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Prologue

The roar of a crowd invades you like a living thing, reverberating in your chest, taking its answer from your lips without perly thefro in a hundred skulls, or a thousand For a lorious, expanding their control,it easier to reach into thethe possibility that in such a storm of humanity they may lose theain

Markus watched the defeated fighter being helped fro beneath the jeers and complaint of the crowd The victor still stalked the peri down his ribs But already the croere losing interest in hihbours with speculation, observation, or jest, turning to the odds- to the counter in the far corner to fill their cups ine And so at the far end of the hall

The gerant fighter waiting behind the ropes threatened nine foot in height and Markus didn’t believe that he had seen a larger , in his early twenties perhaps, and histhereat, veined mounds He watched the world from pale eyes beneath a thicket of short red hair

At the Caltess the gerant contests were thetheir strength against each other never failed to draw thethe folk of Verity loved to see that strength turned upon hapless challengers Bouts between hunska ring-fighters had a strong following a the more experienced watchers but the speed of the combatants often left the common croildered Mixed th was always interesting

Froiant’s ring a challenger eed A powerfully builthim on all sides In normal circumstances Markus would have been iainst any three bar-room brawlers

An undercurrent of whispers and speculation flowed around the hall The ee from the port of Ren, which now lay within the Durnish incursion He had so the north ins

‘Five says he doesn’t last the round against Denaer

The roar as the newco drowned out further conversation Markus hadn’t ever been inside the great hall of the Caltess, though years ago he had spent hours waiting in the coe The child-taker had never intended to sell Markus to Partnis Reeve though He’d suspected Markus of marjal blood and had taken him on to be offered where such talents would fetch a richer price The great hall had stood silent and dark on thatyoung Markus had shivered and clutched himself and never suspected that he would one day stand within, part of a sweating, heavingfor blood

Even though it was Markus’s first tis he knew Dena hters, faht often proved to involve nothingat the sea of resentful faces before hie he would cede his place to another fighter and once e

‘Milos of Ren!’ the fight-master called out

Milos raised his arement and walked to his corner to await the bell

Markus didn’t hear the chime above the roar but the two erant full-blood kept his hands down and let Milos take a punch It was as if he had swung at a tree Denahtly to the left with the blow Milos clubbed him two-handed across the other side of his face and Denaaze to his opponent and grinned, his teeth bloody Milos didn’t appear to understand He looked down at his fists as if therewith them

Dena his arered as if drunk Denareat hands, one wrapped around his neck, the other encoh, and lifted hi him down, full-bodied, face first