“Bastion, get over here and give me a hand!”
I pulled with everything that I had, my eyes clenched shut with the strain. Then, the weight suddenly relented, and she was free. Her face was no longer purple, but it was a shade of white that was equally frightening.
Ignoring the taste of copper, I pressed her cold lips to mine, blew my air into her lungs, and beat on her chest. It was a technique that I had seen performed many times in the infirmary but had never bothered to learn. So I was as surprised as Th’Linea was when she coughed and spluttered her way to life.
Sometimes, the people given the kiss of life don’t come back with their minds intact, but I knew that she would be alright when she punched me.
Regaining consciousness on our cell floor sometime later, I opened my mouth to form the word ‘Princess’, but closed it when my head throbbed. Neither Th’Linea nor my head were ready for that conversation. I turned to Bastion for entertainment.
“What was all that about, today? Vasheda… or something?”
“It does not concern you.”
“Right, I get it. Religious stuff. Whatever. Thing is, though, and correct me if I’m mistaken, but our continued survival depends upon us working together as a team.”
Bastion was silent, so I pushed my case.
“Once again, correct me if I’m mistaken, but an integral part of teamwork is knowing your comrade’s abilities and limitations.”
Bastion remained silent, but it wasn’t his usual silence of disregard, it was a silence of contemplation. My tongue pushed against my clenched teeth as I waited.
“When someone dies on the horn of a draquinus, their anima is absorbed, and they become one with that draquinus,” he finally said. “The draquinus gain’s knowledge, but to be worthy of the sacrifice’s gift in the eyes of Vasheda, one must then see to the final wish of the sacrifice. For obvious reasons one must be selective when using their horn as a weapon.”
“Sounds like quite a burden to carry, especially given your current state of employment as fellow gladiator,” I said, gently probing for more information.
“That is my problem, not yours.”
“So… what was the youth’s last wish?”
“That does not concern you.”
Bastion pulled his knees to his chest, rested his elbows on them and closed his eyes. It was impossible to draw him into a conversation after that. He just sat there, deep into the night, stroking the scar on his chest. I would never have thought his lips capable of the action, but he must have been lost in one of the youth’s good memories because they curled into a rare smile.
* * *
Despite the chill in the air, the stands were packed as the morning sun rose over the arena. If I were a doctor, I would have ordered Th’Linea to take a few days to recover after her experience in the prelims, but we were slaves to entertainment, and a night of sleep was all we received.
The announcer rolled forward from her perch atop the wall and continued to tumble once she hit the ground. She came out of the tumble and landed in a jog that took her centre stage.
“Ladies and gentleman, Lords and slaves. The King of Games presents to you the battle that you have been waiting for!” She paused, both for dramatic effect and to allow the crowd to settle.
“Released from the left,” she said, holding up her left hand. “Bruno’s Freedom Fighters! Gambler, Blood Horn and The Wild Woman of the Mountains!”
“To my right,” she said, holding up her right hand, “The Beasts of Carnage!”
She held both hands up in supplication to the crowd and waited for it to calm before continuing.
“Let The Bloodbath Finale begin!”
The announcer retreated, and we were released into the arena with carnage incarnate. The three creatures that stood opposite of us resembled wild demons that had morphed their bodies into crude imitations of what they thought humans looked like. They were no bigger than average men, but their lean muscles were sheathed in red scales, and their arms ended abruptly in bone scythes.
“That’s the first time they’ve put me in the arena with wild demons,” I said.
“They are not wild demons. They are mad malificiae,” Bastion said.
I looked at the twisted blend of human and demon and shuddered.
“You’re telling me that that’s what happens when you eat the wrong demon flesh?”
Before he could answer me, a whistle echoed from above, and the mad malificiae tossed back their heads. They howled as one, and the sound burrowed into my skull. I would have given anything to throw my hands over my ears, but the mad malificiae were already galloping towards us, their scythes cutting furrows through the earth in their wake.
I dove to the side and narrowly avoided a decapitating blow as one leapt passed me. I had no time to see how my comrades were fairing; I was too busy being courted by Lady Death, dancing hand in talon across the arena. The mad malificia leapt at me again, and I pressed myself to the ground as the air above me whistled. I laughed, coughing out dirt as the earth in front of me exploded into brown rain. Now that was entertainment!
I jumped to my feet, and the mad malificia charged me. I danced around its slashing claws and stepped inward to seize it by the shoulder. I pulled it forward, tripped it and slammed it face first into the arena wall. I probably could have killed it at that point, but it was the finale. After that match, my comrades would buy their freedom, and I would be exported across the land with weeks or months between the next possibility of entertainment. I didn’t want the fun to end so early.
I bowed to the audience and juggled my daggers while I waited for the mad malificia to rise. It sprung again, and again I danced out of the way. I readied myself for its next strike, but it never came.
As Th’Linea battled her own foe, mine leapt atop her back. Its talons raked deep lines in her flesh as it forced her to the ground. A mouth clamped over her right arm and everything below her wrist disappeared. She screamed, not a sound of pain, but a wordless roar of shock and defiance.
I jumped onto the mad malificia’s back and drove my daggers through the scales of its neck. It bucked. I flew through the air and hit the ground like a sack of shit. There was only time to throw my empty hands in front of me as a useless meat shield before Lady Death finally came to consummate our marriage.
With a primal roar, Th’Linea tackled the mad malificia from behind, and they fell just short of me. They tumbled in a storm of violence, each attempting to strike the other even as their life ebbed away through fatal wounds.
Th’Linea landed on her back with the mad malificia atop of her, its toothy maw snapping at her face as she beat it with her remaining hand, a feral smile on her lips as Lady Death caressed her.
I ran to her aid, but the other mad malificia flung itself at me. Without a weapon, all I could do was dance. I continued to flow around blows, desperately aware that with each passing second, Th’Linea’s smile was closer to faltering.
Th’linea’s hand closed around my dagger, and she ripped it free of the mad malificia’s neck. A torrent of blood bathed her face, and the mad malificia fell limp against her. She drove the dagger into its eye before struggling out from under it.
She staggered to her feet and spread her arm and stump out in challenge, leaving her body unprotected.
“Come now, beast! Fight not with a man while there is still a woman with whom to do battle!”
With her blood-bathed face, she resembled a wild demon atop its kill.
The mad malificia turned, seeking its own kill, even as I screamed for it to stop. It leapt atop of Th’Linea, driving her to the ground as its jaws locked onto her bloody stump. Its claws ripped at her body with sprays of blood and flesh, but her feral smile never left her face as she drove the dagger into its neck.
I hurried over, but all I could do was retrieve my weapon. Looking at Th’Linea’s open eyes was like looking at a painting hung crooked on a wall. I closed them. She had been an abrasive, misandrist woman, but her
values meant enough to give her life for. She was true to her nature, and that was something that I respected.
With two warriors against the remaining mad malificia, it was a simple matter for me to sneak behind it as it wrestled with Bastion and slit its throat. There was no longer any entertainment in the battle.
The announcer entered the arena and raised her hands, halting the perpetual roar of the crowd.
“I give you this year’s Bloodbath champions, Bruno’s Freedom Fighters: Gambler and Blood Horn!”
The roar began anew, vibrating the arena with its intensity.
“And Th’Linea, Priestess of The Mountains,” I shouted, but was ignored.
Champion or not, a slave’s words were not worth consideration. Our sacrifices would soon be forgotten. Those in the bleachers above were no doubt speaking animatedly of what they had witnessed, but they would soon be speaking of what they hoped to witness next year.
In the luscious booth set atop the arena’s wall, the King of Games clapped Bruno on the shoulder. Their exact words were a mystery to all but them, but given the outcome, it is safe to assume that something inflamed Bruno’s greed.
The King of Games raised his hand, and the announcer sprinted up the wall. After having received her orders, she walked along the wall on her hands to gain the attention of the crowd. She continued her balancing act even as she spoke.
“Ladies and gentleman, Lords and slaves. The King of Games has a treat for you.”
She pushed off of her hands, flipped down the side of the wall, and tumbled towards the centre of the arena.
“The King wishes for a question to be answered, and it is the same question on the mind of each and every person here. Man or draquinus, who is the true champion?”
The announcer placed her hands to her ears, and the crowd screamed their opinions. She pretended to listen while tapping her finger against her chin, then continued.
“To the winner goes enough steel to buy their freedom and start a new life. To the loser, death. So without further ado, I give you… the true championship! Fight!” She clapped her hands then sprinted away, bounding up the wall to safety.
I looked from Bastion to Bruno, who nodded from beside the King of Games. I looked back to Bastion and only just managed to leap away from his axe. He struck at me mercilessly, our temporary comradeship was forgotten against the promise of freedom. I, on the other hand, not being a greedy man, danced around the blows.
The winner’s purse would indeed buy Bastion his freedom, with enough left to buy himself a room and a hot meal. But for me, even a tonne of high-quality steel would be a small hill against the backdrop of my mountainous debt.
Bastion overextended his arms with his attack, and I jabbed my dagger into the joint of his right elbow, rendering his arm useless and buying myself time to think, or so I thought. Bastion transferred his weapon to his left hand and span, swinging his axe in a wide arc. I leapt back, but Bastion’s momentum propelled him into another spin. I leapt back again, and Bastion released his axe.
The weapon flew through the air. Still airborne, I spread my body horizontal and reached for the spinning axe. Grasping its bone hilt, I allowed the momentum to drag me across the arena, and into the wall.
I squeezed my eyes shut as my head bounced off of the wall in a flash of white light. I struggled to my feet and placed my palms over my temples, trying to hold my head together. I opened my eyes again and was greeted to the answer of all my problems in the form of a charging draquinus.
I could be a gladiator all my life, or I could sell myself one last time and help my son. It had worked for the young draquinus, and while I did not know the rules of engagement for this deadly contract, I was a gambler by trade. Praying that Bastion had told the truth about his horn, I fixed my wish in my mind and dropped my weapons to the ground.
“Vasheda!” I said.
Bastion’s charge stopped short, and he observed me with his unreadable eyes.
“Vasheda,” he replied.
He strode toward me, and my body vibrated with my beating heart as my instincts demanded that I run, that I fight, that I do anything but stand still and wait for him to kill me. His gigantic hands encircled my stomach as easily as an adult’s can encircle a child’s throat. I heard the tear of my shirt and felt his horn jut free of my back, but there was a long moment of dawning horror before the blast of pain hit me.
I broke into a fit of coughing. The convulsions tore fire through my throat, splattering his snow-white skin red. Lady Death glided over to me, a blur of shadow to my pain-clouded eyes and took my hands. I tasted her breath on my lips. She tasted of freedom.
* * *
Bastion’s eyes watched the fire consume Santiago’s corpse, but in his mind’s eye, memories flicked passed with incredible speed, not in words or precisely images, but in a kind of symbolic shorthand. They stopped when he came to the memory that he needed.
A frail toddler lay on his back on the dirt floor of a modest home. A scrap of green cloth was clutched in the child’s grimy hands, but the child held it above his head and watched the sunlight filter through it with the crazed smile of a fanatic.
A woman with brown hair entered the room. Trail marks ran down her plain face where tears had flowed through the dirt. She scooped the child into her arms and lowered one strap of her dress to free a breast.
The host of the memory stood from his chair and crossed the room to wrap the woman and feeding child in his arms.
“I’m going to take care off all of our problems my love,” the host said. He lowered his head until the child’s face filled Bastion’s view. “You be a good man for your ma, Kyle.”
The host exited the house and followed a cobbled street until he came to a city gate guarded by two spear wielding guardsmen.
“What takes you out of Cirta, Santiago?” one asked.
Bastion blinked, shattering the memory, and slung his battle-axe across his broad shoulders. Turning his back on the fire, he headed east to Cirta. First, he would make Santiago’s son a man, then he would avenge the draquinus youth’s slaughtered clan, and only then, would he be free to continue with his hunt for the draquinus who had stolen his own anima.
ALPHA AND OMEGA
by Subodhana Wijeyeratne
The dog waits for the man to disappear into the mist before it approaches the house. Liquid fire dripping from its mouth and a trail of charred spots on the dead grass in its wake. It slips through the gaping door, and after a few moments a woman screams. She screams and screams and then abruptly she falls silent. The dog emerges, bloody-muzzled and grinning, and licks its lips. It paces off into the mist. Behind it the house crumbles and wafts away into the air in ghostly trails, as if made of cobwebs.
The dog wanders over to another hut and lets itself in. More screaming, and the dog emerges and shakes itself head to tail. Blood flying off its fur in a thin red halo and the hut disintegrating behind it as it does.
It continues in this fashion from house to house until finally, gorged, it sits fat-bellied on its hind legs and surveys the land. No horizon visible through the fog. The grass losing its definition and melting into sludge and then the sludge subsiding into a greyish nothing and then there is nothing but the dog. It wags its tail and looks about it and seems well satisfied.
And then it begins to make the world, anew.
* * *
Alpha has never seen the man before, but she is certain that she does not like him. She does not like the way he barges into her shack, tramping snow all over the floor. She does not like the way he grins when she casts around for a weapon and finds none. She does not like the suspect familiarity he has with her belongings, the way he wends his massive frame with peculiar delicacy past the clutter, and finally settles on the pile of sodden cardboard and paper that is her bed.
“Get out!” she hisses, and raises her fists. “Get out!”
The man’s grin fades. “What?”
“What, what? Who the hell are you? Get out of
my house!”
The man scans the room, and so does Alpha, though there is not much to see. A few fistsful of weeds and nuts crackling over a few pieces of orange charcoal, barely warm enough for her to feel. Ragged things here and there in the gloom.
“You call this a house?” the man says.
She remembers – the knife. She reaches into her pocket and her fingers close on the handle. and she whips it out an old plastic knife. Scarcely an edge to it. She waves it at the man.
“It’s mine! Get out, get out, or I’ll stab you.”
The man peers at her for a long time.
“Already?” he says, eventually.
“Already what?”
He shakes his head. “Never mind”.
He reaches down with fingers, fat and filthy, and begins to take off his shoes.
“Stop it! Get out!”
The man sits back, one boot dangling off his left foot, a naked yellow heel peeking out from beneath his trouser-hem. Skin cracked and the little crevasses choked black with grime and flakes of it peeling off like rind. He stares at her for a few moments. Then again, that massive grin. He opens his arms wide, as if for a hug, and shrugs.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What?”
“I said I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here. And I’m having some of whatever you’re cooking.”
Alpha looks at her pot, then back at the man, then at his hands, and then at the door. She waits for him to reach back for his boot, and bolts. For a moment she is convinced he is coming after her, and she dives for the door, and in an instant is out, in the cold, in the wind.
In the mist.
It is always the way. Inside, she cannot forget how wretched her life is. How there is nothing new in her shack and there never will be. Yet outside is worse. The ground, when it has not snowed, peaty-dark and as yielding as rotten flesh. The dead stalks akimbo across each other under her feet. She can feel them brittle and sharp through the wrapping she uses in lieu of shoes.
She tries to recall the last time she saw a shoe, but like shapes in the mist, everything in her past is obscured and not to be trusted.
Kzine Issue 20 Page 7