Shadow War: Book 3 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy (WIP Rough Draft)

24. Easy Money Part 2

7th of Braxos

I couldn't see anything. The dockhands in front of me were too big. I needed to be taller. Higher. With fumbling, frantic hands, I struggled out of the box-tray harness and set it on the bar, then dragged one of the bar stools over to the wall where no one would knock me over while I climbed up on it.

The crowd was chanting an incoherent mix of 'Fresh meat!' and 'Anderfield' now.

A broad shouldered, bull-necked man in an expensive burgundy silk dinner jacket was standing in the middle of the arena, bellowing something that got lost in the noise of the audience. It wasn't difficult to figure out that he was trying to get the crowd to accept this fight in place of the one that had been lost. Appeasing them.

I stared around at all the red, sweating faces, with their open mouths and their hungry eyes. Jarro was there, waving a fistful of commissary notes above his head. Men Arramy worked with leaned over the bars, trying to shove him toward his opponent at the other end of the pit.

Arramy wasn't having any of it, and shoved right back, his teeth bared in a snarl.

The man in the burgundy jacket held up his hands as if surrendering to the will of the people, then left the ring through another, smaller gate in the wall. As soon as the gate slammed shut, a bell rang, prompting a new wave of cheering from the crowd as Arramy's opponent began pacing back and forth on his side of the ring. He wasn't one of the more famous fighters, but he had managed to beat one, and it wasn't hard to figure out how. He was a mountain of a man, every bit as tall as Arramy but at least a full two stone heavier, with the thick muscles of a dock worker, all chest and arms and beefy shoulders. His smug look said he had enjoyed his taste of victory and fully intended to get another.

I swallowed hard, my gaze straying to the balcony. What if one of those patrons was Coventry? The only thing Arramy had to hide behind was that thatch of goatswood-black hair. What if that wasn't enough? What if someone recognized him -

A second bell rang, setting off a deafening crescendo in the shouting around the arena as the other man stopped waiting for the fight to begin and went swaggering across the line chalked on the concrete walls of the pit, approaching Arramy. He leered around at his fans, and then made a show of tapping Arramy politely on the shoulder.

Arramy didn't seem to notice or care. He took hold of the chute gate, shaking it, ordering the boy on the other side to let him back out, which prompted a chorus of booing.

With a smile, Man Mountain looked up at the frenzy of faces above him, then hauled off and punched Arramy in the ribs.

Or he would have, if Arramy hadn't taken a step to the right.

Mountain's fist met the bars of the gate, and he let out a roar, bending over his bloodied knuckles.

Arramy shoved away from the wall and kept going, prowling around the edge of the arena, leaving Man Mountain behind. He wasn't trying to avoid a fight. He was hunting for a way out, searching the spiky fence arcing overhead, that trapped wolf still very much present. The only other time I had seen him like that was in Orrelian's second cellar, when he had strapped himself into that chair so Orrelian could question him.

Man Mountain wrung his hand a few times, then aimed a baleful glare at Arramy's retreating figure. He opened his mouth, shouting something inaudible. The crowd went wild as he dug his feet into the sandy bottom of the pit and erupted forward, barreling straight at Arramy with the force of a freighter at full steam.

The cheering turned to boos of derision when Arramy simply dodged again, as easily as he might avoid a puddle in the street, and Man Mountain careened all the way across the arena to crash headfirst into the opposite wall. He slid to the ground and remained there in an unconscious, anticlimactic pile, much to the fury of those who had just lost money on him.