Chapter 45

Burn Marks

Men, women, children, rich, poor, monsters, and even creatures from other worlds leap to their feet celebrating the mere existence of Klash and Embella. If I didn’t already resent the ‘special’ pair from house HighSail the sheer amount of love they receive is more than enough to ignite it.

I know the pamphlets have been littering the city talking about the exploits of the various pit-slaves within the Storm Herald Invitational. It still feels disproportionate to me. Obvious favorites to win the entire tournament or not.

The match itself isn't exactly what I would call a fight, though it's better than the straight-up execution I have been expecting.

The two wolf boys have a plan that much is clear. The moment Klash starts to move they fake a charge at him, then with impressive agility the two fur-covered wolf cursed break it off at the last second.

The elephant boy is baited into swinging preemptively with his massive spear but finds himself hitting nothing as the pair dash past him. The two from HighSail probably aren’t idiots; they obviously expected this to be the strategy everyone would employ against them. Klash is a bit too slow to stop the short spear and pit-sword-wielding duo getting past him, so he just doesn’t try to stop them.

It’s more than that I realize as Klash spins around and starts cleaveing the air with wide swings of his spear. Simultaneously the flame witch unleashes two cord-like streams of fire from each end of her FlameStick. The pair of wolf boys have lunged themselves right into a trap.

The plan from The Pack is obvious: close the distance with the Itti’atti as fast as possible and then come at her from two directions at once. It’s probably what I would do in their shoes, especially with Klash doing his utmost to cut off retreat. After all the trap only works if you can’t break through one side of it.

Even facing the fire with surprising enthusiasm doesn’t really help them; the FlameStick itself is still a whirling metal staff, and the girl wielding it moves like a warrior born. Stepping forward she manages to avoid being skewered or hacked in half. Knocking the spear aside and ducking under the sword swing. Where a normal pitter would spin around as fast as they could, Embella simply presents her back and sprints towards her partner. That is a very weird thing to do, but I suppose for her it doesn’t matter.

Sure enough, the two ropes of fire spewing from the FlameStick trail behind the running girl, and then split into numerous thin lines that come together into what I can only describe as a net made of flames. It engulfs the boys from House FarStride with shocking speed. To their credit the pair of wolf boys do their best to charge right through it, unfortunately for them, the fire is subject to the girl’s will and sticks to them like a second skin as they try to storm toward her.

In almost no time at all The Pack is dead. Their desperate charge is blinded by fire and halted by pain and destruction. It was a good try but when a Flame Witch is involved even surviving usually means doing a lot better than ‘good’.

Embella tilts her head to inspect the still-burning pile that had once been two teenagers. She nods to herself and turns to do her little skip-walk away. The moment she does the fire goes out revealing a pair of skinless corpses.

Klash raises his spear to the crowd who offer a stunned half-cheer in return which quickly returns to the rapturous roar from when the pair from HighSail had first been introduced. As strange and horrifying as it had been to witness, the crowd had come to see an execution in the main event and that is exactly what they got.

I let out a long sigh and look around for the BloodRock viewing box. I can see it, but not Atar or his family who I know are present. The old man may have bitten off more than I can chew with this bet of his. It isn’t often that I go into a fight expecting not to win it but beating that. It’s a tall order for anyone.

Usually after an impressive performance the four of us begin chattering away, discussing the match in question or ways to fight against what we saw. That doesn’t happen when the Itti’atti fights. We, like every other cage not full of HighSailers, fall into silence when we see the destruction she is capable of. Even Muraab is oddly demure when he collects us. I think the old pitter is worried we are all going to end up as dead as The Pack did.

Naturally, things start to pick up on the way back to the BloodRock compound. After all, we just spent most of a day shirking our usual duties as slaves and are considered obedient for doing so. Even knowing we will have to face the Flame Witch sooner or later It’s hard to keep our moods down for long.

Something is underway when we get home. Despite it being well into the evening both slaves of all types and the guards BloodRock employs are out in force all over the compound. They are looking for something. No that isn’t right, they are looking for someone. The only thing that makes sense of the swarming activity is an escape attempt.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

While I wish whoever is making a break for it well in a general sense I kind of hate them. I’ve lived through the lockdown of countless escape attempts and even made a few myself. It always goes the same way.

Whether the escapee makes it or not every pit-slave in the compound will be confined to their respective halls for the rest of the night. Anyone caught outside will be treated like they helped with the escape and interrogated. For us, that means being escorted into the halls and missing dinner tonight.

Hall Three is alive with chatter as the locked-down slaves gossip back and forth about who might be making the run. I’m not the kind of top slave to actually police his hall, but neither do I get involved in the discussion in spite of my own curiosity. No one here will know anything for certain, and if they do they had better keep it to themselves lest we all end up facing interrogation.

I don’t keep an exact count of the boys in my hall something I’m starting to regret as I scan the kids sitting on or around their various cots. The numbers are off I don’t know who, or by how many but someone is definitely missing. I’m doing an awful job trying to match names to faces when at least one of the missing people is made abundantly clear.

Head down, antlers forward, and screaming for everyone to get out of his way. Gori comes barrelling into the hall at a dead sprint towards his own cot. I don’t consider the anterled boy on the dangerous side but he is pretty big and moving fast enough to hurt anyone he collides with. It is more than enough motivation for the boys on the floor to scamper onto their cots and out of his way.

Without pausing Gori charges over to his cot, stopping himself by simply colliding with it. Ducking down he fishes out a pair of jugs from under the cot. The first one he opens seemingly drinks the entire contents without a break. The second he holds to his nose and starts basically hyperventilating whatever substance is held in the jug.

He is still breathing in the jug fumes when Harrk and two other BloodRock guards storm into the hall.

“Cots!” comes the demand from the masked soldier, to which the few not on them already retreat to their sleeping spots. Usually, the mask Harrk wears just seems like a face, his face basically considering how often he wears it. Tonight it’s different, the adornment doing its job of granting him a strange merciless visage.

It's something about the way he is holding himself combined with the strange shadows cast by the torches around the room. I don’t know that I’ve ever been afraid of Harrk but now seems like an excellent time to start.

The trio of guards close on Gori who makes no effort to defend himself, instead just trying to get as many huffs in as he can before they can drag him off. None of us try to intervene, or even say anything as the boy is taken away. What can we possibly do that would make a difference? He’s my friend, and I hope for his sake BloodRock is feeling kind. Whether he knows anything or not Gori is in for a long night. Believe me, I know.

They return what's left of him just before dawn. I’m doing my stretches when a different pair of BloodRock guards casually dump the limp and bloody form of Gori on the floor just inside the hall. They don’t say a word, just drop him before turning around and leaving.

Dashing over to the prone form of the antlered cursed I’m shouting the other boys awake before I even know if he’s alive or not. It’s softer than a Saffron pitter on his first day but Gori is breathing.

They won’t let us take him to the tower for injuries earned resisting an interrogation. We however are allowed to help him. As I get to Gori and flip him onto his back the full extent of his injuries becomes apparent. It’s bad, like really bad, like he probably needs Forspoken stone bad.

His antlers have been snapped off and stabbed through both his hands. Looking at the rest of his wounds I’d say they were used to cut him up badly beforehand. His chest and stomach are a mess of jagged slices, while his face is various shades of red and blue. With at least several teeth he used to have missing, and one poking right through his upper lip. That's before the burns, his skin is littered with them from top to bottom, proof Atar himself was involved.

This was not a fast process, and likely got worse and worse as it went on.

I shout again finally getting several groggy boys to bring what little makeshift medical supplies they have over. ‘Gods above and below I hope it will be enough.’

There isn’t anything resembling a surgeon among us but we all know how to stitch a wound or two. The real work of surviving will be up to Gori. A few heartbeats before the other boys arrive and crowd around him the …kind of antlered boy’s eyes snap open and he grabs me by the belt with a weak scrabbling hand.

“You tell him.” He mumbles barely audible over the sounds of the waking hall. “ You tell Xael I didn’t say anything to them.”

‘Oh, what the fuck?’