Mia squinted at the two suns above.
“I don’t think he’s listening,” she murmured.
The wagon pulled to a halt at the market square’s seething edge. Teardrinker hopped down from the driver’s seat, limping to the rear of the women’s wagon, pulling back the cover and pointing at Mia.
“All right, girl,” she said. “Off to the Pit we go.”
The captain unlocked the cage, stepped back with crossbow in hand. Merchants were already crowded around the wagon, prodding the stock inside and appraising their worth. Thugs in the market’s employ began off-loading men from the rear wagon, shackles singing a rusted song as the captives hopped down on the hardpacked earth. Mia climbed out of the wagon, watching the crowd around them.
I’m here.
She hid her smile behind the matted locks of her hair.
One step closer.
The Pit was dug at the other end of the marketplace, and Mia could hear it well before she laid eyes on it. Ragged cheers and grunts of pain, the clink of coin and the crack of bone. As they made their way across the crowded square, Teardrinker was stopped at least a dozen times by merchants inquiring about Mia’s sale. It took all the girl’s will to keep her temper in check as she felt them pawing her curves, checking her teeth with dirty hands. But Teardrinker declined all offers for Mia’s purchase, indicating she’d be for sale in the Pit soon. The captain’s refusals were met with disbelief or dismay, one merchant declaring it a “waste of good tits.” But Teardrinker held firm, and the pair walked on.
The Pit was exactly that—a hole dug ten feet deep, fifty feet wide, hemmed with limestone walls. A broad stockyard was built beside it, rusted iron bars holding back a multitude of muscular slaves. It was encircled by limestone bleachers, packed with cheering gamblers and shouting bookmakers. And on the innermost ring, attended by the seconds and servants, she saw over a dozen sanguila.*
Mia stood with head bowed at the Pit’s iron gates. Itreyan legionaries in plumed helmets were inspecting another slaver’s stock before allowing him to pass. The girl whispered from beneath 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.*
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.