CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"I'm going to go." I said, tapping Mallow's wrist to get her attention. "I got to pee."

Mallow rolled her eyes. Her adoration was back to the center of the ring. I hadn't gone all day and now was as good as time as any. Much to my surprise, there were actually public chamber pots half a block from the show, set up to handle the influx of party goers. After relieving myself, I realized I had nowhere more interesting to go and made my way back to the fight.

Just like with the play, it now was impossible to get to where I had been standing before. I managed to sneak onto the very edges of the crowd. Mallow was the only reason we'd been able to snag any seat we wanted. Swearing, I moved until I saw her.

She stuck out, so it wasn't too hard. She was screaming herself ragged in excitement. The rest of the crowd was thrashing and shouting too. Something really violent was happening down there finally, and I was missing all of it! Even nudging and elbowing, I was still not quite big enough to get where I wanted to be. The bodies pressed in on either side of me, warm and uncomfortable, like fighting your way out of a tangled blanket in the summer.

The din was punctuated by gasps of terror followed by a heavy silence. The quiet was broken by one murmuring laugh, and then a second, until suddenly everyone was laughing and cheering. Applause rolled across the dozens of hands, creating an artificial rumbling thunder that shook me in the back of my teeth. Mallow was jumping up and down. The people standing on either side of her had been struggling to keep their balance as she shook the walkway.

Although I had missed the good action, I had to reunite with Mallow all the same. I ducked low. This way, although I touched a good many kneecaps accidentally, I was making steady progress to where Mallow was. I passed the Boerens, going out of my way to avoid brushing against one of the large, woolly, and armor-covered legs. Who knows what sort of tempers they had about a violation of personal space?

"Fake," one of their voices rumbled above me. It was an odd combination of a low, deep sound wrapped with a high-pitched, clipping squeal. Like hearing a pig grunt, except in comprehensible syllables. "Shiny men faked it all. Real fights not pretty like that."

"Are you saying Sir Osoro cheated?" That was Mallow, shouting across the noise of the applause. I shrank in horror. Oh no. Mallow, don't. Please, don't...

"Of course he cheated. Too pretty to win a fight right." The shortest of the Boeren, the one running his mouth, pounding his hoofed hand against his chest. I wondered how they managed to use tools with hands like that, noticing only one tiny nubby thumb besides the two cloven fingers.

I popped my head up. I was still too far away from Mallow to grab her arm or anything, but I tried shouting for her.

"Mallow! Don't!"

It must have seemed like I was goading her, and soon the entire crowd was joining in.

"You know, I always thought the Avalon's won't be able to handle real battle."

"What, of course they can. Don't you remember when they saved that family of fourteen from that burning hay barn?"

"People who get hurt have scars, like the elves."

"That's a choice. I saw Sir Fayd lose an entire hand to a bear last year. He cast it back."

The random comments were split, either supporting the Boeren or Mallow's claims. Stuck between the two behemoths, but not close enough to either, I knew what was going to happen and was powerless to stop it.

When Mallow threw the first punch. Her pale, powerful fist cut through the air quickly and because the Boeren wasn't prepared, she hit him hard. The tusked face jerked sideways. He stumbled back on his dainty hoofed feet below those thick, trunkish legs. Mallow took a panting step away.

"Take. It. Back," she demanded, a cocky grin overcoming her lips. The Boeren squealed in outrage and jumped from the bench toward her. People were knocked sideways, including me. My head hit the bench and everything went black. A person stomping on my hand brought me back to normal, except with the lovely addition of a pounding headache. I tried to get up, but the chaos was now overwhelming with people fleeing. I was knocked around helplessly. I felt like a raft in an ocean storm. Mallow screamed, then the Boeren shouted, the thunder of this storm. The pain that flared as I was knocked into was the lightning. And, for the sound of the rolling waves, the other Boerens were laughing at their friend. A one-on-one fight. If I wasn't so afraid of slipping and dying under trampling feet, I would feel relieved for Mallow not having to face an entire pack of the beasts.

Wait, no, there was the real lightning. Bright flashes of shiny armor. People were again levitating. This wasn't the calm methodical movement of Winsor. People were thrust through the air to the edges of the crowd and dropped unceremoniously with soft thuds and yelps. Not from great heights, from five feet or so, but many of them in all directions. The movement ate away at the crowd until there was room for the bulky Avalons in their armor to get close to Mallow and the Boeren.

Freckles finished his levitation and moved onto a second phase of the Avalons' crowd control. His magic-laced voice commanded all to calm down and stay reasonable. The spell was intended for Mallow and the Boeren, but it was so powerful it wound through the group that was now more of a fence of spectators than an unruly mob. A void of noise where before it was so loud, made me unbalanced. I too was hit with the runoff of the magic. My pulse slowed, my eyes grew heavy. I saw the tendrils of the magic crawl up Mallow from her feet to her head, traveling like speedy spiders. Mallow's narrow orange eyes widened. Her hands fell to her sides and opened, her fingers loose. Her head went from leaning forward to cocked to the side inquisitively. She was at ease, all aggression forgotten. If magic hadn't already wrested control of my emotions from myself, I would have felt relief wash over me.

I was so calm I didn't bother to keep my eyes on her opponent. The Boeren took another swing at her. Helpless, she was knocked back, silver blood spilling from her split lip down the front of her bandaged chest. The magic smell, already strong from the Avalons, grew worse and my nose wrinkled involuntarily.

Sir Osoro darted forward and grabbed Mallow as she fell. He pulled her body close to his. He struggled like a child trying to support a falling parent. A memory fought its way through the blanket of magic-induced indifference.

I had caught my dad like that when he had collapsed. It was after a day in the sun working another's land during one of the many times we hadn't been given enough food. He had been faint because he'd been pretending not to have an appetite so I could eat most of his share. Lacking enchanted strength, I had fallen into the dirt and cow filth beneath the weight of my much larger dad.

Sir Osoro didn't strain under the weight, but his gaze was darting every other direction but at Mallow's face. He discreetly summoned a pair of magical bonds and with perverse tenderness clasped them around Mallow's wrist. She sat down, docile. I crawled toward her. The knees of my pants were rust-colored from the blood on the ground and my hands were sprinkled with the sugary shards of dozens of abandoned candies that had been scattered.

The wind was knocked out of me as a heavy suit of armor came crashing down on me. My arms splayed out from the force. My chin clicked my bottom teeth against my top. Blood pooled in my mouth. My innards squished beneath the weight.

"What's going on? Bind him already!" Osoro shouted.

"Don't you think we're trying?" Freckles screamed. I watched in dazed dizziness as three of them leaped onto the Boeren. They held him down while a fourth tried to snap bindings around his hands. When the arms were connected, the Boeren still refused to submit. He swung his arms up violently and smacked one of them in the face. Now he had twice the hitting force, if not the mobility he wielded before.

"Fire come into my hand, a compact inferno I demand!" Freckles shouted. His palm lit up with dancing flames; he aimed and threw them, but all they did was hit the Boeren's fur and extinguish. The Boeren laughed deeper, and then he lowered his shoulders.

"Watch it, he's going to gore you!" Osoro began, but too late. The entire bench shook as the Boeren ran. The tusks collided with Freckles' stomach, and he staggered backward, the plate of his armor deeply dented. The other Boerens consulted each other. Their laughter stopped.

"If he kills one of the sparkly boys, then we will have to leave town," the taller one said.

"If he kills one of the sparkly boys, we would be lucky to be able to leave town," one with grayish fur said. As they calmly debated, the Avalons tried to chant spells, often being cut off by the now violently rampaging Boeren. I crawled to Mallow. I wiped the blood dribbling down her chin off with the edge of my sleeve.

"You okay?"

"Hmmmnn." She smiled in spite of her injury. "Sir Osoro sure is handsome fighting."

He actually wasn't doing so hot; his ponytail kept getting caught on the corner of the tusk as he dodged out of the way. The Boeren realized that he couldn't hurt them by hitting the armor. I wondered why none of the Avalons had gone for one another's heads. Maybe the pig man was right. Maybe it was rigged...

The Boeren jerked its head. Osoro screamed as his neck was slammed against the collar of the armor. The hair that was caught on the tusk snapped. Like the girl at the play, he couldn't compensate for the sudden lack of resistance. Tripping, Sir Osoro went rolling down several rows, armor clanking with each thud.

"Wallet, enough," the tallest Boeren said. The troublemaker, apparently named Wallet, roared.

"No, Necklace! I can win!"

"You are trying to kill tiny sparkly men. It is not a fair fight. Giant lady is tired now. Just stop." The taller one, with the even dumber name of Necklace, urged his smaller friend. A third Avalon, this one neither Freckles nor Osoro, drove a sword into Wallet's lower leg while he was distracted. I will forever know him as Stabby.

"I've immobilized him!" Stabby declared, drawing the sword back. Blood dribbled onto the bleachers while Wallet wailed. "Now, come to your senses and—" His voice was straining to speak above Wallet's cries. The gray haired Boeren knocked Stabby out of the way to avoid being killed when Wallet thrust his tusks directly at Stabby's face. Then Necklace brought a heavy elbow down on the top of Wallet's head. He didn't stop once, but struck again and again until Wallet stopped moving.

With Freckles' calming spell still on the audience, it was now creepily quiet. Osoro and the others panted in exhaustion, encased in their bloodied and dented silver armor.

Osoro grabbed Freckles by the shoulder and pulled him in close, whispering. I strained, and if it hadn't been so supernaturally quiet, I would have never been able to hear the words. "Make sure to save face with the public that saw that. Citizens are already on edge from the missing persons and the influx of strangers. We can't have them thinking we're incompetent on top of everything else; they'd be terrified." Freckles obeyed, walking along the rows and chanting magical, rhyming platitudes and charming each person he met eyes with.

Osoro smacked the sword of out of Stabby's hand.

"Can you still cast?" Osoro asked. The man tried, and magic encased his hands.

"Guess the threat was bad enough to make stabbing him okay."

"Then he probably was trying to kill you. Tend to the injured and make sure no ill effects of this scuffle last. We were supposed to lighten their spirits, not cause a riot."

"That's two events for two riots today. At least we're consistent, eh boss?" The fourth Avalon said, hereafter known to me as Sassy. Osoro gave Sassy a withering stare in silence. "I'll. Uh... go. Help get this guy back to the dungeon, then." Sassy tried casting levitation spells on Wallet, but he didn't budge. The other three Boerens laughed among themselves.

Osoro spoke at the leader, Necklace.

"You do realize your behavior tonight has been unacceptable and that the that AE Agents might want to have words with you?" Osoro said.

"With Wallet." Necklace pointed with his clunky hoof-hands down to the unconscious, softly breathing Boeren. "He is only criminal."

"True," Osoro said. "But all the same, it would be for the best if you came in for questioning."

"Sounds annoying. No. If we are not under arrest, we leave. Get food and sleep."

"But you realize the situation is complicated—"

"We under arrest?"

"No, but..."

Osoro didn't finish his sentence as the Boerens walked away, laughing amongst themselves in their native tongue, which seemed much quicker than when they were speaking to Osoro, if completely incomprehensible to me. Osoro gaped after them, before he sagged visibly beneath the oversized pauldrons.

"So... since it's obvious Mallow is the lesser of two evils in this situation..." I stood up, catching Osoro's attention as I did so. "Shall we be going so she can continue to enjoy the festival?"

"Mallow... that's the name of the Giant?" Osoro asked me. Hex it that it wasn't Freckles who questioned me. I would have probably had some points in my favor.

"Yes, she's my Assistant in my business."

"You aren't much of a mercenary." Osoro regarded my skinny arms.

"Sir, that's because I'm not a mer-cenary, I'm a mer-chant, and she helps secure my wares." I explained, before waving my hands emphatically. "But that has nothing to with your amazing skills in defusing that awful situation."

"That your Assistant caused," Osoro said, his gaze narrowing. Unlike Winsor, this guy was not susceptible to flattery. The air about him was heavy. He was now standing over me, tilting his head down to intimidate me. What a creep. "Willingly, no less."

"She was. She had no idea that her defense of your honor would cause such a problem. She was only speaking to discourage the deceits that wintery Boeren was spreading," I simpered. "Surely, you can understand her fury?"

"Watch your language. And, if she had ONLY spoken in my defense, yes, I would be honored." Osoro's words dripped with contempt, and it took every inch of my will as a con man to keep from mirroring his sneer. "But she didn't only speak."

"Whatever do you mean?" I asked innocently.

"I saw her throw the first punch."

"Ah." There went that defense. "But, she did it in the best interest—"

"In nobody's best interest." He tried to meet her eyes and then looked away. I caught the tiniest shudder. Was he... was he scared of Mallow? "Listen, girl."

Oh, so she's old enough to be criminal, too young to be a woman. Typical.

"You injured a lot of people with your careless behavior. Never battle in a crowd full of innocents if it can be helped. Only use force if more is to be saved than lost."

"You're right." Mallow said harmoniously. "I'm so, so sorry." Tears welled in her eyes, and I staggered back in surprised.

"Mallow, why are you crying?"

"She, unlike some, realizes that had she only considered appropriate conduct that entire fiasco could have been avoided. It is good you feel regret and embarrassment at your actions. If we hadn't reacted so quickly people would have died."

"A...are you going to lock me away forever? Behind bars?" Mallow murmured. Osoro shook his head, expression stern.

"No, it was a scuffle and no one really got hurt, fortunately. But you will go away for a few days, if you cannot pay the fine to compensate the people of this city for the terror you inflicted." Osoro took Mallow's hand, vision aimed off to the side still. He was definitely avoiding deliberate eye contact. Together, they stood up. "Would you mind following me quietly? It'll be better than running."

"I..." Mallow's face colored. "I'm sorry. Sure."

As Osoro and Sassy Avalon worked together to carry Wallet through the town to the dungeon, Mallow followed behind. I was jealous of Osoro, at the very least because in the last ten minutes he'd gotten Mallow to listen better than I ever had in my entire life.

Still, I did my best to convince him that it was more trouble than it was worth to arrest Mallow, that he should release her, that she was a sweet girl.

"But consider how delicate she is," I said. This was a stretch, she was anything but delicate with her frayed hair and bandage clothes, but she was a woman and he was an Avalon, so maybe... "A rough week in the dungeons, it will warp her. Create another deviant instead of correcting one. We don't want that, do we?"

"It's not some vile cesspit," Osoro said, the line well practiced. "It's a well maintained cell, she'll be in it by herself since she is a woman. She will not be neglected," Osoro said. "We'd put her in the stocks like we have with some of the other brawlers, but her... unusual lineage might lead to people being inappropriately abusive."

I was surprised he transformed this act of arrest into a choice of compassion. I had to concede that if a Giant was left defenseless that some people would hurt her. That burning town so long ago had wanted to murder an innocent baby, and surely many people touched by the common plague of Moon Giant violence would be in Blythe during the festival. I noticed the gawking crowd that quietly jeered and pointed already, taking delight in Mallow's arrest.

Mallow grew more sullen and withdrawn as we walked. When I listened reason number fourteen for why Osoro should release Mallow without jail time or a fine, Mallow snapped at me to be quiet.

"Dad, drop it. He knows what he's doing. I... I shouldn't have lost my temper." Mallow mumbled. "I really did hurt people this time."

Now I hated Osoro, not for arresting my Mallow, but actually making her feel bad about it!

"See how sorry she is!" I said, one last ditch effort.

"Is he pestering you, Sir Osoro?" A town guard paced over until he was next to Osoro. Sassy the Avalon was with him, done depositing his own quarry into the dungeon.

"Yes, and quite unnecessarily too. I've already explained that the choices are between paying the fine or serving time." Osoro said in disgust.

Mallow's head perked up.

"Hey, Dad, that's right. Pay the fine," Mallow said suddenly. "That would help make up for it, right?"

Osoro nodded. His eyes, Mallow's, Sassy's and the random guard's all bore down on me. I took a step back, the coin purse jingling at my side heavily. I tried to mute it a little bit as I laughed.

"Ah, unfortunately, I'm broke." Mallow's chin met her collar bone in incredulity. "The last fifty I gave you wiped me out."

"But... how did you spend all of it?" Mallow asked. Yes, good question. Very good question and good questions needed good answers and how was I ever going to...

In a stroke of genius, I pulled free the half of orange I had been saving for Mallow.

"I bought this," I said.

"...what is it?" Mallow asked. The guard cocked his head in likewise confusion. Osoro, if possible, became even chillier toward me.

"It's an orange, an exotic fruit we sometimes import into Blythe. He would indeed have to pay much coin for one."

Mallow's eyes went wide, and then narrowed into tiny slits of rage.

"How dare you! You get on my case for buying shoes I've been begging for for months, you won't even let me buy clothes in most towns, and then you go off and buy a luxury snack?" She was furious. I took a few steps back, but Osoro intervened.

"Giant whose blood is boiling, there's no need for all of this emotional toiling. Accept that a foolish thing was done, but revenge for it is no fun. Calm your heart, and—" He faltered for a second. Sassy helpfully suggested fart as a rhyme; the man shrank from Osoro's withering gaze, but the first half of the spell had already worked its magic. Mallow went from a white-hot fury to a cool, freezing aura of disappointment and betrayal.

"Fine, whatever," Mallow said. "It'll probably be nicer than whatever dad arranged for me anyway." Osoro guided her toward the dungeon. Sassy carried on a largely one-sided conversation, as Osoro and Mallow were both fuming too much to talk. Meanwhile, the other guard forced me to walk in the opposite direction, toward the center of town.

"It's getting late. You best find an inn," the guard suggested. Mallow was out of sight. I surrendered to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to convince Sir Osoro tonight and resolved to visit the dungeon first thing in the morning.

Usually procuring somewhere for me to stay was not an issue. In most towns I came to I was seen as an exotic, interesting outsider and people gladly welcomed me to stay in their homes (Although the invitation was rarely extended to Mallow). However, in Blythe, I was a nobody and expecting an invitation was outlandish.

I wondered where that sorcerer boy I had been speaking with was staying. The sorcerers probably had their own places-

The inn. There was that precariously, overly tall and wide True Heir Inn near the entrance of town. If they augmented it enough to add so many rooms, in theory, they could augment it enough to add another room just for me. It was like the massive stables outside of town except the stables had been structurally sound while the itself couldn't possibly stand without enchantment.

The sky that was once blue now faded orange and pink, the shadows the building cast across several blocks. It was easy to walk back toward the True Heir Inn by picking out the oddly shaped silhouette which shifted every few minutes, expanding larger with new rooms.

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