131 Days [Book 1]

by Keith C. Blackmore

  “Move on,” Pig Knot slurred, warning his attacker. More laughter, more voices, but he ignored them, and tasted grit and blood. He spat and breathed in, feeling more dust go up his nose.

  “Errrg,” Pig Knot twisted his face up and rolled onto his back. He sat up slowly, baring his teeth at the end, and sat in the street for another moment. The grit and dust in his mouth made him spit and wipe his face, and he grimaced when he saw his palm was darker than usual. It took him a moment to realize he’d bitten his tongue, but at least he didn’t piss himself. That was all he needed. The final touch and insult.

  Someone nudged his shoulder with a knee and got a grumble from him. That contact got him moving. He stood unsteadily and took in a deep lungful of air. That helped him a bit, and he stepped forward, seeking more drink.

  He didn’t stagger far.

  Lanterns lit the entryway to an alehouse, and the sounds of laughter and conversation pulled Pig Knot in. The building seemed to have only two levels, and garish green-and-orange banners hung from the eaves overhead. He walked up a short series of steps to a worn landing and stopped on the threshold, placing his shoulder against the frame and peering inside. Men and women stood and sat, mingled and drank. Smells of fresh breads and meat caught his attention, as did several people drinking at what looked to be a very long bar. Women tossed their heads back and flaunted striking figures while the men crowded them with lecherous smiles and conversations. People drank deeply of flagons and bottles while more such containers jigged behind a fence of heads and shoulders, being carried off somewhere. A platter of roasted pork steamed by, and Pig Knot felt his stomach come to attention.

  The room sucked him onto the main floor. Good times were being had here.

  And he was all for having good times.

  Some of the people parted for him, and he smiled back with a drunkard’s politeness, not recognizing the puzzlement on their faces. In Pig Knot’s wine-soaked mind, they were in awe of him, as they should be. He could be damned handsome when he had clothes on. The mass of people continued to get out of his way until the bar revealed itself to him. He reached it like a swimmer who’d gone a very, very long distance. He placed his elbows on the dark wooden surface, swung his head about, and rapped knuckles to get the barkeeps’ attention. All three of them seemed to notice him, as did some of the patrons standing around.

  Pig Knot forced his best smile at them all to ease their minds. Aimed the same smile at a few lovely women nearby and even winked at a comely one with dark hair. She frowned and whispered in another woman’s ear.

  Unfazed, Pig Knot thought to greet his neighbours.

  “Fine night,” he slurred to a man nearby, who shook his head and showed his back.

  “Fine then,” Pig Knot said simply. He had better things to do as well, but he wasn’t about to do them if he couldn’t catch the attention of the barkeeps. Across the way, brass flagons and pitchers filled with goodness only Seddon knew about gleamed and teased and were handed to others. Just watching the exchanges made him all the more thirsty.

  “You there,” Pig Knot called out to the nearest barkeep. “I’ve got coin here. Help me spend it, would you?”

  The barkeep, a young man with a gap in his front teeth and a long face, glanced to and away from the Sunjan. He didn’t appear to be the happiest, not in Pig Knot’s mind.

  “Lad’s deaf,” he slurred to another man nearby, who moved a bit away from him. Pig Knot shrugged and looked around. Two more women caught his attention, attractive and wearing tight, dark dresses that lifted their white breasts. It was like an overripe orchard around here, he mulled.

  “Ladies,” Pig Knot greeted them. The women’s once-pleasant expressions soured, and they huddled closer together before moving away.

  “Tarts,” Pig Knot declared. The lot of them appeared to be right unfriendly. And the barkeeps were slower than frozen cow kisses sliding uphill. He dug into his trouser pocket and dug out the two coins. He rubbed them together, making that metallic grinding that he and Halm often joked would hook the attention of a barkeep the next country over.

  Here, it drew only annoyed faces.

  “This is unfit.” Pig Knot grunted and rapped the coins off the countertop. Hard.

  They noticed him now. In fact, several around him noticed the burly man. Pig Knot didn’t care. He wanted a drink. He wanted one now.

  He rapped the coins on the surface again. “Come on, you see me here. What damn gurry is this about? Look!” He held up his gold and rubbed them together once more, for perhaps a longer period than he intended, but he didn’t care. The wine and beer he’d consumed earlier armored him.

  “You hear that? Listen.” He scrubbed the coins together, clenching his teeth as he did so. “First alehouse I’ve been in where the keepers stay away from that sound. How does one get a pitcher around here? Should I drop my trousers?” He guffawed in inebriated jest, glancing around and finding only the backs of heads.

  “You there.” He poked the nearest man in the spine. The fellow only half-turned, enough to reveal a none-too-happy profile.

  But Pig Knot was drunk. “How does one… go about get—erp, excuse me—getting a drink in this place? Pardon me, my lady,” he directed at the disgusted face of an otherwise pretty blond woman standing in front of the man he was talking to. Or talking at.

  They both moved away, leaving Pig Knot puzzled. “Right unfriendly bunch,” he muttered and clashed the coins off the bar once more.

  “Wake up there,” you punces, he was about to say, but a part of him stopped those last words. Drunk and brazen though he’d become, he was still conscious of causing an uproar. No wench would have him if that happened.

  “This fellow wants a drink here.” A man stepped in beside him, smiling at Pig Knot, and put his elbow on the counter, facing him and properly studying him. Pig Knot sized him up back, swaying as he did despite being anchored by the bar. The stranger was a few fingers shorter than Pig Knot, with white hair, of all things, and a youthful face. His blue eyes were dull yet filled with amusement. The man wore a sleeveless shirt as well, showing off meaty arms.

  “Thank you,” Pig Knot said to him. The stranger nodded it was quite all right. A barkeep approached and snatched the coin with a dark frown.

  Pig Knot scowled back. “No need for that. A pitcher of wine is all I want. Please.”

  The barkeep turned away almost immediately.

  “Unfit,” Pig Knot said. “Did you see that? Right unfit.”

  “I saw,” agreed the smiling man.

  “They like this with everyone?”

  “Only you, I think.”

  “Why is that?”

  The man’s smile widened. “You don’t belong here. Obviously don’t belong.”

  Pig Knot grinned back. “I don’t below… belong in a lot of places. Heard that all my life, it seems. Well, I like this place. Could be a bit more friendly is all.”

  He directed the word at the returning barkeep, who set a brass pitcher down in front of him hard enough to make the contents jump.

  “Argh!” Pig Knot let out and got to sucking up the drops spilled over the curves of the pitcher. “Too good to waste,” he remarked between noisy slurps.

  “It is that,” the stranger agreed. “What’s your name?”

  Pig Knot straightened up, glad to have finally met a decent fellow to share a conversation. He held out his fist to tap. “Pig Knot. Yours?”

  “Prajus.” He ignored the offered fist and pursed his lips. “You’re Sunjan?”

  “Aye that.”

  Prajus smiled at something over Pig Knot’s shoulder. “What is it you do, Pig Knot? Interesting name that.”

  “It is… it is. Presently, I fight in the games.” Pig Knot realized his fist wasn’t about to be tapped and so let it drop. He took a long pull at the wine. It was sweet and strong and to his liking.

  “Oh, you fight in the games?” Prajus repeated with mild fascination. “I see… I see. Have you fought yet?”

&n
bsp; “I have. You?”

  “Have you won any?” Prajus asked, ignoring the question put to him.

  And Pig Knot was drunk enough to let it go. “I have,” he replied, but when Prajus smiled at something over his shoulder again, Pig Knot turned. There stood three hard-looking men shadowing him, the biggest being able to glare directly into Pig Knot’s eyes. None of them appeared too pleased with him, for whatever reason.

  “Don’t mind them.” Prajus pulled Pig Knot’s attention back. “So”—Prajus’s brow crunched in thought—“did you happen to fight this day?”

  “I did. Won it as well.”

  “Oh, you won it?” Prajus’s expression lit up with interest. “Your stable master must have been happy about that.”

  Pig Knot shrugged. “Don’t have one.”

  “Why is that?” Prajus asked amicably.

  “Just in the games by myself.”

  “Free Trained?”

  “Aye that.”

  “He’s Free Trained. Seddon above.” Prajus seemed genuinely amused and looked at the counter. “You hear that, lads?” he asked the other three men.

  “Enough of this gurry,” someone said behind Pig Knot as he took another swallow of wine.

  But Prajus shook his head. “I’m a gladiator myself.”

  “You are?” Pig Knot brightened.

  “I am. House of Gastillo.”

  “House of Gastillo? Heard of him.”

  “Oh, you have?”

  “Aye that. Isn’t he the one with the gold mask?”

  “He is. He is. I see you know something of the houses. The ones that matter, that is.”

  Pig Knot noticed that Prajus’s smile hardened, his eyes narrowed, as if a great joke was about to be revealed.

  “I know a bit. He’s quite nice to let you out for a drink.”

  “Ah Lords, I know.” Prajus agreed again. “But then, I don’t have to fight tomorrow. Or for the next few days, for that matter. None of us do. Not yet. Unlike you Free Trained shite. You can just about drink whenever you like. Isn’t that right?”

  “Something like that.” Pig Knot nodded guardedly, wondering if he’d just properly heard himself being called shite.

  “Fought in the games before?”

  “End this now, Prajus,” someone said behind Pig Knot, and that caused warning tingles to course up the back of his neck. He turned about and placed his back against the bar, noting the men behind now surrounded him.

  “I have.”

  “How many seasons?” Prajus held up a hand to the other three men.

  “Don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember.” Prajus chuckled.

  “Aye that.”

  “And you’re Sunjan!”

  “I am.”

  The smile drained from Prajus’s face. “You must truly have a head full of shite then, to come in here and drink with us. Or you’re looking for another fight.”

  Pig Knot blinked.

  “Let me make this clear.” Prajus’s face became exceedingly understanding as he took away the pitcher of wine. Pig Knot made to protest, but Prajus shook his head as though admonishing a child. When he had it in his hand, he made to drink it then stopped. “Seddon above. I forgot this dog blossom was drinking from this.” He smiled quite cruelly.

  Prajus splashed the wine into Pig Knot’s face, sending him into sputters. So much for his shirt.

  The House of Gastillo warrior brightly smirked as Pig Knot cleared his eyes and face.

  “You Free Trained ass-packers don’t have enough brains to rub together, let alone two Saimon-damned coins. You even know where you are, maggot shite? Hmm? This part of the city is far and away from the green shite troughs you sleep in, and with good reason. You lot are an embarrassment to the profession. Our profession. Galls me black to even see you in the same city. So you’ll understand if we toss you out. Lads…”

  Arms looped over Pig Knot’s while one powerful limb lashed around his throat, choking the life from him.

  “Take this ass-licker outside.”

  They manhandled him towards the door, and Pig Knot could not resist. Prajus followed them, grinning at other patrons as if to say Did you hear that? The crowd erupted into cheers, loud whoops, and whistles, startling Pig Knot as the darkness of the open doorway loomed ahead. Curses rained down, scalding his drunken senses. All he’d wanted was a damn drink, perhaps something to eat, and most definitely a woman. Was that too much to ask?

  They hauled him out into the streets, where they twisted him towards an alleyway.

  “Over here.” The one holding his neck grunted the words into Pig Knot’s ear.

  The darkness of that alley set off an alarm in Pig Knot’s drunken head, and he struggled with growing ferocity. He didn’t want to be taken into the shadows. Memories of stories of Free Trained warriors being found dead or savagely brutalized in the dawn’s heat filled his mind and added even more strength to his struggles. He dug his boots in but felt them slide over the smooth stones paving the road. The alley drew closer until his legs disappeared into the blackness.

  “Easy, you tit,” one said from the side.

  “He’s like an eel,” said another.

  “Get his… his legs there.”

  Then Prajus’s voice, sounding as if he had another smile on his face: “Grab him by the kog and bells. That’ll take the fight out of him.”

  No sooner was it said than Pig Knot felt a hand enter between his legs from behind, brushing against his inner thighs, and he knew very well that if he didn’t do something, something right then, that he’d be another alehouse story of horror, another tale of how a Free Trained man, drunk out of his skull, wandered into a nest of house gladiators, angry house gladiators, who proceeded to remove him from the premises and drag him, kicking, into the night, where they did unspeakable things.

  Pig Knot felt the hand rise further, twisting, searching, about to grab his plums.

  He went crazy.

  He snapped his head back while kicking upwards, evading the hand between his thighs and surprising them all. They shoved him towards a wall. Pig Knot slammed his feet against the surface and walked briskly up the side, twisting his limbs in his captors’ grasps. He pushed off, breaking the grip about his neck amid straining grunts.

  Pig Knot landed, set his feet, and rammed a shoulder into the brute holding his right arm, slamming him into the wall. He stomped on another’s foot and got one arm loose, smashing a fist into the throat of the lout holding his other arm.

  Suddenly, Pig Knot was free.

  He spun around in time to have a fist crack across his cheek, whipping his face to the side. Another punched him in the gut, making Pig Knot wheeze in pain. He dropped to a knee. Something crashed down on his back while a fist smashed into the side of his head with teeth-rattling force. Whispers laced the shadows, threatening as the hiss of snakes. A knee smacked into his forehead, spinning his senses.

  “Hold him!” someone insisted, and hands grabbed his shoulders.

  Pig Knot reached up and grabbed two different sets of kogs and bells. He clenched the genitals as if they were bad grapes, and two voices became shocked squeaks. The hands on him fell away, and two figures crumpled to the road.

  “You brazen topper!”

  Prajus.

  Pig Knot surged upwards and tackled a shape, driving Prajus against the opposite alley wall. He hit hard. Fingers covered Pig Knot’s face, feeling for eyes. Pig Knot lifted the man off his feet and hurled him to the road. Prajus crashed with an angry gasp and scrambled halfway to his feet before Pig Knot kicked him squarely in the face, snapping his head back and dropping him again. The Free Trained twisted to one side then, barely evading the knife slicing the space he once occupied. He punched the knifeman twice, solid blows to the face and gut, backing the attacker up on his heels, but he recovered quickly. The steel flashed in the night, and Pig Knot blocked it with his forearm. He cracked the knifeman a third time, across the jaw, twisting him against the wall.


  “Knives,” Pig Knot hissed. “Four on one and still—”

  The knifeman sprang off the bricks. His blade lashed out and licked the Sunjan across his brow, dropping a sheet of blood into his eyes. Pig Knot cried out, grabbed the weapon arm, and smashed the midsection of his attacker, pummelling him until he slumped to the road like a broken sack of meat. Pig Knot continued pounding his head, driving his knuckles behind his foe’s ears. He pulled back a boot to finish him off.

  An arm whipped about his throat, immediately robbing him of air.

  “Not yet, pig shite.”

  Prajus again.

  The man’s vice-like arms clamped down on Pig Knot’s throat with enough force to make the alley spin. Pig Knot clawed at him, feeling skin shred under his nails. He reached up and tore at eyes. Prajus screamed. Pig Knot screamed back. He slammed the house pit fighter against the wall, loosening the grip on his throat. Pig Knot crushed him there once more, then again. Blood bubbled and sputtered on his lips as the alley elongated and pressed in all at once. Prajus’s grip tightened, tightened more, until bones creaked.

  Pig Knot staggered from the wall and heaved himself into the air, taking the man latched onto him all the way.

  And landed flat on the stone road in a brutal impact of mass flattening mass.

  A dazed Pig Knot untangled himself from the stunned gladiator’s limbs. He got to a knee, wiped the blood still oozing over his face, and took a quick look around. Prajus didn’t move. People watched from the mouth of the alleyway, and when Pig Knot tensed up, the lot of them bolted out of sight, squealing.

  “Not finished,” Pig Knot breathed, clearing his eyes of blood yet again. He looked down at the stunned and gasping form of Prajus, desperately trying to pull air back into his frame. Pig Knot cupped the man’s head with one hand, yanked it from where it rested on the stones and pistoned a fist into it twice, knocking the lout unconscious. Pig Knot stood, swayed, and regarded the other three men down. Shouts were coming from the alehouse. Time was running out. He had to get away.