by Corin Cain
General Asmod laughs. “And, if Raegan somehow manages to defeat me, kill her.”
The guards nod instantly.
I shudder.
No loose ends. Asmod is supremely confident, and yet cunning enough to ensure that even if – by some unthinkable miracle – Raegan is able to defeat him, I’ll still be slain.
General Asmod walks away, his huge mace clicking at his belt. The two henchmen grab me, pulling me down the hallway. They drag me out to the landing pad and onto a small ship. The two of them blindfold me, and I have no idea where we fly to, or eventually land. I’m blind, as they lead me down a set of stairs. I stumble and nearly fall on every step.
The blindfold is finally ripped off, and I’m near-blinded by the light.
This must be the Arena of the Gods. It’s similar to the arena on Bugra, in the same way a pond is similar to a mighty ocean. This is a truly epic coliseum, and I’m on the side of the arena, staring through a grate towards the gladiator arena in front of me.
Sand stretches out across the arena like a desert. The stands on all sides are filled with thousands of Aurelians, all cheering and eager to watch. At the place of honor, at the raised dais overlooking the arena, sits the Emperor.
He looks so old, now – weaker than ever before. General Asmod’s rebellion has broken him.
Him, and potentially the entire Empire. If General Asmod kills Raegan, he’ll be elected as the new emperor, and will enslave humanity. To do so will plunge the universe into blood and war; a conflict from which no civilization will escape unscathed.
I tremble from our vantage point, as General Asmod strides across the sand into the middle of the looming arena. He addresses the crowd, fully naked, with grey hair covering his chest and burly body. He’s huge and muscular, and his veins bulge with green and venomous hues to them; pulsating and throbbing with the Scorp poison that flows through his veins.
Even more intense, however, is how Asmod’s thick cock swings between his legs. I know that if he kills Raegan, he’ll do whatever he has to to enslave me – and will probably take his pleasure with me when he does.
I won’t break. I won’t!
“I will be a strong ruler!” Asmod addresses the crowd, giving a campaign speech. “I will show you all my might right here, in this arena, killing a bonded Aurelian in front of you! When I take the throne, I pledge a return to the old ways! The ways of conquest and blood – of slavery and bonding humans to our will! The Aurelian empire has been neutered for too long. Finally, the universe will burn for us, and we will rule it as intended!”
Roughly half of the Aurelian crowd takes to their feet, cheering. The others remain mute, obviously supporting the incumbent Emperor.
Then the portcullis opens, and Raegan enters the arena.
34
Raegan
The roar of the crowd is muted in my mind. Nothing exists except for General Asmod.
I’m taller than him, but he’s broader – thousands of years of muscle and might strengthening his frame. The two of us are completely naked, as is tradition in such duels.
As we square off against each other, one thing is clear. Even for Asmod, this will not be an easy battle – but it will be a bloody one. His mace hangs in his hand. The spiked Orb at the end glows deeply, as if it’s eager to taste my blood.
I enter the void-space – the mental poise before combat. I let my mind disappear into my primal instincts, driven by the survival and violence of battle.
As the two of us circle each other, I raise my Orb-blade to the air, and the crowd surrounding us hushes.
“I will cut this treasonous general to the ground,” I announce, my voice echoing across the arena. “Once I have taken back my mate, I’ll secure the future of our race through the seed of my loins – growing our strength and numbers until we can take primacy over the galaxies; settling new land and forcing back the void of chaos. Scorp territories shall be ours! I’ll secure us millions of Orbs – and our Empire will thrive!”
“Enough talk! Die!” General Asmod’s eyes are a cold, slate grey – but his veins bulge with green venom.
He interrupted me before I could declare my own candidacy for Emperor.
I’d need a hundred Elites to stand and vouch for me before I could be considered in the election, and now it looks like I will have to gather them over General Asmod’s dead body.
And then our battle begins.
My first worrying thought: He moves too fast.
No one can move that fast.
I haven’t been able to feel Jasmine in my mind since her kidnapping, but I know she’s still out there. The bond strengthens my body and my mind – slowing the world around me. I see every open mouth of the crowd screaming. I feel their voices against my body, the sound waves crashing against my skin. The sand between my naked toes feels like boulders, the sensation of every grain full and intense.
It’s intoxicating.
It needs to be.
General Asmod bullrushes me, his mace swinging. I duck, the mace brushing my hair as I stab forward. Asmod somehow shifts, his body not where it was an instant ago, and my blade missing the mark as he rushes past me.
Asmod turns, and then he smiles.
He’s recognized that he’s finally facing a true foe. His teeth are long – canine and beastly. The intelligence has seemed to dull from his eyes; transforming into a pure animal cunning.
“I’m going to drink your blood,” Asmod promises, and rushes me again.
I meet his rush, charging forward, and this time my blade barely misses his neck, even as his Orb-mace crushes against my side.
My ribs break and my internal organs are mashed against the shattered bones. I fall to my knees, and when I cough, there’s black blood and bile hacked up on the sand beneath me.
I’m hurt, badly – but I summon the strength to get to my feet.
General Asmod beats his chest. “As Emperor, I will bring us into a Golden Age!” He yells the words to the heavens, and his supporters go wild.
I can feel Baldur and Karan searching the coliseum frantically. I ache for them to find Jasmine. They know my pain – the sheer agony of Asmod’s crushing blow – and their doubt fills me with horror.
I have to last until they find her.
I limp forward, summoning every ounce of my strength. I push the pain back, moving faster than ever before, my blade swinging hungrily.
I’m still not fast enough. As I feint, Asmod brings his mace down in a brutal arc, and I barely avoid the brunt of the blow – still feeling my left shoulder crunch and shatter under the impact, every bone breaking until my arm hangs limp by my side, useless and ruined.
Yet my right hand plunges my own blade into Asmod’s chest, and his blood spews out in a horrific arc, green and bilious. It splashes against me, hot and venomous.
My charge takes me past Asmod, and I turn, hefting my Orb-blade in my right hand, trying to blank out the sheer agony of my ruined left arm. I spare a single glance down, and see the bone exposed. I’m also bleeding from my side, where the spikes of Asmod’s Orb-mace entered me. Blood seeps down by body, painting my skin scarlet.
Asmod turns, and for the first time, I see fear in his eyes.
He raises his arm, putting up a single finger to signal someone at the side of the arena.
I focus on his every moment, knowing that I’m dying – yet knowing even more fervently that I can still kill him before I’m gone.
I limp forward, dripping blood, and Asmod steps back.
Then I feel her.
Jasmine.
Her aura fills my mind, suddenly so near I can taste her, like blooming flower that aches to be near me. She’s a rose, a flower so delicate in this brutal universe.
Then the pain hits me. I’m in sheer agony, but this pain grows not from my own wounds, but from her. She’s in agony, and it fills me with a deeper pain than any physical injury I could suffer.
I nearly black out, the arena growing blurry. I stumble to my knees, bl
eeding out, and General Asmod approaches.
“When you’re dead,” he promises, “I’m going to make her my slave.” His voice is low enough that only I can hear it. He looms above me, raising his Orb-mace to the sky.
And then everything…
Slows.
I can suddenly see each drop of sweat dripping down Asmod’s broad, bloody chest. I can count every individual grey hair on his body. The beat of his heart is as slow as a drum. The venom pulsing in his veins stirs like molasses in a pot.
It’s the bond. It’s granted me clarity I’d never thought possible.
My eyes dart upwards, and I strike. Raising myself up, I ram my blade forward, driving it deep into Asmod’s venom-filled heart. His eyes widen with confusion as he witnesses himself skewered on my blade.
Then I pull the blade from his body, and a long arc of blood spurts out from the gaping wound. The scarlet drops hang in the air, spraying me. The sand drinks up his life’s blood as Asmod falls, gasping in the sand.
I fall too, my eyes blurring, my body wrecked and falling into darkness…
35
Jasmine
General Asmod lifts his mace in the air and I scream, imagining the brutal killing blow. The thought of losing Raegan is more powerful than even the constant agony of the Orb-collar around my neck – the one sending magma-hot pain coursing through my psyche.
Every muscle feels on fire – but that’s nothing to the pain of losing Raegan.
Paralyzed by agony, I peer down into the arena and watch as Raegan summons the last of his strength – plunging his blade deep into Asmod’s heart.
“No!” The Aurelian beside me – the one controlling the torture collar – screams in horror as he watches his leader fall.. He glances over at me, his eyes flashing with rage, and I try to run from him.
But the pain of the Orb-collar prevents me from moving, and I’m helpless as the towering Aurelian grabs me by the throat and squeezes. The world starts to go dark…
…and then, suddenly, the Aurelian suffocating me loosens his grip. Breathless, I stare into his face and see him splutter and cough, hacking up blood. He falls, releasing me, and as I drop to the floor I see the eerie sheen of an Orb-blade buried deep in his throat.
The pain from the Orb-collar ends. I grab at it, and now that the linked Aurelian is slain, the collar comes off easily. My strength instantly returns.
As it does so, I look up – and find Baldur and Karan standing above me, protecting me.
“We found you,” Baldur breaths, recovering his Orb-blade. “Praise the Gods.”
But we had no time for Gods.
“We have to help Raegan!” I gasp, my throat sore and pained. Baldur nods, using his Orb-blade to hack straight through the wall separating us from the arena. Karan widens the gaping hole, revealing the long drop to the arena below.
When there’s a gap large enough for a human to squeeze through, I clamber through it – dropping to the sand beneath and then running across the arena to Raegan’s side.
All around me, the baying crowd has fallen silent; awed by the spectacle.
I slide to the ground behind Raegan, and I shudder in horror. His body is beyond ruined, his left arm hanging limp and shattered. His aura is weak – so weak in the back of my mind that I can feel it fading away to nothingness.
I quickly examine Raegan’s other wounds, and my fear for him just grows. Beyond the ruined arm, blood gushes from the rend in his side – where Asmod’s first, brutal mace wound crushed his ribs and broke his body.
I put my hands on Raegan’s face, willing him to return. I kiss his huge, motionless lips, feeling the faintest hint of his breath. Our lips touch, and his aura strengthens in my mind.
His eyes widen, gently glowing the lightest gold. I place my hands on his heart, feeling his slow, dying heartbeat.
His heart stops. His breathe disappears. His eyes turn blank – into empty, dead slates.
Tears stream from my eyes.
Karan and Baldur finally carve a large-enough hole in the side of the coliseum to drop through themselves, and they run across the sand towards us – falling to their knees next to their warrior brother. The crowd is hushed – not a single Aurelian speaking a word. The portcullis opens, and two Aurelian medics with a stretcher run forward.
I look up at Karan and Baldur, both in the throes of grief. Their faces are stony, and these two proud warriors are barely hanging onto their composure in front of this crowd of thousands.
“Hello?”
“Which of you said that?”
“Said what?” Baldur murmurs, his words flat.
The two medics crouch next to Raegan. One tests his pulse, then shakes his head. “He’s gone.”
“You’re so… Tiny. I need… Sleep.”
“Who said that? Who thought that?”
I look up at Baldur and Karan incredulously. I can feel the faintest hint of Raegan’s aura in my mind, although everyone is looking at him as though he’s gone.
“What are you talking about, Jasmine?”
“I can hear… I can hear Raegan’s voice. He’s in my head!”
The medics motion to Baldur and Karan, who help lift the corpse of the huge warrior onto the stretcher.
“Wait! No! Medics, listen to me! He’s not dead. You need to fix his body. He’s still alive!”
The medics shrug, turning to Baldur. “Your bonded human is crazed from grief. You need to control her, before she does something stupid.”
“Baldur. Karan. Look at me.” The two grief-stricken Aurelians turn to me. “When I kissed him, something… Something happened. He’s in my mind. His aura. It’s faint, but he’s in there! I swear it, I’m not insane!”
Baldur pauses for a moment, then puts his huge hand on the medic’s shoulder. “Get him to the hospital. Put him in a cryo-tank. Now!”
“But… But he’s got no pulse, and…”
Karan reaches for his Orb-blade. “Go, now, or I swear I’ll cut you both down and take him myself.”
The medics nod in fear. Karan and Baldur each grab one of the back handles of the stretcher, while the medics take the front two handles. The four of them hurry across the arena with his body, taking him away.
I stand there. I’m so weary.
So… Tired.
General Asmod’s body still lies in the middle of the arena. He looks huge and powerful even in death, green blood pooling from the gaping wound in his chest.
The crowd is still dead silent. They’re shocked at the violent end of the duel.
I raise my hands, turning to look at them.
“This was the man who you would follow into battle? Look what he put on me!” My voice carries across the sands. Power surges through me. “This is the only way this ‘mighty’ general could control me!”
I hold the Orb-collar up to the crowd. The Aurelian’s squint, trying to make out what I’m holding aloft.
“An Orb-collar! General Asmod knew that once he restored the bond between Raegan and I, he could distract Raegan by torturing me. He resorted to cheap tricks to win this duel, and yet he still lost!”
There are murmurs and looks of disgust in the crowd. The Aurelians shake their heads, looking at the downed General in a new light.
“He spoke of enslaving humanity,” I continue. “That is not the way! Surrender is only sweet when it’s earned. Submission is only real when it’s given freely. Humanity balks under the yolk of Aurelian rule because they don’t understand everything you do. You need a bridge between the two species, not another cage!”
I hold my fist in the air. Aurelians whose only experience to human females have been the submissive women in their harems stare at me incredulously, unable to comprehend that human women can be more than just willing bodies, servile mouths, and tight holes for their pleasure.
“I am that bridge!” I announce. “Raegan is not dead. He lives still, inside my mind, preserved through the power of our bond! With your superior technology – and the might of our b
ond – he will return from the dead. Raegan will rise again, to lead your species into a new Golden Age. In his name, I put Raegan forward for the position of Emperor. Who stands with him?”
The crowd goes dead silent. The thousands of Aurelians look at each other uncertainly, and then down at me. A pang of fear hits me. I was perhaps foolish to think Aurelians could look at a human woman as anything more than a toy for pleasure.
Then, suddenly, I hear the voices.
“Her… Her eyes.”
“They’re golden!”
I pick up the Orb-collar – the one that’s caused me so much agony. I peer deep into into the darkness of the small Orb-shard.
It’s true. My eyes reflect a deep gold.
“She tells the truth,” an Elite within the crowd yells out. “Raegan lives!”
“I stand with Raegan,” shouts another Aurelian Elite, his deep voice booming. “We prospered under our Emperor, but he grows old. The human race grows more distant, the Toads more devious, and the Scorps more violent. We need a new ruler – younger, and stronger, with a wise human female at his side.”
Other Aurelians look at this Elite in awe, shocked that one of their own would make such a bold proclamation.
But then a second Aurelian stands too, his long, grey hair sleek and his beard hanging down to his waist. “I, too, stand with Raegan!”
More Aurelians stand – one after the other – until many more than the hundred needed to secure a candidacy are calling out “I stand with Raegan!”
Others oppose them, and as arguments break out in the crowd, I follow the footsteps in the sand, walking back towards the portcullises and my bonded mates.
36
Raegan
I’m floating behind someone else’s eyes, not sure if I’m alive or dead. I feel so tired.