by Heath Pfaff
Yulin turned and headed for the outskirts of the ring, and suddenly the girl burst into motion. She shot forward towards the boy who was still watching the instructor go and she slammed her fist into his throat with surprising force. He grabbed for his neck in shock and stumbled forward a step. She used this forward motion to drive her knee hard into his groin and he fell to the ground, clutching his damaged genitals. At this point the girl kicked him in the head, once, twice, a third time as blood and teeth sprayed across the dirt. She stopped and took a step back. The boy wasn’t moving.
Yulin finished her walk to the edge of the circle and looked back. “Kingston wins. Drag Hindle out of the arena and back to his squad.” She unrolled the list. “Yorvock and Felchron, you’re next.”
I knew shock was evident on my face when I turned to Trilla. “Didn’t she cheat? Yulin wasn’t even out of the ring yet?!”
Trilla shook her head. “No, there is no cheating in the ring. She was a second year and Hindle was a first. She used her knowledge of the game to her advantage. It was the only way she could win with their relative sizes. It was smart. No one else will get to do that. If she hadn’t gone first today, she probably would have lost. She’s not particularly strong. That was an important lesson for all of us. Watch all of these fights carefully. The things you learn might save your life.”
Still stunned, I did as I was told, watching every single fight with careful attention and trying to learn as much as possible. In most cases the fighter who put more thought into the fight seemed to come out on top. Sex and size didn’t seem to matter as much as the determination to win and the willingness and thoughtfulness to be clever about how it was done. The problem seemed to be, as far as I could tell, that the number of tricks to be done were wearing thin. As the day wore on, there were less and less new ways to exploit opponents, and some few of the combatants were so strong that even very clever strategy was defeated by sheer strength.
“Etzel, Vandry, you’re next.” A voice called, and my expression went cold. Etzel was my last name, though my family had disowned me so I really had no right to claim it. Still, the combatants were all called by their surnames. A girl bigger than me, stronger looking, stepped into the ring, but I stood frozen. Everyone was looking around, waiting for me to step forward, but I was too afraid to move. They couldn’t mean me , I thought. I’m not ready. I would never be ready.
“Lillin Etzel!” Yulin snapped. “You will be ejected from this school if you don’t get your marked face out here immediately. I will personally cut your head off right here.” Her words were dark and cold, and I wondered absently how it was possible that she seemed to know everyone who was fighting. I couldn’t remember having ever met the woman before.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” Trilla snapped, and then she was shoving me, stiff legs and all, forward to my death. “Stop embarrassing us even more than you already have.” She gave an even harder push and I tumbled the rest of the way into the ring, a cacophony of laughter and jeering following after me.
The other girl came on quickly while I was still struggling to get back on my feet without leaning on my two broken wrists. The bigger girl leveled a powerful kick at my already injured ribs and it landed before I could manage to get up again, nearly knocking the air out of my lungs. The more aggressive girl fell upon me then, ripping at my hair and pummeling me with fists as fast as she could. The blows weren’t strong, but they were quick and aimed for my face and head. I was losing. I was going to die. I let loose a scream and slammed a hand powered by desperation and backed by an only recently beginning to heal broken wrist into the face of my attacker with as much force as I could muster. A loud crack sounded and sparks of pain flared through my body. My stomach turned from the sensation.
In desperation I slammed my head forward, smashing my forehead into the other girl’s face. This caused her to back off for a small moment. I still couldn’t really see anything. My vision was swimming from the pain of fracturing my wrist again so violently, but I thought for a moment that I might have won the fight. As my head cleared, though, it soon became apparent I was wrong. The other girl rammed into me in a dive that took us both from our feet and slammed us hard into the dusty but solid ground. I felt fingers curl into my hair and the next thing I knew my head was being slammed into the ground over and over again.
I struck out with my other arm and landed a hard blow, sending sparks of pain up my other arm. “Help!” I tried to call out, but the word came out as little more than a squeak as the blows kept slamming into my skull.
Blackness crept in around the edges of my vision, and before I knew it I was unconscious. I awoke what must have only been seconds later as I was being dragged from the ring and thrown at Trilla’s feet. The crowd was clapping and cheering as I looked back into the ring to see the other girl walking away the victor. As she turned back in my direction though, it was clear that I hadn’t lost easily. One of Vandry’s eyes was swelling closed with a huge bloody gash above it and her nose was flat and pouring blood down her face.
Trilla knelt down next to me with an almost amused grin on her face. “You’ve got a piece of bone sticking out.” She said and pointed at the wrist I had just broken again. Indeed, there was a piece of shattered bone sticking out of the side at an unnatural angle. My head swam and I almost passed out again. Strangely it didn’t hurt that much, but seeing it was sickening. “For being a coward you fought alright. You still lost, but everyone was surprised.” She stood up after that, clearly done talking to me.
I sat up in the dirt, already forgotten as the next round of fights kicked off. I wondered if I would receive medical attention for my injuries or if I would just eventually die from them. I was dead anyway if Trilla lost her fight. It really didn’t matter. No one cared. I’d failed the one person that had a stake in things, and so now no one cared whether I lived or died at all.
There was a depressing finality to it. I’d been given another chance, and somehow managed to squander it away. Of course that wasn’t exactly right. I’d tried, but it didn’t matter that I’d tried. Trying didn’t keep me alive. I’d needed to win to live and I’d failed, so clearly my will to live couldn’t outshine my opponent’s will to win. That was a lesson in Will, and one that I could only learn once.
There were more fights, but I couldn’t bring myself to be interested in them. They didn’t really matter. I didn’t know who was fighting and had no stake in their wins or losses. I sat in agonized misery and nursed my broken wrists as those around me completely ignored the fact that I was lying broken amongst them.
“Illfin, Kavinow, you’re fighting next.” A voice called, and this shook me partially from my funk. Trilla Illfin. It was her turn in the ring. I didn’t exactly care what happened at this point, but some morbid curiosity drew my eyes anyway. It did matter, of course. If Trilla lost, I would be killed, but I was already dead really. I couldn’t go on like I was. Still, I found myself crawling back to my feet and vying for a place to watch the fight. If Trilla won, I might live to fight again, to try and make myself better. It was all that I had. I tried to force myself to care. The pain in my wrists was so all-consuming that it was hard to see past it.
Trilla entered the ring, and I looked across the circle at the other combatant. My eyes opened wide in shock. Kavinow was a monster. The boy was easily seven feet tall, and twice as wide across as Trilla. His fists were the size of her head, and there was something sort of off about his expression. He looked less than whole, as though he wasn’t really a thinking being, but just one of instinct. His expression was slack, his eyes not really engaging anything.
If Trilla noticed any of this she didn’t make any indication as she stepped into the ring. The fight began.
Trilla exploded forward, a flurry of power and motion that was startling to see. It was almost difficult for me to associate the foul mouthed, cruel woman I’d been with to this point with the agile, razor honed fighter that jumped forward towards Kavinow. I’d taken the boast
of my companion’s prowess as just that, a boast. As Trilla advanced she rolled forward and I saw her come up with something from the floor of the arena. I couldn’t see what it was exactly, but as Trilla closed the last of the distance between her and her opponent a streak of red opened up on his arm. She’d clearly found some sort of sharp rock or a piece of metal, some debris on the floor that made for a fine cutting edge.
Kavinow grunted as his blood spattered across the ground, his eyes falling upon it with seeming indifference at first. Trilla didn’t hesitate though. She darted back in on his back and struck again with her makeshift weapon. More lines of crimson opened across his flesh as the fabric of his shirt tore away. She was taking him down, one hit at a time. It was quite the spectacle.
Watching in stunned silence, I tried not to get excited at the prospect that she might win, that our team might not have to lose a member. Of course I would be the member that was lost. If Trilla won, then I could stay. I could fight again, and next time I would do better. Trilla was doing well. A small smile managed its way to my face. Despite moments before thinking I didn’t care, as the taste of a possible new chance touched me, I suddenly was consumed by it.
Trilla jumped on Kavinow’s back, her blade cutting into the meat at the base of his neck, and for the first time something lit on the giant’s face. There was a spark in his dull eyes as he looked down at his own blood, and with that spark came something unexpected and terrible. In him was a manifest rage unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was so terrifying that I actually opened my mouth to call out a warning, but it was far too late.
Kavinow reached over his back and grabbed ahold of Trilla by the head, his one hand closed around her skull. She struck at his hand, stabbing him time and again in the fingers, chunks of flesh falling to the ground.
“Stop it . . . “ I said quietly, my voice raspy and broken, sounding strange because of my shattered nose. “Someone stop it!” I said, trying to make myself louder.
Kavinow’s arm snapped over his shoulder, swinging Trilla by her head and there was a loud pop as something in her neck gave way and her body snapped forward like a whip. Her entire neck distended in an unnatural way and her body went limp. The small, sharp implement she’d been using, just a rock, fell from her suddenly slack hands. Kavinow threw her to the ground and began to slam his fists into her but it didn’t matter. She was already dead. Blood splattered into the air and her body distorted, smashed and breaking, becoming a flesh sack full of broken pieces as he continued until Master Yulin approached him and suddenly his body hit the ground without her even touching him. There was a stirring in the air, and an oppressive force rolled from her, smashing him to the ground violently.
“Enough.” She said. “This fight is over. Kavinow, clean up your mess.” She looked down at a list in her hand. “Revin, Gillavan, you’re up next.” She announced, and that was it. The competition moved on to the next round. Trilla was dead and no one spoke of it again. It was like she’d simply ceased to exist.
The one person who’d cared anything about me one way or the other was erased and I was alone. I wasn’t sure what this meant for me. She’d said that one person would be eliminated from our group if we lost, but did her death count or would I still be killed? The thought that I might live sent a rush of excitement through me that was immediately followed by a wave of guilt. To take joy from Trilla’s horrible death was sick, but it had given me some small hope that I might go on living a while longer.
The mix of disgust at myself and hope was a terrible thing. It felt like a knife had been plunged into my stomach and was being twisted. The worst part was that I had no one to ask. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. No one would talk to me. No one would even acknowledge me. My wrists didn’t hurt anymore, but with the bone jutting out of one of them I had to guess that wasn’t a good sign.
I sat and watched things unfold before me numbly. I didn’t even notice when everything was over and people were called back into their groups.
“Those groups in which there were no winners, you will cast out one member of your team. Choose wisely because the strength of your team is what takes you forward. Weakness is failure. Lack of will is failure. Will is strength.” One of the people responsible for our training was speaking but I didn’t hear any of it. I was feeling light headed and nauseated. Everything felt vaguely distant and confusing.
“Those two teams who had a member die, well, you’re the lucky ones. You don’t have to vote anyone out since your weakest teammate is already gone. Your teams will join now.” The voice said, and I had enough sense to realize that they were talking about me, but I was still in a fog. “Those who need medical help can now report to the black healer’s tent in the square. In ten minutes we begin the casting out ceremony. Anyone attempting to flee will be eviscerated alive.”
This place was a nightmare. I couldn’t even begin to grasp if this was still real or if I’d fallen into some kind of delirious state of half-reality. Were they really going to brutally murder those who tried to flee? Why would anyone try to run when they could be gladly expelled from this horrible place? Then it occurred to me. There were others like me, those marked with a skull. They couldn’t flee. If they’d been voted out they would be executed. It might be in their best interest to try and run, but now doing so came with the promise of an even worse death.
Yet I was free of that worry. Trilla had died so I didn’t have to.
“Go to the black tent.” Someone said to me and I was pushed roughly in some direction. I tried to look and see who had pushed me, but I couldn’t make out faces anymore. Everything was hazy, voices indistinct, faces a blur of unknowable features.
“Deady.”
“Lucky deady.”
“Lucky.”
“Probably so happy that girl died.”
“So lucky.”
Were they voices or my own haunted thoughts echoing back at me? I stumbled along until I reached a wall of darkness and stopped, and then a figure rose up before me and grabbed me by the shoulder. I struggled against the grip, but it was too much to resist. Was it death? Was I being dragged into the great abyss?
“Hold still, creature. If the magic sets in incorrectly your wrist won’t work right anymore.” A voice, cold and angry snapped.
“What?” I asked, my tongue feeling thick in my mouth.
The loud snapping that followed resounded like a clap of thunder and came with so much pain radiating from my freshly re-broken wrist that I let out an agonized scream and almost crumbled to the ground. There was another with an equal amount of pain, this one coming from my other wrist, and a moment later another pop sounded in my nose, followed by yet another wave of agony, but as it subsided my vision cleared and the haze of misery seemed to lessen. I still felt weak, tired, but the pain was going away.
There was a skinny woman standing before me. She was dressed in dark gray robes. She had tattoos all over her face and arms, words, scrawled so small I couldn’t make any of them out, or perhaps they weren’t in a language I could read. Her eyes burned an angry orange-red and there were pain lines etched into every nuance of her features as though she’d known and still knew great suffering. She had a spiked collar around her neck, the metal studs sharp and dangerous looking, coated in dried blood, and it looked like there was a set on the inside of the collar as well as the outside so that they stabbed into the woman’s flesh. There was a narrow channel in the center of the collar that looked like it could hold a small amount of liquid. It was one of the strangest things I’d ever seen.
“You’re healed. Eat heavily tonight. Your energy was taken to knit the broken bones and cartilage. If you don’t eat a lot you’re going to be weak for a very long time. Go.” She pointed back behind me towards a flap in the tent. There were others around us, more people being treated for injuries with the same callous indifference. It felt strange to have a healer seem so unconcerned with me. Magic healing was expensive. I’d never known anyone to have it do
ne and here they were treating everyone. Though I felt weak, I also felt much better than I had when I came in.
I found my way out of the tent and back out into the commons. Groups had formed, people talking quietly amongst themselves, some laughing and joking while their comrades were healed, others looking wide eyed and scared. They were all beginning to realize that what they’d gotten themselves involved in was far more dangerous than they’d thought.
The Wardens of Will were mad, an order of psychotics with no consideration for humanity. Though I couldn’t decide who was more damaged, the Wardens or those who had volunteered for this training. They hated me because I’d been thrown in here against my will, but they were the ones who were fools. If I could escape from this place I would in a moment, but for me the only escape left was death, and I’d already dodged death once.
I was distracted from these thoughts by screams. I looked around and saw a young man with a skull tattooed on his face shrieking at the top of his lungs. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but a group of others were around him, each trying to restrain him.
“No, you can’t do this! I was the closest to winning! Stov off, the Blackened have at you!” He screamed, kicking and fighting those who were trying to hold him down. “You’re weak! Weak! They said to get rid of the weakest, and it’s not me! I’m not going!” He swung a fist and it connected with the face of another young man, sending him reeling to the ground, and then a woman a bit older than me dove at his legs and dragged him to the dirt. I came closer to hear what was happening, though I could already guess some of it.
Everyone in his team had lost and they’d chosen him to be kicked out, which meant he’d be killed since he was a deady. A second boy had jumped on top of him and was now punching him in the stomach over and over again.
