131 Days [Book 4]_About the Blood

by Keith C. Blackmore

  An itch took him then, along his ribs, and he scratched them through his robes. After fixing his clothing, he checked the names once again.

  Right. Got them.

  On with the sport.

  And the theatre.

  “Good ladies and men of the arena, I bid you welcome to the day’s events. And I have news to share on behalf of the Gladiatorial Chamber of Sunja and his righteous and glorious eminence, King Juhn. Our wise and magnificent ruler has deemed the fighting season is a most special one this year, exceptional on a scale so grand that he wishes to extend the games past the events gone by. For this, we rejoice.”

  The gathered multitude of faces cheered weakly. Cloth tarps high above the stands fluttered, providing shade for less than half the people while the sun grilled the rest. A breeze blew across the spectators, but not enough to make the afternoon any more comfortable. Some people coughed, waiting for more.

  “And yet, another surprise. King Juhn has decided to rid himself of the lice infesting his dungeons. He has graciously permitted the Chamber to transfer those prisoners most capable of combat to the Pit so that they may die for your amusement. Black-hearted killers. Thieves. Corrupters. Rapists and other villainous gurry. They’ll no longer be executed in the dark but will die in the light, upon each other’s sword. And axe. And spear. Carnage of a most desperate nature will lead into the formal matches of the day. Enjoy them, good people of the Pit.”

  Another half-hearted cheer bubbled from the masses, as tepid as swamp water. They were smarter than Qualtus expected. They knew there was no telling what level of sport those caged animals might deliver. Truth be known, Qualtus had no idea himself, but he didn’t trouble himself with such negative-minded scroff. He had a job to do.

  “It is my greatest pleasure to introduce the first of such matches.” Qualtus lowered his voice to a menacing boom and gestured toward the sands. “This man has rotted in darkness for sixteen years. Sixteen years in the dark. Guilty of murder, rape, and thievery. He is, by all accounts, an animal most foul. A leech upon the world’s rosy red ass. Is it any wonder we wish to be done with him?”

  Another rumble from less-than-enthused spectators.

  Qualtus didn’t blame them. He had nothing to work with, really. Sorcerers of his particular talents needed much better material. All he had were hellions squaring off against hellions, both equally hated by the crowds. There was no theatre here. Only… scroff.

  Ever the professional, however, the orator carried on, determined to conjure something.

  “And now, returned to the light, he is Torric! Of Sunja!”

  The iron and timber maw that was the western portcullis cranked upward. A single man stepped through, barefoot, crouched, and wearing only a loincloth. Stained by ash, sweat, and filth, Torric grimaced at the bright sun overhead and jabbed a short sword at the sky. He screeched and babbled nonsense, as if being on the arena floor blasted his murderous mind and made him unfit.

  The audience greeted Torric’s entrance with a startling roar of undiluted hate and curses.

  Even introducing the maggot left Qualtus’s mouth with a bad taste. He sighed, barely managing to hide his disdain for the man.

  “His opponent,” he started once again, back in his orator’s role. “A son of Sunja no more. Another killer of innocents and a thief of livestock. He existed in darkness for five years before being pulled back into the light. I give you… Nozo!”

  The opposing portcullis opened, and an identically dressed prisoner deftly stepped onto the sands. Nozo beheld the majesty of the arena and seemed to enjoy the moment despite the coming fight for survival. He held a short sword angled toward the sands.

  “Begin!” Qualtus roared.

  The prisoners, however, did not.

  The one called Torric regarded his opponent and, still babbling, decided to sit on the arena floor. He thrust his blade into the sand, letting it stand.

  Nozo, perhaps realizing what was expected of him, smiled widely and held his arms to the heavens.

  More curses scorched the air. A deluge of pure contempt rained down upon the combatants.

  Dying Seddon, Qualtus thought, one hand drifting to his forehead. He was barely able to think in that racket.

  The two prisoners, however, were not motivated by the angry masses and made no attempt to engage each other. With his legs crossed, Torric rocked back and forth, sometimes clawing at his head. Nozo blew kisses to the people cursing his name, which was the whole arena. He turned in slow circles, kicking sand at times, and took practice slices at the air. Occasionally, he glanced at his foe, just to ensure his adversary wasn’t doing anything dastardly.

  After a few heartbeats, Torric uncrossed his legs, stood up, promptly unsheathed his manhood, and pissed upon the sands.

  That stirred the crowds to an even greater wrath.

  Even Qualtus stood in shock and stared. Such actions weren’t right at all.

  “Look!” a voice cried out from the stands. “Look! He’s emptying the bull! The bull!”

  “No one wants to see your topper, old man!” another shouted.

  “Fight, you bastards, fight!”

  “Kill him!”

  “What’s this gurry! Bring out a couple of thrashers!”

  “This’s bloody unfit!”

  And on it went.

  Qualtus had no control over the pit fighters once they’d been released, but he was sure…

  The rising of the westerly portcullis distracted his line of thought.

  A single Skarr emerged, impassive, bound in a mail shirt and armor plating. The sun scintillated off his metal adornments.

  The crowds cheered, loud enough to startle the Orator a second time.

  The Skarr’s impassive visor studied the two idle criminals. The soldier’s bared sword shone in the sun’s dusty glare. For a moment, the Skarr didn’t move, watching the pair like a venomous teacher. At the other end of the arena, Nozo noted the cheering crowds and tensed, recognizing the danger. Torric kept his back to the Skarr, occupied with kicking fresh sand over his piss puddle.

  The Skarr marched toward Torric, shield hanging off one arm, sword swinging from the other.

  The crowds applauded, expecting a fight at last.

  Far from it.

  For whatever reason, Torric remained unmoved by the cheering. He finally glanced over his shoulder and saw the Skarr, but instead of grabbing his weapon, the prisoner ignored him. He sat, cross-legged once again, and watched the approaching soldier.

  He made no move to defend himself.

  And the Skarr, once within striking distance, displayed a cold, consummate professionalism and stabbed the man through the chest.

  The cheering became deafening. Even Qualtus allowed himself a half smile.

  The Skarr yanked his blade free of the dead man and let the body topple. He looked at the second criminal, and the audience’s screaming reached an even higher note.

  Nozo hefted his sword, meaning to fight.

  Like a haunted automaton from a forgotten age, the Skarr relentlessly marched toward Nozo. The soldier crossed the arena’s midway point, sunlight gleaming off his armor.

  Seeing that formidable figure walking for him, Nozo changed his mind and backed away, to the north of the arena. There, he had a change of heart yet again, as if realizing the Pit’s features didn’t allow any kind of terrain advantage.

  The Skarr marched forward, closing the distance.

  Nodding at the soldier, Nozo smiled and raised his sword, welcoming him.

  When the Skarr got within Nozo’s striking range, the criminal lunged.

  The Skarr got his shield up and bashed aside the clumsy attempt. Nozo landed on his knees, and the crowds exploded with cheers. Nozo raised his blade up to high guard.

  The Skarr lopped off that hand at the wrist.

  Nozo screamed and fell back.

  Wasting no time, the Skarr nailed half a length of steel into the criminal’s guts, pinning him to the ground. Nozo bucked, spas
med, and became still. The Skarr pulled his weapon free and repeated the stabbing, through the dead man’s heart.

  The crowds adored him for it.

  Expecting no fanfare but receiving his share, the Skarr walked to the closest portcullis. The gate rose while the audience continued to shout praises on a job well done.

  The soldier disappeared into the shadows.

  Qualtus decided to put that shameful display from his mind and concentrate on the next pairing.

  *

  The next pair of criminals condemned to the Pit weren’t much better.

  Neither man could handle a short sword. The two combatants circled and flailed at each other well out of arm’s length. They danced around the sands while the crowds voiced their growing impatience. The jeers summoned yet another Skarr onto the sands, but whether it was the same soldier as before was unknown.

  The prisoners, realizing the Skarr meant to kill them both, quickly joined forces. They stalked the professional. The quick transition from opponents to allies actually interested the crowds, and they cheered for the unexpected twist of events.

  The Skarr closed with the two criminals, looking from one to the other.

  The criminals attacked.

  One man had his sword arm removed at the shoulder in a burst of blood, and while his death cries echoed throughout the Pit, his partner had his cheesepipe opened to the bone. They dropped around the city guard, who waited until they were both dead.

  Again, the Skarr departed while the crowd’s praises echoed throughout the arena.

  A pensive Qualtus, on the other hand, sighed and drummed one finger off his lips. He inspected his schedule, wondering about the next pairing of dungeon maggots. In one way, he supposed it couldn’t get any worse.

  He prayed to Seddon all the same.

  10

  Runson possessed half a rack of yellow teeth, which were currently twisted into an offended snarl. He scratched at his bare belly hanging over his belt and below the leather X that crossed his chest. That little bit of armor marked him as a king’s jailor. It was bad enough to be sweating below ground amongst a pack of caged savages, but to learn that they couldn’t even fight well enough…

  Disappointing. Upsetting even. He felt it reflected badly upon his work.

  So Runson sent out the third offering to the Pit, urging them onward with a string of inventive threats, only to later receive word that the maggots had performed quite badly.

  Quite badly was being generous.

  Unlike the previous two matches, one of the dogs in the third pairing actually managed to stab the other. However, instead of finishing his foe, the would-be victor wasted time by raising his arms and basking in the audience’s cheers. Only the spectators saw the left-for-dead man crawl forward and plunge his sword into his killer’s ass.

  Both bastards died squirming.

  Runson took that one personally.

  “You worthless piss stains!” he bellowed as he marched up and down the dungeon halls. “Unfit. You’re worse than unfit. Maggots are more fit than you. Perhaps you don’t understand what’s at stake here. You have the opportunity… to die like a man. A man! Not some lick of gurry who deserves a lance shoved through their dog blossom! You killed and pillaged and Seddon above only knows what other horrors you did to land here. Yet you’re swinging steel like a bunch of slack-holed he-bitches! You’re going to perish, eventually, you know that, so use your last few breaths and do something useful out there! Fight! Damn you, fight! You brazen, dew-spraying kogs! You sour asslickers! Fight, else I spear the lot of you in your cells, one right after the other, through your staring eyes. So fight!”

  And on he ranted, becoming quite red in the face.

  “What’s he saying?” Heelslik asked in the Nordish tongue, puzzled at the jailor’s fury. He lifted his hairy head, black eyes glinting like marble. He couldn’t understand the Sunjan tongue in the least.

  “Ah.” Rullik held up a hand and listened to translate, his bald head wrinkled in concentration. “Ah, he’s telling them… to fight in the Pit. That the last few matches were, ah, lacking. That if we do not fight, he’ll execute us all. By lancing us through our eyes.”

  “Oh.”

  Hearing the conversation of his nearest companions, Arrus’s forehead rested against the bars of his cell. He scratched at his thick beard and looked to Heelslik across the way.

  Head jailor Balazz appeared then, a man much larger than the one called Runson but dressed the same way. Unlike Runson, Balazz had shaved his head down to the quick, removing all hair and leaving no place for unwanted lice. He marched past the glowing braziers lighting the dungeon corridor. A troop of Skarrs followed him. The jailors met and had a brief but heated discussion, the words slinging by Arrus in a stream of gibberish. Rullik, the Norjos Norseman who’d spent enough time in a Sunjan dungeon to learn the sly-sounding language of his captors, had revealed the jailors’ names to his Nordish cousins, along with a few other items of note.

  It had passed the time.

  Now, however, Arrus needed no translation to know Balazz was every bit as furious as Runson.

  The head jailor’s eyes studied the caged prisoners. He proceeded to Heelslik’s cage and pointed. A shout, and a dozen or so Skarrs surged to the cell door.

  “They’re going to take you,” Rullik shouted.

  Heelslik laughed, the sound disturbing yet uplifting.

  “Arrus,” the Jackal yelled over the screech and yank of the iron door. “I’ll be back shortly. I’ll change the tunes of these bastards.”

  “Show them hell, Jackal!” Rullik shouted.

  Arrus wanted to give his own well-wishes, but a Skarr rapped a sword against the bars of his cell, warning him to step back.

  Which he quietly did.

  *

  Qualtus scratched his scalp, checked his fingers, then worked on his chin. He peered at the schedule, checked on the tarps flapping overhead, and sighed. In one way, he didn’t mind the Skarrs doing the killings. The faster he was through the gurry, the faster they could get to the real fights. Seddon above, the Orator fumed with mild disbelief. Those pasty dungeon maggots were actually giving the Free Trained a good name. The Chamber would hear about the day’s fights. He foresaw changes coming.

  “Ladies and men of the Pit,” he said, struggling to keep the disappointment from his voice. “We have another match for your enjoyment.”

  Jeers greeted his words.

  “The scutters are better than this gurry stream!” one voice shouted and drew stinging laughs.

  Sadly, Qualtus agreed with the man.

  “Two fiends of the underworld…” The Orator faltered, wondering why he was painting fancy pictures around these men. Such flourishes did nothing for him or the audience, who knew what they were getting. Best to just sling the gurry out there.

  “One is called Anjo,” Qualtus resumed, getting to the point, “a Sunjan murderer and stealer of coin. The other, a prisoner from our Nordish war. A captured Jackal.”

  That subdued the audience.

  Qualtus paused at the unexpected hush. Excited murmuring spread through the people, quickly gaining strength. They very much wanted to see their country’s enemy bleed in the Pit. Anjo would be hailed as a hero if he killed the Nordish soldier.

  That realization caused Qualtus to frown.

  A murdering bastard hailed as a hero.

  It just wasn’t right.

  *

  Opposing portcullises cranked open, and the newest pit fighters stepped into the light at the exact same beat.

  The blond Anjo wore no armor, displaying a well-built, fair-skinned physique. He studied the sky before settling upon the Jackal across the way. He swished his sword, eager to get to cutting.

  The Jackal had no armor to speak of, just an old sword and murderous intentions. Heelslik inspected his weapon and frowned at the dull edge. They’d given him the dullest blade from the rack. His topper had more of an edge to it. With a disdainful sigh, he lowered the we
apon to his leg and tapped bare skin. The outing had all the potential to be particularly bloody.

  He gazed at the pale asslicker picked to fight him.

  Heelslik leered. “You unfortunate bastard.”

  Some ceremonial kog shrieked something from high above, and the people went mad, shouting that pig language of theirs. The blast startled Heelslik, for only then did he truly realize the scope and spectacle of the Pit, and he took a moment to appreciate where he was. The games! The legendary games of Sunja. He’d heard of them around campfires, even joined in the discussions of what manner of man might actually choose such a life.

  Killing in war was one thing. But for sport?

  Heelslik didn’t rightly understand. Perhaps he’d find out.

  The Nordish man wasn’t one for overthinking. He was direct, to the point, and if given a task, completed it as efficiently as possible.

  The Sunjans wanted them to fight.

  So he’d fight.

  The sun already burning his skin, Heelslik gripped his short sword and approached the man called Anjo. The crowds’ screaming damned near burst his ears. Heelslik wondered if the arena’s roof might have collapsed from such a sound and the builders had decided against replacing it.

  Despite Anjo’s time in a Sunjan dungeon, the man wasn’t in bad shape. Heelslik could tell Anjo knew how to hold a blade though the Jackal wondered if his foe was any good.

  Anjo stalked left and right, content to let Heelslik cross the distance.

  Heelslik didn’t mind, not after months of walking only the length of his cell.

  At the last few strides, however, Anjo lifted his blade and charged.

  Heelslik deflected a slash at his head, stopped a thrust for his gut, and parried two quick jabs at his chest.