Full-Blood Half-Breed (5 page)

“Por favor,”
she whined, “do not harm my niños. They mean no offense.”

Her pock-faced husband calmed her by gently patting her shoulder. “All will be well, Jacinta. Let me speak with the young señores.”

The foot traffic flowed around them like a forking river as Pock-Face, hat in hand, climbed down from the wagon and dipped his head respectfully to Urbano. “
Por favor
, señor, forgive my boys. They are young and intend no harm.”

“I am not the one owed an apology,” Urbano lisped, “nor is it you who owe it.”

Fox the Runt took little satisfaction in the servile apologies of Pock-Face and his boys. He would rather have forgotten the whole incident, but Urbano insisted the bumpkins make amends for their offense. When they had done groveling, he said, “Fine. Fine. You are forgiven. Now please, just let us be on our way.”

The farmers climbed into their shambles of a wagon and rode toward the arena, the same direction as everyone else in Círculo del Triunfo. The farm boys peeked over the back of the wagon, grinning their crooked-toothed, bumpkin grins. Fox the Runt tried not to look at them. Instead, he allowed his gaze to take in the Phoenix-Rising Amphitheater, the legendary arena where he would, if the goddess were generous, win the Youngling Black Spear. At 150 feet tall, 615 feet long, and 500 feet wide, the elliptical amphitheater was the largest structure in the city, perhaps even the world. There was certainly nothing to rival its majesty in the Nordländer.

He had only just begun to imagine the honors he would win within its stone and marble walls when his feet skidded through something slippery and he fell to his hands and knees. Urbano and Jorge collapsed into gales of laughter. Fox the Runt gaped at the sludgy, stinking mess on his pants and hands, unable to believe his eyes.

“Shit,” he said, gritting his teeth.

The filthy farmers had gotten the last laugh on him after all, or at least their burro had.
The beast’s droppings smeared one leg of his breeches, his leather tabi socks, and sandals. His hands, too, were covered in the pungent muck. He looked up to see the farm boys laughing at him from the back of their wagon as it pulled into the arena.

Everyone laughed at him: his friends, Torneo competitors, even ignorant tourists from villages so insignificant they could not be found on even the most meticulously rendered maps. He glanced toward the heavens and implored Seisakusha,
Why?
What offense had he offered the goddess that She would humiliate him so? Had he not been Her faithful servant? He was diligent in his prayers and tireless in his veneration. He had nearly memorized every passage of the
Nyusu
, and probably knew the holy book better than half the monks at Temple Seisakusha, so why would She bring him so low, and before the eyes of so many people? He wished he could become invisible.

He climbed to his feet, too embarrassed to look at Urbano or Jorge, though their laughter was impossible to ignore. He watched the faces—black, white, brown, and yellow—of the folk traveling through Círculo del Triunfo, and searched his memory of Seisakushan holy text for a passage that might justify the goddess’s ill treatment of him. He could think of no sin he had committed to offend Seisakusha or incur Her wrath. Then his gaze found one mongrelly face shuffling through the crowds toward Westgate, and he remembered a section in the
Nyusu
on supplications: “Take care when entreating the goddess, for nothing is free and no haggler as shrewd as Seisakusha. She may grant your wish, but at a price you can ill afford.”

The only boon he had ever wished from the goddess was revenge for the kumite treachery. In having the mongrel expelled from temple, Seisakusha had granted that prayer, but would he pay for it with eternal humiliation? Was Fox the Runt’s entire existence to be one big dung heap because he had entreated the goddess to right a grievous wrong done to him? And if this was the price, how in Schöpfer’s name was that just? He wanted to curse Seisakusha, but he would never commit such sacrilege. Instead he cursed the half-breed. Had it not been for the mongrel’s chicanery, he would not now be paying this loathsome cost for vengeance. The hibrido should be covered in dung, not him. Anger, cold and righteous, eclipsed his embarrassment.

His hands were already covered in muck, and even had they not been, he would not have cared. The time had come to share his misery with the mongrel that had spawned it. He scooped up a large handful of the burro’s dung—Urbano and Jorge howled in disgust and bolted away from him—and packed it into a tight ball.

The mongrel was oblivious. His head hung low. He looked almost as miserable as he was about to feel.

“Paladin Del Darkdragón!” Fox the Runt yelled, and let fly.

The mongrel looked up and a split second later, the dung ball burst into his face. Urbano
and Jorge stood dumbstruck, their eyes and mouths forming perfect circles of astonishment.

“Bane’s-eye!” Fox the Runt said.

Urbano and Jorge dropped to the street in a fit of hilarity so debilitating Fox the Runt was sure they would not have been able to move had a herd of wild horses stampeded down the street. He took one look at the mongrel’s feces-covered face and joined them. He and his companions rolled in the street, clutching their bellies, overcome.

The mongrel glared down at him, his black eyes flickering with naked hatred, his thick bottom lip quivering like he was on the verge of sobbing. He growled, “Get up, Runt. Get up, cabrón!”

Fox the Runt climbed to his feet, his body racked with giggles. Urbano and Jorge, and everyone else watching the scene, cackled at the sight. Before long, there was a near mob of folk pointing at the muck-covered mongrel and sniggering. Fox the Runt knew the halbrasse might attack him right there on the spot, and tried to master himself, but a duck-shaped dollop of dung perched precariously on the tip of the mongrel’s nose, and the sight of it yoked him to gales of savage laughter. He laughed till his ribs ached, till tears leaked from his eyes and he could not catch a breath.

Then the mongrel hawked up a glob of slime and blasted it into his face.

The laughter died in his throat.

His muscles tensed, rejecting the ungainly slackness of mirth. Anger took control of his body, now as taut as a drawn bowstring. He met the mongrel’s heated gaze with cold-blooded murder in his eyes.

“If only your mamá could see you now,” the mongrel said. “She would be so proud.”

Fox the Runt cringed at the mention of his mother. Everyone at Temple Seisakusha knew how much he despised that coldhearted bitch. Merely mentioning Schneeflocke the Hammerhead was enough to rouse his ire. The filthy half-blood was trying to provoke him, and succeeding.

“Urbano,” he said, “you and Jorge do nothing. The halbrasse’s blood is mine to spill.”

He circled his target cautiously. It would be difficult to get close enough for an effective attack. He was weaponless and the mongrel carried a bo staff. Del Darkdragón was filth, but he was clever filth, and a devilishly good fighter beside.

“Wait, Zwergfuchs,” Urbano said, grabbing him by the shoulder. “I have wasted too much time already. I must get to the arena. If I am late, Don Del Coltbreaker will dismiss me. I have already borrowed against my wages, and have no other way to repay the loan.
Mi padre
is stingier than a Shimabito fishmonger and will never take up my debt.”

That was only half true. There was real anxiety in Urbano’s eyes and voice, though he tried to mask it with haughty nonchalance. Fox the Runt supposed he understood Urbano’s unease. Urbano was a sorry excuse for a fighter, and should the mongrel take on the three of
them, Urbano would no doubt be the first to fall. And though Urbano’s father was a powerful don, the mongrel’s father was a Muumban witch, a mancer of no little renown. It was said that Rebelde the Darkdragón could sling lightning bolts as easily as other men threw stones. Still, understanding Urbano’s cowardice did not mean he accepted it. “You can get another job mucking stables! This híbrido filth has insulted us, Urbano! Have you no honor?”

“It is coin I lack,” Urbano lisped, “and honor is costly.” Urbano nodded pointedly toward the arena. “Surely you can understand that, Señor Fox the Runt.”

“Urbano …”

Urbano shrugged dismissively. “Wallow in the muck with this híbrido if you must, but I will not waste a chance to earn a few coppers.”

“Besides,” Jorge said, “he only insulted you, Zwergfuchs.”

Urbano strode away, contempt glistening in his swampy green eyes. Jorge trotted obediently at his heels.

Fox the Runt cursed in Nordzunge and followed. Urbano had the right of it, he supposed. None of them had time to waste on the mongrel. He had to find someplace to wash the filth from his clothes before signing up for the games.

But the mongrel would not let it go. He called after him, taunting, “Do you flee, craven? I’m talking to you, you yellow dog! Face me, cabrón!”

“Shut your mouth,” Fox the Runt snapped, “you filthy half-breed!”

“I’m a quarter-breed, Runt,” the mongrel said smugly. “You are as stupid as you are ugly.”

“Creador’s Burning Balls!” Urbano called. “Will you forget about that dirty little híbrido?
Vámonos
, Zwergfuchs!”

He teetered on a knife’s edge. On one side were his friends and his business in the arena; on the other was the brawl he had spent a year aching for, praying for.

The mongrel decided him. “You, cabrón, are a bane-kissing, goat-humping, dog-faced son of a floor-licking strumpet. I name you coward, Fox the Runt Von Hammerhead, and dare you prove me wrong. I challenge you, Turd Nanny! Let’s settle this for all time!”

Urbano, Jorge, and at least thirty tourists in the Círculo del Triunfo stopped in their tracks and stared, chins on chests, at the two of them. In one breath the mongrel had disgorged some of the most repellent abuses ever spoken in the Thirteen. In some cities it was legally defensible to kill a person who dared speak of one’s mother thus, though in truth, that particular remark bothered Fox the Runt the least. Being called a bane-kisser, however, was a declaration of war.

He covered the distance between them in half a heartbeat, wagering his fleet fist and feet against the mongrel’s staff. His face was an empurpled thunderstorm. It was a risky gamble, and he would pay with blood and bruises if he lost, but he was too angry to care. He targeted the
mongrel’s knee for a sweeping low-tide kick, even as the mongrel crouched behind his staff. Then, as if it were a gift from the goddess, a notion came to him. There was a better way to humiliate the mongrel. He stopped, backed up three steps, and smiled. “As you will, híbrido. I accept your challenge. But as custom dictates, the challenged sets the terms. If you want a beating from me, meet me in the arena. We will settle this on the Melee field, where the whole of the Thirteen can witness your humiliation. Refuse and I will proclaim
you
the coward.”

The look on the mongrel’s face—like he had just swallowed a sack of broken bricks—was worth every second Fox the Runt would spend emptying chamber pots.

“You know I cannot,” the mongrel rasped.
“Mi papá—”

“Coward!” Fox the Runt bellowed. Jorge echoed the accusation, dancing circles around the mongrel, screaming at the top of his lungs and pointing. But Urbano stood silently amongst the gathered crowd, scowling with disapproval, his arms crossed before him.

Fox the Runt did not care whether Urbano approved or not. He was confident he would be victorious in the arena. He could almost taste his coming vindication. He was so exhilarated he nearly sang, “You dirty mongrel coward!
Cobarde!
Craven half-breed dog—”

“Enough!” the mongrel said. “Very well, Runt. We’ll settle this during Torneo.”

“I doubt you will live long enough to compete, híbrido,” Urbano said. “Once the Darkdragón hears you have defied him, he will spit you on one of his Black Spears. I certainly hope he does.”

Urbano and Jorge left without another word. Fox the Runt followed, leaving the muck-covered mongrel standing alone and pitiful in the middle of Círculo del Triunfo, but not before he had fixed the mongrel’s stricken expression in his memory. It was the single most satisfying thing he had ever seen.

All praise to Seisakusha
.

Though Fox the Runt had come to the Reinos del Oeste when he was only ten, and considered himself Oestean, the rules of Torneo stated that competitors must represent the lands in which they had been born. So, as much as he detested Nords, especially those from Eisesland, he was forced to stand with them in a long line of younglings waiting to sign up for Torneo. The big, blockheaded youth of the North were loud and uncouth, but he ignored them. He spent his time watching the western quadrant of the arena, hoping to catch a glimpse of a glum-faced mongrel. He was sure that Del Darkdragón was somewhere amongst the Oestelings signing up for the games. The híbrido would defy his father to save his honor, and if the goddess were good, he would be whipped raw for his disobedience.

He grinned at the thought of the two beatings the mongrel would receive: the first from his father, the second—and more painful—from Fox the Runt during Melee. He continued to scan the faces of the younglings in the arena until his gaze fell upon a set of dark, amber eyes housed within one of the most comely faces he had ever seen. His heart stumbled over its next few beats. She flashed a smile so dazzling it stole his breath. She stared at him as if they were the only two people in the whole world.