Red Sister

‘…’

‘I don’t care what he wants.’ Sister Tallow made to turn away but a tall figure closed on her. Partnis Reeve, reaching out for her arm before thinking better of it and withdrawing his hand as she stared at it.

‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, sister, but he’s not some street-show villain! He’s the heir to one of Empire’s oldest families, for Ancestor’s sake! A refined young man of considerable education …’

‘…’ Now Sister Tallow’s voice fell to a mutter.

And Partnis’s rose in response. ‘Many young men have … appetites. Such lapses are unfortunate but—’

Sister Tallow stepped backwards into the room and shut the door in Partnis’s face.

‘Are you fit to travel, Nona? We’re going back.’

Nona slipped from the table. The sound, the smell of the place, both of them filled her head with images – Raymel Tacsis in the ring, seen through an attic slit, bathed in the many-tongued voice of the crowd, Raymel Tacsis on his knees, blood spurting from the lacerations to his neck, Saida on the ground, her arm at broken angles, Raymel Tacsis watching from a crimson eye, black fingers running beneath the skin of his neck. She shook her head to clear the visions. ‘I want to fight.’

‘Sister Rock says you took quite a blow to the head. There’s no shame in leaving now.’ Sister Tallow crossed the room to stand above Nona. She took Nona’s chin and angled her face, eyes narrowed in inspection.

‘I feel better.’ It wasn’t a lie. She did feel better. Not good, but better.

‘Your opponent is ready,’ Sister Tallow said. ‘There’s much you could learn from him, but they would be rough lessons and perhaps you’ve been taught enough today.’

‘I’ll fight.’

Sister Tallow chewed her cheek, frowned, then released Nona’s chin. ‘The world is a dangerous place. We do you no favours if we hide your weakness from you. You can fight.’ She turned and walked towards the doorway.

Nona followed.

Not since she felled Raymel Tacsis had Nona been up close with someone as massive as Denam. The apprentice seemed to fill half the ring and she had to crane her neck to look up at his face.

‘I’m going to snap you in two, little girl.’ Denam curled his lip. He had the arms to do it too, without effort. He’d grown, if anything, less handsome, over the two years, and he hadn’t been pleasing to look on in the first place. His face, reddened in anger, sported a nasty collection of pustules, and the beginnings of a sparse ginger beard. More spots had broken out along his arms and his back was thick with them.

‘You shouldn’t oil your muscles.’ Clera from just behind Nona’s corner. ‘It’s bad for your skin!’ Nona had to put a hand to her mouth to hide a grin as Denam’s face contorted in rage.

Raymel Tacsis had moved closer to the ring, towering above the merchants and lords he now stood among. In all the crowd only one man seemed prepared to stand beside Raymel and an empty area had opened around the pair of them despite the press of people. The other man stood skeletally thin in a robe of sky-blue silk, his head small upon the long column of his neck, eyes pale, dark hair scraped across his head in long thinning locks. He seemed more interested in Raymel than in the fight, constantly glancing at the giant to his left.

For his part, Raymel kept his gaze on Nona. His left eye had no white or iris, just a black pupil surrounded by scarlet. Nona could almost imagine something inhuman watched her through it. The right eye was all Raymel though, blue and full of malice.

‘Fight!’

At the fight-master’s shout Nona rushed forward. Denam moved like a stone sinking in thickest honey, barely flinching before Nona delivered her kick to his belly. She might as well have kicked a wall. She spun beneath a huge and questing hand to land a series of punches to the nerve centres of the major muscles in his right thigh, following with a vicious kick to the back of his knee. The gerant reacted with such sloth that Nona stayed to drive three more punches into the most vulnerable areas of his left leg, blows that should leave the big muscle of the thigh dead and useless for the best part of an hour. Finally she skipped away from a lumbering swing of his arm.

‘Even Regol can hit harder than that.’ Nona had expected Denam to collapse but he came on unhindered and she had to dive aside to avoid the wide spread of his arms.

Spinning beneath his guard again, she focused an attack on his right leg, hitting hard enough to hurt her hands, but the thick slabs of muscle seemed impervious. She kicked at his kneecap with all her strength and leapt away from another attempt to seize her.

Nona stood back, catching her breath. Denam weighed at least four times what she did and she lacked the physical strength to hurt him. Punches that would floor another novice he hardly noticed.

‘You’re not the first hunska I’ve fought, holy girl.’

Nona pursed her lips and came forward again, weaving around the hands grasping for her. Denam kept his legs tight, wise to the groin strike from her previous fights. Even so, Nona hammered a trio of punches into the fullest-looking part of Denam’s loincloth then rolled away. The gerant’s roar joined, and temporarily drowned out that of the crowd, his face shaded more deeply crimson than seemed possible without actually bleeding … but he came on undeterred.

Nona kept at it, dancing around Denam’s clumsy lunges, peppering the lower part of his body with her best punches and kicks. But it gained her no advantage and she felt the slow but inexorable rise of exhaustion. No hunska can dance between the moments for too long before their body fails, and Nona had already had a trying day.

Even as she ducked and wove Raymel Tacsis occupied the corner of her eye. At each break when she won clear and waited for Denam to catch up she risked glances towards her enemy. He wore an ugly smile now, anticipating the moment when her resources would be so drained as to allow Denam to snag her. The Noi-Guin assassins and corrupting the Ancestor’s high priest must have lightened even the Tacsis purse, but how much had it cost to have Denam swear to break her back when he caught her, or put out her eyes with his thick fingers? A sovereign? Nona wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was pennies, or perhaps just the cost of a polite request.

Another round of bouncing from the ropes, from one corner to the next. Nona felt herself slowing. Even Denam, crimson and sweat-soaked, seemed to be running out of rage-fuelled energy. Still, in the tight confines of the ring she had little doubt that the gerant would eventually catch her – unless his heart exploded.

The general roar of a hundred voices converged now on a singular cycle of oooohs and aaaaahs, like the watchers of a ball game, as Nona escaped Denam’s outstretched fingers by ever narrower margins.

‘Enjoy your running!’ Raymel’s shout reached her through a lull in the crowd’s voice. He’d moved closer, only a few yards from the ropes now. ‘You won’t be doing any more after today.’

The taunt stopped Nona dead, right in Denam’s path. Her eyes flickered from Denam to Raymel. The man had killed Saida as surely as if he had throttled her himself. And here he stood in his riches, waiting for his hireling to maim her. Common sense told Nona to slip from the ring, retreat to the convent’s safety. But a red anger rose in her, drowning out the voice of reason.