Lion of Zarall

by E B Rose

  Shouts of anger and denial filled the hall.

  “With all due respect, Your Majesty,” someone amongst the crowd raised his voice to be heard. Lion imagined an old, cranky looking lord in his late fifties. “These are frightful and truly disturbing accusations. I am an old, foolish, and nearly blind man and it doesn’t take Kyrus’s wits to deceive someone like me. But there are lords and ladies in this hall who are far better judges of character than myself. I’m sure they all must be wondering, what are you basing these accusations on?”

  “You are neither old, nor foolish, Lord Rhuagh,” Kastian replied. “And looking at your lady by your side, I vouch your eye-sight is as good as any of us.” There was a patient smile beneath Kastian’s words, as if he was expecting the question. “However, when it comes to mages, one cannot trust their senses and judgements.

  “House Zarall was hosting a mage here in Castle Brinescar; one who had been expelled from the Eternal Pillar because of his experiments. Experiments involving demons and Darkhome; the kind of experiments that gave birth to Black Stain and Forbidden District in the past.”

  The way Kastian emphasized ‘experiments’ created another ripple of fear in the crowd.

  “Yes,” Kastian raised his voice. “House Zarall have been aiding this fallen mage, Belandir Malderan, in his research to bring the nightmares back from Darkhome. Leonis Zarall was giving him access to his collection of magic artefacts. I have information revealing how Lygor Zarall was importing more artefacts and magical items over the Kaldorian border to support his father’s corrupted plan. The name Zarall is an ailment, a curse on this country.”

  He was manipulating the emotions of the crowd like a slave master commanding his slaves. He had fed their anger with fear and now, the lords and ladies in the hall were thirsty for blood.

  Kastian was still speaking, but Lion’s ears had started ringing after hearing about the mage. A mage…

  Was he talking about the man in the black robe? The thought made Lion’s hair stand on end.

  He’d seen other mages at King Leonis’s court before, but they all wore white robes. Kastian must have been telling the truth. The things he’d seen that night… The burning hound, the monster on the ceiling, blood crawling on the floor, even the stabbing… He didn’t imagine any of those. It all must have been Darkhome magic!

  “Three weeks ago,” Kastian raised his voice. “On the night of the Uprising, the great houses of Chinderia had gathered together to save our country from this darkness called Zarall. I have personally attended to the sending of Leonis Zarall’s rhoa. People of Chinderia are now ready to leave the name Zarall behind and embrace a time of new Thrive. But…”

  Lion shifted his weight as he fixed his eyes on the curtain ahead. He could almost see the ghost of a smirk touching Kastian’s lips as he continued with a softer voice. “There is someone who’s still carrying the name Zarall, although it was never his. Someone you all have seen, maybe cheered for, no doubt.”

  They never cheered for me, Lion scowled. They cheered for blood. They always cheered for blood.

  The curtain twitched as someone prepared to pull it off. Lion braced himself.

  “And tomorrow, you will watch the Lion of Zarall fall to the Bear of Vogros!”

  Hopper and Crowseye pulled the curtain off the cage.

  The hall was so quiet, Lion could hear the rustle of the curtain as it fell. After the darkness of the cage, he was blinded by all the light in the banquet hall.

  The brief silence was followed by an uproar. The guests cheered and clapped. Several women yelped, but most were laughing, amazed.

  As he blinked to restore his sight, Lion was confused by the admiration in their tones. It wasn’t like they were seeing him for the first time, and he certainly didn’t deserve anything less than detest after Kastian’s accusations.

  Then, his eyes finally adjusted to the light and he saw the second cage across from his. Its host stood up on trunk-like hind legs and roared.

  It wasn’t a demon.

  16

  LION

  The bear of Vogros stood nearly ten feet tall when he was standing fully upright. He must have weighed at least fifteen hundred pounds. He was covered with brown fur, thick as armour. Muscles rippled under his coat when he moved.

  His mouth was pulled back to show a set of sharp teeth. He could bite a man’s face clean off without even opening his mouth to the jaws. Lion couldn’t tear his eyes off the bear’s black claws, quick and sharp as any weapon he’d ever yielded.

  Still, it wasn’t a burning demon hound as Lion had feared. He exhaled slowly.

  King Kastian’s guests were clapping with excitement. Their sounds made the bear angrier. He threw himself to the bars, sticking his arm out and swiping at the nearest guest, a young lady in an emerald dress. It fell way short - Kastian’s men were keeping anyone from getting too close - but the woman screamed and the man next to him grabbed this opportunity to pull the woman in his arms.

  The lords and ladies - including the woman and the man - laughed at this little excitement. Lion on the other hand couldn’t see anything to laugh at in those claws.

  A frown creased his forehead. He rummaged his memories to see what he could remember about beast versus animal trainings. Badimar hadn’t bothered training him on animal fights. He hadn’t need to. Animal fights were way beneath the King’s famed champion beast.

  Astaldo, however, did teach him how to fight animals using various weapons, but that was the problem. Any strategy was going to depend on the weapon he was given. Against bears, he needed a quick and long-range weapon. Something with a pointy head, like a spear or lance.

  Hoping for a bow and arrow and a high place to stand on would be too optimistic, he supposed. Until he knew what weapon they were going to give him, he couldn’t build a strategy.

  “Fancy your eyes with tomorrow’s champion and enjoy the feast,” King Kastian concluded and motioned towards the feast tables. “Oh, and, do not feed the contestants before the fight. Lion does not have any stomach for food right now and Marzul is on a strict diet for beasts.”

  His insult elicited more laughter from his guests, and it drew Lion’s gaze to the new King. His new Owner. Kastian Vogros.

  The King had a hard-set face. Creases around his eyes and mouth were putting at least forty years on his shoulders. A short-trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard and hair surrounded his face. The ornate, golden crown Lion had seen on Leonis’s forehead countless times adorned Kastian’s head now. Although it sat perfectly even on his head, somehow it didn’t fit him.

  Kastian’s jaw popped from side to side as he scowled at Lion with his poisonous green eyes. Lion didn’t avert his; at least not immediately. The King seemed to be disappointed, even frustrated, by Lion’s reaction. After expecting to fight a demon, Lion was observably relieved at the revelation of his rival. That clearly wasn’t the response King Kastian wanted to see.

  What had he expected from a purebred anyway? It wasn’t like they displayed a range of emotions.

  Although it was intended to be an insult, Kastian’s judgement wasn’t far-fetched. Lion had lost all his appetite. The bear, on the other hand, looked like he could take a bite from everyone in the room. He kept snarling at the people and gnawing on the bars. His teeth made an ear-scratching grinding sound against the iron bars. When he shook his head, the bars bent just slightly.

  Lion imagined the bear breaking free and slaughtering all the guests and the King, while he sat in the safety of his cage. The thought brought a grin to his lips, which he dismissed promptly after seeing the King’s frown deepen.

  Kastian curled a finger at Karhad, who hurried to his side. The King whispered an instruction in Karhad’s ear, which made him glance in Lion’s direction and nod.

  Excellent. He’d just made his already screwed-up situation worse.

  He pried his eyes off the King and studied the faces of the others sitting at his table. His family.

  A short-haired woman, who
was wearing the late Queen Arasanara’s elegant crown, sat next to Kastian. Lion’s eyes lingered on the woman’s hair. He’d rarely seen women with short hair, unless they were female beasts or free warriors. A striking choice of fashion for a queen.

  On either side of the King and the Queen, sat two younger men. Copies of Kastian. His sons no doubt. The older one had chestnut hair like his mother and the younger one had their father’s venom green eyes.

  The seat next to the younger prince was empty, but apart from that one, other seats were given to the lords and ladies from the most influential houses. A great many of them Lion recognized from Leonis’s feasts. They’d raised their glasses for another hundred years of Zarall reign not long ago.

  The other guests took their places at the long tables of the banquet hall. House slaves served the food they carried on large trays.

  The smell of roasted meat made Marzul the bear even more enraged. They must had been starving him for this fight. Great.

  Lion’s eyes scanned the house slaves, searching for a flutter of red hair. He found several, but none were attached around the face he longed to see.

  His heart skipped a beat when he saw another pair of eyes scanning the horde of slaves. It took a moment to recognize him.

  Lord Hosten, Saradra’s Owner.

  Although he participated in conversations with other guests around him, Lord Hosten’s smile faltered every now and then when his eyes swiped across the faces of the slaves.

  He was looking for Saradra!

  An uncertain smile ghosted Lion’s lips. Did that mean Saradra was alive? Lord Hosten clearly believed she was. And he believed Kastian had her here.

  Unless Saradra had managed to escape without alerting anyone!

  Lion’s heart fluttered in his chest, until he saw Kastian’s death stare. Maybe he should have feigned fear, just to keep his Owner in a good mood.

  But then, what was Kastian going to do? Pit him against a full-grown bear? Lion was as good as dead anyway.

  Towards the end of the feast, Kastian announced that tomorrow’s contestants would have to leave early tonight, in order to get a good night’s sleep.

  “Although I doubt if one of them could get any sleep at all tonight,” he added, smirking at Lion.

  Lion felt a surge of outrage, which was another unusual feeling for him. Why did he care how Kastian mocked him? Words shouldn’t have bothered him, as long as they were not his Words.

  He contemplated on plastering a cocky smile on his face. But there was no reason to poke the bear - the proverbial bear being Kastian Vogros here. So, he settled on standing straight and keeping his face blank. Unfazed. Indifferent.

  His display of courage neither lessened the guests’ laugher, nor it made the bear look less intimidating. The animal was still going to rip his head off tomorrow.

  It wasn’t a flame-coated demon from Darkhome, but at the end of the day, it was still a full-grown bear.

  Hopper and Crowseye returned, hitching themselves to the handles of the cart. Four other slaves - all beasts from Badimar’s team - did the same for Marzul’s cart. They pulled the two cages through the tables; Marzul’s cage at the front, and Lion’s bringing up the rear.

  The bear roared and swiped at people as the cage slid between them. Lion could feel their judging eyes at him; calculating not only his chances of survival, but how many minutes he’d last tomorrow.

  Still holding on to the bars on each side, Lion tilted his chin up and kept his eyes at Marzul’s back.

  Once they were back at the service yard behind the upper kitchen, Karhad let Lion out of his cage. The slaves dragged Marzul’s cage towards an archway leading to the outer courtyard.

  As Karhad and a group of guards escorted Lion back to the dressing room, where he changed into a plain tunic and pants, his thoughts were already occupied with the fight tomorrow. Although he’d expected to be taken back to his cell, he wasn’t surprised to find out that tonight’s entertainment was not yet finished.

  Karhad took him to the outer courtyard, where Marzul’s cage was placed right next to Lion’s.

  He spent the night as Marzul’s neighbour. Their adjacent cages were only separated by a set of bars and half of Lion’s space was within the bear’s range.

  He pressed his back against the bars opposite to Marzul and sat down carefully. The bear stuck his arms through the bars and tried to reach him all night. His claws left long marks at the bottom of the cage. He threw himself against the bars and gnawed at them.

  Lion could read the hunger and rage in the bear’s eyes and he dreaded the moment he’d have to face them without the bars between them. As he watched those sharp claws and teeth, he realised no armour would protect him against those.

  He tucked his knees under his chin, hugging himself tightly. If he’d allowed himself to relax just a little, he might have woken up with Marzul’s claws hooked in his flesh, dragging him to his side of the cage.

  Kastian’s mockery turned out to be justified at the end. Lion didn’t sleep at all that night.

  17

  LION

  Lion was alone in the waiting room behind the gates of the arena. And he was trembling.

  There was no one to stroke his left shoulder to calm him down, or to whisper his Kill Word as the gates opened.

  There was no weapons rack to choose from.

  There was not even a piece of armour on him.

  The announcer was speaking in the arena, getting the crowd hyped up. He was saying something about the Lion of Zarall and the Bear of Vogros, but Lion couldn’t listen to anything but his own heartbeat.

  He was dead.

  No weapon, no armour… He had no chance.

  Kastian had made sure the Lion of Zarall was going to end his career with no respect in the arena. He was naked, except for the few pieces of accessories to make him look like a kitten instead of a lion.

  He was wearing a belt with a yellow tail attached to its back. His hair fell on his shoulders in two neat braids, and his beard made a third one. Triangular wooden ears were protruding from a hairband on his head. All his body was coated in a shimmering, golden paint. Lastly, he was wearing his lion mask, but a black nose and whiskers were drawn on it.

  The only part of his accessories that had a remote resemblance to any sort of weapon were the gloves. He was given dark brown, leather gloves with metal fingertips. Short, curved and pointy blades were protruding from each fingertip, resembling a cat’s claws. Although they looked sharp enough, they couldn’t possibly leave a scratch over Marzul’s thick brown fur.

  There was no way he could survive a clawing contest with a bear.

  He’d been repeating Astaldo’s lectures about animal fights in his head all night. Specifically, what the breeder had said about bears.

  “They run faster,” his rough voice bellowed inside Lion’s mind. “They climb faster and swim faster…”

  One more thing… There was one more thing a bear could do better than humans. What was it? What was it?

  He felt like the information would come to him, but when it did, it’d be too late.

  The audience was built up, cheering and stomping their feet impatiently. Lion took the mask off, careful not to cut his face with the claws.

  He didn’t care about the other accessories; not even the ridiculous tail. In fact, having his hair braided like this was less distracting than getting it in his eyes all the time. But the mask’s slits were too narrow and if he was going to die, he at least wanted see where the blow came from.

  It wasn’t like they could punish him after the fight for taking his mask off anyway.

  “And now, let the fight begin!” was the only part of the announcer’s speech he’d been waiting -and dreading- to hear.

  The gates opened slowly. Red sands and orange sunlight cut the darkness in the waiting room.

  Lion blinked his eyes, forcing them to adapt to the light as quickly as possible. The slim slice of light between the gates grew wider.

&nb
sp; Then, he saw something in the middle of the arena; an advantage that might maybe, potentially, save him.

  He slipped between the gates even before they were completely open, and ran.

  The sound of the crowd was dazzling. The red sands, heated by the sun all day, burnt his bare feet, and the stupid piece of tail floated awkwardly behind him.

  He couldn’t imagine how ridiculous he must have looked to the audience; gleaming golden under the sun, his braids fluttering on the wind, and his privates flopping against his thighs with each step.

  Without breaking his run, he took his right hand to his mouth and took the glove off, using his teeth. Muffled by the crowd’s laughter, he could hear Marzul’s confused growls, and knew that the bear had been released into the arena as well. He didn’t stop to look.

  He kept his eyes at the steel pole erected in the middle of the arena, and ran like he’d never run before.

  Marzul let out a sharp, angry growl and Lion knew the bear had spotted him. The crowd’s excited screams told him Astaldo was right about the bears’ speed. He still had ten seconds to the pole, and Marzul was going to get to him in five.

  Lion dropped the glove behind him and pulled the left one off.

  “Drop something,” Astaldo had said. “They are curious animals. They will pause to sniff it, which will buy you the few precious seconds that might save your Owners from losing their property.”

  It worked.

  Sort of.

  Marzul paused briefly to sniff the glove, but he resumed running almost instantly. This earned Lion only a handful of seconds.

  Lion dropped the second glove, hoping but not really expecting to trick the bear again. Marzul didn’t disappoint him.

  Lion threw himself at the pole, wrapping his legs around it, the impact almost crushing his balls. With his feet locked at the ankles, he pulled himself up swiftly.

  The steel pole was heated under the sun; it burnt his bare flesh. However, being naked worked in his favour; it prevented him from sliding down and helped him climb faster.