Deadly Games

DEADLY GAMES

by Lindsay Buroker

Copyright 2011 by Lindsay Buroker

Smashwords Edition

In the predawn light, Amaranthe Lokdon
charged up the worn travertine steps of the ancient stadium. Her
thighs burned, her calves ached, and sweat streamed into her
eyes.

“Idiotic,” she muttered to herself between
strained breaths. “Deranged...masochistic.”

A dark, round shape blurred out of the
shadows. Instinctively, she lifted her hands and caught the heavy,
sand-filled ball to keep it from slamming into her chest. Barely.
She wobbled, the weight threatening to knock her onto the stone
benches, but she compensated and continued upward. With a last
burst of energy, she hurled the ball back to the shadowy figure
that had appeared at the top of the stairs.

Amaranthe kept her hands up, thinking he
might throw it again, but he propped it against his hip and waited.
Legs trembling, she reached the top step and forced herself to
stand up straight instead of collapsing in a sweaty, exhausted
heap.

“Dedicated,” Sicarius said.

“What?” she asked when she caught her breath.
Stars still lurked in the deep blue sky, and she could not make out
his face, but it would not have hinted at his thoughts anyway.

“Your list,” he said.

Amaranthe waited for him to expound. He did
not.

“You think I’m dedicated for being here, an
hour before dawn, training with you? Even though I told everyone to
take the week off because we’ve been working so much lately?”

“Yes.”

Figuring her pride had kept her on her feet a
respectable length of time, she sat down on the closest bench.

“You don’t think I should be following my own
orders and enjoying a relaxing week? I could be sleeping in or
maybe planning for a day at the beach. It is summer, after all, and
the weather is finally good. Yet I’m here with you, torturing
myself. You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“In general, or for training?”

She scowled suspiciously at him.

A clank drifted up from the sand-covered
floor of the arena below. A yawning man in city worker’s overalls
shambled out of a maintenance door carrying a lantern. He headed
toward the towering machine that controlled the Clank Race, a
steam-powered obstacle course with a tangle of climbing walls,
swaying nets, rocking platforms, and swinging axes. The contraption
occupied half of the arena floor inside the running track, and
boxing and wrestling rings took up the other half. The worker
patted his pockets, cursed, and walked back inside.

“The athletes will show up soon to start
training,” Amaranthe said. As a junior, she had competed in a
smaller version of the Imperial Games, and she missed training for
something as innocent as medals and honor. “I suppose we should
go.”

“Yes.” Sicarius offered a hand.

Surprised, she gazed at it for a couple of
seconds before clasping it. He pulled her to her feet gently and
held the grip for a moment.

Amaranthe swallowed. A couple of months
earlier, he had admitted he cared for her, but he had also said it
would be a bad idea for them to act upon such feelings. Outwardly,
she had agreed with him; inwardly, she kept hoping he would be
overcome by emotion—or she would settle for lust—and tug her into
his arms for a passionate kiss. Unfortunately, she could not
remember having too many men overcome by lust because of her
presence. Perhaps it was because she always wore her hair in a
practical bun and donned utilitarian clothing more suitable to
mercenary life than an evening out. Anyway, Sicarius wasn’t the
type to be overcome by...anything.

He released her hand without a word and led
the way down the steps. Amaranthe trailed him, wondering if she had
imagined that pause. They followed a railing toward steps leading
down from the elevated tiers of seating.

Sicarius stopped before he reached the
stairs. A young woman climbed into view, blond hair and freckled
skin illuminated by a pair of gas lamps burning on the landing.
Though she wore the loose white togs of one of the athletes, she
clenched a short bow in one hand and had an arrow nocked with the
other. Her head turned from side to side, eyes searching the arena
below.

A throwing knife appeared in Sicarius’s
hand.

“Wait,” Amaranthe whispered, slipping past
him.

Fear whitened the woman’s knuckles where she
gripped the bow—this was no hardened bounty hunter.

Amaranthe held her hands out, palms up, and
walked toward the landing. “Greetings.”

The bow jerked in her direction.

Amaranthe dropped to her belly, wincing as
the hard edge of a travertine step rammed her chest. A clink
sounded as the arrow skipped off the railing. Amaranthe sprang to
her feet, hoping to reach the woman before she could reload.

Sicarius was already behind the woman, a
knife pressed against her throat. The bow clattered to the stone
floor.

Amaranthe flung her hand out, saying,
“Don’t,” but Sicarius had already paused, waiting to see what she
wanted to do. A few months ago, he would not have. He simply would
have killed someone—anyone—who dared lift a weapon in his
direction.

Amaranthe straightened her shirt and walked
forward. “Care to explain why you’re shooting at the shadows? In
particular, the portion of shadows I was occupying?”

Rings of white shown around the young woman’s
blue irises. She opened her mouth a couple of times but did not
manage to speak. She could not be more than eighteen or nineteen,
and with that pale skin she was not likely a Turgonian.

Amaranthe waved a hand toward Sicarius to
suggest he could loosen his grip. He did not.

“He’ll only kill you if you don’t talk,”
Amaranthe said.

“Accident,” the woman whispered, a faint
lilting accent marking the word. “I was tense. My sister...someone
took her.”

“Oh? Like a kidnapping?” Eagerness thrummed
through Amaranthe, revitalizing her tired limbs even more than
being shot at had. Was there some trouble afoot? Something her team
could handle? Something that could earn them attention—
good
attention?

“Kidnapping.” The woman started to nod but
winced when the movement drew blood. Sicarius kept his knives sharp
enough to split the hairs on a flea.

“Let her go, please,” Amaranthe told him. “I
do believe that’s a client.”

Though Sicarius had drawn the woman back into
the shadows, to stay out of the light on the landing, Amaranthe had
no trouble reading the cool expression he leveled her way.

“What?” she asked him. “It’s not as if you
were going to spend the week sunbathing at the beach.”

Sicarius released the woman, but he did not
put away his dagger. As soon as she was free, the girl clasped a
hand to her throat and lunged away from him.

“We might be able to help you,” Amaranthe
said. “My name is Amaranthe. What’s yours?”

“Fasha,” she said, still holding her hand to
her neck. She eased closer to Amaranthe while throwing uneasy
glances at Sicarius. “Are you...athletes?”

“We’re swords for hire,” Amaranthe said.

“Mercenaries?” Fasha tensed. “Lowlife
dung-crawlers that work for the highest bidder? How do I know
you’re not the people who took my sister?”

“We don’t work for the highest bidder, and
I’m reasonably certain I haven’t mingled with dung lately. You?”
Amaranthe raised her chin toward Sicarius.

He said nothing.

“He hasn’t either,” Amaranthe said. “He’s
quite fastidious.” When neither person commented, she cleared her
throat and got back on topic. “We work for the good of the empire,
taking on missions that the emperor would approve of in the hopes
of—” getting the cursed bounties off their heads, she thought,
“—winning his favor. In fact we—”

Whistling came from the arena. The worker had
returned, a box of matches in hand, and he was veering toward the
furnace.

“But perhaps we should discuss it elsewhere,”
Amaranthe murmured.

She led the way into the shadows outside the
stadium. Despite her criticism of mercenaries, Fasha picked up her
bow and followed. Sicarius disappeared, but Amaranthe trusted him
to stay nearby. More than anybody, he knew how good she was at
finding trouble.

Voices sounded—two male athletes walking past
the stadium a few dozen meters away. Amaranthe chewed on her lip.
The idea of a mission excited her, but it would be foolish to
linger at Barlovoc Stadium after sunrise. Though a week would pass
before the Imperial Games themselves started, enforcers were
already patrolling the barracks and training areas to keep the
peace amongst the athletes. That thought made her wonder why Fasha
had not sought out the law for help.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Amaranthe
asked.

“My sister and I are here from Kendor to
compete. This is the first year your Games have been open to
outsiders.”

Amaranthe nodded. She had read the article in
The Gazette
and knew Emperor Sespian was responsible for
that. Though monetary rewards had never been a prize in the
empire’s biennial competition, every young citizen dreamed of
competing and winning. Also there had been instances of superb
athletes sweeping the events and being granted a ticket into the
warrior caste, something usually reserved for outstanding wartime
performances. A foreigner would not be eligible for that, but the
newspaper article had mentioned a citizenship prize for those who
wished it—an offer that had traditionalists grumbling in cider
houses across the city.

“She didn’t come back to the barracks last
night,” Fasha went on.

Amaranthe’s shoulders drooped. That was it?
The girl had only been missing for a few hours? “Maybe she found a
handsome young man and spent the night with him.”

“No. She’s been training too hard for this.
She may celebrate after it’s all over, but for the last week she’s
been in bed early and up before dawn to train. Keisha is good. Very
good. She’s won every race back home. She even beats the men in
anything over a hundred meters. She’s utterly serious about winning
here.”

“Did you try going to the enforcers?”
Amaranthe asked.

“Yes, late last night. I returned from my
evening run, and Keisha wasn’t in our room. Right away, I knew
something was wrong. I went to the men who guard the barracks, but
they were derisive. They said nothing got past them. And they
threatened to throw me in jail when I mentioned...”

Amaranthe straightened, her interest
returning. “The Science?”

“You...know about the mental sciences?”

“My team has had run-ins with practitioners
before.”

“Oh!” Fasha’s clothing rustled as she brushed
Amaranthe’s shoulder with a pat made clumsy by the darkness. It was
an enthusiastic pat though. “Maybe you
can
help. The
enforcers told me it’s forbidden to talk about magic—that was their
ignorant word for it. Two breaths later, they told me magic doesn’t
exist. If it doesn’t exist, why would it be forbidden to speak of
it? Ignorant heathens.”

“Yes, the empire’s stance isn’t entirely
logical,” Amaranthe admitted. “What did you actually sense? Are you
a practitioner yourself?”

“No, but there’s a shaman in our tribe, and
you come to recognize the Science being practiced when you grow up
around it. I sensed...a definite residue. I believe something was
done to my sister so she’d be easy to steal away.”

Amaranthe tapped her fingers against her
thigh. “I’d like to see your room. I used to be an—” she stopped
herself from saying enforcer, since that might not breed confidence
in the girl, “—an investigator. Is it private, or are there others
staying in there?”

“We paid for a private room.”

“Any windows?” Amaranthe supposed she would
have to admit she was a wanted woman at some point and that she
could not stroll past enforcers without risk of being recognized
and captured—or shot.

“No, it’s a little room on the inside of the
building.”

“Near a backdoor, by chance?”

“No....” Fasha sounded puzzled. “Does it
matter? We can bring guests in.”

“My comrade and I are wanted by the law.”

Fasha’s lips formed an “Oh,” but no sound
came out.

Amaranthe eyed the brightening sky. More and
more athletes were on the road leading past the stadium, and the
barracks would be an active place. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll
think of something. Let’s go.”

Amaranthe had taken only a few steps when a
dark figure appeared at her shoulder. She jumped despite the fact
she ought to know better by now.

“We’re going inside the barracks?” Sicarius
asked.

Now Fasha jumped and sidled several steps
away. The brightening sky revealed Sicarius’s unexpressive angular
face, his fitted, black clothing, and the variety of daggers and
throwing knives adorning it. Fasha fingered her bow.