by David Burke
Selma and her apprentices were treating a number of slaves and others who hadn’t escaped quickly enough. None of the wounds looked serious, and Saber was keeping a watchful eye over the proceedings. Kyle moved up to one of the stone examination tables and shoved a man with some minor cuts on his arm out of the way as he laid Nyda down.
“She is hurt, flesh mage. Heal her,” Kyle said. Even he was a bit shocked at the deep and imperious tone that came out of his mouth, but he felt every ounce of the sentiment.
Selma looked at him with a harried expression on her face. “As soon as I can.”
“No! You will see to her now, mortal.”
The sound of his voice had everyone on edge and staring at him instantly. A couple of guards started to draw weapons, but Saber motioned for them to hold back. Selma stopped long enough to get a good look at Kyle. She must have seen the bloody mess that he was, because she said, “Oh, by Jordan. Sit down, boy. You need to be treated immediately.”
“I am fine. Nyda is not as durable as I am. Now treat her.” As Kyle spoke, he felt the energy draining out of him. His voice was softer this time and he started to feel dizzy.
He noticed as Selma looked at Saber, who simply nodded, and then she put her hands on Nyda. Kyle felt essence flowing from her. It was an interesting blend of earth, sea, and lust. He didn’t recall being able to sense the essence so clearly before, but then he felt the room spinning.
He heard a voice cry out, “Catch him!”
Then the room went dark.
Chapter 18 - Waking Up
Kyle woke up on the infirmary’s stone table. He immediately sat up this time. It was getting to be a habit and not one that he wanted to keep up. Once again, Selma was sitting in a chair reading the same book as before.
She must have noticed his movement because she said, “Glad you are awake. I was beginning to worry. You were a bloody mess from the birds, but none of the injuries were very severe. It was more just that they bled a lot. But you still didn’t wake up.”
Several thoughts rushed through Kyle’s head at once. “How long have I been out?” was followed immediately by, “Is Nyda okay?”
Selma smiled softly as she answered, “I assume Nyda is the name of the elven girl that you were so insistent that I treat. You will be happy to know that she only had minor cuts and even the puncture wounds in her back were easily healed. Lord Soren won’t normally allow us to spend much time treating the slaves, but I care about all types of people, so I made sure she was okay. Although you may be interested to know that the guards finally had to make her leave as she kept lingering around to check up on you.”
“That’s good,” Kyle said, surprised by how much relief he felt that she was okay. Sure, she was one of only a few people that he knew here, but it certainly felt like he was developing more emotional attachment for her than was normal. Hotness alone didn’t account for this. Maybe dying and being reincarnated really had changed him.
Selma continued, interrupting his thoughts, “You, on the other hand, have been unconscious for over ten hours. The showcase will begin shortly, and everyone from Lord Soren to Saber have been in here to check on if or when you would be ready to be put up on stage.”
“Not sure what the showcase is, but I feel fine now. I was actually looking forward to the match tonight. You don’t happen to know who my opponent will be, do you?” Kyle asked.
“Normally, I would tell Lord Soren that you weren’t fit to fight tonight. No human should be unconscious for that long and be able to just sit up and start fighting right away. Then again, you aren’t entirely human, and we know next to nothing about what an elemental is capable of.
“I do have some questions for you before I will clear you for fighting, though. Feel up to answering?” Selma replied while skipping over his actual question.
Kyle nodded. “Sure, whatever gets this over with faster.” He had too many memories of trainers who wanted him to rest a sprained wrist or pulled muscle when all he wanted to do was compete. It was his body, after all. Shouldn’t he know it better than anyone else?
Of course, that thought caused him to realize that this body wasn’t the one that he was used to. It was different in many ways that he had already discovered and likely more that he hadn’t. He started moving his fingers and toes, stretching his legs, and in general trying to determine how he felt.
There was definitely a difference inside of him. It was hard to put his finger on, though. His body felt stronger, more energized. But that wasn’t the real difference that he felt. It was that part deep inside that he always identified as the part of him that was Krig. It was more active, almost like it had grown.
He could feel strange thoughts in his head, and that was saying something for a man who talked to a fire angel that only he could hear. But as he considered it more, they weren’t strange thoughts. It was more primal than that. Feelings, perhaps some memories or ways of thinking, might be a better way to put it. He remembered the surge of power that he had pulled on and the driving emotions that he had felt.
“Yoo-hoo, are you even listening to me?”
Kyle finally realized that Selma had been talking to him while he was lost in thought.
“Staring off at the ceiling like that isn’t doing anything to make me think you are mentally with it for fighting. So, I need to know, do you feel any different?” the flesh mage asked.
“Actually, if anything, I feel stronger. More in touch with the elemental side of myself. Not sure if that makes any sense,” Kyle answered with the truth although he said elemental rather than divine. He figured it couldn’t hurt and might explain any odd behavior he had. He had a vague recollection of yelling at Selma and Saber and calling them mortals.
“Hmm,” she said as she pursed her lips. “I guess that could explain the way you were acting before. We just don’t know enough about elementals.” The last part she said wistfully, as though talking to herself.
“How did you do what you did in the arena? I wasn’t there, but some who witnessed it said you cast a spell and, to hear some of the other mages going on, it must have been a rather powerful one.”
“I don’t cast spells,” Kyle said honestly.
“Then what happened in the arena?”
“I guess that was a portion of my elemental side coming out.”
She was frowning now as she said, “That excuse is only going to last for so long. Eventually we are going to need to know something more about you. I wish you would think of me as an ally and not the enemy, but I understand. You were captured against your will and brought here. You must see me as part and parcel with your enemy.
“What you aren’t understanding, though, is that there are others who would happily pay Lord Soren for you. If he can’t make more money selling you as a fighter, then the mage’s academy will almost certainly pay handsomely for you. But I don’t think you would like it as much if they bought you as if you were bought to be a fighter. Just remember there is always something worse and being poked and cut open for study by a bunch of mages with more curiosity than decency would probably rank rather high on that list.”
It was Kyle’s turn to frown then. He hadn’t considered an option like that. Hilde hadn’t said anything about it. Getting the manacles off just became his number one priority.
“Okay, so what do I need to do to avoid that?” Kyle asked softly. He might be a proud man, but he knew when to ask for help.
“Oh, don’t worry too much. Lord Soren would much rather sell a winning fighter than a lab rat. The biggest thing you need to do is go out there and win. I will tell you one thing, though. Winning in the arena isn’t just about beating your opponent. It is about looking good while you do it.
“So, if you can assure me that you can control whatever it was that you did out there, then I will sign off that you are fit to fight. Can you do that?” Selma asked.
“Easily. I only let that power go because I was trying to save Nyda’s lif
e. If it had just been me, I would have simply run for one of the tunnels long before the birds ever got to me.”
“Well, Saber thinks you have tremendous potential, and while I still don’t know why you were unconscious that long, I guess it could be because your human body is adapting to your elemental bloodline. That must be quite a shock to the system. So, let’s just get you cleaned up and then headed for the showcase. I have some food here you can eat first, if you are hungry.”
Kyle looked down at himself. It was actually quite remarkable that he had run through the mist of all those exploding birds and there was only a bit of dirt and sand around his boots and greaves. He thought for a second and realized that the power which had cut through his enemies must have kept the viscera off of him.
“Surprisingly, I’m not really hungry. But what is this showcase? You’ve mentioned it twice now,” Kyle said.
Selma rolled her eyes and laughed as though to herself. “It is just an indicator of how low we can sink. They will put you and the other fighters that Lord Soren has up for sale on a platform. Each noble house that is here to watch the exhibition matches will have a chance to inspect each of you.
“Most of that will be done from a distance but each of the houses can send one representative up onto the platform to perform a more hands-on inspection. I find it to be a rather dehumanizing process. They will want to inspect your teeth, look in your eyes, feel your muscles, and perhaps even see your equipment.”
“You mean I have to let some guy come up and grope me, even my junk?” Kyle found that he was suddenly outraged. He had been subject to many physical examinations by team doctors while playing baseball, but they never did things like check his teeth let alone inspect his cock.
“Yes, I know this is all new to you, but you have to remember that to people like Lord Soren, you are just property, an item to be evaluated. As for why your ‘junk,’ as you put it. If you are a winning fighter, you might very well be used as breeding stock. The houses are always trying to create better soldiers.
“Oh, and it won’t necessarily be a man inspecting you. Thena is an enlightened society in some ways. Obviously not everything, because we still have slavery, but more than a third of the noble houses are led by women. The gods are male and female, so why shouldn’t our own rulers be? I would expect female-led houses to take a particular interest in you and Gilthan. He is a pretty boy, but you are built like the kind of man a woman expects to just take her, and there are plenty of women like that. Ruler by day and whore by night.”
Kyle came from the second half of the 21st century. Gender equality was a mostly established fact in the United States when he had been shot. To him this wasn’t shocking. Even though he did admit it was kinda different to hear Selma talking so bluntly about it.
He just nodded. Best to prepare himself for this. He didn’t want to be inspected like a horse but just had to hope he didn’t take the hand off of some nobleman who tried to touch his junk. He focused as Selma called a couple of guards in and told them to take Kyle to the showcase.
While walking to the arena, Hilde finally chimed in, “I’m glad you are okay. That was very like Krig to see a challenge and rush into it headlong. It was very unlike him to be so protective of Nyda.”
Kyle thought back to her, “I was wondering where you were. You could have spoken up while Selma was questioning me.”
“Yes, but I needed to hear your answers without you being influenced by me. I was a bit startled at how like Krig you sounded after you reached the infirmary. I could feel a swell of your divine power. Hopefully it was brief enough that none of your siblings caught on, but for an instant there it was almost like you were flickering back and forth between being Kyle and Krig.”
“Were you satisfied with what you heard?” Kyle asked as he allowed his frustration with her to come through in his thoughts.
“In more ways than one. It is clear that you are still Kyle, and I am beginning to think that reincarnation means that you are not just a duplicate of Krig, but that you are forming your own identity as to what it means to be the war god.
“But it also proved that Krig’s power is in you. For a moment, you were flooded with so much essence that it drowned out what you normally have. It was as though your full divinity was crammed into your body.
“That, not using your Divine Ability, is what caused you to be unconscious for so long. Your body is clearly not ready to handle that much divine essence yet. Which is a good thing, because you would be discovered for sure if you walked around like you were all the time.”
“Okay, well any advice for tonight?”
“Simple. If you want to keep this disguise up, swallow your pride and let them inspect you. Then when it comes to the fight, win and win big.”
“Thanks,” Kyle replied and wondered how much of his intended sarcasm seeped through in his thoughts.
Chapter 19 – Guests’ Arrival
When he arrived, the arena looked different. There were mages in various colors of robes lining the upper level of the stadium. They were powering some form of translucent dome. He was able to sense a slow drain of essence from them into rods that he hadn’t noticed before which were positioned around the top of the coliseum.
Prior to today, he likely would have scoffed at such precautions, but now he understood better. Verden was a damaged world and apparently much of that lay at his feet. Then again, if he understood the story correctly, Krig had been betrayed and attacked by his siblings. You could hardly fault a man, or god for that matter, if they defended themselves. There echoed within him a sense of the rightness in that thought.
At one end of the arena, there was a wooden platform that was raised up to be equal in height with the bottom row of the stadium seating. Atop it, he already saw the other six fighters and the guards were taking him to it, but he didn’t care.
Kyle was too caught up in taking in the environment. The seats were filled with a few hundred people. It was not even close to being filled to capacity, which he guessed to be close to ten thousand people, maybe more. But it was still an audience. The showman in him took over.
He felt the energy of the place and it made him alive. He changed his pace. Held his head a bit higher and his shoulders back. If they had come to see him, then he wouldn’t disappoint.
As he reached the platform, he was ordered to climb up some stairs and then directed to take a spot at one end of the line of fighters. There were four people in rich attire standing there. He immediately recognized Soren, the fat maggot that he was.
Kyle was almost surprised at the vitriol that he felt for the repugnant man. To Kyle, he was disgusting on two counts. Slavery was repugnant and anyone who made money that way was inherently revolting. But if he was honest with himself, it wasn’t that which turned his stomach the most. The thing about Soren which disgusted both Kyle and the part of him that was Krig was the way that the man relied upon his money and guards.
He clearly hadn’t exercised in a long time, and didn’t appear capable of protecting himself, so he relied upon those better able to do so. Kyle despised team owners who took credit for what the players on the field accomplished. Meanwhile, Krig had always hated those who used money to subjugate better, stronger men.
It wasn’t that Krig only respected those who had strong sword arms. Much as Hilde had told him before, Kyle now sensed the respect that Krig had for anyone who worked hard and excelled in their chosen field. He even felt that the old war god would have been okay with him saving Nyda, since she was striving hard to accomplish the task given to her. What Krig hated, though, were men and women who accomplished nothing, but thought that their name, family, position, or wealth gave them some type of importance.
Next to Soren were two women and one man. Each was wearing the same ornate toga with intricate patterns done in fine thread work. The women were practically dripping in jewelry. Both were relatively attractive, even if it was obvious that they had had some work do
ne. If that was a thing here in Verden. But with magic, why couldn’t it be? Kyle would guess that they were in their late forties or maybe early fifties.
The man standing next to Soren was similarly dressed and perhaps in his fifties. He didn’t have the fat belly that Soren did, but also was no paragon of fitness. There was a perpetual scowl affixed to his face.
Behind the four of them, Saber was standing. This time instead of the toga from the day before, he was in his leather armor, or rather a more ornate set of leather armor, complete with gold trim. Even still relatively untrained, Kyle instinctively realized that it was show armor not meant for actual combat. Saber was meant to look the part of arena master and head trainer.
Bits of the conversation that they were having reached Kyle’s ears. One of the women was complaining. From her tone, Kyle guessed it was a common activity for her.
“You told us that there was going to be a war elemental. My team is already situated for this season, but I might be able to make room for something like that.”
With equal disdain, the other woman said, “Lady Kargosta is correct. I grant you that the dragon-blooded elf is pretty to look at, but our team already has a sorcerer. I have no need for another.”
The man added, “I asked my captains about this, and none of them even believe that there is such a thing as a war elemental. This had best not be some trick to get more attention on your slaves. I am interested in acquiring the lycan girl, but require a demonstration of her fighting ability.”
Soren didn’t seem disturbed by their complaints at all. “Friend, friends, impatience is unbecoming. We still have to wait for House Avarda to arrive. And I will say that if you would care to look to the far end of the platform, our war elemental has arrived as promised.”