Full-Blood Half-Breed Read Free Page B

embracing every god, he had been rejected by every religion. He had made an utter mess of his life and future and was astonished by the monumental failures he had amassed at such a young age.
    Today was his sixteenth birthday.

Chapter Three
Peddlers

    The city stank worse than usual this morning.
    A dense, bitter, sulfuric reek contaminated the familiar, almost comforting, miasma of smog and garbage and stale urine. It smelled like every egg in Santuario del Guerrero had rotted all at once.
    The temple gates clanged shut behind Paladin, the ringing of the iron bars tolling the end of something precious. The guards refused to look at him as he slunk out into streets grown thick with sightseers. Greedy peddlers in fine clothes or holy robes stood outside the taverns, brothels, and churches, competing for the coppers of the heartsick and weary with promises of salvation for the soul, fulfillment of the flesh, or simply oblivion. But Santuario del Guerrero’s main attraction was the arena, Phoenix-Rising Amphitheater, where legendary King Blackspear had sponsored the very first Torneo two thousand years before. That tournament had produced Paladin’s namesakes, the Thirteen
Paladíns
, heroes who had united the kingdoms—at least for a short while—and led the world to victory in the war against Creador’s Bastard Sons, also called banes, and their keepers, the Vile Creadorians.
    The scene swirled around Paladin in a blur as he shouldered his way past the throngs of people milling about like agitated cattle. Most were turistas, but many were warriors come to display their skill with bow, lance, and sword in the Torneo trials. The glory seekers wore armor burnished until it gleamed. Their pristine cloaks, adorned with the colorful totems of Houses great and small, flapped in the autumn wind like pennants borne to battle. They swaggered past the mobs of goggle-eyed turistas, jaws set with determination, eyes flashing with bravado, though most of thestrutting show-offs seemed more peacock than
paladín
.
    Still, he was jealous. At least the preening posers would prove their valor, or lack of it, on the field of honor, while he would be amongst those who could only watch. The only battle he would fight would be the one his
culo
waged with the hard wooden benches in the arena stands. He was old enough to compete in the Torneo’s youngling trials, but his papá, Rebelde the Darkdragón, had forbidden it. A prohibition made even more galling by the fact that both his parents had competed in the games and won honors. Rebelde had won the Black Spear an unprecedented five times. He was the most famous Black Spear in modern times. He should have been proud his heir longed to follow in his footsteps. But at the mere mention of Torneo, Rebelde would scowl as if he’d smelled something foul and grumble about fools and glory. Gods, how it vexed.
    Paladin just wanted to get away from it all. He found the crowds suffocating and the competition for turista coins sickening. Throwing his elbows into ribs and sweeping his staff into knees, he fought his way to a deserted, narrow alley between a tailor’s and a candlemaker’s shops. He took a moment to catch his breath. People stood at the mouth of the alley, their backs creating a fluttering wall of many-colored cloaks. From this alley he could scale the wall of the tailor’s shop, then clamber along the roofs to the Círculo del Triunfo in the heart of the city. Then it would be a short journey to the Ciudad Vieja district in Westgate.
    He and his
vato
, Drud, had found routes to and from their homes to just about every other point in the city by scurrying along the rooftops, though it was something they did less and less as they had grown older. He was about to begin climbing the wall when he felt movement behind him.
    A gang of men, women, and children had followed him into the alley, their eyes blazing with pious fervor. He instantly knew who they were by the pendants dangling from