Sado shook his head like a shaggy dog as soon as he and Solution entered the room of the great hall. On the walls were mounted trophies from terrible monsters, heads and claws, even stuffed beasts. There were several large fireplaces with stewpots bubbling around them. The storm outside did not touch the comfort of the paradise of warriors. The wooden floors were smooth and dark and the smell of the whole place reminded him of a hunting cabin he once kept for his private use beyond the city. He and a few friends visited there sometimes. The snow, the rain, the smell of the great woods and high trees. ‘Is it still there? Maybe, maybe not. If it is, it belongs to one of the lords who destroyed me, if it isn’t, it’s a ruin and the land the ashes are scattered on, those belong to one of the lords instead. Did any of that ever really happen? It seems impossible, now.’
Some men were arm wrestling at a table, at another, a waitress in bright green clothing that turned white as the creamy skin of her breasts, just where it reached there, bent forward to give a small team a round of beers from off her tray. At first glance, she appeared topless, which was no doubt, the idea.
She seemed to savor their surprised looks and clever little leers… and the extra coin that found its way onto the tray when she sashayed away from them.
Before he could ask anything, Solution piped up long and loud with her arms on her hips, “The Prince of Chains says he can take all comers in a brawl! He says the Prince of Komestra can best any Pasenian adventurer in a fair fight!”
His mouth fell open beside her, and low growls went up from the sudden attention.
He hissed quietly between his teeth, glaring out of the corner of one wide open eye. “Lady Solution… what… what are you doing?!”
She moved only one corner of her mouth to speak, “If you don’t want your city to be known as the place of slaves, you’d better not go down like a bitch. Make yourself something more, and you’re more useful.”
Sado’s wide eyes became hard as steel, he felt his skin tingle and he raised his chin to show off his golden collar.
He then raised up an arm, bent it at the elbow so that his hand raised up, and closed his fingers into a fist. “Prove me wrong.”
From up atop a rail a single voice answered. “Open the ring.” Price Sado looked up to see a bear of a man, thick curly dark hair over most of his arms, like the bastard child of a hairy whore and a gorilla and just as broad.
Thick sausage like fingers clenched at the simple polished wooden bannister, and Sado heard the wood crack beneath the grip.
The chairs scraped over the floor as warriors of various types stood up and began to grumble and grouse and made their way to a short hall past a bar and down a long set of steps that creaked under stomping heavy feet of male and female adventurers.
“You’re sure about this, Lady Solution?” Sado asked with a quiet whisper as the followed well after the last of the adventurers.
“Yes, you’ll be fine. And if you’re not, that’s your problem.” She giggled with her hand over her mouth and filed down ahead of him.
The way down was dim, lit as it was only by the candle on the wall behind them. But the noise of would-be challengers was already growing.
To his surprise, the stairs down were much deeper than he thought, and the area below, much broader than he expected. Instead of a space the size of the building above, there was a full range of facilities, within, and a staff of white clad people in various positions holding up staffs from which came continuous light, turning the room bright, almost like noon but for the dirt ceiling well overhead.
Heavy stones, racks of weapons both real and practice were scattered about, but the multitude from above, were surrounding a large round space with a thick, frayed ship’s rope circling at just over waist height. It ran through a series of posts that had thick holes drilled through it for the rope to pass, until it reached the beginning where it passed through another hole just below the beginning, and was tied in a thick knot too large for the rope to go back through.
“Armor or no armor, slave?” The gorilla-like man uttered from the center.
“You’re the unfortunate host, sir.” Sado said with a deep bow.
“None. Better be able to brawl as well as you can talk, Prince of a dead city.” The behemoth uttered, approached, and tore Sado’s garment down to the waist, he bound it in half there so that he was not naked, and stepped back. “Pasenian brawling versus the city we brought down.”
Sado’s tingling skin went even faster, he felt the smile form without intent, “As you like, Sir.” He answered again.
“Get in there.” The big man grunted, and Sado stepped into the center.
No sooner was he at the center, than a young girl of tender years followed after him. She had blue hair with a long braid that ran past her shoulder blades, and a passive expression in her hazel eyes. She wore a white smock of simple design. Little more than a sack really, like it was ‘waiting’ to be decorated. Around her neck was a simple cheap leather collar. She held a brass bowl of considerable width in her left hand. Within the bowl was a pile of white dust. She dipped her hand into it and cast the dust over his body, then ran her slender hand over his skin.
Sado began to rub it on his skin, and the muttering of the crowd began to go quiet with his confident and thorough gestures.
“Footman first, let’s see if he’s worth anything better.
The young girl looked up at him without a word, and mouthed a single word. ‘Win.’
“Kastus!” Someone shouted, and a hardy looking slender youth entered the ring, he was stripped to the waist in the same fashion, and the same girl returned a moment later with a bowl of red dust. She scattered it over his pale torso, and he rubbed it into his skin.
“Fight ends when someone taps out, yields, goes limp, or dies. Simple rules. Martial arts, use them or don’t, but one foot on the floor out of the ring, you lose.” The gorilla-like man uttered by rote.
When the bowl had been replaced, the young slave girl who had aided in painting both men, walked back to the ring, and crossed between them, from one side to the other, and the moment she was out the other side…
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The youth stepped in to start his first swing… fast as the crack of a whip, Sado thrust his hand out, caught the wrist, yanked the boy forward, and smashed his forehead into the pretty face.
The sickening crunch of bone as his nose shattered was followed by spraying blood, but not a single cry of pain. Instead, the boy simply fell onto his back, and did not move.
Sado bowed to his opponent and then raised his hands aloft in a fist. “I’m not called hard headed for nothing! Is there no one else?!”
“Next!” The gorilla of a man filled the silence, and another stepped forward.
The blue haired girl took her place at the ringside, and as soon as the unconscious young man was dragged out, a larger man came on, fists like rocks and pecs like slabs of stone. He had already dusted himself, including dusting his dark black beard.
She crossed the space between, signalling the start of the match.
He came charging like a bull across the space between them far faster than he had any right to move.
Sado didn’t try to match the clash, he simply rolled backward, grabbing the beard with both hands, he felt his body strike the ground as he got his feet under the behemoth, and pushed off, sending the wall of meat flying into the crowd behind, knocking a number down in a heap.
“Where’d he go?” Sado asked sarcastically and raised his fists in the air again, his face alight while his body remembered its purpose.
“Next!” The gorilla man snapped.
His next opponent was a wire with flesh, painted red as before, his teeth were filed to points and he bared them with the hungry look of a wolf spotting a deer.
When the girl crossed the ring again, signalling the start of the fight, he came on with steady, swift blows with fingers out like claws.
Sado however, countered each by either a blow to the wrist or a counter grip that pulled the man off his balance. Still, the wiry man was aggressive, his blows growing faster by the moment, and Sado kept moving back… but around the ring… until he wasn’t.
After one such blow, he stepped forward, batting the blow aside, he moved into the man’s guard and brought up an elbow to the face. The spray of blood stained the white powder on his body, and before he could recover, as he staggered back, Sado followed up with a blow of his fist directly to the temple… and he crumpled.
Again his hands went up in triumph. “Is that the best you can do, Pas’en?!” He shouted to the stomping feet and calls for Komestran blood.
Solution leaned against the wall, watching with great amusement for match after match as the fallen prince humiliated the adventurers. ‘He might not have been the best Prince, but he’s not half bad as a fighter, at least as far as lesser beings go.’ She thought as she heard his roar of triumph when he leaped onto a fallen opponent and punched until the movement stopped.
There was no sense of time for him, there was only sweat, the feel of heavy bodies contending against his own. As blows began to connect from stronger or more capable opponents, the now well fed and well rested Prince of Komestra felt two things. The fullness of his strength thrumming through his muscles, and an unbridled rage that he was happy to at last unleash.
‘Pas’en broke your walls! Pasenian cavalry rode beside the allies that stormed your home! Slaves of my people are everywhere here! This is your chance… make them know Komestrans are not so easily tamed!’ His soul raged at him to fight, and every time a rib cracked and broke against his fist, it was like a tiny victory ripped away from his greatest defeat.
Bruises rose on his body slowly, joined more frequently by blood, his own or his opponents. It could not however… go on forever. He faced an opponent twice his size, craning his neck to stare up at a veritable giant with arms like the trunks of trees, it was like a living statue. Then the crossing of the girl between them, started the match again.
‘This is it, my last match.’ The Prince thought as a vicious blow got through his guard and he felt three ribs snap. [Dull Pain] He uttered, and pushed the fist back with a roar of battle fury, using the bones that fist had broken. The faint memory came to him out of the blue, of the blow his mistress had struck that hit his torso just below the rip cage, the way his body caved and her demonic hand hooked his bone and made it her puppet… for a very painful moment.
And so he imitated the woman he served, his fist became like a knife, striking below the rib, wind flew from his opponents mouth, but he continued to drive in, his fingers curled, Sado had him at the bone, he saw the understanding dawn in his massive opponent’s eyes as he was forced to bend forward. Sado shoved out and pulled back at the bone he’d grasped, his free hand pounded like the hammer of a smith behind schedule. Again, and again, and again, while the towering fighter struggled to break the unfamiliar hold, only for each blow to send spasms that paralyzed his flesh.
There was just enough awareness in his disbelieving eyes to see the fist coming, but not enough left to stop it. It hit the button of the chin, the same place his mistress had struck to bring him down…
The brute staggered, and fell like a great tall tree hewn down by a lumberjack, blow by blow, until he fell on his back with a heavy thud.
Sado was just raising his fist in victory, when he blacked out himself.
----------------------------------------
It was dark out when Nua woke up, the rain had finally stopped, the clouds were gone, and she could see the stars in the sky that the people of this part of the world worshipped. ‘So many gods, and not a single one of them stops the Tlalmok? Worthless.’ She dismissed the stars looking down at her with a contemptuous stare and went to the cage where Kaiji slept. Her body was buried completely under the blanket Nua had ensured was given to her. ‘You love me? Very bad idea, slave.’ Then she wondered, ‘For her, or me?’ Further reflection was ruined when Kaiji began to rise and stir from her sleep.
The demon-elf woman had slept curled up as if spooning with her lover, and when she drew back her blanket and saw her mistress, her dull, sleepy red eyes began to brighten. “Mistress… is it morning…” She rolled over and looked out the large window.
“No… not yet. Do you know when the regiment will arrive?” Nua asked, glancing out the window.
Kaiji began to sit up, the blanket she wore had fallen open, but she showed no discomfort with her exposure, answering with the crisp efficiency of a talented official. “Hours, Mistress, hours only. Enough time that I can bathe you, see to your meal, and your clothes… while you were gone, I took the liberty of having a few things made for you by Athein… also… we should have the horses soon… but perhaps I should delay that since you’re moving today.”
Though her words were focused on Nua’s agenda, she was looking toward the window herself, out into the city, out where Priceless was, still missing. A hand of hers unconsciously wrapped around the base of one of the bars.
“Priceless… please be alright… please… please…” Her lower lip trembled a little at the desperate plea, but she quickly refocused herself.
Nua unlocked the cage without a word, the ‘click’ was voice enough, and swung the door open. Kaiji was out in an instant, and on her feet, the faint ticking motion of her eyelids told Nua that she was casting them about, ordering her tasks for the work she was about to do.
“Mistress, first, we have to get you bathed, but we also have to get the Breakers ready for the move and ensure that Onimeus is in place to accept any intelligence, and that Freyjin and Sergeant Vargas are ready to conduct the search. Lady Solution and… Sado” she said the name slowly, forcing herself to not say ‘Prince’ Sado, “have not returned, I see, so I will have a soldier stationed here when we leave…” Kaiji was a whirlwind of efficiency that Nua could scarcely follow.
“Kaiji, I can bathe myself for once. I’m used to ‘roughing it’. She chuckled at the lazy comparison, but Kaji shook her head and waved her arms hands back and forth in a frantic negative, finally crossing them in an X in front of herself. “Mistress, no. You are the Duchessa Aiwenor, it’s so early maybe nobody would see you, but if they saw you… unattended, no servants? Your standing might decline.”
That brought Nua up short, and Kaiji went to her knees, her head tilted up and she grasped the hands of her owner and brought them in front of herself, she kissed the folded fingers, “Your ‘yet’ from our first day in this hotel, makes sense. What you said, before, when you asked if you should keep me. I worked this out before, but had my doubts… I worried how you would treat my people if you bought enough of them. I admit, I feared we’d be nothing but cattle to be played with, but seeing what you’ve done for the least of us, you should have a city. You should have an army. You should have… whatever falls into your hands. Priceless. Komestra. Me. I love my Sado… but he was not the ideal Prince. He should have been born a commander of armies. But you might be able to do what he couldn’t.”
Nua listened to the outpouring of faith, only for it to take a turn, “But you’ll never get there, My beloved mistress, if you let your standing fall. You’ll need the nobles of Pas’en as allies. If the other city allies are united against Komestra again… they’ll break you, kill you, and scatter our people to the slave markets a second time. If you want to take my home… make it yours… to rule… you ‘must not’ let them ever think less of you!” She said it with urgency through clenched teeth and kissed Nua’s fingers again.
“Never be without a slave to attend you, never show that you are less than they in wealth, in power, in status. I remember the nobles of Pas’en. They are not a… a bad people, in spite of what they’ve done. But they are sensitive to the nuances of power, your wealth and rarity have gotten you this far. Your success at the Prince’s task has done more. But the little things are like mice eating away at the foundation of a house on stilts, enough bites, and it will fall.” Kaiji’s eyes shimmered to Nua’s own. ‘Please listen… please be wiser than my Sado…’ She prayed to the goddess at whose feet she knelt. “Stand on my back, or my shoulders, mistress, and let your slave help you rise just a little bit more…”
Nua contemplated those words with an unreadable face, but if her own was a blank page, Kaiji’s said it all. Shimmering devotion that was so great her body could not contain itself, dark purple fingers moved with tiny little tremors over Nua’s own. Doubt vanished, and she gave a slow bow of her head, accepting her advisor’s proposal. “Alright… fine. I’ll take your word for it. Get the keys for the cages from the front desk, wake Onimeus, order breakfast for them all, order the bath made ready for me, order breakfast for us, and today… we will get my property back!” Nua spat the last word out with wrath, and it was all Kaiji could do to not weep for joy.