Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

by fools who never once saw the Black Isle,” Gamarron had responded. “They’re offensive and ridiculous. My people never dressed like that. It’s cold up there, you know.”

“Still, my lord, if we want to draw in the chaos wielder’s little lordling friends, we have to give them what they expect. If you arrive wearing that,” she had said, gesturing to his black robe, “everyone will just keep wondering when the savage is going to show up.”

Eventually he had conceded to her good sense, and now he stood on the sands of the gladiator’s arena holding up a huge stone hammer with a haft as long as his leg, spattered with blood, wearing the garb that any Mainlander would recognize as a savage: fur-covered underpants, tall furry boots, and a horned skullcap. Nothing more. The crowd was shouting with glee because he had felled ten combatants at once who had all been trying to kill him. Renna, on the other hand, was laughing because she saw the little quiver in his beard that meant he was deeply, horribly embarrassed. She congratulated herself for sending the young ones after the chaos wielder so that she could be here. She wouldn’t have missed this for the world.

Six rounds he had survived without falling; no one had done that in years. She could hear the rabble around her excitedly comparing him to favored gladiators of yore, crowing over his strength, and was he really from the North? Would he go for another round, or take his winnings now? Gamarron lifted his thumb in the air, signifying his intent to keep going, and those around her nearly fell over themselves in excitement. She could smell the stink of these idiots’ breath. It was enough to make her retch, but many of those fetid mouths were calling in bets to the roaming bookies that made the rounds among the benches, so she stayed put. Bet it all, you dirty bastards. Bet next month’s pay. Bet the farm. This late in the game, they were unlikely to get a very good return – Gamarron had dominated all challengers so thoroughly that the odds were drastically in his favor. Still, everyone wanted to be able to say they’d bet on the savage when they were telling the tale to their friends months from now.

He had used his left hand to give the thumbs-up this time – that was the signal they had arranged. Renna lazily lifted a finger in the air, catching the eye of a nearby bookie. The harried, sweaty man and his club-wielding assistant came over and she placed her bet, handing over a sizable purse. As the bookie counted the flats his eyebrows rose. She was putting the entire remainder of what she and Nira had stolen from the Governor on the line. Despite living well these last weeks, there was more than three emerald flats’ worth left. Scribbling out a receipt and pressing his wax seal onto it, he handed it over to her with a nod and motioned to his assistant to turn around. The hulking protector did so, revealing a shining black carapace attached to his back.

A holder beetle! Renna was impressed. A team of those horrid Insectae Hands had been working on the project around the time she’d been drummed out of Megalith a decade before, but she’d never heard whether or not they’d had success. Obviously, they had. The beetle was as broad and wide as a man’s back, and its harder-than-stone shell had a large, hollow cavity underneath it. Once attached to a person’s back – not a comfortable process, from what she remembered – it could only be detached by the application of a specially formulated liquid dripped into the bug’s mouth… or by tearing its wearer in half to expose the soft underside. This one had a slot bred into its shell, allowing things to be inserted but not easily extracted. The bookie slipped the flats into the holder a handful at a time and offered the empty purse back to her. She waved it away. She’d need a much larger one when this was done.

I suppose I’ll have to think differently of the Buggers now, she reflected, feeling gingerly at the slow-healing scab between her ribs where she had stabbed herself with the witchwood dagger two weeks ago. It had been the strangest sensation to feel the essence of another human slide into her body. Back when she’d killed that poor Insectae years ago, gathering his essence into the forbidden witchwood dagger had been almost an afterthought – she never dreamed she’d use it. Now their hopes for success rode on the fact that she had done so. It had been an amazing feeling to harness the life of the insect world and bend it to her will, to instinctively understand them as she had always been able to do with Gaia’s plants. She had a newfound respect for the Buggers, and she understood now why the priesthood feared and despised them: it was the only way to keep them from ruling New Gaia. The insect world held a power and ferocity that made her ability to shape plants pale in comparison. She smiled as she remembered shaping her gift for Kest and could not feel sorry for the murder she’d done all those years ago. She missed the power now that it was spent. Maybe I’ll seek out some other Bugger that wouldn’t be missed.

The crowd’s noise swelled, and she focused on the arena. A truly gargantuan man was walking onto the blood-stained sands. Renna felt a pang of fear. What kind of monster is this? She’d never seen someone so tall. It was hard to be exact from where she sat, but if the giant waving to the crowd was less than three hands over two meters, she would eat her boots. Based on the enthusiastic calls from the unwashed crowd, the massive gladiator was named Khraam. She’d heard the name in passing earlier