by Tammy Walsh
The crowd rose to their feet and cheered.
Yes, I hated this place. I hated the training, hated the cruelty, but I loved the crowd. And they loved me in return. I laughed as I hugged Alice closer and planted a big sloppy kiss on her cheek.
The crowd roared even louder.
I spoke to Alice out the side of my mouth. “No matter what comes out of these gates, remember it’s just an animal. It was torn away from its home and forced to fight. They are tortured and mistreated, the same way they treat their inhouse gladiators. If we could release them, we would. But we can’t. We’re doing them a disservice if we don’t end their lives.”
Alice nodded. “I understand.”
“You don’t have to kill or attack anything,” I said. “Just listen to me, my love, and we’ll be out of here very soon, and get you back home.”
Her shoulders relaxed a little, the tension lifting.
I held her hand and led her to the center of the ring. We came out of one gate. There were three others at regular intervals. That was where the monsters would come from. For now, the center was the safest place to be. And that’s where Alice would stay.
A figure took to the dais. He looked much like the lizard that registered us at the fighting pit entrance but was much fatter and wore a ridiculous curly-haired wig.
The mayor and his guests sat behind the dais. They looked a little bored, concentrating on conversation rather than the life and death battles before them.
No surprise, I thought. To have a prize of its current size meant they hadn’t had a winner for quite some time.
That changed today.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the fat lizard growled. “We’ve watched almost all the gladiators attempt to claim one of the largest prize pots in the illustrious fighting pits’ history. Will this last challenger finally put us all out of our misery?”
Half the crowd cheered yes, the other no.
“He will have little chance,” the fat lizard said, licking his thick lips. “Not against the Venopian!”
The crowd roared with excitement.
I turned to Alice and handed her my broadsword. “Hold onto this. If I miss with the spear, I’ll need it back.”
I bounced on the balls of my feet, cracked my neck left and right, and rolled my shoulders.
This was it, I told myself. The first challenge.
The gate at the opposite end of the fighting pit rolled upwards, groaning and clanking. A roar erupted from the darkness within. A creature native to the swamplands of my planet. It had the head of a crocodile, the body of a Minotaur, and the claws and tail of a scorpion.
It leaped from the shadows and dropped to all six legs. It raised its claws and bellowed. It saw me and bolted forward. They were surprisingly fast beasts.
I took aim with my eye, drew my arm back, and ran forward a couple of steps. I brought my arm forward and released.
Thousands of eyes watched as the spear sailed through the air as it…
Slammed into the creature’s eye.
It didn’t make a sound, didn’t groan, didn’t cry out. It went limp and fell to the dirt.
Farewell, my friend. Rest in peace now.
The audience bolted to their feet and cried with excitement. Even the mayor got to his feet and clapped politely.
I bowed to him, then the audience. I waved.
The stagehands attached a rope to the dead creature and dragged it back through its gate to be food for one of the other beasts.
I jogged back to Alice.
“That wasn’t so bad,” she said.
“That was the first challenge,” I said. “The others will be much more difficult.”
Once the creature had been removed, the fat lizard stood up and raised his arms. “How about that, ladies and gentlemen? I can’t recall a challenge ending so quickly! The Venopian was clearly no match for our heroes. So, let’s make it more of a challenge, shall we? Let me introduce to you, Methusida!”
I took the broadsword from Alice and the mace she carried in her other hand. She massaged her hand after giving it to me.
Another gate creaked open. This time, the creature came out slowly, blinking into the light. She hissed as she surveyed the fighting pit.
The Methusida was from a distant planet in the Nobornia system. It had the thick tail of a serpent, which curved up into two bodies, each with its own head and arms. Snakes slithered as its hair and each body wielded two sinister blades.
“Oh my God!” Alice shrieked. “It’s Medusa!”
“Medusa?” I said.
Alice covered her face. “Don’t look at it! She’ll turn you to stone!”
I chuckled. “That’s only true if you’re so terrified you can’t move. At least, that’s the legend.”
“Oh,” Alice said. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. She’s a creature, like anything else they have here.”
But it was still a dangerous monster. I approached carefully, putting as much distance between it and Alice as possible.
The Methusida was an entirely different animal to the Venopian. She was tall, strong, and wicked fast. Her tail had a habit of sweeping your legs out from under you if you weren’t careful.
She hissed at me as I edged closer.
The key to dealing with her was knowing which head performed which duties. Its brain was divided between the two heads. One half was more creative, the other more lateral. Physical attacks tended to come from one direction more than the other, the way a man might prefer to use his right hand more than his left.
The creature swung her tail out. I jumped over it and was quick to jump again when the tail came back toward me.
The creature hissed and burst forward, its swords striking at me. What it lacked in technical skill it made up with sheer numbers.
I parried its attacks and leaped back with my own. When I stepped back, the body on the right led the attack.
That was the aggressive sister.
Its tail swung across.
“Look out!” Alice screamed.
I barely brought my legs high enough as the tail swept to one side. I landed and thrust my blade out and swung down with the mace. The tail drove itself on the blade and the mace made a dull thud.
The right head hissed and swung at me with her blades. I expected the attack and met her with my sword. My mace caught her chin and knocked her unconscious.
The remaining sister screamed and dashed forward to skewer me.
I dived aside and rolled back up onto my feet. The tail swiped, but it was poorly aimed—it was largely controlled by the other sister.
The unconscious sister’s eyes fluttered.
She would be fully conscious soon. I needed to act fast.
I swung the mace around and swiped with my sword. The mace missed but the blade found its mark. I severed the left sister’s head from her shoulders.
It arced through the air and landed at Alice’s feet. She shied back and squealed.
I pushed ahead and struck the unconscious creature in the chest with the mace. The tail lashed out randomly and knocked me to the ground.
The Methusida spat and hissed in its death throes, so loud I could barely hear the crowd going wild.
I got to my feet and found my ankle was sore. I limped over to Alice.
“Are you all right?” I said. “Are you injured?”
“I’m fine!” she said. “But you’re hurt!”
I waved away her concerns. “It’s nothing. Just a twisted ankle.”
I sighed. “One more to go.”
I took the throwing knives from her and dropped the mace. It was too heavy and slow to use now.
Alice was left with the shield.
“I need you to head over there,” I said gesturing to the gate opposite the one yet to open. It would put her as far from danger as it was possible to get.
“I can help you,” Alice said, glancing at my injured foot. “Let me help.”
“You are helping,” I said. “The creat
ure will see you when it comes out. It will move for you and I’ll be standing next to the gate when it does. The instant it comes out, I’ll decapitate it. Then this whole thing will be over.”
I kissed her again, gaining real strength from it.
“You just be careful,” she said with worried eyes.
Alice was gorgeous, no matter what she was wearing. I couldn’t take my eyes off her ass even though it was encased in armor.
The stagehands were almost done with removing the still-flailing creature. I hustled over and stood beside the still-shut gate. I felt the blade in my hand and drew it across my chest. In my other hand, the throwing knives. With any luck, they wouldn’t be necessary.
“Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen,” the lizard man said returning to the dais.
The mayor and his guests were leaning forward in their seats now.
“The Methusida certainly gave them a little challenge, didn’t it?” he said.
The audience roared.
“No?” the lizard said, licking his thick lips again. “Then it’s about time we gave them a real challenge. It’s not every day someone wins such a big pot at the fighting pits. I can think of only one opponent who might challenge our brave warriors today.”
He waved his claws for dramatic effect. “I give you… the Rat King!”
Oh, shit.
I had hoped to end the last fight with a single swing of my sword… but decapitating the final beast wasn’t going to help me this time.
Unless I managed to decapitate all of its heads.
The gate squealed open. Even when it stopped moving, the squeals continued. Down the deep dark tunnel, squeaks issued up from a dozen torn throats, reverberating off the scratched walls.
The audience waited silently with bated breath.
Dozens of shining red points—what were its eyes—glowed as the creature drew closer, inching toward the sunlight, toward escape.
Toward me.
Just as the fuzzy dank fur of the Rat King appeared, I swung my sword, slicing off one of its hideous heads. Taking it by surprise like this was my best chance of success. So, I swung again and again. My blade finding heads, ugly claws, and gnashing chipped teeth.
The heads I removed were replaced by others. The bodies of headless comrades were dumped in the rat king’s wake.
The creature was not fast. Multiple rats fought to move in different directions. It only moved one way because enough rats wished it. It could attack in any direction, and all directions, at the same time.
The rats caught my scent and skittered toward me. I dashed backward and slashed again and again. Blood splattered and the giant rats only clawed harder.
A swipe tore gashes in my pants, across my forearms…
And then more of them sniffed the sweet intoxication of my blood.
I backed away, giving ground, but the rats were coordinated now. They came at me with snapping jaws and swirling claws.
Every attack I made resulted in a counterstrike. I couldn’t keep fighting like this. Not if I wanted to survive.
I turned and ran in the last direction I wanted to go.
Toward Alice.
“The shield!” I bellowed at Alice. “Give me the shield now!”
She did.
“What the hell is that thing?” Alice said.
“The rat king,” I said. “And back away!”
The shield couldn’t buy me victory, but it could buy me time. I slammed the shield in the dirt and positioned it so it stood upright. As the creature drew down on me, I pressed against it. The rats tore at the shield, striking it and tearing it apart piece by piece.
I was doing the same with my arm—growing sore now—as I hacked one head from its shoulders after another.
There were so many rats! Too many! How many did I have to kill before this thing fell?
The rats gripped the shield and yanked at it. If it couldn’t destroy the shield, it could tear it away.
I changed tack and sliced at the gripping claws. But the shield wavered, losing its moorings and any second now it was going to—
The shield flew up and struck me on the chin. It knocked me back on my ass. Dazed, I knew I was in trouble. I ordered my legs to get up, to move, but they wouldn’t respond.
The Rat King was a shadow of its former self. Four rats left? Five maybe?
I swung wildly with my sword but a rat caught my arm and knocked the blade from my hand. It sailed through the air.
Too far for me to reach.
I kicked at the approaching heads with the heels of my boots.
But it was no good. It was only a matter of time before they closed on me…
The throwing knives!
I pulled one back but my vision was cloudy and unclear. I couldn’t hit a barn door if I tried.
The rats were on me. They seemed to grin as they bit at my boot. I felt blood gush from the wound as my boot turned soggy.
“Yaaaaaa!”
It was an Amazonian hunting cry.
A warrior flew into the fray, wild and stabbing and swiping, severing one head after another.
The Rat King loathed to give me up but if it wanted to survive, it had no other option.
Who was this wraith of death? Had someone taken pity on me from the crowd? Had the mayor seen how valiant I was and decided such a gladiator deserved life?
No. It was Alice. She had come to my rescue.
She swung the blade like she was chopping wood, but it was working. The Rat King backed off.
I got to one knee and wobbled. Alice was at my shoulder, helping me up.
“Did you kill it?” I said.
“Not all of them,” she said. “But it’s running away.”
The blood fell from my face. “It’s not running away…”
Only the final rat remained. Alone, it was of little danger. But the Rat King had more than one trick up its sleeve. It chomped at its comrades’ fallen bodies, slurping on the blood and making itself stronger.
“It can’t escape,” Alice said. “It’s trapped in here with us.”
“No, we’re trapped in here with it,” I said. “If it eats enough of its fallen brothers and sisters, it turns into a far deadlier creature. The True Rat King. Imagine a rat twice my size and with an insatiable appetite. It won’t stop with us. It will climb into the crowd and then escape into the city. It’s a one-rat plague. I can’t believe they were so stupid to import one here.”
“We have to stop it,” Alice said, determined.
We attacked it from both sides. Me, with my throwing blades, Alice with the sword. The rat gorged on the meat and had already swollen to twice its regular size.
The crowd had turned quiet, needing to run away to safety but on tenterhooks, waiting to see if we would reign supreme.
My blades found the rat’s body, its neck, its back… but small blades would not stop it. Only decapitation would end it, would stop it from gorging and growing ever stronger.
I ran out of knives. I had to stop it from eating. I had to give Alice a chance to sever its head from its shoulders.
I leaped and landed on the rat’s back. It turned and snapped at me with its jaws, kicking and flailing with its giant claws.
“Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!” I bellowed.
Alice swung the blade so wildly I thought she was aiming at me. She sliced the rat across the chest and then skewered it through the heart.
The rat still wouldn’t stop gorging.
Alice swung the blade around and removed its head. She was off-balance and almost lost her feet.
But she had done it.
A thick puddle of blood spilled from the creature, turning the fighting pit floor red.
I rose to my hands and knees and struggled to breathe. Alice acted as a crutch and helped me to my feet.
We stood side by side, caked in blood and guts. Alice raised her hand to the crowd. They got to their feet and roared with excitement.
“You said I didn’t have to kill anything,”
she said out the corner of her mouth.
“I didn’t know they had something like the Rat King here,” I said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered turning up.”
Alice kept waving. “These people are nuts.”
“You’re telling me,” I said. “Let’s get our money and get the hell out of here.”
The best ship I could afford was a refurbished shuttlecraft from an Enforcer war frigate. She didn’t look pretty but she ran like a dream. I took us off the planet’s surface and into outer space. I plotted the trajectory to Rogiz 4.
I unbuckled my seat and hissed through my teeth as I limped into the back. The entire ship was tiny. It was essentially a single room. It was designed for emergency landings, not for longterm living. We were in such a rush to leave we still wore our dirty clothes.
“Don’t you need to watch the controls?” Alice said.
“I input the coordinates,” I said. “Computer will take us there. It’s not far.”
“How long before we get there?”
“About four hours.”
Alice grabbed the First Aid Kit from the bathroom and got on her knees.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m—”
“A Titan,” Alice said. “I know, I know. But even you could use some medicine now and then to help with healing.”
I eased back into my seat. There was no talking to her sometimes. She was going to help me whether I needed it or not.
She opened the kit and immediately froze. “What is this?”
“Emergency medicine supplies,” I said.
She raised the electronic equipment and held it upside down. “Where are the gels and creams and bandages?”
“Bandages? What is this? The Middle Ages? This is modern medicine and if you don’t know how to use it, you might end up doing more harm than good.”
Alice raised her hands in surrender, shut the box, and put it to one side. “Then how can I help?”
“Give me the credits,” I said.
Alice rolled her eyes. “Again?”
She gave me the bag so I could count them again.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Alice said.
“Doing what?”
“Counting them. You think I’m going to rob you?”
“Sorry. Force of habit.”
I had to keep a close eye on every credit I earned on the ship. Just because I was the highest-ranking member of the crew didn’t mean the others wouldn’t rob me blind if they had half a chance.
