Raven's Song

by Launnie Roush

  The woman came to a halt a few feet from the Red Scorpion and used her trident to jab at him from a distance. He easily deflected the thrusts with his buckler, but had to divide his attention as the spear wielding men closed in. The next time the woman tried to jab him with her trident he stepped inside the blow, grabbed the weapon in his left hand, and gave it a powerful tug. The woman, not expecting this, was pulled off balance. As she staggered forward he pounced, caving her skull in with his bat.

  The woman was dead, but the Red Scorpion knew that the men would be using this distraction to close in on him. He whirled about just in time to deflect a powerful thrust. His attacker began raining down blow after blow on his buckler in an attempt to break through his defenses. He bided his time, and when a break between thrusts occurred he surged forward and barreled into the man. His opponent toppled over backwards under his onslaught. The Red Scorpion quickly pounced on the felled man and obliterated his windpipe with the edge of his buckler.

  While this man suffocated, he looked to the next one. This man had wisely kept his distance, his spear held defensively before him. The Red Scorpion quickly snatched up his felled opponent’s spear and flung it at his opponent. The man batted the projectile aside seconds before the Red Scorpion, who had sprinted forward after the throwing the weapon, pulverized his knee. As the man shrieked in pain, the Red Scorpion bashed his skull in, and without a second glance hurried on to the last of the Wreckers, three men and two women, all armed with swords. None of them were taunting him anymore, and the redheaded woman was openly weeping. Two of the men tried to engage him at once, only to be effortlessly outclassed and killed.

  The last remaining male Wrecker, the one who had hoped to be married, had circled behind the Red Scorpion and attempted a surprise attack, but the young warrior whipped around and deflected the incoming blow. The man regained his footing and surged forward while attempting a thrust at his opponent’s midsection. The Red Scorpion dodged outside the blow, grabbed the man’s sword arm, and pulled it aside. What the attacking Wrecker did not know was that his fiancé had been sneaking up behind the Red Scorpion with a surprise attack of her own planned. Instead, she ended up driving her blade deep into her future husband’s stomach, which garnered a thunderous cheer from the crowd.

  The woman let out a horrified shriek and released her grip on her sword. In almost the exact same moment, the Red Scorpion clubbed her temple, crushing her orbital socket and popping her eye, which released a shower of gore. As she fell lifeless he delivered an identical blow to her wounded fiancé, ending his misery. The Red Scorpion then turned on the last living Wrecker, the redheaded woman whose terror had reduced her to tears. As he started towards her she began to stammer desperate pleas.

  “Please, please, lemme live! My name’s Pauline, Pauline Carey, and I’m a good person! I didn’t kill CEO Fulsom, I swear, and I’ve never broken a law in my life! I’m not supposed to be here in this living Abyss! I’m not a fighter, but I can’t keep selling my body for moldy meat! They said I could have some food, some real food, if I fought you!”

  She took several, deep shuddering breaths, the last of which ended in a hiccup, before continuing her pleas.

  “You don’t have to kill me, you don’t! I’ll surrender, you’ll still win, and I’ll get to live! That’s how it works, right, I surrender, and you win?! You’ll let me surrender, won’t you?! I know you’re a good man, and you can show mercy, can’t you?!”

  The woman, who called herself Pauline, was steadily backing away from him as she spoke, her voice becoming increasingly hysterical as she rambled. The Red Scorpion steadily stalked towards her, his weapon held at the ready. The woman, realizing her pleas had gone unheeded, gave a frightened moan and halfheartedly charged at him.

  The Red Scorpion waited until she was close, and as she clumsily struck with her sword, he batted the blade away while delivering a powerful kick to her unprotected knee. The joint was obliterated, and the woman went down on her backside, a terrible wail escaping her. As he stood over her she brought her sword up in an attempt to ward him off, and a savage blow with his bat shattered her forearm, causing the weapon to fly from her grasp. Before she could act further, he clubbed her across the jaw, pulverizing the bone and sending her onto her back. He quickly straddled her upper body, pinning her arms against her sides with his legs, and looked to the Sultan. The crowd was on its feet, ravenously crying out for the Red Scorpion to end the last Wrecker’s life. The Sultan let a small grin play at his face as he raised his right hand and pointed his thumb downwards.

  “FINISH HER!” the announcer bellowed, driving the crowd into further hysterics.

  The Red Scorpion gazed into the eyes of his final opponent for the day and saw in them a mixture of terror and agony. For a brief moment his face clouded over with an expression of utter shame and sorrow.

  “Forgive me,” he begged quietly before proceeding to bludgeon the helpless woman, reducing the rest of her face and much of her head to a bloody pulp with his bat.

  Within seconds the woman was dead, but still he continued to pummel her lifeless body, the feral expression he had worn for the duration of the battle reappearing on his face. The crowd was practically foaming with crazed excitement at the young gladiator’s antics. Within moments his handlers were on him, struggling desperately to restrain him. As the Red Scorpion was drug back to his holding pen, the crowd continued their wildly enthusiastic accolades.

  #

  “It’s him! I’d recognize him anywhere!” Caitlyn declared.

  “That boy could be anybody. Just because he has black hair and brown eyes doesn’t mean he’s a Von Raben. We’ll have to wait on the DNA test to be sure,” Ronald reasoned, though he still did not understand why the test could not be done by Cell, a process which was typically instantaneous.

  The Saviors were in a darkened room featuring a two-way mirror, through which they were observing the dirty, sparsely-clothed young man the LM troopers had brought into the neighboring room several minutes before. They had expected the young man to protest or attempt to free himself from his stark, white confinement, but both were impressed when he silently went to the center of the room and sat facing away from the mirror, his legs hugged to his chest and his head hanging low. Caitlyn had been shocked and saddened by how grimy the young man’s skin and close cropped black hair were, and by the sparse, stubbly beard on his face, but what caused her the most heartache were the half-dozen large, angry scars marring his skin and the crude tattoo of a red scorpion covering his back.

  As she took all this in with deep heartache, Sabine Alsford’s words came back to her: “Although it shames me to admit it, your son was auctioned off to Lurah, a well-known gladiatorial lanista, or trainer, and now fights as a gladiator in the Stadium, an ancient and ghastly arena here in Dis.”

  And looking at him now, Caitlyn could easily believe the young man she suspected was her son had known countless battles. They sat watching the young man for nearly an hour before Caitlyn finally let her eagerness get the best of her. “I need to talk to him,” she decided as she turned to the trooper guarding the room’s exit.

  “I was instructed to detain you until further notice,” the trooper grunted pointedly.

  “I wanna see him now!”

  “Ma’am, I apologize, but you’re to remain here.”

  “Move!”

  The trooper shrugged before leading her from the room. Once they were in the dimly lit hallway, Caitlyn was escorted to the neighboring door, also guarded by a trooper. “She wants to see the boy,” her escort explained.

  This guard simply nodded before unlocking the door and letting Caitlyn into the room. Once she was inside, the door was shut and relocked, the noise causing the youthful prisoner to give only a cursory glance in her direction.

  “You gonna eat me?” he asked with marginal curiosity.

  “That’s what they do here?” Caitlyn asked.

  “That’s one rumor.”

  “Disgustin
g!”

  “Sound like I won’t be dinner, then,” the young man observed, “So, why am I here?”

  “Where’d you get the tattoo on your back?”

  The young man let out a weary sigh, “I’m sure you’ve already heard the story, but I’ll tell it again. Two years ago, my lanista decided I needed something, a kind of visual symbol, to go with my gladiatorial title, ‘The Red Scorpion’, and settled on the tattoo. He sent eight of his best gladiators into my pen. I killed two of them, but the rest pinned me to the floor. For the next nine hours, they used an old nail and ink made from some kind of paint to put the damn thing on me.

  “When they let me up, I killed three more of them. I ended up getting very sick. My lanista told me if I survived I’d be stronger than ever before, nearly unstoppable. I survived.”

  “Blessed Creator, I’m so sorry!” Caitlyn gasped, a terrible sorrow ripping through her.

  “Uh-huh. I’ll ask again; why am I here?” the young man pressed.

  “What do you remember of your life before Dis?” Caitlyn countered.

  “Is this a psych exam?”

  “Not an exam, just a question.”

  “I was very young when I was brought here, but I vaguely remember places and people. Playing with a boy named James. He was a cousin, maybe.”

  “And your parents?”

  “I think I dream about them sometimes. They were both masterful fighters. My father was a happy man. He laughed all the time.”

  “And your mother?” Caitlyn went on.

  “All I remember is that she was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “You don’t remember what they looked like?”

  “I’ve been in this place too long to remember much more than that. My parents are blurry shapes I see in dreams, and the name James I mentioned could easily be something I’ve overheard from one of the guards. And that’s all these dreams and memories are, really, just a bunch of stupid, hopeless fantasies. I’m the Red Scorpion, greatest gladiator the Stadium’s ever seen. This is my existence, and I’m resigned to it.”

  Caitlyn searched for a way to express all the thoughts and emotions that were boiling inside her. As she faced this horribly maltreated young man, she simply blurted out the first thing she could think to say. “I’m your mother, Del!”

  The young man’s expression conveyed deep, dark sadness, “Please don’t screw with me like this. My parents apparently forgot about me or didn’t care enough to come looking for me! I was told by my lanista that the rich sometimes sold their children to his chieftain, and as far as I can figure that was most likely my fate! Either way, the fact of the matter is I’ll be here for the rest of my life, which, if I’m lucky, won’t last too much longer.”

  Caitlyn moved to kneel in front of her son and gently laid her hands on his powerful shoulders. “Del, please, you’re my son! You have your father’s eyes and my nose! You used to hunt killer robots in our house, and you accidently bloodied my lip the first time I tried to show you how to throw a punch! James is your cousin and your best friend, and he misses you so much! We all do!

  “We never forgot you or sold you, Big Guy! You were stolen from us, and we’ve spent twelve years trying desperately to find you, and now that we have we’re bursting with joy! We love you and want you back with us!”

  Before Caitlyn could draw another breath, the young man shot up, dragging her with him by the front of her jumpsuit, and slammed her against a nearby wall, pinning her nearly a foot off the floor. As Caitlyn was still marveling at this startling physical display, the young man began screaming at her, his face twisted by a black malevolence.

  “Liar! How dare you come here and toy with me, you weak, dog-hearted, soft-skinned little bastard! You can’t be my mother, you can’t! You have no proof! My family never loved me; they threw me away like the useless piece of garbage I am and left me to be tortured by a bunch of monsters! I’m warning you this one last time; stop this and leave me to my misery, or I’ll tear you apart!”

  Caitlyn felt her heart freeze, then shatter to countless pieces. She had no doubt in her mind that this young man was her son, and to hear him speak with such rage, anguish, and utter hopelessness nearly killed her. She blinked rapidly, forcing tears from her eyes, and in a tiny, misery-choked voice she said, “You used to call me Silly Mamma.”

  The young man’s rage instantly died, and his face went soft. “Silly Mama?” he asked in a small, shaky voice.

  Caitlyn nodded, and went dizzy with joy when the young man suddenly let her drop and threw his arms around her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. At first she thought Del was crying, but soon realized she was wrong in that assumption. Her son simply clung to her, his body trembling. He was obviously overwhelmed with emotion, yet still quite reserved given the circumstances.

  “I’m here now, Big Guy. I’ll make it all better, I promise,” she gently assured her son as she took him into her arms.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  Dawn was rapidly approaching, and Max was a mass of jangled nerves as he moved through the interior of East Chieftown Medical Center. He had spent all night pacing the living room of his home, his entire being wrought with worry. He knew the immense risk Caitlyn and Ronald had taken by attempting to sneak into Dis and also knew that until they were out of that infamous place, they would be unable to send word. Anna had stayed and had taken care of Eve, feeding his child and putting her to bed, and was now babysitting for Max as he came to the hospital to see his son for the first time in over a decade. Though Max was displeased with his son’s immediate hospitalization after leaving Dis, he understood the need quarantine the young man and immediately evaluate his health.

  When he had received the call from his wife an hour before, her ecstatic face had filled his HUD, her joy rendering her more beautiful than she had been in years. “Come to the hospital!” she blurted, “We got ‘em, Max!”

  He had left his home at a dead run, leaping into the Lux-car that sat parked in front of his home. He inwardly thanked his father for having the foresight to leave the vehicle for just this reason, then gave the machine his desired destination. The ride was a short one, but it still lasted far too long for Max. Upon arriving at the hospital, he had blasted from the vehicle and tore through the building, which contained only patients and the night shift staff. One long, painfully slow elevator ride saw him up to the ninth floor, where Dr. Valerie Weiss, the diminutive, plain-faced woman who served as the Von Raben family’s personal healthcare provider, escorted him to an exam room. Caitlyn was standing outside its closed door, fidgeting ceaselessly as she waited for his arrival. As he approached, she vaulted into his arms and kissed him with knee-weakening passion.

  “Please tell me I’m not dreamin’, love,” he begged once the kiss ended, “He’s really here, right?”

  Caitlyn smiled her brightest smile as she threw open the door and led him into the exam room, “It’s my proud privilege to present Del Von Raben!”

  As Max entered the room, he found a tall, powerfully-built young man standing beside an exam table. He had black hair cropped close to his skull, dark, dangerous-looking brown eyes, wintry white skin, and a strong, intense face which was marred by a long scar starting at the middle of his left cheek and running down into his upper lip, wrenching his mouth into a permanent sneer. He was clothed in loose-fitting medical scrubs and looked very uncomfortable in such garments. He was a frightful-looking individual, yet to Max he was absolutely perfect.

  Del looked upon Max, and his eyes, eyes that looked as if they could kill with a glance, went soft with emotion. “Daddy?” he asked hesitantly.

  Max was about to reply when he felt his knees go weak. He was certain she was going to faint for the first time in his life. He remained conscious but nonetheless sank heavily to the cold tile floor and stared dumbly at the young man. The instant he had walked into the room and beheld his son, Max was assaulted with a sudden rush of gratitude, relief, and pure happiness that had assaulted his
composure, and his son’s first words to him in over a decade completely destroyed it. Tears of joy began to fall freely from his eyes, “My son?!”

  Del was on his knees in front of Max within seconds, a look of concern on his face. He was looking Max over as if checking for injuries.

  “My son!” Max cried.

  Del suddenly found himself being crushed in Max’s embrace. His body stiffened, and he sat unmoving as his father held him tight. He was finally being treated like a human after years of being regarded as nothing more than a piece of machinery, yet he had no idea how he was supposed to react to all this kindness and affection. Despite the love being lavished on him, he could not help but suspect the possibility of ambush.

  “I’ve missed you so much, Del! I love you, I’ve always loved you! I prayed nightly for you, and those prayers have been answered! Oh Blessed Creator, they’ve been answered!” Max rejoiced.

  Del allowed his father to cling to him, and tried his best to reign in his apprehension when his mother joined in the embrace. The woman doctor who was to examine him sometime soon quietly shut the door, leaving the three of them alone. Del’s parents held him for a long time, quiet sniffles occasionally issuing from them. When they were finally willing to release their son, Max and Caitlyn each kissed his face several times then sat back, their expressions bursting with love as they admired him. Del was growing increasingly anxious in the face of all this unfamiliar activity, and his parents seemed to sense this. There were three folding chairs hanging on a rack in the corner of the room, and after Max had set them up, he and Caitlyn invited Del to sit with them. He did so and seemed startled by his chair’s plush softness.

  Caitlyn asked Del if he was hungry, and he admitted that he was famished. She put in a request by way of Cell, and a foot-long submarine sandwich and a large bottle of icy cold water were brought in by a nurse’s assistant. Del practically attacked the meager meal, quickly wolfing all but the last three inches of his sandwich and guzzling down only half the water. When he began to pocket the remains of his sandwich, his mother gently stopped him. He explained the necessity for hoarding food in Dis, and was assured that this act was no longer necessary. Del quickly polished off the remains of his meal, and his parents smiled when he offered his humble gratitude.