Crell found him after the show. The Pitmaster had a way of appearing in doorways that suggested he had once been an assassin, or still was.
He looked Chris up and down like a butcher assessing a side of beef that had somehow learned to talk.
"You're not just a joke anymore, jester. You're a draw. People come to see what you'll say next." He scratched something off his list. "Three fights a week. Plus court performances."
More fights. More danger. Also more laughter, more warmth, more of the thing that kept him alive.
"Happy to serve," Chris said. The words came out flat.
'Valuable property. That's what I am now. Better than worthless.'
Pell. Stone Face. Whisper Depth. His skin went gray and hard when he planted his feet, which meant the strategy was obvious: keep him moving.
Chris circled, cracking jokes about the man's posture.
Pell lunged. Missed. Lunged again. Chris was faster dodging around like a clown.
The crowd was laughing what made the warmth flowing as he stuck out his foot and Pell tripped on his face into the pit wall.
Then Pell got up. Fully gray now. Fully hard. He planted his feet and became part of the floor. Chris punched him in the chest and it was like hitting a wall. Literally.
His knuckles screamed. The crowd started to quiet. The warmth started to drain. Chris could feel it leaving like heat leaving a room with the door open.
He climbed the pit wall like a monkey. Stood on the rim. The crowd looked up. "Ladies and gentlemen, i present you the world's angriest statue!"
The crowd roared back. Chris dropped from the rim and drove his heel into Pell's knee. Pell went down. The pit went wild and Chris limped away with another win and another debt his body would collect tomorrow.
'Crowd control is power control. i won't be winning if they stop laughing, I'm glad they're easy to amuse.'
Delk was waiting outside the fighter's alcove. Leaning against the wall.
People walked around him without looking at him.
"You're too loud," Delk said. " on the opposite I'm quiet. We could be useful to each other."
"Useful how." Chris asked.
"Protection." Delk's unsettling grin spread across his face. "People avoid me, but Voss doesn't care about Fear. I need someone Voss won't just crush."
"So you want to hide behind the jester."
"I want to stand next to him." The grin widened.
Chris looked at him. The kid's hands were steady. His eyes were not. There was something behind them that Chris had a word for.
The same thing Chris felt when the crowd laughed.
He asked Harsk about Delk that night. The old man's shadows rippled when he heard the name, which was answer enough.
"Fear Faces are dangerous. Their Crack is usually being ignored. If no one's afraid of them, they lose everything. Delk will do anything to stay scary."
"Do you trust him?"
Harsk considered the question.
"I don't trust anyone who feeds on the worst parts of people." A pause. The shadows around him shifted. "including you ,you feed on mockery, and maybe we're all monsters here."
'Monsters. Great. We're all monsters. At least the company's honest.'
The Blood Face was the worst one yet. Whisper Depth, Domain of Blood. He could pull blood from open wounds and shape it. Chris did not know that when the fight started. He found out when the fighter's nails raked his forearm and the blood that came out did not fall. It hovered. Then it moved. Toward Chris's face.
He jerked back. Too late. His own blood hit him in the eyes. Blinded.
Chris wiped his eyes and screamed: "he's using my fucking blood , like i have enough of it to be used as a weapon when i barely have a cup of blood running in my body"
The crowd laughed through their shock. The warmth strengthened. Not much. Enough to see. The Blood fighter pulled more from Chris's wound. Shaped it into a thin red blade. Chris was getting dizzy. He had lost too much already and this man was making weapons out of it.
He started clapping. Rhythmically. Slow.
The crowd joined. Stomp, stomp, clap. Stomp, stomp, clap. The energy built . When the Blood fighter lunged, Chris was ready. He dropped, slid under the blade on the sandy floor, and kicked the fighter's ankle so hard the joint folded sideways.
The crowd SCREAMED.
' Yes . Rhythm works. Not just jokes. Rhythm. Jesters are showmen not just comedians'
The Blood fighter was down but not out. He pulled blood from his own broken ankle and sent it crawling toward Chris like a red snake moving across the sand.
Chris backed up. No ideas. The warmth was fading because the crowd had shifted from entertained to horrified.
Then Delk stepped to the edge of the pit. He did not enter. He just stood there and looked at the Blood fighter. Pure Fear radiated off him like heat off summer stone. The Blood fighter's concentration shattered. The red snake collapsed into a puddle.
Chris finished the fight with a kick to the head.
Delk was already walking away before the crowd started cheering. He did not look back. The message was clear: I helped. You owe me.
Voss caught him in the corridor. No audience this time. No witnesses. Just Chris and the Iron Commander.
Voss did not hit him. He grabbed Chris's injured arm, the one the Blood fighter had sliced open, and squeezed.
The wound was still fresh. Blood welled up between Voss's iron-gray fingers and ran down Chris's wrist.
"The Fear boy helped you." Voss's voice was calm. That was worse than shouting. "Tell me why."
Chris gasped. The pain was enormous and there was no warmth to blunt it because there was no one watching. Just the two of them and the cold corridor and the blood on the floor.
"and why are you asking me instead of him ? is fear face scaring you?"
Voss squeezed harder. Something in the wound tore. Chris bit through his lip trying not to scream. "I'll be watching you, jester. Both of you."
He let go. Walked away. Chris slid down the wall and sat on the floor with blood running from his arm and his lip and he did not get up for a while.
'Both of us. He knows we're together now. Teaming with Delk was a bad decision.'
He stitched the arm himself. A needle and thread stolen from the infirmary trash, because the infirmary did not treat slaves who were not dying.
He bit down on a strip of leather and pulled the thread through and tried not to think about how many times he had done this now.
Harsk watched from the shadows.
"The warlord doesn't like things he doesn't control." Harsk said. "you are making allies and reputation. Be careful."
"I'll keep that in mind. of course if i can keep my sanity"
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A/N: I hope you enjoy this novel. Support by adding to your library and giving a power stone or two. Thank you.