Chapter 9

Broken

I feel like I can’t breathe. I know what's happening now. I knew as soon as the mercenaries guarding the door to the treatment room shoved the approaching wounded boy to the ground. They won't let him get help.

Glancing up at BloodRock and Saffron all but confirms it. Saffron is looking rather smug as he plays with his moustache. BloodRock has left happy drunk well behind him. Instead, he sits in sullen silence. Saffron is going to let his slave die. Then the judge will disqualify me. I'm hyperventilating now. This will go down as a loss. They are breaking my win streak so Saffron can what? Win a bet?

Forty-three consecutive wins. I have forty-three! The one thing I can call my own. The one path to maybe go free one day. They are taking it all from me. The boy is trying to stem the bleeding. But it's pointless. He just can't. Can’t even get back to his feet.

"Can..can we help him?" Asks Tota quietly.

"How?!" I snap. “I don't know anything about healing. Even if I did. What am I supposed to do here? Stitch him up with an axe?”

“Uhhh we could stuff the wound with cloth maybe.” He knows it would be a waste of time. I can hear it in his voice. The Saffron boy is barely moving now. He likely has more blood on the sand than inside him. His partner tried to drag himself over. But even if his leg wasn’t broken there is nothing he can do either. All three of us have no option but to watch in horror.

Eventually, the last twitch leaves the Saffron slave.

“ END!” Comes the call from the judge.

“BloodRock pitters have killed a Saffron pitter against the rules of this arena. “ Tota hangs his head and starts trudging back to the cage.

“The winner is Saffron.” I knew he was going to say it. But the words still hit me like a kick to the liver.

“No,” I whisper.

The broken-legged boy is being carried off by the pair of mercenaries now. He will get treated at least. The lucky one.

“No No No No No” I whisper again and again. At least I think I’m whispering.

I can feel my snicker building up. This can’t be happening. The laughter bursts from my lips.

“ Go on boy” comes the call from BloodRock. He sounds resigned. “ We lost. Go sit down.”

I snap my head towards the rich men then quickly away again. “NO!” I gesture with my axe at the judge “ I’m not going anywhere until he says I won!”

I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling. Some combination of panic-inducing fear and vision-darkening rage. They can’t do this to me. This is the pit. Where things are fair. Where the slave with the better skills, the better plan, the better abilities, or is stronger or wants it more wins. Always fair.

I’m going to regret this, I know it. But the little voice crying out for logic in the back of my mind is a tiny pitiful thing. Nothing compared to the raging beast rampaging between my ears. Nothing compared to my need to hurt Saffron hurt the judge, hurt everyone.

“ Yes you are North” comes my owner’s reply. His voice is as full of menace as I’ve ever heard it.

“ Who’s going to make me?!” I scream back. Seeing as the answer is ‘no one’ he says nothing in reply

I’m stalking toward the judge platform now. Just up a few steps and he will be in my grasp. The Saffron Mercenaries have returned, but they aren’t doing anything. That’s smart, I’ll kill them both. BloodRock himself won’t come down here either. He might be almost invincible in a fight, but his old man's knees will stop him dead before he gets down the steps to the pit floor.

“Well If no one else wants the honour” comes a strangely accented voice I’ve never heard before. With the crowd silent as they are now I can hear the slap slap slap of running feet on stone. I look back towards BloodRock just in time to see the dark-haired skinny boy who had been at the table hurl himself over the lip of the pit. That stops me.

He rolls as he hits the packed sand and comes up with a long thin sword drawn. Sheath lying on the sand behind him. I blink.

“Seriously?”

The boy smiles sheepishly. “ You are stealing the show. So I needed to make an Impression ” Closer now I can tell for sure he is related to the girl with the covered hair. He speaks in that same strangely listless way as well.

“ Get out of here before I rip you apart” I’m still laughing but the words come out mostly how I intended.

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He does quite the opposite. Advancing on me in stance, sword held at the ready.

"I can't do that, " he says with a shake of his head. " The judge. If you kill or hurt him they will kill you, and even worse there will be no one to judge my match later"

I frown trying to concentrate. I'm bad at it in the best of cases. Right now my mind is a whirling storm.

There is something important about this boy. Something about him having a match later. It doesn't matter. I'll hack his head off then feed his fancy sword to the judge.

My muscles know what to do even if my brain is all over the place. I stride forward and swing big. Aiming to take the kid’s head from his shoulders in a single attack. The dark-haired boy ducks out of the way. Instantly resetting his stance so he stays facing me. Normally this would be the perfect chance to counter me. Slip a little thrust into my side, fight over. He can’t though. Even as he avoids the first attack I feed into the momentum of the axe. Turning with the weapon to keep pace with my enemy. We are dance partners the axe and I. Turning and moving with each other’s weight. It’s always been my favourite way to fight. Big swings that lead into each other. The axe and I trading the lead back and forth. It might look wild, but if I do it right I won’t tire quickly. Not to mention there is something about defence through attack that appeals to me. Yes, I leave openings when I’m dancing about with the axe. You have to be willing to face a massive return strike if you want to exploit them though.

The kid steps back from the next swing and changes direction. Smart. That is a flaw in this style. I have to waste time and energy every time I need to reverse directions. Unless I want to spin on the spot. Which I am of course not going to do.

He tries to take advantage of the gap with a lunge. Leaning into the turn I manage to catch it on the shoulder. The fancy sword slides across the leather pauldron without breaking the skin beneath. I owe the piece of armour an apology. Not so useless after all.

I lash out aiming to carve his chest. The boy doesn't block my blow. That's smart too. My axe along with my size will overwhelm almost any guard he puts up. Instead, he relies on his footwork to keep him safe as we battle back and forth. It's honestly spectacular, the way this human moves. It's better footwork than any I can manage. Better than Resh's too honestly. Though I think he would still lose to Resh. The Rush is just impossible to keep up with no matter how technically perfect your movements are.

I quickly abandon the wild nature of my attacks. He's too good and too fast for that. To my surprise, the human insists on pressuring me. It's a problem. The nature of my knees has a couple of advantages. Fighting while moving backward is absolutely not one of them.

Every strike he throws is a work of art. Targeting the tiniest of gaps I leave, or timing me with near perfection. Still, my axe is an iron wall. One after the other I turn the blows aside. I have to. If I do let him make me give ground he will pursue. That thin blade will easily find openings as I keep from tripping over my feet.

Up this close, I can't generate the same amount of leverage. Which means he can parry or block my axe now. I'm still stronger though. When our weapons clash I come off the better. At this rate eventually, his arms will go numb. Or if I can just find a moment when he is even a little off balance. I'll crush him.

I had expected him to pivot away, keep attempting to circle me, or create advantageous angles. He doesn't. After the initial clash, he only employs forward and backward movements. In range or out of it, never in the middle ground. This is the first time I’ve fought someone who does that against a larger enemy.

I can hear shouting from the arena now. But the actual words elude me. So focused on every moment. Every step, every movement of my body and his. There are only a few youth pit slaves who can push me like this. And none because of their technique alone. Fighting this human is like fighting a full-grown man. Not his strength or speed. But the way he moves. The way he handles everything I throw at him. It's like he's seen it all thousands of times before. He might even be better than I am. But fair in the pit or not, the victory doesn't always go to the better fighter. It might go to the stronger one, or the one with greater endurance. The pitter who is naturally faster, or the one with a specially devised plan for his opponent. I am going to beat this boy. I have to. As stupid as it is, some part of me believes that if I can win here and now. My disqualification will somehow be erased.

All of a sudden the pressure is gone. He springs backwards putting distance between us quickly. His balance of course is perfect the whole time. I’m about to rush him down when he drops his sword and gestures wildly behind me. No one is stupid enough to actually try that trick, are they? Are they? Flicking a glance over my shoulder I conclude. No. He is in fact not that stupid.

Most of the rich people are standing making frantic demands. That's not what the dark-haired boy is pointing at though. His wild gesturing was directed at the BlackMist table and for good reason. The two spooky Housewomen are both standing hands held outward. Flowing from those hands is swirling darkness. It moves like smoke. Flowing languidly forward. It isn’t smoke. It’s the Black Mist. A tear, in reality, A hole their magic burrows through the world linking us to another. The World of Shadows. My jaw drops open and I can't help but stare. The smoky darkness congeals. Thickening and speeding its movement. I must have blinked because I don’t notice when it changes but suddenly I'm looking at a shiny black-scaled snake four times the length of a man and half as thick as I am across. The creature doesn’t have eyes. Not even sockets. It does have fangs though. Four of them, each the length of my whole hand. The lack of sight doesn’t seem to bother the monstrous serpent. It surges towards me with horrifying speed and unerring drive. It is definitely coming for me. And it definitely knows where I am.

I’m fast too though. I almost beat Resh! With a little snarl, I pivot on the spot and twist away from its bite. I don’t even think about my counterattack before it's happening. Years of practice driving my movements with more alacrity than my brain can keep up with. I bring the axe down just behind the snake’s head. I shouldn’t have bothered. The weapon passes through the beast without leaving so much as a mark.

“That is not fair!” I cry. Shock stealing my movement. Terrible form. I hate myself a little for it. I hate the snake more as it whips its back half out smashing into my ankles and knocking me from my feet. I guess it's only made of shadows when it wants to be. Before I can do anything its coils are around me crushing any hope of movement. That's not right. It didn’t move. It was just around me suddenly. That’s not fair either! While I've never really thought about it before. When the eyeless snake is squeezing the breath from my lungs I conclude I hate magic. I desperately strain to get my axe free as it brings its weirdly featureless face up to mine. After the longest moment of my life, it lunges forward. Those huge fangs punching straight into my chest. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should but I can feel it pumping what is no doubt liquid death straight from its fangs into my veins.

One of the few gifts of my curse is a strange constitution. I am virtually immune to poison. Poison is when you get sick from eating something. Venom on the other hand is when you get sick from something trying to eat you. If I had ever wondered if my immunity extended to venom. I can now say with certainty. It does not.

My legs go numb. My upper body starts to twitch and spasm. I try to bite the beast in return but the world transforms into a barrage of blurring colours that rush by with nauseating speed. I never find out if my bite has more success than my axe.