The Black Tattoo (32 page)

—and screamed.

The sound was incredible.
 
Like the blast of a steam engine, the acrid gust of his roar blew out a Esme with the force of a thirty-mile-an-hour wind.
 
His squinty eyes bulged with rage and the roar continued, on and on, until it seemed it would never stop.
 
Svatog's smoking hooves smacked into the ground, a step toward Esme, and another step.
 
The crowd roared with him, waiting for blood, waiting to see the small human girl torn to shreds whenever Svatog chose to bring those clawed arms of his together.

Esme stood still.

Jack, frozen in his seat by helpless horror, glimpsed a blur of movement.

A glint of something flashing in the light.

Then, suddenly, the scream stopped.

The audience too fell silent.
 
Why had Svatog gone quiet?
 
Why was he just standing there like that?
 
And
why
did the girl now have her
back
to him?

For a long, slow moment, nothing happened.
 
Then, with a terrible, echoing hiss, something burst.
 
The sand at Svatog's feet turned suddenly black.
 
The eighteen-foot-tall demon sank to his knees, then fell on his face — hitting the arena floor with a ringing
smack
.

"What?" said Jack.

"Holy crap!" belched Jagmat.

One gladiator down, five to go.

The crowd erupted.

Esme just stood there, with the pigeon sword out in front of her.
 
Outwardly she was perfectly composed — but inwardly her highly trained fighter's mind was working at full speed, alert to every detail of what would happen next.

Because then the battle really began.

Without warning, drawing one of her own curved swords, Inanna leaped sideways — and struck.
 
For a second, as the wide blade bit into the fluttering black of his cloak, it looked like the bout was already over for Inanna's neighbor, Ripitith Gunch.

But something strange was happening.
 
The fourth gladiator's cloak was moving, shifting — changing.
 
For one more long second, his narrow face seemed to hang in the air, his cruel mouth opening in a hideous grin.

Then the place where he'd been standing simply burst apart, into a boiling, tearing, chittering brown cloud of...

What?

Screaming with frustration, Inanna threw one of her arms up to cover her face as a swarm of locusts suddenly engulfed her.
 
The swarm blasted past her in a tornado of beige insectile wings that seethed in the air and left a long black shadow on the arena floor, as her opponent — transfigured — sped out of her reach.

Meanwhile, with a bellowing scream, Gladrash the Blunt, set off on a galloping circuit of the ring.
 
The giant cow had not yet reached top speed by the time she reached Esme, but the thundering hooves would certainly have squashed her flat if she hadn't been watching.
 
A leap, straight up into the air, tucking her legs under her into a smooth flip — and Gladrash's charge passed through empty space.
 
Still, the giant cow kept on, kicking up dust, thundering toward her next opponent — Inanna.

The Sloat's legs gave a convulsive ripple, and it advanced away from the shadows at the arena's edge.
 
Hissing nastily and grinning through its mandibles, it brought its face low onot the blinding white of the sandy floor, arching its long body up and over behind its head.
 
The ridge of foot-long spines along its back began to quiver.
 
As Esme dropped to her feet, the Sloat took a deep breath that made the membranous sacs on either side of its mouth bluge with effort—

—and it fired the spines straight at Esme.

Ripitith Gunch, rematerializing in the center of his cloud of locusts just behind Esme, with his long knife drawn and ready, transfigured himself back again suddenly as he realized his surprise attack was mistimed.
 
As a flock of bats this time, he poured, shrieking, across the ring again, but not before several of his flock had been brought down, caught in midair, to expire, convulsing on the sand as the poison of the Sloat's stings worked its awful magic.
 
Gunch took himself in his bat-flock form to the far end of the ring, gathering the elements of himself into a shivering black column before he rematerialized fully.
 
He looked down.
 
There were three or four gaping holes in his cloak.
 
He tutted and tossed the frayed edge of the cloak over one shoulder.
 
Then, suddenly, he stiffened.
 
His eyes bulged.
 
His cold blood seemed to thicken and congeal in his veins.
 
For a second more, he stood there shuddering — then he too fell facedown dead on the sand.

Two down, four to go.
 
The crowd was in raptures.
 
Tunku the Snool showed no reaction at all.
 
The long, thin tentacle that had touched the transfiguration master on the back of the neck retracted up toward the floating watery sac of Tunku's jellyfish body, its poison exhausted.
 
But there were plenty more where that one came from.
 
Tunku the Snool sank back into the shadows, waiting.

And meanwhile, Esme was fighting for her life.

The Sloat's volley of poison-tipped spines was spread too wide:
 
there had been no time to jump or dodge.
 
Dropping the scabbard, Esme had take the pigeon sword in both hands and — with a speed born of instinct as much as her years of training — she was knocking the spines away out of the air.
 
The pigeon sword flickered in her hands.
 
The air in front of her was a silvery blur, and the stings were clattering against the massive stone slabs to either side of the ring.
 
But they were coming too fast, even for her.

Esme stepped back and, with a desperate outward blow of the pigeon sword, caught a low incoming spine and turned it aside.
 
But now the sword was too far away from her body to catch the next one in time.
 
She dropped flat onto her back.
 
Twisting, she brought her right foot up for a kick that caught the last spine in midair, smacking it away.

But then, with a dreadful hiss, the Sloat charged.

Its dripping mandibles clashed shut in a blow that would have severed both of Esme's legs at the thigh if she hadn't been fast enough:
 
at the last possible moment, she flipped backward and up onto her feet, bringing her sword up in front of her with a desperate lurch.
 
Confronted by the flashing blade, the Sloat reared up, hissing, giving Esme the precious seconds she needed to back out of striking distance.

Esme cursed herself inwardly.
 
She'd been lucky:
 
concentrating on an opponent's attack rather than the opponent was an amateur's mistake.
 
Now too there were just too many factors, too many thoughts tearing at her concentration, demanding attention.
 
She was watching the Sloat — but what about the other gladiators?
 
She could track Gladrash by the sound of her hooves:
 
the giant cow creature was making wild circuits of the ring, charging at whoever or whatever was in her way.
 
But as to where any of Esme's other opponents were, why, one could be right
behind
—

Hold on:
 
she'd had an idea.
 
The corners of Esme's mouth twitched and lifted in the tiniest ghost of a smile.
 
Then she attacked.

The gleaming blade of the pigeon sword hissed in the air.
 
The Sloat ducked its broad, flat head, and Esme's stinging cross-body slash passed it harmlessly — millimeters from contact.
 
Surprised, the foul beast danced back, its legs rippling.
 
Holding the pigeon sword's long grip near the pommel for extra extension, Esme swung again, slashing downward.
 
The Sloat counterattacked, snapping out at Esme's legs with its pincers — but they closed on nothing.
 
Esme had sprung into another tight roll in the air, forward this time, whipping her feet round until they landed—

—hard—

—down on the top of the Sloat's head, driving it into the ground with a two-footed stomp that had her full weight behind it.

There was a gratifyingly nasty popping sound.
 
The crowd roared its approval.
 
Esme jumped clear, and both combatants staggered back from each other.

The Sloat backed away dazedly.
 
One of its great mandibles was hanging off by a grisly flap.

Esme straightened up, breathing hard.
 
The last move had taken a lot out of her, and she could see that while she'd wounded the Sloat, it wasn't seriously weakened.
 
All she'd really done was annoy it.
 
However, it was now quite close to the ring's edge — its hindquarters were plunged in shadow, some three yards from the black stone wall.
 
It might be enough.

Suddenly, in a frenzy, the Sloat lunged, driving its wounded head straight into Esme's body, knocking her flat on her back.
 
With two ringing
thunks
, the Sloat jabbed each of its front pincers into the sand on either side of her.

Esme was trapped.

The monstrous creature regarded her unblinkingly.
 
Fat milky droplets of putrescent slime were dripping from its ruined mouth, sizzling and spitting as they hit the sand, and the broken mandible dangled horribly.
 
Still, the Sloat
hissed
, a deep hiss of contentment and delight.
 
It reared up, looked down at Esme one last time.

And it saw she was smiling.

The crowd was in a frenzy now — roaring, screaming, baying, barking.
 
But under that, suddenly, the Sloat could hear another sound.
 
A rhythmic, walloping, thundering sound, getting closer and closer.
 
Now the smile on the small human morsel's lips had widened into a vicious, wicked grin:
 
the Sloat's insect brain lit up with a flash of realization—

And then, with a terrible bellow of joy, Gladrash struck.

The Sloat reared up as the giant cow trampled it, its whole body an explosion of pain.
 
Esme flung herself to comparative safety, the horrible
smutch
as the great hooves hit home still echoing in her ears.
 
The Sloat's armored sides simply burst, spreading the creature's innards in a wide, wet circle, staining the sand.
 
The Sloat's head and forequarters, comparatively unscathed, plucked at the arena floor weakly as what remained of the creature tried to pull itself toward her, staring at her wildly.
 
It knew:
 
it knew she'd tricked it.

But Esme had already turned her back on it — and in another moment, it was dead.

Strike three.

Esme allowed herself a deep breath.
 
Then she was taking in the situation.

The giant cow's eyes were wild and bloodshot, and she was definitely favoring her front hoof.
 
Ignoring the howls of her fans in the crowd, Gladrash lowered her wide black head, bellowing, as she charged again — at Inanna this time.

Esme watched.

The big blue swordswoman stood her ground as the giant cow thundered closer and closer.
 
At the last possible second — when it looked to Esme like Inanna might let Gladrash trample her too — she leaped to one side, bringing the curved blade of her scimitar round and down in a crashing blow that sent the giant cow almost to her knees.

Gladrash staggered on past Inanna and ran straight into the arena wall beyond.
 
Her supporters — a whole section of the audience — let out a short gasping sigh and sank to their seats in horror.
 
Gladrash the Blunt tottered back from the wall, swinging round to face her opponent, shaking her horned head as if trying to clear it.

Then she froze and fell and lay still.

Strike four.

Scowling, Inanna turned, with her back now to the line of shadow at the arena's sides.
 
That was when Esme saw Tunku the Snool.
 
The jellyfish slid from the darkness, tentacles outstretched.
 
Almost before Esme knew what she was doing, the pigeon sword was out of her hand.
 
It flew across the ring—

—passed right over Inanna's shoulder—

—and nailed the third gladiator to the sheer black stone of the arena wall.

For a second, the crowd fell silent.
 
Tunku the Snool just hung there, spitted.
 
Its tentacles quivered for a moment, then dropped.

Strike five.

Suddenly, the whole crowd was up out of its seats again, screaming and howling and crying with delight.
 
No one could remember an Akachash as good as this.
 
No one.

Looking carefully at Esme, Inanna walked slowly over to the arena's edge, only taking her eye off the girl for a moment when she reached up to yank the pigeon sword out of the wall.
 
As, with a soft
splotch
, the jellyfish demon slid to the arena floor behind her, Inanna took the weapon and hefted it, testing its balance.
 
In her hands, the pigeon sword was like a toy.
 
Then, with a snapping motion of her wrist that was almost too fast to follow, Inanna flung the sword back at Esme.

Esme put up a hand, and the pigeon sword's hilt slapped into it effortlessly.
 
Then, as the crowd fell expectantly silent again, the last two gladiators eyed each other.