Green Fields (Book 10): Uprising:

by Lecter, Adrienne

  “Ladies and gents, welcome to tonight’s festivities!” his voice boomed over the speakers, making me guess he was using a wireless microphone. Considering how rough bordering on archaic the entire camp was, the luxury seemed even more emphasized. The crowd roared, briefly drowning out the first crack of thunder overhead. They couldn’t have timed it better had they staged it. If not for the unnerving feeling in my stomach I might have easily gotten caught up in the sentiment as well.

  The speaker grinned into the cheering masses, clearly having the time of his life as he basked in all that attention. He playfully tried to shush them, which just got them roaring louder. Taking a brief look around, I decided I was easily the most sober person—Red excluded, maybe—here, which said something. More thunder cracked overhead, making me wonder just how safe it was out here in the open. The ringmaster seemed to be thinking along the same lines as he addressed the crowd.

  “Because of the storm approaching, we will have to cut the entertainment part short...” Some boos rose, but mostly the crowd continued to cheer. “But that means double the trouble all at once!” His pause wasn’t just for effect but because now they got really loud.

  Leaning close to Richards so he could understand, I whisper-shouted, “I’m not sure I’m liking where this is going.”

  I got a surprisingly bright grin back from him that made me go back on my assessment of his sobriety. Apparently, getting punched in the face had helped my body clear out some of the shit that kept me loopy. Since he’d passed up that part, he seemed a step away from truly hammered. Damn, but we shouldn’t have gotten that last hit just before getting to the camp. Well, now it was too late for regrets.

  The ringmaster’s boasting pulled my attention back to him. “I have a very special treat for you tonight. I know you were all waiting for the rematch from last week, but we got in fresh blood!” More cheering, now with a decidedly hostile undertone. “You all know what that means?”

  With surprising accuracy, the crowd started chanting, “Blood! Blood!” in near-perfect unison. Some screamed, a lot whooped, and a few people down from us, a girl started clapping while jumping up and down.

  “Exactly—blood!” the ringmaster called out, his expression a maniacal smirk. “Because we didn’t want to deprive you of last week’s winner, Brock is back, our main contender for this week! Six weeks and counting, he remains undefeated so far. He’s getting the advantage, being allowed to wield a knife as he enters the arena!” Lots more cheering, if somewhat less so than before, and a few whistles followed. The ringmaster’s smirk deepened. “And he will need it, because after they clear out the rookies, he will be facing one of your all-time favorites! Yes, you guessed it—I’m bringing the Nameless Terror back!”

  If I’d thought the crowd had gone wild before, I got schooled as now the roar was deafening, enough to make me actually clap my hands over my ears. Our new friends were among those who seemed to lose it, screaming and clapping each other on the shoulders as if they’d just been told they’d won the lottery. When he realized Red and I weren’t cheering, the closest of them leaned over, needing a few seconds to stop laughing. “You’re in for a treat! He’s a real monster! They usually only let him out when they have overwhelming odds that need to be cleared up! This is awesome!”

  He didn’t wait for my reaction as just then, the ringmaster disappeared through the gate the truck has entered before, leaving the arena empty for a few moments. The music still blaring from the speakers swelled to a crescendo, and the whole crowd chanted along with the countdown that followed—counting down from five, which was about the maximum mental capacity for most.

  At the reverberating cries of “go!” several smaller gates spaced around the arena floor opened, spilling out people from three parts—two men on their own, and a group of three all together. It was obvious who the newcomers were, the huddle of three casting around frantically, ducked, clearly scared out of their wits. The guy with the knife had to be Brock—a well-muscled man in his late twenties, a little on the beefier side but the kind who’d sucker-punch you with unexpected speed and agility.

  And the last was Nate.

  My surprise was pretty limited, although I hated being right with a vengeance. He was still alive—which was great, of course—and looked to be moderately well, but leaned out to the point where his body was all cut muscles without much subcutaneous fat remaining. Might have looked appealing on an underwear model, less so if extra padding might have meant another month of survival with little or no food. All of that was on display because none of the men in the arena wore more than shorts, not even boots. Now it made at least some sense why they’d dumped full gear, including pants, jackets, protectors, and boots in the middle of the arena. Part of me could even admire the tactic for what it was—upping the stakes, and giving the viewers a much better look at most wounds that would be inflicted. But there was absolutely nothing about this display that I liked on any level. I was too far away to make out any details, but his skin was dirty with grime and dark smears that looked like dried blood, and there were bruises and half-healed wounds everywhere, either too fresh to have fully healed or his body no longer having the energy to do so in a timely fashion. At least he still had all of his limbs, and was moving with the fluid grace of a fully functioning predator.

  I glanced at Richards, trying to gauge his reaction, but his attention was on what was going on below.

  Brock, knife in a good grip in his right hand, had all of his attention on Nate as he stepped away from the gate, but took his time. Nate himself looked deceptively relaxed as he both glanced at Brock and the newbies, rolling his shoulders to limber up. The rookies were screaming and sobbing at each other, and then one of them made a mad dash for the gear in the middle of the arena, abandoning the others, who remained huddling right up to the now closed-again gate.

  When he realized Nate wasn’t going to make a move yet, Brock started forward, taking strong, ground-eating bounds toward the other guy trying to get to the middle. Their distance was identical, and the delay ended, making it even easier for Brock, who simply had to plunge his knife into the lower back of his bent-over victim, who’d been too scared and frantic to scramble for a weapon to care about his defenses. The knife went in straight to the hilt, roughly at the left kidney. The bent-over guy screamed—but not for long, as Brock pulled the knife back out, grabbed his screaming victim by the hair, and slashed his throat. Blood fountained everywhere, painting a dark semi-circle over the ground and some of the gear. The crowd went wild for several seconds flat. None of the contestants seemed to notice it, though, although the remaining two rookies looked even more scared, if that was possible. Brock briefly glanced up into the ranks, his face a mask set in stone. There was no satisfaction there for just having killed a man.

  The crowd shushed when they realized more was going on below. It was hard to pick out, but when I strained my ears, I managed to hear Nate shout—at the newbies. His voice was hoarse and gruff, but so typically his that my heart did some weird things in my chest. That was likely due to the drugs as well.

  “Help me take him out and I’ll let you live,” he told them, his attention still switching between them and Brock. Brock spared them a single glance before he stared back at Nate. I would have expected him to go for something from the pile, but he seemed happy to remain standing right there, guarding it like Cerberus the gates of Hades.

  It took them a few seconds, but then one of the two shouted back, “You’re just trying to trick us! We’re not going to make it easy for you!”

  Nate seemed less than impressed by that retort. “I don’t need deception to do that.” The crowd cheered at his statement. I didn’t miss the disgust that crossed his features, but it was gone after a second, like a bad memory, easily disbanded. I felt my stomach knot up at realizing why they were all cheering—because they were waiting for that kill, and they knew it was coming. Of course it was—Nate was a rather accomplished killer, and from what I could glean
of the setup here, he must have been thriving in such an environment—at the utter loss of his humanity. I had no idea how they’d gotten him to where he obviously was now because I didn’t think anyone could simply beat it out of him, but I was sure they had their ways. This clearly wasn’t anything new that they’d just started. This had the feel of a recurring event with lots of fans—an entire audience out for blood.

  A shotgun boomed across the arena, making me jump and reach for my gun. Then I realized it had been the ringmaster, freshly appeared up in the ranks, overlooking what was going on in the area. The chatty guy next to me was helpful again as he explained. “When they’re stalling too much, they get a one-minute warning. It usually helps.”

  So much for motivation—but I still had to ask, damn my morbid curiosity. “What happens if they keep stalling?”

  “They get shot, of course,” the guy offered, looking confused at me needing confirmation. “Not shot dead, just enough to wound them. Sooner or later, one of them grows tired of it and does something. Some use it like Russian roulette to hope it hits their opponents first and they can use it to their advantage, but you won’t have to worry about it tonight. They’re both seasoned players. They won’t risk injury as the outcome is inevitable, anyway.”

  Very comforting to hear that, but I didn’t say so out loud. Instead, I focused on the arena again. While we’d been talking, Nate had taken a few more steps forward, but not toward the gear in the middle but along the wall, in the direction of the newbies. He was just bending over—crouching, really, with his unprotected back to the arena walls—to pick up one of the many stones strewn across the arena. He kept eyeing Brock but mostly focused on the newbies, with the odd glance up into the ranks where the ringmaster was watching the proceedings. My guess was that he was biding his time but only until they forced his hand—literally.

  A line of armed guards stepped forward below the ringmaster, which seemed to have been the signal Nate had been waiting for. Halting, he pitched the rock at the closer of the two rookies, hitting him square in the temple. He staggered, almost folding in half but caught himself against the arena wall. The other bolted forward, not quite at Nate but certainly steering away from Brock. Nate reached for another rock, seeming to consider pelting the running guy, but instead let him through as he further advanced on his now disoriented victim. Another perfect hit in the exact same place, and the guy crumpled to the floor, not even trying to protect his head with his arms. Bloody foam appeared at his mouth as he puked up blood. Almost at the wall, Nate glanced at Brock and the one who’d gotten away to make sure both were at a safe distance before he picked up a larger rock, hefted it over his head, and then brought it down to smash the downed guy’s head in. That was quite fascinating to watch, with blood, brain matter, and gore spraying everywhere.

  Horrifying, I quickly corrected myself, still unable to tear my gaze away from the gruesome display.

  While I was sure the guy was dead as soon as the heavy rock smashed in his skull, Nate made a veritable spectacle out of it, to the beat of the crowd cheering him on. When he finally straightened, his head, arms, and upper torso were wet and shining, his eyes bright in the darkened, bloody mask of his face. He wiped one arm across his lower back, then used the somewhat less wet back of the hand to clear his face, but only so nothing would get into his eyes. The crowd watched with the same kind of sick fascination as did the runner, who’d stopped between the wall and the heap of gear, his attention torn between Brock and what Nate was up to.

  Done with cleanup—if one could call it that, which really was a stretch—Nate made a show of cracking his knuckles before he took a step toward the runner. “Last chance to change your mind,” he shouted. “Help me kill that asshole, and you might live to see another day.”

  The guy, frantic and scared, looked from Nate to Brock, who only had a shrug for him as he flipped his knife so that the blade was aligned with his arm rather than fingers. “They will only let one of us walk out of here, so your choice—do you really want to help your killer? And that you die is a given.”

  Nate didn’t deny it, shrugging when wide eyes flipped back to him. “Suit yourself if you want to go down like a weepy little kid,” he ground out, then turned to Brock, making an “after you,” gesture with his right hand. Brock gave a brief jerk of the head as he declined. Nate’s smirk was clearly one of derision, but it turned into something full of anticipation and darkness as he switched his attention back to the rookie. The crowd roared as he took a step forward, getting ready. Only that he wasn’t done yet, instead turning around, both hands going up as he indicated the people all around him. “How do you want him to die? Give me your best shot!”

  The cheering grew somewhat muted as suggestions started flying this way and that. The scared guy looked ready to piss his pants but darted toward the gear heap when he realized that Nate’s attention was still on the crowd. He picked up the first thing he could reach, all the while nervously watching if Brock would change his mind and make a move on him. He didn’t, only watching with amusement as the guy grabbed a hefty, long stick. I was tempted to turn to Red and ask him whether that counted as a tactical quarterstaff but decided against it; Richards was watching the proceedings with rapt attention, that in and of itself creeping me out. Then again, I sure hoped that the horror I felt wasn’t painted all over my face and body language. Drugs would also explain why the rookies had all acted so damn stupid, unable to make a good choice, or one that would keep them alive a little longer.

  “Beat him to death with his stick” and “break his back” seemed to be the two options most often screamed by the crowd from what I could tell. Nate eventually dropped his hands, the smirk still there but more turned inward now. At least that was as far as I could read his face across the distance. The way he strolled toward the guy with his stick, slowly yet deliberately, reminded me of a large cat, a leopard maybe. Although I was intellectually horrified by the entire spectacle, I couldn’t quite deny that my body found it… interesting. I would have loved to blame that on the drugs, or anything else, but it had been a while. Being so close yet still worlds apart created all kinds of frustration, and my way of dealing with that usually wasn’t to reason it out.

  As Nate advanced on him, the guy with the stick backed away, but there wasn’t very far he could go, unless he wanted to get knifed in the back like his friend. The fact that he now had a weapon while his opponent remained empty-handed seemed to give him some backbone—but he was still slow, almost comically so, to defend himself when Nate made his move, coming directly at him. The stick should have given him reach—or at the least something to defend himself with—but instead, it got turned against him when Nate grabbed it with his right and punched the guy in the face with his left, gaining leverage through the weapon. Too stunned to react, the guy wasn’t able to defend himself—but also didn’t let go—and two straight, easy jabs later he fell to the ground, only partly held up by the stick that he was still holding on to for dear life. Nate grabbed the stick with both hands and kicked him in the side of the head, wrenching the weapons out of his slack hands. He dropped it, then bent down, picked the guy up, and threw him, back-first, into the sturdy wall of the arena a few feet away, uttering a primal scream that the crowd ate up. I didn’t hear a crunch as the guy’s body hit, but it didn’t look good for him as he slid to the ground, lifeless. Kicking one end of the stick to make the other flip up, Nate easily caught it and advanced on the lifeless heap. Another kick to the shoulder had the guy flop onto his back. I realized I’d been wrong—he was still aware, letting out a scream, but he was unable to move. Nate pointedly looked at the stick in his hands, then down at the guy—and with a diabolical, twisted smirk rammed the end of it right through the guy’s left eye socket. The scream cut off, some twitching ensued, and then it was over—seconds after it had begun.

  Stepping away, Nate turned to the crowd, shaking the bloody stick—and then broke it over his knee, the sturdy wood splintering dramaticall
y. “Who do you think I am?” he called out and threw the two parts away. “I don’t need a flimsy weapon to win my fights!” Roars and cheers went up all around, chanting in places but it didn’t take, the people too engaged to coordinate and concentrate.

  Brock had watched the spectacle where he’d remained standing next to the bled-out body of the first victim, now no longer as relaxed as before. He watched Nate advance slowly, shifting his position a few times but not from nerves. The two men stared at each other, neither afraid but only Brock with a certain kind of apprehension in his gaze. Nate had turned full-on killer, no remorse visible. On the contrary, he kept his arms a few inches raised, moving his fingers up in turn with the ebb and swell of the crowd. All over, people started chanting again—“Blood! Blood!”—and now it took, like a terrible thrum of violence. I had no idea why he was egging them on, but it sure was working. They were eating it up. They were loving every second of it—and they knew that the real fun was only about to start.

  There was no great lead-up. There was no testing, or taunting, or goofing around. As soon as Nate stepped close enough, Brock sprang forward, moving lightning-fast, his knife-hand even faster. Nate wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it, evading rather than letting himself get sliced up by blocking to try to gain the opportunity for a punch, only to bleed out within the next minute. Brock was beefier—and in better physical condition—but Nate had a few inches on him both in height and in reach, and I knew he would bring them to bear soon. He gave Brock about a minute to tire himself out some, the knife getting nowhere near his skin. Both men were careful, neither underestimating the other, but it was only a matter of time until one of them would make a mistake.