Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  Orange blood cascaded down the Lthon’s leg, matting the fur and changing the color from brown smudges to a weird mustard-colored pattern. This tendon parted and broke, the leg going suddenly lame and nearly useless to the large creature still trying to hold itself up.

  As the Lthon cried out and lurched about in an attempt to keep the weight off the injured leg, he struck at another and without a pause at the fourth. Each blow cut the tendons of those legs, and the Lthon was done for. Without the strength to hold itself up the feline headed being fell over onto one side and rolled away from him.

  The fight was over, he knew it, and the Lthon probably knew it, too.

  It would still take any chance to slaughter him.

  He could respect that.

  Flattened to the dirt floor of the sunken pit, the Lthon scrabbled around to face him, green eyes focused and intent. It couldn’t move nearly as fast as before, but it still had teeth and claws. One wrong move and it could still kill.

  He circled it, focused on the Lthon while bets and odds were flying around. He wanted to end this quickly, there was no need for it to suffer. It had tried, fought well, and ultimately failed, but it had not lost itself.

  In a burst of speed, he ran sideways. The Lthon tracked his movement but didn’t try to follow. He stepped up from the ground and used his momentum to carry him a slight way up the side wall, which he ran along to the corner.

  Then he jumped. From the height he had gained, the leap took him up and over the Lthon to land squarely on what amounted to its back.

  If he had done this earlier, if he could have gotten the height necessary with the Lthon standing tall, it would have had the strength and power to throw him off or roll over onto him.

  As it was now, the furry creature was tired and injured and did not have the strength to pick up its own weight, never mind what he added. As the underside had been safe before, so now was the Lthon’s back. It could not get its jaws up over its own head, and the limbs were not designed to quickly strike at anything above itself.

  Agility would usually allow it to avoid anything dangerous from above, and it could scratch itself when required and in the right pose.

  He was absolutely safe until it decided to do something like spin over or whack him against the wall, so he struck fast, as quickly as he could, using one handful of white fur as a purchase.

  He had no idea where the Lthon’s heart would be, nor its spine or even if it had one. The only sure strike for a quick kill would be the brain. The same method as with the empty prisoner was employed, the blade struck right through the ear, the soft tissue and the crevice which was a weak spot in the skull that allowed the ear canal to connect to the nerves.

  He felt the blade go in deep and the Lthon shuddered underneath him, a low whine coming from its throat. He twisted the knife sharply, and the Lthon dropped to the pit floor. A moment of silence came and went as the audience watched, raptly, for any sign of life.

  The mists confirmed it for them and for him as the body of the creature drew away from his touch, melted into a fine spray that felt almost damp, then quickly passed.

  The husk of the Lthon shrunk down and evaporated until there was no more black and white vapor to come off it. He found his prize; within the back of the collapsing body, where the legs joined, there was a faintly glowing orange stone, four times larger than the one he already had.

  He quickly grabbed and hid the Vitae, a slight tingle passing into his hand where it touched the stone, a tingle he had not noticed before.

  A ladder dropped down next to him with a thud, and the dust thrown up by the landing covered the scent of the Lthon, which was now passing away. He climbed out of the pit and came out on top, next to the handlers and the pit owner.

  His mind still whirling with the impact of how he had just risked his life and how much that was so very normal for him, a way of life that involved actually living it and testing it against others, he proclaimed, “I have it.”

  “You have what?” groused the pit owner, likely upset because of the payouts he would be making to those stupid enough to bet on a new arrival.

  “I remember it. My name.”

  At this, the being looked up, surprised. “You do?”

  He smiled, all predatory grin and devious intelligence. “Yes, I am Fenix.”

  A memory of a very long time ago…

  The war camp was a place of constant training, no one was idle when they were not in battle.

  There was time allotted for chores and maintenance of the soldiers’ gear, and the rest of the time spent honing one’s skills. Not one of the men and women who made up the war band were ever idle, they took no great time out for rest and did not waver in their duty.

  Fire pits had been dug, and within them were placed the stone columns the gray-skinned warriors danced upon, leaping with grace and finesse from one column to the other. Any slip would lead to burns from the smoldering logs or outright flames below.

  The men and women all had their long hair braided, the typical pure white locks of their kind stark against the dark armor or leather mottled in patterns to camouflage them with their environment.

  A group of the infantry practiced in long ranks, hand to hand combat arts in their most basic form. Introduced to their army as a dance, hundreds of years before, the fighting style coupled swaying movements with high lifts of their feet and devastating drops.

  The method for infantry use known as “beating the drum of the earth with one’s feet,” a hard and diligent practice that often allowed the fighters to plow through enemy formations.

  Another group festooned in much heavier armor plates on their chests and backs. Greaves, bracers, covers for their upper arms, and gauntlets over their hands. They swung the heavy maces, made to break shields and opponents equally.

  They were long sticks that widened from the grip up to more than the width of their own heads. The strength of his people tested by the weight of the giant clubs, but the warriors who dedicated their lives to their use were highly proficient and extremely dangerous.

  Endurance, stamina, strength, and agility.

  All of these aspects of martial skill trained into them from a young age. To be a member of their society, they had to serve in the armies for at least fifteen years. Only a veteran soldier could be a citizen, anything less would always be a servant or a slave.

  Such was the hard way of his people, and then only hard for outsiders who did not understand that his people had flourished this way for centuries.

  Hundreds of new recruits stood with jars of water on ropes tied to their forearms and knees in poses designed to strengthen and elongate the tight ropy muscles between the joints. The larger muscles for strength were easy to train and grow, but these other muscles were needed for real power and long-term stamina.

  Many such exercises had been designed to push the limits in training for the soldiers.

  Those who were more advanced did the same kind of training but moved with the jars still strapped on. Slow practice motions of the dance, in the various forms and stages of the fight. The more advanced even would do this while standing on a raised pole that allowed only one foot to settle correctly at a time.

  Masters of the art could do the same thing while walking a tightrope in high winds, but this war camp did not merit such elites.

  A wide open space between tents was apparently empty. Occasionally one of the master scouts would toss an exploding jar of energized slime into the midst of it based on something they saw. The detonation would sound out across the war camp with a terrible boom and leave a dent of scorched earth.

  If it was a scout who had been seen, they would have inevitably been injured, which was the point.

  Another area was broken up into rings and squares where fighters practiced their hand to hand in sparring matches. Some of the squares had other veteran’s mediating the singularly silent fights with bladed weapons, where two combatants stood quietly facing each other before a sudden flurry of in
teraction ensued.

  Such was their way of warfare, calm and collected in the face of any threat, but swift and vicious in their response.

  Fenix was not among any of these groups. At the age of nineteen, he had already passed through the rigors of the training and surpassed many of his fellows early on. Hand to hand, weapons, and scouting had all come quite naturally to him. Though at least a year ahead of everyone else, he was still not shown favoritism.

  That was reserved for rank when he made it through to be an actual soldier, and he could only do that when he came of age, which for his people was during their twentieth year.

  Puberty hit them at sixteen when their skin hardened into the flexible rock-like substance that protected them so well. Individuals usually grew another three feet in height during this period as well. The men would put on their muscle and attain their full height by nineteen, while the women developed breasts and the basic biology for mating in those three years alone.

  It was also the period when they were most adaptable.

  Many parents among Fenix’s kind shaped the growth of their children into aspects that they understood. Long family lines cultivated excellence in their chosen martial forms. Fenix was no exception to that particular tradition.

  He was most well suited to archery, the bow, and arrow that his ancestors had adored. Being quicker and stronger, his race had the upper hand in most conflicts, and for that reason, they kept very few archers, but still, they were valued.

  Archery required a sense of motion and timing that went very well with every other aspect of their training. In a fight, the ability to temper speed and strength with the right actions at the right time was the key to victory.

  Archery was part of the training for every soldier, but those who specialized in it were in a league of their own. Fenix had started with the bow and arrow on the same day as the other recruits his age, but on that very day, he had not missed a single shot.

  Ongoing tests, done sparingly so that he was not deemed special, proved that his affinity with the bow and arrow was spectacular. His eyesight was acute, range and bearing through differential winds came as naturally to him as breathing.

  That he was proficient in hand to hand combat and with melee weapons was no surprise, but the personality of Fenix was best suited to the range and options of archery.

  So it was that during this day Fenix could be found practicing what would be his allotted place in the war band—the archery fields stretched out to one side of the tents and cooking fires, always laid out by the archers, and only once their other chores were done.

  The placement and correct marking of the field was a point of honor upheld by all the archers.

  And on this field, Fenix loosed arrow after arrow from his longbow.

  **

  “As precise as always. What is that seven all struck into each other now? Why do they not fall off?” The voice was a pleasant trill to the ears, feminine, as befitted the luscious form of Pericon herself.

  Soldiers were allowed to fraternize, in fact, it was encouraged during the period of puberty when hormones were all over the place. Their people were not fertile in those years, so exploring sexuality was good and helped give them a distraction.

  “Because the arrows are embedded deeper into the target with each follow up strike, such is the power of the bow,” he replied.

  Fenix and Pericon had had an amorous and adventurous sexual relationship for more than two months. Jokes were going around that they were set to be mated for life if that was the length of time they could enjoy each other’s company.

  As it turned out, the reason they were able to carry on for so long did have a lot to do with their personalities, but not a lot to do with any need to stay with each other long term.

  “Mmmmm, and I do so enjoy those strong arms of yours, which can take the pull of such a powerful bow of course.” She smiled lazily at him, in that way he knew meant she had a new conquest. “I’ll be needing those arms tonight.”

  “I am at your disposal, of course.” He bowed his head in respect, a mockery, but one that they enjoyed.

  That meant he would be assisting her in capturing one of the other new male recruits, the younger ones who were in the early throes of puberty and had yet to find a mate. She enjoyed showing the neophytes what sex could be like, and she appreciated that Fenix helped her by holding them down for her.

  Once she had sated her sadistic desires, they included the newly broken in man in a wholesome orgy of sex for a few nights.

  For his part, Fenix enjoyed the more mentally satisfying seduction through words, women he could convince and seduce. His conquests often joined Pericon and her newest stallion out of choice, a choice he manipulated.

  He pulled another arrow from the ground, knocked the fletching to the bowstring, drew and let fly in less than a second. The eighth arrow struck and embedded itself into the shafts of the other seven spot on in the center of the target. It was not much of a challenge really, what with the mild wind from the southwest only countering his aim by a few feet.

  The distance to the target was set against the nearest hillside, less than a full mile away.

  He did need to keep in practice, and this was about toning the muscles and working on his draw, not about targets and distance. Although, to fail at that while doing the rigorous exercise would have been demeaning to him.

  “Have you warned him?” he asked, not really expecting the truth from her, but it was a part of the game they played. Surviving the war camps was not just about surviving the enemy. The weak would be culled from within if necessary, and the politics and behaviors of his people ensured that any weakness was pounced on, or created for advantageous pouncing.

  Pericon gave a lazy smile, like those he had seen on hunting cats satisfied with a kill. “No, not this one. He is training to be a hunter. Even among the scouts, he shows a talent for it. So I thought we’d test his latent senses a bit.”

  “Ah.” He drew and released another shaft. This would be his eight hundredth for the morning. His arms were tired and sore, but he could feel the strength growing in them day by day.

  “That should be interesting. Thank you.”

  “Oho?” Her voice purred, lascivious and sly.

  “You relish the challenge, do you? You know with the admission, you must gift me in return, since you acknowledge the favor.”

  He knew. “Yes, Pericon. I will find a way to ensure your complete satisfaction, I assure you.”

  Pull, draw, loose.

  The arrow struck true, Fenix imagined that it was the naked form of Pericon strapped to the target shield. The center would put it right above her abdomen, where her heart was. He enjoyed the play of her athletic figure under his adept ministrations.

  That he could persuade her desire to override her vigilant defenses was now a foregone conclusion. He did not take advantage of that weakness, not yet.

  His arrows in the dirt served as a timekeeper as well, he was about to draw the next one when he saw where he had marked the line of shadow.

  “I must go now,” he said, pulling the rest of the arrows to return them with his bow to the armory.

  No weapons are allowed among the war camp soldiers while not in training or battle. Survival instincts were one thing, but allowing arms would add too many factors and likely loss of life.

  Pericon twisted her features for a moment and then calmed them, irritated that he would so quickly ignore her. A trait she would have to let go of, calm proved better when manipulating, and better for survival.

  She angered a little too quickly when she did not get her way.

  “Off to your other training then?” she asked.

  Fenix just nodded, already making haste to get there on time.

  “When will you ever tell me what it is that drags you away so often?” she called after him, but he did not reply, as he never would.

  **

  Fenix awoke from the dream come memory with a sense of loss.

&n
bsp; That his mind was showing him what he was like was important, and he did not want to stop.

  What other training had there been?

  He thought on it for a long time, but the rest of that scene, indeed that part of his life, eluded his waking mind. His conscious thoughts could not ferret out the memories; it seemed they would only come as his sleeping mind allowed.

  He supposed that different stimulus would evoke other memories, but without a clue as to what sort of signals he should send through to his sleeping mind, it was probably going to have to happen on its own.

  He needed to focus on survival.

  Day 7…

  The thing that leaped off the high branch at his head was fleshy, bulbous in the middle, and had four chitinous legs attached to nodules of muscle.

  All in all, it was only about as big as his head in size, but it could move astonishingly quickly. It had no camouflage for hiding among the boughs of the tree it sprang off, the wide-bladed leaves with their many frills and the colorful flowers were utterly different.

  With so many of them distracting him, it didn’t matter if they hid or not.

  They were all fakes, at least that was what he figured, and since each one he killed didn’t dissipate like the other things he had killed in the Prison so far. These went mushy and turned into gooey ectoplasm, which meant they were magical.

  Fenix assumed they were either summoned entities or copies of something, but either way if he did not find the source it was going to be a problem, and soon.

  The edged wooden blade of his stave slapped the jumping one from the air and into the ground, where the end followed it down and stabbed it through. The impaled thing shuddered once and then turned to slime.

  He had carved a long double-edged staff from a tree on the edge of this plateau after traveling here from the Warrens. It turned out the arrivals area near the vortex of swirling magic led in five directions, not just the two he had first recognized.