131 Days [Book 1]

by Keith C. Blackmore

  “Don’t pick at those,” Goll ordered him, meaning the bandages. The Kree’s mantis eyes swivelled in their sockets, and Halm wasn’t sure if he was looking at him or someplace else. “All right? Good. We have to talk, you know.”

  “Huh?”

  “We have to talk about what to do tomorrow.”

  “Ah.” Muluk sighed with exasperation and lapsed into Kree speech, none of which Halm could understand. Sometimes he wished he could hear his native Zhiberian tongue being spoken, but tonight wasn’t one of those nights. Muluk turned back to him. As with the others, his eyes were damn near popping out of his face. The frightful things appeared the size of white saucers. Even worse, the Kree’s yellow teeth jutted out of his jaw at irregular angles and lengths, and his scraggly features shrank underneath the expanding eyes, which were blackening like a spider’s. Halm didn’t feel any fear, however. If anything, he was genuinely amused by his companions’ interesting new looks.

  “I told him to leave you alone.” Muluk leaned over and smiled, his teeth springing forth from his mouth like great fence pickets.

  Halm chuckled, remained calm, and took another pull from his pitcher. “I don’t… don’t mind,” Halm replied. “What is it we have… to talk about? Anyway?”

  “See,” Goll said accusingly to Muluk. “Go back to her.”

  On cue, the woman next to Muluk, a blond-haired girl of perhaps twenty, pulled him closer. Muluk said something that sounded like a curse, but then he was in his companion’s arms, half-smothered in limbs gleaming like wet pearls in the overhead lamp.

  “The guild.” Goll leaned forward, his eyes now ogling different points of the alcove. It was difficult to meet his gaze.

  “Are you drinking this?” Halm held out his wine.

  Both of Goll’s eyes lined up to peer inside the pitcher. He shook his head. Halm observed that when Goll leaned forward, parts of the man’s scalp rose and swelled as if plums were about to pop forth.

  “Where’d you get this?” Goll asked.

  Halm pointed at the throng of people. In the middle of the men and women, Pig Knot crowed and grinned like a hyena.

  “Him?” Goll’s swollen face split into a hideous smile that might have reached the back of his ears. It fascinated Halm while the table stretched out in all directions at once.

  “Pig Knot!” Goll motioned for the Sunjan to come forward. He did, grin blazing as if it were pitch on fire, with two women still clinging to his muscular arms.

  “What?” He looked from Goll to Halm and then blinked again at Halm. Seeing those mighty eyes close and open made Halm smile in delighted wonder.

  “You poisoned him!” Goll shouted.

  “Did no such thing, you punce.”

  “Look at the man! He’s pickled!”

  Halm did indeed feel pickled. Not that it was a bad thing. Pig Knot zoomed in closer, his face a black moon of eyes and concerned smiles. He tsked, and the sound crackled like ocean rocks tumbling over each other.

  “Hm,” Pig Knot remarked. “If he’s in there, he’s feeling no pain, I wager.”

  “What is this?” Goll demanded, indicating the pitcher.

  “Sunjan Gold,” Pig Knot answered. “The finest I could buy in this pisshole. He deserved a little taste of the good stuff after putting that screamer into the ground.”

  “Wine couldn’t have done this to him.”

  “Well,” Pig Knot said slyly, “maybe I bought a little something more. And maybe he ate it.”

  “You…” Goll trailed off, shaking his head and appearing horrified.

  “He’s not going to perish or anything,” Pig Knot countered.

  “I’d say he’s perished and come back,” Muluk added from the depths of his woman’s arms.

  “Didn’t ask you,” Pig Knot said.

  “I’ll remember that when he’s pissed himself.”

  Pig Knot frowned and shook his head. “He’s not going to piss himself.” Then to Halm, “Don’t piss yourself.”

  “I wanted to talk to him this night,” Goll said, his voice cutting through the momentary darkness of Halm closing his eyes.

  “About what?” Pig Knot asked. Both his and Goll’s faces resembled suns now.

  “Starting a house of our own.”

  “Did you take a sip of that?” Pig Knot wanted to know, sending his clinging women into giggles.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now’s not the time to speak of starting houses. I’ll get a woman for you.”

  “I don’t want a woman.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t want a woman? Look at these! You should––wait, you’re not a daisy, are you?”

  Goll looked mortified. “No, I’m not a––look. Off with you. Get a room.”

  “Who needs a room?” Pig Knot exclaimed. “The next alcove over has the table cleared.”

  Goll had no response to that.

  “Right, we’re off.” Pig Knot suddenly swooped both women off their feet and squeezed them to squeals. With a roar, he spun out of sight.

  “Doesn’t he fight in the morning?” Muluk asked.

  “I’m not sure he knows,” Goll replied, “or cares.”

  A slow-blinking Halm watched the Sunjan disappear around a corner. Even though it was only a corner, the simple completion of the movement fascinated him. He scratched at his belly and regarded Goll across the table. “Start a house?”

  “A house.” Goll nodded, taking the lead, and leaned in. “I’ve been thinking more on it.”

  “Been thinking, too.” Halm grunted and took a dangerous-sounding breath.

  “You see the wisdom in it?”

  Halm grunted again. “Can’t keep doing this.” He patted his bandages. “Getting old. Sooner. Or later. A screamer like Vadrian the pisser is going to fishhook me dead. So aye that, a house seems a… a good reckoning. I figure.”

  He exhaled hard enough to rattle his lips, wrinkling up his face, and spittle flew.

  “This is pickled talk,” Muluk said and rattled off a burst of Kree.

  Goll erupted in a louder burst of Kree, silencing him with a harsh look. For a moment, they glared at each other across the table.

  “Not fit in the head,” Halm mumbled, getting both the men’s attention. “Gastillo talked to me this day.”

  “Who?” Goll pressed.

  “Gastillo.”

  “Gastillo talked to you?”

  “Aye that. Wait…” Halm had to think hard on that count. “No. No, no, not Gastillo. A man for Gastillo. Wanted me… to join his school.”

  “Gastillo did?” Muluk asked, quiet awe in his voice.

  “Did. I said no.”

  Goll sank back against his wall and gazed heavenward. “Thank the Lords for that. You don’t want to be with them.”

  Halm screwed up his jowls and shook his head in distasteful agreement.

  “But the idea that they noticed you is heartening. They noticed you, Halm. They could even have eyes on you this very moment.”

  “Doubt that,” Muluk said. “This place is only for Free Trained and Farmers. The real gladiators are in better holes than this.”

  This summoned from Goll another verbal lashing in Kree. Muluk countered with an equally heated retort, but Goll’s voice rode above it in a crash of angry sound, drowning the other. A sour Muluk gave a lingering, dirty look to his countryman and turned back to the woman at his side.

  “Hope not,” Halm said after that spent charge of anger.

  “You hope not?” Goll composed himself.

  “Feel like… about to piss meself.”

  Goll’s hands fluttered in warning. “Don’t piss yourself. Don’t. Hear me out first. All right?”

  “All right, friend Goll.”

  “Gastillo sent someone to speak with you. That means they want you with them, but you’ll be just another face in their stable. Not an owner.”

  “Not?” Halm croaked. “Who?”

  “An owner. Not at all. With what I have in mind, you’d be an ow
ner. We’d all be owners.” His eyes shifted to Muluk.

  “They won’t let us,” the other Kree warned.

  “If we establish a house, a school, they’d have to.”

  “The only thing they’d have to do is kill the lot of us,” Muluk grumped. “I’ve heard stories. We’re meat to them. All the Free Trained is meat. Just waiting to be cut up. To be bled. They don’t take any of us serious.”

  “They took him serious.” Goll pointed at Halm.

  “And he said no,” Muluk cut in again. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a pack of men waiting for him outside this night. They do that to the ones who turn down such invitations, you know. They beat them into maggot shite. We’ll have to watch him, you know.”

  This time, a pensive Goll stared at Muluk.

  “Muluk’s right,” he finally let out, his eyes shifting to Halm. “We’ll have to be careful with you this night. And any others. All the more reason to band together now.”

  “Band?” both Halm and Muluk asked.

  “Yes, the Free Trained. As many as we can get to our banner. There are hundreds of us. Hundreds. All fighting over scraps. I believe if we establish a Free Trained house, the other houses and schools won’t dare touch any of us. Not like before. Even better if we can find ourselves a taskmaster and trainers.”

  Muluk sputtered and struggled out of his woman’s grasp. “Taskmasters? The tournament’s already begun! You’re talking about shite that rightfully should have been done a year ago! Two years ago. Are you certain you’re not drinking the same piss he is?”

  “No one’s to say when we set up a house, only that we do. The sooner the better. The very notion would hide our ability and ambitions from the major and minor houses. I’m thinking their asses would fall off from laughing, and we can use that to our advantage.”

  Muluk shook his head, speechless.

  “Look. They went after Halm. He refused them. That’s an insult that will bring about punishment the likes I doubt even bathing in Sunjan Gold will fend off. We need to group together for the protection alone. If anything, think of the coin that could be ours.”

  “It costs gold to even get the Chamber to recognize us. And then the taskmasters and trainers will need to be paid. Where’s all that coming from?”

  “We’ll get it.”

  “What about a place to train then, hmm? They won’t allow us in the Pit. In fact, the idea of house fighters living in the Pit is a joke. Using their weapons and armor. I can hear it now.”

  “We’ll get our own.”

  “You’re unfit in the head.” Muluk's eyes narrowed. “I thought you’d be smarter than this.”

  “I am.” Goll fumed, staring back hard. “Oh, I am.”

  “No one will join us.”

  “They will.”

  “Do you even know how much it’ll all cost to do this during the season?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  Muluk stared at him as if he’d grown two more faces. “Madness. You’re unfit. Unfit. Never thought I say that. You.” He jabbed a finger at Goll. “Unfit. Here.” And he tapped his own temple.

  Goll didn’t answer him. For a while, from beyond the confines of the alcove, the sounds of drinking and talking and making merry filled the air. Goll looked at the revellers for a long sobering moment before turning back.

  “What do you think, Halm?”

  Halm shrugged. It took everything he had.

  Goll smiled in spite of himself. “Tomorrow, I’m going to the Gladiatorial Chamber. I’m going to ask to see them. You”—indicating both Halm and Muluk—“can decide for yourselves if you want to join me or hear about it later. But I tell you this now: I was trained by the Weapon Masters of Kree, and I’m not about to give up anything I set my mind to. And I’ve set my mind to this.”

  Halm noted the stiffening of Muluk’s hairy jawline. The Zhiberian had to ask, “These… Weapon Masters any good?”

  Muluk smiled at his companion. “They are.”

  “Hmm,” Halm said in a drunken tone of Oh, really?

  He passed out then, the darkness rising up in the shape of the table’s surface. When he hit, it was a distant, solid thud, like a fist being driven into a slab of heavy meat.

  A moment later, he was snoring.

  2

  The city lights, oil lamps, and open torches dipped in pitch, flickered across a dark canvas of knobs and points underneath a darkening skyline. A draft pushed the smells of the city to Curge, and he wrinkled his nose upon getting a whiff of sewers. He took a drink from a clay wine bottle, swallowing three times before letting it drop, and wiped his mouth with the stump of his left arm. If his house had been built a little higher, he would have a fine view of Sunja’s glittering wares. As it was, he could see only a fraction of what he might have otherwise. That little thought poisoned him and turned his innards a hot vengeful red.

  After the loss of Samarhead and the defeat of Vadrian and knowing Halm of Zhiberia still drew breath, it didn’t take too much to have pleasant thoughts turn into something dangerous. Easy to hate, he thought, and he hated the Zhiberian now. Somewhere out beyond his compound’s walls, Halm was probably drinking himself into a stupor. That knowledge alone rankled the old warrior. Free Trained were mostly inexperienced, undisciplined, and uncivilized hellpups in the games, and when one got lucky enough to kill one of his investments, Curge took it personally. He took it very personally.

  He drank again, savouring the dry yet tart burn of the grape and wondering if it might have come from one of Nexus’s vineyards. If it did, he couldn’t wait to piss it out. Hate. So very easy to hate. He scoured the dark tops of the city, shadowed peaks and roof tiles below higher burning points of lights, and thought evil thoughts. Just under him were the courtyard and training area where his twenty-nine—eight!—gladiators prepared themselves under the watchful eye of Curge’s taskmasters and trainers. High torches affixed to posts in four corners burned low now and transformed the sandy ground into a grim mire.

  The bottle emptied, and Curge held it before him, contemplating hurling it over the balcony and watching it smash beneath. It stayed in his fist and trembled under the pressure Curge directed around the neck. Unable to crush it, he sighed and half-turned around, holding it at arm’s length.

  A servant, a young, shapely woman dressed only in the barest of robes, came forward and took it away from him. She provided another bottle, and Curge didn’t bother looking at her as he removed the cork with his teeth. The wine gushed down his throat, more fuel for the murderous thoughts smouldering within him, and when he finally lowered the drink, he bared teeth and hissed, savouring the smooth taste of berries.

  “Bezange,” the large man growled, speckling the air with wine. “I’m in a foul mood this night. Foul mood.”

  Curge turned around and met the gaze of his baby-faced agent. The much smaller man stood before a bare wall, underneath a flickering torch. The room was minimalist, with nothing more than a few lounging chairs made of cherry wood and cushioned with soft squares of red satin. It was enough for a meeting room where Curge could entertain his guests or motivate his servants. The once-gladiator knew that Bezange’s innocuous features served them both well, for the man was a weasel of the deadliest kind. Bezange used words to get what he wanted, and Curge mentally patted himself on the back for finding him and bringing him onto his side.

  “I want that Zhiberian dead.”

  The space between Bezange’s eyes furrowed for a moment. “I will make the arrangements if you wish.”

  “Arrangements?” Curge slurred. “I want the man killed in the arena, not butchered in the street. I haven’t gone that far, you shite-speckled idiot.”

  “My apologies, Lord. I misunderstood.”

  “Aye, you did. Anyone can hire a killer to stab a man in his sleep or the main square. I want the man killed in the Pit. On the sands. In front of thousands. I want a damned spectacle made of that foreign bastard.”

  Curge walked over to one of the chairs
and sat down heavily. The servant moved to place cushions at his back, but he shooed her away with a drunken frown. “I’m getting as soft as these things. There was once a time when my name would make children shite white about their ankles.”

  “It still does, my Lord,” Bezange added quickly. “There isn’t anyone in Sunja that doesn’t fear and respect the House of Curge. Even those that don’t attend the Pit know and talk about your matches from long ago. Wars you fought and won in spectacular fashion. If we were to go and walk along the streets right now and listen to the people talk in their hovels, you’d hear your name mentioned a score of times, and all would be in awe.”

  Curge studied Bezange with all the grace of a lion tired of the sun. He waved his stump in his agent’s direction, cutting off the stream of shite that would have continued if Curge allowed it. Bezange was a weasel, but he could be too obvious about it at times.

  “Shut up,” Curge told him. “What I was thinking, if you would take your tongue out of my ass for a moment, is for you to pay greater attention to the bastard’s whereabouts. He was hurt in that fight with that lunatic Vadrian. I want to know how badly. It might stop him from coming back to fight. I’m well and truly jiggered if he doesn’t.”

  Bezange appeared to think. “As you wish, my Lord.”

  “And issue the blood challenge. Get it out there. Tell the Madea to post it on his bloody board. If that flick of maggot shite is hurting, I want him to know that when he returns, he’ll be facing another one of my hellpups. He may have pulled a rag of fortune out of Seddon’s crack to put Samarhead and then Vadrian into the ground, but I want him to regret every passing moment for yanking it out and leaving a burn. If he’s suspicious enough, he’ll be looking over his shoulder at shadows anyway, not that I’d have anyone cut him like that. Unprofessional. The Free Trained might be a pack of unfit, whinging whelps, but they are taking up the steel. And be clear on this. No one is to lay a hand on that walking shite sack unless it’s in the arena.”

  “No one has in the past, my Lord.”

  “I know that, you brazen tit. I’m making certain you know that so that you won’t be going about doing something without my knowledge, thinking it’s what I wanted in the first place. As for my dogs, I’ll warn those he-bitches in the morning. Lords know they’ll be tempted this time around. Never has a Free Trained struck down one of my own. Never. And now this. If I don’t ward them off, they’d eventually find him in the streets and lure him down some alley, and then that fat topper would sing. I can guarantee you that.”