her tangled curtains of hair.
“Can you see Leonides?”
“Aye, there.” Teardrinker nodded across the stockyard. “The fat bastard.”
“… They’re all fat bastards.”
“The fattest bastard, then.”
Mia squinted, finally spying an Itreyan man seated under a broad parasol. He was dressed in a long frock coat despite the heat, his cravat knotted tight, pierced with a pin in the shape of a lion’s head. His face was swarthy, his body pudgy from too many years of too much food and wine. Beside him sat another Itreyan, broad and muscular, watching the Pit with a keen eye.
“That’s Titus,” Teardrinker said. “He serves as executus, trains all of Leonides’s stock.”
“I know what an executus does,” Mia muttered.
“Are you certain? Because if was a betting woman, I’d wager my last beggar you had no fucking idea what you’re about.”
“I told you,” Mia replied. “Leonides has trained two of the last three champions of the Venatus Magni. He has qualifying berths in all the arenas. He bribes the right officials, owns the right people. If I’m to win my freedom, my best chance is training under him.”
“But why, girl?” Teardrinker demanded. “You could’ve walked away free in the desert! ’Byss, I’ll let you walk free now! You saved my hide from those raiders, and I pay my debts. Why in the Everseeing’s name do you want to be gladiatii?”
“I made a promise,” Mia said. “And I mean to keep it.”
“What kind of promise could be kept in a place like this?”
“A red promise.”
Teardrinker sighed and shook her head. “This is madness.”
“… she is wiser than she looks …”
The whisper came from the shadow under Mia’s matted hair, too soft for the captain to notice. Teardrinker pulled off her tricorn and dragged her hand over her scalp. She looked at Mia sidelong and sighed.
“A girl like you has no place in this sort of business.”
“Believe me, Captain,” Mia replied. “You’ve never met a girl like me.”
Teardrinker cursed, but true to her word, the slaver made her way to the legionaries at the entrance. Both men nodded greetings, raised eyebrows at the scrawny slip shuffling along in chains beside her.
“You lost, Captain?” the big one asked.
“Pleasure pens are yonder,” the bigger one nodded to the bay.
Teardrinker sniffed hard, spat into the dirt. “Step aside, you stinking whoresons. I’ve a trueborn fighter to hock and no time to jaw unless you’re slinging coin.”
The bigger one blinked at Mia. “… You plan on selling this slip to a sanguila?”
The legionaries burst into uproarious laughter, holding their sides like bad actors in a pantomime. Mia kept her head bowed as Teardrinker squared up to the first guard. Big as he was, the woman could look the man eye to eye.
“Have I ever sold chaff in here, Paulo?” She looked to the next man. “Don’t tell me my business, you cocksure wanker. I know it well, and it’s in the fucking Pit.”
The soldiers looked at each other, a little abashed. And with small shrugs, the pair stepped aside and let Teardrinker and Mia out into the stockyard. A greasy man with a wax tablet took Teardrinker’s name, a young boy with a crooked eye marked Mia’s arm and the back of her tunic with a number in blue paint. She watched him while he worked, wondering where he came from, how he’d come to be here. Staring at the single arkemical circle tattooed on his cheek.fn4
Taking Mia by the shackles, the boy started dragging her toward the other slaves. The girl resisted for a moment, looked Teardrinker in the eye.
“One more thing, Captain,” she said softly.
“O, aye?” The captain raised an eyebrow. “Owed so many favors, are you?”
“You owe me your life. I’d call that the Largest Kind of Favor There Is.One turn, I might call in that marker. And it’d be lovely if I didn’t have to ask you twice.”
Teardrinker breathed deep. “As I said, girl, I pay my debts.”
Satisfied, Mia let herself be dragged away, standing in the sweltering heat with the other human livestock. Looking around, she realized she was one of only two females, and the other woman was a Dweymeri with hands the size of dinner plates. She kept her eyes straight ahead, watching proceedings out in the Pit and avoiding the curious stares of her pen-mates.
It seemed a simple enough process. Fleshmongers like Teardrinker wandered the bleachers, spruiking their wares to the sanguila. And one at a time, their offerings were handed a wooden sword, and thrown face-first into a fight for their lives.
There were half a dozen professional fighters at work in the Pit’s center, each a mountain of muscle and scars. When a new prospect was pushed into the ring, a random fighter would promptly heft a wooden sword and set about trying to bash their head in. Bets would be placed, the crowd would bay and howl, and if the competitor was still standing after a few minutes, the sanguila were given the opportunity to bid for their purchase. Those who fought with promise were snatched up. Those who failed were dragged away for resale somewhere else in the Hanging Garden.
Mia glanced at Sanguila Leonides. The man was considering matches the way spiders consider flies, but he never made a bid. The Lions of Leonides were the finest gladiatii in the Republic, and Leonides spent six months a year trawling coastal markets, handpicking the finest. If Mia wanted to call him Domini, she’d need to impress.
Fortunately, one didn’t become a Blade of the Red Church by being a slouch with a sword.
The ledgerman called Mia’s number. The holding pen door opened. The crook-eyed boy unlocked her shackles, handed her a dented wooden gladius that she wouldn’t have used for firewood under normal circumstances. And without ceremony, Mia found herself shoved into the middle of the Pit.
Jeers rang across the stands, choking guffaws and fountains of abuse. The sight of the skinny, black-haired girl standing knock-kneed in the center of the ring didn’t seem to be impressing the plebs in the crowd, let alone the blood masters.
“Aa’s burning cock, is this a joke?” one yelled.
Spit and curses rained into the Pit, the various sanguila turning disinterested eyes to their ledgers—whatever this jest was, it was clear not a one of them found it amusing. One of the pit fighters raised an eyebrow at the ledgerman, who simply nodded. The man shrugged and hefted his wooden sword, striding toward Mia. He was a Dweymeri, broad as bridges, brown skin glistening with sweat.
“Hold still, lass,” he growled. “This won’t hurt long.”
Mia did as she was bid, standing motionless as the big man closed. But as the giant raised his blade to stove her skull in,
