Page 13 of Ironhold, Trial Four

Callus is already waiting, standing at the opposite side of the colosseum, his net and trident held ready. Those are the weapons I used to use, and maybe there's an advantage in knowing exactlyhow they are wielded and the tactics thatthose using them will seek to employ.

Callus looks at me as if he hates me. Maybe that's just the way he looks with everyone he fights. Some gladiators have a deep well of hate that they plumb for their fights. I can feel my own anger within meat the executions, and I know that anger will be fuel for the first few moments.

“Today the mistress of beasts Lyra will face a newcomer to the colosseum: Callus!” the announcer says.

There are some cheers for the new gladiator, but also plenty of boos. People don't want to see him succeed. I stand there trying to gain any clues I can about the way he will fight, trying to plan the way I might defeat him. We will both be seeking to tangle one another up. It will be a long range, flowing bout. I will need to wait for the right moment to use my abilities against him.

The emperor is not in his box for this bout. Perhaps he has decided that he does not need to watch me defeat some null. Or perhaps this is another way to make me worry about whether he is going after Lady Elara. Either way it seems thatThe arch magistrate, Selene Ravenscroft, will be presiding over the bout. Perhaps that's a good thing for my opponent. She is more likely to be merciful than Emperor Tiberius. Lord Darius stands in her box by her side, the two of them presenting a united front.

“Begin,” Selene says.

Almost immediately, Callus charges at me, and I think for a moment that he's foolish and unskilled to do so. He must know that weaving out of the way of such charging opponents is part of the way I'm trained to fight.

I start to move aside, swinging my weighted chain, but he's already pulling up short, letting it pass by himand thrusting with his trident. I'm forced to dodge, slashing with the head of my spear to keep him at a distance.

“You didn't think I'd be so stupid as to just run onto you, did you?” he says. It seems he likes to talk as he fights.

He moves around me, thrusting high and low, probing my defenses.

“All of the beast whisperers are the same,” he says. “Were the ones who died earlier your friends?”

I feel a flicker of anger, which makes me stab with my spear. He blocks the blow, hitting me with the haft of his trident in a bruising strikethat I must twist aside from to avoid taking too much of the impact. He swings his net low immediately afterwards, the attack hard to read. I barely jump over it.

“I've killed so many of your kind,” Callus says. “You are a blight upon the world. Do you know that your powers don't even come from the stones of Aetheria, not really?”

He punctuates his words with blow after blow. He's fast and agile. When I counterattack, he spins away like a dancer, throwing his net at mein the middle of the movement. I barely deflect it in time.

Who is he? He's talking as if he knows more about beast whisperers than anyone else. He's certainly talking as if he hasn’t come to the games by accident. He stalks me around the arenawhile the crowds are cheering at what is proving to be a closer contest than I imagine they anticipated. Their favorite gladiatoragainst someone in his first bout shouldn't be this close.

I need an advantage. The dampener on my left wrist limits my access to my powers, but thankfully it does not cut me off from completely. I reach out and find the mind of one of the carrion birds waiting around the colosseum to feast on the fleshof the dead. I borrow its sight, giving me a better perspective on the fight, and manage to borrow a hint of speed from it that keeps me ahead of Callus’ attacks.

“All of you believe you are the invulnerable,” Callus says. “You believe that you're going to be the one to change the whole empire and let your kind run wild. You think that you have the whole of the animal kingdom at your fingertips, so why should you be afraid of me? But they're all afraid at the end.”

He keeps moving, and now we are exchanging blows. A thrust of his trident skitters from my vambraces. My spear scrapes against his shoulder guard. I parry a blow with the haft of my spear, then swing my weighted chain at him. He avoids the attack effortlessly.

I don't think I've had to work this hard against someone without magic before. Always my talents have given me an advantage in such fights. But now it feels as though I'm barely keeping up. I need to think of something else.

In previous flights I have summonedpowerful creatures to my aid. I have sent out a cry tothe shadow cat, and it has come to me, but I'm not sure I can manage that with the dampener in place. A connection to a single crow is about all I can manage at the moment. Certainly without concentrating harder, and I can't afford to take any of my attention away from blocking and counterattacking, trying to hold my own in the fight.

But maybe I can use the crow. I have already established a connection to it, so maybe I can work with that connection. All I need is a distraction, a moment of inattention from Callus that I can use to my advantage.

I definitely need that advantage because he's already sweeping the net around at me, forcing me to duck and roll, coming up with sand on my skin, a thrust of my spear barely stopping him from coming in to attack again. I am holding my own but only just. The truth is that for all my training, for allthe skills I've built up with weapons, my magic remains my main advantage.

So I try to use that advantage. With a pulse of power along the link between us, I send the crow swooping down at Callus, plummeting into a dive. I can see through its eyes as itheads towards him, straight for his face.

The crow is not something that can kill him. It is not going to be able to attack himfor more than the briefest moment, but I hope that I don't need more than that. With the crow attacking him he will be forced to react, and all I need is one instant in which I can get a clean thrust in with my spear.

As the crow dives at him, Callus lifts a handto fend it off. That hand brushes the crow, the barest of touches. A second later the crow falls down dead on the sand of the arena. I can feel the loss of connection as it dies, feel a brief moment of something draining out of it. Something is being drained out of it.

The shock makes me stare at Callus for a moment, and he smiles viciously.

“You didn't think it was going to be that easy did you, beast whisperer?”

I realizeto my horror that I have been tricked. I am not fighting a null. Callus has some kind of ability, and it is a deadly one.

CHAPTER NINE

For a couple of seconds I can do is stand there, stunnedby the realization that Callus is not who he has pretended to be, that he has vastly greater powers than everyone believed. It's as ifhe's kind of the opposite of a healer. Where they can pour life force into people, healing wounds and revitalizing them, Callus seems to be able to draw it out with a touch.

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