The crowd hushed, and stared at him for a moment. Then the King began to laugh, and the crowd joined him. Daniel slapped his hands over his ears as the laughter bounced around the inside of his skull.
“The boy has spirit,” the King yelled, and the laughter died away. He glanced toward Brunhilde. “Now, let’s get this killing over, before I die of boredom.”
The betting girl turned over the glass, and the sand began to flow, marking time to the end of his life.
Thunder boomed behind Daniel. He turned. Brunhilde slapped her fist into her palm again, with a booming smack, and took another step toward him. A big grin spread across her face.
Oh, shit.
CHAPTER 48
Moses tapped his fingers on the crate. Guy clasped the revolver butt. Take the one with the bow, first. They’d need less time to reload. Then the crossbowmen. They were sweating, and it wasn’t from the heat. The crates would give him cover, just hope they don’t hit the Brain.
Moses slapped the crate. Guy ducked as a crossbow clicked. The bolt hissed through the air and passed a few centimetres above his head before it splashed into the water. His revolver was already out of the holster as he dove for the nearest crate.
“One gold shiny,” Moses yelled. “I guess that will be enough to satisfy my curiosity for today. Spank-Monkey, more wine. And, for fuck’s sake, Butt-Clench, try not to go off prematurely in future.”
Guy lay in the bottom of the boat for a second, gun tight in his hand. Dumb fucks. The guards lowered their weapons, and the bowman filled two glasses with wine. Guy gently clicked down the revolver’s hammer, and holstered it as he returned to his seat.
“Well, that was exciting,” Moses said. Then he took one of the glasses and sipped from it.
Guy reached into his pouch and pulled out a gold shiny. He tossed it across the boat. Moses caught it, held it up, and stared at the sunlight glittering from the metal.
“More excitement than I like in a morning,” Guy said. “I’d prefer to get to our destination alive, if I can.”
“Still, the monastery is hours away. One needs something to keep oneself entertained on a long trip.”
Spank-Monkey bent forward as he handed the other glass to Guy. Moses stroked the bowman’s leather-clad butt.
Guy leaned back. “Don’t let me spoil your fun.”
Anything that could keep Moses’ attention away from the crate would be welcome. The rest of the trip would be hard to take, if Guy had to keep distracting the shithead from poking into his affairs. At least the Brain had shut up for now.
Guy patted the seat between him and Moses.
“Spank-Monkey, why not join us?”
Moses stretched his arm out along the back of the boat. “Yes, why not? Grab yourself a glass of wine, my boy, and let’s have some fun. I’m sure you won’t mind a threesome.”
The bowman poured another glass, then slumped down in the back of the boat. Moses pulled the helmet from the young man’s head, and ran his fingers through the long hair beneath. He giggled. That might keep him distracted for a while.
“Ah,” Moses said. “Sailing the waters in the company of your friends, and a fine bottle of wine. Life doesn’t get much better than that.”
He held out his glass toward Guy, who raised his and tapped it against the other.
Then the crate jumped.
The Brain screamed. The crate jumped again, twisting on the deck until it smacked against the crate alongside. Then it jumped back.
Moses leaned forward. “What have you got in there?”
Oh, this was gonna be a shitty day. And it had started out looking so good. Guy knocked back the last of the wine as the crate twisted again. It slid across the deck, smacking into the side of the boat as the Brain screamed.
Then something thumped against the wood.
And again.
Then a foot smashed through the side of the crate.
Moses and the guards looked on silently as chunks of wood exploded out of the other side, followed by another foot. Then an arm smashed its way out of the top. The screaming grew louder as the arm and legs writhed.
Then the side of the crate exploded, scattering wood and splinters all across the boat.
The Brain pushed his head out through a jagged hole, his mouth open wide. He shrieked, and his arms flailed around him. Then he rolled out, ending up face-down on the deck with two red lumps oozing blood from the flesh of his left arm.
Big eyes in a furry face peered out of the gap in the wood, and two long, black legs tapped against the crate. Then Simon scuttled forward, along a broken plank.
The Brain rolled on the deck, in the shards and splinters of smashed wood. Simon spun around, his eight hairy legs tapping against the wooden hull. Spank-Monkey grabbed for his bow. Simon raised his front legs, wriggled them in the air, and hissed.
“No,” the Brain yelled, and leaned forward, putting his body between the bow and the spider. He looked plaintively into Spank-Monkey's eyes as Simon continued to hiss and wriggle his front legs, twisting from side to side on the other six.
Moses’ glass fell from his hand as he stared at the Brain’s face, his long beard, then at the curved lines of the brain tattoo on his bald head. The glass smashed on the hull, scattering shards of glass across the boat. Moses’ eyes almost bulged out of his skull at the sight, and his jaw fell open.
“Holy fuck.”
CHAPTER 49
Where was Guy? Daniel panted as he jogged around the arena, trying to avoid Brunhilde's attacks. He kept her on the side with his good eye, so he could see her moving. Besides, she had blood-matted fur on her arm on that side, and perhaps it wouldn’t hit as hard as the other. His ribs sent a sharp pain through his chest every time he moved, but there'd be a lot more pain if he stopped.
He glanced up at the sky. A cloud of drones floated above the Brawl, among dozens hovering and twisting in the castle courtyard. More buzzed down low, and recorded the crowds watching the action. Another flew close to his face, recording the look of slowly worsening terror that covered it.
None of them were Guy's.
Unless someone saved him in the next few minutes, this was it. The last few seconds of his life, before he was torn to pieces in front of a crowd of vile assholes, then the footage shipped to a bigger crowd of vile assholes who would watch it back home. The same vile assholes who'd sent him there to die.
Thuds echoed from the wooden wall around the arena as Brunhilde ran toward him again. Her dark eyes stared into his as she accelerated. Left or right? One way, he'd live, the other...
He could smell her rotten meat breath as she approached. One more stomp, and she'd be on him.
He dodged left. Brunhilde swung her arm. Daniel twisted aside, and the sharp claws passed harmlessly by. She grunted as her paws scrabbled for grip on the ground as she slowed. The wall shook as she smacked into it.
No, hang on. Pain spread through his chest. He glanced down. The claws had raked long gashes through his skin, and a thin stream of blood oozed out of them. The shock had just dulled the pain for a second.
“Brunhilde! Brunhilde! Brunhilde!” Princess chanted.
Skull-face peered in over the wall. “Kill the little bastard.”
Fuck Guy. Guy had abandoned him. Or was already dead, fighting the King's Guards. If Daniel waited to be rescued, the only thing left to rescue would be a few scraps of bloody guts, with a mob of evil men fighting over them.
Brunhilde smacked her paw against the wall as she turned. One of the spectators tried to grab her, but she swung toward him and snarled. He leaned back, eyes wide and arms swinging, until he toppled, and fell into the crowd behind the wall.
Brunhilde stared at Daniel again.
“Aren't you tired of this yet, boy?”
“I'm not tired of being alive,” he said, between gasping breaths. “In fact, I kind of like it.”
She scowled at him. “I'm tired of you being alive. Stand still, now, and I'll make it quick. Fuck with me, and
you’ll regret it.”
She was big, and strong, and could rip his head off if she caught him. But, once she got moving, that very weight, and the momentum it created, kept her going. She couldn’t turn fast, or stop. If he could keep his distance from her, he could keep dodging until his own strength wore out.
But then what?
What was the point of delaying his death a few minutes longer, if she’d kill him eventually?
He had to find a way out. The wall was solid, and the crowd would just throw him back in, even if he managed to climb it. A drone buzzed close to his head. He tried to grab it, but it dodged aside. It wouldn't help much, anyway. It wasn't like the motors were powerful enough to fly him away.
Brunhilde's fist swung through the air. He ducked, and it passed above him again. Then his ear rang, as something smacked into the side of his head. A dark, purple object the size of a baseball bounced off him. It flew on and smashed into the wall, leaving a green smear of goo as the skin of the fruit, or whatever it was, cracked and slid down to the ground.
“Fucking hurry up,” a red-faced woman yelled from the top of the arena wall. She pulled out another fruit and tossed it.
“Get out there and fight,” Skull-Face yelled. He swung his arm, and a rock barely missed Daniel's chest. It bounced from the wooden wall with a loud crack.
Daniel backed toward the wall, dodging the rocks and food the crowd threw at him. Just ignore the hissing and boos. There was one way out of this, and it could give those assholes more entertainment than they had planned for.
“Come on... little girl,” he yelled at Brunhilde. Insulting her gender identity felt so wrong, and went against everything he’d been taught in EdCamp. But he had to do it, if he wanted to survive. He raised his hand. “I'll... I'll spank your girly ass... and send you crying to your mummy.”
Brunhilde glared at him. “Are you fucking mental?”
Daniel put up his fists. “Are you scared?”
The crowd laughed. At least they'd stopped throwing things at him. They wouldn't be laughing for much longer, if his plan came together.
Of course, if it didn't, he'd be dead.
But, then, he'd no longer care.
CHAPTER 50
“I can explain,” Guy said. Fuck knows how. There weren’t many ways to explain how you came to be transporting one of the most famous men on Hades in a crate. Before the King slapped the Brain in the dungeon, pictures with that tattoo had been almost as common as the King’s. Despite all the time spent down there, you couldn’t really mistake him for anyone else.
Not to mention the fucking spider that followed him around everywhere he went. That was a pretty damn obvious giveaway. Why couldn’t he have left it behind?
“Oh, my dear friend,” Moses said. “There's no need for you to explain. Everything is perfectly clear here. You did have a rat in your crate. It was a human-sized rat. A smart rat. Just not smart enough not to nail itself into a crate with a fucking great big man-eating spider.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“I’m sure you had no idea that the second most important man in the Borderlands was in that crate you had me help to carry away from the scene of your crime.”
“No-one was supposed to know.”
“When the King hears I helped you, he won’t just feed my balls to his daughters. He’ll torture me for days before I get that delight. Weeks, perhaps. And he’ll make me fucking watch.”
“It won’t be that bad.”
“Try this one with some hot sauce, they’ll say. Munch, munch, munch. Oh, that tastes so good. How about the other?”
Simon was hissing at the crossbowmen, and flicking his legs in the air toward them. They backed away, weapons still ready, and glanced toward Moses as though unsure of what to do. Killing the Brain’s spider wouldn’t go down too well with the King, either. Or the Brain.
Guy was the only one they’d consider expendable.
“Let’s not rush into anything.”
“Let’s see. How about you fuck off right now, and I return him to the King for a big reward? That sounds like a better plan. That way, I get to keep my balls, and you get to keep your life. We all win.”
Guy would be an exile from Kingston, wanted across the Borderlands, and never able to show his face again without someone wanting to stuff a gag in his mouth and drag him back to the King. Fuck that. Death could hardly be worse.
“And you get rich,” he said.
“A man can’t have everything his way.”
Guy sighed, and nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right.”
Moses slapped his hand on Guy’s shoulder. “It’s better this way. Really. They’d have been hunting you for the rest of your life if you’d got away with it.”
Guy grabbed Moses’ arm, and twisted around, putting Moses between him and the bowmen. His revolver swung up. One of the crossbowmen turned toward him. Guy aimed from the hip, and the revolver boomed. Shoot the first one who moves, and the others would duck for cover so they’re not the second.
Blood spurted from the crossbowman’s chest. His arm swung as he fell toward the deck. The crossbow clicked. The bolt hissed through the air.
The slave-master yelled as the head of the bolt burst from his neck in a spray of blood. His whip-arm swung as his free hand reached for his neck. It cracked across the backs of the slaves at the oars. Those on the right rowed harder, and the deck jerked beneath Guy’s feet as the boat turned.
The wounded guard slumped down. The others ducked low behind the crates. The slave-master spun on the spot, mouth open wide, eyes bulging, blood oozing from the wound around the crossbow bolt. The whip smacked randomly into slaves as he turned. The boat twisted and tilted as the slaves rowed, their oars smacking into each other. It tipped as it turned sideways into the waves, and Guy and Moses slid toward the water.
Guy ducked as the whip cracked toward him. It smacked into Moses’ chest instead, clunking against the metal breastplate.
Spank-Monkey looked up from behind a crate.
“Shoot the fucker,” Moses said.
Spank-Monkey grabbed for his bow, but it slid sideways across the boat as the slave-master’s whip hammered down on the right-hand oarsmen, and the boat twisted sideways again. Guy grabbed the remains of the Brain’s crate for support.
“I feel sick,” the Brain said.
Guy felt a sudden, sharp pain in his thigh. He glanced down. Blood was dripping down his leg. The handle of Moses’ knife protruded from Guy’s leather trousers, and the wide blade was embedded three inches into his flesh.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 51
Brunhilde's thick eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes narrowed, as she stared at Daniel. Her feet stomped the dirt, tearing into it with the claws on her toes. Her face grew darker as the skin turned red beneath the fur.
“Brunhilde is scared of no man.' She hissed. “And certainly of no fucking little boy.”
“Prove it, then,” Daniel said.
She tilted her head, as though trying to spot the trap he was setting for her. She couldn’t really imagine he could fight her, could she? Though, for all she knew, he could have a ceramic skeleton and power-boosted muscles hidden in his thin arms. Or poisoned claws in his fingers. He’d seen them in VR games, so they must exist in the real world, mustn't they?
“Kill the fucker,” Skull-Face yelled. “Or I will.”
Brunhilde’s foot stomped into the dirt, and she grunted as she stormed toward Daniel. A brown cloud of dust rose into the air around her. The drones buzzed madly as they dodged aside, scrambling out of the way of her charging bulk.
Daniel watched her approach, growing larger and larger, until her claws were centimetres from his body. She was too angry to care about tactics, except brute force and momentum. Her arms swung wildly, and Daniel dodged beneath them, then rolled aside. Her feet barely missed crushing his legs.
Her outstretched paws smacked into the wall as she slid to a stop. The spectators ducked back as she glar
ed at them, then they stared over the wall as she turned.
Daniel backed toward the far side of the arena, raised his hand, and motioned her toward him. “You might scare them, but you don’t scare me. Give it your best shot.”
She took a deep breath, and ran again. He glanced behind him. Not much more than a metre between him and the wall. Her feet thumped down onto the dirt, spraying a cloud over the spectators until they began to cough.
Three metres away. Two. One.
Now.
She was so close, her fur brushed against his skin as he jumped back, grabbed the top of the wall, and pulled himself out of her way. One of the spectators tried to grab his arm, then looked into Brunhilde’s snarling face and thought better of it. The man dropped from the far side of the wall just as Brunhilde smacked into it. Daniel threw himself into the air, then tumbled across the dirt. The wall shook, and the vibration travelled all around the arena. Spectators yelled. The smarter ones let go, and backed away.
Daniel held his arm against his wounded side as he stumbled across the arena. This time, he backed up until he was almost against the wall. Brunhilde panted on the far side. Then her red face turned toward him.
“I am so going to enjoy ripping your fucking head off.”
What other things did his female gender identity comrades talk about back home? Oh, yes.
“Why don’t you go home to mommy, and play with your fluffy bunny?”
Brunhilde screamed with rage. Her face turned red, He could almost see steam clouds from her nose as she hissed, then pushed off the wall. Her feet stomped the ground, and it shook beneath him. Her arms swung like furry sledgehammers as she raced toward him faster than he had ever seen her move before.
Oh, crap.
CHAPTER 52
Guy looked up from his bleeding leg, just in time to see Moses’ metal-clad elbow racing toward his face. The boat tilted again as the slave-master’s whip cracked across the slaves, and Moses’ blow smacked into Guy’s cheek, tearing a gash across his skin, rather than into his forehead.
Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) Page 21
