Page 53

My instincts are on full alert. The demon snaps at my legs, and I counter with my spear, but the creature is too fast. It meets my weapon with its horns and rams me backward. The soles of my sandals burn as they skate across the dirt. My back crashes down onto the ground with a crack.

“Fight! Fight!” the crowd shouts. “Fight!”

The demon’s chains rattle, the only warning before it charges again. I duck this time, sliding underneath it and plunging my spear up through the soft flesh of its neck.

The demon lets out a high-pitched shriek, and I crawl onto my knees, expectant of victory. But the crowd’s not cheering. They’re laughing.

Are they the idiots, or am I?

The demon rears. Worms and beetles and smoke pour out of the hole I’ve made in its neck, but the beast isn’t dying. Using its claws, it pinches the shaft of my spear and slides the weapon out. The wet sound makes my stomach churn.

New, hideous flesh forms over the wound, and the demon raises my spear while releasing an earthshattering battle cry. I’ve made it angry.

I utter every foul word and curse I know and run for the gate, banging my fists against the iron barricade.

The guards think I’m trying to escape, and jab at me with the ends of their swords. “Get back inside. Fight, coward!”

I ignore them, narrowly avoiding their blades as I try to climb the gate. In the distance, Meguh yells a command to the archers. Arrows fly, several landing perilously close to my head.

The warning is clear. If I don’t fight, I die.

But if I fight, I die anyway.

I hang on the gate, taking these seconds of reprieve to think. Only magic can kill a demon, and I’ve no charms, no weapons of enchantment. How do I defeat an opponent that is immortal?

With my blood.

It’s my last resort. It won’t kill the demon, but it’ll certainly stun it.

I glance over my shoulder, wondering why the creature hasn’t come after me yet. People are throwing rocks at it, and my chest goes tight.

Instead of chasing me, the demon picks at its chain with my spear. Its hooves and claws don’t have the dexterity to wield the weapon, and it keeps dropping the spear before it reaches the linked iron. Watching the demon, I feel my terror cool into something unexpected.

Compassion.

I’ve battled my share of demons back on Sundau. I picked a fight with every one I saw.

Let them be, Ukar would say. Not every demon is Angma’s ally. They’re not dangerous if you leave them alone.

Sadly, that isn’t an option here.

My decision’s made, and I pinch my nails into my arm. Pain ripples in a white-hot flash, and I wince as my flesh opens, blood gushing warm against my skin. With one quick sweep, I coat my hands and drop back into the arena.

Hoots and jeers from the crowd alert the demon to my return, and it swivels, rising onto its hind legs. It charges, razor-sharp horns aimed at my guts. My imagination races forward in time, to my future as a carcass swinging from those horns.

I grab a handful of stones and old bones, priming them with poison—then hurl them at the demon.

A stone strikes the demon in the shoulder; the next one gets it in the eye. The effect is immediate. The creature seizes in pain, and I leap onto its back, grabbing my spear.

“Work with me,” I speak into its ear. “We are both captives. Together, we can be free.”

Its red eyes roll all the way back, meeting mine. I cannot read what it’s thinking at all.

“Work with me,” I repeat. I lift my spear just a little. My poison loses potency as my blood dries, and under Shenlani’s wrathful sun, the stains I’ve left on the demon’s fur are already crusty.

Which means, unless my gamble pays off, I’m going to end up a giant smear of red on the arena grounds.

“I will free you,” I promise, “if you will help me kill the queen and take me to Ukar.”