The Empty Warrior

by J. D. McCartney

  Yeah, thought O’Keefe, without conviction.

  Regulus took the spot the other dog had vacated outside the door while several other members of the pack loitered about at various points up and down the passageway. The lizards, oblivious to any danger in the dogs’ presence, repeatedly rolled past them in the hallway, each of the guards assuming they were there only to protect the area. Regulus kept his thoughts to himself, yet O’Keefe could sense that the dog was still quite comfortable with the way events were unfolding. The sensation bolstered his own sagging morale appreciably.

  Suddenly there was an end to the long silence, as Regulus’ thoughts erupted into O’Keefe’s mind. They will be coming for you soon. The arena is nearly full.

  As always, the shared percipience of the dogs gave Regulus the insight to correctly judge the situation. Within minutes three toadies, escorted by a lizard and two dogs, arrived at the cell door. The lizard punched a code into a key pad to the release the lock, and then pushed the door open. “Prepare him,” it said to the toadies, its sibilant lizard speech leaking from its mouth between flicks of its forked tongue. “I return later.”

  It turned to the dogs. “Guard!” it commanded them, and then rolled away, apparently sure of its safety and superiority.

  Addlepated beast, Regulus thought disparagingly. This is going to be even easier than I had at first assumed.

  The men entered the cell, followed by the dogs, with Regulus slipping across the corridor and through the closing door as soon as the lizard guard had rolled out of his path. The Akadeans pulled O’Keefe roughly to his feet, loosed his bonds, and began to undress him until he pushed them forcefully away. They looked to the dogs as if expecting support, but the animals simply stood stolidly shoulder to shoulder, the two escorts on either side of Regulus, blocking the door and making no move to intimidate O’Keefe into submission. Their bodies filled half the chamber.

  The most assertive of the toadies finally found the wherewithal to speak. “Subdue!” he said in a commanding tone directed at the dogs, all the while pointing at O’Keefe.

  O’Keefe grabbed the finger the man had stuck out in his direction and twisted it backward until the Akadean cried out in pain. “Shut up!” O’Keefe ordered. “I hate to disappoint you, you little shit, but they don’t work for you. They’re on my side. Now you three sit your narrow asses down in the corner over here and be quiet, or I’ll have them rip your damn throats out. Okay?” The three men looked at O’Keefe in disbelief until the dogs stepped forward menacingly, baring their teeth. Suddenly the toadies could not find the corner fast enough, falling over each other and landing in a heap, whimpering.

  O’Keefe shook his head disdainfully at their sudden, complete enfeeblement before quickly beginning to shed the rest of his clothing. After pulling down his trousers, he wrestled the pistol away from his leg and laid it carefully on the same side of the cell as the door and the lackeys, where no curious lizard guard could see. Soon he stood naked before his would be preparers.

  “Hand over the diaper,” he commanded, and one of the three men reached into the small bag he carried and offered up the small white garment.

  To O’Keefe’s surprise and relief, it was made of much stronger material than its appearance had suggested. And after donning it, he also found that it could be fastened tightly with Velcro-like strips, tightly enough that it was not going to fall off even with the weight of the Colt inside. He reached for the gun, removed it from its holster, and checked the clip one last time before pushing it back up into the stock. He then pulled the slide back sharply and released it. The recoil spring pulled it back with an ominous metallic click, pushing the top round in the magazine into the firing chamber as it did so. O’Keefe engaged the thumb safety before carefully placing the weapon inside the swaddling cloth, directly in front of his crotch.

  That arrangement simply did not work. Although strong, the fabric was also elastic and tight. The outline of the gun was plainly visible beneath it. O’Keefe thought for a moment before pushing the stock of the weapon between his legs so that only the narrow, top edge of the barrel pushed out the fabric in front. Then he reached down to pick up his discarded shirt, and ripped it into two pieces. He folded the larger piece into a rough square, and stuffed it down into the front of his garment. The effect was to soften the sharp outline of the barrel that was pushed into the fabric of the breechclout. “Well, how do I look,” he asked Regulus.

  Rather well endowed, the dog thought to him. But much less obvious than before. The imbecile dragons will not sense anything amiss from the bulge, but the Slayer may. Being human, she is well acquainted with your physiology, and she has repeatedly shown that she can be a capable observer. You are an aberrant though; mayhap she will think the protuberance a peculiarity of your kind. That is far from certain however.

  O’Keefe sensed Regulus’ anxiety but did not share it. “It won’t matter,” he said. From what Bart tells me, her shield is nearly as blurring to her eyes looking out as it is to ours looking in. She won’t be able to see anything wrong as long as it is functioning and she is any more than a few paces away. And when she gets in close enough, it will be too late. I’m more concerned about staying in a condition to shoot straight until she comes out onto the floor. After I hang from the noose and then have to fight the lizards, I’m not going to be in very good shape. I plan on taking a dive as soon as I can, but I’ll have to make it look good, or she will definitely be suspicious, which is the last thing I need. I’m certain she will come out on the floor to finish me off after all the gall I laid on her in the barracks last night; I’ve no doubt about that, but I want her to be sure of herself and absolutely confident that I can do nothing to harm her. I want her ready to drop that shield and spit in my face.

  What I mean to say is that I am going to be hurt and disoriented, so I’m depending on you. You’re going to have to tell me when I look beat up enough to collapse, and you’re also going to have to tell me when it is time to make my move against Elorak. I’m going to be basically playing dead out there, so I won’t be able to watch her as she comes across the floor to execute the coup de grace. The moment it looks like she is going to drop the shield, you have to let me know.

  Regulus returned the mental equivalent of a sigh. He was suddenly viscerally uncertain of the plan that he had been so cocksure of only a short time earlier. O’Keefe could feel that his faith was still strong, as was his intellectual approval of a ploy that seemed to offer their best, if not only, chance of success. It was his emotions that balked—his canine instinct to protect a packmate—that now interfered with his ability to confidently proceed. O’Keefe was suddenly certain that it would be difficult to keep Regulus on the sidelines while he suffered at the hands of the guards.

  You stay put, he warned the dog. I know you’ll be wanting to attack something, but you’re going to have to restrain yourself. If you lose it, and come running out on the floor, they are going to know something is wrong and the game will be up. So you just keep cool until the bitch is dead. Hear me?

  I hear you, replied Regulus, but O’Keefe felt an echo from the big canine’s mind that said that the alpha of Alphas would do as he saw fit regardless of any human directives. O’Keefe shrugged it off, knowing that there was nothing more he could do about it in any case. Instead he turned his attention to the three toadies who still cowered in the corner.

  “You three,” he said harshly, “listen up. When I go out there, you are going to go about your business as if everything is fine. If this works out right, you’ll have a pretty good chance of staying alive. But if you go running off at the mouth, make no mistake, the dogs will kill you. And they will do it before you can tell your story, too, so it won’t do anyone any good if you try to squawk. Do we understand each other?” Regulus took a step forward, standing closely at O’Keefe’s side as if to underscore the threat.

  One of the lackeys gulped, nodding his head fervently before stammering out an affirmative and glancing back and f
orth at his cohorts for their agreement. To his obvious relief they were nodding wide-eyed as well, happy to agree to anything that would lessen their immediate peril. O’Keefe found himself despising the men as if they were nothing more than vermin, but quickly caught himself. Hell, he thought, they’d never even heard of a concentration camp until they found themselves in one. They’re just trying to stay alive any way they can. Then he caught himself again, realizing that just maybe other men had died so that these three could have their status elevated. Many of Elorak’s favorites had been snitches before they had become toadies. Abruptly any pity he felt for the three men dissipated entirely.

  You must hurry, Regulus chimed into his thoughts. The dragons approach, and you are unbound. You must have one of them tie your hands.

  “Good Lord,” O’Keefe said under his breath, angry at himself at forgetting something so obvious and so important. He quickly picked up one of the lengths of cord that lay on the floor. “You!” he said, pointing at the lackey who had spoken only a moment before. “Tie my hands.” He turned his back on the man and crossed his wrists over the small of his back. “And don’t get any cute ideas, either,” he ordered.

  The man did not. With all three dogs watching his every move, he quickly tied O’Keefe’s wrists tightly together and, once he was done, was only too happy to retreat back into the relative safety of the corner with his two friends. Only moments later two guards rolled to a stop outside the door. “Bring out prisoner,” one of them hissed.

  O’Keefe motioned to the cowering inmates, and all three fearfully got to their feet. They escorted him to the door, one of them reaching past him to pull it open, while Regulus and one of his packmates observed intently and kept themselves close aboard the toadies’ flanks. The third dog eased around the group to where O’Keefe’s discarded holster lay on the floor. The animal grasped the leather in his teeth and repeatedly chomped at it, drawing more and more of the leather into his mouth until none of it could be seen.

  As the door swung to the side, O’Keefe was greeted by the sight of a lizard’s green face, its long neck bent into an inverted U shape so it could look directly into the room. The head hung suspended in front of O’Keefe, the lizard staring at him through yellow irises. Its long tongue flicked past its teeth repeatedly.

  “Human,” it said. “Know me, human? I have memory of you.” As it spoke it pointed a crooked and sharply clawed finger at O’Keefe’s chest. “You insult on first day here. Then hide to escape. No hide today. Ready I am for this.” The creature whistled slightly on every S. “Come human. Come for death. Come to arena. You die; I enjoy. Come.”

  As it spoke, it reached out a clawed hand and grabbed O’Keefe by the left bicep. With reptilian strength it effortlessly pulled him out of the cell and threw him to the floor of the corridor, its claws raking bloody rents down the inside of the Earther’s upper arm. “Walk, human,” it said, and at the same moment it rolled forward on its treads, filling the corridor with acrid exhaust. O’Keefe scrambled awkwardly to his feet just in time to avoid being crushed beneath the steel tracks and walked quickly forward, all the while sensing mounting rage from Regulus. As he walked away down the passageway he looked back over his shoulder in time to see the dog who carried the holster peel away from the group unnoticed and follow the lackeys from the cell. Other dogs joined him as the toadies moved farther down the corridor.

  The tunnel O’Keefe was being forced through had no intersections or openings along its length. It appeared to run in a straight line to the arena, undoubtedly designed that way to avoid any last minute escape attempts by the condemned. The mute company moved steadily forward—O’Keefe in front, flanked by two dogs; Regulus on his left and an unknown on his right; and followed by two guards clanking along in single file. The floor beneath his feet canted slightly upward, making it difficult for O’Keefe to stay ahead of the lizards without tiring.

  Regulus walked easily at his side, the top of his head slightly above the level of O’Keefe’s shoulder. At this range his presence was particularly intense, and despite the forceful pitch of his emanations, his closeness was a comfort to O’Keefe. How much further? he thought to his friend.

  Not far, came the simple reply, but it was immersed in a boiling cauldron of emotions. Although he walked at O’Keefe’s side as if he were an enforcer on behalf of Elorak, his mind was still coiled to strike at the guards. The damage the lizard had done to O’Keefe’s arm had put the dog in full protection mode. The rational part of Regulus’ mind was nearly unreachable; the aura that streamed into O’Keefe was simply that of an instinctual predator with his blood up. O’Keefe feared that even the slightest deviation from the plan would unhinge the dog’s self-control, and any serious harm done to O’Keefe in the process would release an unreasoning fury.

  Just calm down, Regulus, O’Keefe thought, trying to keep a lid on the dog’s seething psyche. We’ve got a job to do, and you are going to have to keep cool or I’m telling you, you’ll screw things up. Okay?

  I will behave as an insensate servant of the dragons and merely observe for as long as I see fit, but I am the alpha of Alphas, and when I deem that action is necessary, such action shall be taken. It was not the reply that O’Keefe had desired, but he understood that there was nothing he could do to control what Regulus would or would not do. He had to content himself with the knowledge, made plain by the swirling undercurrents of the dog’s thoughts, that his savage desire for immediate bloodletting had receded, at least for the moment.

  The passageway suddenly seemed brighter ahead. O’Keefe lifted his eyes from the corridor floor and through the foul and gloomy air could see light ahead. The door to the arena floor was swinging open. A few seconds later they walked through it and out into the stadium.

  Regulus and his packmate trotted away to take their places against the surrounding circular wall. One of the lizards clanked away as well, but the other one; the vengeful one; grabbed O’Keefe by the arm and pulled him roughly across the floor toward the opposite side, directly toward Mada Elorak.

  O’Keefe looked around as he trotted, trying to keep pace with the guard, the difficulty of doing so increased by having his arms bound behind his back. At least they had not bothered to bring shackles for his legs, he thought.

  Around him, the stands were densely packed with a sea of dust covered, sweating humanity. He briefly wondered where his two friends were, and quickly dismissed the thought as irrelevant. And though he had studied the arena from a tactical standpoint each time he had attended a punishment, the details of the place were never so graphic to his mind as they were at that moment.

  The titanic cavern was as dreary as it was large. The roughly carved, gray stone was its sole feature, punctuated insignificantly by the dull patina covering the chain link cages and the gray of the prisoner’s garb. The only spots of color in the entire structure were Elorak’s gilded perch and the shiny green scales that covered the upper body of the lizard guards.

  The prisoners locked in the stands were largely silent. The only sounds audible to O’Keefe were the rumble of the lizards’ diesels and the grinding of steel treads. The cavernous bowl reeked, as it always did during punishments, of diesel exhaust while the ever-present dust hung limply in the air before whirling in eddies behind him and the guard, mixing with the belching fumes the lizard spewed in its passing. Irritating bits of light reflected from the shiny chromium skin of Elorak’s assault robot into O’Keefe’s eyes, causing him to wince slightly, as he looked up to see the goddess of Ashawzut sitting languidly upon the chaise that topped her litter, watching as the guard dragged O’Keefe before her.

  As he and the guard neared the wall beneath and to the left of Elorak’s seat, she dismounted and walked to the head of the staircase that led to the floor, looking out over the cages that held the crowd. Her amplified and sadistic voice echoed loudly through the arena. “I have a special treat for you, and for myself as well, this morning. I have the man you call ‘the aberrant,’” she sai
d with a flourish. “The man who thought himself equipped to fight for the Dominion, the man who rises head and shoulders above your own craven and contemptible selves, but a man who has nonetheless been disobedient and who will die just as easily at our hands as would you. The time has come for him to pay the price for his crimes. Watch and learn. Understand that no one, even the largest and the strongest among you, escapes the justice of the Dominion.”

  There she halted her speech and turned her gaze down on O’Keefe, speaking directly to him. “Because you hail from a gallant race of the ston, I will grant you a stonliata’s death. One of my guards holds a grievance against you, and has requested the chance to face you alone. As I have affection for those who serve me well, I have granted him this opportunity for vengeance.

  “This will be your punishment. You will fight Manka, my trusted servant, to the death. The spectacle will not end until the heart of one of you is stilled. If you should somehow succeed and slay my guard I will make your death swift and painless. If you do not, he will be free to dispose of you in any way he pleases. And as my reptiles are notorious for their penchant of enjoying the suffering of others, I feel certain he will not be nearly so kind to you as I would be. So fight well, Earthman, or you will be facing a very long and painful death.” She smiled as if in anticipation of seeing exactly that before moving her gaze to the guard. “Let the contest begin,” she snapped, then turned her back on both of them as she strode back to her elevated seat. As she retreated, the guard dragged O’Keefe to the center of the arena.

  Holy shit, O’Keefe thought along the way. His strategy had always been predicated on Elorak being so livid at his insubordination and such a slave to her own hatreds that she would have no choice but to descend to the arena floor to apply the killing blow. Now suddenly he was committed to a death match with a monster. At once real fear—sweat inducing, terrible dread—slithered down the length of O’Keefe’s spine. I’m going to die out here, he thought, slowly, torturously, at the hands of this cold-blooded nightmare of a beast. His thoughts turned to the forty-five between his legs, thinking he could gun down the guard if he could find no other way to slay it. But he wasn’t sure that the three slugs he had left would kill a lizard. After all, they had no hearts and what little brain they possessed wouldn’t make a very large target. And even should he bring the beast down, Elorak would simply kill him from where she sat, and all would be for naught. His death would then be truly meaningless.