Thorn the Bounty Hunter in The Amber Bones

by Brom Kearne

20

  Melina Bann came to visit them in their cages that afternoon. She was dressed in solid black, with a pair of knee-high black boots and a black jacket. Thorn was watching her approach, but Len Dietrich didn’t notice, as he had fallen into a light sleep. She kneeled to peer into Len Dietrich’s cage through her humorless blue eyes framed by her short bob haircut.

  As if sensing that he was being watched Len awoke with a start, and finding himself staring down those blue eyes, he set his jaw.

  “Melina,” he said.

  “Len,” she said, and smiled. The smile did nothing to add humor to her face. In fact, she looked even colder with the corners of her lips turned up.

  Len moved forward and gripped the bars of the cage. “You know what I’m worth, Melina. Whatever they’re paying you, I can beat it. You will live like royalty when we’ve seized Webster Grove and taken control of trade.”

  She turned her cold blue eyes on Thorn and said, “Did you know that Mr. Dietrich intended to send you to your death? He never expected you to capture the head of the Amber Bones Gang.”

  “No, you betrayed us both and sabotaged that compression rifle,” Thorn said.

  Melina shook her head. “No, that was Mr. Dietrich. You were, at first, a minor annoyance, but when you crossed that river leading the farmers and the dockworkers behind you, well, suddenly you had become a threat and Mr. Dietrich can’t abide having anyone else stealing his preeminence in his town.”

  Thorn turned to Len Dietrich. “I was never leading them. They were already angry over Bradenfield’s strangling their farms out of existence and the lack of police protection from threats like this gang.”

  “Both of which,” Melina said before Len could answer, “were caused by our own Mr. Dietrich. I don’t know what line he fed you about the gang, but they’ve been following his orders explicitly: attacking the farms, creating chaos. Oh, and while Mr. Dietrich is not responsible for the laws that Bradenfield’s been passing, he has been instrumental in their rigorous enforcement.”

  “But to what end?”

  “Would you like to tell him, Mr. Dietrich?” Every time Melina said ‘Mr. Dietrich’ she intoned the name heavily and sarcastically.

  “You were my bodyguard for five years,” Len said. “You were loyal to me.”

  “Five miserable years. You represent everything I despise about humanity. Your greed. Your callousness for human life, especially for those less fortunate than you. You inherited your daddy’s business and grew up spoiled, never wanting for a thing. Never having to worry about where your next meal came from. Never questioning your destiny in this life. I was spat into the world as an orphan and had to fight for every scrap of food that went into my mouth.”

  “I paid you. I recognized your talents and I paid you well for them. And every one of those workers in that town will benefit once I’ve seized control of trade. We will be the wealthiest city in the entire land. Those who remained loyal to me would have been rewarded beyond their wildest dreams.”

  Melina spat on him. “When I met Court Raleigh last year I found in him a kindred spirit. He represented something to me that you never could. He showed me that there are things in life worth fighting for, above and beyond your narrow-minded pursuit of money. You and your kind, there won’t be a place for you, not when we come and take back everything that you’ve stolen from us. You will be trampled under the revolution just like the rest of them.”

  Len Dietrich was too stunned to answer, and in the space of time that his mouth was hanging agape Thorn asked, “What do you mean the rest of them? What are you planning?”

  Melina turned. “I’ve told Court Raleigh a great deal about you, Thorn. He is interested to meet you. Tonight I prove myself to become a full member of the gang. He would very much like you to be his special guest at the contest.”

  “I’m not going to have much of a choice, am I?”

  “What about me?” Len asked.

  “Oh, you’ll be attending as well,” Melina said, although she never took her eyes from Thorn’s. “Court Raleigh believes there may be a place for you among us, and that you may be beneficial to our revolution. I told him that you’re no different from Mr. Dietrich and his type. You’re a mercenary, ruled by greed and the pursuit of your own selfish welfare. But he wishes the chance to see for himself. Court Raleigh is an excellent judge of character. He can see into a person’s soul and can determine the worth of a man.”

  “I’ll bet he can.”

  Melina turned back to Len Dietrich. “You should be resting up. You’ve got a big night ahead of you.”

  “What does that mean?” Len demanded, but Melina only smirked as she got up and walked away. He called after her, “What does that mean?”

  He leaned back hard, hitting his head against the bars of the cage in frustration.

  “So,” Thorn said after a few moments’ silence, “while you were plotting to betray me, your personal assistant was in the act of betraying you. And now we’re both stuck in a cage and at their mercy. Has to be a little bit of poetic irony in there somewhere, doesn’t it?”

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s lying to you.”

  “I think she’s the first person to tell me the truth in some time.”

  “Court Raleigh is sick in the head. You can’t let them get to you.”

  “But I think you were perfectly aware of how sick in the head Court Raleigh was. I think you wanted it that way so he could spread chaos and destruction, get all those little townspeople to come rallying to you as their savior.”

  Len Dietrich shook his head slowly. “You don’t understand at all. But my offer still stands. You get me out of here, and I will make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.”

  “I’m not so sure I’m willing to trust you a second time,” Thorn replied.

  The sun had nearly completed its long, cruel trek across the sky and once again Thorn and Len Dietrich found themselves sheltered by shadows as it began to dip over the western ridge. The gang had spent most of the day in much the same manner as they had spent the previous night: engaging in drinking, smoking, bike racing, jousting, and tormenting those prospective members, like Scott Tanning, who had not yet proven themselves to be allowed fully into the fold. As the sun began to set, however, the gang began congregating further down out of Thorn’s range of vision. Thorn figured that this must be the ceremony, or “test” that Melina had spoken of, which would allow her to become a full member. Thorn had no idea what it entailed, although he noticed Len Dietrich becoming increasingly nervous as the day came to a close.

  David Scontz and Tom Marron, wearing black bandanas to cover their faces, came and took Len Dietrich away after the sun had begun to set. He kicked and flailed when they reached into the cage to haul him out, and it wasn’t until David stuck a sparker pistol in Len’s face that he calmed down enough for them to bind his arms behind him. As they were marching him away Len attempted to barter for his freedom: offering them money and riches and power. His pleas fell on deaf ears.

  The sun had been over half-consumed by the ridge when three gang members, these wearing amber bandanas, came to Thorn’s cage. They were carrying metal spears, which they thrust through the bars as a warning not to try anything. The tips of the spears were razor sharp, and looked to be capable of tearing through flesh at the slightest provocation.

  “Thorn the Bounty Hunter,” one of them said, gloating from his position of power, standing over the cage and menacing Thorn with the spear, “you are summoned to witness the trial by strength of Melina Bann as Court Raleigh’s personal guest. You will be chained, and any attempt to resist will be met with immediate death.”

  As if to emphasize exactly how immediate that death would be, his two compatriots rattled their spears against the bars of the cage. They ordered Thorn out and on the ground so his wrists could be bound with iron manacles. He didn’t like acquiescing without a fight, but considering that they could easily have speared him where he sat there wasn’t much to be ga
ined from resisting. So, for now, he played along and allowed himself to be manacled.

  Once his hands were secured they ran a chains from his wrists to his ankles, binding them as well, and hobbling him so he could only take half-steps.

  Thorn had only been able to see a small part of the camp from his cage, and was forced to guess at the size of the rest of it. As he was marched at spear point towards the western side of the bowl, however, he got a good view of the whole thing, and discovered to his dismay that the camp was even bigger than his biggest estimates. The race track that wound its way throughout the camp, which he had estimated to be no more than a quarter of a mile, looped around for over half a mile at least. There were dozens of tents, and four large bonfires providing light during the encroaching darkness. They passed near to one of the large bonfires, and it was indeed impressive, with flames reaching nearly twenty feet into the night air.

  Everyone had gathered in an open pavilion in front of the outcropping of rocks on the western side of the bowl. It was here that Thorn was led. A particularly large tent, amber in color and striped with black, obscured the entrance to a cave in the rocks. On either side were smaller tents: one amber and one black. As Thorn was shoved along he counted the number of the Amber Bones to be near forty. His outside estimate had been correct. He made this reckoning with a sinking feeling in his stomach. It was going to be very difficult to get out of here. The gang members were crowded in a circle, drinking and ordering the prospective members around. Thorn caught sight of Scott Tanning scrambling to make sure everyone’s drinks were full in between being kicked and spat on.

  As Thorn drew nearer the posts of the pavilion, which was lit with torches all the way around, he got a look through the crowd of bodies at what they were encircling. It was a pit dug in the soft sand. It looked to be a fighting pit. The walls were six feet deep and every inch of them was lined with broken glass and jagged, twisted metal. The sandy floor was mottled with rust-colored patches of dried blood. A metal staircase, on pulleys so it could be lowered over the wall for the combatants to enter, was sticking straight up at the front of the pit.

  Just uphill from the pavilion, and in front of the larger tent, stood a seven-foot-tall throne. Thorn was not an easy person to rattle by any means, but he was more than a little unnerved at the sight of it. The arms of the throne were the front halves of old dune bikes as if they were leaping out of the sand. The seat and back were made from dune bike seats and tires. The rest of the throne was made from yellowed human skulls, piled atop each other with their jaws open in silent screams. A pair of torches burned on either side of the arms. It looked like some kind of macabre ritualistic altar out of a fantasy book.

  Thorn didn’t have much time to gawk at it before he was forced to his knees in front of and to the side of the throne, where the gang members unlocked his fetters so they could run the chain through an O-ring attached to a piece of concrete buried in the sand. They seemed to be even more terrified of the throne than Thorn was, as they kept their distance as best they could, cast reverential glances towards it while they shackled him, and then beat a hasty retreat to join the rest of the gang the moment he was secured.

  Thorn yanked at the chains, testing the strength of the anchor to which he was attached. He despised being set in a position of humble servility before the throne. He stopped when a hush fell over the gathered assembly and the door flaps on the large tent were thrown back. Two skeletons, their bones glowing amber, emerged from within. They carried drums which they set down on either side and just behind the throne. They began beating, raising their mallets high over their shoulders, slowly and perfectly in rhythm.

  It was an unnerving sight, and the hushed awe which hung over the Amber Bones Gang gave testimony to their effectiveness. The assembly began to sway with the mallet strikes as the slow and sonorous beats rolled over them. The gang was completely under the spell cast by these spectral apparitions.

  They gradually increased the rhythm. The percussion carried into the night and increased in intensity and ferocity. They had begun as somnolent metronomes, but now they were ruthless tribal war drums. Thorn could feel the beat in his chest. He found his heart had increased its rate of pumping to match the beat of the drums and he actually felt a droplet of sweat forming on his brow, as if he were engaging in cardiovascular exercise. They grew in fervor, into a maddening and exciting race, and then stopped with one dramatic and visceral beat, followed by deafening silence.

  Into the silence stepped Court Raleigh, and despite himself Thorn felt his throat catch at the intimidating spectacle that he presented. He stood at least seven feet tall: a gargantuan skeleton glowing amber in the night and crowned with a luminous amber skull that peered at its obedient gang through lifeless amber eyes. Torn amber rags hung from its bones, as though its clothing in life had rotted away and these scraps were all that were left.

  The apparition walked with its skeletal arms crossed under its skull. It was the same image that the gang wore as their tattoos. When the apparition reached the throne it planted a skeletal foot upon the dune bike wheel that made the arm, and raised a skeletal fist into the air as it turned its lifeless amber eyes upon its captive audience.

  “We have tonight,” it spoke, and its voice was deep, rolling over the Amber Bones Gang like the moan of a night wind, “a very special occasion, for tonight we begin our glorious revolution. Tonight we take the first blood, of much that will be spilled, as we fight back against the oppressive oligarchy that has forced us, each and every one, to live as outcasts, fighting for the offal that civilized society feels fit to throw us, like buzzards fighting over rotten meat.

  “Each of you who has become a member of my flock has done so by spilling blood in the trial of strength. Every single one of you has undergone this rite, excepting the prospective members who have yet to be challenged. You have tested your strength and your resolve, your will to survive, just as I was tested all those years ago when I was ripped from civilized society and forced to live as an animal in the desert. Every single one of you has realized the ugly truth of existence: you survive, or you die. There is nothing in between. The people who live in their cities deny this. They believe that by surrounding themselves with laws and comfort that they will defeat this basic truth, and for that they have grown fat, lazy, and complacent. They are weak. But you are not. For you this truth has become a beacon of light and a source of strength. Each of you has proven your evolutionary superiority and will to survive by killing one of your fellow prospects in the trial of strength. Your former lives have been washed away by blood, and you have emerged stronger, wiser, and awakened to the true nature of life.”

  Court Raleigh spoke as the drums had beaten: with a slow and somnolent tempo at first, which gradually increased in intensity. Glancing around Thorn saw that the Amber Bones were hanging on his every word, swaying with the rhythm of his speech. He was struck with the feeling that this was less a gang than it was a cult.

  “Tonight,” Court Raleigh continued, “one of our own will become a full member as she washes herself in the blood of the oligarchy.”

  Melina Bann appeared and took her place at the base of the throne as Court Raleigh spoke.

  “Melina Bann has long been an associate of our gang, and has sacrificed much in our service. She has long been an asset in the formulation of our coming revolution, as she has worked within the oligarchy, gaining their trust and undermining their authority until she could strike the first blow in toppling them forever. She comes to us tonight triumphantly, as a conqueror, for it is by her undying efforts that we begin to take back what was wrongfully stolen from us. And for that, she will be rewarded. Bring forth the prisoner!”

  Movement to Thorn’s right arrested his attention as the smaller tent opened. Len Dietrich was carried out by the two skeletons that had been drumming earlier. Dietrich looked to be barely able to stand, and he had to be propped between them as the two skeletons brought him down beside Melina.

  T
horn was only a few feet away from where they were standing, in a place of prominence before the throne, Court Raleigh, and the Amber Bones Gang. He could see now the outline of the black clothing on which the amber skeletons were painted, and suspected that these two were none other than David Scontz and Tom Marron, as they seemed to enjoy a special position as favorites of Court Raleigh.

  “I present to you Len Dietrich the Fourth!” Court Raleigh said, his voice reverberating in the sandy bowl. The rest of the gang hissed on cue.

  “This man is the owner of the L & D Shipping Company, and some would say, of the entire town of Webster Grove. He is the last in a long line of oppressors who have seized power for themselves while leaving the rest of the citizenry to feed from the scraps he provided them. He actually wanted you, my loyal flock, to be his!”

  More boos and hisses erupted from the gathered assembly.

  “He wanted to seize control of you, and use you to cement his ownership of the town of Webster Grove, and to take control of trade throughout the lands. He wanted to charge tariffs on the trade caravans and make even more money for himself! He wanted to use you, YOU, to further his own lust for money and power!”

  “No!” Len Dietrich shouted, although it looked like it took him great effort, as if each breath were a burden upon him, and drawing in enough breath to be heard over the shouts and cries of the gang was almost more than he could bear without blacking out. “I was going to pay you all! You would have lived like kings!”

  “Will we stand for this betrayal?” Court Raleigh demanded, and he was answered at once, in unison, by his gang.

  “No!” they shouted back at him.

  “Then let his blood cleanse Melina Bann as she strikes back at the very man who oppressed her for so many years, and takes her rightful place at my side. Throw him in the pit.”

  Two of the gang members standing near the front of the assembly stepped forward to lower the staircase over the wall of the pit. Len Dietrich was thrown down it. He tumbled head over heels and lay on the mottled floor. He was struggling and could barely even bring himself to stand. Thorn didn’t think that a mere fall could have done that much damage to him. No, he had been injured when they carried him out of the tent. He was clutching at his chest and breathing heavily. The assembly, however, didn’t seem to notice as they cheered heartily when he was tossed in.

  Melina bowed deeply to Court Raleigh before stepping over the metal staircase. Once she was in the pit the staircase was raised, effectively trapping them both inside. She raised her arms for the assembly, eliciting a great cheer from them.

  Len Dietrich made a pathetic-looking figure as he pleaded with her. “Melina, please. I treated you well, didn’t I? I had no idea you hated me so much. Please let me make things right with you.”

  “Come on, get up and fight like a man,” Melina ordered.

  The Amber Bones had been whipped into a frenzy of bloodlust for the coming slaughter. This wasn’t even a fight. It was a public execution carefully designed to show the superiority of the Amber Bones as the strong and capable predator, while the enemy, in this case Len Dietrich, representing the fat and lazy oligarchy of which Court Raleigh had spoken, was a pathetic and cowardly creature reduced to begging for its life. Thorn had seen this same scene played out, albeit in different charades, over and over in Collective City, and it made him sick how easily these people were manipulated into cheering for blood, and how much they would be reinforced with the notion of their own superiority when the killing blow finally came. It was sheer propaganda, and it was very effective.

  To his credit Len Dietrich managed to struggle to his feet. He was wobbly, but his fists were raised.

  “It is time for us to take back what is ours,” Melina said loudly so that everyone could hear. Then she whirled, snapping a kick to Len’s face. Her movements were graceful and efficient, almost like a deadly dance. Her weight remained perfectly centered, although Thorn noticed that she was exaggerating her actions for the effect they had on the audience. If her only goal was to kill Len Dietrich, she would have been able to step in and do it quickly, either snapping his neck or strangling him out. There wasn’t much he could do to resist. Instead, she opted to use some flashy and impressive kicks and feints: moves that would have been wholly out of place in a real fight against a worthy opponent.

  But she had the desired effect. When Len Dietrich was sent back to the ground, gasping for breath, the Amber Bones went wild. They were chanting for blood and cheering for the kill. Melina, however, wasn’t ready yet. They hadn’t worked themselves up into enough of a frenzy. She gave Len Dietrich another chance to stand. In fact, she even helped him up.

  The moment Len Dietrich was on his feet and standing under his own power, Melina unleashed a barrage of lightning-fast punches, ending with a wide round house to Len’s face. He was sent reeling, collapsing just shy of the jagged metal and glass that adorned the walls of the pit.

  Melina made a play for the crowd, raising her arms and jumping around the circle, asking them if she wanted her to kill him yet. They answered with a thunderous, “Kill him!”

  Len pried a slender piece of metal from the wall of the pit, slicing his fingers as he worked it back and forth until it finally came loose. He was dripping blood from his hands as he was dripping blood from his nose and mouth. He staggered forward towards Melina’s back while she was playing to the audience. He mustered what strength he had left and lunged with the weapon.

  Even if Melina hadn’t been perfectly aware of what he was doing, using her excellent situational awareness and peripheral vision to keep an eye on him, the Amber Bones shouted and warned her of the coming attack. It made Len Dietrich look all the more cowardly and desperate: to use a weapon in a hand fight, and to attack while his opponent’s back was turned. Melina deftly stepped to the side, avoiding the thrust, grabbed Dietrich’s arm and twisted the piece of metal from his hand.

  She held the slender blade high, allowing everyone to see it as she stood over Len Dietrich, holding his head up with a fist in his hair. Then she slashed his throat and threw his body face-first into the ground.

  The roar that erupted from the Amber Bones was deafening.

  Melina stood over her kill, her legs wide over the pool of blood seeping into the sand. Then she threw aside the slender piece of metal, wiping her hand on her pants from where she had been lacerated, and spat on the corpse at her feet. The Amber Bones Gang cheered even more loudly.

  At once Court Raleigh took Melina’s triumph and made it his own, standing on his throne and raising his skeletal fist. “And it is done! The first of many of the oppressive oligarchy to be trampled under the marching feet of our glorious revolution. See Len Dietrich the Fourth fallen! He may be the first, but he is the first of many! Now, celebrate all of you, partake of my generosity, for this night belongs to you. In two days we will move against the trade caravans themselves! May they fall as easily as this pathetic creature. And welcome among you the newest full member of our gang: Melina Bann!”

  The stairs were lowered over the wall of the pit to allow Melina to exit. Two prospective members, including Scott Tanning, scurried forward and removed the body. Melina was held aloft by Tom Marron and David Scontz, leading the assembly towards the nearest bonfire. They gathered around as she sat on a stool to receive the tattoo of a skull and crossed arms under her right eye. Never once did she flinch, even as the needle was a razor’s edge from her sclera. The rest of the gang began cracking open stolen casks of alcohol and passing around mugs. Soon the scents of meat and bread cooking filled the sandy bowl, along with the sounds of drunken revelry.

  Once they were relatively alone Court Raleigh leaned over the dune bike arm of his throne to look at Thorn. The lifeless orbs that were his eyes were unnerving, but Thorn forced himself to hold them. He was reminded of what Melina had said, that Court Raleigh could look into a person’s soul. At the moment it felt as though he could do just that.

  “Melina tells me that you were born
in Crimson City,” Court said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You don’t hear of many people leaving the confines of those crystal walls, do you? People speak of Crimson City in hushed voices, with awe and with fear, much in the same way they speak of me, do they not? I have heard many stories of the place, but I have never before met someone who was born there. It makes me wonder how much of what I have heard is true.”

  Court paused for a few moments as he waited for a response. When he didn’t get one, he continued.

  “People speak of Crimson City in fear, but people fear that which they do not understand. It is the basest of human nature. But not for me. For me, Crimson City has always stood as a beacon of hope. Oh, yes. I was not born in the wilderness. I was born into the lap of luxury as the child of a trade caravan. When I was still very young we were attacked by pirates and I was kidnapped along with my brother. We were held for ransom, and do you know what happened?”

  “Do you give this speech to all of your new captives, or am I just special?”

  The lifeless amber orbs that were Court Raleigh’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What happened was that my family abandoned me. They only paid the ransom for one child. They saved my brother’s life and left me to die. If I had not taken it upon myself to escape, I would not be sitting here today. I, a mere child barely out of diapers, abandoned, betrayed by my family and my brother, escaping into the cruel wilderness with no means of survival save for my will to survive.”

  Thorn had to admit that Court Raleigh was a very good storyteller. The cadence in his voice, the changing body posture as he spoke, the intensity with which he emphasized certain words and intoned certain others. Thorn felt as though he were watching a well-rehearsed monologue in a play, and that it was designed to create a very specific effect on its audience. Thorn knew exactly what Court Raleigh wanted from him, exactly the kind of reaction he was expecting: Court demanded awe and pity. Thorn was determined to give him neither.

  “And now in retaliation you harass and murder elderly farmers, is that it? You’re nothing but an angry little child lashing out at the world.”

  A small tongue flicked between the glowing skeletal lips and the amber eyes closed for a second or two. When they opened Court Raleigh continued as if he hadn’t heard a thing Thorn had said.

  “But I did survive. I was tested, and that is where I found the true nature of strength. I cannot tell you how many days I lay in a cave shivering and starving, wishing that it all would end, wishing that I didn’t have an innate survival instinct to keep me going through the harsh torture that was my daily life. But it did not end. I would not allow it to end. I learned that I could not count on anyone save for myself. And always, always in the first rays of the sun, far to the east, could I see the crimson glitter of the walls of Crimson City like an earth-bound star. It gave me hope for each new day, like a lighthouse that guides a ship through a stormy night. It gave me the determination to continue, and ever since has held a fascination for me. It is a city that is so far technologically advanced beyond our land. It’s where our guns come from, along with a myriad of other inventions that have helped to elevate the quality of life for those who can afford it. Unduly, I’m afraid, for that technology should be in the hands of all. It is, after all, thrown out with the garbage of Crimson City. Imagine! What is trash to them is the highest of technology here, only allowed in the hands of the wealthy! It piques my curiosity, that if these are the things they cast aside, then what do they have inside that they currently use? What advancements do they have? What is the state of their poor and underprivileged, if these wonders are their trash? And that is why I am very curious, Thorn, about your life experience in that city.”

  “It’s a cruel place ruled tyrannically by cruel and selfish people.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  “You’d fit right in.”

  Court watched him for some time, and Thorn could see disappointment creeping into those lifeless amber orbs as he realized that he was not going to get anything further from him about Crimson City.

  “Melina told me that you were hired to hunt me,” Court said.

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t think that you’ll be collecting on that bounty any time soon, when the man who hired you is feeding the buzzards.”

  “Technically it was the city that hired me.”

  “When I’m done there won’t be much of a city, either.”

  “What, exactly, are you planning?”

  Court shook his skeletal head. “I’m disappointed to discover that you’re a very small-minded man. You are nothing but a mercenary, as Melina said, ruled by as much greed and self-interest as the man we killed tonight. I do not believe that you have the ability to appreciate my vision.”

  “Do you know what I can appreciate?” Thorn said. “I can appreciate that you never outgrew your childhood. I can appreciate that you may have learned some difficult lessons, but you never learned the most difficult of all: that life isn’t fair. You’re lashing out because you were hurt and betrayed when you were young? Cry me the Old Foss. I was born in Crimson City, where I spent much of my youth and young adulthood being tortured for their science, the very science you seem to hold in such regard. You talk about the crystal walls as a shining star of hope? They’re nothing but a beautiful prison. And the people in there are oppressed under the rule of an extreme minority. It may not be perfect, but I’ll take what we have out here any day. I never even saw the stars until I was sixteen, after I had crawled to safety from that hole. But you know what? I overcame it. I took those experiences and used them to make me a stronger man, and no, I’m not talking about your childish view of strength wherein you lash out at people whom you perceive as having more than you. No, you’ve allowed your experiences as a child to consume and destroy you. You are weak, and that is why I’m going to get out of here and defeat you. And then I’m going to haul your spent carcass into Webster Grove and collect my money, out of pure self-interest and greed.”

  Thorn was bluffing for the most part. He had not outgrown his experiences in Crimson City, known to him as Collective City, not by a longshot. He still awoke at night in the cold sweat of terror from the dreams that continued to haunt him. It was the reason he drank too much. It was the reason he got into bar fights. It was the reason that the opiate he’d been injected with that morning had felt so damned good. He still bore a resentment towards the world that was only satisfied when he threw himself headlong into danger. And he still bore an intense hatred towards those people who would seek to rule others, even though he tried to stay out of political confrontations as much as possible in order to protect his own sanity. But Court Raleigh didn’t need to know any of those things. The only thing that Court Raleigh needed to know at the moment was that Thorn wasn’t intimidated by him in the least.

  And the bluff worked. The lifeless amber eyes were burning with barely-concealed rage, like a pocket of magma getting ready to explode. When Court spoke his words were staccato and bitter, and were uttered through a clenched jaw.

  “You will compete tomorrow, and you will die. Your corpse will be tossed into the wilderness until the wild beasts and the elements have cleaned your bones, and then you will join the rest of the failures.” As he said this last he caressed one of the skulls on the back of his throne with a long, skeletal finger. “The revolution will march on without you. Marron!”

  Tom Marron sprinted over from the celebration at his master’s call.

  “Marron, take this corpse back to its cage.”