• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“They look hungry!”

“They likely are—the clawfoots at least. The daggertail eats plants.”

“Khyberit ghentis.” Ashi shook her head. “Keraal can’t fight all of them, can he?”

Down on the arena floor, the lone warrior seemed to be thinking the same thing. Ears flat back against his head, he watched the halflings and their mounts just as they watched him. The announcer gave the audience a moment longer to drink in the sight of the magnificent lizards, then shouted through his speaking trumpet, “For the honor of Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor and the glory of Lhesh Tariic—begin!”

Keraal let his chain slip down his arms, then whirled it up into a shield of spinning, flashing metal. The clawfoot riders urged their mounts forward with kicks and piercing whistles. They spread out to the sides of the arena as the daggertail lumbered to take a position closer to the center. Its rider prodded at it with his long goad, turning it around so the powerful spiked tail could be brought into play. It looked nervous to Ekhaas. All of the lizards did, in fact. One clawfoot rider even seemed to be struggling with his beast. Keraal shifted a few paces to the left, then back again as if gauging the reactions of his opponents.

Then he moved, sprinting at the nearest clawfoot on his right. The rider whooped and the clawfoot surged into a long leap, thick leg muscles bunching and releasing to send it high. The crowd in the arena gasped in unison and even Keraal looked startled. The lizard’s terrible claws slashed down, but Keraal dived to the ground, throwing himself away in a spray of bloody sand. The clawfoot missed him, instead landing in a heavy crouch. Another clawfoot leaped, forcing Keraal to scramble across the sand on all fours with his chain dragging behind him. The halfling on the daggertail laughed wildly and his mount’s tail slapped the ground—nowhere near Keraal but enough to intimidate even Ekhaas. They were toying with him, she realized, keeping him off-balance and weak. The other pair of clawfoots stalked closer. The first halfling whooped again and his clawfoot leaped—

Keraal flung himself aside once more, but this time as he rolled, he whipped out one end of his chain so that it wrapped around the clawfoot’s leg. In the same moment that the lizard landed, Keraal came up to his knees and jerked back hard on the chain. Pulled off balance, the lizard bleated like a sheep and smashed forward. Its rider swayed in the saddle, momentarily stunned—long enough for Keraal to free his chain with a flick of his wrist, turn, and send the chain arcing at another rider. Halfling and lizard both ducked instinctively, but neither was Keraal’s target. His chain tangled around the shaft of the halfling’s glaive and Keraal yanked it out of his hand. Another fast tumble across the sand and Keraal rose with the weapon in his grasp.

The crowd howled in approval. With a flip and a twist, Keraal wrapped the chain around his torso and gripped the glaive—sized for a halfling but still useable by a hobgoblin—with both hands. Three of the four clawfoot riders were circling him now. It was impossible for Ekhaas to see their expressions behind the bone masks, but they no longer seemed interested in toying with Keraal. The hobgoblin had landed the first blow—the downed clawfoot seemed reluctant to get up in spite of the cajoling and curses of its rider.

Then the three circling clawfoots broke and moved back. Those in the stands saw what was coming and their reaction may well have saved Keraal, who turned and lurched to one side as the daggertail’s spikes came swinging at him. He didn’t quite manage to get out of the way. The point of one spike gashed his chest.

But it also caught in the chain wrapped around him and instead of being thrown back to where the clawfoots waited, he was dragged along with the tail. As the tail curved back, he flew free, rolling across the sand and ending up near the daggertail’s head. The lizard’s rider stared at him for an instant, then started