Try as she might, Mia couldn’t hold the beast still.
Like a giant pushing aside a helpless infant, the retchwyrm broke free of Mia’s shadowerking, swung its massive bulk away from the crowd, and snaked toward her. Its mouth yawned wide, a trembling roar rolling up from the dark of its belly. The twin swords of Liisian steel in Mia’s hands might well have been butter knives, and her shadow rippled as her passengers drank down her fear.
Leaving her cold.
Hard.
Unafraid.
Mind racing. Eyes scanning the arena walls, the broken rocks, the bloody sand, the monster bearing down on her. And finally, there, she saw it, half-buried in a tumble of shattered stone and dirt between her and the charging monstrosity.
Her bag of wyrdglass.
A thought took seed—insane, suicidal. But with no fear, no pause, no breath to waste, the girl raised her swords. Sweat in her eyes, hair stuck to dusty skin, lips peeling back from her teeth, Mia charged with a bloodcurdling cry, right toward the enraged retchwyrm.
The panicked crowd fell still in amazement, watching the tiny speck of a girl running headlong at the horror of the deepwastes. The beast reared back its colossal bulk, a horrid belch spilling up from its gullet. Mia sprinted through a mash of broken bodies, broken stone, broken weapons littering the sand, leaping carefully over her small leather sack of ’glass, half-buried in the dust. And the retchwyrm opened its maw, spewing its guts all over the floor.
Completely engulfing her.
In turns to come, the next few moments would be the topic of countless taverna tales, dinner table debates, and barroom brawls across the city of Stormwatch.
There were those who swore they saw the girl dive aside, simply too swift to mark, entirely avoiding the spray of the beast’s innards. There were those who claimed that with all the dust and blood and chaos, it was simply too hard to tell what happened, only that she moved quick as silver. And there were those—discounted as madmen and drunks, for the most part—who swore by the Everseeing and all four of his Holy Daughters that this little slip of a girl, this daemon wrapped in leather and mail, simply disappeared. One moment buried in the retchwyrm’s guts, the next, standing ten feet away in the long shadow cast beside it on the sand.
Mia swayed on her feet, the rush of vertigo almost sending her to her knees. Only adrenaline and stubborn will kept her upright, half-staggering, half-running, chest burning as her head spun. The beast inhaled its innards, slurping up the mashed gladiatii corpses and fallen weapons and the small leather pouch full of shining wyrdglass globes. Mia stumbled up a broken outcropping of stone and launched herself onto the thing’s back, burying her swords in its flesh to steady herself. The behemoth thrashed beneath her as she groped her way upright, stumbled along the creature’s length, up toward its rearing head. The crowd bellowing, the retchwyrm roaring, her own pulse thundering and beneath it all, through that cacophony, that deafening chaos, she thought perhaps she heard it, deep inside the monster’s belly.
A series of tiny, wet pops.
The retchwyrm paused, a tremor running through its body. Mia scrambled onto its neck, throwing one of her blades aside, clinging to a broken spear embedded in its leathery hide. Gripping the beast with her thighs and fingernails and sheer bloody-mindedness, she drew back her Liisian steel and with a cry, plunged it into the flesh behind the monster’s tiny ear.
The creature bellowed, a bubble of blood welling up from its gullet and bursting at its mouth. The crowd had no inkling about the ’glass it had swallowed; no clue the explosion had turned a goodly section of the retchwyrm’s gullet to bloody soup. All they knew was that as they watched dumbfounded, mouths open in awe, the girl plunged in her blade, the beast swayed back and forth like a drunkard at the privy, and with a bubbling sigh, crashed dead and still to the ground.
The thuddd echoed across the arena, dust rising as the creature collapsed. But as the nevernight winds blew across the bleachers, across the blood-soaked sand, the pall cleared to reveal a single figure, standing alone on the dead beast’s head.
Panting, bleeding, Mia bent down and dragged her blade free. And turning to the dumbfounded spectators, she slowly raised it to the sky.
Silence rang across the sands. Hollow and still. No one in the crowd could believe their eyes, let alone speak. Until finally, a small boy in his mother’s arms pointed at the bloodstained girl at the arena’s heart, his brown eyes grown wide.
“Crow!” came his tiny cry.
A man beside him looked to the boy, then shouted to those around him.
“Crow!”
The word began repeating, like an echo, more and more folk taking up the call. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, all chanting in time like a vow, like a prayer, “Crow! Crow! Crow!” as Mia limped the length of the retchwyrm’s carcass, sword held high, the audience stamping their feet in time with their chant, faster and faster now, the word and the thunder of their feet burring into “CrowCrowCrowCrowCrow!”
Mia roared with them, elation and bloody pride welling inside her chest.
“What is my name?” she screamed.
“CrowCrowCrowCrowCrow!”
“WHAT IS MY NAME?”
“CROWCROWCROWCROWCROW!”
Mia closed her eyes, drinking it in, letting it soak into her skin.
Sanguii e Gloria.
She turned to the sanguila boxes, saw Dona Leona on her feet, cheering. She looked to the gladiatii cells, saw Sidonius and Bladesinger and Butcher at the bars, howling her name and pounding the iron. And finally, up in the crowd, amid the sea of smiling faces, she saw a girl. Long red hair. Eyes as blue as empty skies. And with her smile beaming bright as the suns overhead, Ashlinn raised her hand, fingers spread.
And she blew Mia a kiss.
*
The Remus Collegium dined like marrowborn that night. A long table in the cells beneath the arena was laden with food and wine, Mia’s gladiatii brothers and sisters toasting her victory like the lords and ladies of old. Furian sat at the table’s head like a king, as was his place as champion. But if this was a kingdom, it now had a queen. Sat at the table’s foot, a silver victor’s laurel crowning her long dark hair, Mia Corvere raised her wine and grinned like a madwoman.
The gladiatii were recovered enough from their poisoning, and buoyed by the adrenaline of Mia’s victory. They drank a great deal and ate very little, recounting the battle again and again. Sidonius crowed so loud about it, you’d think he’d defeated the beast himself, wrapping his ham-hock arm around Mia’s neck and declaring it the greatest triumph he’d ever seen on the sands.
“This magnificent little bitch!” he roared.
“Get off me, you great oaf,” Mia grinned, pushing him away.
“I’ve never witnessed the like!” Sid bellowed. “Have you, ’Singer?”
“Nay,” the woman smiled, raising her cup. “Never the like.”
“Wavewaker?”
“A victory worthy of Pythias and Prospero!” the big man declared.*