The Ice Queen by Bell Wild

Author:Bell Wild [Wild, Bell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-18T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Tria had a good view of the arena. All of the first round winners were seated at the front of the rows of seats. The seating was raised above the arena with tall, heavily-built stone walls separating the audience from the fighting enclosure. Although large, the arena was much smaller than the massive grounds used in the first round.

Astara was seated in the royal enclosure not too far from the contestants. Looking to her right Tria could see her profile as she stared straight ahead into the arena. The other woman seemed impossibly colder than before. Tria tried to keep her eyes and mind on the ring below, but they wandered to the blonde repeatedly against her will.

The seats were almost all taken, except for a very few in the worst positions. There must have been thousands of people filling the rows, and Tria felt again the unreality of the situation. Suddenly a huge roar came from the audience, and looking down Tria could see Baekos entering through a heavy-set door in the stone wall. A massive door on the opposite site hid his opponent, and the audience would not know what it was until the moment it appeared.

From talking to Kurik, Tria knew that giant insect creatures were commonly chosen for this round. There was a large mountainous region in the north where insects grew to horrific size. Their thick carapaces were naturally resistant to both physical and magical attacks, making them dangerous and difficult foes. But there were horrors in other parts of Kentai too, even some wild animals with natural magical abilities.

Kurik had described to her some that he knew, but warned her that there were still many more. The country had diverse habitats and large untamed areas where few humans dared to go. The soldiers and mages who captured the creatures each year for the fight were a large and powerful unit, spending their time venturing into the most dangerous parts of the country to capture the terrifying creatures. But they always faced them together as a group, whereas the contestants would each face their challenge alone.

A collective gasp came from the crowd and Tria realised the huge door was opening. For a moment she saw nothing and then something came into view. A hush fell over the crowd as the creature moved slowly forwards, and Tria felt a chill as she stared down. Despite being entirely out in the open in the full light of day, it was somehow hard to focus her eyes on the creature. It seemed almost ghostly and shadows played across the area where it stood, shielding it from view, even though the sun shone from quite high in the sky already and there should have been none.

As she stared at it a thrill of horror went straight to Tria’s heart. She watched Baekos and saw that he too looked pale as his eyes followed the monstrosity. It was at least ten times his size, and moved with a shuffling gait.

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