A Feast of Dragons - By Morgan Rice Page 0,63
she finally stopped writhing. Finally, she slumped there, dead, in his arms, and he wiped the back of his mouth, and let her lie there. There were few things he enjoyed more than holding a freshly-dead corpse in his lap. This was turning out to be a great night, indeed.
An agonizing howl rang out, and the crowd jumped to its feet, roaring, as one of the animals got the best of the other. Andronicus stood himself, and looked down to see that the spoke-bull had won, piercing the Livara’s chest with his third horn. It stood over it, snorting, tapping its foot.
The crowd cheered as an attendant opened the gate, preparing for the next bout.
As he did, though, something went wrong: the spoke-bull, enraged, charged right for the attendant. The man could not get out of the way quickly enough, and the animal gouged him with its horns, piercing his stomach and sending him up high over his head, pinning him to the cage of the arena. Instead of rushing to help him, the crowd screamed in delight, as the attendant hung there in agony. No one came to his help; on the contrary, they all enjoyed it.
Three more attendants rushed in, holding spears, and they kept the beast at bay as they went to rescue their co-worker. The beast charged them, biting their spears and breaking them—until finally another attendant stepped forward with a huge double axe, and in one clean swoop, chopped off its head. Its corpse fell to the side, blood gushing everywhere, and the crowd roared in excitement.
Several more attendants rushed in to clean up the bloody mess, and a door opened from another end of the arena and two more animals were led in for the next round. They were identical. They looked like rhinoceroses, but were three times the size, and one was led to each end of the ring, grunting and snarling, barely able to be contained by four attendants with ropes.
As the cadavers were pulled out and the gate barely closed, a whistle sounded, and the two animals were released from their ropes. Without hesitating, they charged each other, ramming heads as they met in the middle. There was an awful crash as their heads met, their hides as hard as iron, shaking the entire room.
The crowd cheered in delight.
Andronicus slowly sat back down, still holding the fresh corpse in his lap, reveling in the games. They were going even better tonight than he had expected, and his spirits had not been this high in he did not know how long.
“My liege, forgive me,” came a voice.
Andronicus turned to see one of his messengers standing beside them, whispering in his ear.
“Forgive my interruption, master, but I bring important news.”
“Speak it then,” Andronicus snarled, still looking straight ahead, trying to ignore the man. Andronicus had a sinking feeling that whatever it was would interrupt his mood. And he did not want it interrupted.
“News has spread that the McCloud army has invaded the other half of the Ring. Our spies tell us that the MacGil’s kingdom may be overrun within days, and that the McClouds will control the Ring.”
Andronicus slowly nodded, taking in the information with a seething rage that he did not show—then he reached over, grabbed the messenger with both hands, stood, and hoisted him across the room with a superhuman strength. The messenger, a small, frail man from the Hinterlands, went flying through the air, shrieking, and the crowd watched, transfixed, as he cleared the fence to the arena and landed inside with the wild animals.
The two animals, startled, took a break from smashing into each other and turned towards the messenger. Together, they charged him, and the messenger turned and ran, screaming, trying to flee. But there was nowhere for him to go. As he climbed the wall, trying to get out, one of the animals pierced his back with its thick horn, pinning him to the cage.
The messenger shrieked, blood gushing from his mouth, grasping the wall with his fingernails as he died.
The crowd rose to its feet, screaming in delight.
Andronicus pondered the news. It had put him in a very bad mood, indeed. That McCloud king had defied him, had not accepted his offer, had not acceded to his wishes to let him cross the canyon, to attack the MacGils together. That McCloud king was more hard-headed than Andronicus had anticipated. He was out of Andronicus’s reach. And Andronicus hated things he could not control.
Andronicus had expected a