Alien Chronicles 2 - The Crimson Claw (20 page)

“He is a foolish male indeed,” Ampris said, thinking of all that could go wrong. “What if—”

“Hey. Don’t get your fur in a twist,” Elrabin said, giving her a soothing pat. “It ain’t your problem if he wins or loses.”

“But if I fail—after all, Ylea and I have never fought with the parvallehs in a paired fight before.” She drew in a nervous breath, her ears flattening to her skull. “Why does he want to try something new and unpracticed at such a time?”

“It’s called gambling,” Elrabin said, flinging her cloak around her shoulders and twisting the catch. “You don’t risk on the tried and true. You risk on the
risk,
see?”

“No, I do not see.”

“It ain’t your problem.” Elrabin stepped back from her and looked her over with approval. “If you win, our owner and trainer both get fat pockets. If you lose, they don’t. Why should you care? You still get fed, either way.”

“I could lose my head if I fail,” she muttered, wishing Elrabin hadn’t told her about this. “Halehl told me the first day he would sell me if I don’t win. Now, with so much at stake—”

“Goldie, Goldie, don’t you ever learn?” Elrabin came over and gave her an affectionate rub between her ears. “He bet half a million credits on you for your very first fight. At three-to-one odds. He tripled his money the first day of the season. You’ve already paid for his expenses on the whole team.”

“Oh.”

She digested that, her head spinning at the amounts Elrabin was throwing around. Truly the Viis were mad, all of them.

The guards threw open the door and looked in. “Time.”

Her heart started racing and she forgot about the bet. Elrabin struggled to pick up the case containing her parvalleh.

Behind them on the wall, the vid chimed an announcement. Ampris glanced at the screen and saw that all betting had been closed on her fight. She took a deep breath, trying to rally her courage and calm her nerves. It was time to concentrate on her business, on the fight to come, on
surviving
it.

“Good victory, Goldie,” Elrabin whispered, following the ritual he always did.

Ampris touched the clear stone of her Eye of Clarity and made her own swift prayers. Then, with head high and gaze straight ahead, she strode out through the crowd that surged to get at her past the guards struggling to hold them back. Like a queen she walked through the jostling, the yelling, and the blazing lights of the vidcams.

CHAPTER
•NINE

In the starting gate, Ampris and Elrabin found Ylea and Ruar already waiting for them.

Ylea, towering massively over everyone else, was pacing back and forth, snarling and clanking the stout chain that hung from her harness.

Halehl appeared, distinctive in his blue and black striped cloak, his rill standing stiff behind his head. With his own hands he chained them together, Ylea on the left and Ampris on the right, testing every link until he appeared satisfied, then shortening the length by half.

Ylea pulled away, snarling in protest. Her eyes blazed with madness. Foam dripped from the corners of her mouth. “No,” she said gutturally, pulling on the chain. “No!”

“We can’t maneuver this close,” Ampris said, bracing herself against Ylea’s tugs. Ylea was normally hyped for combat, but right now she looked completely out of her mind. Seeing her like this, Ampris felt a finger of fear slide up her spine.

“Please, Master Halehl,” Ampris said. “We need enough room to swing properly.”

“You will attack first,” Halehl said to them. “No matter what it takes, whether you are set to go or not. You
must
attack first. A secondary bet is riding on that. Do you understand?”

Ylea growled and snorted, flecks of spittle flying.

Ampris nodded in resignation. “Yes, Master Halehl.”

“Your opponents are Samparese—”

Ylea leaned back on the chain, snapping it taut, and roared loudly enough to shake the gate panels. The handlers perching on top of the fence drew up their dangling legs in sudden caution.

Ampris filed the information away. Samparese—a race used only in the arena—were tough opponents, nearly as big as Ylea, lithe, fluid, quick, utterly fearless, and nearly impossible to kill. Long-bodied with wedge-shaped heads atop muscular, sinuous necks, they had blunt, bewhiskered muzzles and razor-sharp fangs. But they did not work together well when paired, and that had to be an important advantage.

Unless, Ampris thought with a shiver, that advantage was balanced against the fact that she and Ylea did not work well when paired either.

When Ruar bent to open the battered case containing Ylea’s parvalleh, she knocked him sprawling and bent to grab it up herself. Brandishing it in her left hand, she roared and struck the gate panel with it, sending splinters flying.

“Ylea,” Halehl said in warning. “Save yourself for the arena. You will go in soon.”

Ylea roared again, but she stopped swinging the parvalleh.

Watching her act like this, Ampris felt her heart plummet to her feet. She did not think Ylea was going to be able to focus.

A beeping noise from overhead made them all look up. A wide disk-shaped qualifier scanner was floating above them, a red light flashing on its undercarriage.

Elrabin scuttled to one side and flattened himself against the gate panels in an unobtrusive corner. Ruar did the same on the other side. Halehl remained where he was, one hand resting lightly on the taut chain stretched between Ampris and Ylea. None of them moved until the scan was finished.

A yellow light flashed on, replacing the red, and the scanner hummed away.

Halehl flicked out his tongue and glanced at Ampris in visible relief. “Excellent. Now, both of you, listen to me.”

He was finishing his instructions when Elrabin darted up beside Ampris. While Halehl went on talking, smoothly stepping between Ampris and the surveillance cam mounted over the gate, Elrabin popped a boost globe into Ampris’s mouth.

For a moment the oily, slick surface of the globe slid across her tongue, then she bit it, and its sweetly sour contents splashed through her mouth in an intense burst of flavor.

A second later, her head grew marvelously clear and her senses heightened. She seemed to grow taller and stronger. All of her reflexes speeded up, and she seemed to notice everything at once with the greatest clarity.

Elrabin whisked her cloak from her shoulders and stepped away. Halehl’s eyes flashed at him in approval.

Ylea was slipped her boost globe, and soon her eyes were clear and surprisingly rational again. She stopped tugging on the chain like something demented and wiped the foam from her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Let’s go kill,” she said.

Ampris gave her a wary nod, hoping that in Ylea’s case the boost lasted. Sometimes it wore off too soon.

In the arena, the crowd was stamping on the benches, cheering and yelling in a swell of noise that drowned everything else out. At first it was just a roar, but then Ampris could hear a single word chanted over and over: “Ampris! Crimson Claw! Ampris!”

Ylea heard it too, and her ears went flat to her skull. Her eyes met those of Ampris, and sheer meanness raged in their depths.

The gate opened, but as they started out, Elrabin darted past Halehl and gripped Ampris by her harness. “Watch her,” he said breathlessly, his eyes wide with concern. “She’s going to turn on you.”

There was no time to react. Ampris kept going, matching Ylea’s eager stride, and Elrabin was dragged back and shut behind the closing gate.

They jogged through the shimmering barrier field that enclosed the interior of the arena. It blocked the signals to their restraint collars, or was supposed to. The arena officials kept trying to stop trainers from cheating, and the trainers kept thinking up ways around them.

Ylea’s steady growling swelled into a roar. Ampris’s own instincts fired up as well. She roared with Ylea, and the fearsome sound of two female Aarouns in battle cry reached above the cheering and silenced the crowd.

Ampris and Ylea broke into a run toward the center of the arena. As they came into view of the entire crowd, fresh cheering broke out, swelling as the spectators saw their weapons.

The Samparese females were not allowed to enter the arena until Ampris and Ylea reached the center.

“Go,” Ylea grunted, her gaze locked on their opponents.

Instead of stopping in the center of the arena and waiting for the Samparese to come to them, they kept running forward, straight at the other pair.

After a moment, the Samparese seemed to realize what was happening. One tried to bound forward. The other seemed to want to circle. Snarling and spitting at each other in argument, they drew their glaudoons and faced Ampris and Ylea.

Ampris snarled in joy. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of Halehl’s soft voice murmuring to her from her collar. She knew then that while her restraint might be blocked, the secret communication feed still operated. Halehl was speaking the conditioning words, firing her blood, arousing her battle instincts, making her lust for blood.

Holding her parvalleh in her left hand, Ylea drew her dagger and gripped it in her right fist. They were running full tilt now. Ampris kept the pace easily, but knew that if Ylea did not slow down soon she would be spent before the battle started.

Then they met, the Aarouns’ greater momentum crashing them into the Samparese.

In well-trained unison, Ampris and Ylea swung their parvallehs back and forward. The lights reflected off the broad heads of the war hammers, making them glint and shine.

First blood for her weapon, Ampris thought.
“Saa-vel harh!”
she screamed, uttering the war cry she had learned at Bizsi Mo’ad.

Glaudoon steel crashed upon parvalleh iron, sending up an echoing clang that made the crowd gasp and rise. The Samparese, neither set nor braced for such a swift attack, stumbled back. One of them skidded off balance and nearly fell.

Ylea screamed and swarmed over her, pulling Ampris aside before she could finish a blow that would have crushed her opponent’s skull.

Furious, Ampris twisted in midair, gripping the chain that hampered her. She barely kept herself from landing on a Samparese dagger, and parried it with the broad side of her parvalleh.

Ylea was yelling curses as she was driven back, dragging Ampris with her. Drawing her dagger and finding both Samparese females close and furious now, Ampris went to work in feverish hand-to-hand fighting.

Blood splattered. Ampris, parrying and striking for all she was worth, had no idea who it belonged to; for all she knew, it might have been hers. Jabbing with the dagger in her left hand, she spun on her inside heel and swung the parvalleh around.

The Samparese opposite her, white-furred with beautiful patterns of black stripes, snarled something, blocking the swing of the parvalleh with her glaudoon.

Ylea twisted and jumped to one side, pulling Ampris off balance again. A Samparese dagger whistled a bare centimeter past Ampris’s arm. Furious, she snarled at Ylea, but Ylea only glanced at her and laughed.

The madness had returned to the big Aaroun’s eyes, and Ampris knew then that Elrabin’s warning was right. It was the last fight of the season, and Ylea meant to get rid of Ampris here and now.

Ampris told herself that there had to be a way to get through to Ylea, to convince her they were on the same side. They were both Aarouns; they should not be enemies. Perhaps during off-season, when they weren’t under constant training pressure, she and Ylea could talk, could maybe find some common ground.

But in the meantime, if she didn’t watch both Ylea and the Samparese, between them she was going to be dead meat.

Ampris ducked low beneath her chain, spinning around and this time yanking Ylea off balance. Yelling her battle cry, Ampris swung her parvalleh low and straight, clipping her Samparese in the legs.

She heard the snap of bones, and the Samparese’s scream. Blood spurted in a high, crimson arc, and the Samparese went down in a crashing fall that pulled her partner down with her.

Ampris surged to her feet, pulling Ylea back into position with her. Now it was Ylea’s turn, the remaining opponent sprawling awkwardly with her glaudoon flailing as she tried to right herself. Ampris had served Ylea with an easy kill, like an offering of peace, the best gift she could think of for the veteran Aaroun.

Ylea roared and cracked open the wedge-shaped skull of the Samparese with her parvalleh. Lifting her war hammer aloft, she roared again.

It was over. Breathless, panting hard, Ampris sheathed her dagger and stood there next to her partner over their fallen opponents while she lifted her voice to roar in victory with Ylea.

Together they lifted their parvallehs, handling the heavy weapons as though they weighed nothing. The crowd threw coins and flowers at them, screaming accolades. Lights flashed across the top of the arena, filling the upper stands with dazzling arrays of color. Banners of blue waved here and there among the spectators. Some were leaping in the air, clutching their betting tickets like creatures gone mad.

“Crimson Claw! Crimson Claw!” the chant began, with the spectators stamping on their benches in unison.

Still panting hard, alight with triumph, Ampris stood side by side with Ylea and grinned at her. “It’s over,” she said. “We did it. We’re going to—”

Ylea’s eyes narrowed to slits. Twisting her large bulk with more agility than Ampris could have expected, she leaned close and plunged her dagger deep into Ampris’s side.

The pain took away Ampris’s breath. She could not move, could not cry out, could not even gasp. Her whole existence seemed frozen, held suspended on the blade of that dagger driven into her body. It felt immense, larger than anything she could imagine. The shock of it drove everything from her mind. She could not think, could not feel. Everything within her became the dagger in her side. She heard the thud of her parvalleh’s landing beside her feet, and only then realized she had dropped it.

Snarling, Ylea parted her jaws. “Yeah, it be over
now,”
she said. “Fancy hide, fancy moves. You got too fancy with Samparese, and Samparese dagger got you. So will I say when the master questions me.”