Where was his opponent? The announcer had finished his lengthy introduction, and the air in the arena was thick with anticipation.
He’d figured out he wasn’t going to be given a weapon, but he didn’t know if weaponed fights were in the repertoire. He’d have to ask his cellmate when he returned.
A man appeared at one of the entrances, a guard pushing him with a lance. He shuffled into the light and the crowd roared, while Zerek did his best not to throw up. Not showing his emotions suddenly made sense. He didn’t want the Hilruda to revel in his disgust and loathing, because there was no doubt they’d enjoy it. How was he supposed to fight a man who’d clearly been incarcerated for a long fucking time? Emaciated, pale, bruised, and obviously weak. This fight wasn’t going to last long at all, and Zerek would have to be extremely careful to pull his blows, otherwise he might accidentally kill one of them. If he thought there was any way to avoid this travesty, he would do it in a heartbeat.
Then another five men in similar condition were prodded out into the arena. This time, Zerek couldn’t hold in a glare, and he swept his angry gaze over the crowd before landing on the announcer.
The announcer met his gaze, eyes glittering with excitement. If the Hilruda were capable of grinning like mad men, the announcer undoubtedly would have done so. His next words were directed to Zerek as much as to the baying crowd.
“Six against one, a fitting challenge for the not so high and mighty Zerek. And all six have had two losses each. Losing to Zerek would make three, and we all know what that means.”
The crowd fucking lost it.
Three losses gets you reassigned. Where to, no one knows, but it’s a good bet it’s worse than this shithole.
Zerek directed his focus to his opponents. Frail though they might be, all six of them had the look of desperation. Defeating them without killing would be no simple matter, even if he could live with condemning them to a third loss. He could afford a loss while he figured out a way to escape Stony Gate.
Plan firmly in mind, he strode to the middle of the arena. He would take immense pleasure in denying the crowd their tasteless spectacle.
“Do keep in mind, Zerek, that we expect a good show.”
Shock made him look up. Clearly he had not done a good job of keeping his thoughts out of his expression, and the Hilruda had had generations to figure out how to read humans and manipulate them.
Glaring, he remained silent. He didn’t give a fiery fuck what the Hilruda expected.
“If you lose, your companions in crime will be punished - severely. We’ve extended our hospitality so they can await their fate.”
The cheering of the crowd was almost painful, and he closed his eyes at the threat against his crew. His cellmate had told the truth. Zerek hadn’t been the only one captured.
Those men and women, handpicked by him over years, were the closest to family he had. Not that he expected the Hilruda to grant their freedom if Zerek won, but how could he condemn them to punishment which, based on the announcer’s inflection, could well be fatal?
A gong resounded, almost ear-shattering in its intensity, and Zerek’s eyes flew open just in time to see six determined, but sickly, men rush him.
Bracing himself, he was able to avoid the first few blows, but with six men to deal with, he couldn’t track all of them, nor could he face all of them. A kick to the back of his leg sent him off balance, but he seized the moment to take out one of his opponents. Grabbing the man closest to him, he tucked the man to his chest and they both fell to the ground. Since Zerek did his best to control the fall, he landed on top of the man with a sickening snap. A fraction of a second was enough to tell Zerek that it wasn’t his bone that broke, although he’d taken a few blows to his chest as they went down. Rolling to the side, he dislodged a man who had pounced onto his back, and sprang up again. The man he’d fallen on drew in a deep breath, clutched his leg, and howled.
Zerek danced around, the five men in his sightline again, however briefly. Swarming him in a melee appeared to be their strategy, and there was a good chance they’d win simply by overwhelming him. But attacking them, despite the stakes, felt so wrong. The man he’d shaken off his back got back to his feet, but appeared slow and unfocused.
They converged again, fists at the ready, and this time, Zerek lunged at the dazed one and slammed a fist into his jaw. Zerek’s longer reach gave him the advantage and the malnourished man dropped to the sand, hopefully only unconscious and not dead. The Hilruda were going to pay for this, if he had anything to say about it.
Four of them were still enough to get him on the ground, one of them getting in a lucky hit on the raised knot on his skull where his captors had hit him. Vision blurring, he curled up, trying to protect his pounding skull, while he concentrated on stopping the world from spinning. He grunted under the blows that fell on him, strong enough to hurt and bruise, but somehow not powerful enough to do any real damage. Lack of experience caused them to get in each other’s way. It had been clear from the first second that none of them were trained fighters, whatever experience they’d gained in the pit.
As soon as his equilibrium settled, he struggled to a position with more leverage. An opening appeared between two attackers and he lunged through it, shaking off men who weren’t physically well enough to react as quickly as Zerek could.
Whirling, he slammed one of them in the ribs. His blow opened a series of half-healed parallel scabs that looked like claw marks, lending credence to the rumor that the pit fighting included battles against animals.
The third man dropped to the ground, arms wrapped around himself as he struggled to breathe. If Zerek hadn’t snapped ribs with that punch, the guy might still be in the fight, if he couldn’t get the other three down.
Fortunately, although Zerek hated the thought, two of the three had already expended the last of their energy. Zerek tried to pull his blows, aiming to incapacitate rather than truly injure, but a couple more broken bones put those two out of the fight, leaving him one last opponent.
This man’s expression was almost feral as he bared his teeth and circled Zerek. This man had likely won several bouts along with his two losses. If starvation and poor conditions hadn’t made him thin and stringy, he’d have been almost Zerek’s size and likely bulk.
If this man had gotten close enough to him in the early stages of the fight, Zerek would likely be more damaged than he was right now. Both of them were tired, though. Tired enough that Zerek might lose, if he made a mistake.
Only one solution came to mind. He had to go on the offensive, take advantage of his healthy status, and take this guy down as quick as possible.
Zerek charged, sweeping the man off his feet with his heavier bulk. They slammed to the ground and grappled with each other. For a few alarming moments, Zerek ended up on his back, wrestling against two hands gripped firmly around his throat. Just as his vision started to go black, Zerek broke the guy’s hold and flipped them. Finesse lost, he punched and punched, the man’s lips splitting under his fists, teeth opening cuts on Zerek’s knuckles, until finally the man went limp beneath him.
Horrified, Zerek slumped to the side, and waited endless moments before his final opponent dragged in a breath.
He stumbled to his feet, the announcer’s words and the cheers of the crowd merely noise in the background. Surveying the damage he’d done to his fellow humans, there was no sense of victory. He’d been an animal, and the Hilruda had done that to him. Disgust and a renewed determination to make the Hilruda pay filled him. He fought desperately to keep his horror off his face, because he now understood why he’d been told to keep his emotions under wraps. Knowing how much he hated himself for what he’d done would be like a sweet, gooey dessert after the hearty meal of his battle to the Hilruda spectators.
The guards half-led, half-dragged him back to his cell. The fight, or perhaps fighting, with a concussion, had taken a lot out of him, because he’d never felt so drained.
He sank dizzily onto the uncomfortabl
e cot as the guards locked the door behind him.
“Hey, fellow cellmate, are you there? I won.” At what cost, he wasn’t sure, but at least he’d saved his crew. “Thanks for your help.”
There was no reply. If the guy was as sick as he’d sounded earlier, he probably slept more than he was awake. Zerek didn’t try to speak again, because they both needed to rest.
Chapter 2
THE ACHE FROM A SERIES of bruises on his ribs made sleep on the thin mattress impossible, but exhaustion warred with discomfort and he dozed fitfully. Zerek was sore, starving, chilled to his bones, and he'd only endured one day of Stony Gate's hospitality. One fight. Which he'd won, thanks to a few additional tips from his cell mate, but he hadn't expected his opponents to be six half-starved prisoners who attempted to swarm him to take him down. The victory had cost him something inside, and the only respite from the guilt was that the pit fights weren't to the death. He'd not had to kill those poor, desperate souls.
Even during the few snatches of sleep, despair tried to clutch at him. The guards had paraded him in front of the crowd, the prison administrator crowing his name and applauding his capture. The cheers that rose from the Hilruda spectators held a vicious joy.
Aside from a better idea of how the pit fights were organized, the only other information he'd gleaned was the path from his cell to the pit. If his crew had been captured, they weren't housed in the same wing as him, nor had they been present at his fight. Most of the cells in his section were empty, aside from his one companion, and the sudden light from the guards meant he'd been temporarily blinded. Escape wasn't going to be as easy as he'd thought.
He shifted again and sat up, the motion making his head spin again, but he tried to ignore it. Without the ability to sleep properly, this might be his best night... day... he didn't even know what time it was. After the fight, his clothes were more ragged and stiff with dried blood, most of it from his opponents. Each day he stayed, each day he fought, he ran the risk of losing the clothes he came in with or being injured. Injured worse.
As much as he hated the thought, he needed to get out of here, however blind he'd be. He ran his fingers over the loose stitching at the hem of his shirt and started picking.
Every bit of metal had been stripped from him before his incarceration, but Zerek believed in being prepared. One of his most prized and expensive purchases, one of the few exchanges he'd made strictly for himself, was a set of thieves tools made out of hardened quelar bones. The large horned reptiles were notoriously difficult to catch, but their bones were sturdier than most metal and, true to claims, missed the prison scans for metal objects.
Once the seam on his shirt had opened enough, he pulled out a pouch, tiny enough to miss the invasive and rude physical searches for weapons. This was his way out.
An explosion of motion, rather than sound, had him looking up just as the door to his cell burst open. With a reflex borne of years of hiding in the shadows, Zerek unobtrusively tucked the pouch in his waistband as he pretended to cower back against the wall.
Three hooded figures approached, and two of them grabbed his arms. They were about the same size as Zerek, which wasn't common. He was big for a human.
"What are you doing?" What vital information was he missing? Had the Hilruda somehow found out about his contraband? Or was there something besides the fights that prisoners were required to participate in, something he wasn't aware of?
"Shut up if you want to leave here alive."
Prudence made Zerek comply, but the unusual musky scent and strange sibilance on the figure's pronunciation of "shut" told Zerek that this wasn't a rescue from his crew.
They hustled him out of the cell and steered him in a direction away from the pits.
"Wait." Zerek kept his voice low, but dug his heels in as best he could, since his sudden movements had made him dizzy and he didn’t want these newcomers to realize how rotten he felt.
"What?" The same figure, who was possibly the leader, answered with clear annoyance.
"If you're getting me out of here, we need to take my friend." Assuming this was a rescue attempt was a bit of a gamble, but his entire life had been a calculated risk, and the sick man in the next cell had been more helpful than he'd needed to be for a stranger.
There was an extended pause. "Stay quiet."
One of the figures backtracked and did something with the lock, faster than Zerek would have been with his bone tools.
Far too soon, the hooded figure emerged empty handed and shaking his head. Zerek broke free of his captors... rescuers... whoever... and dashed into the cell.
An emaciated dirty man lay on the pallet, eyes open and staring. A quick touch of his wrist told Zerek that he'd been dead for hours, probably had been dead when Zerek had returned from the fight, explaining why he hadn't answered Zerek when he'd thanked him for his helpful insights.
Bilge-bathing swamp rats.
Zerek didn't fight when his new companions grabbed his arms again. So soon after the pit, he didn’t have the energy to break free unless his life depended on it.
"Follow quietly or we'll bind and gag you." Zerek was familiar with the tone the leader used, he used it himself when he was tired of dealing with nonsense.
For the time being, he'd accompany this merry little band, play the good little rescued captive. Until he figured out what was going on. Then he'd escape. He was good at escape, and he had a little revenge to perpetrate. At least the four of them had a better chance if they needed to fight their way out of Stony Gate, and when Zerek finally took his leave, he might have a better chance at swiping some of their supplies.
* * * *
THE COFFIN-LIKE WOODEN BOX Zerek had lain in for three days now jolted along some seriously rough terrain. He'd been given regular breaks for food, water, and to take care of business, but this last stretch had been longer than the rest, and rattling around in the box wasn't doing his bladder any favors.
Some fucking "rescue." During the previous day, he'd begun to believe this was a form of torture cooked up by the Hilruda. He'd heard they got off in a serious way on people's pain, and if this was an example, he could well believe it. Each time he'd been released from his temporary prison—as a cell it was worse than the one he'd left behind in Stony Gate—his muscles protested more, his eyes had more difficulty adjusting, and the stiffness in his joints left him hobbled and wincing, dreading yet another stint in the box. The three people remained hooded, preventing any chance at identification.
The first day, he'd pounded weakly on the lid, screaming questions as loud as he could. That hadn't lasted long, because he irritated the leader good, judging by the way the box had been flung on the ground with little concern for his injuries.
The lid flipped up, a torch in his eyes keeping the leader's face in shadow. "You'll draw unwanted attention."
Zerek assumed the mutinous expression on his face hadn't gone over well, because he'd been forcibly sedated. Once he'd awoken, several hours had passed and he’d learned his lesson. If he had to escape from these fuckers, he'd miss his chance if he was drugged into unconsciousness. Whatever drug they’d given him had been the worst sedative ever–he didn’t feel one bit rested after he’d awoken.
Instead of concentrating on how much he had to piss, he checked—for the thousandth time—that his lock pick set was still tucked in his waistband. Then, starting at his feet and working upward, he flexed and released his muscles. It wasn't much, but it was all that kept him from being crippled each time they let him out of the box.
He resolutely didn't think about his crew, and how each hour on their journey, they might be captive at Stony Gate, fighting in the pit and losing hope, drop by drop.
Just when the fullness of his bladder became painful, they came to a stop. Unceremoniously, the lid was lifted and they tipped him out. He rolled to a stop on the floor and concentrated on not embarrassing himself. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet and blinked, nearly blinded by the daylight. Figures su
rrounded him, nothing more than dark shapes. Moisture gathered in his eyes, and he wiped at them furiously, to clear his vision.
Finally, his eyes adjusted. This time, no one was hooded. Distinctive, yet attractive, mottled skin, mouths that looked like they had too many teeth, and tiny noses told him exactly who'd rescued him.
Kadrussians. It figured.
"I want to know what is going on." A cramp hit his midsection, and heat swept across his cheeks. "But first, where the fuck are your facilities?"
The biggest Kadrussian waved a hand and nodded, which was enough for one of his "rescuers" to lead him none too gently out of the room. He'd at least been able to pick those three out of the group, because they still wore the unobtrusive, sack-like robes they wore when they'd pulled him out of his cell. The leader of that little threesome definitely ranked lower than the big Kadrussian who'd given orders with nothing more than a gesture.
With a tiny bit of privacy in the facility, Zerek leaned against the wall, shivering from intense relief bordering on orgasmic. Being on his feet again was a small joy as well. Given the length of their trip, he had to be deep in Kadrussian territory. Although he had dealings with several Kadrussians, including that triple-cursed Gress, he didn't recognize any of the men. He did have enough sense to know the big guy, the one that had at least fifty pounds and a few inches on him, had to be a clan leader. Which clan, he wasn't sure. The Kadrussians had a way to tell clan members apart, but unless Zerek was told or knew where he was geographically, he couldn't guess which clan's hospitality he was...enduring.
Like any other human on the planet, Zerek had grown up hearing stories about the Great Journey and the Bitter Silence. The Great Journey spoke of the human migration to this planet on huge spaceships that supposedly orbited to this day. The Great Journey stories spoke of hope, of sharing a planet in harmony alongside two alien species, living a more pure, lower-tech life. Aside from some unflattering comparisons to animal species for both the Hilruda and Kadrussians, those stories were good. Lower-tech wasn't no-tech, though, and the human immigrants continued to receive regular supplies and support from the empire.
Come Undone: Romance Stories Inspired by the Music of Duran Duran Page 42