The Silent Tempest (Book 2) (22 page)

“Stay here,” said Tyrion as Kate
automatically started to follow them.

“I want to see this,” she responded.

He shook his head, “No, you don’t.”

He was standing next to Byovar. The eight
teens whose powers had already manifested stood behind him. Today was the day
they would be blooded.

“I would like to come as well,” put in
Layla.

Tyrion glanced at her. “You have to stay
here…,” his eyes passed over Kate briefly, “…to keep an eye on things.”

Kate frowned, “So I need a babysitter now?”

“I just want to be sure no one disturbs
things around here. The She’Har have very loose concepts when it comes to
property.”

“They seem to have slavery down to a fine
art,” she retorted.

He nodded, “Slavery yes, livestock yes,
but inanimate objects are a different matter. They don’t really understand the
owning of ‘things’ as well as they do people.”

“Everyone will be at the arena today,” observed
Byovar. “No one will molest your stone building.”

“I am bored. Let us come see the fights,”
said Layla.

Kate nodded in agreement.

Tyrion shook his head, “Nameless servants
aren’t allowed to attend…”

“You can bring whoever you wish, Tyrion,”
corrected the lore-warden.

“I’m coming,” said Kate before leaning in
to whisper in his ear. “Unless you want to discipline me here and now, and I
don’t think you’re up for that, are you?”

“Very well,” he relented. “It will do you
good to learn the truth.” Inwardly he seethed at her impertinence, but once
again he found himself reluctant to call her bluff.

An hour later they were at the Ellentrea
arena, a place that Tyrion knew intimately since the majority of his matches
had been there. Thillmarius greeted them with a smile.

“The holding cells for your participants
are over here,” he said genially.

“I would prefer to let them watch,”
answered Tyrion.

“I’m afraid that’s against the rules,”
replied Thillmarius. “It gives the watchers a potential advantage.”

Tyrion dipped his head in
acknowledgement. He had known that was the most likely response, but he still had
hoped it wasn’t something set in stone. He led them over to the wooden
outcroppings that rose from the earth near the edge of the arena. Each one was
a knobby part of the root from one of the neighboring god trees. They each
contained a small room and a door. The walls were covered with a spellweave
that blocked magesight.

Gesturing at them, he ushered each of his
eight children who were to fight into a room of their own. He stopped then.

“What of the others? Their powers have
not awakened yet. Will they be permitted to watch?” he asked, indicating his
remaining children and Kate.

Thillmarius smiled again, “The rules only
state that participants may not watch. Nameless without ability are not
regulated. If they are with you, then they may observe.”

Tyrion nodded. Much of what happened in
the arena would be invisible to them without magesight, but they would see
enough to understand. He wasn’t sure whether it would help or hurt them in the
future, though. Seeing a fight to the death might help them find their
resolve, or it could fill them with a paralyzing dread of the future. He hoped
it would be the former.

The She’Har who was overseeing the arena
came over, a male by the name of Koralltis. He spoke directly to Tyrion,
something he had never done previously, “You have eight to be blooded today,
which of them is your strongest?”

He hadn’t expected that question, or even
to be spoken to. Koralltis was treating him as an equal, or at least as a
trainer. Still, he wasn’t sure of the purpose of the question, and he glanced
at Byovar for guidance. The Illeniel lore-warden simply shrugged.

Thinking for a moment, he considered his
reply. He could easily choose either Brigid or Gabriel, both had shown more
progress than the others, and both were strong. Hesitating for only a second,
he pointed to the cell which contained Gabriel, “That one.”

Koralltis nodded, “Then that will be the
first of them.”

Tyrion felt a moment of relief. His
paranoia had been aroused by the question. If it had only been to choose the
first to enter the arena, then he could relax a bit.

A half an hour passed while the other
trainers brought their nameless combatants in and settled each within their
private cells. Tyrion watched the process with interest. In the past he had been
kept within a cell himself, unable to observe. He was surprised when he saw
Dalleth bring his nameless in, for one of them was Haley, who wasn’t nameless
at all, she was now known to the She’Har as Gravenna.

“Why is she here?” he asked Thillmarius. “I
thought these were only going to be first-blood fights.”

The Prathion gave him a curious look, “I
do not know either. This is the first I have heard of her being brought
today. Koralltis must have something interesting in mind.”

Tyrion felt a stone settle in his
stomach. ‘Interesting’ for the She’Har usually meant bloody.

Koralltis began projecting his voice,
calling the trainers to bring out their first entrants. Tyrion’s name was one
of them. He walked over and touched the door to Gabriel’s cell.

“It’s time, boy.”

Gabriel gave him a brave grin, “I know,
old man.”

His tone was entirely too familiar. “Are
you angry?” he asked.

“Nope.”

He glared at the young man. “You need to
be. This isn’t a joke. Look at me!”

Gabriel did, but his face was unrepentant,
“I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s alright. I’ll do what I have to
do. I don’t have to hate you to do that.”

“You need your anger, boy. Find it and
chain it. Keep it ready but your mind clear. Fight calm and when the moment
comes, let the anger help you make the choice. Hesitation will get you
killed,” he said seriously as they walked to the edge.

“Relax, Father,” said the boy. “I’m going
to make you proud.”

The words stunned Tyrion. He stood
watching the young man’s broad back as he walked onto the dry earth of the
arena.
I’m not your father. I don’t deserve that name. I’m just the man who
brought you here to suffer. Your father is the man who loved you, who raised
you, not me.

Never me.

Half a minute later the starting chime
sounded, and the lights changed. It had begun.

Gabriel was facing a boy from the Gaelyn
Grove, a skinny, feral looking kid who was probably half his weight. Not that
size mattered much, it was aythar that made the biggest difference, and Gabriel
outshone his opponent by a large amount in that regard.

Focus on your shield,
thought Tyrion.
Wait for him to make a mistake.

The match began with a burst of activity.
The Gaelyn boy went from still to moving in an instant. He sent a powerful
bolt of force at Gabriel even as he ran to one side.

Ignore it, he’s trying to
distract you so he can…

The attack was strong enough to shake Gabriel,
even though it didn’t come close to penetrating his defense. Before Tyrion’s
son could refocus his attention on his opponent, the Gaelyn mage had
transformed, taking the shape of a large falcon.

Tyrion cursed. The Gaelyn mage might be
unblooded, but he was far from average. Few of them at that age could handle a
bird form, but those that could were a lot more trouble. The Gaelyn boy would
have unparalleled mobility now, and Gabriel had missed his best chance to take
out his opponent, while he was shifting.

Gabriel began sending sharp, powerful
bursts of force at the bird, but none of them came close to hitting.

Don’t waste your strength,
thought Tyrion.
That’s what he wants.

Kate put a hand on his arm, “What’s
happening?” From her perspective all she had seen was Gabriel acting oddly
while his foe changed into a bird.

“The other boy is pretty skilled,” said
Tyrion tensely. “If I had fought one like him my first time, I probably
wouldn’t have survived.”

She watched his features, reading the worry
there. The cold impassive face was gone, replaced by that of a man riddled
with anxiety, a man watching his child fight for his life.
Just when I
think he’s gone, beyond hope, I see this,
she thought. She hesitated a
moment and then reached out, putting her hand over his. “He’ll be fine. You
didn’t have anyone to teach you. He did.”

The warmth of her hand surprised him, and
Tyrion found himself blinking as he struggled to contain his emotions. The
constant tension of the past week, along with his self-imposed isolation, had
left him tired. His soul felt tattered and frayed, as though it might come
apart, and the warmth radiating from her hand seemed to travel through him,
eating away at his careful composure.

I feel nothi…
He stopped in mid-thought, struggling with himself. Finally, he
let himself relax and turned his hand over, enclosing her small fingers with
his own.

He squeezed it tightly as the fight
continued. Gabriel’s attacks were growing wilder, less focused and noticeably
weaker, even his shield was beginning to grow thin. The Gaelyn mage circled
him at a distance, conserving his aythar, waiting for the moment his enemy
would be vulnerable.

Tyrion’s eyes narrowed. Even fighting
wastefully, Gabriel shouldn’t have been that weak. The boy had more strength
than that. Then he understood.

Gabriel’s shield flickered, and he began
to run, until the earth rose in front of his feet, tripping him.

Kate’s gasp was audible. “You have to do
something, Daniel.”

“I can’t,” he told her. “If I try to
intervene they’ll kill me, the boy, and who knows what would happen to the rest
of you.”

“But he’s losing…”

“No,” said Tyrion. “He knows to keep a
firm grip on the ground around him. I beat that into them. He let that happen;
watch what he does next.”

The falcon stooped, diving at speed toward
his fallen opponent. As he did, the he focused his aythar, forming it into an
even more powerful shield and encasing his talons in wicked blades of force.
He wasn’t going to waste his strength on ranged attacks. He didn’t have the
aythar to waste on that. He would seize the opportunity, while his foe was
tired, while he was down, and he would take the kill in one devastating attack.

Gabriel’s aythar flared brightly a second
before the Gaelyn mage struck, too late for his opponent to change course. His
shield expanded powerfully, forming a wedge that sent the falcon to one side
even as it ripped through part of it with its reinforced talons.

The bird landed awkwardly, off balance
from the unexpected resistance, and then he caught Gabriel’s return strike at
close range, unable to dodge. Tyrion’s son hit the falcon with a blow that landed
like a battering ram, with predictable results.

The falcon’s shield shattered, and the
Gaelyn mage staggered, falling to the ground nearly senseless from the
feedback.

Gabriel loomed over him.

Now! Don’t waste time. Some
of them recover more quickly than you’d expect.
Tyrion found himself clenching his jaw.

A long pause ensued. Gabriel had gathered
his will, but he held back, staring intently at the bird on the ground. It
beat its wings, trying to regain its balance, to take flight, but it was still
too uncoordinated to get off the ground.

Just when Tyrion thought he might have
waited too long, the boy released a loud yell and sent a flat plane of aythar
slicing downward. It neatly bisected the avian body, and the Gaelyn mage began
to thrash about, flinging droplets of blood in every direction. The lower half
stopped moving within seconds, but the upper half took almost a full minute
before it sagged to the ground.

A wing flapped once more, and then it went
still.

The arena lights changed. The match was
over. Gabriel stared down at his broken foe, trying to comprehend what he had
done.

“You can go collect your charge now,” said
Thillmarius, nudging Tyrion.

Glancing at Kate, he saw that her eyes
were wet. He gave her a soft pat on one shoulder. He remembered the first
time he had killed a man, a warden who had been suffocating her. She had
calmly tried to dash the man’s brains out afterward, while he was helpless, but
now she seemed softer, more vulnerable.

“It was just a chicken,” he told her,
referencing their conversation from that day.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No,
Daniel, that wasn’t a chicken. That was a child—a poor, lost, motherless
child.” Unlike, fifteen years before, she was no longer a child herself. She
was a woman, and a mother.

He hated the look on her face. It
reminded him of everything he had given up, of who he had once been. His chest
tightened. Stepping away he went to bring Gabriel back.