by Adam Witcher
“I think I can manage.” I smiled, feeling a surge of confidence move through me at Lily’s admission.
“I’ll take this side,” Camilla said. “Lily, you head for the other.”
Lily dashed off for the other side. Camilla and I tried to look casual as we sauntered up toward the front entrance.
“The front door is probably locked, and I don’t have any lockpicks with me,” she looked at me expectantly. I shrugged to show her that I had none.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Nothing looks more conspicuous than breaking in the front. There should still be a window with a loose lock on the left side of the house. Something makes me doubt that Zantho ever bothered to fix it.”
I nodded. “What’s the signal?”
“The signal?” She asked.
“For if someone comes,” I said. “No point in two lookouts if you can’t warn me of anyone coming.”
“Oh, right. I’ll knock three times on the wall.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Tell Lily.”
I took a deep breath and went around the corner of the house. Despite the fact that the streets were busy, I felt invisible to passersby. Sneaking around at the farm and the estate helped my confidence. Once I was along the side of the house, I crouched down and moved slowly. Soon I found the window that Camilla mentioned, identified it by its broken lock mechanism. I pushed it and it slid open easily. A curtain blocked my view, so I ensured the house was silent before peeking through. The room was small but was packed full of junk. Boxes were stacked up, some of which had broken open and spilled out their contents. Pieces of old parchment littered the room. I squinted to read one with faded ink that read
TONIGHT ONLY
Zantho vs Joriah!
Who will win?
Gragos’ own local hero
OR
The mysterious hooded man from the far west?
Satisfied at the room’s emptiness, I pulled myself through and shut the window. Once inside, I saw that nearly all of the boxes contained flyers for old fights. Some had happened as long as two years ago. I imagined how it must feel to be wealthy enough to dedicate an entire room to my old paper junk. Somehow, I got the feeling that this wasn’t kept for nostalgia’s sake.
I tiptoed through the room, then opened the door slowly. I cringed when it creaked loudly. When I looked through the crack in the door, I was glad to see the rest of the house unoccupied. I stood in what looked like it was at one point a dining room. A scratched wooden table stood in front of me. Dirty dishes atop it were coated with old sauce and the remnant bones of forgotten steaks. Flies crawled on them.
I made my way through the rest of the house, but other than general dirtiness, nothing seemed awry. I passed through a lounge with nothing but stained sofas, and I guessed at Zantho’s immensity based on their size. The kitchen contained a host of rusted pots and pans. At the top of a rickety staircase, the bedroom only contained a large bed whose frame had crumpled, leaving the mattress piled awkwardly on top of it.
I ventured back downstairs, disappointed to have found nothing but the man’s poor hygiene. I was making my way toward the broken window when I heard a thumping sound coming from the ground beneath me. It was only two solid thuds, but they were unmistakable.
Camilla hadn’t mentioned a basement. I once again checked a door in the dining room that I had previously assumed was a closet. On second inspection, the floor gave in a little at my weight. When I kicked at it, the floor panel fell and slid down a staircase. I froze in terror as it slapped loudly against each step. When it reached the bottom, I held my breath. I heard the thudding sound, twice more, but then there was silence. It was hard to believe that whatever or whomever was down here didn’t hear the crash, but no other commotion followed it. I decided to peek in. In the back corner of the basement there was a giant cot supporting a massive heap of blankets and a tuft of blonde hair extending from one end. The pile rose and fell with Zantho’s steady breathing.
I tiptoed forward, hoping not to disturb the silence. It seemed silly after the cacophony of the floor panel, but it didn’t feel prudent to stop sneaking. As I walked further, the air became thick and musty. I had to keep myself from coughing, then gagging. My brain screamed at me to leave, but the sulfurous smell was unmistakable. I couldn’t turn back yet.
Finally I reached the bottom step and crept into the middle of the room. When I looked around, I found the source of the unbearable stench. A mound of krokum overflowed from a rail cart. Small piles had toppled onto the floor. A track led to a blown-out wall and disappeared into darkness. I approached the opening and stepped inside, but the odor was too much. It was all I could do to prevent myself from vomiting. This krokum seemed even more potent and brutal to the senses than what we’d already come across. I pulled out my small bag and put a handful of the new stuff inside.
Zantho stirred behind me. I whirled around and saw him raising his head. He turned toward the wall, then back again. With each turn, the cot thudded loudly on the stone floor. I breathed a sigh of relief, but it didn’t last long. Zantho turned again, then again. He muttered to himself. It seemed like he was getting increasingly agitated and restless. I considered running back up the stairs, but with his eyes fluttering, I had to think more quickly than that. I opened up my sack and pulled out the camouflage cloak and tossed it on. Just as he began to rise, I ducked into the tunnel and held my breath.
Zantho stood well over six feet, and his shoulders were broad and thick. He only wore a thin pair of trousers, and huge muscles rippled across his torso. He walked toward me, and I prayed silently to the gods. He seemed too preoccupied to notice. As he stumbled, he pushed messy blonde hair from his eyes that was caked with dirt and sweat.
It wasn’t hard to guess what had awakened Zantho from his slumber. Once he reached the cart of krokum, he took a handful, sniffed a tiny amount, then dumped the rest back in. He turned and tumbled back into his cot. Within minutes, he was snoring. I stepped lightly out of the tunnel, then went back up the stairs. Once I was back in the main part of the house, I let out the convulsive coughs I’d been holding in.
Then I heard three knocks. Disoriented, I couldn’t tell which direction they came from. I ran over and peeked out a front window. Camilla was outside, nervously talking to two guards. Whatever she was telling them, they didn’t seem to be buying it. I headed for the back.
Outside, Lily popped out from behind a bush.
“There you are!” she said, grabbing my arm and guiding me out toward the streets. “I gave you the signal like three times. Camilla’s been stalling guards. Didn’t you hear me?”
“I’ll explain in a minute,” I said. “Let’s get Camilla.”
We circled around through an alleyway and popped back out into the busy neighborhood street. I tried to be discreet when I waved to her. When we made eye contact, I could see her instant relief. She giggled for a moment and put a hand on one of the guard’s shoulders like he’d just told a hilarious joke. Then she strode off toward us, fake laughing and blowing them kisses.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said when she was close enough. “They know something is up.”
We hurried back toward Camilla’s home. Once we were at a comfortable distance, I told them what I’d seen in the basement.
“Good gods,” Camilla said, her voice shaking. “Poor Zantho. He must spend the whole day in there just waiting to go out and fight.”
“But that means they must be running krokum through tunnels under the entire city!” Lily said.
We reached Camilla’s street and went into her flat. It was a welcome relief to be somewhere private. We gathered around her table and she put the kettle on for tea.
“No wonder it’s been so hard to track the sources,” Camilla said. “They must have tunnels going to all the dealer’s places too. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it. Every dealer I talked to was so clueless, but it was always so easy to find. They probably don’t even know who their o
wn supplier is. That explains how it’s bypassing the magical barrier from the tower too.”
“That sorcerer must be at the top of all this, but something tells me he isn’t the one in charge of circulation,” I said. “Somebody must be running things from inside the city. Whoever it is, Zantho must be their golden boy. You should have seen that supply he had. If you dropped that pile in the streets, there would be riots. I’m willing to bet he brings in some serious coin, not to mention glorifies using it to anyone second guessing themselves.”
The kettle whistled, and Camilla poured us all some tea. It smelled like lavender and chamomile. She opened a cabinet and filled a basket with some sweet rolls, then placed them in front of us, taking the first one for herself. She’d already finished hers by the time I took a bite. Must be a stress eater, I thought.
“Still think we should go to the fight tonight?” Lily asked. “If Zantho doesn’t know who his own supplier is, I don’t know if he’ll be much help.”
“Oh, we’re going,” I said before Camilla had a chance to respond. “With someone as potentially dangerous and erratic as Zantho, and with that much coin at stake, you can bet he doesn’t go unsupervised.”
Chapter Fifteen
We waited out the afternoon at Camilla’s home. I watched as the sun drifted lazily toward the horizon. When evening arrived, we gathered our things and headed through town. The fighting arena was close to the part of the city where we’d entered, and I was familiar with some of the streets we passed through, including the tout-ridden alleyways of the previous night.
We found the line to get in before I saw the arena. It wrapped around two blocks before the building itself, which was bigger than I expected. Camilla told me that the locals called it The Colosseum, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Based on its ancient-looking architectural style, I guessed it to be one of the oldest buildings in Gragos. It was the color of charcoal, and it stood three stories high. Pillars connected to one another via long arching beams, creating an elegant but sinister facade. I could hear the dull roar of a crowd inside. The fight hadn’t even begun yet, but the energy already oozed from it.
The citizens of Gragos seemed much livelier while waiting for the fight than they did mulling about the dirty streets. Many of them seemed very poor, but still they clutched the two coin entrance fee with glee. It shouldn’t have surprised me that a city like this would be in need of some distractions.
Midway through the line, Camilla told us she’d be leaving and that we should meet her back at her home once the fight was over.
“This place is huge,” I said. “There’s no chance he’s going to see you up in the crowd. He didn’t even see me two feet in front of his face today.”
“If he sees my face,” she started. “The guards might not…”
“Camilla,” I said, putting my hand on her back. “What’s the real reason?”
“It’s just…” She took a breath. “It’s too hard for me to see him like this. To you he’ll just seem like some big dumb animal. But to me, well… Please just know, he wasn’t always like this.”
“Okay,” I said. I could tell there was no persuading her. We said our goodbyes and she headed back home.
It took almost an hour, but we finally made it inside. I led us up a crumbling stone staircase to the upper deck of the arena and found our seats. In the center of the arena, a ring no bigger than Camilla’s one-room apartment stood awaiting the night’s feature presentation. A barrel-chested man stood in the middle, bellowing out a stream of words that somehow projected all the way up to where we were sitting.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “boys and girls, take your seats. Tonight, we have quite a treat for you. Our champion, the mighty and ferocious Zantho, is set to take on a series of monstrous challengers.”
A band of drums and horns erupted into a triumphal march from somewhere beneath us.
The crowd roared. Lily and I couldn’t help but cheer too.
“For round one, we have the classic baddies.” He gestured to the floor of the ring. It opened, and two hobgoblins walked out. They were shirtless, and their red muscles bulged as they pumped their arms up and down. They paraded around the edges of the ring, standing at the corners and waving angrily at the crowd. Everyone around us booed and hissed.
“You idiots are in for it!” One guy next to me yelled.
“Zantho is gonna take these clowns down in one punch!” another yelled.
“Alright Gragosians,” the barrel-chested man called out. “What do you say we bring him out?”
The crowd erupted into cries so loud that they left my ears ringing.
“I present to you, the citizens of Gragos, the incredible… the audacious… the beastly… The badass boxer you all know and love… Zantho!”
The floor opened up again, and Zantho leapt out. He looked very different in his element. His blonde hair was slicked back, his eyes cloudy and wild. He walked over to one of the hobgoblins and roared in his face. The hobgoblin stepped back, wiping spittle from his face, and betraying his intimidation. The crowd ate it up.
The barrel-chested man exited the ring, hurrying to avoid the coming clash. The two hobgoblins and Zantho squared off. The announcer stood on the edge and boomed over the crowd.
“3… 2… 1… Fight!”
Zantho sprang into action. Bulky though he was, he was still pretty quick. One of the hobgoblins went down for the count less than three seconds from the start. Zantho reared back as he jumped forward and connected to the creature’s jaw with a devastating hook punch. It collapsed in an instant. The other hobgoblin, in a moment of panic, leaped onto Zantho’s back and put his arm around his neck. The crowd around us laughed while Zantho spun in circles, trying to throw him off. The hobgoblin didn’t even try to strike. Instead he just clung for dear life. Eventually Zantho threw him off, picked him up by the shoulders, and threw him out of the ring. He scampered off in shame. The whole match took about thirty seconds.
“That wasn’t much of a fight,” Lily said, leaning into me.
“It was just the intro,” I shrugged. “Something to get the crowd pumped up. As if they really needed it.”
Zantho ran a victory lap around the ring, pumping his fists and drumming up the chant “Zan-tho! Zan-tho! Zan-tho!”.
“Okay, okay, folks.” The announcer was back on the edge of the arena. “Fun and games are fine for a while. But we all know what we came here to see. Two hobgoblins are no match for Zantho!”
The crowd hollered.
“Who should he battle next?” He held his hand to his ear. The crowd shouted out their ideas.
“Give him a frost troll!” “Twenty orcs at the same time!” “Ten giants!”
He answered, “How about… four bugbears!” He stretched out the word bugbear for effect. Applause answered him.
The ring receded below the arena floor and was replaced by two moving halves of a larger floor. The edges extended out mechanically as the halves joined together until it more than doubled the size of the previous ring. Zantho hopped into it. Massive, ferocious bugbears burst from archways on the ground floor of the Colosseum, two from each side.
As I watched one of the hairy monstrosities beat its chest and walk into the arena, I noticed a small box of people on the third level of the arena, separate from the rest of the crowd. None of them stood or cheered. They were well dressed and groomed. Though most of them wore elegantly colored robes, there was one in the middle who seemed a little out of place. He wore a pure white lab coat that extended past his hands, and his hair was frizzed and unkempt. He fidgeted constantly. I pointed the group out to Lily.
As the bugbears paraded around the stadium, Zantho circled around to the side of the arena where the people in the boxed area were able to look down at him closely. A few clapped politely. The white-coated man, though, pulled a drawstring bag from his pocket and dipped his hand in. He held it, then blew lightly. A small black stream of vapor trailed through the air directly toward Zantho. Whe
n it was close enough, he huffed it greedily.
“That man isn’t Neptos, is he?” I asked Lily. “Doesn’t look like the same face, but that’s exactly what he did to the troll.”
“I don’t think that’s him,” Lily said, “but we should probably keep an eye on this guy.”
The growing noise around us pulled our attention back to the ring. A bugbear stood at each corner. They snorted and stomped. One woman above us screamed, “Beat in their ugly faces, but save us their brains!” They really were an eyesore. I thought hobgoblins were ugly enough, but these guys were like their more hideous cousins. The ones they kept in the barn during the family reunions. The fight began, though, and what the monsters lacked in beauty, they made up for with fury.
The bugbears struck quickly and in unison, but Zantho was quicker. He ducked under one of their blows and rolled off to the side. The bugbears collided. Zantho rushed one and leapt into the air. He grabbed hold of its thick head and slammed it into one of the other’s. Both of them collapsed. The other two swung beefy fists toward him. It seemed like they weren’t used to fighting without weapons, but one punch would be likely to knock out a lesser competitor. Zantho, though, was too quick. It was almost difficult to keep track of what was happening. Limbs flailed. Blood sprayed off of bodies. The crowd was in ecstasy.
It was hard to avert my eyes from the action, but I knew we had work to do. I watched the private booth, but the spectators within did nothing but let Zantho do his work. I scanned the crowd for any other clues, but all I saw were bloodthirsty Gragosians. When I returned my attention back to the arena, the bugbears were all but finished. Three were knocked out or dead, while the last one looked dazed. Zantho joined his fists together and brought them down on his head.
Several more rounds went this way. More monsters were brought out, Zantho was given more krokum, and the crowd cheered when he destroyed them. I was willing to bet it was pretty much the same show every night, and I wondered how often some of these audience members came.