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, the girl moved. Quick as shadows.
A sidestep, the blade whistling past her head. Mia cracked her wooden gladius down on the man’s wrist, shattering bone. Several sanguila turned to stare as the big man screamed. Mia kicked savagely at his knee, rewarded with a nauseating crunch as the joint bent entirely the wrong way. The big man dropped with a bellow, and with deliberate brutality, Mia slammed her wooden blade directly into his throat, smashing his larynx to sauce.
Red froth spattered the man’s lips as he turned astonished eyes to Mia. The girl slung her hair over her shoulder, whispering soft.
“Hear me, Niah,” she whispered. “Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.”
And with a gurgle, the pit fighter toppled dead into the dirt.
Bewildered murmurs rippled among the crowd. Mia curtseyed to the sanguila, like a new dona at her debut ball. Then she turned to the next fighter in the row and leveled her wooden sword at his head.
“You’re next, prettyboy.”
The fighter (who was rather pretty) looked to his fellows, the corpse on the ground, and finally to the ledgerman. The greasy fellow glanced up at the sanguila, who were now staring at Mia intently. And turning back to the swordsman, he nodded.
The fighter stepped forward, Mia skipped up to meet him. Their match lasted less than ten seconds, ending with Mia’s bootprint embedded in the man’s crotch and her wooden sword shoved down his pretty throat, all the way to the hilt. The girl turned to the crowd and curtseyed again.
“A hundred priests,” came the call.
“One hundred and ten.”
Mia smiled behind her hair as sanguila began bidding. Within moments, her bid was two hundred silver coins—a decent sum by anyone’s measure. But as she looked up into the bleachers, she saw Leonides and Titus hadn’t uttered a word. Though the sanguila watched her intently, though Teardrinker was whispering in Titus’s ear and he was nodding slow, Leonides didn’t raise his voice to bid.
Time to stoke the flame.
Mia retrieved her wooden blade from the dead fighter’s throat, turned to the third and spoke loud enough for the bleachers to hear.
“You. Next.”
The big man looked at the two corpses at Mia’s feet.
“Fuck that,” he scoffed.
“Bring your friends.” Mia smiled at the fighters beside him. “I’ve always wanted to try three at once.”
The girl tossed her wooden sword onto the dirt.
“Or are you cowards all?”
The crowd hooted and jeered, and the fighters rankled. To be bested on their own soil was one thing, but to eat a plateful of shit from an unarmed girl half their size was another. With flashing eyes and swords raised, the men stepped out into the Pit.
With a dark smile, the girl stepped up to meet them.
CHAPTER 4
OFFERING
“Maw’s teeth, are we going to be here ’til truelight?” Mia snarled.
Pietro raised an eyebrow, poured another measure of goldwine onto her bloody shoulder. Mia winced in pain, took a drag of her cigarillo with a shaking hand. She was sat on a low stone bench, Pietro behind her, swathed in his customary black robes. The Hand was busy sewing up the bloody gouge in her shoulder, and he’d padded a wad of gauze about her backside, soaking through with red.
The chamber was sparse, dark stone walls and dim arkemical globes. Like most rooms in the Galante Chapel, it was perfumed with the faint stench of shit. The servants of Our Lady of Blessed Murder here in the Cityport of Churches* had built their hideaway among the vast network of sewers beneath Galante’s skin, and it was hard to escape the smell. In the eight months she’d served here, Mia had become accustomed to it, but as a preference spent as little time down here as possible. Unless she needed stitching up or resupply, she really only visited when she needed to speak to—
“Well, bugger me all the way backwards,” said a familiar voice. “Look what the shadowcat dragged in.”
Mia looked up, saw a woman standing in the doorway, dressed in leather britches, long boots, and a black velvet shirt. She was finger-thin, light brown hair cut in a distinctly masculine style, dark shadows under her eyes. She walked with a singular swagger, and wore more knives than anyone in her right mind would know what to do with.
“Bishop Tenhands,” Mia said, inclining her head. “I’d stand and bow, but the crossbow bolt in my backside isn’t too agreeable.”
“An interesting nevernight, then,” the woman smirked.
“Some coul—ow, fuck!” Mia glared over her shoulder again. “’Byss and blood, Pietro, are you stitching me up or sewing a dress?”