“Whatever, it’s at the ass-end of nowhere.” The dwarf took his mug of beer with a muttered thanks. “That’s my point. No one cares. Killed a wizard? A hundred people here say they’ve killed wizards.”
“But we actually did,” he pointed out.
“They don’t know that, do they?”
He gave Tina a pleading look.
“Pics or it didn’t happen,” she explained in an undertone. “It’s the same everywhere, Williams. The thing is, they don’t have cameras here so you’re shit outta luck.”
Justin sighed. “Okay. Well, since no one knows any of us and Tina could use some…uh…chances to adapt to our team and communication style, why don’t we enter in the skirmishes?”
“Exactly my thought,” Lyle agreed. “That’s why I signed us up for tomorrow morning.”
“You what?” she asked.
“We should get some rest,” the young man said loudly. “After all, we have to get up bright and early and make our reputations, right?”
“Justin, so help me—”
He pushed smoothly to his feet and pulled her chair out so she had to stand hurriedly. “You know you’ll never feel ready,” he said to her with a bright grin. “So I say we dive into the deep end.”
“You listen here, you shitbag,” Tina whispered sharply. She clearly tried not to laugh, but she also managed a good deadpan glare. “I went out on a date with a man who didn’t come out of his room all that often, and he’s the one I came here to save—not a psycho who decides to enter gladiatorial contests on a whim. Too soon?”
Justin was laughing too hard to answer. He waved his hand to the inn and tried to recover his composure. “Duly noted, Madame Rogue. Let’s all go to our rooms and you can spend the night dreaming up properly pointed nicknames for me.”
“Oh, I am so ready for this.” She cracked her knuckles. “Hey, knuckles crack, here! I appreciate that attention to detail.”
A scant few hours later, Tina bounced anxiously in place while nerves seared through her until she couldn’t tell if she would levitate or fall. The waiting area for the arena was made of the same ever-present rock, now a golden color that seemed to hold the sunlight from far above. She and the others stood on a platform of stone, which had—as far as she could tell—no pulleys or levers to make it move anywhere.
“Citizens and travelers!” The voice resounded above them in the arena, magically amplified. “For the first skirmish, I bring you something truly special—two of our finest teams from Season Three of the tournament and Insea’s most intriguing newcomers. First, I bring you the team that landed the most impressive strike of Season Three, the silent assassins, the sure-footed dancers themselves—the Yanevas!”
The stadium erupted into wild cheers and the platform beneath her feet began to move smoothly upward. Her throat lurched.
“I wonder what a Yaneva is,” Justin muttered.
“Only in Insea would they think it’s good,” Lyle told him. “They…let’s simply say they traded on certain talents.”
His companions stared expectantly at him.
“O’ course, Insea remembers them as a fancy, elite infantry,” the dwarf continued and gestured with his hands.
“Wait, I have so many questions,” Justin said, but the Master of Ceremonies’ voice echoed again, almost deafening now that the group was closer to the arena.
“If you’ve wondered who could possibly challenge the first team, wonder no more. We have secured a repeat performance from…Quartzfire!”
Lyle nodded in deep approval of this name and again, his friends exchanged baffled glances.
“Yes!” the MC announced over the sound of cheering, “the most favored team of Season Three, very cruelly whisked away from Insea to avoid spoilsports such as the tax collectors”—laughter erupted in the stadium—“has returned. They assure us they have done so legally, although we have been given very questionable names, in order to give us the showdown we all wanted so many weeks ago. Please welcome our dwarven friends, Quartzfire!”
The laughter continued and this time, Lyle provided an explanation. “No dwarf would call themselves that. They must be humans calling themselves dwarves to dodge taxes. It’s not all that uncommon for prize-fighters and it’s how we get most of our non-dwarven citizens.”
“Huh.” Tina looked at Justin and a smile tugged at her lips. “I guess no matter where you go, people are all the same.”
He grinned in response but before he could speak, the awning over their platform slid back and sunlight poured in. The group peered upward, startled.