Although Marius kept a close watch on them, the Huntsmen didn't play along with his ruse for long. The first chance they got, the Huntsmen turned on their captives turned captors. They weren't fools about it, though. They made sure they had plenty of support. Now there was a force some one hundred strong escorting them to the capital in chains. To ensure there was no repeat of Shaya's rampage, Dru and Goldie were pulled out and each assigned a special guard with explicit instructions to blow their brains out if there was any trouble.

So, instead of going to Havilah pretending to be prisoners, they were going as actual prisoners. Maybe there was someone out there who could appreciate the irony of the tables being turned and turned again. Toma would've preferred a few less twists and turns to this story.

With trees being scarce, wood was almost unseen in construction. Almost every structure in Ostivar was made of adobe, mostly squat, blocky buildings with sharply pointed arches for the doorways, but Havilah was different. Other towns they passed through along the way might have had walls about three meters high. Here the outer walls were at least six meters high and the watchtowers close to ten. In the center of the city was a citadel with a large keep that was at least three stories high judging from the windows. To think all this was made from mud was rather impressive, though Toma wasn't in much of a mood to appreciate his surroundings.

There wasn't a direct route to the citadel. You had to take this winding road and pass through eight different gates before you entered the main citadel complex. They certainly didn't want to make it easy for any prospective invaders. Even if you could breach the walls, you couldn't move horses or artillery further inward without taking the road and the defenders could fight you every step of the way. Presumably a nation of mercenaries who had overthrown many a city knew how to defend their own.

Once Toma and his companions were inside the citadel, they were lined up in the inner courtyard and made to kneel. Atop the balcony overlooking the courtyard, seven men filed in. Three took up positions on the left, three on the right, while the leader stood just to the left of center. The leader began a loud chant, accompanied by the six others blowing on rams' horns, to herald the arrival of Queen Bulah. The soldiers escorting Toma's group all knelt, yet kept their weapons trained on the prisoners.

Toma remembered Marius calling the Queen 'Bloody Bulah' at one point. He wondered what he was going to see. When the Queen appeared, he found that she was a weather-beaten woman of about sixty with reddish-brown skin and unruly black hair that she didn't bother to bind up in the turban she wore on her head. She was clad in the same dusty brown field dress that all the other regular troops wore with only a cloak to distinguish her from the rank and file.

What followed was an exchange entirely in Ostivari, so Toma couldn't understand a word of it and Dru didn't dare interpret under the circumstances. The officer commanding the unit that brought them here said some things, then the most senior of the surviving Huntsmen, and after that, the Queen asked some questions to Marius directly. As Marius was answering, Toma noted that his voice wasn't as level as it usually was. Either his command of Ostivari was a little shaky or he might actually have been nervous for a change. Nothing seemed to shake the guy, but maybe now they were in a spot so tight even he couldn't wiggle his way out. That didn't bode well for the rest of them.

Although they were supposed to be passing off Marius as the leader, it would seem that Dru couldn't keep quiet any longer. She started appealing to the Queen herself. Marius didn't say anything to intervene, but the officer snapped at her, probably telling her to shut up, know her place, etc., etc. That didn't stop her, though, and when the officer was about to take more direct action to quiet her down, Queen Bulah lazily raised her hand to stop him.

After letting Dru talk a while, the Queen spoke to her, but it sounded like a different language, maybe Zadok. Shaya was put on edge, so that was probably it. Dru responded in kind, prompting the officer to start shouting. Toma was able to catch the word 'Zadok' a few times, so he was probably insisting this was proof they were Zadok spies. Again, the Queen raised her hand to stop him.

Dru started to speak up again, but the Queen barked at her. It would seem that the time for conversation had passed. The Queen crossed her arms and spent some time sizing up the prisoners. Once she had apparently seen enough, she raised her voice to make some pronouncement, then turned and left.

The soldiers got the prisoners back on their feet and started to drag them out of the courtyard. As they were doing so, Duran asked Marius, "What's the story, brother? Good news or bad?"

If by 'sporting' he meant serving as sport for the Ostivari spectators, then he was probably right. If he meant it as them having a decent and fair chance to prove their innocence, he was out of his mind.

Toma may have seen a picture of a theater house or at least read a description of one that was vivid enough to make a picture in his mind. The arena was basically an open-air theater, situated just outside the citadel. Toma couldn't begin to guess how many people it could hold. Hundreds, thousands even.

The prisoners were led in through a side entrance. Inside, Toma noticed plenty of corridors that seemed to lead to cells for holding other people awaiting so-called Ostivari justice. As special guests, they didn't have to wait. They were brought directly to the arena grounds.

It wasn't long before spectators started filing in to fill the stands. Then the Queen and her entourage appeared in the box seats opposite the main gate into the arena grounds. Just as when she appeared in the courtyard, the six trumpeters blew their horns and the one man heralded her arrival. All the spectators were standing and saluted the Queen. She returned the salute and motioned for them to take their seats. She then addressed the crowd. They cheered. She must have promised them quite the show.

There was a large, gruff-looking soldier—gruff-looking even by Ostivari standards—who stepped out in front of Toma's group and started growling something Marius interpreted for the others.

The soldier snapped at Marius, prompting him to retort and earn some sort of grudging concession. He resumed his explanation, allowing for Marius to interpret as he went.

The soldier pointed to Duran.

One of the soldiers guarding them unlocked Duran's chains and then two others escorted him to a rather expansive weapons rack with just about every weapon imaginable. Every melee weapon, that is. There wouldn't be much of a show if you just took a pistol and shot your opponent.

Duran selected a pair of shortswords only a little longer than the knives he used to kill those two thugs in Champlain when they first met. He gauged the weight and made a few strokes in the air to get a better feel for the blades. He took a few measured breaths to ready himself, then followed the soldier's directions to take his place on a reddish pavestone embedded in the ground.

His opponent was a hulking brute of a man dragging along a very heavy-looking maul. When he took his position, he hoisted up the maul and rested it on his shoulder. He didn't carry himself with the sort of poise you'd expect from a professional fighter, leading Toma to believe he was another prisoner. This was soon confirmed by the arena MC's announcement, as interpreted by Marius.

Schwartz gave a derisive snort.

As Duran's match began, Dru spoke up. She was trying to rein it in, but the panic in her voice was clear.

Dropping his folksy accent and speaking rather harshly, Marius told her, "You go out there, you fight, you kill or you die. Remember it's not just your life, Princess. You remember your mission and all those lives counting on your success."

Softening his tone somewhat, he then said, "Look, you get a spear. Gives you reach, lets you keep your distance. You stand sideways like this. Makes you a smaller target. Go for the belly. Nice big, soft target. You stick whoever you're fighting and they won't be fighting much more."

Dru was trembling as she started muttering over and over, "I can't, I can't, I can't..."

Toma felt like he had to do something, not that he thought he could do much good.

He wanted to volunteer himself, but he knew he wasn't that good and he couldn't put Dru's life at risk for the sake of foolish pride.

He spoke to the soldier who explained how the arena worked. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the soldier just guffawed at the request.

Now Toma was worried that because they made such a request, Dru would be pitted against some monster like the one Duran was fighting. Speaking of Duran, it seemed like his goal was to tire out his opponent. He'd bait the brute into swinging that big maul of his and it only took a few swings before his movements started to get sluggish.

Whenever the brute would do a big overhead swing, Duran would use the opening to give him a quick cut or poke. It wasn't doing any serious damage, but each of those wounds bled and the more the brute bled, the slower he got.

After one particularly clumsy swing left the brute unbalanced, Duran got in close and drove one of his swords into the thick folds of brute's neck. This didn't kill him, though, not right off. He elbowed Duran in the ribs, knocking him back, then punched him in the face with a wild haymaker. Duran recovered quickly and stuck his other sword in the brute's side. Still that wasn't enough to stop him. He seized Duran's skull with his meaty hands, but whatever he meant to do next, he didn't get the chance. Duran grabbed the shortsword that was still sticking in the brute's neck and tore it free. For all his bullish strength, there wasn't much the brute could do after that except keel over while spraying blood everywhere.

Though still a little unsteady on his feet, Duran held up his bloody sword to the cheers of the crowd. It didn't matter that he was accused of being a spy for Zadok. He gave them blood and that's what they wanted. When the soldiers came for him, he surrendered his sword, but he wasn't put back in chains. Instead he was set apart from the rest of the group.

Though still rattled, Dru had enough presence of mind to say, "How can you make jokes at a time like this, Mr. Marius?"

His words were about to be put to the test because he was the next one called.

He was then led to the weapons rack, where he made the curious choice of a pair of steel gauntlets. He then made his way over to his position. He pounded his fists together and pumped his arms to appeal to the crowd. As he hadn't yet proven himself—and because he was a suspected spy—, the bid failed and only earned him boos. His opponent was a flamboyant-looking dandy armed with a whip. When he took up his position, he cracked his whip with theatrical flourishes to the cheers of the crowd.

Perhaps to take her mind off her near-paralyzing fear, Dru interpreted the MC's announcement as Marius was otherwise occupied.

Dru managed a bit of a bitter laugh.

The horn blew and the match began. The Tamer made some more dramatic snaps of his whip, as much to play to the crowd as to make his opponent flinch. Only Marius didn't budge. He just beckoned the Tamer to come on. The Tamer cracked his whip again, closer to Marius this time, kicking up dust on either side of him, but they were deliberate feints and Marius saw right through it. Normally it doesn't matter how brave or strong you are. The sound of a whip cracking will make you flinch. The Tamer probably relied on that, shaking his opponent to make an opening for attack, but Marius didn't give him that opening.

With little other choice, the Tamer attacked Marius directly, but Marius was able to hold up his arm and block the whip's stroke. The whip was coiled around Marius' arm and this was where the Tamer might yank his opponent off his feet, but not Marius. Instead of the Tamer yanking Marius off his feet, Marius yanked the whip right out of the Tamer's hand. If it weren't humiliating enough to be so easily disarmed, the Tamer was then subjected to having his weapon turned against him.

What was so chilling was how dispassionate Marius went about it. There was a steady beat to each stroke. His pace neither quickened nor slowed. The whip's bite cut through the Tamer's clothes and skin and when he fell to the ground, the flogging continued without pause. It was like he was nothing more than an animal being slowly beaten to death.

Struggling, the Tamer held up both hands in the sign for surrender. Marius stopped and looked to the crowd, signaling to them with an open hand and a closed fist. The crowd overwhelmingly responded with a closed fist. Marius tossed the Tamer's whip aside and put those gauntlets to use. The Tamer's pleas fell on deaf ears.

First Marius picked him up and gave him a hard punch to the gut. He had the foresight to have the Tamer's body turned away from him so he didn't get covered in the man's vomit. He gave him a couple more punches for good measure before letting him collapse to the ground. He then straddled the Tamer's body and pounded away at his face. Unlike Shaya that one time, he didn't drag it out too long, but there wasn't much face left when he was done. He stood up and as he had done at the start of the match, he pounded his fists together and pumped his arms in the air. This time, instead of boos, he was met with cheers. He gave the crowd what they wanted and he got his reward.

He was then brought over to where Duran was and the two men embraced. Two down, seven more to go. Wouldn't you know it? Toma was next.

If there was anything else he was going to say, he didn't say it. Same for her.

When he got to the weapons rack, he thought carefully about his choice Though he had mostly relied on his sword bayonet since leaving LeBlanc, all of his militia training was with spears. He chose a polearm with a head that would be good for cutting and stabbing, not too heavy but with enough weight that his blows would have an impact.

When he got into position, he didn't make any attempt to appeal to the crowd. He wasn't there to give them a show. He was there to survive. That was it.

His opponent appeared to be another professional, a lanky bald man with tattoos on his face. He had a tomahawk in each hand and another two in his belt. Toma almost wanted to complain that his opponent had an unfair advantage with four weapons to Toma's one. He got in a ready stance as the horn blew. His opponent was going to have to get in close, unless he just threw those damn tomahawks. And that was exactly what he did. Toma dodged the first one easily enough, but on the second, his opponent tried to fake him out so that he would dodge into the path of the tomahawk. Toma almost fell for it.

His opponent drew his extra set of tomahawks and started to move in. He wasn't dumb enough to just blindly charge in. He tried feinting to bait Toma into attacking, but Toma wasn't going to attack until he was damn sure it'd connect. All it would take one miss from him and he'd end up with a tomahawk in his forehead.

Because he couldn't get Toma to make a move, his opponent decided to have a go at him. Toma was able to sidestep the charge and slash him across the chest. The hatchet man tried swinging at Toma's head, but Toma was able to dodge and crack him in the ribs with the butt of his polearm. Toma didn't press his advantage but instead put some distance between them.

As they squared off again, the hatchet man started hyperventilating. It wasn't from panic, though. He was whipping himself into a frenzy. Maybe he thought that because Toma was staying on the defensive, he just needed to go all-out and overwhelm him.

With a shrieking warcry, the hatchet man sprang forward and bathed Toma in a flurry of swings. Toma kept giving ground to avoid the tomahawks, but once he hit a wall, it would be over. He remembered the last time he sparred with Dino and the cheap shot he used after Dino nearly knocked his teeth out. He brought the blade of his polearm down them up with a sharp motion, catching the hatchet man between the legs. He shrieked for an entirely different reason this time and dropped his tomahawks.

Toma drew out the blade and stabbed him in the gut, pushing forward until he ran the hatchet man into the ground. Rather than leave him to slowly die of the gut wound, Toma pulled out the blade once more and finished him off with a stab to the chest. When it was clear that the hatchet man was dead, Toma threw down his weapon in contempt and waited for the soldiers to escort him to Marius and Duran.

The two of them welcomed him with a hearty pat on the shoulder.

Toma glanced at the cheering crowd and muttered, "These bastards got their blood. It's all they care about, right?"

Toma had his doubts about the effectiveness of prayer, but Dru's bizarre luck made it hard to believe it was much anything short of divine intervention.

The longer it took for Dru's turn to come up was probably just delaying the inevitable, but Toma didn't want to see her fighting for her life and very likely getting killed for it. The others at least had a chance, even Goldie if he would man up for a change, but except for that one time in Adom, Dru had never killed before. It was one thing to do a desperate act of self-defense and quite another to be pitted against an equally desperate prisoner condemned to die or someone who fights and kills for sport.

It would seem that the Ostivaris didn't like falling action in their show, so the more capable contenders who remained would be held for later as the woefully ill-equipped Dru and Goldie were selected for a two-on-two match. Dru followed Marius advice and chose a light medium-length spear as her weapon while Goldie chose a thin thrusting sword with a basket hilt.

As they were led to their position, their opponents appeared, a boy and a girl about the same age as them. They were professional fighters and clearly they enjoyed their work as they were enthusiastically playing up to the crowd. Marius interpreted the MC's announcement for Toma.

Toma didn't bother asking what they called his opponent. What did it matter?

Toma wasn't so sure about that, but Marius was right about the soldiers. Four on either side of them and twice as many over with the others, to say nothing of all the riflemen positioned in the stands and the bodyguards in the Queen's box. Dru and Goldie's only shot at survival was by winning this match.

The horn blew. Goldie assumed a well-practiced fighting stance, probably better suited to sport duels than a real fight. Dru held her spear uncertainly while the Dancer twirled her curved sword in a flashy display. Though the two siblings were originally set against their opponents of the same sex, they switched positions so spear could go against spear and sword against sword.

The Fisher's fork didn't have quite as much reach as Dru's spear, but thirty or forty senches weren't going to make that much difference in such a lopsided fight. The Fisher shouted to shake her and laughed when she flinched. She made some feeble jabs toward him off, but he was already out of reach and didn't need to move. His sister was similarly toying with Goldie, tapping at his sword as she pranced about.

If it meant they screwed up, Toma very much wanted them to continue playing with their food. The pair's overconfidence was perhaps the only thing Dru and Goldie had going in their favor.

The two fighters were steadily driving Dru and Goldie apart. Their chances weren't much better together, but separated they stood no chance at all. The Fisher planted his fork in the ground and went after Dru with just his net. When Dru made a clumsy thrust at him, he grabbed her spear and yanked it out of her hands. She was pretty much helpless with the spear and without it she may as well have been a newborn kitten. The Fisher then caught her in his net and gave it a sharp tug to sweep her off her feet. He proceeded to slowly reel her in. He didn't need to hurry. He took up his fork and raised it to get some cheers from the crowd. Surely he wasn't going to make this quick. Goldie was too busy with the Dancer to even notice.

By the time Toma realized what he was doing, he had tackled the Fisher to the ground and now that he'd started the fight, he was going to have to finish it. The two of them grappled around to little effect. Toma wasn't much of a wrestler, but neither was the Fisher, so neither one of them was able to get an advantage over the other. The Fisher managed to get his leg in between them, though, and he kicked Toma away. He got back on his feet and went at Toma, but unfortunately for him, Toma landed right by his fork. He snatched it up and was able to stick the Fisher right in the gut. The Fisher hung there stunned for a moment, but then he madly tried to make another go at it, only succeeding in driving the fork in further. It must have hit something important, because the fight went right out of him. He staggered back, his legs buckling under him and laying him out.

It was the Dancer. Apparently she turned her attention from Goldie long enough to see what Toma did to her brother. Needless to say, she didn't take it well. She charged screaming furiously at Toma. There was no more dancing or playing around from her, no art or finesse to her movements, just the wild swings of a person blinded by rage. For some people, they were their most dangerous when they got like that, but for her, it just made her sloppy. She wasn't used to swinging her sword so wildly or with so much strength, so she was off-balance and not giving herself the chance to properly recover. Toma wasn't going to let the opportunity go to waste.

While she was unbalanced, Toma grabbed the wrist of her swordarm, then got behind her, trapping her other arm and seizing her by the hair. She cried out from this but didn't let it stop her. She tried wriggling her swordarm loose while tripping up Toma with her legs, but it wasn't working. She was at too much of a disadvantage. This was good for her, whether she realized it or not, if only she'd listen to reason.

Toma shouted to Dru, "Tell her to surrender! Tell her to drop the sword and I won't hurt her!"

Still caught up in the Fisher's net, Dru translated into Ostivari. It sounded like she added some extra while she was at it.

The Dancer tried struggling a little more, but when that didn't get her anywhere, she settled down. She let the tension go out of her body, but she didn't let go of her sword and Toma wasn't about to release her until she did.

Just as Dru started to speak, Toma felt the muscles in the girl's back tighten and in a sudden, sharp motion, she jerked up her swordarm and slashed open her own neck.

Her body went limp and a panicked Toma set her down on the ground. For all the good it would do, he tried staunching the bleeding, but the Dancer used her fading strength to fight him off. Even without her interference, there was no saving her. This wasn't what he wanted.

There was the crack of a rifle shot. Actually, there were a lot of shots going off. In the back of his mind, he realized that there may have been people shooting from the moment he went after the Fisher. His first move was to shield Dru as best he could, but then he saw Goldie standing around like an idiot. Did he not even have the sense to get on the ground when people were shooting at him?

A bullet tore through Goldie's sleeve.

The realization took a moment to sink in and the moment it did, he started screaming. He still didn't have the sense to get down, though. Staying low, Toma hurried over to him and pulled him to the ground.

Toma tore open Goldie's sleeve to get a better look at the wound. The bullet only grazed the meat of his arm. He'd probably need stitches, sure, but it wasn't going to kill him.

Goldie was too busy moaning and whining to listen to Toma, so Dru went over to tend to him. Toma stayed close to her and held her head down.

He was looking around for some sort of cover. If they went for the walls, that'd just bring them closer to the riflemen in the stands. Out in the center of the arena might possibly be the safest place for them as they were the furthest away from anyone shooting at them.

Marius and Duran had fought off the soldiers around them and each one was holding up a soldier as a human shield. Over on the other side, things were more chaotic. Shaya was fighting through the soldiers on one side while Elon, Molly and Crescenza were tangling with the other. There was no way this was going to end well for them.

There was a loud boom and the ground exploded not far from where Toma, Dru and Goldie were. This was enough to quiet things down, relatively speaking. Through the cloud of dust that had been kicked up, Toma saw that two cannons had been rolled up to the Queen's box. The one that fired was being reloaded while the gunners were taking aim with the other.

Queen Bulah shouted angrily. The riflemen in the stands pointed the muzzles of their weapons up, basically holding their rifles in the position of port arms Toma learned in the militia drills. Marius and Duran both released their human shields and Marius shouted in Adomite, apparently to get Shaya to stop. Dru added her voice as well. This seemed to be enough to get her to stop beating on the soldiers and for the other three to break up their fight as well.

As things remained more or less quiet, the Queen's voice carried quite clearly as she resumed her shouting.

Toma felt his stomach churn. There was no weighing his life against eight others.

Reluctantly, Dru stood up and addressed the Queen. There was a trace of a grin on the Queen's face when she replied.

The gates opened and a good company's worth of soldiers poured out. They fanned out all around the arena and with fixed bayonets they marched the others toward the center. The ring of soldiers steadily closed in as the group was reunited.

When Dru explained it to Shaya, she responded with a similar objection, Toma was sure.

Marius bowed to the Queen and started speaking to her. As he did, Dru interpreted for the others.

The Queen replied.

Marius spoke again.

Toma shook his head.

Dru seemed just as confused as Toma.

Normally you would expect it to take time to digest a revelation like this, but Toma didn't spend any time questioning or doubting what they said. Instead, he just exploded then and there, like a bomb with a too-short fuse.

He was so furious that he wasn't thinking about what he was doing. Marius let him get a few hits in before taking charge of the situation and wrestling him to the ground. Much like the time he subdued Molly when he joined their group, there wasn't much Toma could do when Marius had him pinned down. All the shouting, cursing, kicking and flailing in the world couldn't help him.

The Queen spoke again and while Marius was busy holding down Toma, he replied. Whatever he said made her laugh. This was enough to snap Toma out of his rage.

It was Queen Bulah. Watching the scene before her with an amused smile on her face, she then said, "It is clear enough that you are no spies of Zadok. They do not have the good humor to deliver such a comedy to my doorstep. Come, I have had my fill of blood for one day."

She then shouted in Ostivari and the horns sounded. The crowd rose and saluted as the Queen departed, then began to file out of the stands just as quickly and efficiently as they had filled them. The soldiers surrounding them all shouldered their weapons and with a command from their officer, they formed up in two files on either side of them.

Somehow, Toma felt he would be better off dead.