Full-Blood Half-Breed (4 page)

“Save your concern,” Paladin said. “I will hear no Vile lies.”

“But—”

“Please. Just let me be on my way.”

“The Prophet—”

“Just leave me alone!”

The old woman hissed. Her fingers were knots wrapped in wrinkles. She used them to sign the Vile holy symbol before her heart. “Give your soul to the Prophet, The One God’s Mortal Voice!
Adanedi nihi galvquodi-adanvdo gvdodi Adelohosgi!
”

Agony invaded his skull.

He lowered his staff and grabbed his head. The Viles surrounded him, grinning their huckster smiles and staring, eyes empty of anything not loco.

“Your soul is in rebellion,” the pretty Vile, Sister Pía, said. “You have been taught to hate us, to fear and call us Vile. But your soul knows truth when it hears it. It is revolting against your poisoned reason. This is why your head pains you.”

He considered that the Vile woman might be telling the truth. There was a part of him, and not a small part, that longed to yield his reason or do whatever it took to ease the pain in his skull.

“Would you hear the sacred teachings of Vicente Santos?” a young girl of about ten years asked. “
La Guerra de la Condenación
is nearly upon us! Would you hear the
words that will save your soul?”

“The what? The War of Condemnation?” Tears blurred Paladin’s vision. He could focus on little past the rusty spear embedded in the base of his skull, but he trusted his reason, poisoned or not, and he would never put his faith in a religion that claimed three of the four gods he loved were fakes. “No. No, I don’t want to hear any of it!”

The Viles stalked closer. The old woman waved her bony finger at him. “Pray for him! Pray for his soul, my brothers and sisters, pray!”

“Adanedi nihi galvquodi-adanvdo gvdodi Adelohosgi,”
the Viles chanted in unison. “Give your soul to the Prophet!”

The knifing pain in his head surged till he thought he might vomit. The Viles were all around him, sucking away his air, suffocating him with their gibbering jabber. “Get away from me!”

Distracted by the pain in his skull, he had allowed Sister Pía to come too close. She seized him by the shoulders and shook him, her golden eyes ablaze with zeal. “Will you not heed the truth even when your soul exhorts you to do so?”

He felt a fire of his own kindling in his belly. No one had the right to lay hands upon him. Even if she was really very pretty. Anger brought the world into crystal clear focus despite the invisible spear in his head.

“Take your hands off me,” he growled.

“Adanedi nihi galvquodi-adanvdo gvdodi Adelohosgi,”
the Viles chanted again and again. Sister Pía’s hands went from his shoulders to his face, her fingernails digging into his cheeks as she pulled him close enough to kiss. She shouted, spraying him with sweet-smelling spittle, “Give your soul to the Prophet! Give your soul to the Prophet! Give your soul—”

He slammed the tip of Sunderbones into her slipper-shod foot. She shrieked in pain, her fingers clawing rows through his face as she drew back. He kicked her in the torso, just below the breasts, knocking her into the others. Her eyes went wide with shock.

“Pía!” the old woman called.

Sister Pía seemed mostly unhurt. She quickly found her feet, though she would limp for a while. The Viles’ insanity went from zesty zealotry to foamy-mouthed frenzy. Hurling insults, they seemed ready to tear him apart with their bare hands. He took up a defensive stance, Sunderbones at the ready. Headache or no, the first Vile to
advance would get his or her head cracked open.

Sister Pía calmed her fellows with one hand as she clutched her sore stomach with the other. “Leave him be. I am unhurt and he is just a frightened boy. Leave him be.”

The other Viles did not seem happy about it, but they backed away, staring at Paladin with murder in their eyes. He quickly ran to the back of the alley and used Sunderbones to vault up the wall. He grabbed the overhang and pulled himself up onto the roof.

The old woman screamed at him, “Wicked half-breed! Evil little híbrido! Only the wicked may hear the words of the Prophet and turn away!”

Paladin flipped his middle finger at the old woman and fled west across the rooftops, pain stabbing through his head, excitement hammering through his heart. He had faced down a whole gang of Viles and had the battle scars to prove it. He couldn’t wait to tell Drud! He touched the place on his cheek where Sister Pía had raked him and hissed through his teeth at the sting. His fingers were damp with crimson. Drud would be impressed.

He climbed higher and higher up the multi-tiered pagodas of Eastgate, leaping from one roof to the next, grinning. It was exhilarating amongst the rooftops. Here was an unpopulated, foreign land, a sprawl of wood and stone rises, arches and domes of manmade symmetry that would take him as far as the city’s center before he had to climb down and join his fellow humans. For now, he enjoyed the solitary travel. There were no monks on the rooftops to castigate him for his blended martial system, no dog-faced Nords, ignorant turistas, or rabid Viles. There was only the sound of his feet bounding off wood and the sight of the Phoenix-Rising Amphitheater looming closer.

“Well, at least you will have distinguished yourself, Zwergfuchs,” Urbano said in his lispy Oestean drawl. “I do not think there is any disciple in any temple in the Thirteen who has served as Niñero de Zurullo for as long as you.”

Jorge sniggered. “Sí. If nursemaiding turds were a Torneo trial, the name Fox the Runt would be renowned throughout the Thirteen Kingdoms.”

Urbano and Jorge fell over each other chuckling, slapping each other’s backs and rudely jostling the folk around them.

“Kuss mein arsch,”
Fox the Runt grumbled, but neither Urbano nor Jorge heard him over their giggles and the tumult of excited tourists and Torneo contestants tromping through Círculo del Triunfo, the wide street encircling the arena. It was crowded with people, carts, and beasts traveling to and from the famous amphitheater.

Urbano and Jorge were oblivious to those around them. They spoke in loud boorish voices, bumped into armed warriors and offered no apologies, knocked down a few tourists but took no notice.

Had Fox the Runt been possessed of more delicate sensibilities, his ears would have been singed by the hot obscenities hurled at the thoughtless rich boys. There were several folk, some of whom were serious warriors, who were more than ready to throw punches as well as curses until they saw the totem sewn over the breast of Urbano’s coat. The bumblebee on a field of orange marked Urbano as the heir of House Próspero, one of the most powerful Patriarchies in the Reinos del Oeste. Jorge was of House Odalis, an influential Patriarchy in its own right, but it was House Próspero that instilled the most fear.

Few people knew of Urbano’s current feud with his father, Don Efraín the Spicebringer, but everyone knew what a powerful and vindictive man the don was. He would not take kindly to anyone throwing anything at Urbano, whether he deserved it not.

“Do not look so glum,” Urbano said. “It is not every day a pauper like you gets a chance to compete in Torneo. Perhaps you will perform well enough to earn a name.”

That was true enough. Without Urbano’s patronage, Fox the Runt would never be able to pay the Torneo entrance fee. And he certainly liked the idea of petitioning for his own surname. He would call himself something elegant, understated, and classy. He would avoid the trap many folk fell into of choosing names that were flamboyant to the point of being ridiculous, like the butcher Señor Cleto the Tastybacon, who provided the temple with meat on the one or two times a year when the stingy monks would pay for it.

Had there ever been a name as stupid as Tastybacon? Although, he had to admit, the man’s bacon had been very tasty. But could he not have imagined a less silly name?

Even the mongrel’s mongrel parents’ surnames spoke of their inflated egos: the Darkdragón and the Cruelarrow. Fox the Runt rolled his eyes and shook his head just thinking about it. Seisakusha’s Tail, but it was obnoxious! No, he would avoid such false grandiosity. His name would speak to his strengths without being ostentatious or tawdry.…

“Zwergfuchs the Ragingblades!” he declared. “What do you think of that name, Urbano?”

“For the Niñero de Zurullo?” Urbano chuckled. “I was thinking of something more like Zwergfuchs the Stinkyfingers.”

“Or,” Jorge said, “Zwergfuchs the Turdtender.”

Urbano and Jorge were seized by a fit of laughter once more. Fox the Runt took deep breaths to control his building anger. He did not want to say anything to his friend that he might regret later. Urbano could be vexing, but he was also a trusted companion. It was rare for a noble of such a powerful House to befriend a poor foreign-born commoner like Fox the Runt. Urbano would be taking on debt to pay the Torneo entrance fee, charging Fox the Runt only a nominal rate of interest. Though Urbano came from a wealthy House, he had little money himself. His father had seen to that.

The quarrel between Urbano and his father concerned Urbano’s handling of money. Don Efraín thought his son was careless and extravagant, an opinion Fox the Runt shared, though he would never say so to Urbano. The don had ended Urbano’s weekly stipend and insisted the boy take a job in the arena’s stables, a punishment designed to teach him budgetary responsibility. Urbano had taken an advance on his salary to pay the entrance fee for Fox the Runt. It was hard to be angry with Urbano after such a selfless act of friendship.

“Burning Balls, Zwergfuchs,” Urbano said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We are only jesting. The year will pass before you know it, and the only piss pot you will have to clean will be your own.”

“Sí,” Jorge said, chuckling, “and there is always the possibility you will be killed during
Torneo.
Mi padre
says there are no chamber pots in The After. Unless you go to hell. Then I suppose—”

“Mind your tongue!” Urbano snapped. “If he is killed in the games, I will lose my investment. Besides, have you not seen him fight? There is no warrior in the Thirteen that can best him, certainly no youngling.”

“What about the híbrido, Del Darkdragón?” Jorge said. “Did he not break his nose …?”

“That mongrel is a stinking cheat!” Fox the Runt barked. “And he only bloodied my nose. He did not break it!”

“Calm down, Zwergfuchs,” Urbano said. “Even if the mongrel could beat you—”

“He cannot!”

“I know that, amigo.” Urbano sighed. “But it does not matter one way or the other. The híbrido’s father will never allow him to compete in Torneo.”

Fox the Runt wished the mongrel’s father would let him compete so he could prove once and for all which of them was the better fighter. He considered saying so to Urbano, but a couple of roughhousing boys rushed out of the crowd, chasing one another in a game of tag. Oblivious, they slammed into him. “Be careful, fools! You almost knocked me down!”

The boys’ dirty faces were flush from hard play, and Fox the Runt could tell at once they were not of Santuario del Guerrero. Their clothes of shabby homespun and shaved heads marked them as rustics, probably farmers. Green-eyed and olive-skinned, they were Oestean. But they reminded him of himself when he had first come to the city: wide-eyed, dirty, and ignorant.

He disliked them instantly.

The younger boy, perhaps ten, backed away, watching Fox the Runt with fear in his dark eyes. His brother was a few years older and too excited or too stupid to be afraid. His gap-toothed bumpkin’s grin was a dazzle of naked sincerity, charming to the point of endearment. It made Fox the Runt want to slap him.

“
Perdón
, señores,” the older boy said. “It is our first time in Santuario del Guerrero. We have come for Torneo!”

Urbano strode forth and wrapped an arm around Fox the Runt’s shoulder. He spoke to the boys with the same exaggerated affectations as the pitchmen outside the brothels and churches on Calle de la Iglesia. “If you have come to see the warriors of Torneo, then look no further,
campesino
. This is Fox the Ru—this is Señor Zwergfuchs Von Hammerhead, the next Youngling Black Spear, and the greatest young fighter the Thirteen has ever known. For a copper I will allow you the honor of shaking his hand.”

The boy looked at Fox the Runt dubiously, frowned, and then met his brother’s gaze. Both boys burst into laughter. “We may be farmers, señor, but we are not stupid.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Fox the Runt demanded.

“You are an
enano
,” the boy managed through his laughter, “a dwarf! You are no warrior!”

Fox the Runt’s face heated with indignation. He was furious enough to strike the boy, but too mortified to bring any more attention to the galling spectacle. Urbano held no such reservations. He raised the back of his hand, hissing, “You filthy little dogs! How dare you insult my friend?”

Before the blow could fall, a woman’s voice shouted, “Please, señores! Stop! Do not harm my
niños
!”

There was some jostling amongst the crowd to make way for the crude old wagon pulled by a single, decrepit-looking burro. The young mother of the two boys sat in the front of the wagon clutching a mewling babe to her breast. Next to her sat a pock-faced man—the father of the boys, judging from the resemblance.