Clad in a pair of silver pauldrons, Felix Nipius flopped down next to Xeator on a bench along the outer rim of the arena.
"These look stupid," the boy whined, lifting an arm while trying to stretch, his face surly. "I prefer the ones with leather. They fit me better."
"It's an honor to wear silver," Xeator said. "Up in the arena, you are no longer Felix Nipius but a representation of the power that holds this country together. Silver fits the status."
"Sounds important. Why don't I feel it?" the boy grunted. "I look stupid!"
"For someone who just got laid, you sure sound cranky. What happened?"
"Wasn't how I expected, that's all."
"Nothing is," Xeator remarked with a soft chuckle.
"Speaking of unexpected," the boy continued, flicking his eyes at Xeator. "I've heard you're nominated as the Underdog. How come?"
Shrugging in reply, he patted Felix on his pauldron and gazed up upon the auditorium that brooded over the arena.
In the first row, two men, followed by their entourage, greeted each other with a peck on either cheek. Both looked unprepossessing. The one on the left was a frowning figure, coarse and gaunt, with an upturned chin and a prominent nose straddled by a pair of green eyes large and wide. On the right, the man was twice the width. He had jowly cheeks and drab eyes half-hidden behind his heavy lids.
Xeator turned his eyes to the frowning figure and saw Ulpius Attianus among the entourage. Resembling very little the domineering cunt he was at night, Ulpius looked humble and proper in daylight. He whispered, leaning to his master, whose large green eyes roamed and stopped at the bench facing the auditorium. Over the distance, Xeator locked his gaze with the lord and bowed his head.
Magistrate Decimus Paccius opened the tournament, introducing the honorary audience in the front row, Lord Lorenzo of House Legidus and Lord Romulus of House Scipio. In a round of applause, Paccius continued, naming each pugilist from the League while the outliers were brought to the arena. As all congregated in rows by the totem of the triple-headed eagle, the sortition proceeded. Each outlier drew a number matching a pugilist from the clay pot in Paccius' hands.
The one who got Xeator's number was a man from the north. Of medium stature and sturdy, he had a head of many plaits tied to a bundle on his nape. Lifting his chin at Xeator, he knocked his bare chest marked with scars, his eyes fraught with menace.
"In the first round, outliers will fight in pairs," Paccius raised his voice again, regurgitating the rules. "They will earn twenty points if they win and two if not. Once they've collected sixty points, they'll be allowed into the second round. They can pick a weapon of their choice and challenge the pugilist with the matching number."
At the fall of Paccius' listless voice, all fighters retreated to the sides, and the tournament commenced.
Save their hearts to win, the outliers didn't possess the skills. The crowds booed and fumed, demanding refunds until the sturdy man from the north vaulted up the stage.
Fast as a sling bolt and agile as a squirrel, he finished off the first contestant with a series of roundhouse kicks in just seconds, then broke the nose of the second after only a few sparring. The third one fended off his kick with crossed wrists. But the sturdy man treaded on the palm that blocked his foot and leaped into the air. Level with the ground, his body twisted like a wet cloth wrung while his other foot kicked his opponent on the head and sent him rolling off the stage.
The crowds whooped.
Felix gasped and gawked. He outstretched an elbow, prodding Xeator in the arm. "I thought you said no one died at tournaments."
"I did."
"You sure you can take this guy?"
Clucking his tongue, he gave the boy a wink and rose to his feet. In the center stage, he shook hands with the man from the north, a smile flitting across his eyes. They swiveled, retreating to either side of the battle ring where they chose their weapon.
"A double-handed sword cast of jewel steel," announced Paccius.
Xeator scraped his front teeth on the bottom lip and made his pick: a nunchuck of two bronze sticks the length of his forearm, connected at one end by a chain half the length of the stick.
The audience went berserk, booing his choice of weapon.
"Spastic!" they jeered. "Fighting a sword with a broken stick!"
Xeator hunched, slinging the nunchucks over his shoulder, his arms folding by his chest. Drawing in his chin, he glanced across the ring and waited. The other man leaped on the stage amidst waves of cheers, swinging his sword from side to side, steel clanging the ground. As he approached the halfway line, Xeator grabbed the end of each stick and swirled them from back to front as if many wings flapping all at once.
A hush descended the crowds, only the whirring and the clangs between gusts of wind.
The other man launched headlong and swung the sword upward from the bottom. The blade swept like a radius drawing a semicircle across the air and snipped a lock of Xeator's hair.
Xeator tilted backward and dodged.
Pursuing him in retreat, the northern man slashed again from the top down. Xeator parried the attack, holding a stick horizontally against the blade. Looking the other man in the eye, he jerked his lips to a half smile and dove. As he skidded forward on bent knees, he loosened his grip on the stick. The chain went under the blade. He twisted at either end of both sticks that corkscrewed the chain around the blade and yanked, wrenching the sword from the other's hand. The sword flew off, wheeling at the auditorium. Xeator vaulted from the ground and seized the hilt of the flying sword backhanded. Amidst outbursts of cry and chant that once again overtook the arena, he leveled the sword at the sturdy man's neck, its blade resting upon his shoulder below the ear.
Paccius announced the winner.
Xeator looked to the first row of the auditorium and met Lorenzo's inquisitive gaze. He bowed before exiting the battle ring.
***
Xeator jumped from a ledger to a branch and climbed down the tree.
Following the streak of tumbling creek to a threefold waterfall under a jagged ridge, he hid behind a sycamore.
"What do you keep?" he asked.
"My word," a voice answered.
Out of the umbra behind rocks, a sturdy man came into the moonlight. No longer tied in a bundle, his many plaits spread over his shoulders.
Xeator felt his heart clench.
"Marius," he stretched his lips to a broad grin, straining to keep his composure.
Marius Ectorius nodded, sobbing.
They clinched for the longest time, burrowing their heads in each other's arms.
"You're even bigger now!" Xeator finally broke into a chuckle. "I barely recognized you earlier."
"So are you! You're much taller than me now!"
"How's Cyprian?"
"Still thin as a rake!" Marius laughed. "He has infiltrated Julius' camp as a supplier."
"Good," Xeator nodded. "Very good. His information on the supply line will be vital in the future."
"Aye," Marius shrugged, hissing with a chuckle. "Veni, Vidi, Vici, huh? So, it really was you that made the newsman put out the word. How did you do it?"
"I recruited some help."
"Can the help be trusted?"
"For now, yes."
"For now?"
Xeator glanced down. "Enemy of the enemy is a friend," he crooned, his thoughts wandering to his accomplices in Pethens with somewhat unease. A small frown narrowed his gaze. "While this may change in due time, for now, our enemy is also theirs." He lifted his eyes, reassuring the other with a broader grin. "You did well today."
Marius sighed while he gave his head a shake, his plaited hair sweeping about his shoulders. "Who'd know the games we used to play as kids would come in handy now?" he said, throwing a light punch at Xeator's chest. "How many times were you in trouble back then because of those bloody nunchucks?"
Xeator parted his lips. His smile faltered. Memory rushed back uninvited, blurring his vision. Quickly he looked away, turning to the waterfall. The sprays drizzled his face. His chest tightened, his heart pounding fast. Overhead, the moon was tucked into a large quilt of clouds, and the stars dimmed like candles snuffed out.
Marius gripped his shoulder from the rear side. "I'm sorry," he muttered, his tone distant from the raillery of before. "I didn't mean to talk about... Only wanted to lighten a little…" His voice trailed off.
Crickets chirped, as did cicadas; wings fluttered over the soughing trees. In the rising wind, the woods susurrated, composing a ballad of a lost time. Neither man spoke. Yet Xeator knew his sorrow was shared, as was his despair felt.
"Why apologize for a fact?" He smiled, patting Marius on the back. "We did play many games."
Marius attempted a smile that only lent a comic look to his face.
"And speaking of games," Xeator went forth. "Did the Scipios hire you for this one?"
"Just like how you've anticipated." The sturdy man nodded. "Remus Scipio wants to kill you off during the tournament to avoid the prospect of bankruptcy. Or, to make you the butt of the joke at least, so no one would place the initial bet on you, hence forfeiting the nomination. That Paccius practically handed me your number at the sortition."
"Ergo explained Romulus' earlier presence, to oversee how it fared." Xeator scoffed.
"What you think they'll do now?"
"Is it really bankruptcy Remus angles to eschew?"
Marius stuttered at a loss. His brows furrowed, jaw moving sideways.
"Bankruptcy of the Scipios' League means failure of the Triumvirate, which Marcus Uranus won't allow," continued Xeator in a voice low and measured. "Rising from an adjutant to a Triumvir, Remus is a clever man, and he is practical. He knows for whom he should risk to what extent and when. He and his brother may run the League, the League is the Praetor's proxy that keeps all the houses contending with one another for a better share of gold. In other word, there is no need to stick his neck out for other man's turf."
"Then, why hired me just to take care of you?"
"A favor to the Gaius, perchance." Cocking a brow, Xeator clucked his tongue. "The Gaius built the roads and waterways to where the Scipios lay plan of the logistics. The two houses are bilateral. Since it's the Gaius' turn this year to name the Favorite –"
"Won't hurt to make a show for being a helpful partner," Marius cut in, his head bobbing, his eyes flickering with a smile like the sky clearing up after a storm.
Xeator nodded.
"But what you suppose Remus'll do about you now?"
"Let the sling bolt fly."
The lucidity in Marius' eyes only a few breaths ago blurred into a frowning gasp.
Xeator turned away from the fall and preceded along the burbling creek, his arms about the chest. "It's too unclear for him to make the next move. So, he'll wait and see how other players react, a strategy called let the sling bolt fly."
"And where this sling bolt you think will hit?" Marius roamed his eyes over like tourmaline glimpsing in the dark.
"Who cares?" Xeator mused on him lengthwise and shrugged. "So long as it embroils every top dog in self-consuming suspicion. That said, we do need to give them a nudge. The fight earlier showed betting on me as the Underdog could be as bankable as the game cutthroat, and Lorenzo has sent me an invitation to his residence. This shall be interesting."
"Lorenzo of House Legidus?" The baffled man scowled. "Why the miser?"
"For a want of choices." Xeator sneered, turning away his gaze to the water. "We'd risk the present for a future only when we're discontent with the present, and there is no other more discontent with his present than the miser who has lost his heirdom to a bastard. Only Lorenzo is willing to risk, knowing he can never be safe if not strong. His desire for more due to fear will motivate him to do what I want."
"But he's a Legidus! What could he possibly fear of?"
"He knows his half-brother won't rest easy with him being a threat to his son, and for his son to be the only heir, Luke Legidus has housed a legion in the southern archipelagos, possibly Kygeria."
"And you know this," Marius shook his head, his brows a steep arch of disquiet. "You know it, how?"
Xeator primmed his mouth, gnawing at his bottom lip. Turning his back to the other, he mumbled out of the random, "I never knew how many made it out of Pethens that time."
A pause of silence. "Thirteen," Marius whispered. "Cyprian and I included."
Xeator slammed a fist at the trunk. "Everything we do now, we do it to avenge all the men we lost that day!"
"Aye, tell me the next step."
"Dog eat dog," he groaned. "We'll goad the Gaius to a revolt they didn't start on their own and let the Praetor crush them for it!"
"Cato …"
The name sent a shiver down his spine. "Don't!" He flinched away from the other's hand reaching for his arm. "That boy died thirteen ago."
"But—"
"I know men often take sanctuary in their past," he gulped, having somewhat regained his composure. "I don't have the luxury. I can't look back as there is nothing behind; nor do I dare look forward, knowing the trek ahead. All I have is the time at hand as we speak, and it all slips through me into ruins like quicksand." He held out a hand before him; his fingers coiled and stretched. Turning to the creek that ran like a belt of silver, he bent down for a chip of a stone and skipped. It bounced three times on the water and disappeared without a ripple.