"There are many here who would be glad to prove your reputation unfounded," the iynisi continued. "I myself think you do have some skill. We shall see. For your first trial you will face but a single opponent. Hardly a test of your ability, but he will be armed, and you not. If you dispute the fairness of it, you may always forbear to fight, and be cut down without resistance." The other attendants had gone away while he was speaking; Paks looked around as the iynisi stepped back. With a swift stroke of his knife, he cut the strands that tethered her wrists, and stepped farther back, bowing. Then he turned to the surrounding seats, one arm upraised. "Let the sport begin!" he cried. The spectators rose in their ranks and cheered. The caped iynisi ran lightly to the web across the arena, bowed to the huge spider, and swarmed up the web to the seats above.

Paks, alone now on the floor of the arena, looked about for her opponent. She tried again to call on Gird or the High Lord, but could feel nothing when the words passed through her mind. It was like calling in an empty room. For the first time she wondered whether Gird would even listen. Surely if he could hear, he would help—in something like this—but the words she'd been taught echoed in her head, unanswered. She heard the scrape of boots from the passage by which she had come, and turned to see an orc stride into the lighted space. He wore leather body-armor and helmet, as well as the boots, and carried a short-thonged whip in one hand, and a curved knife in the other. Paks took a deep steadying breath and rocked from heel to toe, loosening her muscles. With her own weapons, such an opponent would have been no problem at all; without even a dagger, she was at a severe disadvantage. Still, she could fight—she reached for the spark of battle anger, and welcomed it.

The orc came to her slowly, with a low, smooth gait unexpected in such a bent shape. Paks crouched slightly, up on her toes, ready to shift any direction as chance offered. The orc grinned at her, and screeched something which the watching iynisin understood, for they laughed. She supposed it was a challenge of some sort. She felt a rising excitement, hot and joyous. Perhaps this was Gird's gift, instead of his presence?

"Come on, then," she said to the orc in Common. "Many of your kind have I killed; come join them."

Closing abruptly, the orc swung the whip at her head; Paks ducked to save her eyes, watching its knife hand. Sure enough, as the knotted thongs bit into her neck and shoulders, the knife thrust toward her belly. She pivoted away from the thrust and caught the orc's wrist with one hand, jerking him forward. He went to his knees, and she tried to make it to his back. But he rolled as he fell, and she met another slash of the whip. This time the thongs wrapped her legs, and she fell heavily, narrowly missing another thrust of the knife as she twisted away from his hand. He was on his feet an instant before her, aiming another blow of the whip. She scrambled away from it; the iynisin above her tittered.