The Promoter 1

The following day, the rumors spread in an instant.

It was news everyone had been waiting for, which made the excitement all the greater. On the day the first clash at the manor became known, almost no one expected things to take such a turn. Yet after the second clash on Tanners’ Street, many had sensed something larger was coming. That was also when the number of people coming to buy betting tokens at the White Spider’s Den, the underground tavern beside the eastern canal, rose sharply.

Even then, however, no one knew what form of revenge the disgraced General Nikephoros would take. The prince of the back alleys and a great war hero could hardly have been less suited as opponents. Such duels generally took place in darkness, in unseen ways. No one imagined they would clash in broad daylight with everyone watching. On the night word spread that Hawk House had been smashed, the crowds at the White Spider’s Den were said to resemble a festival. Even people who knew nothing of the affair peered inside and asked, “Are they handing out gold here?”

Gene’s name had long been written on the betting board attached to the hidden inner room of the Den. He himself did not know it. For a long time, few people had bet on him, and his payout was exceptionally high. That meant the gamblers thought there was almost no chance of him dying the next day, and not merely because he was strong. With their long experience, the Den’s gamblers judged payouts with practiced eyes. To them, Gene rarely threw himself into danger relative to his skill and reputation. He differed from the men who had borne the Shadowhawk’s name before him. He did not stake his life on each day’s survival as they had. He seemed instead to have some other objective. Such men did not readily die. There had been almost no Shadowhawk with a payout this high. Some said it was “as high as Garon Vendigate’s.”

Then the unexpected “siege” happened, and Gene’s payout finally began to fall. His opponent might be old, but he had commanded a regular army. Above all, his hatred of Gene exceeded imagination. Though Gene himself had been absent during the siege, once the general had gone so far, he could not possibly withdraw without a direct confrontation. Gene would not run away either. Though he had never deliberately sought danger, he had never refused a challenge, nor, naturally, had he ever lost. His was the name Shadowhawk, unofficially reserved for Delphinad’s strongest. What would the outcome be?

At last, news of the duel arrived. One against one, five days from now, in the front yard of an empty guard post on the city’s northern boundary. It had originally been a northern guard station, but as the city expanded, it was absorbed within the boundary. The garrison left, and the building became a storehouse for supplies. The broad yard, once a training ground, stood empty except when a traveling theater troupe visited, making it well suited to an undisturbed duel. It was also a place ordinary citizens hesitated to approach, since it had often been used for duels and several people had died there.

Now the affair was no longer of interest only to the back alleys. In Delphinad, where memories of war were distant, a siege had provided a full-scale spectacle, and a famous war hero was involved. Ordinary citizens and nobles alike could not pass an evening banquet without discussing the fascinating story. Citizens were eager to predict the winner, while nobles were more curious about what Nikephoros had in mind. At the same time, they debated the identity of the man called the Shadowhawk.

Those who remembered Nikephoros’s earlier defeat by the first Shadowhawk, when he lost his treasured sword Ganax, even wondered whether Gene might be Garon’s son. Many had assumed that Garon, who vanished immediately after that duel, must eventually have died at Nikephoros’s hands. Adding the possibility of revenge for Garon made the contest still more interesting. Speculation alone scarcely satisfied them.

In contrast, the back alleys had another way to enjoy such a fight. Immediately after the announcement, a new name appeared on the Den’s stone board: Deonus Nikephoros. It was unheard of for such a respectable figure to have his name entered on the gambling board of lives, known as the “Corpse Wager.” Those who visited every night to inspect the stone board stared wide-eyed when they saw it, then burst out laughing. Someone said, “Well, I thought this Shadowhawk was keeping quiet, but he’s done something after all. Dragging a man like that into this game!”

At the same time, money began to pour in. The payouts beside the names of Gene and Nikephoros were erased and rewritten dozens of times a day, wearing grooves into the stone. So much interest centered on their names that the betting on everyone else almost stopped entirely. Gamblers known as White Spiders prowled around the empty Hawk House, busily imagining how the siege must have gone. Suspicious characters hovered around the House of the Masons, where Gene now stayed. The commotion seemed unlikely to settle before the duel five days later.

As a result, new customers came to the Den too. Though it was not a place frequented by respectable citizens, several people with the so-called rights of the back-alley citizen had only now learned of this game of lives. Some would never ordinarily have gone near such a place.

A tall man in a cloak and a thick hood despite the hot afternoon descended the stairs into the Den. Entering the tavern, where the smell of sweat and ale mingled, he started to see men and women in every style of dress occupying not only all the chairs but the floor as well. At the counter in the corner, a young man shouted, “Number one hundred eighty-five!”

A young woman who had been perched on a table hurried over, opened her pouch, and offered a gold coin. The young man counted coins and handed her one token for the wager. The tokens copied those Hersander had made in the past, differing only in being copper rather than silver. Few remembered their origin. The Den’s owner, Buven, was a large, fat man nicknamed “Mother Spider” because of his protruding belly. Almost no one remembered either that he had once been the boy who polished billiard tables in Hersander’s tavern. Taking her change, the woman grumbled, “Look at the price. I can hear Mother Spider’s belly swelling.”

The young man chuckled.

“His belly swells, but he never seems to have any young.”

“A spider has to burst open to have young. Let’s see if he bursts this time.”