131 Days [Book 1]

by Keith C. Blackmore

  Pig Knot’s attention flicked from Toffer to Klytus—that was the monster’s name—as he eyed the other two men.

  “I remember it.”

  “Then you know what you did wrong.”

  “Things change when you’re in the arena.” Pig Knot suddenly huffed, growing impatient. “If you have something to say, then out with it.”

  “I do have something to say, in fact. I’m willing to forget what happened last time if… you kill the man this time.”

  “You want me to slay a pit fighter?”

  “I want you to gut this pit fighter.”

  “You have something against these men?” Pig Knot asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “I have my reasons. You just win this day and win in spectacular fashion.” Toffer stepped in close, no longer smiling. “Kill the topper. Take his head off his shoulders and do it this time. Hear me? Do it. Or I won’t be in as pleasant a mood next time we meet.”

  “Yes, you’ve certainly charmed me this morning.”

  “Do you see me laughing? I’ve made funnier lads disappear, Pig. Don’t disappoint me this time, or I’ll find you… and that conversation won’t be as civil.”

  Pig Knot kept his rebuttals to himself. Toffer’s expression had shifted from old friend to murderous bastard in a short time. He suspected swords were only one, perhaps two verbal jabs away.

  “I understand.” Pig Knot nodded.

  Toffer pursed his lips and glared. Then he abruptly turned and stalked away. Like a bad tide rumbling out, the three men backed away from Pig Knot and Halm, Klytus being the last to turn and walk away. The Sujin towered over the thickening crowds of people walking towards the arena.

  “Who was that?” Halm eventually asked. The fat man sat on the fountain edge, his great belly bare and tanning in the sun. “An old friend?”

  “Not at all. More like a boil on my ass.”

  Halm’s brow flexed in disdain, and he squinted in the bright daylight. “Doesn’t sound pleasant.”

  “No.” Pig Knot swished the blade about him and stabbed at an imaginary Toffer. “Not pleasant at all, truth be known.”

  *

  The day flowed into afternoon as people walked into Sunja’s great arena in anticipation of bloody entertainment. When they were ready, Pig Knot and Halm proceeded to general quarters and picked up the weapons and armor needed. Pig Knot selected a leather cuirass that might have been scrubbed in sand at one point in time, with equally worn metal greaves and bracers to protect his legs and arms. The helm didn’t have a face cage—all of those had been taken—but it did possess a thin nose guard. The sword and shield he decided on were also old, but the armoury only took from the Pit’s dead, and at times, the selection wasn’t the best. Above, the first two matches had been fought, and Pig Knot waited until he got the signal to enter the tunnel after the conclusion of the third fight. Fighters draped in torchlight and shadows moved about the Pit’s underworld—hard, dangerous men best avoided at any time.

  “Some of these lads will join us, you know.” Halm stood with Pig Knot, off to the side of the white tunnel and to the left of a flickering torch.

  “Goll’s going to choose from these?”

  “Mmhmm.” Halm nodded.

  “Frightening.”

  “It is. It is.”

  As if hearing his name, Goll parted a group of warriors and swung into sight, stopping before the two men. An indifferent Borchus accompanied him.

  “There he is,” Halm exclaimed. “Although you seem to have picked up a dog.”

  Borchus didn’t reply, nor did he seem to hear.

  “You look ready,” Goll addressed Pig Knot.

  “I am.”

  “Just to let you know, I placed everything we could afford on this fight.” Goll glared at the gladiator. “Everything.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” Pig Knot said. He and Halm both decided not to bring up the visit by Toffer. Neither could tell how the Kree’s sensibilities would react to such information.

  The Madea rose up and bawled the fighters’ names.

  “It’s time,” Pig Knot said.

  Halm fist-tapped him.

  “I want a few last words with you in private,” Goll told Pig Knot. “You two head on to the box.”

  “We have a viewing box?” Halm asked.

  “I arranged it.” Borchus held onto his belt. “Imagine that.”

  Halm locked gazes with the smaller agent. “Good fortune to you, Pig Knot.”

  Pig Knot lifted his sword to show he’d heard. Goll shuffled ahead of him towards the tunnel.

  Pig Knot saw his opponent and slowed in his tracks, a little startled. The man called Skulljigger was moving towards the same tunnel, just putting an open helm over his head. He wore a vest of leather as well, with the same accompanying trappings, but carried a sword and off-handed hand axe instead of a shield.

  But it was his face that caught Pig Knot’s attention.

  It had been dark that night, but he remembered the face. The bruises, faded now, but still there, only made Pig Knot more confident of his identity.

  Skulljigger was one of the men who had tried to steal Halm’s equipment and whom, along with his companions, Pig Knot had left bloodied to a pulp in an alley.

  Feeling eyes on him, Skulljigger turned and met the gaze of Pig Knot. His expression knotted up in puzzlement, then more puzzlement, before the slow, knowing slink of a moist smile etched from one corner of his mouth. Skulljigger nodded and then smiled at the Sunjan, with what few teeth he had remaining.

  Pig Knot nodded back, feeling his own smirk rising.

  “Well,” he purred as Skulljigger plodded on down the tunnel. Toffer’s order suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

  “Are you ready for this?” Goll asked, facing him on the threshold of the tunnel.

  “I am,” Pig Knot replied.

  “You truly wish to be a part of the house?” Goll asked, his eyes boring into Pig Knot’s face, searching.

  Prove him wrong, Halm’s voice echoed in his head.

  “I do.”

  “Then you know what you must do this day.”

  Pig Knot nodded.

  Goll leaned forward and hissed. “Lose.”

  The word made Pig Knot’s jaw drop. He blinked in astonishment at the Kree, feeling his gut fall and splash somewhere upon the fitted stones beneath his feet. Pig Knot searched the face of the man before him, trying to summon breath to give sound to his question.

  “There’s no time.” Goll’s words stopped him. “If you truly wish to be a part, the only sure way to do so, to convince me, is showing you can follow a master’s orders. Lose. Our coin, all of it, I placed on the head of this Skulljigger. You lose, hear me, and we will have the funds to register our house and plenty left over for most everything else.”

  Pig Knot’s head gave the barest disbelieving shake. “But—”

  “Lose,” Goll hissed, on the brink of being furious. “If you’ve never listened to anyone before in your miserable life, listen now, Saimon damn you.”

  With that, Goll looped around him and made his way towards the viewing boxes.

  Leaving a stunned Pig Knot behind.

  *

  Goll followed the passageway to the viewing chamber underneath the arena stands, those reserved for the house gladiators. There, Halm and Borchus waited for him. Halm turned from the archway looking out onto the sands at ground level as Goll entered.

  “All ready?”

  “I hope so.” Goll gave both him and Borchus an anxious look. Borchus was the only one who knew of Goll’s wager, as he had informed the agent himself. Seddon himself placed the man at the Domis’s window at the same time Goll meant to make his wager, and the Kree decided then to let him know whom not to wager on. For peace’s sake. Goll would be hard pressed to explain the coin after Pig Knot’s loss to Borchus, so this way was safer. He’d also be hard pressed to explain the coin to Halm, but the Zhiberian was already on his side. It was the only way to ensure the house
could be established, and Pig Knot was too much of a risk any other way.

  No, in his mind, Goll had done what needed to be done. And if Pig Knot truly wanted to be a part of what one day would be known as history, he would lose. A part of Goll was still uncertain about which way the Sunjan would flow, and for that, he cursed the man.

  Borchus nodded, his face revealing nothing of what he knew, and turned to the archway. Goll moved to stand between the men and stared out at the sands. Everything depended on a man he had no faith in, and he hated the very situation. Pig Knot was only half-inspired to succeed on the sands and a drunkard the other half, and everything in the balance hung on him.

  Goll had never been more nervous his entire life, not even when he was fighting.

  Outside, the fighters walked into view.

  The Orator bellowed out introductions and called for the fight to begin.

  44

  Across the sands, Skulljigger shifted from foot to foot, holding his sword and axe at guard. Pig Knot blinked at him over the edge of his shield, a block of ice weighing down his gut. Lose, Goll’s face demanded of him. Lose! The word made Pig Knot moan inwardly. If only the Kree knew what he was asking and whom Pig Knot was fighting. Seddon above, Pig Knot thought as he remembered Toffer in a flash.

  The day had become utter shite.

  Skulljigger motioned with his weapons, goading Pig Knot to come closer amidst the growing jeers of the onlookers. Pig Knot wanted no such thing. All he wanted was to be in a tavern somewhere with a woman on his knee and a drink in his hand.

  Lose.

  The cold certainty hit him that he was going to perish this day, and his stomach fluttered.

  Skulljigger grew impatient and came across the sands, seeking a fight to the death.

  “Seddon smiles on me this day,” Skulljigger cried above the rumble of the audience. He grinned evilly as he closed the distance. “I’ll make you sing!”

  The sword and hand axe swung at Pig Knot, one after the other in a gnashing of flashing steel. True to Brochus’s report, the attacking pit fighter focused on his legs. Pig Knot stepped back and got behind his shield, grimacing as the weapons laid into the barrier. He stepped to one side, trying to throw Skulljigger off balance, but the man followed him without error and attacked relentlessly. He slashed and hacked, cutting for a knee and swinging for a head. Pig Knot deflected what he could and ducked under the arc of the axe. The steel clipped the top of his head, ringing his skull and flinging him to the right. Skulljigger pounced, grazing his sword off Pig Knot’s right bracer and convincing him for an instant that his arm was gone. The Kree’s shield and sword got tangled together, forcing him to back up in a splash of sand.

  Skulljigger stopped and watched Pig Knot scurry out of reach. He spread his weapons and looked towards the crowd, imploring them for patience. He was doing his part. Having done that, he started hunting once more.

  Pig Knot watched him over the edge of his shield once more and didn’t know what to do. Win or lose, he was well and truly—

  Skulljigger slashed for legs, driving him back. He slashed again, spinning around and whipping his axe across Pig Knot’s eyes, missing by a finger. The man’s momentum put him momentarily off balance, and Pig Knot stepped into a cut and parted the leather of his foe from shoulder to buttock.

  The onlookers held their breath for a moment, and Skulljigger staggered back, his hand reaching behind to check for blood. Finding nothing amiss, he took the time to pull the ruined vest from his muscular torso with a growl.

  The people’s cheering grew. They saw he wasn’t done in the least.

  “You should’ve pressed on,” Skulljigger hissed.

  I should be somewhere else! Pig Knot bit back.

  The pair jumped at each other then, exchanging brutal thrusts and slashes and avoiding over-the-shoulder downward cuts looking to split flesh from head to crotch. Sand scattered with each step as the men clashed, rang steel off steel, and grunted, throwing their strength into every swing. Several times, Pig Knot found himself performing the familiar-feeling one-two cut and slash he’d practiced with the trainers, and he wished then that he’d learned what followed.

  Then with a scream that rooted him in place, Skulljigger brought his blade down and split Pig Knot’s shield straight down the middle, cutting his forearm to the bone. The sword jerked away with a squeal of metal and wood. Pig Knot shook his arm free of the shield. Skulljigger lunged low, seeking the legs yet again, and missed. His momentum carried him beyond Pig Knot’s reach and allowed some distance to form between the two.

  Pig Knot inspected his arm and the messy redness dribbling from the mouth his foe’s blade had opened. It dappled the sands in a trail leading back to Skulljigger. The Sunjan grimaced, focused beyond the pain of his arm, and turned his body sideways, getting behind his sword and making as small a target as possible.

  “Hurt?” Skulljigger asked. “Not finished yet.”

  He plunged forward, his weapons whirling in a pattern Pig Knot had no answer for. The Kree stopped the sword twice before a flat axe crunched into his left shoulder, lodging in bone and seemingly slicing a knob of flesh off. Skulljigger stepped in close and kicked, laying his boot flat against Pig Knot’s armoured gut and sending him flying across the sand and onto his back with a jarring thud. Blood spurted, and somewhere he felt the axe sink a little deeper before being pulled out.

  A dazed Pig Knot scrambled instinctively to his knees, looked up, and had his chin shattered by a sword pommel. The world became lopsided and stopped with a jolt when he tasted sand. A voice screamed at him to roll, roll over, and he wailed as he tried to move his sluggish legs from underneath his weight.

  “Topper!” Skulljigger shouted, distressingly close.

  Pig Knot turned onto his side, into shadow.

  Skulljigger stabbed him through the knee, the tip cutting through tendon and bone and spiking downwards to the sand.

  Pig Knot wailed hideously, shivering on the sands as if he lay on a sheet of ice. The cut transfixed him in place though he trembled as if in convulsions. Shouts reached him through his pain-gripped mind. A mash of garbled voices and curses and screams to do something, just do anything before it was too late. The pain in his leg shot up into his body as if the very sands had grown teeth and ripped him back and forth like a rabid animal. A hand stripped him of his helm, grabbed his braid, and wrenched him around, straightening his body.

  Pig Knot lashed out with his good leg, a kick energized by pain, and knocked a leg away. Skulljigger collapsed to the sands. Pig Knot rolled over, feeling his stomach turn cold then sick, feeling nothing in his fingers. He crawled and reached his sword where he had dropped it. He gripped the blade itself, cutting his fingers in a sizzle that didn’t hurt in the least. He held the weapon with his crippled hand, willing it to work and trying to correct his hold.

  Prove him wrong!

  A burp of agony left Pig Knot then, and his buzzing hand relinquished the steel. The weight fell, but he didn’t care as he saw his ruined knee, a gush of fluid erupting from the sliced flesh and bone, and nearly swooned.

  Nearby, Skulljigger stood. The fighter favoured his knee, but the rest of him was just fine.

  And he was smiling.

  Around the arena, the crowds called for Pig Knot’s death, and the rising chant drowned out the voices Pig Knot thought might have belonged to friends. Steel gleamed in the sun, almost mystically, and there was no one between him and the killer creeping towards him.

  “Watch,” Skulljigger demanded of the audience. “Watch me!”

  Pig Knot opened eyes that had become caked with tears and dust. Skulljigger stepped in close, a savage face with red teeth, and drew the blade back for the killing thrust.

  Prove him wrong!

  The sword flashed.

  *

  He heard voices.

  They clambered over him like a warm surf.

  He felt pain twinkling like stars in a distant, black canopy where figures moved.

>   Lightning bolts sank into his flesh and yet were not felt, but he was somehow aware that things—bad things—had been done to him. Probably very bad things.

  The sounds of people, a crashing of voices, neared and then pulled away and slowly, slowly, receded. Warmth enveloped his whole being.

  More hands, pulling, pushing, rolling him onto his side.

  On his back.

  He was on his back. That felt very important to him for some reason he was in no capacity to contemplate. For something was… was gnawing on his legs. Both legs. Little stinging bites made holes in his flesh as if delivered by white maggots.

  Maggots?

  Was he… dead?

  Was this death?

  Then…

  Nothing.

  45

  Halm lost control and struggled out though the archway, screaming as if Seddon above had touched him directly between the eyes. Heat shimmered on the arena floor, adding to the sensation that it was all a humid dream. The last thing Goll saw, besides the writhing of the Zhiberian’s legs and arms as he scrabbled through the window, and the flurry of sand in his feverish wake, was the sun shining down on the figure in the center of the arena, with sword held high. Thousands upon thousands of voices christened that shining blade with their united power, a frightening force that made the very walls tremble and made the steel almost blinding to gaze upon.

  And the man in the center, the one the Zhiberian struggled to reach in nightmarish slow motion, plunged that fiery streak of light down as if stabbing the very earth itself. Again and again… and again, in arcs of the darkest crimson.

  Before the bulk of the Zhiberian took him down.

  “This way,” Borchus directed Goll, pulling him back from the arch. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  They limped away from the tempest of sound and fury exploding in the area. Horns sounded, deep oceanic monsters that split the wall of human voices as neatly as an axe to wood, commanding the end of all things. But Goll limped away on his crutches, shocked by the level of violence he’d seen on this day, violence that he was surely as guilty of as the blazing warrior with the falling sword.