The beast was crouched when he returned. Even crouched, the creature was of a formidable size. As he walked through the vomitorium Nalmet glanced at the two workers provided by Bertold. Neither seemed of astounding grace nor intellect. Worse, Nalmet could not personally attest to their loyalties. They had their advantages, however, namely in that they were expendable as far as he was concerned. His own men were far more valuable.
Together, they lifted the bolts holding the wooden doors in place and used long wooden hooks to pull the doors apart. The beast, already watching the doors from the center, crouched lower. Nalmet sat, notebook and pen in hand.
A lion came into vision as it walked toward the center, away from the wall that had obscured it. Lions were fierce creatures, and well larger than man. As it approached the beast in the middle it gave a roar, the sound reverberating throughout the colosseum. It was obvious who the victor would be.
The beast was the first to strike, lashing out with a grabbing hand. It seized hold of the lion by its front leg, and in one quick motion the lion was airborne. In another it lay upon the dirt, chest cavity caved and broken, heart stopped, body lifeless. The Khor had won, and wasted no time in feeding upon the animal carcass. Nalmet thanked the Almighty for the distance between them, saving himself from the smell of blood.
He scribbled the results in his notes, just as he’d done during the previous tests. Lion, bear, wolves, elk, it mattered not to the beast. None could match its size, its strength. The beast stood bipedal at two and a half meters and weighed over a hundred-eighty kilograms. It could toss man and animal alike, or otherwise rip them apart if it was so inclined.
Even its intelligence was remarkable, having killed several eagles and other birds by throwing stones. And its diet. Nalmet cursed whatever dark machinations were responsible for its hunger.
“I’m done for today,” he called out. The two servants bowed to him, Nalmet returning their gesture with a casual raised-hand salute. He turned from them and began to exit the colosseum, notebook tucked neatly under his arm, hidden behind his long robes.
The walls of the stone corridor were smooth to the touch, well maintained as all aspects of the colosseum were. While its proprietor was a great many things that Nalmet would not dare speak outside of good company, he was also a fastidious man, one who abhorred carelessness. Traits that forced Nalmet to put up with him.
Standing before a door he thought best built for children, he gave three knocks in quick succession. “Come in.” Opening the door, Nalmet did the best he could to crouch through the entrance of Bertold’s office.
“Need your door be so short,” he quipped. The room itself was plenty tall, as was the corridor, leaving the door alone as an obstacle for the ever tall Nalmet.
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“Doesn’t it just humble ya?” the man, Betrold, said with a sneering smile. The man was was on the shorter side, but not to such an extreme extent as Nalmet was tall, perhaps only a few centimeters shorter than average.
“If that’s the word you’d like to use. About the Khor,” he began.
“It’s an abomination. If I wasn’t bein’ paid what I am to house the damned thing I’d try to kill it or make a spectacle of it.”
“While that’s all well and good, I would like to discuss keeping it alive and, more importantly, I would like your help training it.”
“Fucking Artifers,” he spat. “The beast will be the end of us if we aren’t careful.”
“Precisely. That is why I’d like to test its full capabilities.” Bertold raised a single eyebrow, a half-smirk slowly growing on his face as contemplated the proposal.
“What’d ya have in mind?”
“What we need now is something bigger. Stronger, more fierce.” The half-smirk became a grin, Bertold’s eyes flashing gold from the afternoon light as he adjusted himself in his chair. Nalmet thought the color fitting, considering where the conversation would soon be turning into.
“I’ll do it if we show it off.” Nalmet shook his head. At least the greedy bastard was up-front about it.
“A large audience could hav-” he stopped as Bertold held up a hand.
“I know, I know. I don’t mean for anything big. I have some special customers who I bet’d like to see the beast, and they’d be willing to pay. We could split the cash, save a little on the side for equipment and feed. Almighty knows the beast’ll eat a soldier’s salary in months time.”
The deal was good, as was to be expected. Bertold loved money more than most loved their mothers. Still. “What kind of creatures do we have on offer?”
“On hand I have a sersene and a few madrag.”
Nalmet shook his head. “Bigger. Maybe a pink sessel?”
This time it was Bertold who shook his head. “Too costly. I can’t afford the expense unless the sponsors decide to open their wallets a bit wider.”
“What of a thorg?” Bertold’s eyebrows raised. He put both hands flat on his desk as he leaned in, his voice a whisper, as if he could no longer trust the walls themselves.
“I’m afraid that that is illegal, my dear Beastmaster.” Bertold gave a quite unsubtle wink.
“Ah, is that so? I must have forgotten” Nalmet said with a shrug. He hadn’t, of course, and Bertold’s reaction gave him pause. Their entire dealings had technically been illegal.
Bertold leaned back, eyes shifting across the room, looking for assailants and eavesdroppers that weren’t there. When his eyes settled on Nalmet once again, he narrowed them, face stern. “I’m afraid I’m beginning to feel sick.”
“That’s quite sudden,” Nalmet said. He understood what was meant. “But I understand. Ah, before I go, I’d like a few weapons, if you can spare them.”
“Done,” Bertold replied, a hand shooing him away. “Go to the armory. An quickly, I’m afraid my illness may be quite violent.”
Nalmet stood and bowed, and as he left the room he stopped for a moment as he closed the door behind him. He was alone in the corridor, and there was no one to be seen in either direction. At one time he had thought the walls solid stone. A thought he would presume no longer. He walked away from the door, heading to his own quarters, ever conscious of his pace. The walls were listening, it seemed, and he would give them nothing.