131 Days [Book 4]_About the Blood

by Keith C. Blackmore

  Pleased that Gastillo was finally up to playing, Prajus smiled broadly. “I think you heard me.”

  From the doorway of the training staff’s living quarters, old and faithful Sowin finally emerged. Berlis and Pius, the trainers, followed.

  “Prajus…” Gastillo said, a tremble to his voice. “You go too far this night.”

  “Apologies,” the gladiator said, smiling and bowing ever so slightly.

  “No.”

  Prajus cocked a brow and slowly straightened.

  “No,” Gastillo repeated and gripped the neckline of his tunic. Fabric ripped as the house master pulled the material from his still-muscular chest. The sound tensed Jaco, and he approached cautiously, one hand holding his scabbard, the other on the sword’s hilt.

  Gastillo tossed the clothing to the ground and motioned Jaco to remain where he was.

  “No,” the owner said, heat rising to his voice. “The time for apologies, sincere apologies, is over, you unfit bastard,”

  That wiped the smile from the gladiator’s insolent face entirely.

  Even Prajus’s stout supporters appeared worried.

  Gastillo walked onto the training grounds, his torso gleaming, rippling with strength. He took his time, not hurrying for anyone. He selected a wooden sword from the rack and appraised it. Strong wood. Gastillo hefted the training weapon, judged its weight and length acceptable, and proceeded to the center of the grounds. Jaco and Sowin made to move, but the house master stopped them both with a hand.

  Standing as he was, Gastillo addressed Prajus again. “Get yourself a sword, you miserable maggot.”

  “To what ends?” Prajus asked, intrigued by the challenge.

  Gastillo reached up and removed his mask, exposing the hideous void where a chunk of skin had been clawed from his skull by an overhand mace so long before. The blow had removed half his nose as well, leaving only a frightful black hole. Pink-and-white flesh covered most of that facial wreckage, but not the nose or the mangled lips that constantly drooled.

  The humor upon Prajus’s face drained away.

  “Now you understand,” Gastillo said, teeth gnashing into a smile. “Only at the end do you understand. Get a sword from that rack.”

  “Why not real ones, then?” Prajus fired back, warming to the idea.

  “You’re not worthy of real weapons,” Gastillo said, right eyelid dropping only halfway as the left completed the blink.

  Prajus wore only a loincloth, having bathed and eaten not too long before. The Sunjan pit fighter didn’t look at his companions as he knew their eyes were upon him. More gladiators stepped out of the main barracks, their expressions drawn yet full of wonder. Men lined the edges of the training grounds.

  “All of you,” Gastillo said in clear voice, “you all stay back. This dog has insulted me, repeatedly defied my command, and dishonored my house. He’s done so for the final time, and I mean to kill him tonight.”

  Stunned silence met those words.

  “Not if you were twenty years younger, old man,” Prajus grinned and snatched a wooden sword from the rack. He swished it left and right and walked onto the training sands, a little faster than expected, as if he feared Gastillo might change his mind.

  “But if you wish.” Smiling cruelly, Prajus stopped not five paces away from an unmasked Gastillo and spread his arms in a Well, here I am gesture.

  Faces looked toward the house master.

  “Nine thousand,” Nexus’s voice rang out in Gastillo’s head. “Nine.”

  For this.

  The wine merchant’s flicker of a smile burned in Gastillo’s mind, and he was tired of being thought of as a fool. Gastillo hunched over into a low guard, summoning all his arena experience and knowledge, accessing training untouched in nearly a dozen years. If muscles truly did remember, then Gastillo hoped his would as well.

  Because he meant to brutalize this unfit he-bitch.

  Prajus regarded the owner merrily. “What’s that? You mean to stab me like that?”

  “No,” Gastillo said coldly. “I mean to beat you to death.”

  That doused Prajus’s humor.

  “But first,” Gastillo continued, “I’ll scar that pretty face of yours. So you’ll no longer be tempted to creep over my walls at night. In search of wine and women.”

  “Come on, then,” the gladiator snarled, all business. “The sooner I finish with––”

  Gastillo slashed for Prajus’s mouth, missing it by a hair and lighting up the man’s features with surprise, but Gastillo wasn’t through, by any means. He pressed forward, releasing a ten-strike combination upon his youthful adversary. The wooden sword came alive in his middle-aged hands, and a dozen years seemed no longer than a dozen days.

  Prajus, however, parried the slashes and avoided the thrusts. He ducked under a backhanded fist aimed for his head and blocked a cut for his knees, kicking up sand as he did so.

  When Gastillo broke away, Prajus followed and released all of his training and experience of more recent years. He drew a line across Gastillo’s good cheek, nicked a shoulder, then split the right thigh of the owner’s fine breeches—all too fast for the eye to follow. The hits pained the owner, backing him up with each connection. Blood seeped from cuts as if Gastillo had rolled around in a briar patch.

  “Wait, Master Gastillo.” Prajus laughed. “Wait. I’ll show you more.”

  Then he did.

  The younger man utilized everything he’d learned under his taskmasters and trainers, every trick and tactic meant to obtain an advantage and break down the will of the opposing warrior. Prajus prodded with his sword relentlessly, feinted, and at times, scratched at Gastillo’s bare flesh at will, slowly bleeding the owner. He opened Gastillo’s cheek under his bad eye, actually stabbed and punctured the meat of the left cheek, and followed up with a heavy fist crashing across the owner’s face, toppling him, and leaving him in the sand.

  That punch tensed the gathered household guards.

  Stepping away, Prajus lifted his arms and circled the master of the house.

  “Right and proper!” he bellowed. “Nothing more than a fresh cow kiss in the dirt. Get up. Get up, I said.”

  Gastillo lifted his head, spat dust, and did as commanded. Sand stuck to his bleeding wounds while pure undiluted hatred twisted his face. He waved off Jaco and the other guards. Taking a few deep breaths, he lunged for the younger Prajus and sliced for a leg, seeking to slow the pit fighter down.

  The gladiator danced away with infuriating grace, pointing with a sword.

  “This is the kog that lorded over us,” he cried.

  Chagrinned, Gastillo didn’t look at his staff, didn’t meet the eyes of Jaco. He felt them, heard the mental pleading to end the fight, to show that brazen punce that Gastillo was once a champion of the games.

  But, Lords above, the man was fast, faster than he’d ever expected.

  He slashed for another leg and had the attempt parried. He cut for an arm and Prajus parried that. The gladiator darted out of reach, shaking his head at the effort.

  “Too slow, Master Gastillo,” he said and pricked Gastillo’s ear as an afterthought, the wooden sword flashing across a distance the owner thought of as out of reach.

  The house master retreated a few steps more.

  “How did you ever become champion?” Prajus asked and lunged, far too fast for Gastillo to react. Prajus stabbed the man’s right breast.

  Gastillo winced and crumpled.

  Not content to wait, Prajus cracked the owner across the skull, dropping him in a heap. Confident the fight was his, Prajus didn’t skip away. He lingered, enjoying the moment.

  The gladiators crowding the edges watched, some amused, some anxious, most of them concerned. Old Sowin with his crooked back stared on, holding a cane for support, silently urging Gastillo to get to his feet once again.

  “Yield, old man,” Prajus said, considering the lateness of the day. “Yield, and maybe I’ll spare your life.”

  That put fire
underneath the owner. Gastillo got to his knees, then his feet. Blood streamed from numerous pricks and gashes, covering the owner’s body. A fleshy bulb the size of a plum grew on his scalp from where Prajus had struck.

  But Gastillo didn’t submit.

  His sword wavered as he fixed blood-rimmed eyes upon his hated foe.

  “I’ll kill you…” Gastillo panted.

  Frowning, Prajus regarded his wary supporters, the other gladiators, and finally the household guard. He shot them all a look of can you believe this one? Then, he walked to his house master.

  Gastillo lunged, wrapping both arms around Prajus’s midsection as the pit fighter staked him through the back. Gastillo hissed at the connection, picked the gladiator up by the waist, and threw him down in a fleshy clatter of dust. The owner jumped on the lad and punched, punched hard, driving fist after fist into the man underneath him. Prajus’s unspoilt face reddened, burst apart in places, and his expression changed from pain to an eyes-squeezed-shut grimace.

  Then Gastillo’s hands slowly lost power.

  They drooped, much to his puzzlement, for he believed himself in better physical shape. His breathing became labored. He wheezed and spat, spraying Prajus with red speckles. He continued hammering the face beneath him until Prajus opened his eyes. Blood traced the gladiator’s smile.

  An excruciating bolt of pain seized Gastillo in the back, and he faltered before rolling onto the sand.

  Something dug deeper into his flesh, preventing him from lying flat.

  Prajus sat up and grimaced. “Ah, now he feels it.”

  That got Gastillo’s attention, and he realized the thing robbing him of his strength was the wooden sword still in his back. He felt that toughened grain rub against bones when he moved an arm, felt his heart flutter against it. Gastillo coughed, disgusted at what sprayed forth, and looked toward the west wall, where the sun hung in the sky like a great baleful eye, watching his every movement.

  “You heard him,” Prajus shouted and spat a gob of red into the sand. He walked around the fallen former champion. “He challenged me. He meant to kill me. I’m not at fault here. I’m not at fault.”

  The words sounded much farther away to Gastillo before becoming dreamy echoes. A hand clutched his shoulder. Someone moved him and laid him on his side.

  The wooden sword in his back no longer hurt.

  Red sun.

  Glaring.

  Blinding.

  40

  A ringing sounded in his ears, digging claws into Pig Knot’s brain and dragging his consciousness back to the light or, specifically, the glow of torchlight. He opened his eyes, slits really, as the last beating Kelmo had given him was truly a thing of morbid beauty. Pig Knot didn’t quite know how bad he looked, as he could only see himself properly from the neck down. His torso was a mire of welts and bruises, and every breath he took brought on a fire that enveloped his entire body. He figured his face was worst.

  He still clung to life, though.

  Miraculously, Kelmo hadn’t broken Pig Knot’s jaw yet. The Street Watch Koor––who was also Jana’s exceptionally vengeful husband––had been punching his face to a point where he felt one of the plum-sized contusions burst, and a warm wetness spattered his face.

  That had been just before Pig Knot passed out.

  Torchlight flickered, and he lifted his head toward the cell’s door. It was nighttime, and someone had left a torch in the hallway beyond.

  Pig Knot grunted. He tongued the gaps where missing teeth had once been moored. Four more had departed in the most recent session—a pair of jaw teeth as well as two more near the front, an incisor and one to the right of it. Eight teeth were gone from his head in total since Kelmo and his lads had taken a punishing interest in him. The Koor might’ve been collecting them except Pig Knot had glimpsed him kicking them into the latrine. He didn’t know why the officer did so. If Pig Knot had been doing the beating, doing the extractions, he thought he might actually collect them, if only to show them to his prisoner at a later date, as a way of warning upon being released. “Don’t come back here,” Pig Knot would warn. “We took these last time. We’ll take the rest if we catch you back here again.”

  Eight teeth. Down the shite hole.

  Something was… humorous about that.

  The door creaked, alerting the legless man of another visit, possibly a very painful visit. Zepedos remained in his cell on the other side of the wall, but the Koor had no interest in him. That surprised the thief. He’d said so himself.

  Pig Knot had been receiving the beating from five men. It felt like more, in fact, until he lost his senses.

  The torchlight flickered as a passing shape disturbed the flame.

  Pig Knot sighed and lowered his head to the floor. Water dripped somewhere, spattering stone. A presence that could only be described as all wrath filled the entrance of the cell. He knew it was there and thought remaining still was the best course of action.

  “Awake?” Kelmo asked.

  That word frightened the once gladiator. He didn’t look up. He was neck deep in a vat of constant hurt and didn’t want to acknowledge Jana’s very jealous man. Truth be known, Kelmo was a hellion, possessing all the righteous outrage of a husband intent on punishing the man who’d bedded his wife—not that Pig Knot blamed him, not at all. He’d have been upset as well.

  The admission made it hard for him to hate the punce.

  “You’re awake,” Kelmo said. “I can see you’re awake. Look at me.”

  That sent a spike of fear through Pig Knot. He really didn’t want to do that.

  “I said look.”

  Reluctantly, the battered man did as ordered, fearful of what might happen if he refused. The tall and powerful Koor loomed in the waning hue of torchlight. The man looked clean, sober even. During one of the beatings, Pig Knot had glimpsed his blood in Kelmo’s beard—not just speckles either, but dollops as thick and bright as berry jam. The Koor had cleaned himself nicely.

  “All alone?” Pig Knot managed, his words muffled though nothing was in his swollen mouth. Uttering those two words made him light-headed.

  Water dripped and spattered stone again.

  Kelmo tossed a blanket at him. “Use that.”

  The fabric fell across Pig Knot’s lower bits.

  “My… thanks.”

  The Koor studied his prisoner, taking in the injuries from one angle and then the other, ruminating on thoughts as black as pitch. The officer didn’t show any sign of regret, not a flicker of mercy. He was quite cold in that respect, and that thought alone froze whatever remaining piss Pig Knot had in him.

  “I’m not… entirely detached from your plight,” Kelmo said, unexpectedly.

  Pig Knot sighed. He didn’t believe a word of it.

  “But I must admit.” Kelmo placed a shoulder against the cell bars. “I like having you here. Seeing you… trying to heal. Before I give you another paddling. Almost like… your body retains hope. Well, you should have hope. You should. Hope’s a good thing.”

  Pig Knot kept his breaths shallow because of his broken ribs. “That’s the most… you’ve said to me.”

  “I’ve said more. You just don’t remember it.”

  Pig Knot grunted. Suppose so.

  “A man can only punish another for so long”—Kelmo fiddled with the lock—“before it becomes wearisome. Even pitiful.”

  The cell opened.

  Kelmo stood there, his hand by his sides, unarmed, glaring at the legless man.

  Pig Knot wasn’t about to rise, but his temples thrummed, and his heartbeat sped up in morbid anticipation of the beating to come.

  “Why not escape?” Kelmo shrugged. “At least try to escape. The way is open. There’s no one beyond that door. No other Skarrs. Just me. If you can overpower me, you’re free.”

  A tempting offer.

  Instead, Pig Knot listened, as if confirming that, indeed, no one was waiting beyond the door, which supposedly led to the rest of the Street Watch’
s jailhouse. He eyed the Koor, then the area past the officer, before carefully clutching at the blanket. He pulled it toward his side, using his right hand instead of the left. Someone had stomped on his left hand earlier, breaking the last three fingers there. Those poor digits presently resembled fat, purple sausages.

  “Why don’t… you just kill me…” Pig Knot groaned weakly, not even certain it was he who spoke. “And be done with it?”

  “Good question,” Kelmo said and studied the ceiling. “Why not? Why not just wring that neck of yours until something pops? Or pull steel and slip it across your throat? Why not? I’ll tell you why. I’m angry with you, Pig. Very angry. The rage of an insulted husband. You’re not married, are you? Well, the pain I experienced upon learning my Jana had… bedded you… was much, much worse than your hurts now.”

  Somehow, Pig Knot doubted that.

  “You weren’t even the first, it seems,” Kelmo went on. “But fortunately for me, you are the one I caught. And I mean to wring every drop of life from you. Until there’s no more—either your eyes roll back into your head or your bones snap. I mean to hurt you. For a while. Unfortunate for you. Even more unfortunate, I’m Street Watch. A Koor. I’m… the law. My men know what you’ve done, so every punch, every kick I give you is serving several purposes. Punishment for you. A warning to others. Instilling fear in my own men.”

  Seddon above, Pig Knot thought, an insane giggle almost rising to his lips. He wondered if Kelmo thought his own men were going to bed Jana as well. He clamped down on that, going as far as rubbing that split plum upon his forehead. That watery, broken blister stab of pain concealed his laugh in a flustered squeal.

  Kelmo smiled at the sound, thinking it something else entirely.

  “Just kill me,” Pig Knot whispered.

  The officer was silent then, as if considering it. “No,” the Koor said with a noble air. “I’ll release you, eventually. When I get bored, perhaps. There’s only so much physical punishment a man can inflict upon another, and truth be known, the sight of you now, well, almost sickens me.”

  Almost.

  Pig Knot snorted in amusement. That tiny movement aggravated his broken nose and brought water to the slits of his eyes.