The Gladiator's Triumph and the Khan's Favor
"Did Theo say he was entering the tug-of-war?"
Orion answered Lycaon's question.
"Probably. Unpredictable bastard, that one."
"What's the point of wondering now? He left the realm of things we can understand a long time ago. Better to just think of him as a beast."
Any gladiator in the Imperial Capital would have agreed with Lycaon without a second thought. In truth, that was already how Lycaon treated him.
"I'll give you that. Ah, right—I heard the kid's fighting in a duel."
The kid. He meant Vesta.
"I heard."
"You should've gone to watch."
"Pass."
"The match ought to be over by now. His opponent was probably a centaur."
Orion chewed on a strip of jerky as he spoke.
"Hey, Lycaon. Neither of us knows how it went. Want to make a bet?"
"A wager on the winner?"
"Obviously."
A gambling table sprang up out of nowhere, and Lycaon accepted as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It wasn't unusual. Every gladiator was a gambler too.
Gladiators were slaves stripped of their freedom. Most of them were not madmen who spent every waking hour fighting, and of course they starved for every kind of amusement. The easiest vice to reach for was betting—naturally so, when the Empire's finest never stopped dueling. They had put money on gladiators' victories and defeats, on their lives and their deaths.
There was even a guy who bet his entire fortune on his own match.
He had repeated that insanity over and over. In the end, he had lost his final gamble.
Lycaon did not gamble often, but his win rate was exceptionally high.
"Fine. Who are you backing?"
He did not hesitate.
"The kid."
That one would have won.
"Sis! Put your back into it!"
The elf women raised their voices, giggling as they cheered.
"Whoa, this is brutal."
The one receiving that cheering was Ushun—one of the three Sub-Commanders of the Keshik who guarded the Khan of the Wilderness, a spirited woman who all but played the role of eldest daughter among them. Veins stood out along her brow, and her face had gone scarlet.
"My hips are killing me...!"
A rope had been lashed around her waist, and that rope ran to the centaur warrior opposite her. The two of them stood back to back, the line between them drawn taut. The centaur's face was flushed and mottled with effort as well.
"You've got this if you keep it up!"
"I know!"
There were two ropes in all. The second was one they could haul on with their hands, each line fixed fast to a stake planted in front of them. The first to pull herself forward along that rope and lay a hand on the stake would take the victory.
"Sis, you're actually incredible. You're holding even!"
"Her waist is off the ground and she's bracing it with her arms and her back. That's insane."
Ushun's waist had lifted clean off the earth. It was not a question of strength so much as weight. For all that she was built like a strongman, she was a child beside a centaur. To the centaur, Ushun's body was simply too light—a gap of four, nearly five times in bulk. Drop in anyone who merely "hit hard" and they would have been sent tumbling in a matter of seconds.
"Why the hell did I sign up for this?!"
Ushun bellowed it through a face mapped with standing veins. The two arms bearing the full brunt of that horse-born might were shaking violently. The elves who saw it only raised their voices higher.
"If you win, drinks are on me later!"
"You'd better keep that promise!"
Ushun seized the rope and hauled. The muscles of her broad back split into sharp, working ridges.
"What in the world...?"
"An elf is beating a centaur?"
"Get your head in the game! You're going to lose to an elf?"
"No! You're not losing to an elf!"
Ushun snapped back at the jeers rolling down from the stands. She turned on the crowd and roared, clear and ringing.
The shout was so thunderous that the centaur nearest her actually flinched and drew her head back.
"That's the Master for you."
"She's one of the Khan of the Wilderness's people, isn't she?"
"Looks like a bear wearing a person's skin."
The Master. Tamugai Ushun. Her name was already known across the whole of the Steppe.
"Isn't she the one who won the wrestling tournament the Great Khan hosted?"
"I heard she beat a bear to death while she was drunk."
"I did knock back quite a bit that time!"
Ushun answered them, then clenched her teeth. She reached.
A hard, solid thunk.
"She's gaining!"
"Don't tell me an elf is actually—?"
"Sis—! Just a little more!"
Ushun growled as if to say she hardly needed telling. The ground grumbled under her as she advanced, step by grinding step, and the rope drew so taut it seemed it might sing. The centaur warrior could not hide her dismay.
A final, ringing crack—Ushun's palm smashed into the cheek of the stake.
"Wooo! Sis won!"
"That was actually ridiculous."
The elves crowded in around her. Blood had rushed to Ushun's head; she blinked owlishly and let her tongue hang out.
"Sis, water."
"Water. Forget. Booze—hah. Bring it."
"Won't you die if you drink right now?"
"I. Won't."
"Fine, fine. Wow, you're red as a newborn. Look at the steam coming off you."
"Isn't your skin basically cooked at this point?"
"You little bitches, listen to you."
"Sis, you're drooling."
"Don't just stare—wipe it, you brat."
"Yes, yes."
Ushun grinned slackly and let the elves fuss over her. She drained a leather wineskin to the last drop and sprawled out on the bare ground.
"Augh. That was brutal."
"Honestly, when you said you were entering, I thought you were joking."
"Right? I figured sis had just drunk herself into another bad idea."
"I knew it would go like this. She'd been grousing for days that she was itching out of her skin."
Ushun had been watching the clouds drift by in a daze. She turned only her head to look at her elf subordinates.
"Hey. Lord Vesta had a match too, didn't he? If we go now, think we'd still catch it?"
"Nah, it'll be over."
Ushun clicked her tongue, as if she had missed a fine show.
"Honestly, I wanted to go watch that one myself."
"Me too, me too. I wanted to see our little Consort fight."
"Same. I only stayed out of loyalty, if we're being honest."
"Now I want to know how it went. He lost, right?"
At that, the other elf women pulled faces.
"Look at this one."
"What? It wasn't even a mounted fight, and whoever came out for the match wasn't going to be some nobody. Winning was always going to be hard. The Consort's a bit on the small side, too."
"Hey. Don't you remember last time? When the Consort carved up that giant bug?"
"Come on, that's not the same. Impressive, sure, but still."
"Didn't the Consort save you once?"
"He did. He looked magnificent."
The subject of conversation veered hard—from Vesta, to humans, and then to marriage.
"I want to get married too. Maybe I should take leave and go visit the Wilderness."
"You're in a hurry, huh."
"Don't even. Grooms like our little Consort don't grow on trees."
The elf women dissolved into peals of laughter, and Ushun's face twisted.
"There's nothing you bitches won't say."
"Sis, are you mad?"
"I'm first, you brats. Even marriage has seniority—know your place."
The elves howled all over again. They were still talking, Ushun folded into the chatter, when a commotion rose from another direction.
"What's all that about?"
"You figure it out."
"Hmm. Huh? What is that supposed to mean."
"Why, what happened?"
"...They're saying a human beat a centaur at tug-of-war."
"What?"
"So even among humans there's someone like our sis, I guess."
"That's impossible. Isn't this the first time a human's ever won?"
"Of course it is."
It's that bastard.
A man rose in Ushun's mind. She turned her gaze, but he was lost among the crowd, and she could not pick him out. Even so, she was certain. Her expression sharpened by a fraction. She had already sensed that the man was an Imperial, and so she could not simply admire what he had done.
Don't get any stupid ideas. I'll knock your jaw clean around if you do.
"Sis, what's wrong?"
"Tsk. Nothing."
"Um—the Khan is coming?"
"Really?"
"She's right over there. Where Lady Bia is."
Whatever else had happened, one did not have an audience with a king while sprawled on one's back. The elves hauled Ushun to her feet.
"The little Consort is there too."
"He looks cheerful. Don't tell me...?"
"Honestly, Bia. Were you that happy?"
"Ahem."
Bia cleared her throat, a faint flush on her face. She could not have looked more mortified.
"I got a little carried away."
Perhaps because Ashtien was present, her speech had gone stiff again, the way it used to be.
"I didn't expect you to just pick me up like that."
A delighted Bia had hoisted Vesta clean off the ground and then, for a considerable while, had declined to put him down. He had been, if he was honest, a little startled.
"You've every right to be glad."
Ashtien stroked Vesta's hair with an easy, fond hand.
"Did you not defend Arin's honor? The matter is not yet settled, but you have taken the first step without mishap."
And then, besides that—
"Bia has always admired the heroes in fairy tales. You showed her the very image of those champions, so of course she would be beside herself."
"Khan..."
Bia managed the word with some difficulty, and Ashtien could not hold back a laugh.
"Haha. I know, I know. I shall not tease you."
Vesta, for his part, had only been a little startled; he was not put out in the least. If anything, he thought it had been well worth the fight.
"It's still too soon to celebrate. To restore Arin's honor, we'll have to win a few more times yet."
"Yes. I will help with everything I have."
Bia nodded, her eyes brighter than before. Vesta held out a fist.
"...!"
Bia bumped it, gently, with a soft little tap.