Vanquished

by S. E. Green

  He takes one step away, puts his hands behind his back, and gives me another long study. “I’m just not seeing it. I’m more inclined to send you back to the auction block and end my arrangement with you. At least then I’ll make back some of my money.”

  I look over to Alexior who stares back at me with a grave expression. My eyes flick back to Dominus. “I’ll do anything,” I plead.

  “Hm.” He purses his lips. “Anything?”

  Hope rushes through me even though my gut clenches with his calculating tone. “Anything.”

  “All right.” He unclasps his hands. “I’m sending you to fight in The Hole.”

  Alexior steps forward. “Dominus—”

  He cuts him a dark look that effectively shuts him up and then glances back to me. “You survive three days there and I’ll let you back to training here.”

  He turns to Alexior. “I want everyone out there to know that a day does not go by where they should feel comfort. And if they ever defy or manipulate me The Hole is where I will send them as well.”

  Dominus rakes me with a haughty, disgusted look. “Have her ready for tonight.” Then he turns and exits the cell.

  Immediately, I look at Alexior. “What’s The Hole?”

  Solemnly, he crosses the cell and unlocks my wrists. I’m used to him being quiet, stern, stoic, but something is very different about him right now. Whatever The Hole is, it is not good.

  I listen to the clank of metal as he unlatches my wrists. When they go free, I turn and stare up into his gray eyes. The somberness in them makes my heartbeat begin throbbing in my ears. “What’s The Hole?” I repeat.

  He straightens and pulls his shoulders back, like he’s reminding himself to be hard. “It’s filthy. It’s vicious. It’s gory. It turns humans into beasts. There is no surrender. One lives. One dies.”

  I catch my breath, and the bones in my body give way, and with that I slowly begin to fall to my knees.

  Alexior digs his fingers into the front of my tunic and hauls me right back up. He brings me close to his face. “Do you want to survive?”

  It’s vicious. It’s gory. It turns humans into beasts… His words fog my brain and my head lulls back.

  Alexior gives me a hard jerk, and my head snaps back up. “Do you want to survive?”

  I nod.

  “Then forget honor. There is no index finger. You are hard. You are cold. You are an animal. You have to kill to stay alive.”

  Heat presses through my eyes and though I don’t want them too, they blur with tears.

  Alexior grabs both of my arms and shakes me almost violently. “Stop it.” He pierces me with a steely look. “Don’t cry.” Another hard shake. “Stop it right now.”

  I try to focus on his words. I try to get my emotions in check, but I can’t seem to. One lives. One dies. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.

  He lets go of me, grabs my sister’s bracelet, and yanks it right off my wrist. My entire body and all my thoughts snap to attention and I hurl myself at him. “Give that back!”

  He spins and pushes me up against the stone wall, pinning his arm across my chest just like he did the first day I was here. My breaths come in pants as I struggle against him and he plants the side of his lower body against mine to hold me in place.

  “There,” he says, holding the bracelet up in front of my face. “Now you’re back.”

  His words filter in and with them my breaths begin to even out. I stop struggling and he steps back.

  “Who goes to The Hole?” I manage to get out.

  “A variety. Some are sold on the auction block and go straight there. Some of the elite use it as discipline. Others are banished there to never return. You are fortunate Dominus has sentenced you to three days.”

  Fortunate? That’s laughable.

  “Ignatius will be your escort.” Alexior puts my bracelet into a black leather pouch tied around his waist. “I’ll keep this for you. You don’t want this in The Hole. The fact I’m keeping this for you should be proof enough that I have no doubts you will return.”

  I fix my eyes on the pouch, aching at the thought of my sister. “Promise me if I don’t return that you will one day give that back to my sister and tell her how much I loved her.”

  I know he can’t really make me that promise, but I need to at least hear it.

  He nods. “I promise.”

  ~17~

  As Alexior said, Ignatius goes with me to The Hole. I’m blindfolded for transport, but by the length of the trip I guess the location to be back toward the marketplace.

  Blindly, I’m led down the length of a long tunnel. By the shuffle of my feet and weight distribution in my thighs and shins I can tell we’re descending.

  The smell hits me first. Puke and piss and feces and decay. Before I know it’s happening, my cheeks puff and I throw up in my mouth and have to spit it out underneath my hood.

  The sounds hit me next. People yelling and cussing and screaming and laughing. It’s a demented combination.

  Ignatius slips my hood off and it’s only then that I realize he’s dressed differently. Gone is his brown tunic and in its place is a cream one. I wonder if the difference in color has anything to do with being out of the ludus and walking around freely. He gives me a nudge, and I stumble straight into a cell. As I turn, he flips the bolt. He stands with his back to me, arms folded, legs wide, and surveys the room.

  There’re fifty or so men and women tightly pressed together in a circle cheering on the fight in the middle. There are too many bodies, and I can’t see who is fighting. Up high sits a tiny balcony with only two of the most elite. I don’t recognize either one of them.

  I tear my gaze away and land on a wall to the left where—my eyes widen—human skins hang from nails. Faces. Breasts. Butts. Strips that must have come from the stomach or the thigh. From some of them blood still trails down the stone wall making it evident they are fresh.

  Acid rolls right up my esophagus and I heave what’s left in my stomach.

  Ignatius glances over his shoulder. “Don’t look around. Close your eyes and focus.”

  Every muscle in my body begins violently, uncontrollably shaking. I spit and wipe my mouth.

  The crowd parts just a little and I glance up to see one of the fighters swing a sledgehammer up and straight down into his opponent’s skull. Blood squirts, an eyeball flies, and seemingly every bone in the man’s head collapses.

  The crowd goes from wild to crazy insanity, and I grip the iron bars and dry heave. The sound increases and I flatten my palms over my ears. It physically hurts to hear them.

  Someone in the crowd hands the winner a knife and he slowly fillets the skin right off of what’s left of the dead man’s face. Then he struts the skin over to the wall and ceremoniously nails it.

  The crowd jumps up and down, pumping the air with their fists, screaming, chanting the winner’s name. He yells back, raising his fists. He’s naked, except for a cloth winding his mid-section. Through the dirt and blood smeared on his body I see tattoos. Dozens of them. He walks away from the wall and comes right past me and is locked into the cell beside mine.

  He’s a prisoner, too.

  What did he do to be sent to this hell? Has he been here in Saligia forever like Ignatius or is he a new slave like me?

  There’s no wall that separates his cell from mine, only bars. I watch as he sits down on a bench and brings his blood shot eyes up to mine. Gone is the cockiness of a few seconds ago. His eyes are lifeless now. Flat. Like he’s been fighting in The Hole night after night. Killing. Tearing people’s faces off. He doesn’t even acknowledge me and instead closes his eyes and drops his head.

  I wonder if he has to fight again tonight.

  I wonder if I have to fight him.

  Ignatius opens my cell. “Let’s go.”

  I take a deep breath and force it out steady and strong. One lives. One dies. I am cold. I am hard. These things stick in my mind. I will do whatever it takes to stay alive.
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  Every tendon, every muscle, every artery in my body is so tight I’m amazed I can walk. I use the tenseness to hold myself straight and powerful. I don’t look anywhere but straight ahead as I’m led through the crowd.

  They recognize me from the arena and immediately begin booing, spitting on me, pushing me. I ignore them.

  Ignatius comes to stand in front of me, and I crane my neck to look up at him.

  My pulse pounds so loudly I can barely hear myself hoarsely ask, “Have you ever fought here before?”

  “Yes.” He rolls his eyes down to a chain I just now realize is hidden in the sand and then just as quickly brings his eyes back to mine. “They won’t give you a weapon for this first fight. Use whatever you need to.”

  I nod, but I don’t glance back down at the chain. I don’t want anybody to know what Ignatius just showed me.

  He disappears back into the crowd and I’m shoved into the middle of the ring. I want to dissolve into the shadows and pretend I’m not here. But I’m very present and accounted for.

  My eyes trail over to the pool of blood that marks the spot where the other man just died. His body is gone now.

  I turn a slow circle, taking in everyone’s faces. Laughing. Sneering. Still spitting. I channel it all inward and it boils vehemence through my veins.

  The chain Ignatius pointed out runs the circumference of the circle and marks the fighting area. He was right, no one gives me any weapons.

  A woman steps into the circle. She looks like the dirty version of Camille. Average height. Muscular. Short greasy blond hair. She’s topless and her breasts are even smaller than mine.

  She wears only a leather thong. Filth streaks her arms and legs. From the way the crowd chants her name—Odonna, Odonna, Odonna—she’s obviously a favorite.

  She sizes me up. “Only one of us leaves this circle alive. This is my sixteenth fight. That’s all I have to say.” From behind her back she holds up a squirming mouse by its tail. She tilts her head back, and I watch in horror as she bites off the rodent’s head. Even through the roar of the demonic crowd, I can hear it squeal.

  She flings the hairy limp body over her shoulder and spits the head in my direction. Rodent blood drips down her face. She catches it with her dirty forearm and then licks it right off.

  Inwardly, I grimace and wonder what she was like on her first fight. How long did it take her to become this possessed person standing in front of me?

  Odonna charges me then, hissing, teeth bared, her hands up and dirty nails ready to scratch my eyes out. I give those nails another look. They are metal and attached to her fingers. Her weapons.

  I crouch, eye the hidden chain in my periphery, and calculate three—two—one. I drop and roll, grab the metal links, and am back on my feet before she’s barely stumbled past.

  Do not allow advantage to your back. That’s exactly what she’s done and I don’t give her a second of reprieve.

  I’m quick and I’m little. I use both as I leap through the air and snake myself around her from the back.

  She screams and claws at me and tries to shake me off. I cringe as her nasty metal nails rake down my bare arms and I fight to wind the chain around her neck. The weight of it in my fingers, the roughness of it, feels deadly.

  She pulls at it and tries to buck me off and I just fight harder. I get the chain wrapped once around her neck, then twice, grit my teeth, and pull as hard as I can.

  She won’t choke out.

  I struggle for one more wrap and adrenaline spikes through me erupting a yell from my very core. I squeeze both ends of the chain in opposing directions so hard my hands bleed. She falls to her knees, then flat onto her face, and then stops moving altogether.

  The violent roar of the crowd buzzes energy through my body and I don’t stop pulling the chain. She’s dead. I know she’s dead. But I can’t take any chances.

  I scream a sob, and it grates my throat. I keep yanking until my arms throb, until the chain bites deep into her skin and her blood mixes with my own to coat the metal links.

  I fall off of her and scramble away. My heart bangs my ribs and I gasp for breath as I stare at her lifeless body. All around me people yell their senseless cheers. Chanting my name now. “Va-lor-i-a. Va-lor-i-a. Va-lor-i-a.”

  Shut up! I want to scream.

  I close my eyes and shake my head. No! I just killed another human being. Nooo…

  I open my eyes and through tears see my sister sitting just a few feet away, tears streaking her own dirty face. Her dark and sad yet frightened eyes look down at the dead woman and then back at me.

  She reaches a gentle hand toward me. “It’s okay,” she whispers.

  I reach out, too, but I touch only air. And then she’s gone.

  Filthy. Vicious. Gory. Turns humans into beasts.

  Alexior is right, and the realization stabs me with hot pain. I am now a beast.

  ~18~

  For three whole days I live and breathe the same cell in The Hole. Around me the other prisoners scream to be let out. Shout for the fights. Yell threatening and intimidating things at each other. There is no sunlight or fresh air. Only the flickering of torches illuminate the underworld we are all in.

  We don’t bathe, and we’re given a bucket for a toilet. We’re allowed one meal a day and though I have no clue what it is, though it looks and tastes horrible, I still eat it. I need nourishment if I’m going to survive. Not having walls between our cells only elevates the fear and insanity. We do nothing but stare at each other during the day, waiting for night to settle in, waiting for the next round of fights to begin.

  In my head I practice everything I’ve learned from Alexior. I think of all the fighting techniques my father taught me. And then I repeat it all. It’s the only thing that helps me block out my surroundings.

  The crowd loves me. They roar my name at the vile things I do. I try not to be brainwashed by the sick adoration, but I am a beast now and I raise my fists in victory and ignore the bile that whirls in my mouth. I am going insane.

  On night one after the metal finger girl, I’m “treated” to a weapon. I pretend my next opponent is Dominus and I kill him with a large spike. He knocks out one of my teeth. When he takes his last breath there’s this terrified look in his eyes that I know will always haunt me.

  On night two, I imagine Bareket as I beat a woman to death with rusted brass knuckles. She gives me a swollen eye. Her quiet frown and muffled groan will linger for eternity in my mind.

  Tonight is night three and my last night here. If I survive tonight, I’m done. If I had to go beyond tonight, I’d probably willingly give my life to end this torturous hell.

  The vision of my sister hasn’t returned since that first night. I try and conjure her image or a memory—especially the one where I use to poke her and she’d giggle—but nothing will come.

  Her face is just a blur. Her voice mute.

  I wonder if it is because she’s so horrified by me now she doesn’t want to visit even in my mind. I wonder if it is because she’s dead and I truly have nothing to live for.

  If she’s dead I wish someone would tell me so I could die too.

  Into the fighting circle steps the man from day one. The man who filleted his opponent’s face and hung it on the wall. If he wins, will he do the same to me? My stomach squeezes. Probably.

  He’s been in the cell beside me for the last three days, and he’s never said a word. He fights. He wins. And he goes back to his cell. We’ve been beside each other for three days and I don’t even know his name.

  We survey each other across the circle and in his eyes I now see my own vacant, stony ones. We are both desperate. Callous. Numb. But something way deep in his is different than mine. Whatever he was fighting for is no longer there. This man is done.

  The realization pangs my chest and I welcome it. It’s the first bit of humanity I’ve experienced in three days. He is how I would look if I found out my sister was dead.

  He’s given the same sled
gehammer I saw him use that first night. I’m given a double bladed spear.

  He lifts the sledgehammer straight up and comes toward me. I crouch and lift the spear. His sledgehammer swings through the air and I duck and lunge and he walks straight into my double blade.

  I suck in a breath and stare into his bloodshot eyes as the sledgehammer thuds to the sand. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “Okay now,” he gasps, grips my hands, and forces me to twist and push the spear further in.

  Familiar pressure warms my eye sockets and I blink the tears free. A short laugh puffs from my lips and it sounds insane to my ears. I’m weirdly giddy with fatigue and the knowledge this is officially over. I’m alive.

  More tears slip out and I look up into his face to see him crying, too, smiling, and I wonder if he’s seeing heaven right now.

  His whole body freezes and then he slouches toward me. I try to catch as much of his weight as possible so he doesn’t crash into the sand.

  When I look up, my sister stands across the pit, smiling through tears of her own. She’s alive. She’s still alive. I know it in every inch of my soul.

  “Va-lor-i-a. Va-lor-i-a. Va-lor-i-a.”

  The crowd parts and relief rushes through me when I see Ignatius. He’s come for me. Without a word, he leads me through the tunnel and away from the hell of The Hole.

  He doesn’t blindfold me on the way back to the villa, and I discover I was right. We were under the marketplace the whole time. I imagine being sold on the auction block and immediately transported to The Hole. I likely wouldn’t have lasted one fight.

  Dominus and Alexior are waiting for me when I return. It’s late and everyone is already asleep. They’re standing in the middle of the training ground in the exact spot I saw Alexior staring up at the stars. Ignatius walks right past us and goes into the men’s quarters.

  The air seems very thick and warm tonight. Or maybe it’s just Dominus’ presence.

  I’m exhausted. I’m sore. I’m starving. But I make myself stand in front of the two of them. Dominus wrinkles his nose. I know I stink. I know I’m filthy. I don’t care.