He yanked the chain so hard, the chain user came with it, alarmed to have collided into the swordsman, throwing his attack off balance. Skillfully, the swordsman parried the man off him like he was nothing more than a glancing blow, twisted around in a full three hundred and sixty degree turn, and smashed the blunt end of his sword against Zack's ankle.
Zack bent to the ground and clawed the soil cooled by the Astorian cold as he bit back the pain. The hunger in him was a beast, and he screamed for its freedom.
The beast responded gladly.
Putting all of his weight on one foot, the same leg with the torn calf, Zack summoned all his energy to stand up. He knew his right ankle was broken, but a broken weapon was still a weapon.
With all the strength of his hunger and power, he chambered his knee to his chest and drove his broken foot and right heel into the face of the chain user. The man's jaw dislocated by the time Zack landed on his broken foot.
In an act of defiance, he put weight on his broken ankle, forcing it to stay still with his anger alone, and he bounded over the fallen chain user on to the bewildered swordsman. Zack rocked his head back and smashed his forehead into the man's nose, blood tainting his forehead and leaking over his eyes. The swordsman dropped his weapon.
Zack hit him again. And again.
Then he saw the weakness in the man's eyes. It wasn't just fear. It was a plea for help, and all the hunger and anger in Zack's body began to seep away. In that vacuum of power, shame rushed in. The blood red anger that filmed over his vision was gone.
Although Zack was now immune to cold, he couldn't help but shiver at the sight of bodies around him. They lay broken and damaged and weeping. How had a human done this?
As the crowd screamed his name and Renton shook his head at Zack in disgust, Zack already knew the answer to his question. A human could never do this. Only a beast.
He had won his battle, but he felt like he had lost something, if only for a second.
7
Zack wolfed down the reindeer meat as fast as he could, the other fighters of the Rings staring at him in the awe. He ignored them. The meat he ate dissolved nearly instantly as his powers as a flesh Elementalist took over, absorbing the animal's flesh and slowly converting it into his own.
He just wished they had some trollbear meat. Although he had put on a new pair of trousers to cover the fact that his calf was healing from the reindeer meat, Zack knew he didn't have enough time or food for it to heal completely. That wasn't even his biggest concern.
His ankle was broken. He couldn't help but think about the fact that it was the same side and angle of a break he had inflicted on Grumbal Four-Hands. Did Renton instruct the swordsman to teach Zack a lesson?
The thought just put him in more of a sour mood. He had just found out the terrible news as soon as he got out of the fight.
Renton kicked me while I was down, Zack thought.
Astrid and Fabiola had rushed over, finishing their fights with ease. He had forgotten what fights they were on, but they never lasted in the Rings more than a few minutes at a time. Fabiola sat across from him, inspecting the broken ankle on resting on his side of the bench.
She grimaced. "Renton. That bastard."
Astrid whistled at the sight of his broken ankle, and winced. "That looks fun. We just heard the bad news. Renton is putting you up on another fight card later this afternoon?"
Zack swallowed the final chunk of meat on the bone, setting the bone aside to replace it with a new one. Before taking a bite, he paused and said, "Whatever he throws at me, I'll find a way to win. I have to."
Even though he said the words with force, Zack didn't quite believe them. Unlike his two friends, he didn't have years of experience or technique. He had only the savage nature hidden inside him to rely on, but even that was nearing the end of its rope. Would it be enough for the next battle coming in only a few hours?
That kind of short time was definitely not enough for his ankle to heal. He bit back the pain, sick of entertaining self pity, if even for a moment.
Astrid sat next to Fabiola, the odd pair exchanging knowing looks. The blond woman said, "Whoever this Yemiri girl is, she must be a a special lady."
Zack wanted to correct her, to remind them that Yemiri had been born a slave, and was nowhere near being a lady, but he stopped himself. Although born in the lowest of the low, Yemiri had a way of speaking to others that treated them with kindness, even the bitch Rissa. She gave others respect and never demanded them.
Isn't that what what ladies were supposed to be like? He wondered if she was happier as a harem candidate for the Adjutant, a sliver of doubt leaking into his plans. He shook it away and said, "I need to eat, get the energy for the next fight."
Fabiola said, "None of the fighters here have ever heard of someone getting two fights in one day, especially after an injury. We've known Renton to be greedy, but he has always been fair so far. This whole thing reeks of politics."
Zack snorted. "You should have seen the old fart's looks he gave me before and after the fight. The man was disgusted to the core. When I approached him half a year ago with my intentions to fight in the Rings without killing anyone, he promised he would be fair. What a hypocrite."
Astrid, usually the jovial of the two friends, frowned, concern wrinkling her face. "You can't win the next fight."
Zack snarled. "I will."
It was that simple. No matter what obstacle he was given, he would tear it down, even if he had to let the beast out completely and lose his sanity in the process. If he lost himself in the act of getting his own freedom and buying Yemiri's slave title, he didn't care.
Well, maybe he did, if a little. He imagined the fear in Yemiri's eyes if she saw him in his most savage state. No, he thought. I can't let the trollbear take over.
Fabiola added, "It's your bloodlust. You've been coated in it more and more in your recent battles. But right now, you reek of it."
That shocked Zack. How did the desert woman know about his powers? Was she an Elementalist too?
She said, "In our tongue, we use the word brulle, meaning bloodlust here in Astorian. To many new and young warriors, it is a gift that can be accessed in the heat of battle, giving us a little extra strength. But overtime, that gift becomes a curse, having to rely on it more and more rather than your own skill. I've seen your battles, and I've never witnessed a brulle that has granted so much strength in my life. I couldn't imagine what you feel after it wears off."
Fabiola spoke the words like a lecture, but there was an undercurrent of sadness and despair in her voice. She was concerned for Zack. Clearly, she didn't understand that he was an Elementalist, one who used power in exchange for his sanity.
Astrid grasped Fabiola's hand, and she said to Zack. "What she's trying to say, is that whatever you're feeling, don't give into it completely. We know you want to win your freedom and save your friend, but we don't want to lose you in the process."
Zack knew they didn't understand. It wasn't like he wanted to lose his mind, but he needed the hunger. There were only a few hours left before he had to face whatever Renton was crazy enough to throw at him.
He said, "Thanks for the words, but I'll do what I must."
--
Zack stood in once more in the Rings, in a completely different arena.
The pit he stood in was nearly twice as large as the previous ones he had been in, the walls packed with dirt hardened by the cold. He wasn't standing as so much leaning on one leg. But when Renton came out to sit in his seat in the stands, Zack leaned on his broken foot as a show of defiance.
Renton still had a look of disgust on his face. That suited Zack just fine.
The gates in front of him opened while the crowd chanted his name and title, Zack the Troll. For a long stretch, no man came out, and the crowd began to quiet down. What did Renton have up his sleeves?
Two thick furry white paws the size of Zack's head stepped into the light of the Ring, followed by two more and
a twisting tail. He wasn't going to fight more men, he was supposed to fight a snow leopard. His heart began to speed up, but then raced frantically as two more snow leopards came out of the same gates.
In many ways, snow leopards were twice as deadly as any trollbear. The main reason trollbears were so difficult to fight besides their ridiculous regenerative abilities was the fact they never left their nests unless to look for food. They were almost always in their element.
But with snow leopards, they hunted in packs, with paws and claws that could maul a wolf halfway to dead in a single strike. Zack didn't want to imagine what one of those paws would do to him. Whatever was going to happen, he had to make sure they didn't touch him.
At the sight of the beasts, the crowd began to boo toward Renton. The manager of the Rings grimaced, but he gave a look of challenge to Zack, mouthing the words, "Win."
Wait, what? What did that mean? Were the snow leopards not Renton's idea.
He didn't get another chance to think about it as the three snow leopards attacked him from three sides, all at the same time. In every fight before, Zack had thought of a last second strategy, measuring his opponent's behaviors, weapons, positions, and balance all in a few brief exchanges, completely by instinct. Then he'd let out the trollbear if he needed to.
But not now. No amount of strategy was worth its salt with what he was facing. Only monsters could fight monsters.
Blood pulsing, he fed the hunger his desperation, fear, rage, and need for blood. The beast inside him broke through his mental cages he had carefully constructed earlier with his walking meditation. The trollbear was loose and its near was Zack Maecker.
The snow leopard ahead of him extended its claws at his face, and Zack's muscles pumped with all the heat and power of the trollbear, his hands locking into the snow leopard's paws. If he had been lucid, he knew it would have been a ridiculous sight, but there was no thinking for him anymore.
Zack could only feel, and he was feeling pretty damn good.
His shoulders tightened against the weight of the pouncing snow leopard, twisting his torso as he threw the damn cat to the side, watching it collided into the cat to his left. His own blood leaked from his hands, and he licked them as he dodged the incoming attack of the third leopard.
Zack's broken ankle gave out and he fell on his butt, frustrating him even more. He fed that frustration to the hunger, rolling back on his feet as he grabbed the snow leopard by the tail.
With all the strength his powers afforded him, he yanked the tail of the cat in the totally opposite direction it was flying away from. A horrendous noise that was half pained shriek and half indignant growl filled the arena. Zack had torn the cat's tail from its body, blood leaking out of its new orifice.
He threw the tail at the two other leopards, jumped in the air, and smashed the maimed cat's back with his heels. The cat's spine breaking from his own weight and power was the sweetest feeling he had ever tasted. Scarlet filmed over his eyes while he pummeled his hands into the snow leopard's skull repeatedly. The cat growled, whimpered, and died.
Zack rolled away, standing on his only good leg. He was in awe of himself. Where was this power all this time? It was there, it must have been. How could he have been such a fool to keep it caged? This is what living, really living was like. The only thing that mattered was hate and rage and pain, and the only purpose was to inflict those on the weak.
The two remaining snow leopard's were no longer cautious. They hunched their shoulders and roared at Zack that rose the hair on his arms. Was this fear? No. Excitement.
No more fear. This power coursing through his muscles was only the beginning. More. He needed more.
The blood red film in his eyes thickened as he let the spirit of the trollbear take over. Time seemed to blur in the heat of battle, his body mixing with the powerful snow leopards as they tangled with him. He wasn't even paying attention to the fact his hands gripped the upper and lower jaws of a cat while the other snow leopards' teeth were sinking into his thigh.
None of it mattered. Only the hunger. Zack was winning. He might have already won, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep winning.
Zack let the hunger take over him entirely, the blood-red blotting out his vision. Sparks of pain and sweet breaking bones echoed around his body. Shouts of familiar worried voices accompanied with dozens of arms filled his ears and pulled at his limbs, but he didn't care.
He was the hunger now, and he had never felt so alive.
Then, something pinned him to a hard surface. It could have been the wall or the ground. He couldn't tell anymore.
A heavy weight struck him in the side of his head, and the blood-red of his vision blinked to black.
8
He could hear the panicked breaths of his prey, its padded boots stamping hurriedly along the frozen ground and between the thick copse of trees. Let the prey run. He could have pounced on it any time, but he wanted to taste the fear it cast into the wind like a sweet perfume.
Soon, the air would be thick with its blood. The thought excited him, his chest rising and hands shaking with anticipation. He was hot on his prey's heels. While his game took a hundred hurried steps to flee, he only had to make a few leaps and bounds, covering large distances with his powerful legs.
The cold had slowed his prey, too. But the cold did not affect him like it did the weak. The cold was just another weapon of his to use to toy with his food before he sunk his teeth into them.
In a flash, his shadow loomed over his prey like a cloud over the moon, and he heard the sweet, piercing shriek of his prey as he descended upon her. His claws strangle her neck while his canines dug into her neck, blood slipping down his throat.
But her face was familiar. Yemiri. No! This wasn't how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to save her, not kill her. No!
--
Zack woke up in a small pool of his own sweat, his body aching all over. Even though there wasn't any blood on his lips, he could still taste the iron on his tongue lingering from the dream. Why was the dream so vivid, and why had he actively toyed with and killed Yemiri, his closest friend?
His breathing calmed down, and a man in neat commoner's clothing stepped into the small room that housed only a bed and a small table. Zack recognized the man as the Rings' only healer, there to set bones so they would heal correctly and protect Renton's golden geese.
The man was scrawny, tired in a way that showed he had seen too much for his age. What was he, forty?
Another man stepped through, most likely in his fifties or sixties, a little overweight in the belly, but body rippling with muscles. He wore an ornate tunic with snow leopard furs draping over his shoulders. His face was riddled with scars, even under his thick, gray mustache.
Renton.
The healer gave an small, acknowledging bow of his head to the manager of the Rings. Renton said, "His condition, Epilion?"
"Recovered," Epilion replied. "I've never seen someone heal so fast. All we had to do was set meat by his table like that desert woman said, and he just ate the hunks of meat while still unconscious. He's a damn freak."
Zack coughed and said, "I'm in the room you know, and awake."
Renton gave him a raised eye. "You cost me, boy."
Zack snorted. He cost Renton? That was rich.
He had lost control of himself in the match against the snow leopards, and probably lost the fight. Now Renton was here to rub it in his face, probably as a way to convince Zack he owed him money somehow. It didn't matter. It wasn't like Zack had any money anyhow. He was still a slave.
The Flesh Elementalist Page 6
