Styke sucked on his teeth. He shouldn’t. He should turn around and leave Celine with Ibana. Better yet, he should hand her over to Ka-poel and tell them both to get lost. But he had the feeling that wouldn’t actually work. Besides, he also had the feeling that he shouldn’t tell a child about his plans to kill a man in the first place but that ship had sailed. “Just stay out of the way when the fighting starts.”
Styke followed a stranger’s directions across the city, eventually reaching a warehouse on the main thoroughfare just outside the old city walls on the north end of town. The warehouse’s main door had been replaced by a colonnaded facade in imitation of the boxing arenas in Landfall, above which was an enormous banner bearing a likeness of Valyaine’s upper body, fists held forward for a fight. The building had not been damaged by the shelling, the streets outside crowded with wounded and displaced citizens.
Styke left Celine with Amrec and entered through the front door. He was surprised to find that it wasn’t just the facade that had been remodeled: The entire inside of the building had been turned into a clean, well-lit arena, including boxes, bleachers, and snack stands. It could easily fit five thousand people, and from the busts and posters around the building, Styke gathered that there were shows every night. Valyaine himself, one of the posters proclaimed, was a feature every weekend.
The arena wasn’t empty; it had been converted into a hospital for the victims of the shelling. Quiet moans filled the hall, coming from the countless wounded laid out on every surface. Surgeons and nurses rushed around, and Styke even spotted a woman in Privileged’s gloves attending to the worst of the battered, filling the room with the brimstone smell of her sorcery. He breathed it in, enjoying the biting scent.
Styke almost backed out. He didn’t need to fight in a hospital. But Valyaine was here somewhere. Styke could feel his blood begin to rise in anticipation of violence, and he caught the arm of a passing nurse. “I’m looking for Valyaine Soris,” he said.
The woman looked him up and down, her eyes widening at his size. “I don’t know where he is,” she said. “But I’m in a hurry. I last saw him a few hours ago.” She rushed off before he could question her further, leaving him empty-handed.
He plucked at his big lancers’ ring, running his thumb over the skull relief and looking around the hall. Maybe, he thought, it would be best to come kill Valyaine on his way back through Bellport.
“Styke?”
Styke turned around to find Valyaine standing in the doorway, a load of fresh linen in his arms and a surprised look on his face. The surprise disappeared quickly, leaving behind something akin to resignation.
“Soris,” Styke said, nodding slowly. He examined Valyaine in a heartbeat, taking in all the changes. Valyaine wasn’t a tall man, easily a foot and a half shorter than Styke, but he’d always been well muscled. In the last ten years he’d grown positively enormous, with arms bigger around than Styke’s and a chest that looked like it could catch a cannonball without splitting. He had a square jaw and short, jet-black hair, and he wore a businessman’s suit and trousers. “This your place?” Styke asked, gesturing behind him.
“It is.” Valyaine passed by Styke warily, handing the linens off to a nurse. He looked Styke up and down like a butcher prepping a piece of a meat, his eyes lingering on Styke’s knife. “Heard you were still alive. Heard you saved Landfall.”
“Something like that,” Styke replied. He began to move slowly, keeping Valyaine in his field of vision, and they began to circle each other in the vestibule of the arena. “I heard you did a favor for Fidelis Jes a decade ago to buy you this.” He gestured around the arena.
Valyaine took off his jacket and lay it on a nearby bench, never once taking his eyes off Styke. “Me? I got paid, sure. But I built all this myself.”
“How much did he pay you?”
“Fifty thousand.”
Styke scoffed. “Agoston got two million.”
“I also asked for a favor from Fidelis Jes. I never cashed it in. Didn’t see the need. I’m not the greedy shit Agoston is.”
“Was,” Styke corrected.
“Right. You do him with that big knife of yours?”
“I did.” Styke tapped the underside of his jaw. “Put it through the soft spot here.”
“You came across central Fatrasta. I imagine Tenny is dead, too?”
“Very,” Styke lied.
Valyaine sighed. He didn’t seem frightened or even all that put out. Just tired. “Dvory?”
“He’s next.”
“He’s got a field army at his back, so best of luck with that.” Valyaine’s eyes fell to Styke’s knife. “You gonna take it personally when I fight back?”
Styke almost laughed. That indignant anger now churned in his belly, but more than that, he felt alive, as alive as when he unleashed Amrec to a full gallop toward an enemy flank. “Traitor or not, I wouldn’t begrudge a man a good fight.”
“You wait here while I go get myself a knife?”
Styke snorted. Despite Valyaine’s resignation, there was a light in his eyes. He, too, was looking forward to this. Styke made two fists. He didn’t want this to go down like it did with Agoston. He wanted this to last. “We’ll do this your way.”
“Suit yourself.” Valyaine rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and flexed his fingers. They continued to circle.
“I always liked you, Valyaine.”
“Yeah? Well, I always thought you were a wanker.” Valyaine darted forward faster than Styke expected, his arms coming up in a boxer’s stance and his right fist lashing out and connecting with Styke’s chin in a powerful jab that snapped Styke’s head back and brought tears to his eyes. Styke stumbled, raising his arms in defense, taking two more jabs to the ribs before he could fend off the attack.
Valyaine retreated, bouncing on the balls of his feet, fists held high. Styke copied the stance, remembering his days fighting in the barracks, well before the Mad Lancers. He swung at Valyaine’s head, but the punch was too slow. Valyaine ducked beneath it, hammering his left side with a flurry of blows, causing Styke to double over—only to take a knee to his forehead.
Styke fell back against the wall. His eyes were blurry, blood leaking from his nose and mouth and streaming from Valyaine’s knuckles.
“What are you doing, Ben?” Valyaine asked, dancing in front of Styke, feinting left and right. “Is this part of some path of vengeance? Is this some kind of redemption? Get out that big knife and end this thing. It’ll go faster.” He darted back in, pounding on the arm Styke raised in defense and then leaping back from Styke’s counterjab.
He continued to talk. “Do you think you’re some kind of hero? Rumor has it you’ve threatened to crucify any soldiers you find stealing from Fatrastans. Is that true?”
It wasn’t, but Styke didn’t see the need to correct him. It sounded like something he’d do.
When he didn’t answer, Valyaine barked a laugh. “That’s some hypocritical shit there, Ben.”
“We never stole from the people we protected,” Styke snapped. He pushed himself off the wall and brought his arms in. He closed the distance between them, attacking Valyaine with short jabs that the boxer simply slapped aside. Only one managed to land, hitting Valyaine in the cheek and sending him reeling.
Valyaine recovered and spat blood at Styke. “We stole from everyone,” he growled. “You’ve got rose-colored spectacles, you big dumb asshole. If we needed something, we’d just accuse someone of being a royalist and take it from them. Maybe there was a veneer of honor to it, but never more than skin-deep.”
The whole hall had grown silent, and Styke could feel the eyes of the doctors and nurses and wounded upon them as they continued to circle. He thought about his vengeance, and realized that to all these people he was just a big dumb soldier attacking their benefactor.
The vengeance was only in his head. But then again, that’s all that ever mattered.