Description: IN A SMALL ROOM beneath the largest of Sharakhai''s fighting pits, eda sat on a wooden bench, tightening her fingerless gloves. The room was cool, even chill compared to the ever-present heat of the city. Painted ceramic tiles lined the walls. A mismatched jumble of wooden benches and shelves that had clearly seen decades of abuse made it feel well loved if not well cared for. Were eda any other dirt dog, she would have sat in one of the rooms on the far side of the pits, the ones that hosted dozens of men and women. But eda was given special dispensation, and had been since winning her first bout at the age of fourteen. By the gods, five years already. She tightened her hands into fists, enjoying the creak of the leather, the feel of the chain mail wrapped around the backs of her hands and knuckles. She checked the straps of her armor. Her greaves, her bracers, her heavy battle skirt. And finally her breastplate. All of them had once been dyed white--the color of a wolf''s bared teeth--but now the armor was so well used that much of the leather''s natural brown shone through. Well and good , eda thought. It felt used. Lived in. Kissed by battle. Exactly the way she liked it. She picked up her bright steel helm and set it on her lap. She stared into the iron mask fixed across the front--a mask of a woman''s face, cold and expressionless in the face of battle. Affixed to the top of the helm was a wolf''s pelt, teeth bared, muzzle resting along the crown. Echoing down the corridor came a voice that sounded old and hoary, a mountain come to life. "They''re ready." It was Pelam. eda glanced toward the arched doorway with the blood-red curtains strung across it. "Coming," she said, then returned her attention to the helm. She ran her fingers over the many nicks in the metal, over the mask''s empty eyes-- Tulathan grant me foresight. -- stroked the rough fur of the wolf''s pelt-- Thaash guide my sword. --then pulled the helm over her braided black hair and strapped it tightly on. As the weight of the armor settled over her, she parted the heavy curtains and hiked up the sloping tunnel into the heat of the noontime sun. The walls of the fighting pit towered around her, and above them, arranged in concentric circles, were the seats of the stadium. It''s going to be a good day for Osman . Already there were several hundred waiting for the bout to begin. Roughly half the spectators called the city of Sharakhai home; they knew the pits inside and out, knew the regular dirt dogs as well. The other half were visitors to the desert''s amber jewel. They''d come to trade or find fortune in a city that offered greater opportunities than they''d had back home. It rankled that so many came here, to eda''s home, and lived off it like fleas on a dog. Though she could hardly complain-- A boy in a teal kaftan pointed to eda wildly and called, "The White Wolf! The Wolf has come to fight!" and the crowd rose to their feet as one, craning their necks to see. --the pits paid well enough. A ragged cheer went up as she strode to the center of the pit and joined the circle of eleven other fighters. The money men in the stands began calling out odds for the White Wolf. She hadn''t even been chosen to fight yet, so no one would know who her opponent would be, but many still flocked to be the first to wager their coin on her. The other dirt dogs watched eda warily. Some knew her, but just like those in the audience, many of these fighters had come from distant kingdoms to try their hand against the best fighters in Sharakhai. Three women stood among those gathered--two well muscled, the third an absolute brute; she outweighed eda by three stone at least. The rest were men, some brawny, others lithe. One, however, was a tower of a man wearing a beaten leather breastplate and a conical helm with chain mail that lapped against his broad shoulders. Haluk. He stood a full head and a half taller than eda and stared at her like an ox readying a charge. In response, eda strode toward him and pressed her thumb to an exposed edge on the back of her mailed gloves. She pressed hard enough to pierce skin, to draw blood. Haluk stared at her with confusion, then a wicked sort of glee, as eda stopped in front of him and pressed her bloody thumb to the center of his leather breastplate. The crowd roared. A new flurry of betting rose, while the rest of the audience jockeyed for position against the rim of the pit. eda had just marked Haluk for her own, an ancient gesture that not all dirt dogs would respect, but these would, she reckoned. None of them would wish to fight Haluk, not in their first bout of the day. When eda turned away and returned to her place in the circle, all but ignoring Haluk, the naked anger on his face was slowly replaced with a look of cool assessment. Good, eda thought. He''d taken the bait and would surely choose her if she didn''t choose him first. When some but not all of the betting flurry had died down, Pelam stepped out from another darkened tunnel. The calls of betting rose to a tumult as the audience saw the first bout was ready to begin. Pelam wore a jeweled vest, a brown kufi, and a red kaftan that was not only fashionable but fine, save for its hem, which was hopelessly dusty from its days sweeping the pit floors. In one of Pelam''s skeletal hands he held a woven basket. As the fighters parted for him, he stepped to the rough center of their circle and flipped the basket lid open. After one last check around him to ensure all was ready, he shot his hand into basket''s confines and lifted a horned viper as long as his lanky legs. The snake wriggled, swelling its hood and hissing, baring its fangs for all to see. Pelam knew his business, but the snake made eda''s hackles rise. Bites were rare but not unheard of, especially if one of the fighters was inexperienced and jumped when the snake drew near. eda knew enough to remain still, but foreigners didn''t always follow Pelam''s careful pre-bout instructions, and it wasn''t always the person who jumped that the snakes chose to sink their fangs into. As Pelam held the writhing snake, each of the fighters spread their legs wide until their sandaled or booted feet butted up against each other''s. After a glance at each of the fighter''s stances, and finding them proper, Pelam dropped the snake and stepped away. It lay there, coiling itself tightly. The crowd shouted to the baked desert air, their voices rising to a fever pitch as each yelled the name of their chosen fighter. The fighters themselves remained silent. Oddly, the snake slithered toward Pelam for a moment, then seemed to think better of it and turned to glide over the sand to eda''s left, then turned once more. And slithered straight through Haluk''s legs. Silence followed as a pit boy ran and snatched the viper by its tail, lowering it back into its basket as the snake spun like a woodworker''s auger. Pelam calmly awaited Haluk''s choice. The big man didn''t hesitate. He made straight for eda and spat on the ground at her feet. The crowd went wild. "The Oak of the Guard has chosen the White Wolf!" Oak indeed. Haluk was a captain of the Silver Spears, and a tree of a man, but he was also a particularly cruel man, and it was time he learned a lesson. Like jackals to a kill, the news drew spectators from neighboring pits. The stands were soon brimming with them. As the rest of the fighters exited the pit, a dozen boys jogged out from the tunnels bearing wooden swords and shields and clubs. eda, as the challenged, would normally be allowed to choose weapons first, but she followed ancient custom; she had marked him, and thus she was the true challenger, not Haluk, so she bowed her head and waved to the weapons, granting first choice to Haluk. Most would have returned the honor, but Haluk merely grunted and chose one of the few weapons meant for both him and his opponent: the fetters. The noise of the crowd rose until it was akin to thunder. Some laughed, others clapped. Some few even stared with naked worry at eda, who had clearly just been put at a severe disadvantage by Haluk''s choice of weapon. The fetters was a length of tough, braided leather. It was wrapped tightly around one of each fighter''s wrists, keeping them in close proximity and ensuring a brawl. While glaring intently at Haluk, eda held out her left hand, allowing Pelam to slip the end of the fetters around her wrist and tighten it. Pelam did the same to Haluk, then took a small brass gong and mallet from one of the boys. The pit was cleared so that only eda, Haluk, and Pelam remained. The doors to the tunnels closed. And then, after a dramatic pause in which Pelam held the gong chest-high between the two fighters, he struck it and stepped away. There was slack in the fetters, a situation Haluk would quickly attempt to remedy--his best hope, after all, lay in controlling eda''s movement--but eda was ready for it. The moment Haluk lunged in to grab as much of the leather rope as he could, she darted forward, leaping and snapping a kick at his chin. When he retreated, eda charged, a move he clearly hadn

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