by Taylor Kole
The scimitar clicked into place.
With his next step, JoshRidley abandoned the pretense of creeping and crashed loudly through the branches.
Five men faced him with drawn weapons. A mix of scowls, raised brows, and shifting eyes. Four of the men wore chrome dyed blue on the chest with a steel coliseum stamped onto the front. A young half-god stood at the back, glaring daggers.
JoshRidley stopped thirty feet away and showed his empty hands.
“I am only here to make sure Junea is okay.”
“Your whore is dead,” said the golden guard, who stepped ahead of his charges.
JoshRidley expelled as if punched in the stomach. The young half-god—who, despite the receding hairline, looked to be Flavius’ age—continued to pad forward, his short sword held before him at an angle like a Roman infantryman.
“I’m not here to cause any problems,” JoshRidley said.
“Your very presence is a problem, false god, and I, Caligula, will etch my name into the history books by removing your head.”
The half-god charged. The others followed their commander.
The guards—even the half-god—seemed to move in slow motion compared to JoshRidley.
He saw the man in the rear lift his bow and fired an arrow.
Stepping out of its path, JoshRidley assessed the dangers of four blades swinging at him. Calm and cool, he understood that the golden guard would arrive first, and far enough ahead of the others to limit their ability to provide support.
JoshRidley swiped his blade with the speed of a switch.
Caligula raised his sword to block.
The edge connected with JoshRidley ’s blade. The power of the swing blasted the block aside and cut through the young man’s armor, opened his belly, and tossed him five feet to the left.
Rather than reverse his swing to attack the nearest combatant. JoshRidley used the great momentum to spin in a circle, arcing the blade upward at the end of the rotation.
He felt slight resistance as his blade tore through the chest plate of a charging soldier, halving him. His scimitar continued into the top of a second soldier’s face; split arteries spat blood into the sky. The corpse ran four more steps beyond JoshRidley before tumbling into the shrubbery.
Lacking the time to process the carnage that a god’s mass times velocity created, the fourth man stabbed at JoshRidley’s chest.
JoshRidley used his open palm to bat the sword away. Pivoting, the man shot past him like a bull charging under a muleta. JoshRidley gripped the back of the man’s armor between the shoulders, yanked him to the ground, and punched with his right fist—which still held the scimitar’s handle. Flesh split, bone crunched, and blood exploded more effectively than detonating a grenade in his closed mouth.
A second ticked by without sound or movement. Another. Then another.
The half-god wailed in pain.
Remembering the archer, JoshRidley looked up and found the man paralyzed, an arrow knotted against the bow string, its tip pointed at the ground.
Seeing JoshRidley’s attention, the man tossed the bow aside and raised his hands.
With his heart thudding in his chest and his enemy’s blood in his mouth and eyes, JoshRidley rose to his full height.
“Is Junea truly dead?” Josh marched closer.
The man shrugged, his eyes the size of eggs.
JoshRidley wiped his face. The simple act helped cool his anger. The archer’s fear and lack of threat saved him from the fate he probably deserved.
The half-god’s screams faded to grunts.
Footsteps echoed up the concrete. A shadow grew in the doorway and materialized into a massive man with broad shoulders and scraggly gray hair hanging around his bald head.
JoshRidley stepped back. The thought of facing RobertJohnson this unprepared, with virtually zero chance of negotiation, cooled his blood.
Win or lose, the next few minutes could decide the fate of nations.
The bright suns revealed it was not RobertJohnson, but Gatacon. He held a battle axe in each hand. His muscles tensed as he scanned the slaughter.
JoshRidley had easily dealt with the first half-god. The seasoned warrior’s cold eyes nullified that accomplishment.
Another large member of the golden guard exited the doorway and stopped behind Gatacon.
JoshRidley desperately hoped no more poured forth. He also wished he had brought the battalion of men Orion had suggested. With two golden guards and the archer, the three men waiting in the nearby field would even the odds.
“By the body of RobertJohnson, my eyes deceive me,” Gatacon said. “A god foolish enough to break one of our most sacred laws.”
“He has slain Caligula,” the second golden guard said.
“Indeed he has, Perea. It seems JoshRidley is the type of man who enjoys slaughtering inexperienced boys.” He smiled. “I find no fault in that.”
JoshRidley kept his eyes on the brutes. The coppery smell of blood tinged the air. As if by some innate sense, JoshRidley felt the desecration of a half torso discarded on the ground to his left; a pair of legs and pelvis much closer; the top of a skull balanced on branches, dripping.
Pushing the gruesome images aside—for this moment would decide his new life—he said, “I only wanted to talk. Your guard attacked me.”
“Our younger brother,” Perea corrected.
“A boy attacked you, so you gutted him. Bravo, false god,” Gatacon said.
Swallowing the guilt, JoshRidley concentrated on the rise and fall of his chest. Gatacon appeared his cruel self, but as of yet, he avoided hostility. Feeling his adrenaline slipping, and thinking it might be too early to relent, Josh pictured Flavius laying unconscious on a bed, a hall decorated with the dangling arms of men. Junea. Instead of feeling guilt for killing a young man, he spat. “I am only here to collect Junea. Beyond that, I have no quarrel with you.”
Gatacon clanked his axes together. “If you’re here to collect your whore, I hope you brought several satchels.”
A lead ball dropped down JoshRidley’s gullet and into his belly, threatening to drop him to his knees.
Inspecting the soldier in blue, Gatacon said, “Where are your arms?”
As the man glanced into the woods where the bow protruded from a bush, an axe flew at his neck.
JoshRidley watched the head tumble veins over scalp. The body slumped forward, spurting blood.
“You are a gay ball player, Joshua,” Gatacon said. “You have killed a member of the golden guard—and act which, unless committed in the coliseum, earns the guilty party and his lineage a flaying followed by being buried alive.”
JoshRidley resisted the urge to wince.
“Beyond that, you have insulted our father by defying his generous mandate.” He banged his axes together. “I spar often with my father and knew how to best a god. You will now die for your transgressions.”
JoshRidley backed up as Perea brandished a two-handed sword.
“Be grateful, false god,” Gatacon said, as he and his brother separated themselves further. “Dying here will spare you the sight of your whore split from ass to mouth and what’s left of your vile offspring after being smashed by my heel.”
JoshRidley tensed his muscles. Rage trumpeted in his disgust. He raised the scimitar. Even though a one-handed weapon, it stretched two feet longer than Perea’s long sword.
While side-stepping in a half circle, JoshRidley searched Gatacon’s footwear and saw no blood on his feet or calves, and though he could have washed it off or killed Junea in any number of ways, JoshRidley meant to see her again.
In the spirit of living, of wanting to keep his initial goal alive and coexist with RobertJohnson, he tried again, “I only want to negotiate with RobertJohnson. We don’t have to fight.”
“It won’t be a fight, Joshua. You are soft as a worm.”
Gatacon charged.
Perea a flash later.
They were faster than young Caligula, but JoshRidley was f
aster.
He lunged to the right toward Perea and slashed as he did. Instead of halving the young god, he deflected the weak swing.
JoshRidley leapt back as Perea countered the attack.
Landing left his side open to his foes. Pivoting, he hoped the distance he jumped and the speed of his movements shocked them.
Yet Gatacon’s axe approached JoshRidley’s face.
With a flick of the wrist, JoshRidley deflected the death blow. Stumbling to his left helped him parry a thrust from Perea’s long sword.
Needing space, he used his speed advantage and split the brothers. He dashed a fair distance and turned. The men crept toward him. They never crossed their feet—a sign of training—as they flanked either side. Perea held the long sword in a two-handed grip, loose, yet controlled. Gatacon rotated the axes in tight circles, ready to strike.
An inch before coming in range of the scimitar, they struck out. JoshRidley swung at Gatacon and then ducked, and then deflected, and then dodged another dual attack. As soon as he saw his opening, he raced back to the pavilion.
Turning to find them stalking, he realized he would die playing their games of thrust and parry. He needed to use his advantages: strength, speed, stamina.
In that vein, JoshRidley rushed Perea. A flurry of swipes separated him from Gatacon.
JoshRidley twisted and swiped madly at Gatacon, swinging every third time in a three hundred and sixty degree circle, hoping to catch the younger brother creeping.
Swipe. Swing. Backhand. Upthrust. Poke. JoshRidley used motions almost too fast for the eye to track.
Gatacon’s dual weapons were his greatest defense. Leaping back, the golden armor met bushes and he stumbled.
JoshRidley turned in time to block a strike from Perea and press his attack with enough ferocity to stamp fear onto the young half-god’s face.
The great long sword proved too cumbersome. On an upswing, JoshRidley connected with it forcefully enough to knock it from Perea’s hands. The tip of the scimitar sliced through his armor.
The shock of splayed metal without a wound underneath paused the battle.
Hearing Gatacon climbing from the bushes, seeing Perea stunned, JoshRidley made a decision. He summoned his savagery and attacked the unarmed youth.
Mindful of his exposed back, JoshRidley crouched, swiped low and caught the half-god in mid-thigh, shearing leg from body, drawing a guttural scream.
Leaping ten feet to his right saved JoshRidley’s skull from catching an axe.
With JoshRidley off-balance, Gatacon continued at him, swinging the blades one after the other with hypnotic precision. Once JoshRidley fully controlled his faculties, the ugly half-god’s movements seemed phony, almost as if Gatacon were a toddler attacking him with toys.
At a timed interlude, JoshRidley stabbed like a fencer.
Gatacon blocked downward, but the blade met center thigh, went through flesh, hit bone and tore out, opening the defined quadriceps like a yawning mouth.
Blood gushed as Gatacon cried out, dropped one axe, and swung the other wildly.
JoshRidley backed off, sword held at the ready. Perea’s grunts and pleas for help were dwindling to frightened ramblings as he crawled toward a bush, yanked out hand-sized leaves, and attempted to staunch the draining of his life’s blood.
Agrippa emerged from the woods, weapon at the ready. Another warrior followed.
Gatacon held the separated meat of his thigh in place with one hand. Josh cringed at the damage, but stayed ready to inflict more. Gatacon epitomized villainy. A second later, the villain did the most unexpected thing. He chucked his axe down the trail, and, as best he could, dropped to one knee.
“I yield, JoshRidley. I am unarmed and surrender.” He extended his right arm. “I beg your mercy.”
“You shant have it, coward.” A third warrior called as he emerged from the edge of the woods, holding a sword in one hand while leading the surviving woman with the other.
JoshRidley looked to his party. The idea of housing a prisoner troubled him. Was he supposed to tend to the horrible man’s wound, feed him, hope they could fashion a method of restraint to avoid being murdered while they slept?
A guard crept forward.
“Wait,” JoshRidley said.
“You cannot barter with him, m’lord,” Agrippa said. “To keep him adds tremendous risk. If released, he will return with RobertJohnson and the entire golden guard.”
“And then you will see the mercy he bestows,” cried the second hunter.
Gatacon stared at the blood-soaked earth, but JoshRidley sensed a smile splitting the man’s lips.
“What do you say to that?” JoshRidley asked, knowing at that moment he could be swayed to behead an unarmed, yielding person. He might even kick the head into the bushes.
“We must kill him and hide the bodies,” Agrippa said. “They will believe he was lost to the woods.”
“My father knows why I came,” Gatacon said. “Three golden guards journeying a day from the pointus ascendus possess no chance of demise. Our continued absence will not be overlooked. He will send his fury to this very spot and every village in Betadrius until the truth is known.”
JoshRidley lowered his sword a few inches.
“You claim to want a parlay,” Gatacon said, lifting his head. “Give me your message and on my honor I will pass it on to my father.”
JoshRidley glanced at the open door and wanted only to rush inside and learned the truth about Junea.
Seeing his attention on the door, Agrippa addressed the trailing handmaiden. “Tend to your lady.”
The woman, following a guard, crept into the open door.
“You will be bargaining from a position of favor,” Gatacon added. “Having returned his most beloved son and trusted advisor.”
JoshRidley wanted negotiations above all else, but he remembered the hatred in Gatacon’s eyes; the immediate attack from Caligula, and realized that the behavior probably aligned with their leader.
“You must kill him, JoshRidley.” Agrippa said, nudging closer. “RobertJohnson will spare none who have hurt his men. He will send hordes of soldiers to pillage all of Betadrius until every person who ever spoke your name is ran through with steel. Kill him, and have one less enemy.”
Gatacon scoffed, “If my father brings the full army of Atlantis, he could kill every living thing on this plane and continue on to do the same to Carmanthius. JoshRidley, I give you my word. I will relay your message to my father. What he does from there, I cannot control.”
A memory tingled JoshRidley. A method of officially usurping the throne, but its absurdity stayed his tongue.
“JoshRidley,” the handmaiden said from the entryway. “You must come quickly.”
Gatacon extended his arm further.
“Gods can ascend in the coliseum,” JoshRidley said.
Gatacon’s eyes grew wide. A smile stretched across his face. “That is correct, false god.”
“JoshRidley,” Agrippa pleaded.
To Agrippa, JoshRidley said, “If I challenge him to a duel in the coliseum, will he honor that arrangement?”
Gatacon lowered his arm and struggled to his feet, “He will absolutely honor that challenge, JoshRidley. It will please him to no end.”
“JoshRidley…” Agrippa’s lessening enthusiasm told Josh two things. One, this was their best option. Two, he thought very little of JoshRidley’s chance of victory.
“I challenge RobertJohnson for the throne of Atlantis, for all of Betaloome.”
“M’lord,” the handmaiden said impatiently from the door.
“Will you take him that message?”
Gatacon nodded. “Gladly, JoshRidley. I guarantee my father will accept. Let us plan the bout for the day after the next rains. You and your men will receive safe travel through Atlantis. The match will commence at the brightest sun. I will send word these arrangements are confirmed to anywhere you desire.”
JoshRidley nodded. “I will see him then.�
��
“Agreed.” Gatacon limped toward his axe and retrieved it, tensing Josh, but he never glanced back.
“JoshRidley,” the maiden said softer.
As JoshRidley moved to the door, he wondered if finding Junea’s body hacked to bits would drain his will to fight, or fill it to overflowing. Exhaling, he accepted—almost universally—the death of a loved one fractured spirits.
JoshRidley was led down the hall, he heard a rhythmic booming, and after rounding the corner saw a hunter ramming his shoulder into a locked door.
JoshRidley’s presence made him pause. At the door, JoshRidley found a dagger wedged into the jam. He twisted the metal with ease, tossed it aside, and pushed the door open.
Junea waited on a mattress, her hair draped over each shoulder. Despite eye contact, JoshRidley feared the sight before was the spirit of the woman he loved, animated to impart a final message before traveling on, and revealed a mauled corpse in its wake.
Instead, she rose from the bed, met JoshRidley in the middle of the room, and wrapped her arms around him.
XXXVI
JoshRidley allowed the party a full day’s rest before sending Agrippa to Reysona so he could inform Cronin about Junea’s safety and the scheduled coliseum match.
Seven suns later, with a rain in between, Agrippa returned with ten men. Days eight and nine brought nine and eleven men respectively. Suffering no casualties out of thirty people traveling across a nation lent the excursion a feel of providence.
Seeing Orion’s grizzly mug with the last group boosted JoshRidley’s confidence. Flavius’ absence stung the sharpest. In the back of his mind, JoshRidley understood a weighted dice roll for his mortality approached, and he would like to see Flavius one more time before that day. He wanted to share advice, a laugh, maybe a glass of wine.
To avoid further attachments, JoshRidley kept an emotional distance from the men sharing his domicile. The Pavilion of Parturition had two hallways, each offered four sleeping quarters and larger storage room. Housing eighty people seemed possible. Thirty-five created a sense of safety in numbers. The men and the women settled into a routine of responsibilities inside and out, creating immediate improvements.
