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Chapter 29: Survival
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“It has been brought to my attention that some of you deem your quarters unsatisfactory. In case you had forgotten, this is the Guardian Assessment, Training, and Evaluation program. Your comfort is not a priority. Your happiness is not a priority. You will conduct grueling training. You will be uncomfortable. If you feel that you’ve made a mistake by coming here, then place your Reikar in the graveyard and leave. We don’t need you. You’re not special. That is all; carry on.”
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“WELCOME TO ZERO FLOOR! Also known as the Test Floor. I am Tobi, the test administrator. Thank you for relinquishing your soul to the Venerable Goddess Sakyubi; the first test will begin momentarily.”
The pronouncement reverberated through the air, coming from an unseen source high above them. Everyone froze, all eyes turning upwards, searching for the source of the voice.
Relinquishing my soul? First test? She’d never even known there was such a thing as a testing floor until a few minutes before, and now she was being threatened by an invisible voice in the not-sky. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t faced worse already. She would just have to find a way to survive.
Climb the Tower. Find my Kindred. Repay your debt. The words tugged at something deep inside her.
Arwen turned her attention to her immediate surroundings, crouching, preparing for whatever was about to happen next, searching for a weapon. There wasn’t one; there was absolutely nothing besides herself and the other participants. At least her hand had stopped bleeding, but that was all that could be said for her current predicament. Alarmingly, a fair number of those surrounding her were armed—presumably these had come to the tower anticipating immediate entry into a lower-level tournament and had brought their weapons. Those started eyeing each other cautiously, then the voice intruded again.
“THE FIRST TEST! Each of you has a key.” At this, the wooden token under her shift began to heat, and she felt it warm against her skin. “Collect two more within twenty minutes. At the end of the time limit, those without three keys in their possession will immediately perish. Your time starts…” Arwen snapped her head around frantically, processing even as the voice—Tobi—spoke. Others were beginning to understand. Fathers and mothers stared at each other, then their children, tears pouring down their horror-struck faces.
A man nearby began slashing with a side sword, cutting down two others, unarmed, that’d tried to preemptively rush him. The space erupted with screams, cries, wails, and shouts; a cacophony of hysterical madness exploded around her, and Arwen frantically spun her head around, trying not to get killed from behind.
The voice concluded its declaration in a voice of maniacal glee.
“NOW!”
Arwen had no time to worry over the sadistic administrator’s apparent joy at their slaughter; a woman, dressed in a long drab beige commoner’s shirt, her sandy blonde hair bouncing and tumbling as she ran, charged at her with a long breadknife in grasped white-knuckled in both hands. Her face was dirty, the dust from many days of exposure coating her tan skin, marring what otherwise would’ve been a plain yet reserved beauty. Her eyes were orbs of pleading, panicked terror.
Arwen shouted something, intending it to dissuade the crazed woman, but it came out choked and raspy. She scrambled backwards, nearly tripping over her own feet as she tried to move away from her assailant.
“I’m sorry, I have to—just die!”
The woman’s voice caught, unable to express the fear that overwhelmed her and urged her to act, and she screamed as she lunged at the flailing girl. Arwen leapt backwards, dodging the clumsy thrust, and tried to grab onto the woman. Arwen snatched at her hair as she recovered from the missed attack, but not before the woman spun and sliced Arwen across the arm.
“Aahh—” Arwen yelped at the pain, the lancing fire of the cut dancing through her upper arm from the cut just above her elbow, and desperately blinked back the tears that leapt to her eyes. The woman was wide open from the swing, and Arwen attacked, seizing the chance. She grabbed the wrist of the woman’s outstretched arm with her left hand, stopping her from being able to swing the knife, and slammed her right elbow into the woman’s face.
Her elbow exploded in pain, and she felt something give way underneath her blow. Blood from her cut sprayed onto the woman’s face, and blood from the woman’s nose sprayed onto Arwen. Her assailant reeled, the knife falling out of her hand, and she fell to the floor with Arwen atop her. Arwen gritted her teeth against the pain, making a whining, moaning noise in her throat as she grabbed at the woman’s slender neck with her left hand and began to pound her head with the fist of her right. The woman’s arms flailed, reaching for the knife; her legs kicked, but she struggled in vain under the assault, grunting and screaming and spitting as Arwen landed blow after blow. Her face had become a bloody mess, her screams gurgles, and her flailing retaliation weak spasms.
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Panting, her hand stained with blood and shaking from the repeated punches, Arwen began to stand. She cocked her head at a yell and was shoved sideways off of the woman’s body; a man, face stricken and wielding the fallen breadknife, was charging towards her. In a moment of icy realization, she recognized him as one of the two that were standing in front of her in line—the woman she’d just pummeled was his wife. Behind him, a child, a young boy no older than seven or eight, stood cowering, wailing loudly, staring at his mother’s ravaged corpse.
Shock, like a bucket of ice-cold water dumped over her head, chilled her, nearly freezing her in place, sprawled on her back on the floor, staring at the gruesome image before her. What did I just do? Why did— Why did I— Her mind raced, her heart pounded in her head as the man came closer, now only feet away.
Thoughts raced through her head, helpless, dying thoughts, her last defiance against a cruel, uncaring world. Damn them—Damn Gillat, Damn the tower, fuck them all— The cold evaporated, melted and set afire by an indignant rage that boiled up within her like a volcano, threatening to explode. Climb the Tower. Find my Kindred. Repay your debt.
Her mind stilled; the rage didn’t disappear, but tempered, became focused, concentrate; she could think clearly now.
She got to an elbow, tucked a knee under her, keeping her eyes on the oncoming man, trying to stand up, outstretched her arm.
A great, shimmering sword fell in a diagonal arc, cleaving the boy from shoulder to hip, his wailing cut off abruptly. The sword hit the ground with a sharp thud, then was pulled back. The boy’s torso, his face pale and stock-still, slid to the floor as his legs collapsed underneath him.
Arwen shuddered, bile leaping to her throat, her body viscerally rebelling against the sight, her eyes locked on the boy’s bisected corpse. His father stopped in place, then whipped around to stare at desecrated remains of his family. He dropped to his knees, the bread knife falling out of his hand, and his wooden token falling out of his pocket. Arwen’s eyes shot between the figure behind the boy—an off-worlder, tall, slender, his face slightly too angular, his eyes utterly inhuman—and the man in front of her. Acting quickly, she jumped forwards, snatched the knife and the token, tucked it into her shift next to her own, and fled.
Climb the Tower. Find my Kindred. Repay your debt.
The mantra repeated in her head, in her core, in her soul; deep and resonating it was more a reverberating force that drove her to action than words she could interpret, and it spurred her onwards. She dodged around thrashing bodies, screaming bodies, clawing bodies. She ducked under grasping arms, leapt over sprawling forms, shoved through huddling figures. She had no idea how much time had passed: one minute? Ten? The teeming, raving crowd began to thin out, and ahead she saw… emptiness. The ragged edge of horde; the closest thing to safety she could find. There was no one directly in front of her—she dashed forwards, a man’s hand clutching at her sleeve—his fingers tore free, she stumbled, regained her footing—she tripped on a corpse, a leg, severed, blood splashing on her bare feet as she kicked through the puddle—thirty feet now, twenty—the emptiness was right there, a few more steps and she’d be free, and she could relax, could watch the others—five feet—a man a short distance in front and to the side, curled in a ball, rocking back and forth stared up at her, stunned. She burst out of the crowd—her head rang, and she stumbled backwards, fell on her ass, rolled onto her side. The world swam around her, the knife scattered across the floor. Her vision was a hazy white mess dotted with black stars, and she couldn’t think straight. Had she run into something?
The man clawed at his face, his eyes wide, hysteric laughter pouring from his open mouth. He rocked faster, his laughter an unending torrent of unhinged madness. Was he laughing at her?
“WALL! WALL!” His laughter continued, and she rolled onto her knees, searching for the knife. Wall? A wall.
She patted the floor around her dumbly, moving slowly, feeling as if she might fall over at any moment. The screaming, laughing, wailing, shouting; the sound of metal on metal, metal on bone, tearing flesh—her head pounded.
“KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME!”
The man was weeping now, his hands pressed against his ears, palms flat, head banging backwards repeatedly over and over against the invisible wall.
She found the knife, clutched it tight, stood up falteringly, blinked, the world swam, a sea of blue, black, and blood. A man ambled towards her, a round buckler shield on his forearm and a short spear in his other hand, his face covered in a bulbous helmet and leather armor covering portions of his chest, shoulders, and waist, leaving much skin exposed. He sauntered forwards, his steps easy and measured, his arms at his sides.
She watched him, backing up towards the wall and the raving man, still smashing his head against the wall, slower now, his crying reduced to halting sobs.
“ONE MINUTE REMAINING!” the voice boomed.
She only had two tokens.
She glanced behind her, moving towards the man on the floor; he sat propped up, his back against the wall, in a pool of his own blood and something else, a thicker, brownish yellow liquid. She snapped her eyes to the front. The man strolled forwards, faster now, coming at a jog, his spear held up in his hand. As she watched, he battered away a club with his shield mid-stride, not slowing down at all.
Arwen turned, sprinted for the madman a few feet away, swung the breadknife down at his neck as he looked up at her, his eyes vacant, open but unseeing. The blade struck, cut deep into the side of his throat, severed an artery. Blood sprayed briefly, then receded to a quick, powerful, pulsating flow. His head lolled forwards, his arms fell limp, his hands lie open, and she snatched his key, stained red, from where it fell in the pool of his blood.
The spearman was paces from her, running full tilt, shield and spear raised before him, his front a bristling wall of sharp metal and wood, his eyes dark behind the impenetrable helm. She jumped over the madman’s body, looped her arm under his armpit, grabbed his bicep, pulled him over her, twisted as fast and as hard as she could. The man stabbed, too late, his spear catching the corpse’s body in the torso, getting stuck in the ribs. He released it, bounded forwards, hand on a shortsword at his belt, Arwen in front of him. She dropped the corpse and started running, trying to escape before he could draw the weapon at his belt.
The man slammed her with the shield on his left arm, sending her body flying a foot backwards into the invisible wall, knocking the breath out of her. He drew his shortsword in his right hand, pulling it backwards in preparation to deliver a finishing blow.
“TIME!!!” The word rang through the air, drawn out and hanging.
Suddenly, he dropped the sword and cried out, holding his hand out before him in shock. It was the first sound she’d heard from the man, and it was one of incredulity quickly overridden by agony. His wrist shone a bright red, the mark branded onto his skin glowing brightly like the molten metal of a forge. He screamed, his voice cracking as the mark of the tower shined brighter, hotter. Lines expanded from the brand, extending down his arm in tendrils of bright, glowing, raised red skin. They spread rapidly over his shoulder, chest, and neck, leaping across his skin, branching like lightening. In a matter of seconds, his entire body was covered in jagged, crisscrossing, burning lines. His scream ascended to a bloodcurdling crescendo, then he exploded.