Chapter 6

Traditional Greetings

It’s not long after we have settled in that the pit judge appears outside the cage. He is a middle-aged man with thinning hair, wearing the colours of house Saffron. Every arena has several pit judges to explain the rules of the day, declare starts, and ends to the bouts, and of course, adjudicate any confusion about the rules.

He is in the midst of explaining that the pit’s walls are covered in various weapons when I hear my name.

“ North! Hey North Over here!”

I already know who it is. The ghost of a smile twitches at the corners of my mouth. Following the call with my gaze, I’m surprised to see it’s coming from the BlackMist table. Arguably the best youth piter in all Far Mantys. Undefeated, with one hundred and six wins. Some people are already calling him the SPAT: Strongest Piter Alive Today.

Naturally, he’s standing on his chair waving at me like an idiot.

“Where’s my rematch, Resh!?” I shout back at him.

He laughs. I don’t consider it a pleasant sound. High-pitched and nasally. Like most of us who fight in the pits, Resh is cursed. Unlike the rest of us, he chooses to be here.

"No one will be having any matches at all if I am not allowed to lay out the rules!" Interjects the judge. Resh visibly winces.

"Sorry," he calls back to the judge awkwardly. Then to Saffron himself

"Sorry"

Neither houselord nor his arena judge look impressed. Still, they let it slide without further complaint. People always let Resh get away with stuff like this. I suppose being an undefeated prodigy has its perks.

Shaking his head a few times the judge continues. " There is no ban on house-supplied weapons. “

Usual stuff for this kind of arena.

"Rules will be standard incapacitation or surrender. Killing an opponent will result in disqualification. When I call 'begin' you do not hold back regardless of the weapon situation”

I stare at the man for a second in mild shock. Those are the sort of rules you use for little kids. For people having their first bouts in the pit. I suppose there will be at least one little kid match. But surely they could have just made that a special rules affair on its own. Enforcing no kills for every match of the day is bizarre. Normally the fans love nothing more than a death or two.

"When I call 'end' the bout is over. Not a moment before or after."

He wraps up with a few more words about how entertaining Saffron and his guests is a high honour, and that our owners will expect us to give our best. He’s not wrong. No one wants their slave to put on a poor show in front of the most influential family in Far Mantys.

The fights don’t begin as soon as the judge is done droning on. Of course not, that would be far too efficient. This time is supposed to be so the households can come inspect us in the pen. See who they will be betting on, gauge our health or see who they recognise. That sort of thing. It’s just that it takes such a long time for them to actually wander over and inspect us.

Not Resh though. The moment the judge is walking back to his own little viewing spot, my friend is on his feet dragging some poor BlackMist girl around the pit to a pen full of sweaty slaves.

It's not the woman I saw outside. She is still seated. This girl is closer to my own age. Though the family resemblance is clear. Dark hair, thin face, a weird black outfit featuring metal skeleton parts, and of course the black Swirl tattoo. Not the forehead this time but the underside of her chin, running down her throat.

As the pair approach, I rise to meet them. It requires shoving a HighSail boy out of the way, but I get to the bars easily enough.

Plenty of the other slaves are staring As Resh approaches. There isn’t a youth pitter in the city who doesn’t know 'The Rush' on sight. He is mostly the shape of a small human with a mop of black and white hair. The curse still dominates the rest of his features though. The animal is some kind of rat. He told me once that it's something called a Mongoose. I think he was lying. I've seen bird cursed before, and Resh is absolutely not one of those. His nose is pointy, his face and neck are furred, and his ears are big and round. They are furry too. He even has whiskers on one side of his face. Not like Muraab has whiskers because he is too lazy to shave. Whiskers like a cat.

Naturally, we exchange our traditional greetings. Celebrating how we nearly killed each other.

I stick my tongue out making a loud “AAAAAAHHHHHH” noise as I mime a stabbing motion into the largest scar on the twisted mass of red lines and missing fur that is my chest. For his part, Resh makes much the same noise while pulling down the collar of his shirt to reveal the jagged marks around his collar where I had tried to tear his throat out.

After a few seconds of this, it devolves into the comfortable, if not entirely genuine laughter of friends repeating a joke for the thousandth time.

He slaps the bars of the cage. “No one told me you were fighting today! Who’s donating their body for win number forty-four in a row?” Like always when he talks it’s a tumble of words running together.

“ Some kid, who cares?” I snort. “ what are you doing here if you aren’t fighting?” I glance at the girl. Who up close is pretty-scary. Not as in more than a little scary. But pretty and scary in equal measure. In the shadowy and mysterious way that seers and sorceresses are sometimes. Definitely BlackMist stock. “ And who’s this?”

“Oh rightright” he says turning to her “ Ever since I won the big Saffron invitational at the end of last season you know the one where I won my freedom.” He says it so casually. As though The Spice Lord’s major invitational isn't the tournament we all dream of winning. The one where you go free at the end. ” The BlackMist family hired me.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I’m about to reply with ‘To do what?’ When I notice the girl is glaring at me. So much so that she is practically squinting.

Baring my teeth in perhaps the least friendly smile of all time I growl at her.

"What?"

"This is….Visc..carra" he slows right down noticing that we are staring daggers at each other. The girl…Viscarra I guess, turns away. Raising a hand to block half her face as if it was just utterly unbearable to look at me. I blink a few times in surprise.

Mordrun people are weird, but who does that?!

"Sorry I...I'll see you back at the table. " she apologises to Resh haltingly."Nice to meet you North". It doesn't seem nice to meet me. Especially since she doesn't even lower her hand as she says it.

Resh looks concerned for a moment but doesn't stop her as she hurries off.

He turns back to me and shrugs. I offer one in return. "The beast of BloodRock still undefeated with the opposite sex" he says. A smirk flashing across his rat features.

I throw my arm out between the bars trying to grab him. It's a wasted effort. Resh dodges back laughing. Of course, that's not what it looks like. My friend is so fast your eyes can't keep up. It seems as though The air distorts and Resh is suddenly a few feet away. As though he had never been close enough to grab at all. "That was not my fault!" I protest. My arm still hanging out of the cage. "The pen probably stinks or something."

He waves a hand dismissively.

"Don't worry about it. Visc is an abyss gazer. She probably realised Tenebrous is in multigrade or some spooky thing we'd be too dumb to understand."

“Right..…” I reply, far from satisfied with the explanation. "Anyway, what do you mean they hired you? Are you a bodyguard or something?”

“I’m a consultant .” He says proudly. I’m about to ask what that is when he continues on quickly adding “ I’m still fighting in the pit. I’m going to be King on the sands.” Talking to Resh can be a bit of a pain like that. It used to annoy me. Still annoys me. But he’s not doing it on purpose. “But for now I’m helping them structure their invitationals this season, and giving advice on which Pitters they should invite to what events. It's fun and I can’t wait for you to see what we have planned for the season!”

It takes me a moment to piece together everything he said. I imagine I look just like Gori did this morning. Mouthing the words silently with a bewildered look in my eyes. Resh rolls his own eyes in return but waits for me to figure out what he said. It doesn’t take too long.

“Wow,” I’m honestly taken aback. “That's amazing.” I guess I shouldn’t be surprised Resh might be cursed but he has to be the luckiest slave in the history of Far Mantys. He was never even really a slave. The women who owned him would have freed him years ago if he hadn’t wanted to win the Saffron major instead.

“So…you're going to tell them how great I am right?”

Resh Snorts “I’ve been telling them idiot, but I need you to back it up. Put on a show today so Viscarra and her mother have a reason to add you to the shortlist.”

I blink “Those women decide who BlackMist invites? What do they know about pit fights?”

Resh shakes his head “ I forget how backwards BloodRock is sometimes, yes North they decide, and they know a lot.” He grins at me then “ This is why women don’t like you, they can sort of sense the stupid BloodRock ideas in your head.”

That can’t be true. Can it?

“ Fine, whatever!” I snap back. I feel oddly defensive of my house. It might be a prison full of people I hate. But BloodRock is still home.

“I’ll give them something special to talk about.”

“Good, and would you wave to my sisters for once when you go out to fight?” I glance over at the BlackMist table where Resh’s three ‘sisters’ sit with the BlackMist women and their slaves. Adaline, Adalena, and Ada…something. I don’t remember.

“ Why?” I grunt. “The Ada’s hate me anyway.”

“Oh, and I’m sure the way to fix that is to alternate between glaring at them and ignoring them. Besides, they don’t hate you. They are scared of you.” Again I open my mouth to speak but he cuts me off “And they are my family. North I want you and them to get along. So please just make a little effort not to seem like you’d bite their faces off if you got the chance.”

I consider several counterpoints. Perhaps the most eloquent being ‘ I would bite their faces off if I got the chance.’ But the way he’s staring at me, black eyes almost pleading. This matters to Resh. I might have no idea why. But it does. “ Fine. I'll wave to them, I’ll wave and I’ll put on a memorable show.” This is a pretty drastic change from my previous plans which had been stomping into the pit, saying nothing and sending two boys to their version of the tower as quickly as possible.

His face splits right back into a grin. Sometimes I wonder if Resh feels his emotions faster than the rest of us too. “ Thank you. “ he says with infuriating earnestness.

“ I don’t want your thanks. I want my rematch” I growl at him. He either doesn't notice how irritated I’m getting or just doesn’t care. Probably the latter. Resh’s steadfast refusal to be put off by my anger is half the reason we became friends in the first place.

He opens his arms palms upwards in a gesture of helplessness. “Keep winning and it will happen eventually, but you know I can’t control that.” I continue to glare. He continues to pretend he doesn’t notice. The silent Implication is that he won't lose either. Arrogant Jerk. He won't of course but he still shouldn’t talk like it.

Resh glances back at the table he had come from. “I have to get back, but I can bring you some of our fancy lunch if you want?”

It’s a tempting offer. I’ve seen the kinds of things these people eat. It would probably make the blood stew in the tower seem awful by comparison.

“No. I don’t eat on fight day. At least not till after.” My stomach which can usually keep down rotting meat always betrays me if there is food in it when I'm fighting. I either feel sluggish or I throw up. While I’m lucky enough to have never actually vomited in the pit. I can recall doing so both just before my match or just after at least three times.

“I understand.” He says not needing further explanation. While I’ve never talked to Resh about my issues with food on fight day. It's a common problem among pitters.

Neither of us say goodbye or wish the other well. Everyone knows that's bad luck for pit slaves. He simply inclines his head and scampers off. His tail poking through the hole specifically tailored for it in his pants.

I watch my friend go. My eyes drift to the pair of short swords he wears at his waist. One curved, one straight. Thread and Needle he calls them. Stupid names if you ask me. I know, I know his sisters are seamstresses. It's all very cute. With the little charms hanging from the sword pommels. One is shaped like a pair of miniature shears, the other a tiny dress. I don’t care about any of that really. What I care about is that they belong to him. They are his swords. He can carry them around the city whenever he wants.

I should hate Resh. I really should. I used to. When did I stop exactly? I’m not sure but it wasn't long after we fought. No one can go through something like that with a person and not have their feelings changed by it.

Turning away from the bars I shoulder my way back to the BloodRock benches. This is HighSail territory in the cage. Most move out of my way gladly, some stare at me with awe.

“Yeah that's right, losers. A kid from BloodRock is friends with the SPAT.”