That made the Zhiberian wince yet again. “I have no desire for children.”
“None?”
Halm shook his head. “Much rather bash heads in the Pit.”
“Where are you from again?”
“Zhiberia.”
“Are all Zhiberians like you?”
“No. Just me.” And he smiled. Miji smiled back. Halm saw that her teeth were fair and clean, but she was missing her right incisor. She raised a hand to her ponytail and gave it a long sensual stroke before directing her attention back to the fire.
“Can you do anything else besides fight in the pit?” she asked.
“Like rutting?”
Miji chuckled then, the sound quite pleasant to Halm’s battered ears and relieving. He was glad he’d made her laugh yet scolded himself for being so bold. Only a moment ago, she had told him she’d almost been raped, and here he was making jokes. He wouldn’t blame her in the least if she’d slapped, scolded, or outright left him for such a slight. Such brazen comments were usually reserved for the serving maids or prostitutes he bought for a night’s pleasure. Looking at this dark-haired woman beside him, he had to remind him she was neither, and he didn’t want to chance offending her, not after catching her eye.
“Not rutting,” she said.
“My apologies for that. Very bad of me.”
Miji looked at the fire. “Can you hammer a nail? Or farm?”
Halm sighed. “No and… no. No interest.”
“Nothing at all.”
“Nothing like that. My apologies.”
“You apologize a bit.”
Halm caught himself on the verge of doing it once more.
“So what can you do besides apologize? And fight?”
“That I can do. And enjoy. Not much else, however.”
She took another mouthful of beer. “I’d been to Sunja three times before that topper stopped any of us from leaving the area. Every time, I longed to get back here. It might not seem like much, but I grew up here. I enjoy these walls of trees much better than those of the city.”
Halm decided not to ask her about her parents.
“Now, it’s getting on time for me to think about getting married.” She regarded him again, her hazel eyes holding his attention.
“Isn’t it the man that asks the woman?” Halm frowned. Sunjan culture wasn’t all that different from Zhiberia.
“I’ll ask if I feel like it.” She was softly defiant. “Does that worry you?”
“Oh no. Daresay I should thank you for the warning.”
“Daresay you should.”
They shared a light chuckle then and turned their attention back to the fire.
*
Someone kicked Pig Knot where he lay sleeping, jarring him awake to the irregular wheeze and rumble of surrounding snores. He sat up against the wall and wiped his face with a dirty palm, glimpsing the moving shadows of three men becoming indistinct and merging with the gloom. They offered no apologies and trundled along as if on an open street, talking in loud voices and uncaring about the many sleepers covering the floor. One even carried a large cloth sack.
Pig Knot frowned and rubbed his face in recognition.
The sack looked like Halm’s.
The sight of it got him to his feet. He felt his stomach grumble at him and even a pang of nausea from a distinct lack of food. The Sunjan had spent the day staying low and conserving his energy, hoping that his companions would return. He had no coin for food, and the few bites Bindon had given him were consumed quickly, but the fountain did sate his thirst. Twice during the day, he’d asked the Madea if there were any fighters unable to battle their opponents, seeking to fill the position. There weren’t, however, and Pig Knot had remained in the Pit, listening to men just a few feet away eat bread and fruit, smacking their lips in unnecessary fashion.
Sleep was a welcomed escape.
But this morning was different. Or was it still night? It was difficult to determine below the arena. Noting the lack of activity, he decided it was sometime before dawn. Pig Knot recalled the sack bouncing just a little, slung over a shoulder. He was certain it belonged to Halm. He knew it. And a topper had taken it.
And before he knew what he was doing, he got to his feet and followed.
The air was warm and ripe with bad breath and seeping gas, and Pig Knot stepped over legs and arms as if they were pitfalls. Snores ripped the stillness. Eventually, Pig Knot spotted his quarry walking up the stairs to the outside. He hurried towards the stairs, the torchlight in nearby sconces burning low and deepening the foul shadows. When he reached the base, the men were lost in the dark above.
A scowl twisting his face, Pig Knot climbed.
When he emerged outside, it was under a thousand stars twinkling behind cottony wisps of smoke, lighting up the dark ceiling of the world. Pig Knot stood and took a deep breath, savouring the city’s breath over the stale stink of the air below.
The three men trudged away from Gate of the Moon and melted into the semi-dark of a street.
Pig Knot followed, not knowing in the least what he might do, only that his friend’s possessions were being stolen. How long had Halm left them there? He allowed he’d probably do the same if the thing was just lying about and unclaimed for a few days, but the Zhiberian was alive. And he’d need that sack of shite for his next match. He wasn’t about to let some pit fighter claim it as his own. The thought of a fellow Sunjan stealing something from a visitor to the country galled him as well.
The streets were near empty, the few people either heading home or visiting the alehouses and taverns with their warm, glowing windows. Laughter rolled across the way. Pig Knot knew this area, knew it rarely slept but rather exhausted itself. Many a night he’d frequented this particular strip as it was crammed on both sides with places to spend coin on drink and women. A group of drinkers spilled into the street, raucous and stumbling, blocking his view. He sped up, stealing quick checks over the drunkards’ heads as he navigated his way through them.
The three men turned and headed down an alley.
Pig Knot cut through the crowd and sped up until he reached the mouth of the backstreet. He took a cautious peek before slipping around the corner. His boots shuffled along fitted stones, their surfaces draped in shadows and pressing in on the few hollows of dying lantern light. The three men were halfway through, silhouettes against the night.
“You three,” Pig Knot called out, making himself heard over the din of the nearby drinking establishments. “That’s my friend’s property you have there.”
The three stopped in their tracks. Heads turned around.
“There’s a leather sleeve for the arm, greaves, and a pointy brass helm.”
“What if there is?” one of the heads asked.
“It’s not yours.”
“Curious,” a different voice said. “I have exactly what you say right here. But your friend left it in the dark. Never came back. I don’t think he wants it anymore.”
The three shades split apart.
“He wants it,” Pig Knot declared, moving closer. A corner of light illuminated him for a brief moment as he passed through it.
Thoughtful silence at that, brimmed by the muted merriment of the night’s drinkers.
“Perhaps you want to try and take it?” came the challenge, sounding as if it were sheathed in a smile.
“Try?” Pig Knot growled, getting closer to the three. “You don’t know me.”
No sooner did that final syllable leave his lips than all four men lunged for each other, to the clatter of a dropped sack and drunken laughter in the night.
Leathery hands gripped and sought to take down Pig Knot. A fist flashed off his brow, snapping his face to the left. He returned the punch with one of his own, connecting and making a man gag. Two shadows clung to him. One snaked a leg around his own, and all three men dropped into a pool of darkness. Hands groped on Pig Knot’s thighs while another set clamped down on his throat. Grunts and hisses stabbe
d the air. Pig Knot kicked out, hitting something solid and driving it back from his legs. He wrapped his forearm over the paws on his throat and jerked them to the right, twisting underneath his attacker’s weight. The man fell forward, releasing his hold before his face crashed into the fitted stones of the alley floor. Pig Knot untangled himself and rose, kicking the scrambling figures at his feet. A man charged into him from the side like a swung maul, driving him into a hard wall. Pig Knot looked down as his attacker’s head swept up, cracking off his jaw and bouncing his head off hard timbers. He saw stars and wondered for a split second if they belonged to the night. Two fists thundered into his gut, tenderizing the muscle there and making him breathless.
The Sunjan punched an elbow into his attacker’s back, forcing him to his knees with a grunt of pain. Fingers flashed out of the gloom and mashed Pig Knot’s face. He half-blocked a punch with a flick of his arm. The hand on his face clawed, ripping open the stitches there with sinewy snaps. Pig Knot roared. The shadow snarled back. A fist flew out of the dark and Pig Knot ducked, hearing the crinkle of knuckles breaking against solid wood. He cut loose with three quick blows that buckled the man over with pained huffs.
Pig Knot reached down and felt hair, gripped scalp, and cocked back a knee, intending to drive a nose out the back of a head. A fist cracked across his face, breaking his own beak with a startling pop of pain and sound, causing him to yank free a small mat of hair. Another fist hammered his face before two more axed into his stomach.
Instinct taking over, a grimacing Pig Knot rammed an open palm into a face, feeling a nose shatter, giving back what he received. The man staggered back, cupping his features and hissing in pain and rage.
Pig Knot charged but was nearly taken off his feet by a solid shadow and punched twice before being whirled about and slammed against the opposite wall of the alley. A hand gripped the Sunjan’s shoulder, but he twisted under it and smashed a crotch. The owner collapsed with the barest urf. Pig Knot straightened and something else came at him. The night erupted with the brazen smack of flesh on flesh as he blocked three quick punches before stepping outside the man’s swing and driving his fist over a thick shoulder. Hard knuckles cracked off a chin, toppling the shadow.
Fighting to draw air into his lungs, Pig Knot backed up until lantern light found him. Something rasped against the cut stones of the alley, and a pair of arms lashed around Pig Knot’s legs, bringing him down. A man crawled over him, hammering fists into the Sunjan’s body and drawing grunts of pain. The attacker pinned Pig’s Knot’s arm under a knee and mashed an elbow down across the Sunjan’s skull. Then again. Then a furious pummelling of elbows erupted from the man on top, every blow as hard as the stone beneath Pig Knot’s back. Skin swelled and split. Blood spurted. His head bounced off the stone.
Wheezing, Pig Knot’s open palm flashed up and crunched into his foe’s jaw, lifting him up with enough force to make his spine bend. Pig Knot freed his trapped arm and grabbed his attacker’s chin. He held him at arm’s length a second before unleashing punishing strikes into a purpling face, releasing the unconscious man on the final blow. Pig Knot rolled the boneless figure off and used a wall to force himself to his feet. Something barrelled through the darkness, and he twisted out of the way, allowing the wall to flatten a face. Pig Knot kicked the stunned man in the gut twice, whipping his boot up from the road and into a buckled midsection. The smashed lout collapsed outside the circle of lantern light.
Panting, Pig Knot whirled to the left then the right, misstepped, and caught himself against a wall. In between gasps, he listened. Laughter, distant and taunting. Moans at his feet. Something hissing as if a throat had been cut.
Pig Knot put a hand to his face and felt the ugly blooms of swelling. Blood slathered his hand.
Then a light shone his way.
An old man stood in a doorway, holding a lantern aloft and blinking at the fright Pig Knot knew he’d become. The old stranger shivered, beard twitching in horror, his evening robes dark and kept closed with a rope belt at his waist. Heads poked around his hips. Pale, fat faces.
Children.
“Close the door,” Pig Knot rasped.
Finding his courage, the grandfather hurriedly backed in, pressing a hand into the faces of his young ones so that they wouldn’t see the things in the alley. A moment later, the door shut, and Pig Knot was once again swallowed by the dark.
He staggered across the men on the road. A hand clutched at his ankle. Pig Knot twisted around and stomped on the joint before punishing the owner with several kicks to the body. He stepped away from the now-rubbery grip. Someone moaned, and Pig Knot was only half sure it wasn’t him. He found Halm’s sack and straightened up, frame heaving, and painfully hung the thing over a shoulder. Standing amongst bodies writhing as if they’d been gutted, Pig Knot glared.
He turned this way and that, waiting for one of them to rise and stop him.
They did not.
He tongue-checked all of his teeth as he staggered from the alley, tasting blood. He spat. With the sack over his shoulder, Pig Knot walked away very slowly, unsteadily at times…
Back towards the Pit.
Somewhere during that walk, shadows surrounded him, called to him as if they were standing on some faraway shore. He heard them but didn’t answer.
And when his knees buckled and he collapsed to the road, they rushed in.
26
Light blazed through his personal darkness so strongly that when Pig Knot opened his eyes, he first thought he was dead. As it turned out, he wasn’t. He was on his back with his face pointed towards an open window. He turned away from the light, grimacing at the tightness in his neck, and gazed up at the familiar sight of bare timbers comprising the ceiling.
With a groan, he touched his head. Stitches. More stitches. His fingers felt more harsh seams amongst the knobs of his face. By the hair of Saimon’s black crack, he was thankful he was unconscious when those went in. He pulled himself into a sitting position and blinked at the cot he lay upon. Three other cots filled the room. Three open windows.
“Bindon?” he whispered. There was no doubt he was back at the healer’s house, but he was puzzled as to how he’d gotten there. Just at the foot of the cot was the cloth sack holding Halm’s possessions, but he had no recollection of what had happened.
“Bindon?” he asked, louder this time and directing it at the open stairway.
A metallic clunk came from below, heavy and ominous-sounding and frightful enough to startle Pig Knot. It hit the bottom step, paused as if gathering strength, and then proceeded upwards, becoming louder, closer. Wood squealed under a tremendous weight. The approaching noise drew Pig Knot’s gaze to the stairs, and he grew increasingly anxious. He noted the surgical tools on the table next to the window. Several sharp-looking knives and even a hand axe lay there.
The footsteps became louder. The wood yelped.
Pig Knot again considered the table and the assembled cutting instruments.
Then a helm rose in the stairwell—the back of one—and even as Pig Knot watched, the figure paused upon hitting the landing before slowly turning around to address the next flight of stairs. A full visor covered the helmet, which was Sunjan in design. Pig Knot scowled. It was military. Worse, it was the helm of a Sujin. The Skarrs were the lighter infantry, tasked with defending the city and, to some extent, policing the streets along with the constables, but the Sujins were not. They were the frontline assault troops of Sunja, the heavy foot, comprised of men from every walk of life, even killers and criminals who, if one believed the stories, were once imprisoned and given the choice to join or perish within their cells. Most Sujins served along the front, deployed in strength and warring with invading Nordun, whose own forces seemed to have no end.
And here was one, walking up the stairs towards him.
Like a nightmare of metal, flesh, and bone, the soldier grew with each step he took. The lowered visor hid the man’s features, allowing only the black pits of his e
yes to glint in the light. A heavy chainmail shirt with iron plates lashed to his frame gleamed, and the pommel of the Sujin shortsword seeped into view. Daggers in scabbards lined the soldier’s waist like a short fence.
Pig Knot looked at the knives on the table and knew nothing there could penetrate this thing coming up the steps.
And the hellion still grew with each step, matching the rising unease in Pig Knot’s breast.
Another figure came up the steps behind this slow-moving mountain, but the Sujin didn’t allow him to dwell on whoever it was. When the solider reached the top step, the crest of his helm bumped into a beam Pig Knot had believed out of reach. Perhaps it still was, to him. Not to the monster now occupying the upstairs room with him. Pig Knot took a breath and didn’t take his eyes off the warrior. If he really needed it, the window would be a last attempt at escape. That thought made him uncomfortable, for all manner of bad things might happen on the day a pig flies.
The Sujin stepped away from the steps, stooping over slightly to allow the second man to come into the room. Pig Knot recognized him but couldn’t recall the name. He was perhaps in his early forties or late thirties, dark of complexion, as if he’d fallen asleep in a forge when he was a child. Flecks of harsh grey colored his temples, and lines were scratched out beneath his eyes—evil-looking eyes as sharp as the edge of a blade and every bit as cold. He wore grey trousers, rough-spun cloth, and a blue shirt that hung off a muscular frame. Like the Sujin, he wore a sword at his waist.
“We meet again.” The man smiled thinly.
“Seems so,” Pig Knot agreed, wary of this stranger and still not certain about the massive Sujin in the room. “He a friend?”
“Yes. You can say that.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Toffer. And you’re Pig Knot. Interesting name.”
“Oh, I’m interesting, all right.”
Toffer moved to one of the beds, deemed it to be worthy, and sat down. He folded his hands and stared hard at the Sunjan.
“You got into another fight last night, the second one in almost as many nights.”
131 Days [Book 1] Page 35