Mikros Leonidas's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

Empress Gelda stepped onto the sand. She was no slim fighter. Her body was broad as a hippo, draped in pink cloth, her orange hair piled in curls. She moved slow, but her feet shook the ground. Mikros had beaten her beasts one by one. Now she had come down herself, and her falcon claws flexed at her sides. "Small man," she said. Her voice was flat. "I hate Mondays. I hate men your size more." She did not wait for a reply. She began to walk a wide circle around him. Mikros turned with her. She circled once, then again, each pass closer. Her claws scraped the sand. He watched her legs, thick and swollen as columns. She meant to pin him, to crush him under her weight. He could not win by waiting. She closed the ring tighter. Then he saw it. Her legs were huge, but they left a gap between them when she stepped. A low gap. His gap. If he could dart beneath her and cut the cord above her heel, she would fall and never rise fast enough. "Mikros!" Cassandra shouted from the rail. The red-haired inventor gripped the stone with both hands. "Stay low. You know what you are." He did. He dropped into his crouch and waited for the empress to swing her claws. She lunged, slow and heavy. Mikros dove between her legs. He drove Cassandra's spear at the back of her ankle, aiming for the thick tendon above the heel. The point struck. But her skin was thick as hide. The spear bit, then slid. It cut a long gash, not the clean sever he needed. Gelda did not fall. She roared and spun, faster than her size promised. Her claw caught the spear shaft and tore it from his hands. The weapon spun away across the sand. Mikros rolled clear and came up empty-handed. His only weapon lay far off. The empress stood between him and it, bleeding from her heel but upright. Blood ran down her foot. Her green lips pulled back. "You cut me," she said. She looked at the red line on her ankle, then at him. "No one cuts me." She set her weight on the wounded leg. It held. She took one step toward him, then another, and the limp barely showed. Mikros backed away. He had no spear, no wall behind him, and a furious empress closing in. Cassandra's voice cracked across the arena. "The spear! Behind her!" Mikros glanced past Gelda to the weapon in the sand. To reach it he would have to get through her, or around her, with nothing in his hands. The crowd had gone silent. For the first time in the games, Mikros had struck his foe and failed to bring her down.