by Ramy Vance
Even if the orcs wanted Terra dead, they were at least committed to making sure she was able to put on a good show.
The gates separating the hallway from the arena creaked open. No one said anything.
Terra stepped out into the arena, momentarily blinded by the light of the triple suns resting in the sky. When her vision finally adjusted, she saw the stands were fuller than they had been before. There wasn’t an empty seat in the whole place. More and more orcs were interested in her battle for survival.
Across from Terra, on the other side of the arena, the gates were opening. Out stepped a young human man. He wore no armor, only a loincloth and a tattered cap. His hair was cut short, almost to the scalp, and he walked out of the darkness with a limp, dragging a sword nearly the size of his body with one hand.
Riotous cheering erupted from the crowd. Terra couldn’t understand what they were chanting, something in orcish. Whatever it was, the very sound of the chant was violent, as if they had managed to distill aggression down to a few syllables.
The sword-bearing man took his time making it to the middle of the ring.
Terra knew better than to be cocky. Even if this guy didn’t look like a challenge, there was no way the Game Master was planning on having a fight any less epic than the recreation of the Battle of the Red Lion. And if there was anything Terra had learned by now, whatever was in the ring was deadly.
She tried to remind herself that applied to her as well.
The man now stood in the middle of the ring, and Terra crossed the arena and stopped a few feet from him. Now that she was closer, she could see that something was off. The man’s face was free of all expression, and he wheezed as if he couldn’t catch his breath.
Skin hung loosely from his emaciated, scar-covered body. His ribs jutted out as if they had been blown up from the inside. He leaned forward, supporting himself on the hilt of his sword. “You,” he muttered. “I have been waiting a long time for you.”
Terra was unnerved by the talking pile of bones balancing on his sword. The man’s voice was deep and raspy, sounding as though it were pushed out of his body rather than spoken. When he swayed slightly to the side, Terra hoped he would just topple over. Still, she tried to put on a brave face.
“Me? Why have you been waiting for little ol’ me for?” she asked.
The man smiled, his incisors far too sharp for a human. “To release me,” he growled. “To release me from all this. Death is our only release here.”
Almost faster than Terra could see, the man swiped his sword at her. Terra was barely able to throw her shield up in time to block the attack. She stumbled away, almost falling over.
There was no way she could have blocked that attack before. It had happened without any tell, and with enough force behind it to have split her in half if she hadn’t managed to block. That must have been Cire’s gift. Terra’s body had reacted as if it had seen years of combat.
The emaciated man leaned on his sword again, his lips drawing back in a disturbing smile, looking as if there were hooks in the corners of his mouth drawing his lip up. “Will you make me suffer for my freedom?” he asked, his head falling to the side as if the muscles in his neck had failed. “Or must you suffer for freedom?”
Terra backed away. Something about this man was off. It was like there was something else inside him. She’d never met a human who filled her with such fear or revulsion.
The man swung his sword again, slicing straight across, and Terra jumped to the side, raising her shield above her head just in case. The sword passed right over her head, barely skimming the shield. Then it came down again, atop the shield. The force of the attack nearly drove Terra into the ground.
A strong kick to the chest sent Terra flying backward. She skidded across the ground, trying to get to her feet. The man lunged, landing right in front of Terra. He raised his sword.
Terra saw an opening and rushed forward, her katar split into three blades. She slashed at his exposed abdomen, but he stepped away, narrowly avoiding the attack. He adjusted his stance and slashed at Terra, who raised her shield, blocking the blow. Her feet slid along the sand a little, but she pushed back hard before rushing forward and headbutting the man.
He stumbled back, covering his nose as it gushed blood. Terra leapt forward, refusing to give up the offensive. She brought her katar down as the man raised his sword, blocking the attack, his limp arm grabbing Terra’s face and shoving her backward.
Terra stumbled, regained her footing, rushed forward, zigzagging as she picked up speed, and brought her katar down toward the man. But he pulled his massive sword up, catching her in mid-air. She dropped the katar, reached behind her, unsheathed her sword, and drove it through the man’s shoulder blade, straight to his heart.
The man went limp, falling to the side, only keeping himself upright by leaning on his sword.
Silence from the crowd. They all watched on as Terra backed away from the man, not knowing what to expect. It had been her quickest fight, but it felt the hardest. Every one of her movements had been as specific as she could muster. If it hadn’t been for Cire’s gift, she wasn’t sure she would have made it.
Her opponent was still standing. Terra had no idea how. He rested his free hand on the hilt of Terra’s sword. His grip was tight. He tried to pull the sword out but could not. “Ah,” he said, his voice low. “So, you are the one who will make me suffer.”
The man took a step forward, and as he moved, his muscles began to bulge under his elastic skin, his eyes growing larger in their sockets, the veins in his neck and torso bursting. His legs burst open, the skin tearing, and a mass of muscle poured from both stumps, unfolding onto the ground, taking shape and wrapping themselves up among each other.
Next to tear was his ass. It ripped open, and more of the messy, sinewy ligaments fell to the ground. Now they were taking the shape of cloven feet, growing sturdier.
A boil appeared on the man’s neck, growing exponentially in size until it popped, shooting fetid pus about, the wound gaping like a spoiled flower.
The man’s spine extended and snapped, raising his height an extra three feet as four deformed arms ripped from his back, one struggling to grab the sword still piercing his shoulder. His face grew long and terrible as if it were made of melting wax, one eye dull and dead, the other ironically alive.
Terra retreated, staring at the shambling horrors as it lifted its sword into the air, letting loose a foul screech that echoed throughout the arena.
“Fuck, why couldn’t it have just been a dragon?” Terra shouted.
The foul abomination rushed at Terra, slicing through the air with its sword as its six hind legs propelled it forward like some sort of obscene locomotive.
Terra tumbled to her knees, grabbed the dropped katar, and slid under his blade, she sliced at one of the legs. Another of the man’s legs shot out and kicked Terra in the jaw.
The creature stopped and began stomping, trying to trample Terra underfoot as it cackled maniacally, thick drool slipping from its slackened jaw.
Terra rolled from side to side, trying to avoid the cloven hooves as they kicked up dust, carving open the ground with their ferocity. Finally, Terra managed to roll out from under the bastardized caricature of a man. She was barely able to catch her breath when the creature surged forward again.
Attack after attack Terra fended off, barely able to shield herself. The katar was still a few feet away, and her sword was firmly lodged in the creature. The only chance she was going to have was getting a weapon in her hands.
She finally dodged to the side, lunged forward, and grabbed one of its frail hands. She pulled herself up onto its body, scampering across the pus-filled mass as quickly as she could. When she reached her sword, she pulled it out and drove it into the creature’s back again.
The thing screamed in pain, reached up with its good arm, and threw Terra across the arena.
She bounced off the wall with a heavy thud. Before she could hit the g
round, the creature was in the air, landing above her. It grabbed her by the back of her armor, raised her high, and then slammed her body into the ground. Then it lifted her again, higher this time, sending her crashing back down once more.
The only sound in the arena was Terra’s bones cracking.
The word “pain” did no justice to what she felt. It was as if her entire body was surrendering to a force far beyond its understanding. She was being swallowed up. It was easier than being here.
All of humanity watched as Terra’s body lay limp on the ground. Abby had broadcast the fight out of habit. Although the battle had been playing out, she hadn’t been watching. She was busy trying to figure out how to open the Dark Gate. She had convinced herself that finding ways to help Terra win each individual match wasn’t going to help her in the long run.
Those feelings changed when Creon tapped Abby on the back and pointed at the image of Terra lying still on the ground, that monstrosity towering over her and screaming mindlessly. “Oh, my God,” Abby muttered as she covered her mouth in horror. “Where the hell is the tracker?”
Without thinking, Abby reached out across the light-years to her tracker. It was a disorienting feeling, her body now out of place. She no longer saw what was in her lab.
She was on the battlefield with Terra. She knew the tracker would follow the girl everywhere now. It was part of its subconscious programming. She knew this because she had no memory of flying the tracker from the cell. Everything’s learning now, she thought.
The tracker flew closer to Terra, as close as she could get. That had the horrifying benefit of giving everyone a closeup of Terra.
Terra’s face was smashed in, her nose broken. A pool of blood gathered around her head like a halo.
Abby landed the tracker next to her ear and spoke aloud. “Terra, you need to get up. You need to get up right now!”
Terra’s eyes flitted open. She smiled a little. “I’m not going to school today,” she wheezed. “There’s no tests or anything.”
“Terra, this is Abby. From Earth. Don’t quit. Please, don’t quit yet. We’re coming for you. I’m gonna get you home.”
“I’m already home, silly. You can’t…you have to sleep…sleep at home…”
Abby was holding back tears. She could see the life fading from Terra’s eyes as they began to glaze over—the same look Pa’d had before he gave up.
Red-hot anger prickled up in Abby’s chest. “You are not giving up on me!” she shouted. “You can’t! I’m not going to let you. Do you hear me? Terra, do you hear me? You aren’t giving up!”
Terra’s eyes focused on the tracker. “But,” she murmured as her eyes grew more focused, “I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m hurting. I don’t want to. I just want to go back to sleep.”
Abby slammed her hands down on the desk and shouted, “I don’t give a fuck what you want! You aren’t giving up! Do you hear me?”
Terra stared at the tracker. It was contorting, changing into something. A face. It was the face of a teenage girl. The girl was crying. “Abby?” she asked.
“Please,” the face pleaded. “I can’t watch you die. Please don’t give up. Please.”
“I-I-I don’t want to die.”
Terra felt her bones burning, felt the fire race through her body as if she had been struck by lightning. The whole world was watching. She wasn’t going to die on her back.
The fire burned deeper. Terra’s heart was aflame, her brain a raging inferno. All she could feel was pain, but it was no longer the black mindlessness. It had changed, taken form. The pain was a flame, and it was small. It could only grow.
Terra reached out, her hand clawing the sand around her. The katar lay a few inches away. She reached for it, slid her hand onto it. Then she pointed the weapon at the ground, pushing her arm up. Once her arm moved, she knew the rest of her body would as well.
One foot was on the ground. Abby’s voice was in Terra’s ear, “You can do it, Terra! You can kill it!”
Terra was on one knee. She spat blood and stood.
The roar of the crowd was deafening. It sounded as if heaven and hell had opened for Terra’s glory, unleashing the dead to sing her praises.
She reached into her mouth, pulled out a loose tooth, and flicked it at the broken, bloated husk of the emaciated man. “Round two, motherfucker.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The tunnel Sarah and the gnomes passed through was a dark and slimy place. It smelled like the Dark One’s forces had been using it as a sewage system, and the gnomes who traveled with Sarah didn’t hide their disgust.
This tunnel, along with the others beneath the defense rings, had been used by the gnomes for thousands of years. Much of the ore mined to create their masterpieces had been pulled from these tunnels. Even though gnomes lived above ground now, they still had a love of their past.
They had never stopped appreciating the caves which had provided for them.
The journey was silent, and Sarah was glad for this. She could only imagine how the gnomes at her side felt, walking through the veins of their planet, realizing that it had been carved up, and their most sacred places were being filled with orc shit.
Sarah checked her holomap, hoping there was a signal. As far as she knew, this tunnel was a short cut through the defense rings and would bring them up into the last one, the epicenter of the defense ring. From there, all Sarah had to do was track down the hadron collider parts.
She wasn’t certain on the ins and outs of how the collider parts were going to benefit her or Middang3ard, but Myrddin had assured her that being able to get the part, along with any other information about the collider, would help open up the gnomish world again. Maybe even help other worlds.
There were parts of the war that had always eluded Sarah. The politics, the technicalities. In the dark of the tunnels, Sarah realized that she had always thought of herself as instrumental in the war efforts. But since she’d been on the gnomish world, seen how things worked, she’d come to understand that, at best, she was a tool. A specialized tool.
There wasn’t anything wrong with that. She had a function. One that could not be easily replicated. If she was specific, she was also essential. Leading a group of fighters wasn’t her function. It wasn’t what she had spent years training to do.
A blade. Sharp and without qualms. That was what Sarah was. And a blade didn’t look after the flesh of others. Having so many lives to worry about was slowing her down. If she were on her own, she would have raced through these tunnels. Wouldn’t have spent a second thinking about how important these tunnels had been to those who had walked through them before herself.
Now Sarah was slowing her pace so that the gnomes could keep up with her, stopping every so often to check if she’d been messaged by the two other teams.
It did feel good to care, though. Her life wasn’t the only one hanging in the balance. That reminded her that the war was about much more than her. This was something she knew, but having flesh and blood by her side made it more real. For too long, it had only been Kravis. This was a reminder that there were lives outside of her own and Kravis’ to protect and care for.
Up ahead, where the tunnel widened, there was a noise. The sloshing of water. Something was ahead. It didn’t sound like multiple feet tramping through liquid. There were no voices. It was unlikely that it was an orc scouting party.
Sarah raised her hand, motioning for the gnomes to stop. She listened, her ears twitching, trying to pick up sound. She regretted not getting the cybernetic ear upgrades Myrddin and Creon had offered her years ago. If she lived, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to look into those.
There was the sound again. Louder this time. Whatever it was, it was getting closer.
Sarah leaned over to the gnomes and whispered, “Be prepared to engage.”
They continued to move forward, hugging the walls, trying to stay as clear from the water as possible. As they neared the spot where Sarah thought she’d heard t
he sound, she looked down and saw a small water snake swimming through the water.
That was probably all it was. Water snakes were a nuisance through any gnomish tunnel that had the unfortunate predisposition of having water. The sound had probably just been that snake floundering about and making a commotion.
Sarah relaxed and moved away from the wall.
Suddenly, something huge and cylindrical tore out of the shallow water of the tunnel. The thing wrapped around one of the gnomes and fell back into the water, receding into the darkness, the tunnels filled with the screams of the gnome, which quickly faded.
Sarah drew her two pistols and fired, the shots briefly illuminating the tunnel. She turned to the gnomes and said, “Torches, now.”
All of the gnomes lit their torches, casting light down the tunnel.
The water shimmered and moved. Sarah motioned for the gnomes to climb up, away from the water.
Stillness. An aching silence as Sarah’s heart thudded in her chest.
A water snake burst out from the shallows. It was three times the length of Sarah’s body, its stomach swollen with the gnome it had just swallowed. The snake had six eyes, and its slippery scales reflected the light of the torches, making the serpent look as if it were made of stars.
One of the gnomes rushed forward, his short sword drawn. He lunged for the snake, which curled around him and clamped down on his neck, sinking its fangs into the gnome’s soft flesh.
The gnome screamed in pain but didn’t give up. He raised his sword and stabbed the river snake in its belly, causing the serpent to screech in pain and unravel, withdrawing for a moment before coiling up and striking again, fast as a flash of lightning.
Seconds stretched into what felt like minutes as the light from the gnome’s torch went out, allowing the shadows, within which the snake had withdrawn, to spread further down the tunnels.
