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  “Fight, fight, fight, fight! Kill, kill, kill, kill!” They’d done this before, in perfect unison. The Horde from the Histories didn’t drown their prisoners as the Scabs in his world did.

  They forced them into a death match for sport or hung them from the neck until dead.

  Johnis tossed his sword far to one side. The crowd stilled to the snap of a twig as the blade arced gracefully through the air and landed in the dust with a dull slap.

  “Then let me take any one man, give him a sword, and let me fight him bare-handed,” Johnis cried. “If I win, let me go free. Or is that too much for the Horde from the Histories?”

  A lone spectator yelled raw from the top of the arena. “Fight the bugger!”

  “An entertainer for sure,” the executioner said. “Well? Do we have a taker?”

  From the far end a single warrior, twice Johnis’s size in both thickness and height, stepped from the line and walked out into the open.

  He ripped off his helmet with a thick, gnarled hand and dropped it into the dust. “I accept.”

  SILVIE CONSIDERED TEARING FROM THE BATHROOM THE moment she realized that someone else was in the stall—the party Johnis had been mistaken for.

  But now she was alone, and the guard would be intensifying their search. It would be better for her to hide in one of the stalls until Johnis returned, assuming he would. The thought sent a chill down her back.

  Silvie stood frozen in a moment of indecision, staring at her mirror image—a red-caped warrior with a ridiculous helmet that was suffocating her. She could hardly see in the thing! So she ripped it off.

  Move, Silvie!

  She’d taken two steps toward the nearest toilet when the far stall door flew open and a warrior dressed in a red cape stepped out, cleared his throat, and spit to one side. She knew by the widening of his eyes that he hadn’t expected to see her standing here looking at him.

  “Wrong bathroom,” he said.

  What was she to say?

  “Ladies across the hall.”

  Sorry.

  His look of shock gave way to a thin grin that snaked over a scarred face. His head was shaven clean, but the helmet he held in his right hand was identical to hers. And he, like she, wore a red cape. He was comparable to Johnis only in his smaller size—she could see how they might be confused for one another—wearing helmets hides their features.

  “I didn’t know they were going to execute a lass today.”

  “They’re not,” she snapped.

  “No, you just dressed up like a prisoner for the thrill of it, eh?” Now he was wearing a wicked, yellow-toothed smile that tempted her to slap him hard. Instead, she opted for keeping calm. There were still boots thudding past outside.

  Another thought dawned. They’d taken Johnis, thinking he was a prisoner to be executed!

  “It’s all a mistake.” She fought to keep her nerves under control. The man’s eyes dropped to her trembling hands. Why couldn’t she control herself in this place cursed by Elyon?

  “Yes, of course.” The man angled for the door, eyes steady on her. He smelled like too much drink mixed with a night of vomiting.

  “You’re a fighter. I can see it in your lovely little eyes, sweetheart. Gonna take half of them down with you, aren’t you? This ain’t the Dark Ages, you know: 2020 when they just played around. It’s brutal out there. Why don’t you let me have some fun before they kill us both?”

  “Why don’t you take your skinny backside out of here before I put my boot up it?” she retorted. But did she really want to leave an unconscious man on the floor for the guard to find? It would only bring more of them.

  The man’s grin only widened. “Passion before death and all that. It’s all part of the deal, isn’t it?”

  Silvie suddenly realized that he wasn’t intending to head out the door but was circling around to cut off her escape. She needed to distract him.

  “Do they execute all prisoners here?”

  “Only the ones with the red capes. Unless you manage to kill them all. You see, we have nothing to lose.” His emphasis on the word kill clearly revealed his doubt that it was possible.

  Johnis was in terrible trouble … A wave of heat spread down her neck. She nearly swatted the bald fool aside and bolted for the door then. But she had no reasonable course that would land her anywhere except in the gallows herself, in no shape to help Johnis.

  “Come on, sweetie, what do you say: a kiss before the old death match?”

  The door behind the skunk swung wide and filled with a guard. Silvie’s line of sight was mostly blocked by the other prisoner, but she could see over his shoulder enough to know that this guard wasn’t the same one who’d confronted her at the front doors.

  She moved closer. “Now you’re talking my language,” she said. Then in a whisper, “Don’t let him stop us! Kiss me …”

  The rank-smelling man stepped up and snaked his thin arms around her. His lips smothered hers in a thick, wet kiss.

  he crowd sat in perfect silence, not daring to disturb the echo of those two words of invitation they longed to hear: I accept.

  They would get their fight. And not the twenty-on-one smashing that would be over before it started, but a contest between this unorthodox runt and their Goliath.

  Johnis scanned the stadium once again, hoping for an avenue of escape, but only saw doors between the seats up high, and even those were guarded.

  The only advantage he might have over the huge warrior who faced him from twenty yards away was speed. One whack from the man’s broadsword and Johnis would go down in a sea of blood. Helmet or not.

  He lifted his helmet off his head and tossed it to one side. His opponent began to walk toward him.

  The chant began like a hum, then swelled to a roar. “Vigor, Vigor, Vigor, Vigor!”

  Clearly they had seen Vigor rip the heads from other prisoners’ shoulders before and wanted to see the sight again. Two weeks earlier the chant from a different crowd in a different world had been in praise of him, the chosen one, who’d turned the Horde back at the Natalga Gap. The sound of it still rang in his ears: Johnis, Johnis, Johnis, Johnis!

  “Dear Elyon, help me,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure if the shaking at the soles of his feet came from the crowd’s roar or from his own bones, but he didn’t think he’d ever felt quite so desperate as he did now.

  It was one thing to face Teeleh, knowing the Roush were there to back you up. But he had no clue what kind of provision existed in the Histories.

  “Vigor, Vigor, Vigor, Vigor!”

  And then Vigor was lumbering for him, a large sword comfortable in his right hand. Biceps swollen the size of Johnis’s whole head. Thigh muscles rippled like a stallion’s flank. Worse, the man was no longer lumbering but bounding on the balls of his feet, limber and surprisingly quick.

  The notion to dive for his helmet and roll into a tight protective ball entered his mind and was gone before it could be counted as more than a foolish instinct left over from his childhood. But the instinct returned stronger this time. He didn’t know what to do. So he just stood still, like a twig planted firmly in the hard soil.

  “Vigor, Vigor …” The cries softened, then faded altogether as the crowd sensed an outright pummeling—their bull would soon trample this mouse who’d spoken so bravely but now stood quivering in the dust.

  Vigor uttered a grunt ten feet away, pulled back his sword (still at a full run), and swung the blade in an arc that Johnis judged would reach his neck at the peak of its momentum.

  He waited a full count, then dropped into the protective ball. His body collapsed into itself and fell to the ground like a coiled spring, faster than Vigor could have anticipated.

  The warrior’s sword swept through empty air, and both feet reached the balled form on the ground, one right after the other. Both stopped at Johnis’s midsection.

  The rest of Vigor’s body, however, was not so quick. It catapulted over Johnis, went airborne—feet high, head low—and sai
led ten feet before gravity finally had its way with the man. Johnis watched the whole thing with his face pressed into two inches of dirt.

  The thud of Vigor’s chest and face slamming into ground.

  A terrifying crack of bone.

  The gasp from the crowd.

  Johnis breathed hard, nostrils blowing at the dust. It was the only sound he heard in the wake of the mighty fall. Vigor lay still.

  Johnis lifted his head and stared at the larger man’s closed eyes facing him from a dozen feet away.

  The eyes snapped open and stared at him.

  Vigor suddenly sprang up to his feet and shook off the fall. But … he’d heard a crack! The man’s back or his neck.

  “Vigor, Vigor, Vigor, Vigor!”

  Vigor rushed him.

  Too late to rely on anything but raw instinct. Johnis leaped to his feet and ran away from the indestructible monster whose eyes now bulged with fury at the runt who tripped him up.

  It took him only a few strides at a full sprint to feel the same surge of power he’d felt racing through the gaming hall. There was something in the air here, he’d thought then. It made him overly zealous. It made him cry. It made him dull in the head at times.

  And it made him fast.

  Speed might not help him fell the mighty beast named Vigor, but it would help him run away. Johnis flew straight for the line of warriors watching from behind their helmets. He could feel the red cape tug at his neck, and he shrugged out of it.

  The executioner stood in his black outfit, arms crossed, atop the platform, Johnis veered to his right and headed for the far side wall. When he reached the wood planking, he angled left and ran parallel, looking back for the first time since leaving them behind.

  Vigor was still sprinting toward him. But he was a good fifty yards off. He’d put that much distance on the man?

  The crowd had gone quiet. A youthful, high-strung voice spoke what was on Johnis’s mind, if not the crowd’s. “Man, he’s fast!”

  Okay, so he was fast. What was he going to do, run around the arena like a chicken with its head cut off? Eventually they would tire of his running and send the rest after him.

  He still had the knife strapped to his thigh, but he couldn’t afford to lose it on one throw at the man bearing down on him.

  Johnis feigned left then took off to his right, sprinting toward the center again, dangerously close to Vigor. Fast with the wind in his hair. Maybe twice as fast as he remembered being able to run.

  He sped past the man, headed toward the platform, and veered behind, as if crossing to the far side again.

  But he did not cross to the far side. Halfway down the length of the platform he turned into it, cutting as close to a right angle as his speed would allow.

  He reached the platform in five streaking strides, launched himself into a dive that cleared the five-foot height, rolled across the platform, and came to his feet beside the executioner.

  Before the man had a chance to recover from the brash and speedy transition from flight to fight, Johnis was behind him and had his blade at the man’s neck. He slammed the back of the man’s knee, dropping him off balance to his haunches, “Call him off, or I cut your throat where you stand!” he screamed.

  SILVIE LET THE BALD PRISONER KISS HER HUNGRILY AND waited patiently. He was smelly and wet and reminded her of a slug, but at the moment she would take a slug over captivity.

  “Hey! There’s a man and woman—”

  “Can’t you see we’re busy here?” the man yelled, ripping his lips from hers. He spun and stared the guard down. “You have a problem with the condemned catching a moment of bliss before death?”

  Presumably satisfied that the bald head didn’t match the description he’d been given, the guard finally dipped his head and ducked out.

  The prisoner came around, a sly grin parting his lips to reveal his smelly yellow teeth. “Now, where were we?”

  Unable to tolerate the man a moment longer, Silvie slammed her right knee into the man’s groin.

  He gasped and doubled over in pain.

  “You were begging for this.” She brought her left knee up into his face. His nose cracked and he toppled to one side, out cold.

  “Never mistake a woman as an opportunity for bliss.”

  Silvie snatched up her helmet and pulled it on as she fled the room, leaving her sword.

  No guards. The crowds roar came from up ahead. She’d pieced their predicament together well enough by now. The Horde were known to hold public executions in which prisoners were drowned. But sometimes they had sport with the prisoners before their deaths. So it was in the Histories. She and Johnis had stumbled into a public execution, and Johnis had been mistaken as the prisoner who lay unconscious behind her.

  She rushed across the room that held the capes that identified prisoners as condemned. A dark passageway ran adjacent the sound of a crowds roar. A door: locked.

  Johnis is behind this door. My lover has been led through this door to the slaughter.

  Silvie hefted the helmet off her head and tossed the useless vessel to the side. She raced along the wall, looking for another way past. It rose ten feet and cracked at the top where steel tubes crisscrossed to form girding for a large structure. An auditorium.

  The crowd had grown silent. Silvie raced farther into the darkness. The passageway ended in a hallway that ran straight ahead, Green fabric covered the floor. Lights hung overhead. If she wasn’t mistaken, she was headed away from the arena, but going back the way she’d come only promised to land her in a face-off with the guard. She had to find a way into the arena!

  But there was no way. The crowd’s roar was no longer within earshot. She was about to head back when she saw a sign indicating that the passage to her right was a DRESSING ROOM. With some luck, it was a way back to the arena.

  Silvie ran up the hall, ducked into the dressing room. Mirrors. Bright lights. Jewelry. One woman sat in a chair with her legs crossed, chewing on something as she worked on her nails.

  Her eyes lifted. “Yes?”

  “Sorry.” Silvie closed the door, now on the brink of full-fledged panic. She had to get to him. Now, while he was still alive, assuming he was still alive! She didn’t even know if he was in this arena.

  A crowd’s roar rose farther down the hall. Silvie blinked and looked back the way she’d come. The arena was ahead of her? She’d gone in a circle, perhaps.

  Heart in her throat, she rushed toward a door topped by a sign reading STAGE. Without concern for her own safety, she flung the door open and barged into a room where several people sat about, watching square tubes with moving pictures on them of a woman singing. Piles of black boxes were identified in white letters; THE CRYING SHAME.

  Silvie spun to her right and saw the same woman out on a stage, singing to a huge crowd partially hidden by long, black curtains. It took her only a moment to realize that she’d stumbled into a different arena; one reserved for song, not killing.

  Without bothering to judge the expressions of those in the room, she backed out, slammed the door, whirled back the way she’d come, and sprinted down the hallway. She raced past the dressing room, along the lighted hall, and was about to duck back into the dark passageway alongside the arena when she saw a shaft of light to her right.

  A break in the wall she’d missed coming the other direction.

  Silvie ran up to a four-inch crack and peered into a huge, brightly lit arena with a dirt floor. There, on a platform in the center, stood Johnis. He held a knife in one hand, and his other was around an executioner’s neck.

  “Call him off, or I cut your throat where you stand!” he screamed.

  “Johnis!”

  Her own scream carried through the crack and echoed into the stadium. A thousand heads turned her way and, seeing nothing, immediately returned to the spectacle on the platform.

  But Johnis understood. “Silvie! Save yourself, Silvie.”

  “No, don’t you dare say that! Let him free! He’s not wh
o you think he is!” A pause.

  “Tell them, Silvie,” Johnis cried. “Tell them we’re not the prisoners they think we are.”

  “We’re not!” she screamed through the crack in the tall wall. “We’re from the future. We’ve come here for the Books of History. It’s all a mistake!”

  There was another pause.

  “Tell them we’re related to the king,” Johnis called. The king? “We’re related to the king.”

  “Take us to your supreme commander and let us sort this whole thing out!” Johnis yelled.

  Silvie held her breath, eyes pressed up against the crack to see the crowd’s response.

  “Let me go!” the man in black growled.

  His warriors moved as one, swarming for the platform.

  “Johnis!”

  o say that the sound of Silvie’s voice flooded Johnis with relief would be a gross understatement. He very nearly released the man and raced for the sound of it. She was here! She’d come to save him! But then he thought about the danger she was placing herself in, and his gratuitous relief turned to horror.

  Their exchange didn’t produce the kind of response he’d hoped for. He had a choice now: kill the man in his hands with a jerk of his knife and face them head-on, or take the chance that this interruption would stall the planned execution.

  “You’re cutting me,” the executioner growled.

  The warriors rushed.

  “Johnis!”

  A whistle blew shrilly, “Take him down, boys!”

  Guards were pouring in through several doors along the wall. They’d found him. Regardless of what had really happened here, he was now at their mercy, which he doubted would be very liberal.

  He released the man, let the knife fall to the platform, and lifted his hands in a show of surrender. “Run, Silvie! Save yourself! Find Darsal. Find Karas. Run!”

  They fell on him with a tangle of sweaty arms and sharp curses. A pair of shiny silver shackles were clamped around his wrist and tightened. They hurried him from the building and shoved him into a Chevy with lights atop it, like the ones that had first given pursuit. Johnis slouched in the back, behind a cage that separated him from the pilot.