The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,107

was a clear lesson to the would-be escapees: Sheer power didn’t matter nearly as much as the ability to control it.

The psionicists had changed shifts again. The two old men hardly seemed to be paying attention—they were playing dice and laughing at jokes—but Jedra could feel their presence hovering over him, and he knew they would respond instantly if he and Kayan even mindspoke to one another.

Kayan glared at him. “You keep trying to make it my fault.”

“No, I don’t!” Jedra glared back at her. “I’m just tired of hearing about how invincible we are when we’re not.”

“All right, all right, we’re weaklings and we’re going to die in our very first battle, is that what you want to hear?

Does that make you happy?”

“Of course not.” Jedra rattled the chains that bound him by his left leg to the wall. “But it’s closer to the truth.”

Shani never slept in the gladiators’ quarters—she evidently spent her nights with Sahalik—but the human, a man in his thirties with just a touch of gray in his hair, did. He’d ignored Jedra and Kayan completely until now, practicing separately with Sahalik and sleeping whenever he wasn’t training or eating, but now he lifted his head up from his bunk and said, “You two are going to make a great team in the arena. I pity your opponents; they’re going to get argued to death.” Then he rolled over and began to snore.

Jedra was in the bunk between him and Kayan. He looked over at her, ready to share a good laugh, but his grin died when he saw the angry look on her face. Maybe the antisocial slave was right.

* * *

Sahalik, at least, seemed to think that they had a chance. The next day he and Shani took Kayan and Jedra out onto the practice field together and taught them fighting strategy.

“You’ll be up against a dwarf named Lothar,” he told them. “He fights with a curved sword, sharpened on both sides. Given your little display yesterday, Jedra, I think we’ll give you a club, and Kayan, you’ll have a spear.” He tossed their weapons to them. Jedra’s club was presumably the very one he would use in the arena, but Kayan’s spear was only a shaft of wood with a rag tied around the end.

Shani carried the curved sword, also made of wood. “Pretend she’s shorter and slower,” Sahalik said, laughing. “You will fight and I will watch, and when I shout ‘stop’ I want you to freeze, and we’ll examine what you’re doing right or wrong. The basic idea is for Kayan to keep Lothar busy with the spear while Jedra beats him to death with the club, and if he gets too close, Jedra drives him back until Kayan can use the spear on him. Neither of you are to throw your weapon, and no fair spearing him in a vital spot until the crowd gets enough blood to be satisfied. Clear?”

“Whose blood?” Jedra asked.

Sahalik laughed again. “Anybody’s blood,” he said. “They’re not choosy.” He stepped back and shouted, “Go!”

Shani immediately leaped at Jedra and slashed at him with her curved sword. He jumped back, but not far enough, and the blunted edge caught him on the forearm as he raised his club to ward off the blow.

“Stop!” Sahalik shouted, and Shani froze. Jedra and Kayan froze a moment later, Jedra with his club still upraised, Kayan with the spear aimed somewhere between Shani and Jedra.

“You’ve just lost your right arm,” Sahalik said. “And Kayan, you’re about to spear your own companion in the side when he jumps back from the blade. All right, try it again.”

They ran through the mock battle dozens of times, but never got beyond the first few seconds before Sahalik stopped them and pointed out another flaw in their strategy. By the end of the session, Jedra had a score of new bruises from the blunt sword, and his head felt overstuffed with all the advice he’d received.

They just had time to eat and catch their breath before they were at it again. This time Sahalik concentrated on their attacks, showing them how to harry Shani from two sides and disarm her.

“What about psionics?” Kayan asked at one point. “If we can use that in the battle, then why don’t I just stop her heart—well, the dwarf’s heart,” she said with a wicked grin at Shani, “and be done with it?”

“Two reasons,” Sahalik said. “One, that way isn’t bloody enough for the crowd, and two,