131 Days [Book 3]_Spikes and Edges

by Keith C. Blackmore

  That final, raw shout rose above the insanity of the audience, before being lost in the cheering of thousands.

  Blacktooth sauntered on, bare swords swinging at his hips. Brontus went forth to meet him. As the gap closed, Brontus stopped five or six strides away and nodded a greeting.

  “Brontus,” the other replied cordially, tapping his head with a blade.

  “Back for more?”

  “Aye that. Looks that way.”

  “Well, maybe your luck will change this day.”

  Blacktooth didn’t share his thoughts on the matter.

  “Is this to the death?” Brontus asked.

  “Should be asking you that. You’ve killed two men already.”

  “Free Trained, good Blacktooth. They don’t count.”

  “Oh, but they do.” Blacktooth smiled behind his face cage, revealing his infamous incisor. “It’s been recorded, regardless of what you might think. History will remember the names and not the class. You decide if it’s to the death or not.”

  Brontus sighed. That really wasn’t an answer.

  “Ready?” asked the battered gladiator with two swords.

  Brontus raised his shield, turned his aging body to the side, and nodded.

  Blacktooth’s left blade stretched out as if measuring the distance while his right blade rose to his shoulder.

  Always the same, Brontus thought.

  Hell came at him.

  Blacktooth’s whirling blades lashed out from over his shoulders, churning and cutting in a frightening, bloodletting weave like some diabolical machine. Sunlight flashed off steel.

  Brontus instinctively got out of the way of such killing madness.

  But Blacktooth lunged at the last instant, stomping his foot as he slashed, his right blade a flat arc of armor-splitting power. Brontus deflected it off his shield, but the blow staggered him. Blacktooth recovered first. He chased his opponent, tearing into the younger gladiator, swords scintillating in the sun, cutting for a leg, a head, a shoulder, a leg again, stomach…

  Brontus ducked and parried, moving his shield with an uncanny speed as if dispelling bad magic. He feinted one way, failed to fool the older fighter, and nearly got his head half-lopped off for the effort. He backtracked at an angle, circling the pursuing Blacktooth, keeping his shield between them.

  Blacktooth struck it twice, ringing the barrier as if demanding entry. Brontus got away a few steps, ignoring the ache in his shield arm. The crowds loved the action and let it be known.

  “Seddon’s rosy ass,” Brontus commented over the rim of his shield. “Most hellpups slow down with age.”

  That made Blacktooth smile. Then he attacked.

  The gladiator’s swords lashed out in a dazzling series of strikes that rendered Brontus completely on the defensive.

  Leg, arm, arm, head, head, shoulder, leg––

  Blacktooth spun on a heel, arm powered by the torque of his hips. His left sword clanged off Brontus’s forehead when he couldn’t raise his shield fast enough. The Ustda man’s head cracked back, the impact yanking a chorus of OOOOOHs from the audience. Brontus stumbled a retreat, holding a shield suddenly far too small for him.

  Blacktooth didn’t wait for a recovery. Smelling blood and opportunity, he charged in, left arm pulling back as if to strike but his right arm stabbing––

  Brontus swatted the sword away and backpedaled, placing distance between them. His uneven gait smoothed out into a ready, if not playful, prance.

  Half the crowds responded with cheers. The others were much harsher.

  “Saimon’s shite trough, old man,” Brontus exclaimed. “You’re throwing steel.”

  Blacktooth didn’t pursue his dallying quarry. The Stable of Slavol fighter tracked his opponent’s movements with one sword extended and the other ready to stab from the shoulder.

  “You’re slowing down,” Blacktooth huffed.

  Not caring for the comment in the least, Brontus sprang ahead, holding his shield like a battering ram. He twisted and swung for Blacktooth’s head. The mace hissed over the fin-adorned helmet like a catapult shot, missing by a finger. Blacktooth answered by cutting for a left leg and striking a greave.

  The men righted themselves and returned to circling.

  “That’s what I remembered,” Blacktooth puffed.

  “The difference a year makes.”

  “Everything.”

  Blacktooth snarled as he launched himself at his foe, swords hacking. Again, Brontus backpedaled, his shield turning away the storm of Blacktooth’s lethal twins. Metal clattered. True to form, the Stable of Slavol fighter did not overextend himself, nor did he make a mistake. Blacktooth pressured, advancing while Brontus retreated. He slashed for limbs in daring flurries, lengthy sets of combinations that kept the younger man ducking and moving.

  Then the storm broke, and Blacktooth retreated before Brontus could execute his own attack.

  “Those last few strikes felt lighter.” Brontus hunched over, stalking his foe.

  “I’m an old man.” Blacktooth sucked in air. “I should be… drinking by now.”

  “You make me laugh. Be a shame to kill you.”

  With that, Brontus attacked.

  He crossed the space between them in a blink and smashed downward with his mace. The iron head crashed into one of Blacktooth’s upraised swords, nearly tearing it from his grip. Brontus’s shield whistled through the gap and exploded into Blacktooth’s face cage, denting it. Sweat sprayed. The older pit fighter staggered backward amidst a blend of hearty approval and fearful shrieks.

  Brontus pursued, readying his mace for another blow. Blacktooth stopped and ducked, unleashing Lightning and Thunder in a silver one-two blur of cutting power.

  Brontus stopped Lightning on his shield. He missed Thunder.

  The blade cut him across the gut, and Brontus retreated, his attention suddenly divided between his midsection and Blacktooth, who did not come after him.

  “Is it bad?” The older pit fighter asked, taking the time to adjust the squashed cage of his helmet.

  “Give me a moment.”

  Blacktooth gestured that he would.

  Brontus immediately probed himself with his a fist, a chill overcoming him. He pressed the leather armor sheathing his abdomen. A gill-like slit opened, revealing an untouched stomach underneath.

  A hiss of relief left him.

  “A near thing,” he said. “Unfit.”

  “Your leather’s too light.” Blacktooth pointed with a sword, his shoulders heaving.

  “My hide’s too slow, truth be known.”

  “Truth be known.”

  “I’ll change it if I get by you.”

  Blacktooth grunted with grim amusement.

  They hunched over, seeking weakness like a pair of slick adders ready to spit venom. Slower now, the initial rushes of the battle behind them, they settled into counterstriking.

  “I remember old Sawklaw,” Blacktooth panted through his dented grill. “He bled to death from such a cut. Much deeper, of course. Straight through to the spine. A right and proper mess.”

  Brontus made a face. “Unfit way to perish.”

  “Unfit business.”

  “Aye that.”

  Brontus kept his shield moving, for fear of tempting his adversary. “So come on then, you piece of gurry. Enough with the dancing.”

  “This dance might end with your head.”

  Brontus snorted and swung at the warrior’s helm. Blacktooth slapped it away in annoyance.

  “What was that nonsense?”

  “Just seeing, is all.”

  “That sort of––” Blacktooth’s words died when Brontus swung for his hip, the mace cleaving space at a downward angle. Blacktooth jumped, avoiding the blow, but Brontus followed, closing the gap and swinging for pain. Blacktooth dodged right, then left, and ducked under a cross aimed for his skull.

  Straight into the edge of Brontus’s shield.

  Face cage met banded iron with a startling clack o
f metal. The grill crumpled, squishing deep into Blacktooth’s face, straightening the whole of his frame as if Seddon himself sought to yank him up by the collar.

  Brontus followed up with a swing of his mace, completing a series of strikes practiced so often he could perform the combination while in his sleep. The spikes crunched into Blacktooth’s midsection, buckling him. The Stable of Slavol’s man crumpled awkwardly to a knee, his back exposed. His cry of pain merged with the crowd’s horrified glee.

  Brontus stepped in, taking what was offered, and slammed his shield’s edge down across an ankle, breaking it. Blacktooth screamed again. The crowds rose to their feet, sensing a bloody end.

  Brontus lifted his shield off the shattered ankle, leaving a mess of metal, meat, and purpling skin. The match was all but finished, and Brontus stepped around his crippled opponent to face him, rearing up his mace and intending to bring that evil chunk of black iron down with everything behind it.

  In agony as he was, as vulnerable as he was, Blacktooth’s blind instinct took control. He glanced up and recognized an opening in a fleeting instant of mind and reflex.

  Thunder was of no use with Brontus’s shield in place. Lightning, however…

  Blacktooth sprang from the ground on his good leg, his ruined ankle flopping behind him, and stabbed Lightning with all the precision of a ballista. The sword lanced between mace and shield and slammed into Brontus’s protected jaw so hard the very connection might have stretched bone and tendons a finger’s width. The impact snapped the head back on its shoulders. Brontus staggered away, clearly senseless, and fell to a knee.

  Blacktooth crumpled not a stride away.

  Exquisite pain crackled through Blacktooth’s foot and rang in his brain. His ankle unleashed a torrent of white-hot agony, refusing to exit his person by mere scream alone––so he channeled it once more into his sword arm.

  Blacktooth lurched forward on his good leg, bashing Brontus across the helmet. The bigger man toppled in a plume of dust. Baring his one incisor and eyes watering with every jolt of movement, Blacktooth closed in upon his fallen opponent as the audience erupted into a frenzied backdrop of noise.

  Sensing danger, Brontus drunkenly pushed himself to his knees as if in worship. His fingers grazed the shaft of his mace. A bare strip of leather from the weapon’s pommel looped around his wrist in case of such a moment.

  Broken ankle dragging behind him, Blacktooth clumsily launched himself at the stricken pit fighter and grappled him about the chest, bending Brontus back in a grunt of pain.

  The spectators leapt to their feet.

  Half mad with pain and lying across Brontus, Blacktooth tried to lift Lightning and discovered the blade trapped underneath his foe. He released the weapon and cocked Thunder, seeking to finish the fight.

  Brontus caught the wrist in a vise. Blood from the pit fighter’s temple flecked his eye and the skin surrounding it. Sand stuck to it all. Brontus bared his teeth as he exerted whatever power he had left.

  Feeling that might, Blacktooth utilized his body weight and bore down on Thunder. A steel-eyed Brontus gasped. Spittle flew from his lips. Livid with pain, Blacktooth pushed.

  And like the evening sun having had enough of the day, Thunder trembled and descended with all the grace of failing strength. The sword’s edge crept to Brontus’s throat with Blacktooth’s insane grimace behind it.

  “Yield!” Brontus barked in a spray of fluids and sand.

  That one word unlocked the killer in Blacktooth. He eased off his sword, and Brontus relaxed underneath him. Blacktooth rolled off and around for a time, taking the pain. Both men sucked down much-needed air.

  Blacktooth stopped, set his jaw, and glanced at Brontus.

  “Well fought,” he grunted, barely heard over the uproar of the crowds.

  “Well fought,” Brontus sighed in return, realizing the loss meant the end to his games, his first and last defeat.

  “Next season.” Blacktooth grimaced.

  Brontus’s brow shrugged understanding, but disappointment remained thick in the air. There were no excuses made, however, no vows of redemption, and certainly no threats. Brontus reached out and patted the other man’s shoulder.

  Blacktooth appreciated the gesture, but the painful wreck of his ankle screamed that his own ambitions had ended. There wasn’t enough saywort in Sunja to set those bones right.

  The crowd’s enthusiasm had died down, prompting Brontus to stand.

  “Brontus?” Blacktooth grimaced with a touch of hope. “If you’re willing… help me off the sands?”

  The beaten man frowned at the fallen victor, and for an instant, Blacktooth thought the man would refuse. Brontus, however, cringed at the mashed ankle. He hauled the crippled man up without a trace of ill will and draped one of Blacktooth’s arms around his shoulders before helping the older fighter limp off the sands.

  “My thanks,” Blacktooth whispered through clenched teeth.

  “You’re welcome, good Blacktooth.”

  8

  Grisholt regarded the heat shimmers rising from the glowing sands and smiled. Beyond the stone arch of his private viewing chamber, the audience damn near shook the arena’s foundation with their noise. The last fight had been an entertaining one, but Grisholt hadn’t wagered upon it. In his mind, he’d chosen Brontus to defeat the aging Blacktooth. The victory by the Slavol gladiator surprised many from the collective groans and curses from the crowds. The sound pleased Grisholt, and he mentally patted himself on the back for keeping his coin right where it was––to be wagered on his own warriors. His blue eyes, normally fringed red with exhaustion, blazed this day. He had spared no expense with his perfumed water, taking yet another sniff of his shoulder and relishing the scent of lavender. His hand stroked his gray beard, coaxing it to greater thickness, while musing that the tides of fortune flowed with him rather than against.

  That golden flow would deliver even greater riches this day.

  Behind him, Brakuss and a handful of warriors finished aiding Kossa with his armor. He would be the next fighter to drink of the Sons of Cholla potion after Barros’s lopsided victory a few days ago. Barros! A chill enveloped Grisholt’s aging bones as he remembered that spectacle of butchery. The devastation! His pit dog had mangled his opponent and left only bloody pieces. Any other time, fear would grip Grisholt for killing another house gladiator. That was before. This time, Grisholt actually looked forward to the blood match. The House of Razi would hunt for Barros down for the expensive slight of killing their man, and Seddon above, Grisholt hoped they would do something soon.

  Barros’s victory emboldened Grisholt to use the potion in the very next fight, despite the fear of arousing suspicion. Even though the Sons of Cholla’s foul concoction had rendered Barros bedridden for two days without even the strength to walk to a latrine, Grisholt couldn’t wait to use the potion––the fire––once again.

  Victory, the stranger from the Sons of Cholla had called it. He did not lie.

  Grisholt turned ever so slightly, struggling to contain his excitement, and sized up the gladiator about to sip from the iron flask. The potion had been revealed to his men. The stable knew about Barros, and Grisholt chided himself for ever thinking he could keep the potion’s existence from the very ones who had to use it. The next evening, he’d gathered the lot of them in the common room of their barracks and gave them the speech—won the entire pack over. It wasn’t difficult, really, convincing his lads to stay on his side. Thinking on the matter further, Grisholt realized his gladiators hated the repeated losses just as much as he did. They were tired of being mocked and scorned for being associated with the Stable of Grisholt.

  They wanted victory in the Pit. They wanted to be feared. But more than anything, they wanted riches.

  They embraced the potion. Grisholt appreciated their mercenary thinking. After all, they risked their lives every day in this profession until death, wounds, or age stopped them. Why not seize the gold and fame that had lured them to the ga
mes in the first place? They all fought for coin, family, or some other reason. And if they were discovered, they could plead ignorance, that their owner had ordered them to drink from the iron flask. At worst, they’d never fight in the games again.

  For their loyalty, for their secrecy, Grisholt had promised them everything—nothing he didn’t already have—but a noble sense of self overcame him as he uttered the words. If the potion continued working, he would share the riches won in the Pit. A few extra coins here and there. He knew he could afford it with the new wealth pouring into the stable. He stressed they should wager coin on themselves for even greater returns.

  To his delight, they’d agreed. Not one deserted. And if one did, Grisholt would see to it the bastard would never leave the villa alive. Perhaps his dogs knew that.

  He regarded the man about to drink from the iron flask.

  A Sunjan by birth, Kossa’s parents had come from far off Yanth or the Territories, somewhere from that southwestern region. Grisholt wasn’t particularly interested in the details. Taskmaster Turst had given Kossa an exceptionally high grade, declaring the pit fighter would do quite well this season. To this point, the Sunjan-born had amassed three victories, all Free Trained, but Grisholt didn’t care about that anymore.

  Brakuss’s one eye met the owner’s, and they shared a knowing moment. The other fighters stepped away from Kossa’s brooding form. Young, tall, thin of shoulder but thick of arms, protected by a leather cuirass and the usual armor, Kossa stood and glared. His shallow chest heaved, betraying excitement. Blue-eyed with short orange hair, the gladiator radiated a carefully cultivated confidence. He knew his worth.

  “Are you ready?” Grisholt’s eyes crinkled around the edges.

  “Aye that, Master Grisholt.”

  “Show me your face.”

  Kossa snarled, twisting his ordinary features into something horrific. Even though Grisholt had witnessed this change many times before, it still fascinated and secretly shocked him. Kossa’s neck corded, the veins and tendons popping out like the roots of some haunted, meat-eating tree. He bared yellowed teeth and hissed. His eyes narrowed into bloodless slits, every bit as shocking as a slash across one’s guts.