Thraxas and the Ice Dragon by Martin Scott

Author:Martin Scott [Martin Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 0743488504
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2013-02-26T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

On my way to the bookmaker's tent I run into my old companion Combius of Juval. He greets me far less jovially than previously.

"Well Thraxas, you really landed me in it."

"What did I do?"

"You convinced me with your idiotic talk of that young girl being able to fight. I put money on her."

"Ah. Sorry about that."

"Why did you say she could fight? Now I'm the laughing-stock of the Armourers Guild."

Combius looks hurt. For a sword-fighter, he always did have a sensitive side.

"Makri can fight. She's due back on the field any time now. I'm here to bet on her again. So should you, to make up your losses."

"Are you joking? My wife tallies up my accounts. It's already going to be hard to explain."

"Your wife isn't a betting woman?"

"Not on hopeless long shots, no."

I lay my arm ion his shoulder. "Combius, there's a time when a man has to make a stand for what he believes in. Only minutes ago I was engaged in some serious competition, and I didn't flinch. Anyway, you can make up your losses on Makri's next fight."

"But what if she loses again?"

"I've got a hard-won fifty gurans here that says she won't."

Big Bixo greets me like an old friend. "Come to try your luck again?"

I'd planned to bet my whole fifty gurans on Makri winning her next fight, but I notice that her odds for winning the tournament have gone out to two hundred to one. Having seen her first fight, the bookmakers give her no chance at all. I place ten gurans on this, and put my remaining forty on her winning her second fight. Bixo gives me six to one. Makri's opponent is a very strong favourite, at one to ten. As an experienced bookmaker, Big Bixo isn't about to mock anyone who's giving him money, but even so, I can tell he thinks I'm wasting mine. So do several others nearby. As Combius steps up after me, there's some barely suppressed derision.

"Now it's not just the Armourers Guild laughing at me," he complains as we leave the tent. "There were leather-workers in there. They're a snide lot at the best of times. I'll never live this down."

"Relax. Makri is a shoo-in."

"I'm sure some silversmiths were laughing as well."

I turn to my old friend. "Combius, what happened to you? I remember us charging into battle with one broken spear between us, and you weren't as worried then as you are now."

"I wasn't married then."

"Put your mind at rest. You're in for a sudden windfall."

Next to the tournament field I manage to grab a private word with Lisutaris while Makri is preparing.

"Has Makri been taking anything she shouldn't have?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Reasonably. How did she get that dwa anyway?"

"She claims it was just a fragment she brought from Turai, and that was the last of it."

"Surely she couldn't find any more in Samsarina?" says Lisutaris. "Look how strict they are about thazis."

"Dwa's spread just about everywhere. It will be here all right, if you look hard enough.

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