The Emperor's Edge 3: Deadly Games

The Emperor's Edge 3: Chapter 5 Part 2

“What are you doing? I thought you were going on two more runs before taking a break. Your timing is still off on those swinging axes.”

Basilard flopped onto his back, hot sweat streaming down his cheeks. Maldynado stood over him, fists propped on his hips. The Clank Race whirred and hissed behind him. Most of the other athletes had left, though a young man was timing himself on sprints up the nets.

You’re a worse taskmaster than Sicarius, Basilard signed.

“That’s because you don’t seem motivated. You have to win to have dinner with the emperor. I thought that mattered to you. You want to talk to him on behalf of your people and slaves in the city, don’t you?”

Basilard sighed and rolled to his knees. If he attacked Sicarius, he would not live long enough to win anything. Unless he succeeded. And if he did, Amaranthe would kick him out of the group, and he’d have no one to translate his wishes to the emperor anyway.

“Why don’t you get some water?” Maldynado said. “Then we’ll do another round.”

Basilard stumbled to his feet with thighs rubbery from the previous twenty runs. We?

“We,” Maldynado said. “We’re a team. You run the Clank Race, and I stand over here with the pocket watch and cheer you on. I think it works well. I’m...” His eyes shifted to watch something over Basilard’s shoulder. He frowned.

Basilard turned around to follow Maldynado’s gaze, but did not recognize the man approaching. He wore simple, but tailored clothing and a wide-brimmed beaver hat. Walking with a cane made his gait uneven, but it slowed him little, and he appeared hale. Folded spectacles hung from his shirt collar, a pencil protruded from the band of his hat, and he carried a pad of paper under his arm. He strode directly toward Maldynado and Basilard.

“What do you want, Deret?” Maldynado growled.

Basilard wondered if he should know this person.

“I’m working on a story.” The man gave Basilard a curious look before focusing his attention on Maldynado. “Interviewing athletes. Trying to figure out what’s going on around here with the missing people.”

Ah, this had to be the journalist Amaranthe had gone to see the night before. Mancrest.

“You could apologize for trying to kill my boss when I promised her you’d take her out to dinner and show her a nice evening,” Maldynado said.

“You neglected to mention she was a notorious outlaw,” Mancrest said.

“Seems you figured it out on your own. I’m lucky you don’t turn me in.”

“For two hundred and fifty ranmyas? Why bother?”

Maldynado’s fingers curled into a fist.

Basilard waved to get his attention. Perhaps we should not irritate this man since there are enforcers around and he knows who we are.

Maldynado sniffed. “I’m not going to irritate him. I’m not going to talk to him at all.” He turned his back on Mancrest and pointed at a couple of young men resting in the shade of the Clank Race’s massive furnace and boiler. “Those two look like your most promising competition, Bas.”

Basilard kept an eye on Mancrest. If Maldynado’s dismissal bothered him, he did not show it.

“I have information for your...what is she to you exactly?” Mancrest said. “A former lover? I can’t imagine you trying to arrange a courtship for someone you were currently involved with, but it’s also impossible for me to imagine you getting out of bed to exercise before dawn at the behest of a woman you have no feelings for. It is equally impossible for me to imagine you living in close quarters with a woman and not sleeping with her, or attempting to sleep with her.”