Salute the Dark

His life had become a kind of waking dream. They took him from place to place, caged like an animal, and whenever they halted, he fought and killed. He had ceased to care what they put before him, save that, whatever it was, they had not found the thing to beat Tisamon yet.

Beyond the walls’ ten-foot barrier, ranks of seats rose steeply on all sides. Mostly there were simple benches, but at one end there was something grander, a cloth-roofed pavilion furnished with wooden chairs for honoured guests. He wondered how many were watching today, the Wasp-kinden and their favoured servants and slaves. More than last time, certainly, and last time there had been hundreds.

The arena was bigger than last time, too, and stonewalled rather than roughly-hewn wood. He decided he had not been here before.

There was a constant murmur of anticipation around him, as if they had never seen a Mantis-kinden fight before. He stood halfway towards the centre, the sand around him already crusted and stained with the memory of some previous fight, and waited there for his opponent. His metal claw flexed slightly, as though of its own accord.

The gate opposite him, built of wood studded and reinforced with iron, ground upwards, and he caught sight of a flicker of movement in the gap below. He instantly dropped into his fighting stance, claw drawn back across his body and folded ready along his forearm.

Out of the gate came a beetle, but of no kind he knew. It was a long, lean creature, twelve feet from head to tail and supported high off the ground on its slender legs. It moved fast, rushing out from the darkness and halting immediately across from him, the same distance from the centre as he was. Its green carapace was dappled with white and gold, and it had huge eyes and mandibles like scythe-blades. The crowd picked up. They knew this beast or its type, and were in favour of it.

If only Stenwold’s kind had taken their Art from this thing, rather than the plodding soil-rollers, Tisamon thought wryly. The beetle was regarding him with a keen awareness that most mere animals had no right to. He was not surprised, though, for the mantids of his own homeland could think and reason, and outwit the men that came to hunt them. So why not this splendid, predatory specimen?

Abruptly it rushed him, from motionless to full charge without a break, and the crowd roared it on hugely. Tisamon leapt high, seeing the scimitar mandibles clash together beneath him, got one foot on the insect’s thorax and kicked off, skidding a little on the sand behind it but knowing it would have already turned to follow him. Even before looking round he had lashed back at it, but there was no contact. The beetle had reared back onto four legs, threatening him now with its hooked foreclaws. Tisamon backed up, a slight smile appearing on his face, while the huge, glittering eyes regarded him intently as it sank back down. For a moment they paced each other, Tisamon circling, and the beetle retreating or advancing, but always facing each other head on.

It made a second charge, as swift as the first, and again he hurled himself out of the way. His blade swung back to bite into the armour of its carapace, leaving a shallow cut along its wing case. The crowd howled, so he knew that the beetle was right behind him, turning itself faster than he had thought. He could not hope to outrun it, so he threw himself up and back. The point of one mandible snagged his shirt briefly, and he drove his claw down into its thorax.

The tip of it dug in, then skittered out again across its armour, and he fell onto the creature’s back and rolled off instantly, a second hasty swing cutting across one of its mid-legs. It rounded on him yet again.

They understood one another. He had fought so many other men and women on his way to this place. There had never been this same connection. The mottlings of its carapace were the scars of old battles, he knew. They understood one another.

As it rushed him with jaws gaping, he let his feet skid out from under him, saw the shadow of that lethal head pass over him, claws on all sides of him scrabbling to stop its charge. Without hesitation he drove his blade up into its thorax, between the roots of its legs, drove it in right up to the wrist.

When the beast was finally dead, Tisamon knelt beside it for a moment, laid a hand on its stilled head, within the arc of those great jaws. Then he stood up again and let them take him away. The crowd were now shouting deliriously for him, just as they had been shouting for the creature he had slain.

Capitas. He came out of his waking dream just enough to recollect the destination he had reached. I am in Capitas, the heart of the Empire – and with a drawn blade.