Galdoni

by Cheree Alsop

  “As if,” one said. Blade glared at him and he shut his mouth.

  Blade shook his head and dropped the false, light tone. When he spoke again, his voice was deep and menacing. “Let me tell you something.” He stepped closer so that we were almost toe to toe. “I’m fighting in the Arena, and I hope it’s your puny body I get to crush beneath my mace.”

  My muscles tensed at the hatred and venom in his voice, but I forced myself to hold still. “I don’t care if you throw away your own life or even mine, but don’t destroy the only chance the rest of them have.”

  He gave another cruel smile and then spit in my face. I lost my carefully reined control and was about to swing at him when the doors burst open and guards with whips and night sticks ran through to encircle the Galdoni.

  “Enough talking,” the lead guard said; his eyes swept past us as though we were below the value of bugs and barely worth his notice. “Someone pulled the alarm. No dinner or breakfast, and you’ll be doing drills all day tomorrow.”

  Several Galdoni protested, but the lash of whips ended any talking.

  “Get to your cells and don’t make another sound,” the guard snapped as though talking to a group of disobedient dogs. “Or I’ll just shoot you and claim self-defense.” He laughed. No one would be held accountable for the death of a mere Galdoni. He turned away, chuckling at his own joke.

  “Someone needs to teach that man a lesson,” a Galdoni behind me muttered as we were herded out of the Arena like a bunch of sheep.

  “And you’re going to do it?” the Galdoni next to him stated. They both fell silent at the crack of a whip just above their heads.

  We walked slowly to our cells, Galdoni breaking away when we passed their blocks. I was almost to mine when a hand touched my wing. “Did you really mean what you said back there?”

  I glanced back to see a black and white winged Galdoni a few years younger than me. At least five others with him waited for my answer. I nodded. “It’s the way out of here, and it will work.”

  “What if Blade fights?” he pressed anxiously.

  My stomach clenched, but I said the truth. “Then I’ll kill him. No one will stand in the way of our freedom.”

  ***

  I sat on my pallet with my head in my hands after a particularly brutal beating for pulling the alarm and also for ‘conspiring’, even though they apparently had no idea what was said during our little gathering. Thoughts and images of Brie swirled through my weary mind. I could keep them at bay during the training and grind of the day, but being alone in a cell brought them back with a force strong enough to take my breath away.

  I saw Brie’s eyes, beautiful and kind, the color of mahogany with a hint of gold encircling the irises. I saw my own reflection in her eyes, and wondered why she cared about someone like me, a nobody Galdoni destined to die. I hated myself for letting her care. I knew at the beginning that it would end in the Arena, and I shouldn’t have let her know my true feelings; I was so in love with her that every second away tore at my heart with a thousand daggers.

  I fought to keep the emotions at bay, to pretend that my life out there didn’t exist. It felt like a dream so much that I wanted it to be; the freedom and life I had experienced there was more than someone like me could have ever hoped for. But then I would hear the echo of her laugh, feel the light touch of her hand on my arm, smell the whisper of her scent on the air, and it was all I could do to keep from falling apart.

  I knew they watched me. That night I turned to the camera. “I will come back to you, Brie,” I promised. “I love you.” I held her eyes, knowing she watched me the way I would have never let her leave my sight if she was the one behind the glass. I then settled on the pallet and let sleep steal the pain from my body in the same way that dreams of Brie eased the pain of my soul.

  ***

  The next day, I dedicated myself to fighting whole-heartedly. I didn’t know if I would be fighting Blade or any of his minions, but I wanted to be ready. I didn’t believe for a second that the Academy would let us get away with not fighting. I would have to be prepared to defend the other Galdoni if it came down to that.

  The Galdoni around me whispered questions and passed information back and forth. I became the one they told of their secret lives outside the Academy doors. Everyone had a story, a hope, a dream, something they wished to return to or try if they ever got out again. Listening to them made my own dreams ache with even more intensity, but I listened because it gave them hope.

  “I danced,” one particularly large Galdoni whispered as he released me from a choke hold and shoved me back against the ropes. I fought to hide an incredulous smile when I spun back to face him. He was even bigger than Goliath, or at least his twin in size, but the light in his eyes told of a desire for the stage, for grace and beauty and all the things that didn’t exist behind the Academy gates.

  “I cooked fillet mignon with mushrooms drenched in a beef broth and cream sauce,” the skinny, tall Galdoni who would have fit the image of a scholar had he been human told me before he spun left in an attempt to hack off my arm with his sword. “The vegetables were delectable, grated and cooked until they were soft but still crisp.”

  I vaulted a brick wall and landed beside a small Galdoni with gray and white wings in the training yard. “Snowboarding,” he said as we jumped over a low vault and scrambled up a rope ladder.

  “What?” I asked, gasping for air.

  “There’s nothing like the hiss of snow under your board and the feeling of the flakes as they race past your face.” He ducked under a running bridge and jumped the next vault. “I felt so alive.”

  “You’ll be alive again,” I promised him as I dodged spinning dummies with real blades.

  “You really think not fighting will work?” he wheezed when we reached the end of the course. He bent over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

  I nodded, taking in huge gulps of air. I didn’t mention that it was our only hope, or that it would probably be the only attempt they would give me before guards killed me as an example to the rest. In my mind, it just had to work.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Kill me now, weakling,” Blade taunted behind his serrated sword.

  He lunged and I parried, dancing back beyond his reach. His sword caught mine across the middle and snapped right through my blade; his next lunge barely missed my stomach. It wasn’t the first time that I suspected they gave Blade better weapons in the hopes that he would use the advantage to kill me. Only through sheer will and speed did I manage to make it out of the matches alive. I threw my half blade at him and glanced aside to see two guards by the door exchange money.

  That angered me more than Blade’s superior weapons. I growled and ducked under Blade’s next move, a showy swing for the amusement of the Galdoni who had stopped fighting practice to watch us.

  He grunted when I caught him around the middle and forced him back against the chains. He beat my head with the hilt of his sword, but couldn’t bring the large weapon around to reach me. I ignored the battering and punched him as hard as I could with a left, then a right. Though he wore protective padding, I could hear the air that was forced from his lungs. I threw another right and felt a satisfying snap as his ribs gave way.

  Blade surprised me with a left foot sweep. I stumbled back, but managed to keep on my feet. He took advantage of the stumble to lunge again with his sword. I fell back a second too slow and the blade cut through my padding and bit into my chest.

  Blade grinned wildly and lunged again, but I was ready. I grasped the blade between my palms, careful to keep my fingers free of the cutting edge, and fell backward. The movement threw him off balance and he fell with me. I twisted as I hit the ground. The tip of the sword drove into the cement floor inches from my side. Blade let out a huff of air as the hilt jammed painfully into his stomach. He fell to the side, gasping. I rolled back to my feet and picked up the sword, then put the tip to his throat.

  “Hold it!�
�� one of the guards called out. He pushed through the crowd of eager Galdoni, many of whom urged me with little nods and gestures to end Blade’s life and relieve us of his constant bullying. I wanted to kill him, to end his life as badly as I had wanted to end Brie's step-father's. The promise of bloodshed whispered through the stale air, and the wound across my chest ached for retaliation. My vision tinged in red.

  I debated for a brief second. With Blade gone, there would be few others who would dare to go against us and fight in the Arena. A quote from one of the religious theory books a professor had let me borrow in secret came to mind. ‘It is better than that one man perish than a whole nation dwindle in unbelief.’ I had seen the sense of it at the time, but now that the decision was mine, I hesitated. What right did I have to choose, and how would Blade’s death make me any better than the gamblers who thirsted for our blood?

  Before the guards could reach me with their whips and clubs, far too late for them to have stopped me anyway, I dropped the sword and walked away. I couldn’t believe how close I had come to becoming the animal we were made out to be. The blood pounded in my ears, the thirst to kill rushing hot through my veins. I crossed blindly over the ropes and walked to a corner of the Arena. I sat on the padded floor and held my aching head in my hands. A trickle of blood flowed from a gash in my hair from Blade’s hilt, but I ignored it.

  A few minutes later, the sounds of training resumed. I forced down the blood thirsty adrenaline that pounded in my veins and fought to regain what I had thought was my humanity and self-control.

  “Here, drink.”

  I lifted my head to see a pair of gnarled, stained hands offer me a cup of water. I almost pushed it away, but thirst burned in the back of my throat and I was reminded with an ache of when I met Brie, afraid to trust someone I couldn't see, the brush of her hand the only gentle thing I had ever felt.

  I drank the water and set the cup aside. A glance at the bearer showed a Galdoni I knew by sight but had never spoken to. He was one of the oldest, a veteran of the Arena covered in the scars of battle. He gave a wry smile and sat down in front of me. It was then that I noticed the droop in his left wing from a break that hadn’t been set right. My gut clenched when I realized that he could no longer fly.

  “You should have killed him,” the Galdoni said amiably. He stretched out his left leg slowly like it pained him.

  “I know,” I replied.

  “Why didn’t you? Honor?”

  I snorted in disgust. “There’s no honor here.”

  He gave me another slight smile. “You did just prove yourself wrong, you know.”

  I grimaced. “It wasn’t honor that kept me from killing him. I didn’t want to turn into the monster the humans make us out to be.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “They don’t have to try very hard,” he said gently.

  I followed his gaze and studied the room of grunting, yelling, cursing Galdoni who grappled, sword fought, and sparred like lions defending their pride. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “Maybe the humans are right to keep us out of their society.”

  The older Galdoni shrugged. “Who says it’s their society? We’re alive, which means we have a place in it.”

  I gave a humorless laugh. “Not if they have any say in the matter.”

  He frowned at me then, his gray eyes studying mine. “Then you lied to them? You really don’t think it’s worth getting out of here?”

  I pushed my palm against the side of my head in an effort to close the wound that continued to drip. “I don’t know anymore. Out there,” I gestured vaguely toward the walls, “It seemed so straightforward, so simple. We’d been wronged, and we deserved a chance to live our own lives.”

  When I fell silent, he pressed, “And now?”

  I took a steeling breath. “And now sometimes I see us the way they do. We were raised this way. Can we really change?”

  He patted me on the shoulder and pushed himself slowly to his feet. “Anyone can change, Kale. And everyone deserves the chance to do so.” His voice lowered so no one could overhear us. “They’ll fight for you, boy. Or not fight, as the case may be. The Galdoni need a leader and they look up to you. Lead them the right way and you might really pull this off.”

  He turned and walked away before I could come up with a reply.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Goliath sat by me in the cafeteria along with several other Galdoni who had started seeking us out wherever we went. It felt strange to have a following, but comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one who felt like we had to stand up for ourselves. Goliath was silent while we ate, but I didn’t think about it until David came running into the lunchroom.

  “Kale, Kale, I’m so sorry!” he sobbed. He ran straight to our table and fell into a heap at my feet. I stared at him in shock. His shirt was missing and his chest and arms were covered in whip marks that streamed blood. His back already bore purpling bruises that would be nearly black by the time they were fully formed.

  “What happened?” I asked. I fought to keep my voice calm. Goliath crouched next to him, a hulking giant towering over the tiny red-headed Galdoni.

  “They beat me.” His voice quivered. “I had to tell them. They would have killed me. I’m sorry, Kale.”

  A pit formed in my stomach at the fear in his voice. “What did you tell them?”

  He put his face in his hands. “About not fighting. They heard that you pulled the fire alarm to organize some sort of rebellion, and they tortured me until I told them about it. They’re coming for you.”

  Everyone had fallen silent at David’s entrance. I glanced up and spotted Blade across the room. He met my eyes, his own carefully expressionless, then he and his followers returned to their eating.

  “You should kill me. Kill me now,” David pleaded.

  I reached out. Goliath moved as if to stop me, but at my glance he backed down. I set a hand on David’s shoulder. It trembled under my touch. “I won’t hurt you,” I promised him quietly. “Look at me.” When he refused to look up, I softened my tone. “David, look at me brother.”

  He glanced up and tear marks trailed through the blood on his face.

  “I don’t blame you. You did the right thing. It’s okay.” I waited until he nodded, then I rose and stepped onto the table. The chain around my ankle rattled against the hard surface.

  “Of course they’ll try to stop us,” I said, lifting my voice so it echoed around the room. I felt the eyes of one hundred and fifty Galdoni watching me. “They don’t want you to be free, to live your own lives. But you deserve every second of it.”

  I glanced around the room, meeting as many eyes as I could. “You deserve to feel the wind in your wings, to smell the cool ocean breeze, to feel grass under your feet and the rain in your hair. You deserve these things, and they know it.”

  “Get down!” a guard yelled from across the room.

  I clenched a fist. “Do you know why they treat us like animals? Because if they admit that we are part human, then they’ll also have to admit they’re being inhumane.” I raised the fist into the air. “But you deserve better, and don’t let them convince you otherwise. You live, you breathe, you dream the same as me, and the same as them. Outside of these walls there’s a life out there waiting for each of us.” A few Galdoni by the back wall rose to their feet, listening.

  The guards in the lunchroom tried to reach me, but Galdoni stepped in front of them, blocking their path.

  I held out my wings, gaining strength from the eagerness on their faces. “Prove to them that you’re not animals. Don’t fight at the Blood Match. My friends on the outside are working to free you, to undermine this system that is based on lies. Don’t fight, and let them see that we are not the animals they’ve tried to turn us into.”

  Fifteen armed guards burst through the mess hall doors. They swarmed the table where I stood, pushing Galdoni out of the way with their sticks and whips. I glanced at Blade one more time. He met my eyes with a sneer. ‘I’ll figh
t,’ he mouthed.

  I opened my mouth to retaliate, but a guard swept my legs out from under me with a nightstick and I landed hard on my back on the table. They beat me with their clubs. I didn’t resist when they hauled me out of the cafeteria. The faint hope that my own lack of aggression might fuel the Galdoni who had listened was the last thought in my mind before they threw me into solitary confinement.

  ***

  I realized while waiting in the cell that they would make me fight no matter what, unless I was willing to just lie down and die. An unfair death match would be the best way to get rid of me, and one that would be profitable for the Academy. Brie’s pleading eyes came to my mind and I rubbed my bruised face. I wasn’t willing to just lie down and die.

  I rolled my shoulders to ease the ache left from the most recent beating. It had been several days since the cafeteria, and I was still in solitary with no sign of being let out. Hard bread, bits of old meat, and occasionally a piece of dried fruit or moldy cheese were shoved through the door slot along with a deluge of water that went straight to the floor if I forgot to leave my bucket in the right place. I was beaten occasionally, but ignored for the most part.

  The obvious plan was to leave me in solitary until the Blood Match. I wouldn’t have the chance to train, and I would be put in the first round as an example to the others. I wouldn’t be given a true chance to fight, and whether I tried to or not, I would be killed by other Galdoni who were willing to stay, who thirsted for the kill. The realization solidified. I would be killed by Blade and his minions. It would completely destroy everything I had been trying to accomplish.