Evil bastard, the once killer thought.
Then he thought about the Jackal he would face… in combat… after so long.
They’d chosen him because of his reputation. So be it.
His reputation had done him some good after all.
When the Skarrs came for him, he didn’t resist. Eight armed men filled the passageway, all armed and ready to gut him there. Biljus could sense them hoping he might attack them. He saw how edgy and ready they were when the cell door opened. He saw their eyes. Aye that, they knew his name even though the guards were probably only children when’d he committed all those crimes, when he’d killed all those people… or worse.
They surrounded him, swords at the ready. They herded him through the upper levels, pushing him along.
The white tunnel—even that muted glare roused by lamplight made his eyes hurt. Pain—a taste of what was to come. He’d become a creature of the dark. They should have realized that.
Perhaps they had.
A short sword was slapped into his hand, the weight barely manageable. A Skarr faced him, and gray eyes the color of a morning mist rising over Sunja’s plains studied Biljus’s face.
“Do what you do best, old man,” the guard said.
Biljus blinked. Hands shoved him past the gatekeeper, and he almost stumbled upon the stairs leading into the light. That hateful light. He shied away from it, the pain already in his eyes and head.
A wall of armor and weapons stood firm behind him, ready to gut him there if needed. There was no going back, only forward.
Just as well, then. Time to return to the light, the terrible, terrible light.
The gate rose with a rumble.
The deepest blue. Freedom, at last.
Or at least a form of it.
Taking a breath, Biljus walked into the closest thing he’d experienced to freedom in years.
The sands warmed his bare feet. The crowds jeered and cursed him the moment he appeared. He looked up and winced, the sun admonishing him for lifting his head. In that brief glimpse, he saw more people than he’d ever recalled, and he’d attended the games before. They shouted and swore at him, shook fists and spat. He set his jaw, straightened his back and took it, knowing he deserved everything … and more.
The light gave him his first good look at his own body. His hands had become knotted but soft in the palms. His midsection was emaciated, skeletal even, no longer lean and hard. The muscle upon his frame, well, he didn’t need to look anymore. He knew what state he was in.
The roar of the crowds lifted his head.
Blessed Seddon.
The pain… He couldn’t see but brief flickers. Sun spots danced upon the glaring white sands.
His sword was far too heavy, so he dropped it.
He fell to his knees, grimacing as if the day was crushing the very life from him.
Biljus thought about his victims, and the guilt was painful enough for him to wish himself dead thrice over. He bent over, eyes squeezed shut, and pressed his cheek into the sand, feeling the heat on his unclean flesh.
He smelled his skin burning under the sun’s attention, a little pleasure he didn’t deserve.
He’d done bad things, terrible things, and he didn’t deserve any chances at life in the least. Locked away in the dark, a person always had a chance to realize what they’d done was wrong. From that point, the question was what could be done to correct the wrongdoing.
The sheer volume of sound threatened to crush him. Biljus opened his eyes. A shadow approached, black and haunting against the scalding brightness. He couldn’t quite make the figure out, but it was a man. A Jackal. The one he was meant to fight. Pain lanced his brain and bounced off the back of his skull.
He knew he didn’t have much time remaining.
That made Biljus smile, just a little.
“I would’ve joined the Salish,” he said, feeling his throat tighten with regret, hearing the tremble in his own voice. “If they’d taken me. I would’ve joined the Salish.”
The unchecked roar from the crowds pressed down upon him until their voices became a singular note of vengeance. At least, that’s how it sounded to Biljus. In his personal darkness, where his skin cooked and beaded sweat, he sensed a presence as if he’d stepped through a tempest and found its calming heart. The ground shivered, if for only a heartbeat.
It lurked above him. Biljus could hear it breathing, if that was possible.
“I’ve done bad things,” he whispered, the sand’s heat branding his cheek. “And I’m sorry… I would’ve joined the Salish.”
The one concentrated note rose in pitch, as if the very arena was rising, leaving him, until the sound became nothing more than an uninterrupted ringing in his ears.
Odd.
Biljus opened his eyes.
The Jackal split his head open to the jawline.
*
The Skarrs escorted Noll back into his cell and slammed the door behind him. The veteran Jackal returned to the bars, gripped the iron, and pressed his forehead against the cold metal.
“Still alive?” Dogslaw asked from nearby.
“Still alive. Probably dead tomorrow, though.”
Dogslaw grinned at the resignation lacing the man’s voice. Old Noll believed he was always on the very cusp of dying, as well as those around him.
“That’s tomorrow,” Dogslaw reminded him, holding onto the bars of his own cell. “Until then, you get one more night in this delightful place.”
A chuckle rang through the gloom.
“Who’d you kill?” Mad Lokan asked from the next cell over. “Tell us, old man, tell us. Did he scream? Did he beg for mercy? Did he drive you to near exhaustion and almost get the better of you? Hm? What of it? Did you have the advantage from the beginning? Was it a slaughter, or was it a fight?”
Noll thought about that. “It was an execution,” he reported in a somber voice.
That set Mad Lokan off in a gruesome tittering that sounded as if he were squatting and trying to pass a boulder.
“It was an execution,” Noll repeated. “The man wasn’t much of it. Old skin stretched over older bones. Doubt if he could even hold up his sword, let alone swing it. He made it only a few steps outside of his gate before he dropped to his knees. I had to walk the width of the arena to get to him, and when I did, he was speaking. Maybe praying. And he was old. Looked terribly old. Older than me. Whoever he was, be it murderer or thief, he’d wasted away to nothing in the dark. Spent. Broken. He wasn’t going to fight. And I couldn’t return unless I killed him. So I killed him. One chop. To the head. As quick as I could make it. He even opened his eyes at the last instant, just before it all flew apart.”
The telling left both Dogslaw and Lokan quiet. Leave it to Noll to sour the spirits of those around him. In one way, the other prisoners were fortunate they couldn’t speak the language.
“Been warring with the Sunjans all my adult years,” Noll added after a pause. “Killed my share. I don’t like them. But what I did today was an execution. The first I’ve ever had to do. And… it felt like mercy.”
“What was it like up there?” Dogslaw asked over the din of other nearby prisoners.
“Bright,” Noll answered quietly, changing the subject. The faintest smile flickered across his bearded face. “Hot. Just the barest of breezes, and that was hot as well, like the lightest lick of the Harudin hell winds. Or so I’ve heard. Even the sands were hot to the foot. Noisy as well. Thousands up there, watching the blood fly. Thousands. Too many to count, perhaps. Excitement hangs in the air like a thunderhead ready to spit lightning. Yes, that’s it. All of that.”
Mad Lokan chittered that unnatural, straining laugh while Dogslaw looked at the ceiling. All he’d wanted was a quick answer. He should’ve known better, talking to Noll. He always went the long way around.
“I think Lokan is next,” Dogslaw said.
“I’m next,” the mad one said, venom in his voice. “I’m most certainly next. Yes. I’ll bleed
them. Bleed them all.”
“And I believe I’m after him,” Dogslaw added calmly. “The jailor was eyeing me earlier.”
“I see,” Noll said in a mournful tone, not bothering with well-wishes or warnings to be careful. “Do what you can, then. Make your peace to whoever’s listening. Perhaps I’ll talk to you later.”
“Perhaps.” Dogslaw smirked at Noll’s uplifting nature.
Not many stayed in the man’s company because of his dour and depressing mood. Locked away in the Pit’s dungeons, however, in the fetid dark broken by torchlight, Dogslaw discovered he was grateful for the man’s steadfast calm and his willingness to talk, even if it was depressing.
“I’m next, Noll,” Lokan insisted, his anger rising. “I’m next. And I’ll execute my opponent as well. Won’t be quick, however. It won’t be quick. If these Sunjan ass lickers want to be entertained, I’ll entertain them. I’ll amuse them. I’ll deliver a banquet of butchery for their eyes. A hot soup of killing. Enough to choke every one of the thousands in attendance and any outside of this place. Just wait. Just wait. I’ll blind them with my thumbs. You’ll see. Or rather, you’ll hear of it. You’ll hear.”
Dogslaw peered across the dimly lit hall, toward Lokan’s cell. A torso stepped away from the bars, disappearing into the cage’s depths. Dogslaw was glad Lokan was locked away. The man uneased him. His sanity had snapped sometime after he’d been captured.
“What weapon did they give you?” Dogslaw asked of Noll, turning his attention to the right.
“A sword. Short sword. Old weapon. Like myself. Barely had a proper edge to it. My shoulder is still ringing from the effort.”
“You’re getting older.”
“And wiser.”
“Plenty of time to do that here.”
“Aye that.”
“Armor?”
“Just raw skin. Nothing more.”
That didn’t sound good.
Lokan had quieted in his cell, perhaps not much liking the notion of being naked in an arena. A heartbeat later, Dogslaw noticed the true reason for the man’s silence. A column of Skarrs, their mail shirts gleaming in the brazier light, gathered at Lokan’s door. They spoke to him, their tone indicating the Nordish man be on his best behavior. Dogslaw knew the man had, in fact, been learning a few words of Sunjan from a prisoner in the previous dungeon, a man no doubt as unfit in the head as Lokan himself.
Locks clattered. The cell door swung open, and the Skarrs swarmed inside, seizing Lokan. They pulled him out by his arms and surrounded him. In such close quarters, the knot of a dozen men or so sent to escort one prisoner seemed excessive. The Sunjans had been like that. Ever since the Field of Skulls.
“I’m going now!” Lokan shouted. “I’m going! Going to get those eyes. Going to choke a neck. Going to do as much killing as I can in the time they give me!”
Lokan didn’t resist the Skarrs, which didn’t surprise Dogslaw. They were going where Lokan wanted to go.
Even though the man was half insane, perhaps even all insane, Lokan was still a Jackal, still a weapon of the Ikull, still Nordish. He was one of the few left alive that reminded Dogslaw… that connected him to his homeland in the distant northwest.
“Good fortunes to you, Lokan,” he whispered.
“Good fortune,” Noll said nearby.
The well-wishes surprised the young Nordish man.
20
As Noll had said, they gave Lokan nothing in the way of armor.
The Skarrs pushed him along the passageways, the stairs bringing him closer to the surface. Curlord love him, he could smell the difference in the air, could taste the sandy grit. The passageways became cleaner as well. Lokan looked forward to the fight—looked forward to it very much. Any day he was permitted to fight a sworn enemy of his people was a good day, a very good day. And after so long being imprisoned, Lokan wanted very much to hurt someone.
The Skarrs steered him through a white tunnel, to the base of a final climb of stairs. Above, a portcullis’s thick timbers and iron bars cut the sky into blue squares. Shouts came through that barrier, cries eager for the next bout of blood.
The guards ahead of him split apart, and a Skarr faced him. The eyes behind the visor spoke in a tongue that needed no translation. The man grabbed Lokan’s arm and slapped a sword into the Nordish warrior’s palm. The Skarr glared, clearly not trusting or liking the Jackal, and Lokan sensed the group of Sunjans wouldn’t need much of a reason to cut him down.
They might do it anyway.
The guard got out of the way. The portcullis rose.
Lokan looked at the blade. He looked at the guards. Then he looked at the rising gate above.
He bolted toward the light.
After exploding onto the sands with a wild shriek of glee, Lokan ran barefoot across the arena, his arms lifted to the skies, reaching for it. He cringed under the daylight but endured the discomfort, wallowed in it. He would give it back ten times over to his opponent. Lokan was in the mood for bloodletting. Noll said he’d executed a man. An old man. Said the skolla curnos was feeble, unable to fight.
An execution didn’t bother Lokan. In fact, he felt right and proper ready to do a little executing—young or old, big or small.
Angry Sunjans rained curses upon his head, and he lapped it all up and howled for more. He drew his thumb across the scars decorating his bearded face and cheeks. He jabbed his short sword at the contorted faces high above, pretended he was about to sling his weapon into the masses, and mocked their frightened reactions, then he even cupped his manhood and shook it at any daring to look.
The brazen display infuriated the masses, and they yelled and swore, shaking fists and feigning death blows back at him.
Lokan drank it down and gave it back… and more.
The angry voices rose in pitch. Lokan turned around and saw the distant portcullis crank open in spastic jerks. A deep but phlegmy voice spoke over his head, and the crowds responded with a howl.
Lokan smirked. He didn’t care. Very soon, he’d give them something to howl about. Taking a firmer grip on his blade, he waited for the unfortunate curnos to appear.
He didn’t wait long.
A tall, muscular brute of a man stepped into the light. The warrior, as this clearly was no old bastard waiting or willing to be executed, stood at least a whole head taller than Lokan. The short sword in his hand seemed more a dagger. The man possessed no neck that Lokan could discern, only a chin attached to cords better suited for mooring a heavy ship to a pier. Hair drizzled the fellow’s great shoulders like mangy fur, and for a moment, Lokan believed the monster to be the feral offspring of a particularly violent coupling between a man (or woman) and a bear in heat.
Or something much worse.
“Mollo!” the people chanted. “Mollo!”
Mollo. Lokan heard the name on the tongues of thousands.
The arena praised the frightening monster and delighted in how he dampened Lokan’s enthusiasm. Mollo didn’t acknowledge the crowds. His great bearded face focused on the Nordish man and smiled. No teeth were to be seen.
After a singular, commanding shout, the spectators screamed approval.
Mollo slapped a thick shoulder with the flat of his blade and walked toward the Jackal.
Lokan’s eyes narrowed. He shifted from one foot to the other, no longer as confident as when he’d first emerged from the arena’s depths. The crowds knew it. They could smell it.
Mollo kicked up sand as he crossed the floor, legs working like knotted, moss-covered tree trunks. Sweat gleamed off his hairy torso. His black beard grew in size the closer he got though his hair had been shorn to the skull.
A head taller? As Mollo approached, Lokan realized his mistake. The man was two heads taller and at least that much wider.
The Sunjans might have built a cell around the beast.
Mollo bellowed a harsh line of gibberish then, a nonsensical piss stream of hate and promises of pain, of blood and carnage and bones soon to be snap
ped across Mollo’s knee. His furry smile widened with every step, and the black balls of his eyes became all the wilder.
Lokan rolled his own shoulders and locked gazes with his much larger adversary.
When Mollo got within five strides of him, the man beast charged with a mighty yell.
The whole of the arena yelled with him.
Lokan ducked under a sweep of Mollo’s sword arm, diving headlong into a windstorm that would’ve blew anyone lesser back ten paces. Lokan slashed as he went under that big arm, cutting a red line across a furry gut.
The cheering faltered, only as long as it took Mollo to whirl about, his hand covering that gruesome parting of flesh. His fingers oozed blood that dappled the arena floor.
Mad Lokan spun as well, dismayed that the monster still lived. He regarded his blade and cringed. His unfit fingernails had a sharper edge.
Mollo charged. He swung for the head, chopped for a shoulder, and thrust for the heart. Lokan ducked, weaved, and ducked again, avoiding his largish foe’s powerful attacks.
A fist caught Lokan square in the face.
The Jackal landed flat on his back, his face screaming pain. The crowds screamed laughter. Lokan rolled over, pulling his knees to his chest. He remembered he was fighting some half-man, half-mountain bear creature. That much he knew.
The ground trembled. He felt it against his cheek.
Lokan rolled away from a sword stabbing a full hand’s length into the sand. The Nordish man barely escaped a foot stomp and skittered away from a second heel slamming down.
With Mollo behind him, Lokan scampered to his feet.
A lick of pain zipped down his back.
Lokan staggered, stood, and winced at the cut. Though he could not see it, he felt it, right down to the right cheek of his ass.
And it stung like fire.
Lokan straightened and nodded, giving credit where it was due, and with a grim smile, beckoned the towering monster closer.
Smiling himself, a bleeding Mollo rumbled forward, bellowing while scarlet ribbons fell to the sands. He slashed at the head, an arm, another arm, and then attempted to grab Lokan’s skull.
The Jackal evaded everything, though, and ducked free of the groping hand.
131 Days [Book 4]_About the Blood Page 16