The Throd'nahk is not using Power, but his skill with a spear exceeds my skill with the sword by enough of a margin that I am helpless before him. Without using Shadow Fist, I will not stand a chance against him, but I do not want to reveal too much about Shadow Fist.
“If you don't us the martial style you used against Cletus, I'm going to put you on the slab next to him.” There is no threat or hostility in the Throd'nahk's voice. It is so flat that it is more threatening than enraged screaming would ever be.
Now, I understand what this little session is about. After seeing me use Shadow Fist's movement capabilities to get the best of Cletus with his Power released, the Throd'nahk wants to see for himself what I am capable of.
I feel my face go flat and expressionless. For some reason, the Throd'nahk's little test is pissing me the fuck off a lot more than it should. I must be under too much stress, with everything that has happened in the last few days.
As the Throd'nahk lunges with his spear, I advance into his attack and move underneath his weapon. My joints practically scream under the burden of force my action puts on them. Even as I stab toward his balls, the Throd'nahk twists the haft of his spear to deflect the blade. My left hand sword coming from low to high in an oblique stab gives him no chance to retaliate, as he is forced to block again.
My attacks keep coming, and the Throd'nahk keeps backing away while defending. His eyes are fully open. The squinting glare that seemed to be the natural set of his face is gone. His basic skill is probably two or three notches above my own, but my ferocious Shadow Fist based attacks, delivered from angles and positions I should not be able to reach is keeping him on the defensive.
“Look over there!”
“Greatest God!”
“That scarred fucker is pushing the Throd'nahk around!”
“I don't believe this!”
Something flickers in the Throd'nahk's visage. It might be pride, but there is anger there, as well.
Fuck me! Blue light flares in my vision, and I dive past the Throd'nahk's knees.
Boom!
I hit the ground rolling, and as soon as my feet touch the ground again, launch myself at an angle to my left.
Boom!
After another roll, I rise to my feet spinning to face the Throd'nahk. Ropes of blue lighting are coiling around his spear, and his face is filled with a mix of anger and something else.
His face turning into a mask of pure rage, the Throd'nahk turns toward the gladiators. “Who ordered you to halt your practice?! Resume your training or you will doing be strength drills with the new meat all night!”
Wiping the expressions of shock and amazement off their faces, the gladiators hastily return to their training. Their overzealously energetic practice is almost comical to watch.
When the Throd'nahk turns back to me, the rage is gone from his face. Once again, the squint-eyed, glaring mask is back in place.
“What is that martial style that you use?”
I stare at the Throd'nahk for a moment. Is there any harm in telling him? Just the name will mean nothing to almost everyone everywhere.
“Shadow Fist.”
The Throd'nahk appears to think for several long moments. “I have never heard of a style like it.”
I shrug. “I'm the only living practitioner as far as I know.”
“The way you move seems half-crippled. That style is dependent on Power. If your Power is released, how much more effective will it become.”
Sudden pain flares through me, but I keep it off my face. The pain came from my soul, as one of my soul threads was severed. It was connected to one of the dimensional storage rings. Even though I have heard of techniques to sever soul threads, I have never encountered them directly. The quickest and most efficient way to sever a soul thread is to kill the bearer of the thread.
“It's hard to say. I only use the movement techniques from Shadow Fist, when I am forced to, but they have never failed me.” No, that is not true, but this Throd'nahk has no need to know that. I could not even use Shadow Fist, when Jinmu called on Yggr to Judge me. I may as well not have even known Shadow Fist for all that it helped me against the Judgment.
The Throd'nahk stares at me for several moments. His manner gives the impression that he is weighing something in his mind.
Looking to one of the DokkAlfar guards, the Throd'nahk points to me. “Guard, release his Power.”
The guard just stares at the Throd'nahk for a moment, before reaching into his belt pouch. Taking out one of those black metal rods, he points it at me, and I feel the collar's retaliation turn off. Even though I was not consciously aware of the energy field, its lack is now obvious.
At first, I circulate just a trickle of ki, making sure there is no backlash. As I flood ki through my body, I feel like I am coming to life.
Putting ki into my practice swords, I find that they are capable of handling a surprising amount of ki. As I wrap them with kinetic force, I attack the Throd'nahk, but I do not catch him off guard. From his reaction, it seems as if he was waiting for my assault. His spear blocks both of my thrusts, and ropes of blue lightning snake across his entire body. His retaliation is even faster than my own strikes.
Our first exchange makes it clear that that Throd'nahk is faster than I am. Whether reaction speed or movement speed, he is ahead of me by a good margin.
I move under one of the Throd'nahk's thrusts. As I circle behind his back, I feel the fabric of reality around me almost warping. Spinning around wide-eyed, the Throd'nahk blocks my thrusts and slashes, with a series of rapid strikes from his spear's shaft. Springing back, he puts close to twenty feet between us. His stare seems to burn a hole in me, while he appears to be trying to understand how I performed that move.
“Do that to me again!”
I attack again, waiting for an opening. After a few minutes, it comes, when the Throd'nahk tries to club me in the head with a lateral sweep from his spear's shaft. Stepping behind him, I lunge forward, as the Throd'nahk leaps away from me.
“Again!”
As soon as I am within range of the Throd'nahk's spear, I move forward. Using attacks from Shadow Fist, that have the same near warping effect on space, I launch a thrust at his leg and another at his neck, before my movement is complete. The strain of so many Shadow Fist techniques at once on my body is painful enough to make me want to scream. Only a body strong enough to channel the Od is strong enough to truly use Shadow Fist.
The Throd'nahk still manages to knock both my blades aside, and I barely duck under his elbow aimed at my face. Stepping behind the Throd'nahk, I strike at both his kidneys with the hilts of my swords, but he is already turning to intercept me. His speed is inhuman, and he stops both attacks, slightly numbing my forearms in the process.
For the next few minutes, we exchange rapid attacks, until I stumble. Another of my soul threads has been severed, and the sudden pain sweeping through my body disrupted my balance.
The Throd'nahk uses the opportunity to push his assault, and I am driven fully on the defensive again. However, my continued use of Shadow Fist prevents him from pinning me down, and I have the chance to regain my equilibrium.
Even with ki fueling my techniques, Shadow Fist is still taking its toll on my body, and the severing of my soul threads took a toll on my soul. With intervals of a little more than twenty minutes between the severing of threads, except for the endless quiver, all of my bindings to my storage devices are gone.
Even though the Throd'nahk is not driving his attack home, I am still in bad shape. Combined with the fatigue and damage from using Shadow Fist, the severing of my soul threads has taken its toll on me. I am filled with both physical and non-physical pain. My soul feels like it has been abraded with a rasp, and my body feels like I tried to body surf the rapids of a wild river.
The Throd'nahk has been carefully observing me. Despite my self-control and tolerance for pain, I must be showing some of the damage.
“Enough for now. We will continue
after the midday meal.”
I stare at the Throd'nahk. “So, are you going to give me a loincloth like the rest of the gladiators, or is walking around with around with my dick hanging out all the time some kind of ritual hazing?”
The Throd'nahk almost looks like he going to smile. “Clothes are for men, not trash. When you survive your first bout in the arena you will be a gladiator and earn clothing.”
Turning his back on me, the Throd'nahk goes to inspect the training of the gladiator and the new slaves.
I sit down cross-legged on the sand and start circulating ki through my body, mind, and soul. Using the ki to drag mana and psi along with it, I try to heal as much of the accumulated damage as can be done quickly. Still, it takes more than half an hour for the pain to start to recede from my soul.
“Gladiators! Break for the midday meal.”
The thump of boulders hitting the ground is followed by the grunts and moans of the new slaves.
“TRASH! Who told you to stop! You don't eat until the training day is over!” The raw violence in the Throd'nahk's voice would probably make a bull orc hesitate.
“Brand! You eat with the Gladiators!”
Rising to my feet, I head toward the passage leading to the ready room and the mess hall beyond it.
“Throd'nahk, what about the slaves collar?” The DokkAlfar's voice sounds nervous.
The Throd'nahk's sneer is audibly reflected in his voice. “What's the matter guard? Are you afraid a naked human, who does not even know where the exit from this stable is, will escape? Leave him as is. He will be training with me again after his meal.”
Seeing the guards fear, as he looks at me, I understand what type of creatures these stable guards are. They are almost certainly from the bottom of DokkAlfar society. They are nothing but bullies, given power over the lives and deaths of the gladiatorial slaves. If they had to face us with our Power released, they would probably shit themselves.
Sitting in the same place as I ate breakfast, I eat my lunch. It consists of soup made of mostly vegetables and a little meat, with more of the two or three day old bread. This time it is a step or two above hospital food, but that is not saying much.
A thin, drab, supercilious human male enters from the passage opposite the one leading to the infirmary. He is wearing a grey, sleeveless tunic, with a patch on the left breast. The patch has a blood red rose, with silver shackles over it, on a black field. He walks up to the nearest guard.
“The Mistress has summoned the slave called Brand.” The man's nasal voice has an affectation of gentility, at least as much of one as the Slave Tongue can convey.
“Brand, come here!” Even though he has to be nothing more than the gutter trash of the DokkAlfar society, the DokkAlfar's voice still sounds far more cultured and noble than the little man's.
I rise and walk over to the two.
The little bitch of a human looks like he is ready to piss all over himself, as he stumbles back against the wall. His shaking hand is pointing at me.
“His collar! His collar! It's not working! He's dangerous!” The man's cultured airs are gone, replaced by the whininess of a low class menial.
The DokkAlfar guards are all snickering. Whatever this human's position, he seems to have earned the guards' enmity.
Taking out the black metal rod, the guard points it at my collar. There is no noise and no sensation of any Power that I can recognize, but my collar's runes flare to life again.
This time I am close enough to get a good look at the rod. It is about eight inches long, tapering so that it is narrower on one end. A little more than half way from the large end, a line of three small characters run along lit. I do not know the language, but the characters appear to be the same as the ones in the book from the house of the priest on Earth. Perhaps, it is the written form of the DokkAlfar language.
Trying to recover his dignity and take an imposing air with me, the man stands up to his full height, about 5'5”, and tilts his head back to look down his nose at me.
“Come with me, slave. The Mistress has summoned you.” The man starts walking toward the hall he came from, without waiting for any response.
“Hey, guard. Who's the little worm?”
Hostility and surprise on his face, the guard stares at me for a couple seconds. His expression changing to a nasty smile, the guard looks at the little worm's back.
“That little worm is Keratin. He's what the Mistress uses for a butler. He thinks that his position makes him immune to the dangers of Gor'achen, but with his attitude, he's going to offend the wrong DokkAlfar and wake up in a blood pit one day.”
I wonder what the little worm would think, if he knew what his meant in English.
Keratin leads me down the hall to a locked gate, with DokkAlfar guards on both sides of it. The ones on the far side unlock it, and Keratin leads me up the stairs beyond the gate. At the base of the stairs, another passage heads off to the right.
Doors close off the landing at the top of the stairs, and when Keratin opens them, a lavishly decorated hall is revealed. While only about ten feet wide and twenty long, the quality of the floor tiles and the detail of frescoes decorating the walls catch me by surprise. Nothing I have encountered in the Battleground of the Damned or the Lands of Despair has been close to this level of craftsmanship.
Keratin turns right at the end of the hall and follows it to the end. There are few closed doors along this hall, but there is no indication of what might be behind them. Turning right again, Keratin leads me down a hall about a hundred feet long. There are closed doors on both sides of the dead end, and he knocks on the left side doors.
“Mistress, I have brought the slave, Brand.”
The doors open without anyone touching them. Elan'fer'sha is near the middle of the room, stark naked. She is standing next to an obsidian alter, set in the center of complex pattern, made of gold inlaid into the black marble floor. My armor is laid out on top of the altar.
“You are dismissed, Keratin.”
As the little worm walks past me, I can see him trying to keep his eyes on Elan'fer'sha's naked body as long as possible.
“Come to me.”
As I walk into the room, the door close behind me again, but I cannot determine how Elan'fer'sha closed them.
Without her boots, Elan'fer'sha is about an inch shorter than I am, if that. Her silver ponytail is disarrayed and stuck to her shoulders and back in places. Except for her face and hands, her entire body is covered with intricate black tattoos, and their complexity makes Menton's tattoos look downright crude in comparison. Her tits are so small, she could almost be called flat chested, but with inhumanely slender build, they look just right on her, and her pale pink nipples are exquisite. There is not an ounce of fat on that body, and even though you can see every one of her ribs under her skin, her the perfect tone of her musculature makes it look natural. Right now, her hair is tied up in a pony tail and matted to her back. Despite being skewered by more than a dozen piercings, her ears, with their slightly pointed shape, are so delicately shaped that they are nearly perfect in proportion to her head. A wide brow and tapering jawline give her face an almost fragile appearance. Her large almond shaped eyes are like amber gems set in her snowy skin.
Elan'fer'sha is not human and is inhumanly sultry. She is probably the most beautiful Alfar, the most beautiful female, that I have ever seen. She has something about her that makes me want to fuck her brains out and not be gentle about it. I am starting to get hard just looking at her, and without being able to manipulate my ki, I cannot control it.
With a lurid smile, Elan'fer'sha raises her hand and traces a black pattern in the air. The murky Umbral Power is nauseatingly gut-wrenching, but Elan'fer'sha does not seem in the least affected by it. As she languidly draws the pattern, more Umbral Power flows erotically along her tattoos. When she completes the spell pattern, Elan'fer'sha launches it at me with a flick of her wrist.
I do not know whether or not the Throd'nahk was ly
ing about the collar debilitating me if I attack a DokkAlfar, and this is not the time to test it. I try to dodge the spell pattern, but the Umbral Power is faster than it appears and follows my movements. As it hits my chest, tendrils spread out encircling my chest and throat. I can still move my head, but for all the feeling I have of them, my arms and legs may as well not exist.
Elan'fer'sha's lurid smile turns into a snarl, and she clenches her fist.
Everywhere the Umbral Power is touching me, it feels like acid is burning into my body. My chest and neck are filled with agonizing pain. It is worse than being burned alive, but I clench my teeth refusing to scream.
As Elan'fer'sha whips her arm toward the altar, I am slammed against it. I have no control over my body and cannot resist in any way. It feels like three of my ribs crack on impact with the altar, but the pain is nothing compared to what the Umbral Power is doing to me.
Stalking over to the altar, Elan'fer'sha picks up the helm of my armor, with the mask attached to it, and smashes it into my face a half-dozen times. Her strength is nothing compared to a combat adept, but she still breaks my nose and tears up the skin of my face.
Her voice is an enraged shriek, but still beautiful. “You are the Maker of this! Why is Talon's face cast into your helm? What is your connection to Talon?”
Talon? Oh, Fuck! That vision of Talon fighting in the arena. Was this cunt his owner?
“A memorial for the dead.”
Shrieking wordlessly, Elan'fer'sha pounds my face with the mask some more, until the mask has turned red with my blood.
My head is ringing, and dizziness is making it hard to focus.
“What is your connection to Talon? Why did you make a memorial for him?”
I stare at Elan'fer'sha dazedly, trying to think of a coherent lie. I have slipped up too many times, and too many people have already figured out that I was Talon. I do not want this psychotic cunt to know it too.
Slave Pits of the Tyrannical God (Path of Transcendence Book 2) Page 5