Creusus's Arc

Chapter 2 of 21

Creusus walked out of the arena with the crowd still silent behind him. He did not go to the barracks. He went to a bench under the stone tiers and unwrapped his knuckles to look at the cuts. That was where he first heard the numbers. Two men in clean tunics stood by the archway, talking loud enough for a fighter to hear on purpose. Odds against the bald brute were four to one and climbing. A sponsored favorite had put gold on it. And, one of them added, the favorite had put more gold on a side arrangement: three men, a quiet alley, and a hammer for the brute's hands before the next bout. Creusus finished wrapping his hands again. He did not go back to the training post, and he did not seek a guard. He walked out through the arena's front gate while the sun was still up, because men who plan to break hands prefer the dark. He wanted them to come now, where he could see them. He picked a narrow lane between two market stalls and stopped in the middle of it. He waited. They came within the hour. Three of them, as promised. One carried a smith's hammer down along his leg. The other two carried short clubs. They spread to block both ends of the lane. The one with the hammer told him to hold out his hands and it would be quick. Creusus held out his hands. When the man stepped in, Creusus caught the hammer shaft against his wrapped palm, drove his other fist into the man's throat, and took the hammer as the body dropped. He did not use it. He set it on the ground. The club on his left swung for his temple. He ducked under the arc, hit the ribs, hit the jaw, and stepped over him toward the last one. That one ran. Creusus let him run. He wanted a witness who would carry the story back to whoever had paid. He walked back to the arena with his knuckles bleeding through fresh cloth. Brogan Ironquill was still at the desk. Creusus set the smith's hammer on the wood between them and said he wanted it entered into the record that three men had tried to break his hands in the market lane, and that two of them were still lying there. Brogan looked at the hammer, then at the bandages, then wrote it down without a word. Word moved faster than ink. By evening the odds against him had shortened, and the sponsored favorite had withdrawn a purse from the bettors' table. Creusus had kept his hands. He had also told every fighter in Embermere that the cheap way to stop him was closed, and that the next attempt would have to come inside the ring.