“Nice to meet you, Seb. And thanks. I think.”
Seb smiled. “You’re welcome. Now, tell me, how well do you know these slums?”
“Reasonably, why?”
A look over the ramshackle roofs poking out of the white mist and Seb said, “I need a guide that can take me to a friend’s hut. I’ll be honest, every part of this place looks the same to me.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
Seb continued to look out over the slum. It made it slightly easier to hide his contempt for the little rat who’d sold the Shadow Order out. He didn’t want to reveal too much to the stranger. A deep breath of the cool and funky air and he said, “Phulp. I need to give him a message.”
When Seb saw Bruke smile, he said, “What?”
“I was worried you’d ask to see someone I don’t know. But, fortunately for you”—he looked down at the dead soldiers—“and me, I know Phulp. Everyone knows Phulp. Come on, let me show you the way.”
And with that, Bruke got to his feet and headed into the slums.
For the next few seconds, Seb watched the creature’s languid movements. He watched Bruke’s long arms swing by his sides, close to brushing his kneecaps. His feet looked like they belonged on marshland; long and flexible, they pressed into the ground as if stroking it when he walked. Completely naked, he either didn’t have any awareness of it or simply didn’t care.
A shake of his head to himself and Seb followed his new guide. Hopefully this one would be more reliable than the last.
Chapter 7
“How do you know Phulp?” Bruke asked.
Seb looked across at the creature as they walked up the main path running through the slum. His brown eyes—deep and seemingly compassionate—didn’t fit with his green, cold, and almost featureless scales. He said nothing.
Slum dwellers passed them on either side. Most of the stream of beings did their best to avoid the sewage running through the middle of the walkway.
“I mean, you in that fancy flight suit and everything,” Bruke said.
Seb still didn’t speak and did his best to ignore the attention from the strangers passing them. Most of them simply seemed curious about him, but he certainly picked up on the open hostility from others.
“You don’t look like you should be down here, let alone knowing someone like Phulp.”
“You know Phulp well?” Unable to hide his irritation at all the questions, Seb couldn’t keep the aggression from his reply.
“Not well, but everyone knows who he is.” Bruke turned and smiled at Seb. “So how do you know him?”
Maybe he hadn’t made his tone curt enough. A look up ahead and Seb saw the fighting pit on the horizon. A huge structure, fifty times bigger than the next largest building around it. When he looked back at Bruke and the long swaying strides of the stocky creature, he shrugged. “We worked together on a thing.”
“A thing?”
Seb ground his jaw and drew a deep inhale through his clenched teeth. “A thing.”
For the next few seconds, Bruke didn’t reply. Instead, he looked ahead as he walked and swerved in and out of the other beings while trying to avoid the middle of the path.
When Bruke drew a deep breath to speak again, Seb’s back wound tight and the edges of his vision blurred. He needed a guide, not an interrogator.
“And you said you wanted to find the Countess?” Bruke said.
The strange creature attracted attention with his bizarre gait. Add to that the ridiculous flight suit Seb still wore, and they might as well set up a stage in the middle of the square. “Do you want to shout it out maybe?” Seb said. “I’m not sure everyone heard you.”
The space where Bruke’s eyebrows should be pushed together in the middle of his scaled face.
After a deep sigh, which did little to make Seb feel any better, he said, “Look, how about we have this conversation another time, yeah?”
Bruke nodded, smiled, and returned his attention to where they were heading.
Now close enough to the fighting pit for it to dominate Seb’s view, he nodded at it. “How about we go in there?”
A look from the pit, to Seb, and back to the pit again, and Bruke said, “There?”
“I want to see a fight.”
Whilst wringing his large hands, Bruke’s eyebrows pinched together again. “Are you sure? It can get quite violent in there.”
Seb looked at the scores of creatures around him because he couldn’t stand to look at his pathetic guide any longer. Many looked back. He held onto his reply for a few seconds. It did little to cool him down or still his furious heartbeat. He spoke in a monotone when he returned his attention to Bruke. “I can live with the violence.”
Bruke gulped and nodded. “Okay.”
Chapter 8
A few minutes later Seb and Bruke joined the bottleneck of bodies all heading for the pit. Where the smell of waste had thinned out the closer they got to the arena, it now ramped up again because of the densely packed beings around them.
A mixture of ground-in dirt and shit forced Seb to ruffle his nose and he nearly gripped his nostrils in a pinch, but he held back. It wouldn’t pay to offend the beings around him. Especially as he already stood out amongst them in his ridiculous garb. Besides, they couldn’t help the squalor they lived in. Instead, he breathed through his mouth, the cold air nipping the back of his throat.
It took for Seb to get close to the guards in front of the door to remember his backpack. So snug against his form, he’d forgotten about it completely. But now, close to entering the pit, he remembered he had a blaster and highly flammable wax on him. Hardly the most subtle thing to enter with, it damn near declared war on the place.
Too late to do anything about it, Seb tried to keep his unease beneath the surface. He walked past the guards with his head held high and his face flushed. A look at each of them, and they stared back. He clenched his fists. If he had to fight them, he would. But they didn’t stop him, so he continued through.
Just before he walked through the entryway, Seb looked up at the cylindrical rickety structure that was the fighting pit. The Countess clearly had little interest in the place; otherwise she might have done more for its upkeep. The outside of the wooden arena had patches of different coloured wood plastered over what must have once been holes. Time had eaten away at the structure over the years, and whoever looked after the pit had fought against it as best as they could with fix-up after fix-up. The place looked like it could collapse at any moment.
Unlike the last time they’d visited the pit, Seb managed to get a seat in the middle of the crowd, much closer to the fighting area in the centre.
The thick smell of bodies mixed with that of sweat and blood. Something about the reek made Seb giddy and he bounced his leg up and down where he sat.
Bruke glanced at Seb’s twitch, but he didn’t say anything, anxiety twisting his features as he then went on to look around the place.
Seb had avoided looking at it until now, but he couldn’t ignore the box seats next to them. Sectioned off from the rest of the crowd, the foot soldier who ran the arena sat in it. Tall and slim, the soldier wore the same robe as all the others. The dark shadow of the hood made it impossible to see its face.
The soldier suddenly turned on Seb and a cold chill snapped through him. It felt like the grim reaper had just focused his attention on him.
Seb looked away. Maybe the tan flight suit had prevented him from getting searched on his way into the pit, but it certainly attracted attention now he’d entered the place. Someone from the elevated city shouldn’t be in the slums, especially not in the fighting pits.
While not staring directly back at him, Seb kept a peripheral awareness of the soldier in the box. When he felt the crimson-robed brute look away, he relaxed a little and took in the rest of the crowd. All of them had the same physical characteristics that marked a Solsans resident. All of them except Seb. They had the same pale skin of a being who lived a life without s
unlight. Malnourished, pasty, stinking, and under the control of the Countess … could life get much worse for the pitiful beings?
Another glance at Bruke next to him and Seb saw the large scaled creature bite his thick claws as he too looked at the beings around him. He fidgeted and breathed heavily through his large nose. An animal gripped with panic, he looked ready to bolt at the drop of a hat.
At that moment, Bruke froze as if he’d seen something in the crowd. Seb followed his line of sight and the tension in his back wound a little tighter. How hadn’t he seen them before now? A group of about twenty Crimson foot soldiers sat in the front row. All of them had their faces hidden with their hoods.
Seb leaned close to Bruke to ask him what he thought they were doing there, but a voice in the middle of the pit cut him off.
“Females and males, let me introduce you to the champion of this fine establishment.” The high-pitched voice came from a Crimson foot soldier no taller than about four feet.
Seb had been in the pits a lot and had seen many intimidating monsters, but as the new champion of this place entered, even he lost his breath in a gasp. Every one of the creature’s heavy steps ran through the large wooden structure like an aftershock. Bruke thrust his arms out to the side as if the seating area would collapse under the vibrations.
In the same red robe as all of the other soldiers, but bigger than them—much bigger—the champion strode into the ring, got to the middle, and spun on the spot to take in the crowd.
Impossible to read the brute because shadow hid its face, Seb felt his peripheral vision blur. A natural reaction to being in the pits moments before a fight, his upper body tensed and it took all he had not to stand up right there and challenge the champ.
“Ten wins in a row now,” the small compère shouted, his whine ringing through the pit. “Every one of them coming within the first minute of the fight. Every one ending in the death of the challenger. Let me introduce you to the one, the only, the Great Gamboa.”
Seb flinched at how quickly the Great Gamboa removed his cloak and tossed it into the air. The red fabric spun on its way up and sank back down to the ground like an autumn leaf. But for all the flourish of the robe, Seb fixed his attention on the monster beneath it.
At least eight feet tall, the Great Gamboa had so many muscles that his black skin looked like it might split. The champion clenched his fists, brought them around in front of his navel, and tensed. A series of pops like corn in a hot pan, and the already muscly brute seemed to double in size. Where his neck had already stretched from his ears to his shoulders, it now seemed to start from his temples.
While turning on the spot, the Great Gamboa worked his thick jaw as he chewed on gum. The muscles in his mandible were as chunky as tow ropes and he looked like he could crush diamonds with his teeth. When he got to the point where he faced Seb, he let out a booming roar that fired halitosis across the crowd and blew Seb’s hair back—even with the fifteen metres separating them.
“Now,” the small compère shouted, “all we need to know is, who challenges the Great Gamboa?”
If there were a silence in the galaxy more complete, Seb hadn’t experienced it. Even a vacuum would have seemed raucous compared to the stillness that descended on the place.
A squeak then came from next to Seb and called through the silenced crowd. He looked at Bruke, who seemed unable to contain his panic. The green creature looked one step away from pissing himself.
Seb then looked over at the foot soldier in the box, who would undoubtably have been able to hear Bruke’s anxious noise. The foot soldier didn’t look back. Instead, he surveyed the crowd as if searching for a challenger.
After scanning the entire place, the shadowed face of the soldier in the box returned to Seb. “It looks like we’ll have to select someone ourselves,” he said.
The rest of the pit looked at Seb at that moment and Bruke let out another nervous whine. If there was ever a time for him not to be in the flight suit … but he didn’t react to the attention. Instead, he stared back at the foot soldier, not confrontational in any way, but he wanted to make sure the lord of this pit knew he couldn’t be intimidated.
When the soldier looked away, Seb let out a gentle sigh of relief, doing his best to hide it from the crowd. As much as he wouldn’t be bullied, it really wouldn’t help his cause to fight now.
The soldier in the box raised a long and pointy finger at a huge beast in the crowd in front of him. “You! Get down there.”
If anything, the silence seemed to quieten further as the giant slumped in his seat.
“You heard me,” the soldier said. “You’re the challenger for today. Get off your arse and get down there.”
The giant’s face twisted, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he got to his feet—his shoulders slumped—and he kissed the female version of himself next to him. If no one else in the arena saw it, Seb certainly did. The kiss said goodbye. He wouldn’t be coming back.
Seb looked at the soldier in the box. Although hard to tell his reaction because of his shadowed hood, he seemed impassive to the sentence he’d just laid on the brute.
The female giant, along with the rest of the arena, watched the challenger pick his way through the crowd down to the pit in the middle. Tears glistened in her eyes and she shook her head.
As the beast walked down to the front, the foot soldier in the box glared at Seb again. Or at least it felt that way. It was hard to tell when he couldn’t see its face.
Either way, Seb had dodged a bullet.
Chapter 9
As the challenger entered the ring, the Great Gamboa turned to the group of Crimson foot soldiers and raised his huge black arms. Another booming roar and the foot soldiers jumped to their feet, clapping their hands and punching the air. A normally conservative bunch, they seemed to want this fight more than anyone. They’d monopolised the services of one of the touts, who currently ran through them, taking their bets.
Every other being in the crowd remained quiet as though embarrassed about the soldier’s behaviour. As if the Countess’ oppression didn’t feel harsh enough, the beings of Caloon had to put up with the power-trip, bullshit behaviour of the foot soldiers too.
“And now,” the announcer called out, cutting through Seb’s thoughts, “the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the Great Gamboa versus someone from the slums.”
The disrespect to the challenger pulled Seb’s stomach tight. They didn’t even bother naming him.
“Rrrrrrrrrreadyyyyyyy,” the commentator said, rolling the r and looking for the nod from the Great Gamboa. He didn’t even look at the challenger. “Round one. Fight!”
Seb sat up straight to watch the challenger charge the Great Gamboa. Were he a betting man, he would have had the fight down as one that saw the Great Gamboa chasing his opponent around the ring until he got hold of him and broke his neck. He would have been wrong.
Two punches in quick succession seemed to stun the Great Gamboa, his emerald green eyes widening at the affront.
“You know what,” Seb said to Bruke, “this fight might be—”
But before he could finish his thought, Seb stopped to watch the Great Gamboa slap his large hand over the top of the challenger’s head and grip on. His huge arm bulged and shook as he lifted his opponent a good metre from the ground.
When the Great Gamboa clenched his teeth with the effort of his squeeze, Seb saw muscles pop up in even his fingers. The grip looked like it could turn a rock to dust.
Despite his size, the giant flipped and twisted like a fish caught on a hook. He screamed a broken cry.
A second later the giant’s raucous agony ended with a deep squelch of his cracking skull. The Great Gamboa let the giant’s body fall limp to the ground before silence swept around the place.
Bruke leaned forward and vomited on the floor in front of him, and Seb looked at the giant’s wife as she cried freely.
Seb fought against his pull to stand up and challenge the brute, to show th
e Great Gamboa he wasn’t so great. But he couldn’t. The Great Gamboa wouldn’t last two minutes with him, but he had to walk away. Take the Countess down and then tie up all the loose ends. A petty fight wouldn’t help the beings of Caloon.
The acrid smell of Bruke’s sick rose up and joined the stench of everything else in the pit, so Seb leaned close to his guide and said, “I’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 10
“I can’t believe they did that to the poor thing,” Bruke said as they walked away from the fighting pit. “His partner looked devastated.” He shook his head, his brown eyes wide in a glazed stare. “He didn’t even want to fight.”
The slum had ears, so Seb watched his surroundings. Any one of the many beings around him could be listening in, ready to rat them out. After he’d trusted Phulp and he’d sold him out … well, he didn’t need to think about it. “Let’s just get where we’re going, yeah?”
An instant slackening of his jaw and Bruke stared at Seb as if his words had caused him physical pain.
While looking around them, including over both shoulders, Seb said, “Don’t get upset. We need to have this conversation another time. You’re too emotional to keep your voice down, and I stand out from a mile away in this suit. We already have too much attention on us.”
The shock left Bruke’s face and he nodded.
“Right, so lead us to where we need to go.”
A deep breath lifted Bruke’s broad chest and he nodded again. “Okay, follow me.”
It didn’t matter that Seb had walked from the pit to Phulp’s hut before, he couldn’t find the way without a guide. Not that every hut looked the same; in fact, every hut looked completely different. Each one had a personality of its own from where it had been scraped together from salvaged materials. No way could someone who’d only been through the slums once or twice know how to find anywhere.
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