“Faster than shite through a sick cow if need be,” Halm answered.
Muluk’s helm arched back in a chuckle.
Halm shook his own head. “This is quite the place for a conversation.”
Perhaps agreeing with him, Muluk charged, bringing his sword down in a ferocious chop. Halm caught it on his shield, then sent his own blade into Muluk’s, who turned it away.
They parted, and like two bulls contesting for a cow, they eyed each other.
“It is that,” Muluk replied.
“You seem like a friendly sort,” Halm said.
“As do you, Zhiberian.”
“Then, if you’re interested, and don’t feel too put out, I’ll buy you a roast and drink after the day’s fights.”
“You’d do that?”
With unexpected speed, Halm stepped in and shield-bashed his foe’s face. Muluk blocked with his own shield, but he didn’t expect or see Halm’s sword pommel.
With his opponent partially blinded, Halm twisted and drove that brutal piece of metal down as if hammering nail, slamming it into the side of Muluk’s pot helm with a frightening gong!
The impact dazed the Kree long enough for Halm to shield-punch him a second time.
That connection knocked Muluk clean off his feet, and he crashed onto his back, arching his spine as if in great pain. Pressing forward, Halm hooked Muluk’s sword and flicked it away before planting a knee on the man’s chest. With care, he inserted the tip of his sword under Muluk’s helm and tapped its edge twice.
“The least I can do,” Halm declared good-naturedly.
Inside the Muluk’s pot helm, the face dusty, a pair of dark eyes gleamed. When he didn’t answer straight away, Halm feared he might have insulted the fallen Kree gladiator.
But then the prone man carefully raised a hand in surrender.
Cheers blasted overhead, mixed with more than a few boos, but Halm cared little for them.
He’d just won his first match.
“Damnation,” Muluk groaned. “Never saw that coming. You took the wind out of me.”
“My apologies,” Halm said. “It is a rough sport.”
Muluk groaned again. “I’ll have my revenge, Zhiberian bastard. I can drink like a fish.”
He tapped Halm’s ankle, and the heavier man stepped back and allowed him to get to his feet.
“We’ll see about that, then,” Halm said. “I was worried for a moment.”
Muluk waved his hand. “I’m just glad to be alive. And with only a few bruises. The Pit’s one way to get coin, but not one suited to me. No ill will, Halm of Zhiberia.”
He held out his fist.
Halm regarded it. Then, amongst the cheers and the insults of the crowd, he drove the tip of his sword into the arena sand.
He pressed his own fist against Muluk’s.
“No ill will, Muluk of… where’re you from again?”
Three men took their leave of the Pit for the day, made their way to the public bathhouses and washed away the grime of the arena. Since Pig Knot had not yet fought, and Muluk had lost, Halm declared that the baths, food, and drink would all be gifts this evening. He held his small leather purse containing his winnings by the strings, quite content with the twenty gold coins filling it. Once washed and dressed in regular clothes, Halm led them to an alehouse he had discovered only two days ago which served a wonderful pork roast. They ordered ale, along with enough food for three big men, and proceeded to get drunk well into the night.
Smoke filled the alehouse, some wafting from the kitchen area, some from pipes, and all blending with the ripe smell of body odor. The three men sat in an alcove made of heavy wood, their eighth pitcher in the table’s center. Mugs surrounded the container. Gristle and leftover shreds of unappealing fat lay on wooden plates. Halm belched loudly and wiped his mouth. He looked at Pig Knot, who had actually arm-wrestled a local mere moments earlier and won five gold for his efforts. Pig Knot was a strong man. One needed only to look at his swelling arms to see it, but the lad who thought he could take him must have been even drunker. At least he handed over his wager with a smile. Halm disliked fighting in alehouses.
“You are…” Pig Knot slurred and pointed at Muluk, sitting on the inside of the booth. “Perhaps the first man from Kree I’ve met.”
“I am?” Muluk slurred right back. “Daresay I’m the only Kree in these parts. Though I may be mistaken.”
“You can hold your drink.”
Muluk exhaled dangerously in reply.
Pig Knot was indeed correct––the Kree could hold his alcohol, which was good. Halm also hated watching over quick-tempered drunks.
“I think our paying companion here is the only Zhiberian in Sunja as well,” Pig Knot said, turning his finger.
“I think so too,” Halm agreed. “Not since the last one…”
The three men smiled. They knew the story.
“So what will you do?” Pig Knot asked Muluk. “Now that you’re out of the games, I mean.”
The Kree thought about it. “Don’t really know. I was a trapper, but I got tired of the life. I could also chop trees, being something of a woodsman as well.” He shrugged. “I’ll find something.”
“Chop trees,” Halm said. “That explains our fight. You strike damn hard. It was a good thing I had a shield.”
Muluk shrugged. “I might stay awhile, however, sleep in the streets or somewhere, until I can see this fight between you and the church man.”
“I’m interested in that one myself,” Pig Knot added. “What was it you called him?”
Halm chuckled. “A kog?”
“No.”
“Pig-bastard?”
“Not that.”
Halm had to think about it. “Heathen shagger?”
“That was it.” Pig Knot smiled.
“Wait.” Muluk frowned. “I was there, too. He called him a heathen shagger.”
“Who? Vadrian?”
“Aye that,” Muluk smiled. “You’re going to have to kill that one. You could feel the heat from him, he was so angry.”
Old wood pressed against Halm’s back as he shifted. “My thoughts on it are this… he baits men into fighting him. What’s the word? Tempts. He tempts.”
“Will you kill him?” Pig Knot asked.
Halm studied Pig Knot. “I don’t know.”
“He’ll kill you. Guaranteed.” Pig Knot’s dark eyes glittered.
Halm took a drink from his mug. “I’ll have forgotten this… by tomorrow. If the lad wishes to back out, I’ll let him.”
Muluk looked at Pig Knot. “I didn’t think one could back out of a blood match.”
“Aye that,” the Sunjan said. “You can’t back out of a blood match, you heathen shagger. I like that. I’m going to call you that whenever I can now. Shagger. Heathen shagger.”
Halm took another shot from his mug, thinking hard on his companions’ words. You can’t back out of a blood match.
“Can’t I?” Halm suppressed a burp.
Red eyes studied him.
“It’s to the death,” Pig Knot said and almost knocked over his mug as he reached for it. He took a long pull off the lip.
“To the death,” he repeated and chuckled.
Frowning in drunken puzzlement, Halm drank with him.
Leave it to Pig Knot to make a person feel better.
*
In another part of the city of Sunja, in a dilapidated church that threatened to collapse at any moment, the man called Vadrian knelt on a mat in front of a hundred lit candles, the only source of light in the building. He had stripped, preferring to pray without clothing. Vadrian clasped his large hands and looked to the heavens, visible through a huge gash torn in the roof high above. He prayed. He prayed as if his life depended on it. He prayed for victory and he prayed that he remained strong during the games. He vowed to restore the church to its former glory with whatever gold he won. Prayers of vengeance came out of him then, against the man known as Halm. To speak out against th
e Son of Seddon and the Lord who spoke to Vadrian every day, was to speak out against the holy one himself. While Vadrian remained alive, he swore to send all nonbelievers and blasphemers to Seddon’s heavenly court, where they would be judged.
He’d made a blood sacrifice of the first man he met in Sunja’s Pit.
He would make another of the man called Halm from the barbarous country known as Zhiberia.
Disgust filled Vadrian’s face. That fat heathen originated from a feral land where men and women lived in incessant sin. One day, when the church was restored and Vadrian possessed an army of followers as devoted as himself, he would ride into that savage land and put the entire countryside to the sword and torch. All in Seddon’s holy name.
But first, there needed to be sacrifice.
An evening sacrifice.
Vadrian had sacrificed much to be in Sunja’s Pit. He’d sacrificed his mother and his father, and his younger sister and brother. While he had wept as he crushed the lives from his family’s earthly forms, he knew a better place awaited them. He saved them from the rampant evil in Seddon’s world. There was evil all around. Evil so thick it was only a matter of time before it infected his family. It was best to send those he loved to Seddon before any wickedness could touch them.
Seddon, Vadrian believed, would not be pleased just by saving a few meagre souls, however pure they might be. Send them all, Seddon had commanded one night, and you shall be rewarded.
So Vadrian sent them.
Every chance he could.
To that end, he unclasped his hands and reached behind him.
Vadrian had spent an hour looking for vagrants, but there were none to be saved. He had hunted in the area before. Perhaps the wretched could somehow sense his divine approach. Such power was an evil ability to have if they could, and bestowed only onto agents of Saimon.
All the better to find them and put take their lives.
One old man, however, hadn’t been so quick.
Vadrian pulled the dog into his hands. Blind eyes stared and frail bones trembled as Vadrian slipped one hand around the old man’s neck.
Then the other.
Terrified whimpers filled the church.
Vadrian ignored those. Once he secured his grip, Vadrian squeezed. Hands pawed at his forearms, but he increased the pressure, squeezing until his muscles knotted and his fingers ached.
The whimpers ceased.
But Vadrian kept on squeezing.
And somewhere near his strength’s end, he twisted.
• 5 •
Milloch and Samarhead
On the morning of the second day, Dark Curge awoke in his bedchamber entangled in blankets. He yawned, stretched, and eventually sat up. The covers fell from his broad, grizzled chest to tumble onto his growing paunch. He brushed them away with his left half-arm and got out of bed. Naked and not caring in the least, he walked to the bedchamber’s window and threw open the wooden shutters.
Gray clouds bloated the sky and threatened rain.
Dark Curge scowled. Rain would delay the games, and his man fought this day. He wanted to see what the prized prospect of his house could do. Curge especially wanted to gloat in the company of Nexus and Gastillo. Unknown to the wine merchant, he delighted enjoyed watching Nexus boil to a rave. He enjoyed seeing gold-faced Gastillo squirm.
Then Curge remembered who his lad was fighting. A Free Trained dog.
Not particularly challenging.
He sighed.
Of the ten houses, stables and schools present at the games, only three were considered major contenders. The House of Curge remained the most consistent in developing not just gladiators, but skilled destroyers of men. The other seven were regarded as inferior, but capable of producing and fielding at least one or two talented pit fighters. Not champion quality, but notable, and Curge felt he was being gracious in admitting that.
The Free Trained, however, were the absolute gurry of the games. Scroff. Trough shite. Unfit and sorely lacking. Yet every season, hundreds of self-proclaimed warriors, under-trained but bursting with visions of coin and glory, were drawn to Sunja’s Pit.
Occasionally, however, some actually showed skill.
Like the Vadrian lad.
Curge went through his morning routine with a bored expression. His servants––all young, shapely women dressed in flimsy robes––bathed, dressed, and fed him. Once finished, he stepped outside onto green grass and walked the short distance to his training grounds and accompanying properties, all within a great walled compound that shielded him from the rest of the city. His deceased father had built the House of Curge in the richer part of Sunja, within a stone’s toss of the nobility district. It was as close as Curge would ever come to noble and, while he openly scoffed the upper classes and even Sunja’s own royalty, he secretly coveted a more regal station in life.
The damp grass covered a wild plot of land, right up to a low wall. Curge went through an open door, ignored a passageway and side corridors, and climbed steps to a second level. He made his way through a series of short halls, drawn to voices giving orders. As he got closer, he heard voices straining from exertion as well.
Dark Curge stepped onto an open balcony and looked down into a courtyard
Twenty-nine pit fighters, hellpups of the highest ability, went through their morning exercises. Sweat gleamed over their well-formed bodies, and their exertions punctuated the air. Trainers walked amongst them, observing the men lift heavy-looking timbers time and time again. None of the gladiators were slaves. They were all free men, paying a modest fee and a portion of their winnings to train within the House of Curge hoping that the taskmasters and trainers could fashion them into the next champion of the games. Curge’s family history with the games was so great, that being accepted by the house carried a huge amount of prestige.
The trainers cracked whips when needed.
After a moment Curge caught the attention of his taskmaster, a squat, thick-necked man named Baris. He summoned the man to the balcony.
“Well?” Curge asked, leaning against the balcony’s railing.
“All is ready,” the taskmaster reported. “Tubrik has gone on to the Pit with Samarhead.”
Curge pursed his lips and studied the badly scarred man. “He’s still healthy?”
“He is. And in bloody spirits.”
“Good.”
“He’ll be a terror these games. Tubrik and Bechar agree as well.”
“I have faith that he will,” Curge said.
The House of Curge had several gladiators poised to do very well during the season. It was Curge’s belief that Samarhead was his best. The pit fighter was a brute, swift on his feet, and ready to kill. Some pit fighters hesitated to take another’s life, but it was Curge’s uncontested opinion that a gladiator had to be willing to gut a man, sometimes in the bloodiest fashion possible, to rise above the rest.
Even if it meant inciting the wrath of other houses.
If a pit fighter wasn’t willing to slit another’s throat, one had no business being in the sport.
Curge folded what he could of his arms and looked to those lifting timbers on the sands below. “I have a good feeling about this season. Might be wise if you’re placing wagers this year, Baris. I’d bet my entire fortune if I were able.”
A servant appeared and bowed, attracting Curge’s attention. He nodded to his taskmaster. “I’m summoned. Whip those dogs in shape.”
Baris departed.
Curge motioned for his servant to lead the way. He followed the young woman down a set of steps to the main doors, watching her curves sway underneath her sheer wisps of cloth. Curge cocked an eyebrow. The woman wasn’t unattractive. He would have to summon her to his bedchamber later, after the day’s events.
She led him to a room just off of the main entrance where, with a wave of her hand, she presented his human weasel, Bezange, who gave a short bow.
Curge whisked the servant away. “Well?”
“There’s a p
roblem,” Bezange began. “Omaz never returned last night.”
“He didn’t?” Curge’s bald scalp knotted up. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know, my Lord,” Bezange reported truthfully. “I instructed him to locate this Vadrian fellow, and that was the last I heard of him. I even went out prowling, well after hours, I might add, searching all of Omaz’s usual haunts. There was no sign of him.”
That puzzled Curge. “Did you pay him?”
“No, my Lord, I did not.”
“He’s probably still looking, then.”
“Possibly.”
“It does sound strange, knowing that greedy little bastard. Fear not. Vadrian is giving his bloodhound’s nose a challenge is all.”
“I’m sure you’re correct,” agreed Bezange with a subtle bow. “I’ve also overheard some information regarding the House of Tilo. One of his guards has a loose tongue, especially when plied by a woman and drink. He says Tilo is placing a lot of faith in one called Red Mane.”
“Red Mane,” Curge repeated, studying the smaller man.
“Yes, my Lord. Apparently the gladiator fights equally well with both hands. Tilo, greatly favors him. Shall I make a wager?”
“He’s supposed to be good, eh?” Curge thought about it. “When will he fight?”
“Undecided as of yet, my Lord.”
“Keep watch on it, then. See when he fights and who. Especially who. Place gold on him but not so much to frighten off the birds. Where did Tilo find him? What’s the man’s background. Is he a farmer? Soldier? Mercenary?”
“I shall investigate, my Lord.”
“Do that.” Curge glowered, thoughts churning. “Also, this afternoon Samarhead fights some Free Trained shite. Make the wager. Make it heavy. He’ll be heavily favored after this day.”
Bezange bowed once more. All the bowing sometimes irritated Curge. He wasn’t sure the little pisser was mocking him or not.
“Off with you, then,” the owner commanded. “And make us some coin.”
Yet another bow and Bezange saw himself out. Curge watched him go. The little man was a sly one, wise enough to know where the power rested, and where it was dangerous to tread. He wasn’t the first man Curge had employed but, if he was smart, Bezange would live to be the last. Curge remembered his last head of spies and how the man had thought he could steal a little from every wager he placed on behalf of the house. It wasn’t long before Curge discovered the thievery and decided to make an example of him. The offender was caught, placed in a very private room, and tied down. Every now and again, when the mood took him, Curge would go to that room.
131 Days [Book 1] Page 5