City Of Ruin Read Free Page B

were into the auditorium, a wide circle of stone seating stepping down to an arena in the centre, where there was a roped-off square about forty paces along each side. Pillars clearly separated the two rival tiers of spectators chanting and whistling, maybe four or five hundred of them already, and filling up quickly. Dozens of urns raised on pedestals burned violently with some kind of liquid fire, casting a surprisingly strong light, all the way down here beneath the city.
    Brynd looked on in disbelief. ‘Is this sort of thing legal?’
    ‘You soldiers!’ the fat portreeve laughed. ‘Always sticklers for the law. Lutto can assure the commander that everything here is permitted under our ancient by-laws.’
    Brynd glared at him. ‘By-laws, indeed – sounds spurious, that. I’ll take a guess that you yourself get a cut of the proceedings taken here?’
    ‘A minor tax, is all.’ Lutto smiled. ‘We must try to use some of this bad money for good! If I shut it all down, then we would not be able to pay for some essentials, and then Lutto would have to spend all his time chasing stronger and faster men than himself.’
    You don’t spend much on such services, though , Brynd thought. I’ve seen the accounts .
    Enhancing the eldritch ambience of the place, there were perplexing, gelatinous light-sources fixed to spikes or grouped together in small cages, and now and then someone unseen would dowse them in water, whereupon the luminous glow would intensify and flicker and oscillate.
    ‘The lights, what are they?’
    ‘Biolumes,’ Lutto replied. ‘They are taken from the sea. It is a recent practice, and not something encouraged, for ecological reasons, but it cannot be avoided.’ Brynd had never heard of them. Lutto’s maw opened to say something else, but then he seemed to think better of it.
    As they took their places up at the back, Fat Lutto leaned closer to Brynd, and introduced him to how combat was performed this far north. ‘Malum is the man I want you to see, and then you will know why a meeting with him could be of use. He should be coming on very soon.’
    ‘A good fighter then, this Malum?’ Brynd enquired.
    ‘He loves the golem fights, so it is said, and who does not? A chance for combatants to prove themselves. Now and then you will see one of the great underground cultists, Gento Dumond, Feltok Dupre, even the old golemist Ninety-Six – and they bring their talents and relics here to the side of a combat ring, such as this, where their misshapen golems transform themselves from stone into fighters. How they then go about it, tearing chunks out of each other and then change state back into stone, and sit calmly to one side – if they managed to survive. My word! Such stagecraft is one thing, but thrice yearly you see the cultists bring in something a little more exotic: weird relic-enhanced animal-hybrids, say. There are times, too, where mortal men have to prove themselves worthy, as aspiring gang leaders. They must step into the arena to face these things . . . these bizarre fuck-ups of cultist obsession. Look, here’s one now!’ Lutto gestured with one porky hand.
    Three figures wearing brown-hooded cloaks were busy pulling something from a hatch over to one side of the ring, where there was a gap in the seats, and as the trapdoor flipped open there arose a cheer, followed instantly by a collective intake of breath.
    Out shambled three awkward, grotesque creations, something halfway between a reptile and a man, their skin tinged green with tribal tattoos circling the major muscle groups, and each of them stood a good head taller than any man present.
    ‘What the hell are they?’ Brynd demanded in awe. ‘Lutto, what are these things?’
    ‘As I say, cultists create these breeds by whim. Delightful, are they not? The sheer inventiveness—’
    ‘Are they legal?’
    ‘Here in Villiren, yes, of course.’ The fat man pressed a palm against his chest, shaking his head. ‘Very clever, yes.