“I am Legion,” the angel screamed. “I am many.”
I had never seen an angel with horns before. They were fighting a giant scorpion. It was a good fight, though I was hoping that the scorpion would eat him. After the fight, Legion jumped on top of the scorpion, and it looked like he was sucking the soul out of it.
Frank addressed the crowd. “I call you out, Red Head!”
The king laughed. “Let it be done,” he ordered. “Bardon and Damon will fight, and Legion will battle Red Head.”
I ran back and woke Father. “You have to fight tomorrow.”
“Noah, just let me sleep.”
I tended the fire and listened to Father sobbing for his brother. I fell asleep next to the flames.
“Father, it’s time to eat,” I called at daybreak.
Father said nothing and remained in his bed.
“Father, you have to fight, so you need to eat. You need the energy. Please, get up now.”
“If you hadn’t fought with that boy, this would have never happened,” Father said.
“Father, he said you were nothing.”
“Maybe I am nothing.”
“Besides, I don’t think this is my fault. I think the king would have had you fight him no matter what I did.”
“You’re right, Noah. I am sorry. That was a horrible thing for me to say.” My father touched my head in apology.
Later, the soldiers came for Father. The soldiers stopped me from following him into the ring.
“Don’t leave me, Father!” I cried, clinging to the bars.
When Father saw Damon, his eyes lit up, and he ran forward. “Steven!”
Damon shoved Father away. “You loony geezer,” Damon cursed. “Get back! My name is Damon.”
Priest held his hands in the air, and the crowd began to chant, “Fight! Fight!”
Priest summoned Red Head then Legion.
“I am many!” Legion roared.
The crowd began to stir with cheers for Legion.
King Seth rose. “I’m going to keep this short tonight. Let’s see Red Head’s blood flood.”
Swords dropped into the ring in front of each fighter, and the clash of blades sounded like thunder.
Father knocked Damon to the ground, and his sword went flying. Father ran to his side and stuck out his hand.
“I am sorry, Steven,” he said. “I’m going to let you win this time. Take care of my son.”
“No, Father! No!” I screamed.
Damon tossed him violently against the ring. Father fell, his sword beneath him.
Red Head threw Legion into the cage, drew back his sword, and pierced Legion’s chest. Legion fell to his knees, screaming.
Red Head ran to my father, then turned to see where Damon was. There stood Legion.
“How are you not dead?” Red Head demanded.
“I have no heart, you fool,” Legion screeched.
Legion swung his fist and knocked Red Head across the ring. I ran to the edge of the ring where Father lay.
“If you die, I will, too,” I cried. “I am as good as dead without you!”
“After I kill you, I’ll kill your son,” Damon howled. “Just to end your worthless line.”
Damon’s words sparked a fire in Father. He rolled and swept Damon’s leg. Damon dropped to one knee. Father kicked him, and Damon fell backwards. Father kicked him repeatedly. Damon fought his way up and staggered to the middle of the ring.
My father walked towards him slowly. “You’re going to end my bloodline?” Father said with eerie calm. “You’re not my brother.”
Legion knocked my father to the ground. Father pulled himself up.
“I will make a deal with you, Bardon,” Legion offered. “Give me your son, and I will let you live.”
“You are not taking my son or my life,” Father replied, waving his sword. “What are you waiting for? I’ll show you where this belongs.”
“I gave you a chance,” said Legion. “And I will take your soul.”
“You can’t take what is God’s.”
Legion ran at my father and right onto his blade then stepped back and pulled the sword from his flesh. There was no blood.
“As I told Red Head, I have no heart,” he laughed.
Legion pulled Father to him. He placed his lips against my father’s and tried to suck his soul, but Father’s spirit refused to budge.
“I will have your soul!” Legion thundered.
Damon re-entered the fight. “He belongs to me, Legion.”
“He belongs to me, and so do you!” Legion growled at his human.
Damon swung his sword. Legion blocked it and sent Damon sailing across the ring.
“Next time, I will break your legs, Damon!” Legion turned his attention to Father. “Your turn!”
Just then, Red Head walked up behind Legion. “I don’t think so.” Red Head set his foot in the middle of Legion’s back, and with a mighty twist, Red Head tore Legion’s wings from his body and drove him into the ground. The earth shuddered. He picked Legion up by his horns and ripped his head off.
Red Head held Legion’s head in the air, and its burning eyes met the king’s. “Legion did not have a heart, but now he has no head to match it.”
Legion’s headless body floated off the ground. Hundreds of lost souls slipped from their prison and flew away.
The arena was silent, and then the chants began. “Red Head! Red Head! Red Head!”
I looked up at the platform, where King Seth stood at his podium. His eyes blazed.
Nobody, not even King Seth, challenged Father.
CHAPTER 15
White-Haired People
Skull marched into our camp a few days later with twenty-eight new slaves. There were twenty-five men, an almost-dead woman, and two, a man and a girl, that were different. Both had hair as white as their skin, which was the color of white clouds. Their eyes were bright pink and slanted. The man was a little taller than my father, but heavy. The girl looked about my age.
The nearly dead woman was clearly a warrior. She was tall and young, with muscles like a man and tattoos on her body. She had long, black, braided hair, and she was bleeding from her mouth and ears. Her body was covered in bruises. I was fascinated. I had never seen a woman warrior before.
Skull explained the rules of the Ring of Blood to the newcomers, promised them food and water, and told them to prepare for training in the morning.
“Why are we here?” one asked.
“You are here to fight for your king,” Skull replied. Then he left.
The two white hairs looked at me and began to speak in a language I had never heard.
“I don’t understand you,” I said. I held my hands up, and they stopped talking. I used my hands to show them where they were to sleep and eat.
I walked back to the cart. The girl tapped my shoulder. I told her to go back and pointed, but she just stood there, silent. I turned back around and picked up a jug. She helped me load the bottles. I began to pull the cart, and she pushed from behind.
The guards stopped us at the gate.
“What do you have there?” one asked. “Is it a boy or girl?”
“She is my help. Seth said so,” I lied.
“Next time, she better have a scarf,” the soldier growled.
We went to the depot and got in line.
The cook kept staring at my new help. “What is that behind you?” he asked.
“She came in with the new fighters,” I explained.
“But what is it?”
“It’s a girl,” I said.
“If you say so,” said the cook.
While we waited for the food, we filled up jugs at the water hole.
I ran my hands under the water. “Water,” I said to her.
�
�Water,” she answered.
I pointed to different objects and told her what each was called. She repeated the words.
I pointed to my chest. “Noah.”
She pointed to her chest. “Noah.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Noah.” I touched my chest.
I pointed at her.
“Mara,” she responded.
By the time we returned to camp, Mara was speaking our language as clearly and coherently as me or Father.
“How did you pick up our language so fast?” I asked.
“Our kind learns at accelerated rates, especially young beings, like me,” she said. “I speak many, many languages.”
“What is your father’s name?”
“It is Buda,” she said. “But everyone calls him Doc.”
I handed out the food and drinks, and the men gathered around the fire. They had a million questions for Father.
“What’s going on here?”
“Where are we?”
“What happens next?”
“This is a bad place,” Father answered. “I lost my brother here, and I watched many good men die in that ring. I have won forty-nine fights, and the king will not let me have another. I have been here for about a year.”
The warrior woman staggered over to eat, but she fell. She was burning up.
“Father, she needs help,” I said.
“Better to let her die like this than be killed in the ring.”
“But Father, we are better than them.” I looked at Mara. “Can you help?”
Mara turned to her father and said, “Cee aldo ma ma.”
Doc came over and felt her forehead.
“Da tok bou,” he replied.
“He said we need greens and garlic,” Mara translated.
“We have to go back to the depot,” I said.
Doc picked up the warrior woman and wrapped her in a sheepskin blanket.
I tore my scarf in two, handed half to Mara, and took off for the depot.
“What are you doing back, Red Scarf?” asked the cook as we approached.
“I need greens and garlic,” I replied. “It’s for the white hairs.”
Cook looked at me skeptically. “Why? Isn’t my cooking good enough for them?”
“Skull said they have to eat to be strong for training in the morning.”
“Go to the trash out back. Find what you need there. Now leave. I have work to do.”
We went behind the depot to the dump, where the cook threw out his trash and the soldiers dragged the dead after the fight. Body parts were strewn everywhere and blood soaked the ground. The creatures killed in the ring were used to feed the fighters and slaves. What the cook did not use was discarded. The smell was putrid.
We had just finished gathering the greens when the cook swung open the back door.
He tossed a bucket of blood and guts in our direction. We didn’t have time to react. Chunks stuck in our hair, and slime ran down our backs.
The cook laughed. “Eat that!”
We wiped ourselves off, gathered the greens, and put them in a bucket, then headed back to camp.
“What happened?” Father asked when he saw us.
“We’re okay. It’s just animal guts,” I said.
“Well, you sure do stink. Go get washed up.”
Doc held his nose and waved at us to leave.
Mara tried to kiss him, but he turned away and ran. She laughed, and so did I. It was the biggest laugh I’d had in a long time. I dumped the greens and took the bucket with me.
Doc tested the greens by sniffing and tasting them. He looked satisfied.
Mara and I stripped out of our foul clothes and washed our hair. My eyes burned from the blood and soap, and I tried not to look at her, but she pointed at her back. I washed her back with one hand and tried to rub my eyes with the other. She turned me around, washed my back, and rubbed her body against me. I could hardly breathe. I hurried to get the soap out of my eyes, but then I looked up, and Mara was already dressed.
Doc came in and got a bucket of water. He turned and looked me down. I just looked at him and took a big gulp. He turned and said nothing then walked out to the fire. Mara looked at me and smiled. So we followed him out. He put the greens into the bucket of water. He put it on a stick then stuck it out over the fire to simmer. After an hour, he poured the hot brew into a cup. He placed the cup to the warrior woman’s lips.
“Do you think she will live Mara?”
“If she will drink.”
She sipped it slowly. After the cup was empty, Doc moved away and sat down. Mara went with him to teach him our language.
Priest came by to pick up twenty men. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked, pointing at the warrior woman.
“She is dying,” my father said.
“That’s a shame,” Priest replied. “She would have had a strong sexual angel.”
“Why defy God?” Father asked Priest.
The Priest just looked at him.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I prayed for my wife and children’s lives,” Priest said. “God didn’t hear me. He left me alone. That’s why I’m here. God is dead.” Priest looked at me. “How old is your boy, Red?”
“He is fifteen.”
“That’s a shame. He probably has a nice girl angel inside of him,” he laughed.
“God will judge you one day,” Father said, unfazed.
“Who?”
“You will pay for all the pain you have caused.”
“I will live forever. And God is never coming back.” He turned and left.
Doc put a lot of wood on the fire. It got very high, and he began to speak and walk around the fire.
“What is he doing, Father?”
“He’s speaking in tongue.”
“I hope he don’t get us in trouble.”
We began to fall asleep. After a while, the soldiers brought back nineteen men. They thought Doc was praying and started beating him. Mara tried to help him, and they hit her.
Father yelled, “What’s going on?”
“He’s praying to his god,” said the soldier.
“He’s saying Yucca Via, the name of his dead wife,” Father said. “He is not praying. He is mourning.”
“Well, tell him to mourn quietly,” the soldier demanded as he left.
“My dad is not mourning my mother’s death,” Mara said. “He was speaking in tongue to our God to heal that woman.”
“I know that,” Father said. “Yucca Via is our god’s name, too. But here, praying to any God other than King Seth means death, so pray to yourself.”
Doc had blood on his lip. Mara wiped it off with her dress.
“I’m fine, Mara,” Doc said. He, too, had learned our language already.
Doc said “thanks Bardon.” Father said “you’re welcome.
So everyone laid down and went to sleep. Early the next day, Mara asked me to take her to see an angel in the ring.
CHAPTER 16
Runaways
I slept in. I hurried to do a head count and take the men to training. Three were missing. I ran to the gates and reported it. The soldier took me to see Skull.
“Are you responsible for the three runaways?” he asked.
“What?”
“You were late turning in the count. Is that a coincidence or did you help them escape?”
“It’s the first time it ever happened to me,” I argued.
“Hold out your hands,” demanded Skull, picking up a whip.
I held out my hands, and Skull beat them until they bled. I held my tears.
“Next time, I will beat your whole body,” he growled. “Get your ugly face out of here.”
“I’m going to kill him one day,” I thought to my
self.
On the way to the depot later that morning, I saw a crowd had gathered. Soldiers were crucifying the escaped men, pounding nails through their hands and feet. The men were screaming, and the crowd was hitting them with sticks. I began to cry at the depot. I got another cart and put the food on it. I could barely pick the water up because my hands hurt so bad. When I went back to the camp, Mara was crying.
“What’s wrong, Mara?”
“My dad drew a six. He fought when they put the iron to his skin, and they branded him 666. Now, he thinks he won’t go to heaven because they marked his body. Your father told him what men do to us isn’t our fault, only what we do wrong, but he is still upset.” Mara looked at me. “Have you been crying, too?”
“Please, don’t mention it.”
“I understand.” She smiled.
“I have to take the men to training. When I get back, we will go see an angel.”
I took the men to training and hid my hands from my father.
“What’s bothering you today, Noah?” Father asked. “I can tell you have been crying.”
“The soldiers hung the three men that escaped on crosses,” I said.
“That’s sad, but we cannot show weakness.”
After training took the men back to camp. Mara was waiting, so we headed to the ring.
“The angels don’t win all the time,” I explained as we walked.
“They will win today,” Mara assured me.
At the fight, we found Lock. He looked quite dapper in silk.
“You like my new threads?” he asked.
“They make you look like you have money,” I said.
“Who is that?” Lock asked, nodding to Mara.
“Her name is Mara.”
“She has pretty eyes,” Lock announced.
“You’re pretty, too,” said Mara.
“She came in yesterday,” I said.
“I like what I see.” He wagged his eyebrows at Mara.
I ignored him. “So what’s with the new clothes?”
“I’m Priest’s new disciple.”
“You mean errand boy,” I corrected.
“You’re right, but it pays good,” Lock replied.
“I’m glad for you.”
“I’ve got to tell you something, Noah.”
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