While his back was turned on the dying man, Bladeborn looked to the Knight of the Endless Flame in the place of honor. If the Knight signaled the fight was over and gave thumb up, Bladeborn would not have to kill Hercun. Bladeborn saw the Knight sitting there as if he was considering an indication. Suddenly, the Knight sat up in his chair, startled.
Bladeborn instinctively turned around to once more face his opponent. The Howler, despite his wounds, had rested just long enough to muster a final attack and was leaping forward. With a desperate, fluid motion, Hercun snatched up the short sword, and attempted to put the tip through Bladeborn’s throat.
Bladeborn had never suspected the Howler’s stamina could return so quickly or so fully. He tried to dodge the length of steel as the Howler lunged. It nicked his ear and cut into Bladeborn’s sweat-soaked hair, passing within two inches of Bladeborn’s windpipe. Hercun’s momentum carried him onward, where he tripped over Bladeborn’s carefully-placed foot. As Hercun the Howler fell face down, Bladeborn jumped on the bigger man’s back and put him in a headlock. Bladeborn gripped the larger man so his arms were in the air above his head and Bladeborn’s knees were pressing down against Hercun’s spine. With the full weight of Bladeborn on Hercun’s back, it looked like the end.
Bladeborn was able to keep pressure on Hercun’s throat. Hercun had dropped the shortsword when he fell. Yet he still did not surrender. Arms flailing about desperately, Hercun twisted and gagged in frustration.
“Give up,” Bladeborn whispered to the man. “Give up.”
Still, Hercun struggled, first trying to get his fingers inside Bladeborn’s mouth to drag him off, and then trying to use his thumbs to gouge Bladeborn’s eyes out. Not daring to release his opponent, Bladeborn held still and closed his eyes tightly until it was over.
“Give, Hercun,” Bladeborn repeated.
In the end Hercun could not get leverage enough to gouge Bladeborn in time. After a minute and a half, Bladeborn released Hercun’s head, which thumped onto the ground like an overripe melon… The man was dead.
The crowd roared thunderously and sprang to their feet in approval. They chanted their new hero’s name: “Blade-BORN! Blade-BORN!”
Bladeborn realized that for those who had come to see someone die, the spectacle had been thrilling. However, his impression of the fight was different. Bladeborn knew he did as he was instructed and had given them a show they would never forget—but it was murder, nonetheless.
Rather than exhilaration, Bladeborn could only think of the feeling he had inside when he killed Hercun. It was a mixture of pronounced sadness and stomach sickness.
Bladeborn swore to himself he would never be a gladiator no matter how bad his life became. Killing a man may be a necessity someday—but doing it simply to please a crowd was vulgar. Incidentally, Bladeborn saluted the Knight of the Endless Flame’s seat—but the Noble had already left the stadium.
Returning to the ready room, Angres was one of the few who read the look on Bladeborn’s face. The aged, one-armed warrior saw anger in Bladeborn’s eyes. Clapping Bladeborn on his shoulders, Angres shouted, “Death by eleven cuts! One for each man Hercun has killed…and a final strangulation! I give you Bladeborn, new Champion of the Arena of Blood!”
The other gladiators told Bladeborn it was an “…unbelievable victory…”
But Angres whispered in Bladeborn’s ear, “I won’t make you do that again.”
“I have no taste for killing to please others, Angres,” Bladeborn responded.
Hardly missing a beat, Angres said, “Lad, there are other ways we can make a living… Cheer up! Don’t keep that foul, youthful gloom! No one visits a friend who lives in a dark house!”
Surrounded by every disgruntled gladiator that had ever disagreed with Merkee or the Battlemaster, Bladeborn and Angres went to the weapons cage to settle the bet. There, Merkee watched as the Battlemaster gave Angres a heavy bag of 750 coin.
“Who’s laughing now, Merkee?” Angres gloated.
“You did it, Angres,” Merkee admitted. “You took that emaciated, scruffy boy and whipped him into shape in four months. I remember when you introduced me to him. I thought you were a fool to make such a bet. You have earned your gold… This time… But don’t expect to be so lucky again…”
The weeks following the victory provided many perks for Bladeborn and Angres, and they took advantage of them while they lasted. After they paid their debt to the loan operator, a lot of coin was left over for good times. Plus, several invites came from the mid-levels of the city to attend feasts and recount the defeat of Hercun. Angres liked this part especially… But these festivals made Bladeborn feel uncomfortable. Rich men would lean in close to Bladeborn and talk to him as though he was a “…very good friend.” Their cloying meant little to him.
“Who are these people, Angres?” Bladeborn whispered to the old gladiator one night.
Angres whispered back, “We aren’t here to think, Bladeborn,” and then Angres shouted, “More wine!”
Bladeborn liked certain aspects of status, such as the access to further training and manuals written about war. But soon after defeating Hercun, a message came from Merkee: Bladeborn was being forced to return the practice weapons to the Battlemaster… Merkee’s message said if they weren’t going to fight there was no reason for them to have the items.
Although he never planned to murder again for another’s pleasure, he wished to know the ways of a warrior even better. He tried to get more training from Angres, but the man had lost his focus. The friends, women, and drink were uninteresting to Bladeborn, and he indulged only the ways expected of him. Angres, however, lived for such things.
With some of the money they won, Bladeborn bought a small ceramic knife from a fence on level five. Angres didn’t like it, “You’re riskin’ my other hand when you break the law, Bladeborn. If they suspect me at all they could make an example of me.”
“Won’t your reputation keep them from hurting you any further, Angres?” Bladeborn asked. “Haven’t they done enough?”
“I just don’t want to give them the chance…” Angres admitted. It seemed the law was the only thing Angres was afraid of.
Angres was not only a once-great warrior but also an all-time great carouser. If he couldn’t get it as a gift he could get by using the con, and he seldom paid for his wine. One night, after many drinks, Angres told Bladeborn that he was banned from the arena for defying Merkee, long ago. But Angres claimed he was “…one of the best…” He had started in death matches but eventually he worked his way up to wrestling all comers for private parties on the Noble levels of the City. But now his time had gone by.
“I’m gettin’ old, Bladeborn,” Angres said. “I ache everywhere.”
One day they were walking past a temple and Angres said, “Let’s go in here.” They prayed at a small shrine to Saint Morth, and then they put some of their last coin in the box.
Turning to Bladeborn, Angres said, “Changeling, I’m gonna show you the place where the ritual where Agatha and I first saw you was held!"
“You mean when my mother and father died?” Bladeborn asked. “I really don’t need to see it, Angres.”
“I think you do, Bladeborn. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you a long time—the real stuff. So, listen up, got it?”
They went down to the old section of town that had been Agatha’s headquarters long before. The Hazords had set fire to it not long after Agatha died, but recently a new, exclusive gambling den had moved in.
“Same location, different folks, same good times…” Angres said.
Bladeborn was becoming curious about what “secret” Angres was going to reveal to him. But Angres was in no hurry, and he said, “I will have to get a few drinks in me before I can show you the truth about your mother, and why Agatha and I always cared for you so much…”
Angres began to scam a woman to let them in the private gaming hall so they could get a few drinks before he showed Bladeborn the �
��secret’ location. One drink led to yet another, and Bladeborn dozed off in a chair while Angres caroused.
Late that night, Bladeborn heard a scream from a woman bringing Angres wine. Fearing for Angres, Bladeborn pulled out his ceramic knife and dashed into the woman’s room.
At the age of sixty Angres was dead, apparently of too much drink.
It fell to Bladeborn to tell Merkee of Angres’ sudden death. Surprisingly, the gladiator ring-master was willing to pay for a lavish funeral.
“I’ll finance his entombment. He made me a lot of money back in the day,” Merkee said, much to Bladeborn’s surprise. “He was truly one of the greats.”
Along with a large number of others, Bladeborn attended the entombment rites for the mortal remains of Angres. A procession in memorial for Angres passed through the undercity, and most people stopped what they were doing for a moment of silent homage or awestruck commentary.
As they passed by, Bladeborn could hear a few people say “Look, there is Bladeborn, Angres’ disciple!”
Another man said, “Do you know who that is behind the coffin? It is Ten-to-one Bladeborn, the inheritor of Angres’ legacy!”
Far below the City, the resting place selected for Angres was one of high honor in the gladiator’s section.
Merkee the Arranger delivered the eulogy for the man he called “…a fallen titan…” Bladeborn stood to his right in reverence.
After the entombment, Merkee, surrounded by the current crop of respected gladiators, approached Bladeborn with an offer. “The arena is always open to you, my friend. “
One of the gladiators said, “I can hardly wait to test my strength against you, Bladeborn! Your victory over Hercun was most glorious!”
“Aye!” another gladiator affirmed. “Hurcun’s defeat was unforgettable. But if I fought Bladeborn, I would be the dominant one! He could not stand against me!”
Merkee said to Bladeborn, “Did Angres impart his winning secrets to you, bestowing his greatest knowledge? Let’s find out! Come see me later, ehy?”
“No, Merkee,” Bladeborn said steadily. “I am not a gladiator. I have no stomach for killing to please others.”
Merkee, who moments before had been like Bladeborn’s best friend, now turned on him, outraged. Shaking his fist in Bladeborn’s face, Merkee shouted, “Then do it for a full belly…Or rot. A man such as you will never find honest work. You will see, and then you will come crawling back to me!”
Merkee stormed off without a further word. His men scowled at Bladeborn, then trailed away after their master.
Chapter 9: Bladeborn the Brute
Without money or an easy way to get it, Bladeborn found himself in a desperate situation. Getting into a guild at his age would have been very difficult, and he had no real connections other than Merkee.
Bladeborn began job hunting, and on one stop spoke with a man from a lower-city moving company that hauled bricks for City repairs.
The foreman sniffed at Bladeborn and said, “You are too much trouble for our crew, muscle-head. Go complain to Merkee the Arranger about it if you don’t like it…”
“What does Merkee have to do with it?” Bladeborn asked.
“I am saying nothing,” the foreman replied.
Bladeborn met with similar reactions from bosses throughout the undercity. After being turned down for the sixth time, a beggar said to Bladeborn, “Come over here, young man…”
“What do you want?” Bladeborn replied to the beggar. “I have little time and less money for you.”
“You have been askin’ bosses all over town for a job,” the beggar said. “But word is you are Merkee’s man… No one goes against him, not even the Hazords or the Firetongues.”
“You’re saying no one will hire me?”
“Figure it out for yourself, Ten-to-one Bladeborn,” the beggar said. “You killed Merkee’s number one champion then think you can walk away? You’re lucky an assassin’s knife hasn’t found you. How long do you think you’ll last?”
“Longer than you think, Beggar,” Bladeborn replied.
“You’ll be at Merkee’s doorstep soon, Ten-to-One. In Fortress City, the streets are square.”
Bladeborn set his mind to the task of getting food. He still had some of the "con" in him, having learned it years earlier from Onar, Angres, and the less-honest characters he had met after his arena victory.
He went to the Way of Tunnels on the fortieth floor, where there were many bankers and landlords. He consciously avoided stealing from the poor—it was against his nature. But the overweight money men, always eager for quick coin, were great marks.
He found that the knowledge he had gained in the dungeon with his old friend, Onar, could be used in small scams on the moneychangers. It was a dangerous course but there was no one who would offer him a job except Merkee, a man he refused to work for.
Approaching an unsuspecting moneychanger, Bladeborn said, “How’s business today, good sir?”
“Why, very good at this location, young sir,” the moneychanger replied.
“Say, I noticed you make your books with ‘circular’ eights and nines. Where did you study?” Bladeborn said, slipping his hand over some of the man’s coins, taking a few.
“Why, I studied under the great mathematician Zhrola, in the academic school of the fifty-seventh level. Have you been there?”
“No, I studied under the school of Svarkor on the seventy-second level,” Bladeborn lied, sniffing to feign a superior attitude. “Good day, sir. Oh, by the way, I'm a little short until my father comes through, tonight. May I take ten from you now for twenty tomorrow?”
“Why, certainly young sir,” the moneychanger said.
In this way, Bladeborn built up a few coins and began re-investing in cunning disguises so he could continue with his game.
Even though the City was of massive size and filled with many side-markets, the money men started to see through his con. Clothing changes helped for a while, but there was no way he could hide his large frame. Also, his fashion sent was off, which he didn’t realize, having never actually lived in the higher levels of the city.
Then one day a moneylender whom he had previously taken for a sizeable amount recognized him. A minor Wizard was with the moneylender at the time, which turned out to be bad luck for Bladeborn.
The money man exclaimed, “That’s the swindler I was telling you about this morning, Kazan! Ten-to-one Bladeborn!”
Bladeborn ran, and thought he had escaped clean, but the next day all his hair fell out. It would eventually grow back, but he knew he was lucky to have survived the curse he was stung with. Onar had told him of magical curses, meant to harm instead heal. It took a dark Wizard to cast such a spell, and there seemed to be many of them in Fortress City. He decided the moneychanger’s markets had become too dangerous.
Back in the lower levels of Old City, he began dealing out some punishment. Bladeborn started carrying a small brick club under his clothing, along with the ceramic knife in his belt, so he could steal from small groups of gang members working in the protection racket. Facing down several small-time thugs at once, Bladeborn would smash a head or two with his small club, grab the loot, and run. He often stole their ill-gotten gains right after they had forced the merchants to pay.
He was so swift and assured, a group of three thugs could not withstand an attack by him without receiving bloody injuries. Most of them didn’t see him coming and were left speechless holding their heads in pain, before they even realized who had “hit” them.
Bladeborn knew that most of the Constables and City Watch were on the larger gang’s payrolls or into their own extortion rackets. He took to bludgeoning a few of them also, leaving them with broken bones and no coin.
Eventually word got out that Bladeborn was robbing criminals and Guards alike. Despite changing his cloak, pants, and shirt often, all too frequently he was recognized and chased. Knowledge of the escape routes to safe territory was invaluable now.
*
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A voice in a dark alley told Bladeborn, “…Constable Bluelock’s men are ordered to apprehend you dead or alive. There is a reward of five-hundred coin on your head.”
“Five hundred coin? Is that it?” Bladeborn said, unafraid. The beggar came into the light. Bladeborn had seen the same beggar before…he was safe. “I have heard of this Constable Bluelock before.”
“He’s a real joker, Bladeborn,” the toothless old man said. “Clubbed me hard once for lookin’ at him wrong. He calls you, ‘Bladeborn the Brute.’”
“Interesting,” Bladeborn said, giving the man ten coin. “Thanks, old one.”
“Bladeborn!” the beggar exclaimed, “Ten coin for me? How can you afford it?”
“You just stay safe,” Bladeborn said. “Run to the four directions, and make sure no one has seen you.”
Bladeborn wanted no one to get hurt just for being his friend, and so he worked alone. He knew that if Bluelock had heard of him, the highly-regimented Shaft Police would have his name also. Only Shaft Police had full license to carry metal weapons in the lower City floors, unless it was in relation to gladiator contests.
As he expected, the Magicians of the Shaft Police began cursing Bladeborn the Brute with warping spells, causing outbreaks of sores on his skin. His hair was growing back, but he had new, unusual health concerns. He had to get medicine for the sores, so he dashed into an alchemist’s shop and scanned the shelves, quickly looking for healing salves.
“What are you doing behind the counter?” the Alchemist demanded of Bladeborn.
Bladeborn spotted a large jar of healing salve and grabbed it, putting it in his pouch.
“Hey! You’ve got to pay for that!” the alchemist exclaimed. “Help! I’m being robbed!”
Like a darting fish, Bladeborn left the shop, blending into the crowd. He had made another clean escape, and once back in his hiding place, he applied the salve to his worst lesions, waiting a few days for them to heal.
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