The shin-high, tight-fitting boot swept through the air occupied a moment before by Bel’s head; the impact might have decapitated a lesser man. Bel, however, had no intention of losing his head so quickly. Ducking under the full bulk of Calson, he twisted his body down and back up to the right, latching fingers as strong as manacles on to the legs of his opponent as quick as a cloud cobra strike and continuing to twist. Using the forward momentum and Calson’s own mass, Bel further twisted his body and yanked forward, bending and crouching down quickly. With the kicking leg practically lashed over his right shoulder and Calson already committed to the move, the man jackknifed forward, straight into the concrete.

Petr winced at the smacking-meat sound—a little too much like the occasional side of beef that came loose from its hook in the Merchant House during transport from one section to the next. Actually felt the tremble through the ground.

However, genetically engineered warriors could not be removed from the field of battle so easily. Calson had gotten both arms in front of him, and used them to bleed off some of his own velocity; he still smacked his face hard, as straight-arming such a fall would’ve snapped even elemental arms. Calson rolled four times in rapid succession, tearing lose his leg and putting a little distance between him and Bel. He spun to a low crouch; a shattered nose and pulped lips cascaded blood down his chin and onto his neck and shirt. A slow grin showed loose teeth, but blazed with the attitude prized by any Clansmen.

Pain? Bring it on.

Another flurry of babbles from behind him exploded and Petr grunted in satisfaction, confident they saw the bloody, ghastly grin and trembled. Even if Calson lost, Petr would ensure he would not pay for it with any diminished honor; the fear and confusion gripping the local merchants was sufficient payment for a defeat on Calson’s part.

Sliding forward smoothly, Bel feinted left. Then dodged right. Then back one more time, before snapping a knee-capping kick forward, accompanied by an eye-and-chest strike. Calson stood as a malachite statue, unwilling to give into Bel’s dance of death, and only moved when the knee-capper flew; sliding backward a half step with that leg, blocking blows with brutal efficiency and then swinging that same leg back up and around with terrible force.

Catching Bel slightly off guard, the thrust slammed the other warrior’s legs together, knocking him off balance for a half second.

Which is all a trained killer needs.

Like an aerospace fighter from a launch bay, Calson struck, raining savage blows and side cuts across Bel’s head. The elemental windmilled both arms to maintain balance, to drop at the feet of his opponent meant almost certain defeat. As the blows continued, Bel finally got his feet steady once more, but took almost five steps to do it. Near the edge of the Circle, Calson reared back and pounded both fists into Bel’s chest, sending the elemental staggering.

Whether through sheer dumb luck, or some preternatural ability that allowed Bel to literally sense the edge of the Circle, he dropped to the ground like a sack of flesh to stop his backward movement.

Breaching the Circle meant defeat.

Sensing victory, Calson launched forward and Petr flinched; perhaps the head slam had affected the elemental more than he knew. This was a classic error.

As Calson launched forward, Bel reached up to lock his hands in a death grip on Calson’s arms, forcing his opponent to do the same. Then Bel rocked backward as he planted his feet firmly in Calson’s abdomen. Physics did the rest, as Calson sailed out of the Circle and into defeat.

Beta Aimag would be sitting at the table for Adhafera. Once more, the feeling almost unnatural after so long, Petr’s lips twisted upwards in a smile.

Beta Aimag wins for today… and Master Tidinic will quickly realize he should have taken my previous generous offer.

Canopian Pleasure Circus, Halifax

Vanderfox, Adhafera

Prefecture VII, The Republic

30 August 3134

The lascivious mermaid wove her arms and tail suggestively, sickeningly; the bare planks supporting the mud-smeared plasteel looked barely more rotted than her teeth, and her tail had seen better days.

Clan genetics? Petr sniffed in disgust at the stage man’s loud cries.

As he stamped past the audience of cast-off males hooting and tossing coins displaying various visages onto the stage, he felt the vileness of the place press in against him.

On the outskirts of Halifax, in a rundown neighborhood—would’ve seen a Clansman removed in a Trial of Grievance for ineptitude and inability to lead years ago—the so-called Canopian Pleasure Circus squatted like an ancient whore: bruised, sullen and ugly, hiding in the shadows and trying to avoid the notice of the authorities, but still willing to spread her legs for a coin. Any coin.

A putrescence wafted up his nostrils, causing Petr to lurch for a moment and gag before he could master himself. His mood lightened as he realized he had just discovered something that stank more than the Merchant House.

Stepping around a large pile of some unidentifiable offal, he glanced in the direction of the offending stench and beheld a large, blue-and-white-striped tent, perhaps twenty meters on a side; at one point it had been a traveling tent, but the planks of rough-hewn wood around the entire lower exterior and the grass that grew profusely around it attested to the length of its stay. A large, hand-painted sign thrust up from the ground on a small tree in front of the opening, only its branches shorn off, the bark not even removed. On the shoddy sign, a worn, flaking painting of a large feline with a nova burst of poison-barbed mane sprawled, with the words See the Magnificent, Terrifying Nova Cat from the Clan Homeworlds emblazoned below.

The terrified and brutalized meowing that emerged from the tent bore no resemblance to the roaring of that magnificent feline; after all, unlike these ground-bound surats, he had witnessed a nova cat hunting in the wild in the Irece Prefecture of the Draconis Combine. The difference between the two sounds was like the contrast between the depths of night and a stellar body bursting into reality astern an arriving JumpShip.

The sun poked through tattered clouds for a moment, casting wan light across the entire area: sickly, decrepit, decaying. The words jumbled, raised his ire anew.

He passed the tent with a final, Clan-like epithet: if this miserable excuse for an entertainment establishment actually managed to capture such an animal, Clan Nova Cat would have descended to raze the whole, filthy locale to the ground. Peace or no peace.

I have not even been to the Clan homeworlds. No melancholy, just a statement of reality and acknowledgment of the horrors that had cut off the Inner Sphere Clans from their birthplace, likely forever.

Petr passed into a region filled with stalls and their hawkers, foisting a supposed universe of bounty upon those lucky enough to walk these dirty stalls… but only for today! Fried branth from Lopez (poison to most human metabolisms); Mycosia pseudoflora from Andalusia (too many buds); real Canopian women for any pleasure (too white-skinned and thin-boned); a Kurita officer’s katana from before the Jihad (blade too long, not folded); even a whispered call to view a Word of Blake robe (wrong material and stitching): the entire charade made him ill. The whore putting on her paints and perfumes to blind the customer to her stench, her sham, her total lack of joy.

No Canopian Pleasure Circus here.

In fact, like the Nova Cats, Petr felt confident a real Canopian Circus would use the fusion drive of their DropShips to scour the entire region clean.