Tonight his blood would save her. There was his incentive.
In all battles there came a moment, a tipping point where thinking stopped and instinct took over. Where background noise dimmed and he saw order in chaos, while around him death danced like a silent Vidi View.
Hack, slash, twist. Kill. Stay alive, for her.
“Kelskar.”
His sword went wide, unbalanced by the voice cutting through the crowd. The pile of lumbering muscle opposing him thrust with a blade, skidding off Kelskar’s heavy belt. Two fingers lower and it might have cut him in two.
Concentrate.
“Kelskar. Waterfall. Cupcakes.”
His opponent heard it too. Made the mistake of turning briefly to the small sound competing with the cacophony in the stands. A bead of blood bloomed at Kelskar’s waist, where the creature caught him with the tip of his blade. He drove home as the creature raised his sword arm, too late to see death coming. Another down. Kelskar prayed Janie held her counsel. He couldn’t think of her naked on that platform. Of the enforcer clamping her beautiful mouth with a rough hand to silence her.
He needed no more memories to remind him of why he stood in this pit with murder in his eyes. If she cried out again he’d abandon the fight and mount that platform in a suicidal attempt to stop her pain.
Concentrate. She was his focus, his distraction. He grinned, a grisly grimace in a blood-stained face. The gods had been kind after all. Only he and the Regian remained standing. A few moments to rest before the final coup and the crowd would get what they paid for. Kelskar leaned on his sword, pumping air into his lungs. Woefully out of condition.
As Gladiator Kelskar, glutted on the best nutrition, trained as a machine, and rendered immune to pain by drugs and the fully functional chip, he fought every round and barely broke a sweat. Now he hurt and bled and fought for every breath. His muscles craved rest and his mind... Let the images come. The past was set, the future his to make.
His and Hers.
The Regian did not immediately attack. Instead he strutted the pit, flinging arms upward, inciting the crowd to yell his name with limited success. A series of glottal stops and whistling clicks made a poor chant. Kelskar on the other hand was a name made for chanting.
Kel Skar. Kel Skar.
He heard it again, but not Janie’s voice. The sound came from a lone renegade out there in the stands beyond the smoke, picking him as their champion.
One voice, two then like a rising wave it took half the throng, stamping feet, falling into a drumming beat.
“Yes.” Two fists, pumping the air, now Kelskar paraded his gladiator strut. Supreme confidence with a hint of menace, he pulled them in, wound them to a tight frenzy and lifted his sword.
Gladiator Kelskar knew how to work a crowd, how to kill. But he knew nothing of love. The Regian gave up on the crowd with a scathing sneering yell and dipped to snatch up a hefty battleaxe. No careful strategy or learning his opponent, he charged, swung and missed. Kelskar stepped aside, spun and lunged at the creature’s back, slicing only empty air.
Undisciplined, but Regians, with their supreme kinaesthetic awareness almost had eyes in the back of their heads. Arching his spine, the being escaped the blade, dropping under the next arc with ease.
“She call me by your name when I give it her. Think l break her I so big?”
“You talk, I fight.” Like a badly aimed missile, the Regian’s taunts fell short. Bombastic boasting when death stared you in the face? Not a good idea. While the being talked, his opponent rested and regrouped. Didn’t he see that?
“I talk, still kill you.”
“In your dreams. Half your head is open. I’ll open the other half.”
Impossible to intimidate a being with limited emotions and so little concept of its own imminent demise. The Regian touched the bleeding wound slicing through his skull. Studied the dark blood staining his fingers, frowning as if wondering where it came from. A slow knowing and he pressed sticky fingers to his face, growling softly.
“Fight.” A watching enforcer barked the command from the sidelines. “Engage.”
No more chanting in unison, people were calling for blood. They’d rested enough. Talked enough.
Kelskar’s blade sparked off the sharpened flint bound with twine to a cleft in a stout tree branch. A battleaxe made for bludgeoning, not cutting, it would do real damage if he took a hit before the Regian bled out. The creature favoured his left side now, the right leg dragging. Kelskar took advantage, diving under the spiralling axe for a hacking blow to the creature’s legs.
Fell him and hope he stayed down. The first slash caught the creature’s boot, the backslash bit into rigid muscle. Kelskar pushed home, two hands on the sword hilt, the force almost shoving the Regian into the front row of the crowd. Yelling encouragement, they cleared a space, falling back in a tumble of bodies and waving arms, crying for death.
The Regian pulled free, shoving with his hands at the enclosing throng surrounding them. Kelskar lost him in the chaos. Saw him race for the centre of the arena, foolishly wasting the last of his energy reserve on a flight to nowhere. Kelskar fought his way out of the grabbing hands who all seemed to want a piece of him. Some managed a swipe at his blooded chest, wiping the blood on their own faces as if by doing so they might channel his courage and prowess.
In the pit, the Regian staggered, hitting the ground with his third, dangling arm. It folded under him sending him and the battleaxe sprawling. Kelskar lunged. His sword bit dirt. The slippery Regian slithered away, prising up a crude cudgel from a fallen fighter’s locked fingers. Splashed with his own blood, the head wound open and gaping, the creature might already be mortally wounded.
Or like all Regians, virtually impossible to kill.
They’d moved closer to the platform, vying to defend the prize. A fucking enforcer had his hands on Janie and she wasn’t moving.
Let me fight, Janie. You have only to wait for me.
Or did she hang so limp in the creature’s grasp for another reason? If that creature hurt her, more blood would flow.
Time to end this and make her safe.
A hush fell over the mob, they knew it too. Time for the last loser to die.
In the heavy silence, a night bird warbled out a sudden tune. A lilting cadence so pure, heads turned and eyes lifted skyward in wonder, seeking out the source of such sweetness. A fragile, beautiful thing with the power to touch hearts, even here in this uncivilised place.
Janie’s sweetness brought a mindless warrior to his knees, set him free to love again. And he wanted more.
He wanted her.
The Regian lay on his side, the cudgel loose in slack fingers, eyelids fluttering like rapid bird wings. Bleeding out into the dirt. Mutterings rippled through the crowd. It didn’t end like this. Here death came with the force of avenging demons, not this slow slipping away. They did not walk for days to see this.
“Kill.”
Shrill, outraged, a woman’s voice demanded satisfaction. Bets anticipating the manner of death never included, without drama in the dirt. Camera boxes swivelled, scoping him out, moving to the quivering Regian gasping out his final breaths.
“Kill him. Kill him.”
So many stamping feet, the ground trembled. And up on the platform Janie would be watching him execute a fallen warrior absent the heat of battle. Touching his chest, Kelskar’s fingers came away blooded. Not a mortal wound, still plenty of fight left in him if only the Regian would rise and die like a warrior.
The camera turned from side to side, almost anxiously, trying to read his intent. A security box, gleaming in the flashing torchlight, slid into his peripheral vision. On the perimeter, three enforcers fingered their long clubs and waited to intervene. If he faltered now, they both died.
No option but to kill the Regian like a wounded beast and deal with Janie’s disgust later.
“Rise so I can send you to the hall of warriors, Regian. At least die on your feet.”
“If you can’t kill me. You don’t get her.” The Regian lifted his head, defiance lighting his eyes, even so near to death. “Back into the cage with her. Keep for next time.” He dropped his forehead to the dirt, chest opening and closing in heaving gasps.
“Kill him.” The mob’s tone soured to impatience. No swift execution, only gore would placate them now and stop them storming the arena to rip him apart for his reluctance. A soft, fleshy fruit flew over heads to land short of Kelskar’s feet and even he wondered at his reluctance. Janie knew what he was, knew the blood that soaked his hands. Why protect her from his truth?
Because he didn’t want to see it in her eyes every time she looked at him.
The flash of energy streaming from the security box glanced off his blade, blinding in intensity. Kelskar blinked, clearing his vision to see the Regian jerking and flailing like a broken doll in a gale, sparks lighting his skin. The mob sucked in a collective breath. Janie cried his name. And then the Regian stopped jerking and pushed to sitting, a slow smile spreading his lips. His fingers crawled across the dust to the battleaxe handle.
Kelskar adjusted his grip, murmuring a prayer of thanks to gods who seemed very far away this night. The Corporation wanted a final fight. He’d give them one they’d be relating when the very mountains themselves fell.
Chapter Nineteen
It broke her heart to see the small hesitation separating Gladiator Kelskar from Kelskar the man. It would break her completely to see him die.
No, she owed him witness, whatever it took. With her head full of dreams and beautiful things, she didn’t miss Justin conducting his affair in plain sight. She hid from the truth and told herself everything would be all right. So, he was a flirter? Wasn’t that how they met?
She let him go without a murmur.
Well, not a very loud one.
The din lifting into the night rattled inside her head. Her task now was to stand and endure until Kelskar claimed her. They’d deal with the effect of the download on the chip together.
Justin may not have been worth the fight, but Kelskar? Janie found another sad smile in the midst of the turmoil. Forced her eyes to stay open when they’d seen enough death and blood to last a lifetime and beyond. A camera box flanked her, blinking, swivelling. If they wanted tears, shock and horror, then tough. She’d never been the hysterical type and wasn’t about to start now.
The final moments passed in a wall of sound. A blur of battleaxe and blade sending showers of sparks into the night air. No feeling in her hands and feet, she put every remaining scrap of energy into staying upright and not passing out from the cold. One more step on her journey to survival.
“Yes.” The enforcer to her left stamped a heavy boot, slapping his colleague’s back with a meaty fist. They spoke in rapid grunts, waving betting tokens in the air.
It was over. Janie blinked. One fighter standing. One down. Her sluggish brain took too long to shape the victor into Kelskar. That couldn’t be him down and so still, his lifeblood seeping out into the dirt.
“Kel Skar.” The chant rose to ecstatic adulation and still she stared, reassuring herself it was him lifting his sword to the throng. He crossed the pit to the clothing bundles discarded by the fighters in heaps at the edge. She thought of her boots and jacket, the clothing so carefully chosen in the ship’s hold, now lost in the cage. How would she face winter without those?
Kelskar’s face appeared at the ladder fronting the pit. Hard to read in the flickering torchlight. Clouded with violence and blood, remote, as if in spirit he were still down there in the arena of death and the chip still held sway.
Or was this the final act for a crowd who came for gory death and a claiming, not a joyous reunion with declarations of eternal love?
Follow his lead. He knew how this all worked, she did not. Weak with cold and relief, she wanted only to get away.
He paused on the platform, turning to the camera for one last photo opportunity. Long coat grasped in one hand, the sword harnessed at his back. Beside him, she trembled and gathered her frayed nerves. An enforcer slapped his arm, grinning wildly. Kelskar shook out the coat.
“Slide your arms inside.” The heavy material draped around her shoulders. More a curt command than a request, Kelskar lifted her right arm and slid it efficiently into the sleeve. Like a puppet, she had no will of her own to hinder or help. In the pit, the enforcers dragged the Regian’s body away, a dark line staining the dirt in its wake.
“Now you are mine.” Kelskar’s voice carried across the platform, a warning to anyone foolish enough to challenge the victor. None seemed inclined. Most of the enforcers, the runners who shinned up and down the ladder carrying messages and wagers had bet on Kelskar by their grinning faces. Only one threw down his wooden disc with a huff of disgust. Tokens, favours, sharpened stones, and other small objects changed hands. Trinkets bet and won on a turn of fate.
A second’s hesitation, a wrong move and it could be the Regian up here claiming her as his. With brisk efficiency Kelskar threaded her left arm into the coat, bundling her up, shielding her naked body from leering eyes. His own eyes remained eerily blank. She tried in vain to lock her gaze with his. Intent on his task, he looked anywhere but her face.
No hint of a glimmer in his clear eyes. If the chip still ruled him wouldn’t his eyes glow with that tell tale shine? Watched by the greedy camera box, he gave them what they wanted. A remorseless killer walking from the arena of death to claim his prize.
Maybe now the Corporation would leave them in peace and go hassle some other prisoner. Or would they come back for more now after witnessing his potential?
Kelskar raised the collar around her face and she might have imagined his fingers lingering in a light caress. His eyes telling her to endure, it would soon be over. He drew the sword from the back harness, leaving only the soft sheath. She recoiled instinctively when he dipped to hoist her over his shoulder, memories of the abduction hitting her full force. Then she promised herself never again would she lie so docile, she’d fight to the death. Now she swallowed the panic, blood rushing to her face.
Kelskar. The man she loved was taking her away, not the Regian with his promises of hideous abuse. Grasping Kelskar’s tunic, she rested her cheek on his warm, solid back and said a quiet prayer of thanks.
“You wait.” An enforcer blocked their exit. The camera wanted more, a good look at the victor who slaughtered half the contestants in that pit leaving with his spoils.
“As you wish,” Kelskar said. “Use the time to avail me of this female’s garments. I earned them. They’ll make me good trade.”
“Irregular.”
She heard the affront in the enforcer’s barked reply, but inside she sang. The best indication that Kelskar the free man and not the gladiator slave held her. Despite the chill in his eyes, he remembered he cared for her.
“Right now I’m the fucking god of this arena. Send a runner. I want the garments there, bottom of that ladder when my foot hits the dirt.”
The face-off lasted ten thudding heartbeats. Janie counted each one.
“I’ll go. But only because you won me spoils this day.”
She couldn’t see either of their faces or the camera recording Kelskar’s defiance. She could only trust he knew the game and played it well enough to get them out of here. A pair of heavy boots came into view, thumping across the boards to the runner hanging on the ladder. She exhaled and forced herself to hang limp.
“Do we have safe passage?”
The enforcer laughed, a guttural spluttering sound. “Safe as you’ll ever be in this place. Which isn’t very much. Up to you if you get away in one piece and with your prize.”
“Touch her and I kill you where you stand.”
“I win more if you get away. Not touch your prize.”
Hell no. She couldn’t hang here doing nothing when the Corporation had no intention
of letting them go. Panic overtook her and she needed to be down, on her own two feet ready to run. The arm clamping her to Kelskar’s shoulder pressed hard on the small of her back, holding her with an unbreakable force.
If she ran, they’d give chase. Didn’t Kelskar tell her back in the cage how an Earth woman’s screams made viewer ratings skyrocket? Hold it in. Scream later when they were alone and away from here.
Mercifully shorter than the front ladder because of the rise in the land, the exit ladder at the rear let them out to the opening leading directly to the cages and empty ground beyond. Hefting her and the long sword, Kelskar descended and set her down. A runner stood guarding her heaped clothing. Another leaned on the ladder’s edge eyeing them with lazy appraisal. At the gate behind the platform, an enforcer tapped his palm over and over with a short baton.
The hampering coat would surely trip her if they had to run. Kelskar answered her silent appeal by stripping it from her shoulders and throwing his arms into the sleeves.
“Dress quickly.”
No need to tell her twice. Hard to do anything quickly with frigid fingers fumbling for buttons and straps. He held her steady when she lost her balance threading legs into underwear and pants. Feet into socks and boots, Kelskar crouched to fasten the closures while she flung on undershirt, tunic, and coat. Weapons gone, but her own clothes felt so good after being so exposed.
An enforcer blocked their way backed by a gauntlet of lingering spectators hyped up from the kill. Bad news if they were after a piece of the victor and his spoils as a souvenir.
“Oh God.” Sour nausea pooled in her throat. Two mud-caked boots lay in full view of the open gate. Still and attached to a pair of spread-eagled legs. A body with grey-skinned hands.
The first fighter didn’t get very far. No sign of his unconscious prize.
Kelskar lifted his sword to the enforcer blocking their way.
“Move and let us pass.”
Dammit, not the time for posturing and riling the evil-looking enforcer holding the gate. Hadn’t Kelskar proved himself enough?
Prison Moon_Ice Heart Page 26
