Berun attracted attention from others, however. Men who knew his reputation conversed with him, posed for alchemical image-castings next to him. Surprisingly, as many Adrashi approached as Anadrashi. Only Ulomi avoided him altogether.
“Word has it you came here with the Black Suit, Vedas,” a fat Stoli merchant said. “He won’t make it through the day, I reckon. There are bigger and faster men than him.”
“You’ve seen him fight?” Berun asked.
The merchant pulled on his mustaches. “Well, no. But I’ve heard others talk about him.”
“Are you a betting man?”
The merchant looked like he had been asked if he breathed air. “Of course! Last year twenty percent of my income came from fight winnings. My wife has been asking for a badlander maid for years, and I was finally able to afford one.”
Berun clapped the man’s shoulder hard enough to make him wince. “When it comes to the final bout, if I were you I’d bet black. Your wife will thank you.”
Ten rounds occurred the first day. Vedas fought eight White Suits and two of his own brethren. He won each handily except for the day’s final, which occurred after nightfall in the immense covered arena. At eight feet tall, the huge Tomen from Bolas towered a foot and a half above Vedas, outweighed him by two hundred pounds. His strategy, taking punishment until an opportunity opened for an offensive, was simple but effective. Vedas worked every angle without apparent damage, and was caught twice by bone-crushing punches.
But finally, inevitably, the Tomen made a mistake. He caught Vedas with a powerful left hook and—instead of falling upon his opponent as wisdom dictated—attempted to stomp down on Vedas’s head. Vedas caught the foot and toppled the man forward. From a crouch Vedas jumped six feet into the air and landed knee-first on the man’s lower back, where the suit material was thinnest.
Spine pulverized, legs jerking uncontrollably, the Tomen did not beg for his life. Nor would it have been granted to him, for the rules were clear. Perhaps he appreciated falling to a brother rather than an enemy.
Vedas straddled the man’s shoulders and broke his neck.
Afterwards, Berun followed his friend discreetly from the arena to his tent. At its front entrance, Vedas turned to the raucous group of brothers and sisters that had followed him home.
“Get the fuck away from me,” he said.
A silver-haired woman stepped forward, hip cocked playfully. “I watch you all day, Vedas Tezul. You need a relax, brother. I can give.”
“Yes!” one of the men called. “Go for him!” another said.
Vedas’s features twisted. He scratched at the neckline of his suit, as though the material irritated him. Berun had never seen the gesture before.
“I’ve had a long day,” Vedas said. “Longer than yours by far. I want a meal and I want to sleep. If you interrupt either of these things I’ll kill you.”
Undoubtedly, this was an empty threat, but the woman did not know it. She and her friends sulked off, and Berun remained near the tent’s entrance for a time, quietly turning away anyone other than tired fighters—anyone who might keep Vedas from his rest. He then returned to the city and searched unsuccessfully for Churls. When morning came he walked back to the tournament grounds and lay in the sun before the bouts began at noon.
‡
He did not enjoy the second day of fighting. Without adequate time to recover from their recent beatings, even the strongest fighters became sloppy. Men lunged gracelessly for the quick kill, taking chances no competent fighter should. They went into bouts with broken shoulders, arms, and legs. On one occasion, a woman pulled herself into the ring with a shattered pelvis. After eight years of brawling, Berun had never seen anything like it. A tournament was not supposed to be a battlefield where men were broken, but a place where skill reigned.
Pathetic, how much joy the suited spectators took in watching their most proficient fighters gutter out like candle flames. How the orders roared when two men on quivering legs eventually fell into one another, clumsily reaching for the other’s throat. Few shined as brightly as Vedas, yet as exhaustion set in everyone resorted to dirty tactics.
Yes—even the best of them. Berun left the arenas when Vedas threw sand in his opponent’s eyes in the fourteenth round, and did not come back until the final. He knew Vedas would make it there.
Both of the final fighters accounted well for themselves. They proved calm and deliberate in their strategies, but Berun saw the underlying weakness in the set of their shoulders and the imprecision of their footwork. So far gone with fatigue and injury, neither would have stood a chance against a healthy opponent.
When the end came, it was mercifully quick.
Subsequently, Vedas lacked even the strength to push Grey’s body off him. Several brothers hoisted Vedas on their shoulders, and did not listen to him when he demanded to be put down in order to retrieve his speech. The crowd had become violent, and the Black Suits wanted to get their champion to Aresaa.
Berun wondered if they had anticipated the content of Abse’s speech. Probably they had—most likely they looked forward to a violent message, an excuse to turn their newfound power against their enemies.
As Berun ran to the Black Suit camp to retrieve the speech, he considered how vastly his opinion of Vedas had shifted over time. Once, the man had seemed self-centered and haughty, shockingly ignorant of the world beyond Golna. Only on rare occasions had he shown potential. Certainly, he had saved Churls’s life. As a result, Berun’s affection for the man grew.
Ultimately, however, Vedas had only won Berun’s respect by choosing to rewrite the speech. This decision changed everything. It proved Vedas cared more about people than faith. If he had not mentioned the speech, or worse yet believed its message wholeheartedly, Berun would have turned his back upon him with little regret upon reaching Danoor.
Aresaa affirmed Vedas’s commitment once and for all. He stood before one hundred and fifty thousand people and declared war against God. He spoke nothing of faith, manipulated no myth to support his argument. Had he congratulated the gathered Anadrashi on their good works, told them to continue praying and fighting for the destruction of their enemies, they would have showered him with wealth enough to sustain him for the rest of his life.
Instead, he marked himself for death. He spoke words to spark revolution.
The spheres of Berun’s body shivered with pride to hear Vedas’s voice echo off the walls of the coliseum, to see the effect it had upon the assembled people. They were already rising from their seats. Some spat angry words, red-faced with indignation. This was not the message they had come to hear.
A growing minority held their fists aloft, shouting words of encouragement. They had waited for this message, even if they had never admitted it aloud.
Nonetheless, these few would not stop the majority from tearing Vedas apart.
And then the broken tip of the Needle rose above the coliseum, sending a wave of dread through the restive crowd. Soon, thousands of Tomen would flow down the hillsides and flood the city, carving its citizens from crown to sacrum with their recurved swords. For a time, even men who had been inspired by the speech would blame Vedas. Looking to the sky, counting the dead, they would say,
You have angered God!
Berun knew then with absolute certainty that he must carry Vedas to safety. When men regained their courage, he must be alive to inspire them again.
‡
Berun crossed the northwestern border of Danoor, entering the salt flats of Neuaa at a run. At his back large portions of the city burned. Its light sent his shadow into the darkness, toward the hills and their hidden sanctuary. Before him the broken spheres of the Needle spread over the horizon in disarray. In another two hours, the sun would rise and they would be safe.
Churls shuddered in his arms. Her eyes snapped open. “Berun? What are you doing? Where...” She moved her shoulders, raised a hand to her face and groaned. “Make the world stop moving. Stop. Stop right now.”
“No,” he said, and kept running.
“Fine,” she said, and threw up all over his chest and herself. He stopped and let her down. Unable to stand on her own, she leaned against him. He helped her remove her leather halter and shook the clear fluid from it. There had been no food in her stomach. Shivering, she turned and pressed her body against his.
“You’re warm,” she said. “I never noticed that before.”
He smiled. “You’re probably the first to notice it.”
“Do you have my pack?”
“Yes.” He removed it and helped her get a heavier shirt on. The edges of her wet halter gripped between two fingers, he lifted her again and resumed running. She curled in his arms and closed her eyes, though he knew she did not sleep. Every now and then she raised her head to stare forward, and he wondered what she expected to see. The salt flats extended for miles in all directions, and the hills where Vedas rested could not yet be seen. She did not comment on the Needle’s new arrangement.
“How did you find me?” she asked when they were but a handful of miles from their destination.
“The map returned to me for a while,” he lied. “You and Vedas both appeared on it.”
She peered up at him, clearly skeptical. “Right.”
As he began ascending the ancient switchbacked path up the grassy hillside, she asked, “What about Omali? I thought you lost the map when you threw him out of your head. Does this mean he has power over you again?”
He grunted. In truth, he had tried not to think of his father. “No, I don’t think so.”
He halted atop the rise above the small valley. He knew where to look, and still it was difficult to locate the door of the monastery or its many-slitted windows. The single-room building had been built into the hillside without disturbing the lines of the slope. As a result, it was almost completely hidden from view.
Churls peered over his arms and then slumped back against his chest. Perhaps she had been expecting a fire, or some other sign of the valley’s habitation.
“Vedas did it,” he said.
She did not move. Did not breathe.
“He won the tournament and gave the speech, Churls. He told his brothers and sisters not to fight the White Suits anymore. He told them to fight Adrash. This was enough to upset people. And then the Needle rose, of course. When the crowd saw it, they blamed him. They would have killed him.”
She inhaled sharply. “He’s alive, then?”
“Yes, Churls. He’s alive. Injured, but alive. He passed out soon after the speech. I carried him from the coliseum to here. He only woke up right before I left.”
He paused. He had always known he would tell her, yet he had never found the right expression.
It was too late to worry about such things now.
“Your name was the first word out of his mouth.”
The breath came out of her in one long sigh, and he began the descent into the valley.
THE 2
nd
AND 3
rd
OF THE MONTH OF ASECTICS, 12500 MD
THE NEUAA SALT FLATS, THE REPUBLIC OF KNOS MIN
T
hey stood together on the hilltop. Usveet Mesa was a black wall on their right, stretching over the horizon at their backs. The cracked tile floor of the ancient lake Neuaa lay before them, glowing orange in the fading light of dusk. Directly across the twenty-mile expanse, the city of Danoor still smoldered. Without any breeze to speak of, a hundred thin pillars of black and grey smoke rose straight into the sky, connecting earth and heaven.
“We’re stuck here, then?” Berun asked.
Churls nodded. “They’re looking for Vedas, and they know you helped him escape. I didn’t get wind of it, but someone’s probably still looking for me, too. I didn’t hole up in that hotel for nothing.” She kicked a rock, sent it tumbling down the slope. Visiting the city had not put her in a good mood. “I’m sure the guard doesn’t give two shits about me, but the Ulomi White Suits? I bet even in the midst of chaos they’re angry about the murder of one of their champions.”
Berun grunted, and she wondered what he thought of her, now that he knew what had occurred after they split up the first night. Even then, he did not know everything. She had not told him about stealing the bar’s chip money, or how she found another group of White Suits the next morning and got herself in even more trouble. They broke her left femur and cracked her pelvis. They did not rape her, but that was hardly the only way to humiliate a person.
And of course, she had not mentioned being healed by Fyra while she slept—this, despite the fact that she suspected the girl had led Berun to the city to find her. She was not ready to discuss her daughter’s ghost with anyone. “Most of the Tomen have retreated into the hills,” she said. “Some say they’re waiting for Vedas to return, but I don’t think that’s very likely.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
She shrugged, and wiped a strand of hair from her eye. “Why would they listen to Vedas? I can’t imagine people who love fighting more than Tomen. You think they’ll quit killing their enemies and start working with everyone else toward the nearly impossible goal of killing Adrash? That’s ridiculous.”
His thousand joints whispered as he crossed his arms. “Perhaps they’ve been waiting for the right message. You didn’t hear him, Churls.”
I didn’t
, she thought, and felt the familiar stab of guilt.
I let him down.
She did not doubt Vedas’s message had been powerful, yet it did not change her opinion of Tomen. The rest of the world might rally around a far-fetched dream—perhaps even Nos Ulom would one day see the threat of destruction for what it was and attack Adrash—but Toma would not. She had seen what Fesuy Amendja did to the Castan gladiator. She had made herself look.
“Will Vedas be a leader, Berun? Can you see him rallying Knosi and Stoli mages alike to battle? Sending them into orbit to die? Inspiring farmers and bartenders and fishwives to take up arms against Adrash?”
He turned to regard her. “You could ask him.”
She spat. True, she could ask him. Lying within touching distance as he slept most of the previous day away in the monastery, masked and healing from injuries she could not see, she had resolved to do that very thing. She would ask him about everything once he woke.