by Morgan Rice
The beast raised its head, bared its fangs, and roared, clearly preparing to pounce. Royce backed up, but his back soon hit the mud wall. There was no way out.
Defenseless, Royce braced himself as the monster leapt.
Heart slamming, nowhere to go, Royce felt his instincts kicked in: he dropped to one knee, remembering his training, remembering the lessons Voyt had ingrained in him:
Always use your opponent’s strength against him.
Never take fear in an opponent’s size.
The bigger they are, the less they can maneuver.
Speed wins—not strength.
Royce had been trained for this. He remembered the days he and his brothers had been thrown in a pit, pitted against animals, monsters, everything under the sun.
He focused. He curled himself in a ball, raised his hands overhead, and as the monster leapt, he shoved it in its soft belly, pushing with all his might, standing while he did so.
He threw the beast overhead, and it went flying through the air and slammed against the mud wall.
The crowd roared.
It landed on its feet, though, quicker than Royce had expected, and turned and faced him again. Royce knew, without a weapon, his options were limited. He was defenseless after all, and there was nowhere to run. He might fend it off, but he could not win.
Perhaps, though, he could tire it out.
Use its own strength against it.
Royce searched the pit frantically and spied roots on the far side of the mud wall. He sprinted across the pit, and as the beast lunged at him again, he darted for them and leapt.
Royce grabbed one of the roots and with all his might pulled himself up. Soon he was up off the ground, four, five, six feet. He prayed that it held.
The monster lunged for him, and as it did, Royce curled into a bull, raising his feet. The beast just missed, grazing his foot, and slammed into the mud wall.
The crowd roared, clearly not expecting Royce to survive that.
Royce clung to the vine, climbing even higher, and as the furious beast snarled, the crowd cheered his ingenuity. Soon he was safely out of range.
Royce’s heart pounded as he looked down, breathing hard, glad for the respite, wondering how he could ever win this. He looked up and saw the vine did not go very high, and he knew he could not climb to the top anyway, not with all the villagers waiting to prod him back down.
No sooner had he had the thought than there suddenly came an awful creaking noise—and he felt the worst feeling of his life: the root was slowly separating from the mud wall. Royce began to fall—and there was no way to stop it.
Royce went flying through the air, landing back in the pit, just feet from the creature. The crowd cheered. No sooner had he landed than the beast landed on top of him, clawing and scratching furiously. Royce felt in awful pain from the blows, and he raised his bloody hands, trying to fend it off.
Royce knew he had but moments if he were to survive this. He reached up, desperate, and grabbed the beast by the throat. He spun and slammed it down, climbing on top of it. He squeezed, holding the beast just far enough away so that its claws missed him.
He squeezed and squeezed, choking the life out of it. Royce hated to hurt this beast, even if it was trying to kill him. But he knew if he did not, his life would be over.
Royce held on, even while the beast let out awful snarls, writhing to kill him. But no matter what it did, Royce would not let go. He knew that to do so would mean his death.
Finally, the beast went limp in his arms.
Dead.
The thought both shocked and saddened Royce. He was relieved to kill it, but also sad to kill it.
The crowd fell silent, clearly stunned itself.
Royce rose to his feet, out of breath, covered in scratches and wounds, dripping blood. He was exhausted, and had no idea how he had won the match. His adrenaline had taken over in a wild blur.
It didn’t matter. He had won. The deed was done and he had done what he had never wanted to: survive, at any cost. Even at the cost of killing a living thing. In a way, his victory had vanquished him.
Royce looked up, waiting for the villagers to lower a rope to raise him up. He was, after all, the victor.
Yet his heart sank as a horn sounded and the crowd, instead of dispersing, only grew thicker. The cheers came again, growing louder, and Royce suddenly realized, with a sinking feeling, that his fighting had not even begun.
A fighter was suddenly thrown over the edge, landing in the pit but a few feet away from him, to the roaring of the crowd. Royce studied him: it was a huge man, muscular, wearing no armor or clothing whatsoever except for a loincloth and a sinister black mask covering his face. This man, with olive skin, covered in scars and tattoos, was clearly a professional killer.
The crowd cheered.
Royce backed up as the man came slowly, menacingly, toward him, a huge hatchet in his hand. Royce’s heart sank. He did not see how he could escape this one.
Something came flying through the air, and as Royce heard it hit the mud beside him, he turned and was relieved to see what it was: a sword. His sword. The Crystal Sword.
Royce lunged and grabbed it, ducking from under the swing of the hatchet as it came down for his head.
The villagers roared as Royce raised the sword from the mud and faced his attacker. No sooner had he spun than his opponent came down at him with an awful shriek, raising the hatchet with both hands as if to split Royce in half. Royce raised his sword and blocked it, sparks flying everywhere, barely able to hold back the man’s enormous strength, stopping the hatchet but inches from his face.
But his attacker, so fast, sidestepped in the same motion and head-butted Royce in the face, knocking him back several feet and onto his back.
Royce, sitting in the mud, was dizzy from the pain as the crowd roared. He looked up just in time to find the hatchet coming down for him again, and it barely missed him as he dodged. He then dodged the other way as the hatchet came down again. The man was incredibly fast.
This time the hatchet came straight down the middle. Royce, thinking fast, leaned back, spun around in the mud and swept the man’s legs out from under him. His hatchet went flying.
The crowd roared, clearly surprised, as his foe now lay there, defenseless.
Royce regained his feet quickly and stood over him. As his foe scrambled in the mud, Royce knew this was his moment. He knew he had the power of death before him. This was his chance to kill his foe and be done with it and emerge the victor.
Yet as he stood over him, clenching his sword, he did not attack. Instead, he turned to the crowd, looked up, raised his sword for all the masses to see, and in full view of them all, he dropped it down to the mud. He would not let them control him. He would not kill an innocent man. He would not become the monster they wanted him to be.
Enraged, the crowd booed and hissed. In this one moment Royce had taken away their power. There was nothing they could do. They could not make Royce kill him. It was the one thing they did not have power over.
“I shall not kill a man for your pleasure!” Royce called out.
The crowd booed and hissed.
Royce turned and held his arms out, defenseless, as the man rose and faced him. The man stared back, clearly stunned for a moment,
“I shall not harm you,” Royce said to his foe. “We are both slaves, controlled by the same system. Choose not to fight, and there will be nothing they can do. We will have triumphed over them.”
Royce expected his foe to be grateful. Grateful that Royce had spared his life. Grateful that he was giving him a way to walk away.
But, to Royce’s surprise, his foe scowled, clearly sharing no such sentiment. Ignoring Royce’s entreaty, he reached down, grabbed his hatchet from the mud, and charged.
The crowd went wild.
Royce, defenseless, thought quick: he waited till the last moment then dodged out of the way. His foe charged past, stumbling, and Royce spun and kicked him in th
e kidneys as he did, sending him to the mud.
The crowd roared.
The man regained his feet and swung around quickly with his hatchet. Royce had not expected that; he jumped out of the way, yet still, the hatchet managed to graze his arm. It was enough to draw blood—and it hurt.
The crowd roared.
His foe threw his hatchet down and charged and suddenly tackled Royce, driving him down into the mud. Royce gasped as he hit the ground hard and they slid back several feet. Before he could get his bearings, the man, atop him, punched him in the face once, then twice, then three times.
Royce was dazed. This man meant to kill him, he could see it in his eyes. Indeed, he reached out with two hands, and Royce knew he meant to gouge his eyes out.
Royce grabbed the man’s wrists on the way down, and his whole body shook from the effort. They were strong, broad, murderous wrists and were aimed directly for Royce’s face.
The man’s hands lowered, and Royce knew that in a few moments, it would all be over. This man would kill him.
The crowd cheered, egging him on, desperate for blood.
Suddenly, Royce felt his gaze blur before him, felt the world go still. The world melted away, and all fell silent. He felt a power rise within him. It came from his stomach and rose through his chest, his body spreading with warmth, then ran down his shoulders and through his arms. It was like an old friend. It had come back to him, now, when he needed it the most. It was the same power he had felt in the Red Isle, but this time it was different. He was not in control this time. He felt himself succumb to a fresh rage, and he felt bigger than the universe.
Royce suddenly pushed the man’s wrists upward, reversing the descent. He pushed more and more, until he found himself sitting up.
The man stared back, arms shaking, clearly shocked. Royce jerked his arms and threw his foe sideways.
The man tumbled in the mud, as Royce rose to his feet. The crowd cheered, ecstatic at this unexpected turn.
The man picked up his hatchet and came again, but this time, it was different. As he swung, Royce easily ducked and dodged every strike, again and again, the hatchet whistling past, Royce able to anticipate his every move. Finally, when he’d had enough, Royce stepped forward and kicked the heaving man in the chest, knocking him flat on his back and disarming him once again. He then retrieved his sword.
The crowd went wild as Royce stood over his foe, one foot on his chest, pinning him down.
The man looked up, dazed, humbled. For the first time, Royce saw fear in his eyes.
“Do it,” the man said, blood trickling from his mouth.
Royce shook his head.
“I shall not.”
Finally, the man nodded.
“I concede!” he called out.
The crowd booed and hissed.
“Kill him, kill him, kill him!” they chanted to Royce.
Royce dropped his sword and turned and looked up.
“You have lost!” he called up. “All of you have lost!”
Barely had he uttered the words than Royce heard a sudden grunting behind him; he spun at the last second to see his foe had retrieved his hatchet and was swinging it straight down for his head, aiming to chop him in half.
Royce dodged the blow, and as he did, the man swung all the way down and impaled his own leg with the blade.
He shrieked as blood gushed from his main artery. He dropped to one knee, then to his face.
The crowd roared.
The man rolled over and looked to Royce as he lay there, bleeding to death, pain and pleading in his eyes.
“My only wish in this world was to die valiantly, by the sword,” he groaned. “Not like this. Don’t let me die like this. Kill me, by the sword. I beg you. If you have any compassion for me, you will do it.”
Royce looked down at the man, the crowd’s cheers pulsing in his ears. He looked down at the man, already in a pool of blood, begging and pleading him, and he knew it was the merciful thing to do. To let him suffer would be cruel. He was dying.
The thought tore him apart, but he knew, to be kind, he had to kill this man. To fulfill his dying wish.
Against every bone in his body, Royce picked up his sword, raised it, and brought it down with two hands, severing the man’s head.
The crowd erupted, deafening.
Royce looked down at his foe’s dead body, never having felt so sick.
A rope was lowered for Royce’s ascent, and sheathing his sword, he grabbed it and pulled himself up, one foot at a time.
As he reached the top, he felt the hands of the villagers patting his back, uttering his name again and again. He stood there in an altered state, feeling his life spinning before him.
“ROYCE! ROYCE! ROYCE!”
Yet in his daze, three things came into focus. The first was the man presiding over the Pits. A noble, dressed in royal purple. Royce recognized him immediately: he was the local lord who had sentenced him to the Pits. Manfor’s father. Lord Nors.
The second was this noble’s son, standing there beside him, in his fineries, wearing the emblem of a duke, a haughty, arrogant look upon his face.
And the third, to his utter horror, was Genevieve. There she was. Dressed in royal garb, just like them.
Arm in arm with the duke.
Royce stood there, numb with horror. Genevieve was looking back at him, but she did not, he realized, recognize him. Of course: he was still wearing his mask.
Slowly, Royce lifted the mask covering his face, and as he did, he stared right back at her.
Genevieve’s eyes widened and she stopped, frozen, and stared back at him. He could see the shock on her face. Clearly, she had not expected to see him there, either. She seemed too stunned to utter a word.
Everything inside Royce died at once. How could it be possible? There was his beloved, the girl he had risked it all for, the girl he had grown up with, standing there, arm in arm with a noble. After all of this, she had betrayed him.
Royce’s heart shattered. He felt so much pain that he didn’t know what to do with it.
More than that, he felt ire, a desire for vengeance against these nobles that had created these pits, that had put all these brave warriors in this awful position. Someone had to do something. Someone had to put an end to it now.
Royce reached over, snatched a spear from a villager’s hand, and hurled it with all his might.
It soared through the air, straight and true, and before anyone in the stunned crowd could react, it found a spot in Lord Nors’ chest. Fitting, Royce thought. After all, he was the man who had sentenced him, the man who had started it all.
Lord Nors gasped, holding it with both hands, then keeled over and died on the spot. Royce did not give the crowd time to react: he turned and bolted into the masses.
A horn sounded, and dozens of soldiers pursued. He could hear them behind him, gaining speed. But Royce had a head start—and he was fast. His power overcame him, and he outran them all. He spotted a horse, hopped onto it, and after a firm kick he was galloping, leaving this muddy village, heading out into the open countryside, far, far from this place.
He looked back one last time, despite himself.
And the last thing he saw, before he disappeared for good, was Genevieve’s face, staring back at him, the hurt in her face not even close to matching the hurt in his heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Genevieve stood alone on the ramparts of the castle, staring out over the countryside, and she wept. She had never felt so overwhelmed by her emotions, had never felt such a mix of feelings: joy at seeing Royce’s face again, and agony and despair at seeing the look of betrayal on his face. That look had shattered her heart. It was a look she would carry with her the rest of her days, a look of such accusation, such despair.
Such betrayal.
If only she’d had one minute to explain to him, to tell him what she was doing and why—to tell him that it had all been for him.
Yet there had been no time. He’
d run off into the crowd, and as she’d watched him go, her heart tearing to pieces, she did not know which was more painful: seeing him there in the first place, in that horrible situation, fighting in the Pits, or watching him disappear yet again.
Genevieve stood there now, weeping, and as she studied the countryside, she wished she could go back and change everything. What she wouldn’t give for one minute with him, one minute to explain everything.
But it was too late now. Royce was gone—and probably this time forever.
The Duke had taken up arms, intent on finding Royce and avenging his dead father. He had assembled a small army, and he and his men were out for blood. Local nobles and lords were flocking to him from all over the region, helping to hunt Royce down. There would be nowhere for Royce to escape. Indeed, as Genevieve looked out, she could see them in the distance, galloping across the countryside in small groups, spreading out, barking dogs at their sides. They sounded horns periodically, and each horn was like a knife in her heart.
Genevieve wondered how it would all end. If only she could have changed things somehow, had done something differently. Had she made a mistake? She had thought that becoming a noble would help Royce. But perhaps she had been wrong. What good had it done him, after all? She could not even help free his brothers.
Better, she realized now, to have never ventured down this road. To have never gone to Altfor’s chamber. To have never seen Royce again under these circumstances. At least, then, their last glance would have been one of pure love; at least their love would have ended on a perfect note.
Now it was soiled, the entire thing ruined.
Genevieve walked to the edge of the balcony, leaned over, and saw how far the fall was. Her heart pounded in her chest. With Royce gone, what did she have left to live for?
This time, she would do it.
Genevieve gripped the marble rail and began to pull herself up, preparing to jump—when suddenly there came the sound of footsteps running behind her.
Genevieve spun and was startled to see a messenger running, frantic, toward her. Heaving, he held out a scroll, gasping for breath as he tried to convey his message.
