her neck. The impact knocked her off her feet, but not before I saw her head snap to the side.
"Broken neck," Andrea said.
The swarm caught the archer. He veered left and ran straight into Mart's sword. Mart cut him down with two short, precise strokes and walked over to the swordsman, who was still bellowing like a stuck pig. The Reaper watched him flail for a long moment, as if puzzled, then ended it in a single cut. The swarm vanished. The swordsman's head rolled on the sand.
The crowd roared in delight.
The shapeshifters next to me didn't make a sound.
"HERE IS HOW IT WORKS," JIM SAID SOFTLY, WHILE the cleaners loaded the bodies onto stretchers and raked the sand for stray body parts. "There are four fights in all. First, the qualifying bout, then second tier, third tier, and the championship fight. Only the championship fight has the entire team. The rest give us a choice. We can field one to four people for each fight. If we field four and lose all, we are automatically disqualified as
'unable to continue.' "
He paused to let it sink in. Apparently he'd been busy acquiring the information: he actually had a clipboard with notes written on a legal pad, as if he were coaching a baseball team.
"Despite this rule, most teams field four. Fielding three is risky." He looked down the steps at Curran.
Curran shrugged. "It's your game."
So Jim retained Stratego. That was big of His Majesty.
"We break into two teams," Jim said. "Three and four."
So far, so good.
"This will minimize our risk of being eliminated and will permit us to rest between the fights."
Made total sense.
"Raphael, Andrea, Derek, and I will be in group one, and Curran, Kate, and Dali in group two."
Full break. "You want me to fight with him? On the same team?"
"Yes."
Suddenly I had an urgent need to run away screaming. "Why?"
"Derek, Raphael, and I have similar fighting styles. We move across the field. Andrea is a mobile range fighter. She can shoot and move at the same time. Dali can't," Jim said.
"I do shodo magic," Dali said. "I curse through calligraphy. I have to write the curse out on a piece of paper and I can't move while I do it. One smudge, and I might kill the lot of us."
Oh good.
"But don't worry." Dali waved her arms. "It's so precise, it usually doesn't work at all."
Better and better.
"Raphael and I aren't good defensive fighters," Jim said. "And Derek isn't up to speed yet. I have to put Dali behind Curran, because he's the strongest defense we have. He'll need a strong offense and you're the best offensive fighter I have."
Somehow that didn't sound like a compliment.
"Also the three of us have undergone similar training," Jim said. "We know what to expect from each other and we work well as a team."
He didn't think I could function in a team. Fair enough.
"Group two will take the qualifying bout and the third tier. The qualifying bout should give you little trouble and third-tier fighters shouldn't be that fresh. Group one will take the second-tier bout. We will come out together for the championship fight."
Jim flipped a page on his legal pad. "You're going up against the Red Demons this afternoon.
From what I've heard, they will be fielding a werebison, a swordsman, and some type of odd creature as their mage. You will have magic for the fight. They try to schedule the bouts during the magic waves, because magic makes for a better show. Try to appear sloppy and incompetent. The weaker you look, the more our opponents will underestimate the team, and the easier time we will all have. My lord, no claws. Kate, no magic. You'll need to win, but just barely."
He looked at his notes again and said, "About the murder law. Doesn't apply in the Pit."
Curran said nothing. Jim had just given the shapeshifters permission to kill without accountability with Curran's silence to reinforce it. Just as well. Gladiators died. That was the reality. We had to be there. The rest had volunteered. And given a chance, every member of the opposing team would murder any one of us without a second thought.
THE SAND CRUNCHED UNDER MY FOOT. I COULD already taste it on my tongue. The memories conjured heat and sunshine. I shook them off and looked across the Pit.
In the far end, three people waited for us. The swordsman, tall and carrying a hand-and-a-half sword. The werebison, shaggy with dark brown fur, towering,