Champion Kevintor Neverloss's Arc

Chapter 5 of 42

Kevintor stopped halfway to the small door. The far end of the hall waited, but the basin behind him pulled his attention back. He turned and walked to it again, the gold-blade katana low in his hand. The dark liquid had settled. Now he saw what floated under the bones. Not just bones. Hilts. Snapped sword grips, splintered spear shafts, the curl of a broken guard. A whole armory crushed and sunk under the rim. He reached in and lifted a hilt out. The wood was rotted soft. The pommel was the same gold as the one he carried. He looked at the katana in his other hand. Same metal. Same wrap, only newer. Whoever cleaned this room had set a fresh sword on the floor for the next fighter to find. They had done it many times. The basin was the receipt. He turned in a slow circle. The carved hands on the walls were not reaching toward him. They were reaching toward the basin. Palms open. Stone fingers tipped in gold flame. Every hand in the hall pointed at the pile under the liquid, the way mourners face a grave. He counted three he could see clearly and stopped counting. There were too many. Each one was a fighter who had walked through the iron door before him and been folded down to a wrist bone and a hilt. A scrape came from the small door at the far end. Soft. Someone on the other side, moving without hurry. The cleaner. Whoever rinsed the stain and laid the next blade. Kevintor understood the shape of it. They would open the door, see him standing, and try to add him to the basin. He had killed the creature. He had not finished the room. He walked to the small door and set his back against the wall beside it. He held the katana point down. The latch lifted. The door swung in. A figure stepped through carrying a bucket and a folded cloth. Kevintor took the wrist before the bucket hit the floor. He drove the figure face-first into the stone and put a knee on the spine. The cloth fell open. Inside it was a whetstone, a rag, and a list of names written in a careful hand. Kevintor's name was at the bottom, freshly inked. He read it twice. He folded the list into his jacket. He left the cleaner breathing and bound with the cloth's own ties, then walked back to the iron door and through it. Lina stood up from the wall when the lantern found him. He showed her the list without speaking. She read the bottom line and her face changed. "They knew you were coming," she said. He nodded. The seventh art was not hidden behind this room. It was on the list. Someone above them had written it down and sent the cleaners to keep the basin fed.