she would live forever after: Bloody Rose.
There were those who didn’t believe the story, who thought she’d found it dead or used her daddy’s gold to hire mercs to slay the beast on her behalf. Tom, of course, had never doubted it was true. But here in the arena, seeing a cyclops in the pallid, towering, monstrous flesh, he felt a pang of uncertainty in his gut, because how could a sixteen-year-old girl—how could anyone at all—overcome this? How did you even begin?
By running straight at it, evidently.
Rose took the lead at a sprint. Her rune-inscribed gauntlets pulsed blue-green, and the scimitars at her waist leapt like spawning salmon into her hands. Freecloud raced behind her, clenching Madrigal’s scabbard in one hand and leaning as though he were running into a gale.
As Rose closed with the cyclops it aimed a clumsy kick in her direction, which she dodged without slowing. She sprang onto its other foot and stabbed one of her swords into its shin. She used the weapon’s leverage to haul herself up, planting the other blade an arm’s length higher. The cyclops barely registered the wounds. Tom supposed that years of harsh captivity in the dim cells below the arena had somehow inured it to pain. It pivoted on the foot nearest Freecloud, unable to locate Rose, who was stabbing her way up the back of its leg.
While she climbed toward the creature’s waist, Freecloud made an obvious target of himself by standing directly in front of it. The druin still hadn’t drawn his sword, but his right hand hovered threateningly above its hilt. The cyclops tried stomping him flat, but Freecloud—who’d seen it coming—stepped clear. He did so with unhurried ease, like a pilgrim making way on the road for a farmer’s cart. When the beast tried again with the other foot, Freecloud ducked aside. Tom heard a shrill ring and caught the flash of sunlit steel as Madrigal finally left its scabbard. Gripping the sword two-handed, the druin brought it down across the monster’s toes, which split like logs beneath a woodsman’s axe.
Blood and noise followed. The cyclops roared in pain, and Tom heard one of the mercs behind him clap and yell, “Attaboy!”
Freecloud moved in a slow circle around it, Madrigal poised like a scorpion’s tail above him. The cyclops tracked him warily. Red gore dripped in viscous strands from its open mouth, slopping over the swell of its belly and into the matted loincloth below.
Rose must have suddenly hit a nerve, because the thing yelped and slapped her with a meaty hand. She weathered the blow, gripping her hilts like a climber clinging to purchase above a yawning abyss. She was twenty feet from the ground now; a fall wouldn’t kill her, but it would leave her prone, which could prove lethal.
Determined to recover the beast’s attention, Freecloud darted in and chopped at its ankle. The cut was shallow, glancing off bone, but was enough to distract the cyclops, who spun around as the druin danced between its legs. It stooped to swat at Freecloud, who didn’t bother trying to evade it—only stood there as the gnarly hand swiped through him.
The cyclops looked bewildered as wisps of green smoke curled in its empty palm. Tom was confused as well, until he spotted Freecloud standing beneath its legs, exactly where he’d been a moment earlier.
Tom had heard songs about druic sorcery. It was said they could cast illusions and pass unseen by mortal eyes. The songs were true, apparently, though by this point in the day it surprised Tom not at all.
When Rose reached the monster’s waist she let her swords tumble to the ground. Using the soiled loincloth for purchase, she clambered onto the creature’s back as it bent to reach for Freecloud. There was a ridge of coarse blue fur running the length of its spine, which Rose climbed hand over hand with alarming dexterity.
Below her, Freecloud was forced to retreat as the cyclops lunged at him with both hands. Fast as the druin was, his adversary was simply too big to evade for long. In his effort to distract it from Rose, he was forced to put himself in jeopardy. He could no longer afford to counter the creature’s attacks, and twice more was obliged to rely on illusions to save his skin. Tom watched as he narrowly ducked a blow from the beast, and when another came there were suddenly two of him: mirrored swordsmen in silver mail and swirling sky blue cloaks.
The monster picked one and punched, at which point both Tom and Freecloud learned—rather painfully, in the latter’s case—that even a cyclops gets lucky from time to time.
Freecloud—the real Freecloud—went tumbling violently across the stone floor of the arena. Where he stopped, he lay unmoving. His illusory double vanished in smoke.
From all over the arena came the sound of breathless gasps. The cyclops loosed a chortling roar as it advanced on the crumpled druin.
Tom leaned into his brother’s shoulder. “It can’t kill him, right? They won’t let it.”
Kars shook his head. “Who’s they?”
Tom looked to one end of the canyon, where a cordon of shield-bearing spearmen were stationed in case any of the arena’s monstrous denizens made a break for it. None of them appeared eager to rescue Freecloud. In fact, he doubted they would challenge the cyclops even if it came right at them.
Rose was lost to sight on the monster’s back. She might have guessed from the crowd’s reaction that Freecloud was down, but what could she do about it?
No more than I can, thought Tom miserably.
He started as Kars laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Look away, brother.”
Look away.
So he did. He looked away, and found his gaze drawn to the face of Fable’s old bard. Although Kamaris may have resented his previous band, he didn’t hate them. He wasn’t evil. And despite his earlier comment about Tom’s first song as Fable’s new bard being an elegy, his expression now was utterly desolate, the face of a farmer finding his crops destroyed by an early frost.
When Tom bolted from the cave window his brother probably assumed he had gone to retch or to spare himself the sight of Freecloud’s death. In truth, Tom had no idea what he was doing, except that at some point in the past few moments he’d decided that he should do something, even if it amounted to nothing.
He pushed through the press of mercenaries behind him, and rushed to the lip of the cave before remembering he had no weapon but the knife his mother had given him. Without thinking he snatched up a bow from against the wall, shrugged the lute case from his shoulder and replaced it with a bristling quiver. And then he was past the door guards, sprinting all-out down the stone ramp.
The sound of the crowd hit him like a physical force, a percussive roar louder than anything he’d ever heard. The quiver bounced painfully against his side, and the bow was so tall he had to hold it sideways so—
Gods fuck me, Tom thought, only now recognizing the weapon in his hand. It’s Jain’s bow. I just stole Lady fucking Jain’s bow! The realization of this—more than the fact that he was charging out to fight a cyclops—almost turned him back.