Blood on her blades and in her eyes.
Mia fought atop the battlements, the stone slippery with gore. Knots of gladiatii hacked and stabbed at one another, steel ringing on steel, war cries filling the air. Worldeater, Champion of the Phillipi, was drenched head to foot in red, swinging a mighty two-handed mattock and crushing armor and shields like paper. Ragnar of the Tacitus Collegium was still standing, howling like a madman as he bent low and flipped a charging gladiatii over his shoulder, down into the water below.
The carnage was awful, the bodies piled high, perhaps only twenty gladiatii remaining where almost three hundred had begun. Mia had never seen bloodshed like it in her life. Furian fought beside her, painted to the armpits.
Their shadows were fully entwined now, all four of them, Mia, Mister Kindly, Furian, Eclipse, coalescing in the black beneath their feet. She could hear the crowd dimly, watched her blades dancing in the air almost as if they had minds of their own. But more, she could hear Furian, his heartbeat, his breathing, and beneath that, beneath the blood and the smoke and the deafening roar of the slaughter-drunk crowd, she realized she could hear …
… not his thoughts, but …
His hunger. His longing. His thoughts for Leona, edged with sorrow and bitterness. His desire for the victor’s laurel, echoing in every beat of his heart. For a moment, she felt it so truly, so much a part of herself, that she was tempted to simply throw down her sword and let him best her. For his own part, Furian seemed to feel her, also, sparing a glance for the consul’s box, the grand cardinal among his craven flock, his jaw clenching with hatred.
“Almighty Aa,” he breathed. “Those bastards…”
Her breath was burning, eyes stinging with sweat, pulse drumming beneath her skin. Her blade sang in the air, her arms aching, and somewhere in the distance, ever so faint, beneath the roar of the crowd, the roar of the flames, the roar of those three suns burning the sky blind overhead, she heard it.
The darkness.
Beneath the water.
Beneath her skin.
Beneath the marble crust over this city’s bones. Her shadow entwining with Furian’s, bleeding into his own like the gore slicked across the stone.
“… mia…”
“Do you feel it?” she breathed.
Furian buried his blade in another chest, blood slick on his hands.
“I feel you,” he gasped.
Twisting and turning, feinting and striking, time crawling.
“I feel us…”
“… MIA, WHAT IS HAPPENING…?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
She felled another gladiatii, ducking beneath his strike and slicing his hamstring clean through. “Black Mother help me, I don’t know…”
Worldeater raised his mattock and charged at Mia, feet pounding on the stone. From behind, she could feel Ragnar and Furian locked together, blade to blade. Even with the Swoon in their veins, the men were champions, veterans of a dozen slaughters, hard as steel. But Mia could still sense Furian, their shadows utterly enmeshed, coiling across the stone, dancing in the blood. It was as if she had two sets of eyes, two hearts, two minds, twice the strength, twice the will, twice the fury. Worldeater swung his mattock at her head and she felt Furian’s hand on her own, guiding her counter. Furian struck at Ragnar, and he felt Mia’s grip on his blade. Coalescing, unending, no sense of where she ended and he began. There beneath those burning suns, if only for a moment, the puzzle seemed to have found its missing piece.
Her gladius sliced the flesh behind Worldeater’s knee, severing tendon to the bone. Furian disarmed Ragnar with a lightning thrust, but the Vaanian crash-tackled the Unfallen to the ground, the pair clawing and punching on the red-slicked stone. As Ragnar’s hands closed about Furian’s throat, Mia felt her own windpipe constrict. She gasped, choking, felt Worldeater’s mattock crash against her ribs. Both she and Furian cried out in pain. Mia lost her grip on her dagger, the blade ringing bright as it skidded across the stone, coming to rest beside Furian and Ragnar.
Ragnar’s hands tightened on Furian’s throat, Mia gasping for breath. Worldeater dragged the girl to the ground, slammed his fist into her head, knocking her helm loose, her gladius flying. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, Ragnar’s grip on Furian making her choke. Reaching out across the stone, the crowd roaring at the top of their lungs, Furian’s fingers scrabbled at the hilt of Mia’s fallen knife. Worldeater slammed Mia’s head into the ground, again, again, again, sunslight burning in her eyes.
Furian’s fingers closed on the hilt of Mia’s dagger.
“Furian,” Mia gasped. “It won’t—”
With a desperate cry, the Unfallen drew back the knife and plunged it into the gap between Ragnar’s breastplate and spaulders.
The crowd gasped.
Furian cried out in triumph.
And Mia’s spring-loaded blade slid right up into the hilt.
*
“Oi.”
Sidonius felt a light kick to his arm. His belly lurched sideways, but the gladiatii kept his eyes closed, holding his breath.
Another kick from a particularly bony toe.
“I can still see your slavemark, deadman. Good thing the folks who dragged your corpse down here didn’t bother to pull off your helmets. Time to go.”
Sidonius opened his eye the tiniest crack, saw an old man in tattered rags leaning over him. He had bright blue eyes, a shock of gray hair, a lit cigarillo on his lips.
“You’re … Mercurio?” he whispered.
“No, I’m the grand cardinal’s mistress. Now get up.”
Sidonius sat up on the mortuary floor, surrounded by hundreds of dead bodies. He could see a slender girl in guard’s armor leaning over Wavewaker’s “corpse,” tapping him on the shoulder.
“You’re Ashlinn,” Sidonius whispered.
“Pleased to meet you,” the girl nodded. “Now seriously, get the fuck up.”
Bladesinger was standing, dragging off her helmet, still drenched in gore. With a grimace, Sidonius pulled off his own helm, reached behind his neck, pulled the punctured bladder out from under his breastplate. He could feel the chicken’s blood down his back, coagulating into a slick, greasy mess.
“Bucket’s in the wheelbarrow,” Mercurio said. “Get washed, get dressed. We need to be gone before the magni’s done. And that won’t be long.”
The Falcons of Remus collegium took turns, scrubbing off the blood as best they could and changing into the outfits they were given. Armor from the unconscious doormen, rags for the rest of them. Sidonius pulled on a guard’s steel helm, leather breastplate, looking to the stone above as the crowd roared in delight.
“How you suppose she’s doing up there?” he murmured.
Wavewaker patted him on the shoulder. “Have faith, brother. She got us this far.”
“With more than a little help from you.” Bryn grinned.
“Aye, but did it have to be chicken’s blood?” Butcher grimaced. “It stinks.”
Wavewaker shrugged. “That’s the way they taught me back in the theater.”