The Death Riders shoved them against the bars, then retreated down the hallway, slamming the door shut behind them. They were trapped now. H124 reached out with her mind, searching for a TWR that might be controlling something in the gate. She found nothing, so she reached out farther, again coming up empty. It didn’t surprise her. From everything she’d learned since she left New Atlantic, things like theta wave receivers were city-tech. Out here things tended to be analog, slapped together from old parts.
Through a tiny hole in the door, the Death Riders threw down something metal.
Byron grabbed it. “It’s a key.”
He knelt before Astoria and unchained her, then unlocked all of their manacles. When he got to H124, he moved very gently. She cradled her broken arm, the intensity of the pain unrelenting.
She peered out through the bars at the chaos beyond. The great circle was full of Death Riders, hundreds of them, all standing and chanting from seats that enclosed a central field. She could feel feet stomping in rhythm above her, knowing that even more Death Riders jeered and shouted from the seats directly above their cage as well.
She turned to absorb her surroundings. Others huddled in the cage, taken from other places. They looked at the newcomers with frightened eyes, some trembling in the corners, others wounded and shaking. “What is this place?” she asked.
Astoria stood up, gripping the bars. “It’s a fighting arena.” She gritted her teeth, rattling the bars.
The circular structure looked ancient. Parts of the opposite wall had fallen and been rebuilt, and the seats there were pulled out. A high wall surrounded the field, and faint traces of old signs were still visible in some places, though some of the letters had worn away: Edwa— J—nes and Pep— Col—
The crowd roared and cheered. She had no idea there were this many Death Riders. Given the number of people in the cage with them, she got the impression this was a special event, something they’d gathered for.
A man in the corner wept, cradling his small daughter, whose wide eyes stared out in shock. A giant man in one corner met her gaze.
“How long have you been here?” she asked him.
“A week.” His body was a patchwork of fresh bruises and cuts.
“What’s your name?” Dirk asked him.
“Gil.”
“Looks like you’ve been put through the wringer,” Dirk said, and Gil just nodded grimly.
Next to him stood a cement trough full of water. H124 hurried to it, peering into the liquid. Thick, furry green algae clung to the bottom and sides of the container, but she was so thirsty, she didn’t care. She bent her mouth to the surface and drank deeply. The others did the same.
In the far wall of the arena, a great metal door rolled open, revealing an equally gigantic hole. A group of Death Riders wheeled out a strange contraption. It was an enormous see-through box, easily fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long. Interior walls had been built inside, a transparent maze winding this way and that.
“The labyrinth!” whimpered the crying man, a huge sob wracking his chest. He ushered his daughter to the very back of the cage, by the steel door.
“What the hell’s the labyrinth?” asked Astoria, but the man just sniveled and turned his back to them all.
They positioned the maze in the center of the arena. A single hatch stood open on the transparent ceiling, and at the far end a metal square had been mounted on a wall. Some sort of tech.
Two Death Riders marched toward the cage, as the others retreated back into the wall. One held a flat panel.
The other prisoners shrank back, and H124 gripped her wounded arm.
The cage door rattled upward. The captors scanned their prisoners, eyes glimmering with cruel intent. Hunkered back against the walls of the cage, the captives turned their faces away. One of the Death Riders wore a human skullcap on his head. He swept his pointing finger, and settled on Gil toward the back. Though his burly frame towered over the others, Gil’s body shook like a feather. “You,” the Death Rider said. Gil gazed at the others, pleading with his eyes, but several of his fellow prisoners shoved him forward, turning against him and urging him on.
The next Death Rider stepped up, a necklace of human canines around his neck. His eyes gleamed as he surveyed the huddled prisoners. He saw the man cowering at the back with his daughter. Though the whimpering man had his back turned, he seemed to sense that the Death Rider had locked on him. “No,” he whispered fervently. “Please no.”
“You!” Canines boomed.
The man looked over his shoulder, tears flowing. “But my daughter!”
“You!” he boomed again.
The other prisoners surged forward, grabbing the man by his arms. They wrenched him away from his daughter, who could only stare ahead vacantly.
“Wait!” Dirk said, but Canines just shoved him back and seized the crying man as he reached the front of the cage. He tossed him out onto the field. When the man tried to run back to his daughter, Canines sent him sprawling backward. He landed in a sagging heap, wailing bitterly.
Skullcap scanned the rest of the prisoners. H124 felt a chill as his gaze settled on her. “And you!”
Byron got to his feet. “No! She’s wounded. She can’t go out there.”
Skullcap didn’t even acknowledge him. The prisoners rushed toward her, hands shoving at her back and jostling her arm. She cried out, trying to resist the press of desperate hands at her back. It was everyone for himself in this caged, desperate place.
Byron tore as many of the terrified captives off her as he could, beating them back. But before she knew it, they had shoved her through the open gate, and the bars started lowering behind her. She blinked in the glaring sunlight, heart hammering, arm screaming in pain.
Then suddenly Byron was beside her. He picked her up and threw her back inside the cage just before the bars slammed shut.
She struggled to her feet. “Byron! What are you doing?”
He gripped the bars. “You’re wounded. You can’t fight right now. It’s a death sentence.”
“Going out there is always a death sentence,” a thin woman said, moving to the back of the cage.
H124 gripped the iron with her good hand, and he closed his fingers around hers. His green eyes met hers, and she felt something pass between them. “Byron,” she whispered, scared but determined.
Skullcap seized him by the arm, and dragged him over to the others.
Canines held out the flat panel, and snatched Gil’s wrist. The Death Rider slapped Gil’s palm against it, and a light flashed on its surface, scanning him. Then he held the panel up to the trembling man’s eye, and another light streaked out. He shoved Gil toward the labyrinth.
Next they scanned Byron, who stood there defiantly. Then the Death Riders forced the whimpering man to get to his feet for scanning.
“What is the purpose of this?” asked Astoria.
No one answered her.
“Hey!” she yelled. “What the hell is the goal of this game?”
People averted their eyes, so she stormed through the cage, grabbing the woman who had called it the labyrinth. She wrenched the feeble woman up on her feet, ripping her ragged shirt. “What the hell is he supposed to do out there?”
The woman licked her lips nervously, then said, “It’s a maze. Fills up with water. To get out you have to retrieve the hand and eye of one of your opponents and show them to the biometric scanner. There are eyeball extractors and appendage slicers all through the maze. You can’t use your own hands or eyes. If you manage to hunt down your opponents before the space fills with water, you can scan their body parts, and a hatch opens on top. If you lose and try to climb out, the executioners will kill you.”
H124 saw the nasty jaws of the appendage slicers at intervals throughout the maze, as well as rusted claws designed to tear out eyes. The scanner was on one end o
f the maze, and the hatch at the start. So even if Byron managed to unlock the hatch, he’d still have to navigate back the entire length of the maze before he drowned.
“And if you win?” Astoria asked.
“You get sent back to the cage. But if you don’t win, they kill your companions, too.” She shifted nervously. “It’s not quick either. On the last day of the festival, they torture people. Set them up on these platforms where people can watch and participate . . .” She sniffed and turned away, wiping an eye.
“They call this fucking thing a festival?” Astoria roared. She shoved the woman away. “We’re in a fucking kill box. We need to get out of here now.” She started checking the perimeter, testing the walls and the steel door.
The feeble woman said, “Don’t you think we would have escaped if we could?”
Astoria spun on her, her eyes two smoldering pits. “You shut up.”
Dirk moved to the back of the cage, where the little girl stood staring out. He knelt beside her. “You doing okay, kid?”
She made no reply. H124 got the sense her mind was far away, that she’d seen horrible things that had closed her off.
Out on the field, Skullcap and Canines were given axes by two Death Riders who disappeared back into the hole. They forced the three men up a steel ladder, shoved them through the top hatch, and slammed it shut. The glass maze started flooding. The terror-stricken man sped away from the other two.
She watched Byron slosh through ankle-deep water in pursuit, while burly Gil appeared frozen on the spot.
“Why isn’t he moving?” Dirk asked.
An old man wearing a tattered sack spoke up, his voice cracked from a dry throat. “He’s been picked too many times. I think he’s just ready for it to be over.”
“You mean he’s just going to stand there and die?” H124 asked.
The old man nodded.
The water was streaming around Byron’s calves now. He chased the skinny man through twists and turns, hitting dead ends a few times.
Before long Byron was waist-deep in water. He slogged through, struggling to make headway. The little man dove underwater and started swimming. When the water reached his chest, Byron did the same.
H124 held her breath as the water seeped around Byron’s neck. He took a deep breath and dove to the bottom, lying in wait. Moments later, the skinny man swam overhead, and Byron shot up from beneath, grabbing him. The man thrashed as Byron dragged him through the water. His mouth opened in a scream, bubbles streaming out as Byron approached one of the appendage slicers. But Byron passed it, instead dragging the thrashing man to the end of the maze, where he pressed the man’s face against the scanner, then his palm. The hatch at the beginning clanked open, but he still had to make it all the way back.
The last bit of air disappeared inside the maze. The little man thrashed and panicked, so Byron grabbed his arm, dragging him back to the start. Halfway there, the man convulsed and went limp.
The hulking man still floated by the hatch, making no attempt to climb out. The executioners waited with eager faces, fingers flexing on their axes. H124 could see Byron struggling, panicking the last of his breath away. He swam up to the top in case any air remained, but found nothing, so he pushed off the corners of the maze to propel himself forward.
At last he reached the hatch. His head burst through, gasping for air. H124 took a breath no less relieving. Then, to her astonishment, he dove back down, grabbing the little man and tossing him out through the hatch. He grabbed Gil next, jerking him toward his salvation. The man resisted, sinking back into the tank. Byron pointed at the hatchway, but the man shook his head.
Byron’s head breached the surface for a second time. The thin man lay on its roof, coughing violently. Byron heaved himself up through the opening, and stood on top of the cage.
Launching himself off the tank, Byron handed hard on Skullcap, sending him sprawling back into the dust. Byron landed a solid punch to the Death Rider’s throat. The executioner sputtered and coughed, wriggling away from Byron on his back. Still gripping the axe with one hand, Skullcap grabbed his throat with the other, wheezing. Byron stomped down on his wrist, trapping it, then wrenched the axe free.
Canines ran around the side of the tank, closing in on Byron. The Badlander lifted the axe high and struck deep into Skullcap’s throat. As Canines reached him, Byron spun, swinging the axe around. Their blades clashed and clanged. Canines shoved Byron back, and the latter’s boots slid through the dirt.
Treading water inside the tank, Gil stuck his head out of the hatch. He pulled himself up, water streaming off his hulking frame.
As Byron struggled to gain some distance for another swing, Gil leapt off the tank and landed hard on Canine’s back. Pressing him down with his boot, the giant grabbed the executioner’s head and twisted it until his neck snapped.
The crowd roared to life. Everyone was standing, everyone chanting.
H124 thought they would have been furious watching their own get killed, but apparently they didn’t care who died. As long as someone did.
Gil walked over to the whimpering man, both still dripping the water that would have been their death. Grabbing the coughing man under his arm, he helped him to his feet. The smaller man bent over, hands on his knees, retching water.
Three Death Riders emerged from the hole. Quickly Byron and Gil stood back to back, each gripping an axe. The Death Riders approached, grinning, drawing their flash bursters. They fired from a distance, hitting both men. Byron toppled over, teeth bared, body jittering. After tearing the axes out of their prone hands, they dragged Byron and Gil back to the cage. The shivering father needed no such coercion. He ran ahead of them, ready to enter as soon as the bars lifted.
He was the first through the gate, and made straight for his daughter. He hugged and kissed her, but all she had to greet him with was a blank, lifeless stare.
After tossing Byron and Gil on the ground, the Death Riders slammed the gate shut and stormed off. Byron struggled to roll over as the skinny man knelt beside him. “Thank you!” He grabbed Byron’s hand. Uncomfortable, Byron pulled it away.
“Yes,” Gil said, getting to his feet. “Thank you. You’ve consigned us to another day of hell.”
“Were you really just going to stand there and die?” H124 asked him.
“After a while here, that would be a blessing.” He stumbled to the back of the cage, body shaking from the flash burster, and slumped down on the ground.
“Then why did you help?” Byron asked.
“Because it felt good to kill one of those fuckers.”
Another group of Death Riders appeared from a hole in the wall. They dragged off the executioners’ facedown bodies, treating the corpses like shanks of dead meat. Near the far wall, they heaved them into a makeshift pile. Then they hit a release on the tank, and water flooded onto the field, draining in a hissing outpour.
Soon they dragged away the labyrinth, and the hole sealed shut again. Moments later it reopened, and three Death Riders stomped out, beelining for the cage. One, a tall woman with blonde dreadlocks and black triangle tattoos on her ivory face, wore a breastplate of human ribs, still crusted with dried meat. The other two were men, one boasting a shaved head and a mahogany face tattooed in the form of a skull, and the other gangly and manic, his greasy brown hair hanging halfway down his back, his tanned face riddled with scars, one of them having split his lip just under his nose to reveal his gums.
They threw their fists in the air as the crowd cheered and roared. Then they vanished back into the hole, only to emerge moments later driving massive trucks. They rumbled over the field with tires so huge they had mounted ladders on the vehicles to reach the driver’s seats. Gleaming nozzles were mounted on the grills, with hoses winding back into the trucks. They swung the giant nozzles back and forth as the crowd raved.
“Oh, god, no,” a man whispe
red, moving to the back of the cage.
After driving in chaotic patterns around the field, the three Death Riders dismounted and marched toward the cage.
Breastplate took first pick as the bars swung open. Eyeing them all with cruel, beady eyes, she spotted Astoria. “You.”
“The hell I will!” shouted Astoria, only to have the panicked prisoners push her out. H124 grabbed Astoria’s arm, shoving the desperate people away.
“Astoria!” Dirk yelled, punching one of the attackers in the face. The man crumpled to the ground. Another kicked Dirk in the stomach, sending him crashing back against the wall.
“Leave her alone, you selfish bastards!” H124 shouted, striking a woman under her chin. But there were too many. They shoved Astoria out the cage door, sending her tumbling onto the field.
Next Skull Face and Greasy Mop chose two men and a woman who had been huddled near the back, quiet and unassuming until now.
“No!” the woman wailed, as her fellow prisoners seized her with rough hands and shoved her through the door. “Please, no! I have two children!”
One of the prisoners repelled her as she tried to reenter the cage. “I don’t care if you gave birth to a whole litter. Better you than me.” He kicked her in the gut.
Bucking their feet, the two chosen men fought as they were dragged after her and thrown down on the field. The cage slammed shut.
“What should we do?” Dirk cried. “Byron! Get the hell up!”
Byron groaned on the ground, still suffering from the flash burster. He labored to sit up.
Dirk turned to the feeble woman. “What are they going to make her do?” he demanded, grabbing her roughly by the shoulder. She merely stared through the bars as they herded the others toward the center of the field.
“It’s the Flesh Eater trial. Your friend won’t make it.”
“She’s my sister!” he growled, sounding more like Astoria than H124 had ever heard him.
“Well, your sister’s toast,” the woman spat back. She shrugged him off and pressed herself into the corner, where she proceeded to rock back and forth.
Shattered Lands Page 16
