Page 46 of The Only Way Out Is Up

It might have been a safer life, all told. And honestly who can say it would be a shorter one? Workhouse inmates might die of old age at thirty, but they don’t have to worry about Twisted and junkfalls. Still, I don’t think I’d trade. Those dead eyes make me shiver.

Ky, bothered by none of this, leads the way into the streets behind the market where the crowd thins out. We pass a couple of runic street fights, with the contenders ranging from the hand-sized miniature versions I’d seen earlier to constructs the size of Star smashing away at each other in a courtyard full of screaming punters.

“Weslai said these street fights are all rigged?”

She nods, slowing to walk beside me. “They’re just for extracting cash from no-hope gamblers. We’ve got to go a little farther afield to get an honest match.”

“I don’t know how much farther my shoulders can take.”

“Oh, you can probably let him down now.”

Thank the moon.

[Gratitude: thanks to any supernatural entities in the vicinity.]

I think my dislocated shoulders are more relevant than your injured pride.

[Confusion: how could anything be more important than my injured pride?]

I roll my eyes and let the sack down. Star slashes his way out of it with his sharpened legs, looking distressingly like a spider emerging from an egg sac. The Mark 4, like the Mark 3, has a definite arachnid air to it: a fat oval body with eight fighting limbs around the perimeter. Now, though, the plating is smooth and new, rings of armor protect his joints, and his legs move easily on well-greased bearings. Inside, new sigils hum with power. I give him a proud look, and he suffers to be patted on the head.

Ky gives a soft whistle.

I grin. “What do you think?”

“He looks… dangerous. Sleek.” She purses her lips. “A little plain, maybe, but we can fix that later. You really built him from scratch? Sigils up?”

“How else would you do it?”

Ky shakes her head. “You can buy parts in the market, structure and sigils all together—a limb, a head, armor plating. Most people build a runic by wiring those chunks together.”

I try to imagine buying whole runic components in a store, like they were groceries. “Sounds like you wouldn’t really get to know the design that way.”

“A lot faster, though.” She looks at me quizzically. “You really built this in three days?”

I give a modest shrug. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Still. You must be some kind of prodigy.” She smiles at me, a brief but radiant grin that kindles a warm feeling in my chest. “Come on, we’re nearly there.”

The place we’re going (Ky explains to me en route) is run “king-of-the-pit style.” What that means, roughly, is this:

There is a runic who is king of the pit. There is a pot full of money.

Anyone can pay a fee to challenge the king of the pit to a match.

The fee, minus the house rake, gets added to the pot.

The king fights the challenger. If the king wins, it stays king. If the challenger wins, it takes over.

The current king can retire after any match and take what’s in the pot. But the fees get bigger as the pot does, so there’s an incentive to stay in.

If the king gets no challengers at all for a certain period, it gets to retire with a bonus paid by the house. So the house is always on the lookout for fresh blood.

There are more details, but that’s the gist. If it sounds a little wonky, that’s because it is; every pit has their own spin on the basic formula.

“We’re not going to set Star up as king,” Ky says. “Too dangerous for now. So we’re going to go in there, win the fight, take the pot, and get out. Weslai’s been making up a list of pits where the pot is rich right now.”

“Is that allowed?” I ask. “Just walking off with the money?”