Arram knew that voice. He’d heard it before the games, talking with Chioké. Arram glanced to his side. Kottrun, that was his name, held a short sword to his temple.
“Unless you want your face sliced away a bit at a time, put your hands behind your back,” Kottrun ordered. “The slightest wrong move from either of you, and my friends will start killing the sick.”
Arram looked around. Three more gladiators stood inside the tent, the forbidden short swords in their hands. Each was within striking distance of one of the recovering gladiators on the cots, all five of whom had been gagged, then bound hand and foot with rope. Someone had put a sleep spell on them—they were taking no chances. Was it Daleric’s attendant? There was no sign of him.
Kottrun swiftly bound Arram’s hands behind him. “Turn around, boy,” he ordered, slapping the back of Arram’s head.
Arram did as he was told, eyeing the patients. “I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said mildly, still trying to think of a spell that might work. “We don’t keep medicines here.” It was a lie, and a weak one. If this man had been after drugs before, he’d search for them now. And he could always use Ozorne to get some brought to him, though he’d never escape afterward.
“Dolt, I was never after medicines,” Kottrun said, to Arram’s disappointment. “And now I can get anything I want. I don’t even need you, not with the princess’s only boy in my fist.” He pointed to the man who had finished binding and gagging Ozorne. “Yemro, fetch the university mage. Tell him his student had an accident. Leave your sword.”
The man ran to do as he was bidden.
“And as for you,” Kottrun told Arram, jabbing him in the chest with his sword, “one word, one bit of pretty light, and I start trimming bits off each of you, understand?”
“You won’t get Ramasu’s cooperation if I’m dead,” Arram said.
Arram didn’t see Kottrun strike. He only felt the blow against the side of his head that knocked him down. His ears rang. He lay still for a moment, battling a rush of fury as well as pain. Ozorne was bellowing behind his cloth gag.
“Quiet, prince,” Kottrun told Ozorne, “or I’ll give him something like this.” Kottrun kicked Arram in the belly. “I don’t need him now.” He pointed his weapon at Ozorne. “Keep trying my patience and he’ll get everything I’ve taken in the arena!”
Arram tried to curl up, yanking the ropes around his wrists. The pain in his stomach overshadowed the raw fiber digging into his skin. His Gift surged like wildfire, fighting the control he kept on it, threatening to flare and incinerate Kottrun. If he’d believed the gladiator would be the only victim, Arram wouldn’t have struggled. He just couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t burn the entire tent and everyone in it. Slowly he breathed in through his nose and released the breath, fighting tears of pain and rage. Could he deal with this brute without speaking? Without allowing his Gift to show to non-mage eyes?
Kottrun walked over to Ozorne. The prince was trembling with fury, though no sounds came from behind the gag on his mouth.
“You’d be a splendid shield, but…no,” Kottrun murmured. “Too gaudy. Too visible. They’d never stop hunting if I took you. But Ramasu will move the gods and the dead to save you, oh, yes.” He nodded and grinned.
He beckoned to one of the others. The man came over and helped Kottrun to haul Arram to his feet. He returned to his hostage when he was certain Arram would stay upright.
“Now we understand one another,” Kottrun said. The smile he gave Arram was tight and mean. “Your master will get us a ship out of Carthak….”
Arram had stopped listening. There was a time when he worked magic without words but with gestures, standing in front of a class and a bowl of water. But he had thought about it, pulled on it, and had his concentration broken to flood his classroom. He was older and stronger now. If he tried to work the spells he could do silently and lost concentration, his classroom flood would be nothing in comparison.
“You are mistaken.” Ramasu walked into the tent with Preet on his shoulder and Daleric’s assistant at his side. Apparently they had fetched the mage before Kottrun’s messenger could reach him. “I would never do something so criminal. The university forbids us from helping slaves in any fashion.”
“Cat turds,” snapped Kottrun. “We have His Splendidness Prince Ozorne right here. You’ll help us.”
Arram felt his ears tingling. He felt magic seep into the room—magic other than the stuff he was drawing on. He glanced at Ozorne, who nodded—he felt it, too. Mages outside were working sleep spells. He began to tremble. If Kottrun suspected, he would give the order to start killing the patients.
In fact, Kottrun was telling Ramasu his plans. “The slightest itch of magic, and I will start cutting.” To Arram’s horror, he pointed to Ozorne. “I can do plenty of damage and still leave enough to be heir. I learned from experts.”
Ramasu shook his head. “It will be as much as your lives are worth.”
“And the lives of you and your precious assistant and everyone here. I’ll see to that, Master Mage. You don’t come from here. The emperor sweeps wide when he thinks folk should have saved one of his darlings and didn’t.” He looked at one of his yawning men. “What’s the matter with—” he demanded, and yawned. His eyes went wide with fury. He whirled and ran at Ozorne, his sword aimed at the prince’s belly.
Arram could only see the blade aimed at his best friend. He opened his entire mind to the water summons that had changed his life. His Gift plummeted, far stronger than it had been in the Lower Academy, to plunge into the water table that lay for miles under and around university and arena. It rose, thundering up in the wake of his power, letting him guide it straight to Kottrun.
The hard ground quivered. The gladiator lurched.
The cold fountain smashed through the earth, knocking Arram, Ozorne, Ramasu, and the standing gladiators down. It drove Kottrun into the air until he struck the tent’s ceiling. His sword dropped from his grip; he hit the ground with a thud. Preet immediately attacked his face with her claws, screeching. He lay there, unresisting.
Ramasu made a sign of undoing. Arram’s and Ozorne’s bonds fell away from their hands and mouths. Struggling to his feet, Arram dashed the water from his eyes and drew three fiery signs in the air with his Gift. The column of water halted as abruptly as it had risen and returned to the ground. Dizzy and trembling, Arram drew two more signs to knit the earth back together as Ozorne scrambled for Kottrun’s sword. Rising to his knees, the prince leveled the blade at Kottrun’s throat.