He bowed his head, closed his eyes and muttered a few almost forgotten
prayers over her poor lifeless body. His chin started to quiver. There were
tears coming. He fought them back. They would not do either of them any
good now.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I am so, so sorry. But I’ll avenge you, I swear it. If I
do nothing else, I’m going to kill at least one Amazon at the Games.
Whatever it takes. You have my word on it.”
He felt a kiss on his forehead. He opened his eyes. She was sitting up,
regarding him with amusement.
“You’re so sweet when you’re in mourning.”
“You’re not dead!”
“Thank God for that,” she replied. “It ruins your complexion.”
Halfshaft paused, debating whether to punch her or hug her. Eventually, he
decided to do both.
#
“So what happened?” he asked. “I thought you’d died!”
“Nothing much,” she shrugged.
“Nothing much! You stroll into a village of vengeful Amazons, and you
survive! Whatever that is, it’s not “nothing much”. What happened? Tell
me.”
“I wasn’t exactly strolling, I had to run quite a lot. Which isn’t easy with
tits like mine. Someone recently told me that I have a very sexy run, though,
so it’s nice to be able to treat people to it every once in a while.”
“Are you going to tell me, or not?”
“Is “not” an option?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, Nosey, you win. I went back to save your ickle troll baby. The
Ringmaster said “no” at first, but I offered to spend some quality time with
him when I got back, which seemed to do the trick. I was sort of hoping that
the girls might leave me be, out of sisterly solidarity, but no such luck. They
kept trying to stick me with those little spear things they have, and that’s
really not my favourite way of being kebabed, if you get my drift.
Anyway, I ran off, they ran after me, and those guys from the Circus ran
after them, and we all ended up doing laps of the Village, hurdling over the
latrine ditch, dodging the occasional arrow. Now, there’s nothing wrong
with my stamina, but I’m basically a lazy git; I don’t like expending energy
unless I’m getting some pleasure out of it. So the third time round the village,
I decide that I’ve had enough, and I’m going to give them some of their own
medicine. So I turn on the first woman, take her little speary thing off her,
and stick it in her. She was not a happy bunny, I can tell you. Who would
have thought that ladies know swear-words like that!
So the next one comes up to me, and I give her more of the same. Then the
Circus guys arrive, and it all kicks off. But by the time I’ve taken out three
or four women, they suddenly stop fighting. They withdraw into a little
huddle, and whisper amongst themselves for a minute or two, and then they
come back and make me Queen! Me; Royalty! My Mum would have been
so proud.
It turns out they were going to have a trial to find out who was the bravest
and the prettiest woman in the village, to take over from Selene. And when
they saw me fighting, they obviously decided not to waste their time
interviewing anyone else, because there’s no one else there who looks as
good as this in a fist-fight.
So I send the Circus-men back home, and the Amazons throw a feast in my
honour. Everything was going pretty well, to be fair; plenty of food, they put
on a dance display for me by the fire, and there was even talk of bringing
out the menfolk for some celebratory mating later on. I know Selene was
moaning on about not having any fun, but I ask you: what more could a girl
want than a bloke, a burger and a bit of a dance round the campfire to round
off the evening?
But then they brought me out my Amazon costume. It was one of Selene’s
outfits, apparently, just to keep me going until they had time to catch enough
squirrels to make me one of my own. Now, it looked fine on her, I’ll grant
you, but she’s a lot taller than me. It was all sexy and skimpy on her, but it
didn’t sit well on me at all. Round the chest was fine; I’ve obviously got a
lot more up top than her. But round the business end, I looked like I was
wearing a furry little nappy, which was not a look I was comfortable with, I
can tell you!
“I’m not wearing that,” I told them. “Go and find me something tiny to put
on. There’s no way that the subjects should look sexier than the Queen;
that’s anarchy in my book. But they wouldn’t have it. The clothes had been
blessed by their Goddess or something, to keep the wearer safe in battle. “It
didn’t exactly work for Selene, did it?” I pointed out, but they weren’t having
any of it. It was furry nappy or nothing, as far as they were concerned.
Actually, I wouldn’t have had a problem if wearing nothing was an option,
but they didn’t even offer me that!
Well, I had a couple more burgers, a bit of a dance again, and then I was
out of there, faster than a nun who’s accidentally wandered into a sex-shop.
While they were all strutting their stuff around the campfire, I went and
fetched your troll baby, and legged it back here as quick as I could.”
“You’ve got Buster?” asked Halfshaft incredulously.
“That was the whole point of going back, if I remember rightly. I couldn’t
leave the little fellow behind, or you’d have nagged me to Kingdom come.
He took a bit of persuading to leave, of course. He kept saying it was too
dark, that there were painty-faced monsters, and that the Amazons would
get cross with him if he left the hut. But I told him that I’d take him to his
Mummy and Daddy, and he was fine after that. He even gave me a piggy-
back for the last couple of miles, when I couldn’t be arsed to walk anymore.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh, I left him in the bushes just the other side of the hill. I couldn’t work
out how to get him past the mercenaries without them seeing him. He cried
a lot; he didn’t want to be left all on his own in the middle of nowhere. But
I promised to sneak him in to see his parents the first chance I got.”
“And that worked?”
“Sort of. I had to smack him round the legs a few times to get him to man
up, but eventually he came round to my way of thinking, and I’ve crammed
him into an empty tree-trunk about fifteen minutes jog in that direction.”
“Thank you,” Halfshaft said, with feeling.
“For going off to save him?” Cherry asked.
“No,” Halfshaft said. “For coming back alive.”
#
They were left to their own devices for the rest of the day. Cherry suggested
that they go for a wander to check out the Circus, but Halfshaft was not keen
on the idea. He was convinced that there would be mercenaries to keep them
inside their tent, but she pulled back the canvas at the door to show him that
they were in fact unguarded. He then put it to her that the Ringmaster might
not want them snooping round without permission, and they might get in
serious trouble. She told him that he was starting to sound like Buster, and
asked whether he wanted his legs smacked too. He gave up. He had a feeling
that he would be giving in to her quite a lot over the next few days (if she
did not get him killed in the meantime).
They headed for the large tent first. It seemed like the obvious place to start.
There was a handful of hunchbacks in there, erecting a large cage in the
middle of the arena.
“Do you think that’s for us?” he asked, with trepidation.
She shook her head. “Doubt it. Why leave us unguarded on Day 1, and
bung us in a cage on Day 2? Besides, look at that. There’s a tunnel leading
into it. Whatever they’re going to put in there is coming outside the tent,
near where the mobile cages are. Let’s go and check them out; see what
they’re hiding.”
Halfshaft looked around, in no hurry to find out what manner of creature
was lurking around on the far side of the tent. The fact that they needed a
cage for it seemed to suggest that it would hardly be cute and cuddly, and
he’d had enough of danger to last him a lifetime. He had a feeling that they
would be introduced to the creatures pretty soon, whether they liked it or
not, so what was the point of spoiling the surprise?
There was stacked seating all around the circumference of the frayed tent,
with aisles at each compass point to allow people easy access to the ring in
which the cage was situated. Inside the ring, there was a tight-rope stretched
between two elevated platforms, not far from where the cage was being
constructed. It was only three yards up, the tent not being especially high.
He hoped that he would not be asked to walk across it, because if there was
one thing worse than his magical ability, it was his sense of balance. A three
yard drop might not seem particularly high, but it was high enough to cause
significant injury to a weary wizard with arthritic knees.
“Shall we?” Cherry enquired.
“What, here?” he joked. “It’s a bit drafty.”
“Not that. We can do that later. Let’s go and see what they’re putting in the
cage.”
“We can do that later?” he repeated. “Really?”
“Why not? It’ll pass the time, if nothing else.”
“You’re winding me up.”
She shrugged, stifling a grin.
“Are you winding me up?” he asked. “Just so as I know.”
“Come and help me look where that tunnel comes out, and I’ll tell you. Or
show you, if your luck’s in.”
Halfshaft was out the door before she had finished her sentence. He still
loved Takina with all his heart, but she wouldn’t have touched him with a
barge-pole. He knew full well that Cherry most probably wouldn’t either,
but if there was even the faintest hope of a sympathy shag then he wasn’t
about to turn it down. If he was doomed to die in the Games, then he would
very much like to go out with a bang.
They tried to leave the tent by the south exit, but discovered that the flaps
were sewn shut. There didn’t seem to be much point having aisles leading
to exits which you couldn’t actually exit from, but what was a wizard to do?
They had to leave from the door they had entered from, and once outside
they made their way around the circumference of the tent to find out what
type of creature was closeted away on the other side.
Halfshaft was relieved when he spotted the doors of the cages up ahead
were closed. Ordinarily, he wasn’t a great fan of cages, as people tended to
put him into them, but on this occasion it seemed like a good thing. If the
creatures needed to be caged when they were channelled inside the tent, that
it was best that they were caged on this side of the canvas as well.
They checked out the back of the cages first, at her suggestion. He
suspected that Cherry was trying to prolong the suspense, whereas his
preference would have been to get it over with as quickly as possible and
then go and hide like girls in their own tent. They could see that the tunnel
fed into the back of the nearest cage, a dozen yards away from the Big Top.
There was a drop-down metal door in the tunnel, just as it ran into the cage,
stopping the inmates from gaining access to the tent until the time was right.
Cherry eyed it longingly. She reached out a hand towards the opening
mechanism, but Halfshaft slapped it down again. “No,” he told her. “We
don’t even know what’s inside yet. Those men in there might be killed if we
let it out now.”
“It would be fun, though, wouldn’t it? Come on, where’s your sense of
adventure? Seize the day.”
“No,” he repeated, wishing he didn’t sound quite so much like her Dad. He
was on a promise here, albeit one which she was almost certain to break, and
he realised that the longer he acted responsibly, the less likely it was going
to be that she would bother rooting around beneath his robes later on.
“Spoilsport,” she pouted. “Okay. Let’s go round the other side; see what’s
in there. No point hanging around back here if you’re gonna go all goody-
two-shoes on me.”
The other side of the cage was open, save that it was heavily barred. Four
Forest wolves slept inside. As with all their kind, they were huge, measuring
about six foot from the tips of their snouts to their rumps. One was black;
the others, grey. Even when sleeping, they looked evil.
“Why would they want wolves here?” he asked.
“I guess this is our training camp for the Games. Maybe we fight them as
practice.” She sounded surprisingly relaxed about this.
“We fight wolves?” he asked incredulously. “You don’t fight wolves as
practice; you don’t fight wolves for anything! They have a tendency to rip
you to pieces. And then they eat you. That sounds like pretty crap practice
to me!”
“Maybe we ride them, then?”
“Ride them? Seriously?”
“They might be specially trained; friendly. It’s hard to know what they’re
like when they’re asleep.”
“Friendly? Wolves? Wolves in a cage? I don’t think so!”
“Okay, maybe not, then. I guess we’ll find out sooner or later. I wouldn’t
worry about it, though. Mummy will protect you from the nasty doggies.”
He raised his eyes to the skies. Was she never serious about anything?
“Shall we see what’s in the other cages?”
“I can hardly wait.”
They made their way to the next cage. It was empty. He breathed a sigh of
relief. It then occurred to him that they might be keeping it free for him, and
he inhaled his sigh of relief back up again.
The final cage was the biggest shock, though. The first cage contained
certain death. The second cage contained the threat of incarceration
(followed by certain death). The third cage contained something very much
more sinister, though.
The third cage contained clowns.
#
Halfshaft had once heard it said that there are only two types of people in
this world; people who are scared of clowns, and people who are clowns.
Lacking a cherry red nose and big floppy feet, he most definitely fell into
the former category. And these clowns were like nothing he had ever seen
before.
There were eight or nine of them in the cage, all of them sleeping (the one
saving grace). None of them wore a stitch of clothing. He had always
assumed that it was just their faces that were painted that hideous white, but
their whole bodies were the same colour. They had black crosses across their
eyes, like targets, and the trade-mark shiny red noses. Their hands were
clawed up, as if dystrophied, and their nails long and uncut. They were the
scariest clowns he had ever seen, which really was saying something.
As he surveyed them, one distasteful clown at a time, he realised with a
shock that one of them had its yellow eyes open, and was staring right back
at him. For a moment, the two men regarded each other, one with fear and
the other with hunger. And then the clown was on its feet, seizing his robes
through the bars, trying to pull him into the cage. Its teeth gnashed at him,
as it tried to force its face through the bars to take a chunk out of his cheek.
The others awoke, grouping round the first, all of them trying to get at him,
attempting to rip him to pieces.
Above their baying, he could hear cheering from two cages along, the cage
housing the wolves. He would have expected them to make the same sort as
noise as the clowns, growling and snapping like wild dogs, but this sounded
different; human even.
He seized the bars to try to lever himself away from the clowns, but they
took hold of his fingers, trying to gnaw on them. He pulled his hands away
just in time, but they still had hold of his robes. They were tugging him up
tight to the bars, trying to push their ghostly white faces through them so
that they could eat his face. He grabbed hold of the bars again; it was better
to lose his fingers than his nose.
Cherry had hold of him, and was frantically trying to pull him away. She
was surprisingly strong, but no match for the three or four clowns who were
attempting to tug him into the cage with them. He craned his neck
backwards, trying to keep his fear-contorted face out of reach of their teeth.
One of them put his hands through the bars, cupped the back of Halfshaft’s
head, and brought it right up tight to the metal, within chomping range. It
grinned at him, a horrible smile which dripped with hunger and malice, the
smile of a predator which had finished toying with its prey. It was show-
time
And then the Ringmaster was there, tapping his cane against the bars,
sending the clowns reeling away in shock. Halfshaft convulsed, as did
Cherry behind him. They ended up in a twitching heap on the floor. He
retained consciousness for a few seconds, panicking as he could not move
any part of his body.
The Ringmaster stood over him. He expected him to be cross, but the man
was smiling, a cruel twist of the mouth not far removed from that of the
clowns. He could hear groans of disappointment from the nearby cage,
human voices that really should not have been coming from the jaws of
wolves.
Blackness crept in from the periphery of his vision, spreading across his
eye-line until he could see nothing at all. Please don’t let me dead, he
thought. I’ve been to Hell before, and I didn’t particularly care for it.
#
He was shaken awake.
He took a few seconds to get his bearings. He was lying on the ground in
his tent, the coarse blanket thrown over him. Cherry was sitting up nearby,
rubbing the sleep from her brown eyes. There was a man nearby, a
hunchback. He gave them an encouraging thumbs-up.
“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine. It’s your big day today,” he announced.
“I’m your trainer. Listen well, and you’ll win these games, hands down.”
He waited a few seconds before responding. He felt as if he had been asleep
for days, and it was taking a while to get his brain back in gear. But then it
gradually filtered through that this hump-backed creature was offering hope.
It seemed to be under the impression that they had the capacity to win the
Games. With the right trainer behind them, who was to say that they might
not actually get through this alive?
“You’ve won before, then?” asked Halfshaft, the tiniest speck of optimism
in his voice.
“Out in the first round every time,” came the reply. “But the Law of
Averages says I’m bound to back a winner sooner or later.”
He introduced himself as Crook-back. Somewhat unnecessarily, he
explained that this was more of a nick-name than his God-given name. He
chuckled as they tried to stand, swaying around like baby giraffes finding
their feet for the first time. “That’ll be the Ringmaster’s cane,” he chuckled.
“Always takes a little while to remember how to walk after a prod or two
with that.”
Once they were up and about, he explained their itinerary for the day.
“Training first; most of it with me, but one group event. Then a show
tonight, to put you in the mood for tomorrow. Then, first thing in the
morning, we kit you out with your outfits and pack you off into the Forest
for the Games.”
“The Forest?” asked an anxious wizard. “Does it have to be the Forest? It’s
really dangerous there.”
“That’s kind of the idea,” chuckled Crook-back. “If it was as safe as houses,
there’d be no real point in running the Games, would there now? Might as
well just air “Big Brother”, and save themselves a fortune.”
“More to the point,” Cherry put in, “tell me about my outfit. If it covers
more than 10% of my body-surface, I’m going home right now. I don’t “do”
drab.”
“No worries on that score,” the hunch-back reassured her. “Those costumes
are practically invisible, they’re so tiny. I tried one on once, just for a bit of
a giggle, and I couldn’t even get it over my hump.”
“Nice image,” groaned Halfshaft.
“Enough chat, though, my little protégés. We’ve got some serious training
to do.”
He took them outside, and they moved off to a secluded spot further along
the river-bank. Halfshaft looked up the hill, longing to escape. He could spot
a couple of mercenaries stationed on the crest; no doubt there were more of
them out of sight. Buster was out there somewhere, too. He half expected
Cherry to make a break for it, just for the fun of it, but it appeared that the
promise of a skimpy outfit was all it took to ensure her full cooperation with
the training programme.
“Right, you two. Here’s a nice easy way to remember the training you can
expect today. I call it the four Esses. Speed, strength, skill, spelling, sums
and intelligence.”
“Intelligence doesn’t begin with “S”,” Halfshaft pointed out.
“Doesn’t it?” asked Crook-back, a trifle surprised. He took out a small
parchment, and studied it carefully. “No, no you’re right there. It begins with
a “B”. Well done, Wizard, that’s your spelling training completed already.”
“Begins with a “B”? I hope the rest of your training’s better than your
spelling, or we might just as well give up now.”
“Never give up, that’s my motto. Unless you’ve got an Amazon on your
back, and she’s repeatedly stabbing you in the ribs with a sharp knife. Then
you’re pretty much buggered, to tell you the truth.”
“You said four Esses. Speed, strength, skill, spelling, sums and
intelligence. That makes six,” Cherry pointed out.
“Five. I think we’ve just established that “intelligence” actually begins with
a “B”,” chortled Crook-back, raising his eyes to the skies. “Women, eh?”
“Five, then. Not four.”
He consulted the reverse side of his parchment for some considerable time,
but seemed none the wiser. He looked up at Halfshaft for assistance. The
wizard nodded. “Well blow me down if the little lady isn’t right!” Crook-
back exclaimed. “That’s sums off the list, too. Well done.”
“Could you be any more patronising?” she enquired.
“Oh yes,” he nodded vigorously. “Very much so. You’ll find out later,
Doll.”
“Do you think we might start our training now?” Halfshaft asked. “We’re
going to need all the help we can get tomorrow, and I’ve got a sneaking
suspicion that it’s not going to help us much being able to count up to six,
and knowing that “intelligence” starts with an “I”!
“With a “B”,” Crook-back corrected. “I think we just established that it
begins with a “B”. Don’t forget that. It might be important tomorrow.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “Who’s to say? The dwarfs like their riddles. They might try
and confuse you with a spelling test, and then jab you up the bottom with a
dagger while you’re trying to remember if there are one or two “R’s” in
ukulele.”
#
They started with the Test of Strength. Their hunchback took them to a
large boulder in the river, measuring five or six feet across. The water was
waist high here, running around the boulder on either side. As Halfshaft
waded out to it, he could feel his feet sinking down into the muddy river-
bed. He would be walking round in a very wet robe for the rest of the day,
which was never the