Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [122]
Caelan watched him and wondered what he felt, being the victor yet again.
The guards came in for the drawing of lots. Excluding Nux, they passed down the line, then threw the dice seven times. Seven men were selected. Caelan’s number was not among them.
This time dirty looks were cast his way. When the guards left, Nux climbed out of the tub and dripped his way across the room. Belting on a tunic, he glared at Caelan.
“What’s your nick?” he asked.
Caelan put down the dice he’d been rolling idly and sat very still on his stool, trying not to betray his tension. “My what?”
“Your nick with the guards. What is it?”
Caelan shook his head. “Just luck.”
“Naw. You got put with us, you! Green as grass, you are. Now you’ve missed two draws. What’s your nick?”
“I’m telling you,” Caelan said warily, never letting his eyes off Nux for a moment. “Just luck.”
“Get off, Nux,” called one of the other men. “You saw how they pounded him in training. It’s luck.”
“Better be. But why’s he here with us? Don’t deserveit.”
Grins broke out around the room. “Why, the trainers are just giving us the privilege of killing him instead. Right?”
They laughed, and Nux moved away. Caelan sagged on his stool and wiped sweat from his forehead. Another moment gained, but he knew it was only a matter of time.
The guards didn’t return until the following week. Caelan knew they had been drawing veterans from another room. The next draw missed him again. He began to wonder at his luck just like the others. They muttered and glared.
“Midway through season already, and him left,” Nux complained to the guards.
“Shut up!” one of the guards retorted. “What’s it to you?”
They left with a slam of the door.
Nux stood up and came over to where Caelan was standing. His eyes glared over his broken nose, and his teeth were bared. “You ain’t being saved, not you. I’m going to—”
“Better save yourself for tomorrow,” Caelan said quickly, tensing himself on the balls of his feet in readiness for attack. “If you use up your strength on me, then you’ll die in the arena.”
Nux drew back with a frown, looking momentarily frightened. “Gault’s blood!” he swore. “You putting a curse on me?”
The other men exchanged looks. “Giant put a curse on Nux.”
“A curse.”
They murmured and shifted back.
“It’s not a curse,” Caelan said, although if they wanted to think so he wasn’t going to try too hard to talk them out of it. “Just a prediction. You jump me, and I won’t go down easy.”
Nux lifted his hands and took a step back as though agreeing.
Caelan relaxed and straightened.
At that moment Nux attacked with a roar, driving him back against the wall with a thud. Nux’s fists were like battering rams, pummeling him. Caelan drew in his elbows and blocked the blows as best he could, then struck back, catching Nux in the jaw and sending him staggering.
Nux crashed into the table, breaking it like kindling, and lay sprawled there, shaking his head and blinking.
Someone helped him up, but the fight was over. Blowing on his aching knuckles, Caelan slowly eased away from the wall and kept a sharp watch on the others.
Nux kept touching his jaw and wagging it back and forth. He glared at Caelan, and the hostility in the room was thick enough to cut. Caelan steeled himself, but Nux finally swung away and pounded on the door.
When a guard opened it, he said, “Take me to the haggai.”
He returned just before dawn, bleary-eyed and smug, looking well satisfied with himself. Then he and five others went out to fight. That night, however, Nux did not come back.
None of them could believe it.
‘The guards said he lost an arm,” Bulot said. “You know what happens to a man without his arm.”
“Bleeding like a stuck pig,” another contributed. “Great gouts of it shooting across the tunnel. He died before he got to the surgeon.”
“Nux dead?” Bulot kept saying over and over. He was a short, wiry man, quick