Ammit screamed in pain. “Cry off! I cry off!”
I didn’t give a fuck what he cried. I swung again and hit him in the arm. He turned and began to run, but he was out of breath. Also, those bowlegs. I looked at Kellin, who shrugged and swept a hand at my erstwhile foe, as if to say as you will. I took it for that, anyway. I went after Ammit. I could tell you I was thinking about the shoulder-check, and how the whole people in the box had laughed when I went down. I could tell you I was thinking about how Jaya had tripped over me and gone sprawling. I could even tell you that I was making sure no one else would decide to mess with the new boy. None of that would have been true. None of the others had shown the slightest animus toward me, except maybe for Eye, and that was before he got to know me a little.
I just wanted to fuck the dude up.
I hit him twice in the ass, good hard blows. The second drove him to his knees. “Cry off! Cry off! I cry off!”
I raised my fighting stick over my head, but before I could bring it down, the Lord High grasped my elbow. There was that horrible feeling of being touched by a live wire, and the sense that all my strength was being drained out of me. If he’d held on, I would have blacked out as I had at the outer gate, but he let go.
“Enough.”
My hands opened and I dropped the stick. Then I went to one knee. The VIPs were applauding and cheering. My vision was swimming, but I saw a tall guy with a scar on his cheek whispering to the white-faced woman, casually cupping one of her breasts as he did so.
“Get up, Charlie.”
I managed to do it. Kellin nodded at Aaron.
“Playtime is over,” Aaron said. “Everyone take another drink.”
I don’t know about the rest of them, but I needed it.
3
The guards took us to one of the team rooms. It was, by the standards I was used to, large and luxurious. There were electric lights overhead, but apparently they weren’t wired to the ramshackle generator and had been replaced by more gas-jets. The floors and walls were white-tiled and spotless, at least until we tracked our dirt in… plus assorted splotches of blood from the stick-fighting. The place was probably kept clean by grayfolk, I thought, although none were in evidence now. There was a gutter of running water to piss in, which several of the men did. At either end were porcelain seats with holes in the center. I guessed those were for the women, although neither Jaya nor Eris availed themselves of them. They did strip off their tops as the men did, and without any observable self-consciousness. Jaya had taken several fighting-stick blows, and her ribs were blooming with bruises.
On one side of the room were wooden cubbies where team members must once have stored their gear （we, of course, had none to stow）。 On the other side was a long shelf lined with buckets for washing. A rag floated in each. There was no soap.
I pulled off my shirt, wincing at various aches and pains—most from the blows of the limber sticks. The worst was at the small of my back. I couldn’t see that one, but I could feel the blood, now drying and tacky.
Several people were already at the buckets, washing their upper bodies, and a few had dropped their drawers to wash the rest. I thought I might skip that part of my ablutions, but it was interesting to note that in Empis, as well as in France （at least according to the ditty）， they don’t wear underpants.
Ammit limped toward me. Our guardians hadn’t come in with us, which meant there was no one to break it up if he wanted a rematch. That was okay with me. I bent, bare-chested and still caked with days of dirt （maybe weeks by then） and balled up my fists. Then an amazing thing happened. Eye, Fremmy, Stooks, and Hamey stood in front of me in a line, facing Ammit.
The bowlegged man shook his head and put the heel of his hand to his brow, as though he had a headache. “Nah, nah. I didn’t believe it, but now I do. Maybe I do. Are you really the—”
Iota stepped forward and put a hand over Ammit’s mouth before he could finish. With the other hand he pointed to a grate that might have supplied heat in the days when this stadium—and the city it served—had been a going concern. Ammit followed his gaze and nodded. With what was obvious pain, he dropped to one knee before me and put his hand to his forehead again.
“I apologize, Charlie.”
I opened my mouth to say no problem, but what came out was “I accept gladly. Take your feet, Ammit.”
They were all looking at me now, and some of the others （not Iota, not then） had also put their hands to their foreheads. They couldn’t all have headaches, so it had to be a salute. They believed something that was completely ridiculous. And yet—