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rotten stumps for teeth in his mouth. Gods only knew the type of kiss the lecherous hecka was seeking to have. The very idea disgusted him, just as much as it must disgust her.
    He would not be asking for a kiss, he thought. Gold was enough at this juncture.
    When he reached the center of the ring, he bent to pick up the blunt wooden practice sword that the previous contestant had been divested of.
    His opponent turned and, upon seeing him, let out a raucous barroom laugh. “This is the best the stinking city has to offer me? A gnarled, scarred stump of a man?”
    Dethan looked down at his hands, thinking he wasn’t all that gnarled and his burns were nowhere near as badas they had been an hour before. In fact, it was the best he had looked or felt in eons. The truth was he had been immortalized at the peak of his physical prowess, and so he would always be, once he had the time to heal. But even as injured as he presently was, he was more than a match for this man. The shape of his body was one thing; the cunning and skill earned on the battlefield was something that could never be removed.
    Dethan stood still, watching the other man carefully as he hefted the weight of his wooden battle-axe in his hands, swinging it threateningly every so often. The man growled and made a violent lunge for Dethan in a sudden rush, barreling into him, a tactic he had used to haul the previous opponent over the barrier of the ring. Dethan allowed himself to be picked up, and then he rolled over the man’s shoulder, down his back, and back onto his feet, leaving Jjanjiu to stumble without resistance, face-first, into the mud of the ring. The crowd erupted into laughter and Dethan supposed it was a hilarious sight. Just as the idea of this low beast besting anyone of any real skill was as big a joke as was ever told. If he was the best this city had to offer, then perhaps Dethan would make this city his first conquest. There were certainly spoils to be had, he noted. And since this city seemed to worship Xaxis, it seemed a good place to start. To take away worshippers from Xaxis while gaining them for Weysa would double the impact in Weysa’s favor. Without a doubt it would please her. And there would be a certain amount of irony in the idea that the grand’s gold would be funding the city’s downfall. But he would not oust the grand entirely … if he were worth anything as far as management and political skills were concerned. Dethan needed others to run his cities as he went off and conquered more cities. And since all his former generals were no longer alive …
    He was missing his brothers even more now. He could have used them by his side. As it was, he was very much a man alone.
    His thoughts did him a disservice. They distracted him from the roundhouse blow of his opponent’s axe and he caught it in his right ribcage, the blow taking him off his feet and sending him flying aside and into the mud, his sword flinging free of his hand. He pushed to his hands, but a powerful, weighty foot on his spine shoved him back down into the mud. But here the mud worked in his favor. He rolled beneath that foot, the friction completely nil around his thoroughly lubricated body, grabbed the heavier man’s foot, and jerked it forward hard. Rolling just far enough to get out of the way as Jjanjiu fell onto his back in the mud.
    Once the man was down, Dethan kicked at him, forcing him to roll, making certain he was equally covered in the slick mud. He wouldn’t wrestle with the man—mud wrestling was exhausting and pointless—but it would put them on equal footing if they were both covered in the stuff. Holding on to a weapon while muddied up like this was tricky, and he wanted his opponent to struggle with it just as much as he would.
    While Jjanjiu was sputtering, spitting out mud and obscenities, Dethan scrambled for his sword. Really, it was useless. What he needed was something with weight and power, something to countermand the weight