City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [7]
Lutto explained, ‘Cultist,’ and Brynd nodded his understanding. They weren’t looking at anything natural here.
Within the minute, the hybrids had all been handed weapons, scimitars and maces, and they began to communicate with each other in some primitive tongue, guttural noises replacing dialogue.
They then moved apart, gripping their weapons, eyeing all around them with purpose. Screams and whistles arose as the creatures shifted into a position they were obviously familiar with, at three corners of the square.
A single word was being passed around, just a whisper at first hidden among all the noise, then something more definite, taking form:
‘Ma-lum! Ma-lum!’
‘That chanting – what are they saying?’ Brynd demanded of Lutto.
‘They’re asking for their favourite fighter,’ Lutto declared. ‘The star of our little show!’
‘The one you brought me here to see?’
Lutto nodded, his chins wobbling, sweat glistening on his forehead. The crowd’s violent incantation was eventually rewarded as a hooded figure emerged at the front of the audience. Two men removed his cloak and underneath the man was bare-chested. He must be freezing, Brynd thought, going about dressed like that with all this ice enveloping the city. Wearing only a pair of black breeches, he stepped under the rope, entering the square itself, and then Brynd realized he was also wearing a red mask concealing the upper half of his face. In fact, many members of the crowd watching were masked, more so than he had seen above ground. This was a cultural tic of Villiren that he hadn’t yet become used to.
Malum took a short blade from one of the attendants: a messer, an armspan long with a single edge tapering to a turned-up tip. It was a weapon of choice for the common man, and perhaps this selection said something about him. Lean and muscled with tattoos flowing around his arms, his flanks, and around the base of his back. Black-haired, a few days of stubble on his face. There was something about his teeth, something distinctly savage, and this man looked as though he knew his way around a dark night like this.
‘His name?’ Brynd wanted confirmation.
‘He is Malum, leader of a gang called the Bloods, and considered the most powerful man in the city’s underworld. The Bloods have hundreds, possibly thousands of men in their ranks. Lutto himself has had dealings with him several times – best to get these types on one’s side, no? That way Lutto is in control, too.’
Malum took his place in the fourth corner of the square, barely glancing at the three reptilian hybrids that occupied the others. The face painted on his mask looked as if he was contemplating some far-off fury.
Eventually someone rang a bell and a relative hush fell on the crowd. A man called out the rules, so far as they went: anything goes, last man standing wins, no pause for rest. Let it begin.
Another ring of the bell and the crowd roared and Malum was instantly alert. He strode forward, immediately holding his messer blade out ready for action. He took a defensive stance as the three hybrids approached simultaneously, their guttural communication with each other drowned out by the furore amid the audience. For a moment, the green-skinned beasts looked down on him as if to consider their next move. Then one slashed out with a mace, Malum leaned back deftly and another moved in with a sabre. Malum never retaliated, seemed content to roll to one side or the other, and there was something about his manner that said he was reading these creatures, observing how they moved. The third hybrid screeched then lunged at Malum with his scimitar. The human fighter ducked and slammed his blade quickly and methodically into the creature’s stomach, then withdrew to the sight of black blood dripping down.