It was the third (and last) fight of the day, and Olm’s nerves were still trampling around in his guts. It was more excitement than fear, but Olm would be lying if he said it wasn’t both. His people called it the hrutsaket, the prayer of blood, and there was no feeling like it. It was the feeling of utter certainty: you are truly awake.
Olm used to crave this feeling. It was pure. It was right. But, through weakness—through lack of faith—his hrutsaket had been tainted. Yet still, the old priest prayed.
Chains rattled and the iron teeth of the gate rose from the sand. Bloody sunlight sliced through the gap, as if the evening glow was coming to set him free. A breeze swept into the chamber and stirred the sweaty, odorous stench of the previous contestants: fear and onions. Bad onions.
“Well,” he grunted as he rolled the stiffness in his neck. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck,” Caly’s voice buzzed in his earpiece. “You got me.”
Olm hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. There was nothing wrong with a little luck, especially for a warrior of his age. His joints creaked and cracked every time he unsaddled from a bike, or stood up from a barstool after sitting too long, and lately he’d been getting up a couple of times a night to answer his body’s unending inconveniences. The prayer still hummed in his veins, but those veins were buried under layers of stiff muscles and stiffer joints, and when it came to matters of skill, a little luck never hurt nobody.
“You in position?” Olm barely moved his lips as he spoke. Not wanting to give away their game.
“Didn’t have time to climb the Spirine. I’m on the watch tower. Figured no one would see me with the sun at my back. That storm is just waiting out there.”
“Lightning?” Olm asked. There was no shame in worrying about lightning, especially when it came to New Nowhere’s storms.
“None yet,” she said, “But it looks angry.”
The wind brought with it the smell of the day’s prior fights and the scent of too many aliens packed together: blood, sour beer, sweat, smoke, and the dense aroma of barbecued poultry, probably those big birds that were such popular livestock in the equatorial townships.
Across the arena, his opponent’s gate began to open. Olm’s blood slowed to a pulse, and his vision to a tunnel. Watch me, ancestors, he prayed. Today, I am one of you. May the rams crush my bones.
Then, he frowned.
The iron gate revealed a pair of dusty boots, smaller than Olm thought. And thin legs. A thin torso, too, though it was clad in a vest riddled with holes. The vest ended a little higher on one hip, where the human’s hand hovered over a firearm sitting heavy in its holster. It looked far too large to be a handgun, and yet too short to be anything else.
The human’s head was couranoid too, though no horns nor ridges adorned it, nothing but long, black hair that hung down to his shoulders. A poncho the color of white-bleached sand was thrown over his shoulder. Vivid red patterns had been hand-stitched into the fabric.
The crowd cared nothing about the human. All their eyes were on Olm and the announcer was revving them up into a frothing madness, explaining something about how Olm hailed from a long line of mindless, bloody-thirsty war chattel, which brought forth a half-serious question from Caly, “I can shut that asshole up right now, Olm. Just say the word and—poof—red mist, you hear me? You don’t have to take this xenophobic drivel.”
Olm allowed himself a grin. She always knew how to keep his nerves down.
The wind picked at the human’s poncho so that a thin veil of sand gusted off the hems, trailing around his black boots.
Olm kept one hand on his chest, ready to crank his armor, while his other hand was poised over the Hammer’s fingertip controls. The cage that ran from his knuckles up to his elbow hummed and made his muscles feel numb.
A buzzer screeched, signalling the start of the fight. Despite the evening sun, stadium lights flicked on, illuminating every grain of sand and casting layered shadows around Olm’s feet.
Olm lifted his arm, aiming the Hammer at the human. But the human was just … standing there. Hadn’t drawn. He was just kind of walking across the sand, making a slow beeline toward Olm.
“Uh. I reckon this one wants to talk,” Olm said just loud enough for his earpiece to pick up his voice.
“A trick.” Caly said.
Olm squinted. The human gave him a calm, almost apologetic smile. “This feels different. He’s smiling at me.”
“That’s part of the trick.”
They were close enough to talk now, yet neither contestant had fired a shot. The crowd’s enthusiasm lulled into a confusion, with a few shouts of indignant anger mixed in. Then, even the onlookers sank into a tense silence as they watched the two contestants step—carefully—closer.
His Hammer was fully infused, the hum crackling in his ear. All Olm had to do was squeeze the contacts, and a jet of unbridled electricity would smack into the xeno’s chest, frying his dusty poncho black (along with a good portion of his flesh). The human, however, seemed blissfully unaware of this fact. He seemed unaware of a lot of things, like how the two of them were supposed to fight to the blood—maybe even the death. Taunts and war cries were one thing, but this human-xeno just lifted his hand and waved.
“I know about you, hrutskuld,” the human said. “It’s not true what they say.”
“Which part?” Olm asked, “Because I've drunk my share of blood—”
“You’re not chattel. You are your own person.”
Olm, caught of guard, gave a little laugh. What soft world had this xeno come from, and how did he end up on this one? Someone who talked like that was bound to get their pockets cut, and their body left in the desert, after the fluids had been drained, of course. Olm actually felt a flutter of guilt in one of his hearts. He was going to crush this human.
“Listen, kid,” Olm said, “You see all these people? New Nowhere’s finest, and they came to watch us bleed. Not to talk, not to deal. Whether you like it or not, we’re both chattel out here.”
“Not if you forfeit.”
“Sorry,” Olm grunted. “Need the money.”
“What if we went 50-50 on it?”
Olm hummed his dissatisfaction. How stupid does he think I am?
“Yeah,” the human shrugged and scratched the back of his head, as if he was embarrassed that he had even mentioned it. “On second thought, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. I already promised the money to someone else.”
“That wasn’t so wise of you,” Olm said.
“Well—” the human started to explain, but Olm didn’t play with his food. It only made you more likely to empathize with it, and in battle, empathy was poison. So, before the word “Well” tumbled from the human’s lips, Olm lifted his arm, aimed the Hammer, and squeezed the tips of his fingers. A flood of electricity rushed down his boulderous shoulder, over his stony forearm, and ejected out of his fist with a lightning fury strong enough to cook the hide of a scave boar.
The whole arena glowed too bright for a moment, and the crowd roared their satisfaction. Olm blinked, letting his eyes refocus. The cheers sank into disappointment.
The human was still standing there, perhaps half a meter to the left, casually sweeping his long, black hair behind his ear.
Did I just miss?
A moment later, Caly’s voice crackled in his ear, “Did you just miss?”
“And the first shot goes wide!” the announcer screamed over the cheers and boos of the crowd.
The human’s face was scrunched up in thought, as he was just as puzzled as Olm. Quickly, Olm checked the calibration on his Hammer, but everything was correct.
The crowd wasn’t happy with the pace. Their screams rose, and a few of them started throwing their cans and food. The wind whipped through the arena, picking up swirls of sand as it blew. Olm rolled his fingers through the Hammer’s contacts, telling it to charge up once more.
Caly’s voice crackled over his earpiece: “Storm’s moving in, Olm. Better end this fast—you know the dust plays havoc with your Hammer. Position him against the western wall, and I’ll take a shot.”
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“What if I told you,” the human said, “The money’s for a good cause?”
“Might be I could say the same,” Olm said.
“That settles it,” the human laughed, “50-50’s the only fair way to go. What do you think?”
Olm was still puzzling out this human’s game, when his contacts buzzed. The Hammer was ready. Tengjor, guide my aim. He held his cannon arm with his right hand, aimed where he thought the human would be, and squeezed. Electricity crackled over Olm’s stony skin. If Olm had hair, it would’ve all been standing on end. The Hammer did not kick—instead, his arm felt numb as the lightning leaped from the tip of his fist and smacked across the other end of the arena. This time, despite the flickering brilliance of the hammer, Olm didn’t blink. Kept his eyes glued to the human.
What he saw made his heart stop.
The human didn’t move. And yet, he did. It was a flicker of motion, faster than Olm’s eye could see. Yet, when the lightning dissipated (the muted roar of the crowd now frothing for blood), the human was standing in exactly the same spot. Unharmed. His hand still hovering over his holstered pistol, that half-apologetic smile on his dark lips.
Olm had to keep his voice from shaking when he spoke into his headpiece, “Caly. Are you seeing this?”
“Seeing what?”
“Offer still stands,” the human called out.
“Quit toying with him and shoot him, Olm.”
“Caly. I believe I’m in real danger here,” Olm whispered.
“You got sand in your eyes or something? The guy hasn’t even drawn!”
The human, who was well out of earshot of Olm’s whispered conversation, cocked his head. “Who’s that?”
Can he hear her? Olm wondered. But Caly was right. He was here to do one thing, and to do it well. Olm squeezed all the contacts on his Hammer. Vibrations rolled down his arm, and another beam of lightning shot out of the Hammer. And another. And another, until Olm’s left half tingled with the sensation of too much voltage, and air had the coarse scent of electrical fire. He shot high, he shot low, he shot where the human was standing, and in a wide arc to cover all the angles the human might dodge into.
It was like shooting at a mirage. Nothing connected.
Olm gasped and fought the numbness in his arm as the electricity crackled through the gaps in his stony skin, and crawled into his veins. The human, on the other hand, hadn’t moved an inch. But I saw him. Like he was standing in three places at the same time.
While he waited for his Hammer to charge up, Olm whispered, “Caly, aim high. Above his head.”
“You want me to miss?”
“You won’t miss. I’m going to cut the daisies.”
He bent his arm, holding the Hammer steady. Olm exhaled.
The human’s attention flicked away for a moment, as if he heard someone in the distance calling his name. His long, black hair spilled over his shoulders as he looked up and over the bleachers.
Olm squeezed all the contacts at once. Instead of a jet of energy, sheets of lightning shot out from the Hammer’s coils and galloped over the sands in the blink of an eye. At the same time, a bullet whipped the sand—followed by the sound of Caly’s gunshot. The human was in two places at once: two human shapes leaped into the air, two ponchos thrown up like broken wings. The shapes spun away from each other, but only one of them landed in the dust, kneeling gracefully on the ground like a bullfighter after his coup de grace, unharmed. His pistol hand still hovered over his holster.
The human cracked a smile at Olm, who felt a tightening in his chest when he saw the white teeth in that predator’s grin. “That’s cheating,” the human feigned an injured tone. “I thought you were a warrior.”
“A true warrior always fights to their full extent. There is no such thing as cheating.”
“You must really need this win,” the human said.
Olm growled his frustration. How many battles had he won? Void, how many wars had he won? Nobody can move that fast forever, he told himself. If I can just tire him out…
"Look,” the human said, “I gotta ask again. You seem like a really nice dude. Or a nice … person? Sorry, I’m not used to talking to you aliens, and most people don’t let me get a word in before they start shooting—"
While he talked, the crowd roared their frustration. They had paid to see a battle. For once, Olm agreed with them. All this talk and the smell of all that sour beer and too-fried food was making his stomachs churn. “Maybe you should pick a better time to talk, then,” Olm growled. His hand flexed on the Hammer’s contacts, but it was still charging.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Caly said. “Focus.”
The human cocked his head at Olm, as if listening to their conversation.
"He can’t hear me," Caly buzzed, “Can he?”
“Not possible,” Olm brushed her off. He had an idea, and only one way to test it. He set the Hammer to pulse-fire. Aimed it carefully at the human, and let it charge beyond its lower limits. Waited until the electricity crackled from his shoulder to his knuckles, and tongues of lightning flicked off the Hammer’s cage, licking his own scalp, his torso, his legs. Waiting until he could feel the vibration in his teeth, and the static made grains of sand stick to his body. The contacts buzzed viciously, warning him of a deadly overcharge.
It doesn’t take much to kill most xenos. Only a few hundred volts, if done properly. When Olm squeezed the trigger contact, the Hammer would split its voltage into a thousand different strands, a spiderweb of electric death that would crawl across half the arena.
Olm lifted his arm. But somehow, he already knew the result. He let his arm drop. Let his fingers slip from the Hammer’s contacts, and dumped the charge.
Caly cut back in, "Olm, what’s wrong? Shoot him.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
On wartorn Arsakil, Olm had trudged up piles of dead soldiers to plant a flag while under vicious fire. On the lost planet of Loar, he was the tip of the million-soldier wedge that flooded the last Fortress of the Qusrim Unity. And though Olm had never eaten his enemies’ flesh, he had many warsiblings who did, who sustained themselves upon it.
Once, Olm had dueled the Prophet General himself. And though he had lost, it had been close.
Never, not ever, had Olm encountered a warrior such as this. He ran through the possibilities: what if I’m seeing things? What if Split Agasgar sprayed me with some brain toxin?—but his thoughts were only trying to catch up with what his body already knew.
“Caly,” Olm spoke as quietly as he could. “I don’t think I’m going to win this one.”
“Stop messing around, OIm. I’ll load the shrap ammo, and you keep hammering him—”
“Caly,” he said, his throat as dry as gravel. “Shoot him.”
“Oh, shit. You’re serious.”
Olm could hear a clattering sound through his earpiece as Caly shuffled herself into a new position.
It was stupid, he knew—and this xeno thing, this human, who was still standing there with a pleasant “it’s a fine evening, ain’t it?” kind of smile on his face, had even offered Olm a way out—but Olm was hrutskuld. He could not surrender. Not again.
All those months of wandering the wastes with Caly flooded back to him, now, all that fighting in tournaments, scraping and bartering and stealing their way across New Nowhere’s endless deserts, Olm had loved every minute of it. A shame, that it had to end like this.
Not everyone should be so lucky. Not everyone gets to see their own end.
Olm inhaled, slowly. Envisioning the fight. Seeing how he would keep fighting until he had nothing left. And then, keep fighting still. Ancestors, open the gate. I am coming.
The hrutsaket burst through his veins, and the cracks in his stony skin began to glow blood-red. He rammed his Hammer forward, and screamed, a sound like an avalanche tearing down a mountainside forest. Olm fired jet after jet of white electricity and twisted his body as he zigzagged the beams across the arena, screaming the whole time. His arm crackled, and he smelled the burning of his own flesh as the electricity crawled through his craggy skin and into his blood.
The human blurred, flickering in place, both not moving and moving all over. His body didn’t contort, so much as show up in new positions.
“Fire!” Olm screamed at Caly, “Keep firing!” even as he squeezed blast after blast at the human. Caly’s gunshots cracked through the arena, barely audible over the gushing roar of the crowd, all while the human shifted and rippled and blurred.
A spit of sand. The human fell forward. His face was turned away from Olm, a river of black hair spilling over his poncho and onto the sand, and a splash of coppery skin and muscle where the human’s shirt rode up.
Olm let go of the Hammer’s contacts, and gasped for breath through agonized lungs. Voltage rubberized all his muscles, so that he had to stumble forward. He kept his cannon pointed at the human-xeno, but the only thing that moved was the hems of his poncho, ruffling in the stiff breeze.
To be honest, Olm was embarrassed. He had never felt so foolish for freezing up. He shook his head. Afraid of this? He’d fought a thousand battles and more … What even was that? Maybe he and Caly had spent too much time near the Spirines of this forsaken world-
“The problem with cheaters,” the human’s voice, muffled by the sand, rose from the floor, “They end up cheating themselves.”
“There are no cheaters,” Olm grumbled. “Only those who are willing to win, no matter what.”
“Is that so?”
“Do you yield,” Olm grumbled, his cannon already charging up again, the tongues of electricity jumping from his fist down to the sand next to the human’s head. “Or do I gotta make this hurt?”
The human stuck out an arm, his hand splayed out in the universal sign of “I’m not holding any weapon, and I’d like to surrender.”
Then, he slapped the sand. The ground jumped. Olm was ripped off his feet. He slammed on his back and the wind knocked out of his lungs. The entire circle of the arena threw itself up, a wall of dust and sand rising into the air.
Stunned, Olm somehow slapped the crank on his chest plate and pulled. But the gears ground against each other, and the armor seized up.
“Not now!”
Olm jerked the crank again. And again, and when he pushed himself up to his feet, he found that his armor wouldn’t let him move at all. The shoulder joints were frozen, locking his arms into place, so he could only rock on the ground like a turned-over tortoise.
Clouds of dust continued to rise and billow over the arena, as if whatever had set them in motion intended to keep them in motion, becoming a choking haze that blocked his view of the rest of the arena. It made the world feel like it was swallowing him alive, like he was that little kid back on his mother’s herdranch, and had somehow gotten tangled up in the sheets of laundry all red and brown from the stampede, panicked because he couldn’t get out.
A long, slender shadow emerged from the dust. A poncho thrown over his shoulder.
The human looked down at him with an apologetic grin. And when the human spoke, his voice came through twice—once, through the air, and again through Olm’s earpiece.
“Well?” he asked.
“I … yield.”