“That's fine Alodia, as long as you know what these fights actually represent. Punishment and the power of my government, enacting my laws.”
“Of course, Sir.”
He contemplated her for a moment and a brief thought of how he could do away with the nuisance flashed through his mind. Then another high pitched whistle and the beating of a dozen weighted tails on drums distracted his attention back to the field. The prisoner was being led in.
Chained between four large Shadow Foxes, Eadgard somehow managed to hold a smug air of defiance, a look which irritated Gremian beyond measure. He wanted to see that defiance break before the end. That was part of what he liked so much about this Sky Fighter. He always seemed to toy with them agonisingly before he delivered the final thrust.
Eadgard was a dissident and radical whom Gremian had condemned for treason. He had been caught breaking into the palace's food store and would have been executed on the spot if he hadn't spouted a jaw-full of revolutionary gibberish. This meant he was a political prisoner and needed to be made an example of. His family was restrained above and were being forced to watch. They would be banished from the city following the execution. All of their possessions had already been seized by the government.
A guard entered behind the shadow born and their captive, passed in front of them, then dropped a sword to the ground at the prisoner's paws. He then unlocked each Shadow Fox, who disappeared, leaving the four chains attached to the prisoner. He tossed a key into the dust, with a tombstone smile, and quickly dove into the nearest exit sliding a rough iron gate shut behind him.
The Sky Fighter watched Eadgard as he nervously struggled to undo his bonds. One by one, the chains rattled to the ground and as the last one fell the Sky Fighter charged upon the prisoner, kicking him back towards the wall and against the gate that had just been shut. Eadgard landed on all fours just as his sword was kicked with a thwack into the wall beside him causing him to jump into the air uncontrollably.
The crowd laughed as he tried to pull the blade free. The Sky Fighter yawned and played with his sword in a disinterested way.
Eadgard wasn't a fighter but he was strong and a large chunk of wall remained on the end of the sword from the force of pulling it out. It weighted the blade down in his mouth but a great flick of the head exploded it against the wall and rewarded him a cheer. Above all the crowd wanted a challenging match and one which lingered.
Eadgard rushed with wild abandon taking the Sky Fighter momentarily off his guard. He managed to parry the thrust but not before Eadgard's bulk knocked him over and sent him sliding along the dirt. A loud “oooh” descended from the seating at the unexpected blow.
The Sky Fighter shook the dust from his armour like a wet canine and did a dance from side to side as he ran towards the prisoner. Eadgard dared to feel the slightest of hopes as he followed the Sky Fighter with his sword. But as he brought it down hard where he thought his opponent would be, all he met was air and sand. He felt a sharp pain in his back where the Sky Fighter had gingerly poked his blade. It was the type of wound that would hardly faze a fox but enough of them would bring about a slow and painful death.
Eadgard looked to the crowd above as a small amount of blood trickled down his side and met the eyes of his wife. She was tied with a rope between his son and daughter. She looked sad but stoic and Eadgard knew he needed to match her bravery. After all, once the fight was finished, his troubles would be over while hers were just beginning.
His sensitive ears picked up a short breath from the side and he rolled onto his back. The blade of the Sky Fighter passed through the air over him. Whatever his destiny, Eadgar was going to meet it with a fight. A fight his children would remember.
Spinning onto his feet he ran in a circle surprised not to see his opponent within the ring but just as he looked up he felt the pounce on his back and another cut near his neck. More blood began to sprinkle beneath him. The pain caused him to sway lightly.
The Sky Fighter, confident that he could end the fight at any moment, turned his back on Eadgar and juggled his sword in the air for the benefit of the crowd. With a desperate rage Eadgar pushed back onto his hind legs and whipped his head forward as he came back down. The blade flew from his jaws in a sharp arc aimed directly at the back of the Sky Fighter. For a moment it appeared this was going to be the end for the supposed greatest fighter in two decades. But the slightest of shifts put him out of harms way and, after the projectile stuck into the ground beside him, the Sky Fighter bounced off its tip, flipped into the air, and landed between Eadgar and the blade.
In a flash, the smaller Sky Fighter had slid his blade under the the larger fox and thrown him over his head back towards the blade. Eadgar landed hard but managed to pick up his weapon once again. Before he had time to raise the blade fully, however, it was smashed to the side and another slight cut was delivered, this time below his neck.
The Sky Fighter pushed Eadgar backwards with a spinning rear kick sending him towards the centre of the ring. The exhausted form of Eadgar was on the verge of collapse at the edge of the open hole. He knew that the fight was nearly over and strangely, rather than feeling fear from the scent of death which was rising from behind him, all he could focus on were the bright blue eyes of the Sky Fighter. There was something pleasing about them even as they considered how to deliver the killing blow.
Gremian relaxed back into his chair feeling thoroughly pleased by this Sky Fighter and his performance. The fight had lasted a good amount of time and by its end the prisoner was looking satisfactorily dispirited. He smiled as he looked at the family across from him tearfully howling over the noise of the crowd.
Just as the Sky Fighter was on the verge of delivering the killer blow, he paused and turned towards Gremian who was surprised by the antiquated gesture. The days of pardoning a condemned prisoner based on the courage of their fight had passed long ago. He realized it was a joke and another prod meant to antagonize Eadgar. He laughed and the rest of the crowd laughed with him. Pointing his snout to the pit, not to the Burrow of London above him, Gremian gave the traditional signal that the fight should be brought to its deadly conclusion. He leaned forward, with Alodia, watching as the Sky Fighter spoke a few inaudible words to the prisoner, no doubt words of condemnation.
Sweating slightly behind his mask, Roe, the Sky Fighter, thrust his sword, without hesitation or remorse, through the body of Eadgar and flung the prisoner with a dramatic flourish into the darkness of the pit below.
*
Once the fight had finished and the chaos of its aftermath had simmered, the guards held back the seething crowd so that Gremian and Alodia could pass.
“Was it everything you expected it to be, Alodia?”
“It was Sir. Very heroic on the part of the Sky Fighter and a just end for such a criminal. So much blood, however. It makes me feel ill.”
“Indeed, I bet it does. Well, you didn't make the most enjoyable company so you need not worry about coming with me again. Stay with your servants in the palace and do your painting or whatever it is you do. Ah, here is Daegal.”
The leader of the Inari gang had been summoned and was waiting near the carriage.
Over the past fifteen years Daegal had managed to add to his already unbelievable size by building a luxuriously drooping and rotund belly. He was still nimble on his paws, however, and did a graceful bow as the Supreme Chancellor ascended the steps out of the pit. He looked relaxed and confident and entirely used to dealing with Foxes well above him in class.
“Daegal. Part of me thinks I should be cross with you,” Gremian smiled, his stretched skin squashing his dead eye in the process. “You've obviously been making a killing out of this Sky Fighter's killing! Or should I be pleased with you? I'm not sure. Effectively he's providing the services of a state executioner for me, while lining those pockets for you. Where did you find him anyway?”
“Oh, my Lord, I scooped him out of the earth and moulded him like clay as I do with all my
fighters,” he responded deftly. “My lady, it is good to see you out.” He bowed low before the spouse of the Supreme Councillor and gave her a tender kiss on her front paw.
“Yes, she enjoys your fighter so much she didn't even gag on the gore.”
Pushing Daegal behind the carriage, he said sharply, “I let you run your activities because they parallel my own and save me and mine from much of the grunt work of keeping this city in line. As long as you pay me for the privilege, this relationship can continue, but if I ever learn you are keeping anything from me again you'll find your own great bulk sweating it out down there.” Then with a sinister smile he added, “To be honest, I don't care where you get them from. All I care about is the necessary distribution of talent. He's too good for you, Daegal, and I'm taking him.”
Hopping into the carriage, joining his already waiting wife, he added as the driver gave the hounds a bark to start pulling, “Three days. That's what he has before I expect him to report at the palace, Daegal. That or I'm shutting you both down.”
Daegal sat back and watched as the carriage spun around the bend and out of view.
Chapter Six
The tunnel ahead was empty as Roe trotted along it. A brisk breeze, channelled from an unknown source, tingled his whiskers. He felt good. The roar of the crowd lingering behind him beat a rhythm to accompany the surge of his heart . Tearing off his armour he left it lying in the dirt and after entering a steamy room he crawled into the hot and bubbling bath at its centre.
He smiled. At twenty-one he was the second in command of the Inari gang and probably the most popular fox in all of London. The crowd, the criminals, even the regime seemed to love him. But it wasn't the popularity that made him smile. It was his cunning deception and the fact that he'd saved the life of another political prisoner. As the waters lulled him into a half sleep he closed his eyes and vividly relived the final moments of the fight..
He was strong. The great lumbering idiot. Roe had let Eadgar come close to sticking him but had misjudged that strong shoulder and had fallen a little harder than intended. Otherwise, the fight had gone more or less as planned. Of course Eadgar had genuinely thought it was real and that his death was imminent. If he had known he was actually being saved, the crowd would have seen through it. Roe needed that genuine desperation in order to sell the save. The cuts had been real enough to draw blood but their depth was superficial. None of them were life threatening and Roe knew they wouldn't hinder him from crawling out of the mass grave. The wife of Eadgar knew. She had been the one approached by Daegal and the one who would pay the rescue fee.
Roe sank below the surface of the sulphurous water and laughed as he recalled the look on Eadgar's face when he spoke to him at death's edge.
“Eadgar, I am here to save your life.”
“What?” coughed Eadgar.
“When you hit the bottom crawl towards the light. It is either your salvation or you are dead already and have nothing to worry about. Either way, crawl towards the light. If you survive there will be a fox there to help you. Now don't move, this is going to sting a bit.”
Roe had thrust with his blade and it had passed through the body of Eadgar protruding from the other side. It had pierced the foxes skin near the shoulder, slid past the heart, between the lungs and had emerged half way down the opposite flank. Every vital piece of life inside the body was left untouched, and the only injuries were the two small holes made by the blade. The force of the thrust had sent Eadgar into the air giving Roe the opportunity to flip him off the blade with a dramatic and callous looking swipe.
He imagined Eadgar slamming hard into the side of the hole, sliding for an eternity before being tossed into the air, and landing amongst the piles of dead. It would be truly dark down there. The only light would come from a dim oil lamp held by Mercia, a Inari vixen who, after Daegal, was Roe's most trusted friend. Eadgar would have to push the bodies aside and struggle to make his way across decades of death and decay. He would have been confused as he struggled and would have gained strength by the rising hope that his family truly was waiting near the light.
He imagined Mercia pulling him to safety and laughed at what she was likely to have said.
“The Inari Gang have saved you. This is a debt that money cannot repay. The debt you owe to us remains. You carry it with you forever.”
As crass as she was, she had a good heart and would have offered him a strong shoulder as they ascended the secret tunnel out of the mass grave. She would have stitched his wounds and fed him once they arrived in the Inari stronghold hidden down one of the forgotten passageways of the Burrow. She would have waited with him, saying little and explaining nothing until his wife and children were brought before him, their eyes blinded so that they did not know the way.
“You must never return to the Great Burrow of London. You must head East to Shon's Spring. It is a town of other exiled foxes and you will be safe there,” he imagined her saying, handing them packs of food and a precisely drawn map showing the way.
Roe had drawn the map himself using his clawquill and a small pot of ink. They would have entered the cool night air above letting this unbelievable windfall of freedom push them towards a new life.
Roe put his head against the side of the bath and frowned. Family. The image of Samson leaving him to float down the Thames alone came unbidden to mind.
“What a joke,” he said from behind the steam.
“What's a joke?” Daegal barked behind him. “Don't stay in too long now Champion, I don't want you going all soft on me.”
“So what's the word, Daegal? One big happy family relocated to the countryside?”
“Yes, but not without some expense. I had to instruct a few of the soldiers guarding Eadgar's family that the prisoner owed the gang some money and that we would see them out to the surface. They were under orders to do it themselves and were being a bit stubborn so I sweetened the deal and offered a crate of wine for their barracks. That sent them running back to the palace.”
“That wasn't my winnings from last week, I hope!” Roe cried.
“Well, actually, it was,” Daegal answered, sliding into the water next to Roe.
“But calm yourself. You have successfully reunited a family and given them a new life together. And if that isn't enough for you then I will have no trouble arranging another fight so you can go win yourself some more.”
Roe scowled saying, “Somehow I don't see how this fee that these foxes pay actually covers our expenses. Besides, what do I care about reuniting families. We are undermining the council and that is enough for me.”
“You don't care about family? But I am your family, you little pup, as is the rest of the Inari Gang. What, you don't care about us?”
“Oh, I love you all of course,” Roe responded sarcastically.
“Well it looks like you are going to be leaving us anyway, and you can go and undermine the council from the comfort of your own palace bedroom.”
“What does that mean? What are you talking about?” Roe rose out of the water.
Daegal gave him a levelled look and said, “Gremian, our Supreme Councillor, has seen your skills and deems them worthy of service to his household. You've got three days.”
A look passed between them and their jovial bath started to feel uncomfortably damp and cold.
“Oh, crap,” sighed Roe.
*
There were many hidden and secret tunnels out of the Burrow of Challengers but Roe knew a crowd awaited him by way of the main entrance. He pandered to the crowd not just out of necessity but because, although his role was a violent one, it did bring some delight to the many foxes in the grips of despair.
He nipped at a few pups and gave a lick on the cheeks of a few vixens. He even had a mock fight with an ancient and retired champion who challenged him to a duel in the old style. Unarmed and blindfolded, they were required to rely on their sense of hearing alone. It wouldn't have been much of a fight even if the old fox could hear but Roe
let him win anyway to the great amusement of the crowd.
Eventually, the audience wandered off and their momentary joy was replaced by the familiar yet constant stare of poverty.
By the time Daegal and Roe reached the Paw Maul it was getting late and several of the stalls set into the tunnel walls had already been shuttered. A young fox wearing the fragments of a once great official uniform climbed a step ladder and was dimming the oil lamps one by one. A wealthy fox and vixen passed surrounded by an army of Shadow Foxes. They nodded to Daegal as they passed, who had sold them their guard at a hefty margin.
“Do you really think they need that many?” asked Roe.
Before Daegal could answer they were distracted by a disturbance at one of the Burrow entrances. A palace guard was screaming at a pair of foxes.
“Do you think we are stupid?! Clearly your marks weren't burned by the official Seal Maker. You've forged a brand, the punishment for which is death. Seeing as how I just paid to sharpen my blade I'm not going to dull it on your pathetic necks.” He looked to the guard on his left and ordered, “Take them to the dungeon. Cut off these marks and throw them back into one of the common burrows.”
The vixen screamed as she was led away and her husband tried to fight back only to be knocked unconscious and dragged along. She was pregnant, no doubt on the verge of birthing, and had been trying to pass into one of the exclusive burrows. It was a constant battle to find the Light these days and things were becoming worse, thought Roe. There was little hope for those without the proper access. In the common Burrows probably only ten out of a hundred were being born of the Light any more. The rest came into this world as Shadow Foxes.
“Things are getting pretty rough, Roe. Even in the guarded wealthy burrows where the Light is strongest there have been attacks. The wealthy are killing each other now as their precious space gets tighter and tighter. So, yes, I do think they need that many.”
The Progeny of Able (The Burrow of London Series Book 1) Page 10
