Chapter 32

Welcome To The Killing Fields

The Storm Herald Invitational is considered a minor tournament. This refers to things like prize money, prestige, the rules, and the cost of attendance for the audience. It does not reflect the popularity of the event or the number of entrants. In fact seeing the size of Prime Arena Two, known among slaves as “The Killing Fields” for its disproportionately high mortality rate, I am reminded how deceptive the term Minor really is.

The word pit falls so far short of encapsulating The killing fields that it's almost hilarious. This place is an Arena. The massive circular structure consumes more ground than the entire BloodRock compound, and it stands almost half as tall as the BlackMist tower. The fact that it is a single-stone building defies comprehension. It sports dozens of entrances, seating for tens of thousands of people, viewing boxes, a prison, a bestiary, apartments for rent, a retractable canvas roof, and of course in the center a wide pit of hard-packed sand hundreds of feet across.

Generations of slaves were worked to death in order to make this place a reality, and generations more died screaming on its sands. The fear that tightens my stomach as the arena gets closer is a firm reminder that I am going to have to work hard not to join them.

No covered wagon for me today, that is filled by BloodRock himself, his adopted family, and a few guards including Muraab and Harrk. Those of us competing today are on foot walking alongside the group of chained menial slaves pulling the cart. I’m not actually resentful of making the trip this way. After doing pretty much nothing my entire Crowning Day I am stiff all over and the movement of my walking body and the warmth of the late afternoon sun is loosening me up.

A part of me is annoyed at how close to evening each step of this tournament takes place. Most of the more heavily attended events are held late in the day or even at night time so that people’s various commitments won't get in the way of watching the spectacle. Understanding that doesn’t make it any less irritating.

‘Don’t these people know I won’t be able to keep any food down till after my fight?”

So near sundown, my appetite has become aggressive enough to make me feel ill. Lacking a better option I lean into the irritation becoming less and less vocal as the journey to the heart of the city passes.

It might not be the thing smart fighters do, but as always I purposely rile myself up. Getting my teeth and focusing on all the injustices big and small that permeate my life. I don’t want to be afraid, I fight badly when I’m afraid. What I want to be is angry. Angry enough to ignore pain, angry enough not to freeze up when I’m greeted with some act of brutality or horror, angry enough to kill another boy who doesn’t have any more choice in being here than I do. Fortunately getting frustrated is one of the few things I’m extremely skilled at.

I’m more than a little grateful that Xael is also behaving introspectively on the walk over to the arena. Last night before he and Kalon disappeared into the manse the foreigner had seemed like a storm-type skyblessed he was so full of excitable energy. If he had kept behaving that way now I don’t know how I might have reacted. Well, it wouldn’t have been a positive response. I know that much.

Upon our arrival, BlackMist soldiers escort us through a heavily guarded entrance reserved for competitors and their owners. Atar, his family, and every BloodRock guard bar Muraab are quickly separated from the rest of us, the houselord’s group vanishing up a spiraling staircase that no doubt leads to a private viewing box where the BloodRocks can watch and make more frivolous bets. I wonder how many of me you can buy for the cost of renting one of those boxes? Probably a lot.

I don’t know where the kids pulling the cart are left, but the four of us competing are taken to holding pens beneath the stands. I might be able to count the number of times I've been to a prime arena on one hand but I don’t think traversing the tunnels and paths the public can’t see will ever not be surreal.

The public entrances are wide airy things leading to enormous hallways large enough to house food stalls, street entertainers, slave markets, and stores selling various memorabilia, while still acting as a path for the attendees. It's a lot like the tiers in the BlackMist party I went to but dirtier and on a vastly grander scale.

The path the five of us are taken couldn’t be more different. It is a series of thin twisting hallways that honeycomb their way through the structure beneath the stands. If we weren’t directed by the BlackMIst warriors I think I could wander this place all day without ever finding my way. I suppose in that case I would at least have Xael who can actually read the signs attached to the dark stone walls at each intersection.

Even down here in the dark with layers of stone between us I can feel the thrum of the crowd above. While the divided first round of the Storm Herald Invitational is taking place here, the two melees only represent the very end of today’s spectacle. Even starting later in the afternoon doesn’t mean there won’t be other matches, demonstrations, and entertainment. I of course have no idea what those have been today, but if I had to guess from the noises above they were well received.

After the dark claustrophobic service halls, I am almost blinded when the slave pens open up in front of me. A wide low ceilinged room lit not only by a dozen or so torches but by the late afternoon sun spilling in from a large latticed iron gate that opens directly onto the arena floor.

The pens themselves are a series of twelve metal barred cells large enough to hold about ten slaves in relative comfort. Each cage is reserved for a specific house as denoted by the wooden icons bolted into the stone above them. Naturally, the cells are bare of any adornment except the one marked with the ruby pyramid of house Saffron, they get benches.

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The BloodRock cell is closest to the arena gate making it the furthest from our group. A fact Muraab decides to take advantage of as he begins our house’s pre-fight ritual. Ripping his side arm shortsword from its sheath at his side the master of BloodRock guards gets a strange look from our escorts but they don’t stop him.

With a grin, Muraab disrespectfully slams his blade against the bars of a cell marked with the bloody whip of house BreakWill three times.

Bam, Bam, Bam.

“Who rules the pit?” he cries as we stride past.

“BloodRock!” Comes the shouted reply from the three of us slaves followed quickly by a slightly out-of-time Xael. They don’t teach us to be a subtle bunch and we gleefully repeat the process as we pass each cage, jeering and making faces at the other slaves as our screams get louder and louder. By the time we reach the cell set aside for us, practically every slave in the pens is shouting back some sort of insult.

It probably isn’t a good idea to antagonize everyone so close to stepping onto the sands with them. There are more than thirty slaves in these pens ready to be unleashed into a melee. Even if divided up between two matches if half of them decide to go after us first we will be dead in heartbeats. It doesn’t matter, we are House BloodRock and we always remind our enemies that wherever we go that little patch of sand out there belongs to us, not them. We rule the pit.

The four of us share a moment of camaraderie laughing at the reaction we get from the other houses as we file into the cell. He said he would but I’m still a little surprised Xael joins us behind the bars. It may be the first time in its existence this cage has played host to a non-slave.

Once we are locked in there is nothing to do but wait and pretend I’m paying attention to Muraab as he explains how the event is going to play out. It’s the same as the first round of these kinds of tournaments always are. Blah blah two separate melees making up the last and second-to-last matches of today's festivities. Blah blah, there will be some monster they have pulled out of the dark corners of the earth running rampant during the combat. All of this will go on until there are less than half the starting fighters or the creature in question is defeated.

Honestly, I don’t know what kind of deep Grasslands simpleton you have to be to still get entertainment out of watching this sort of contest. ‘Oh look a hydra, oh a giant, oh four lions.’ Who hasn’t witnessed this kind of melee dozens of times? Let alone has the patience to sit through it twice in a row.

I shouldn’t be wasting my time thinking about this stuff. It isn’t my problem if the tournament is following a stale formula. My job is just to win the stupid thing and make my houselord’s gambling addiction seem like savvy calculation.

From the gate, I hear the crowd make a collective ‘ooooo’ sound. I’ve been doing this long enough to know the sounds of a crowd pretty well, and I’d say there is a good chance someone just narrowly avoided getting killed out there.

“North, North! Are you listening to me, boy?” Says Muraab causing me to glance up at him from where I am stretching on the stone floor.

I wasn’t listening to him but it doesn’t matter. I know what he has to say.

“Yeah yeah, we will file out one team at a time, our chosen weapons will be handed to us and we acknowledge the crowd somehow just after we step onto the sands.”

The glare from the older man tells me both that I’m right and that he knows I wasn’t listening. I shoot him an impudent little smile in return.

Once the old guard is done telling us things I already know the four of us chat quietly for a little while, trading guesses about what kind of monster or monsters we will have to deal with. I’m more curious about the future rounds of the tournament and if we will be allowed to watch the other matches during the next step of the event but I keep the question to myself. Even Xael or Muraab are going to have no idea what the BlackMists intend.

You never quite know how the last few hourglasses before a fight are going to feel. Sure a pitter might feel confident, scared, angry, or whatever it is with consistency, but that's not what I mean. It's the proverbial falling of the sands, sometimes the fight comes surging at you like Resh at top speed, other times like today for example it is a painfully slow process.

Xael and Kalon go off into a corner and have some sort of private boyfriend chat, my hearing is good enough to eavesdrop if I want to, but who cares? That's their business, not mine. So I alternate between stretching and sitting on the ground watching the yellow light spilling through the gate slowly slowly turn orange. If I pay attention I can catch the occasional flash of the action outside, but never enough to actually tell what's going on.

With so little to keep my attention, I only become more and more aware of the sick hunger building in my guts. To make matters worse every single team gets sent out separately. I understand the sense behind it, this prevents fights from breaking out before we get to the pit and allows for each team to be given its own little introduction.

Normally I’d be happy to get introduced to the crowd like that. Today though I find every step of the process excruciatingly slow.

The BlackMist soldiers make their way to each cage in turn calling the names of the pitters from a list they carry, the slaves in question are then escorted out the now open iron gate to fanfare and a high-pitched woman shouting the introductions I can’t quite make out from the cell.

When the black and purple-dressed guards finally approach us they call for Kalon and Tota drawing a groan of frustration from me. It is always better to fight in the main event match, I know that. If this feeling of hunger sickness keeps getting worse I will either throw up with an empty stomach or be noticeably weaker going into the melee.

It's bad luck to wish a pit slave farewell or some variation of good tidings before a match so I give both the blonde human and his cursed partner a soft punch on the arm as they shuffle out of the cell. I can’t say for sure what Tota is thinking but there is a definite fire in Kalon’s eyes. That boy has something to prove today.

In spite of everything I hope he gets the chance. Over the past few weeks, I have seen how hard he has been working and I feel a sort of reflected pride at the way he has been improving. I won’t say anything about it out loud but I think I’m starting to become friends with the blonde boy. Plus some mornings he sneaks us samples of what his mother is cooking for the day. Continuing to hate someone after that is a surprisingly challenging endeavor.

“Do you think they will make it through the first round okay?” Asks Xael with a wistful little sigh.

I look at the foreign boy and scoff as I counter his question with one of my own. It might sound like a query but every man, woman, child, cursed, blessed, slave, or free person who has ever set foot in a Mantyian arena knows the answer to it. Xael knows the answer too.

“Who rules the pit?”