He said, "I lost. You still made money. How did I cost you?"
Renton's eyes widened, and he muttered. "That damned thief was right. You don't remember what happened do you?"
Zack shook his head, fighting back the shame of letting the hunger take over. At the time, he felt like he didn't have a choice with the odds stacked against him in a way no one could have ever suspected.
Renton snorted, chuckling. "You won. You won in a such a glorious, disgusting battle, the likes of which no one has ever seen. A scrawny boy like you taking on three baby snow leopards at the same time and winning? You ripped one of it's tails off!"
Zack's mouth hung open. He had won? How could he not have remembered that? When the hunger took over, Zack had never felt more clear in his life, the power rushing through him like an overflowing river. Winning should have registered in his mind. He managed to ask, "I won? And wait, those were baby snow leopards?"
Renton studied Zack's silence and frowned. "I say you cost me because getting beasts from the wild cost me a fortune. I didn't even get another use out of them. But yes, you won."
The man sounded like he was congratulating Zack. That brought to mind the words Renton had mouth to him before the fight. He said, "Why did you look so disgusted during my fight against the five fighters but mouth the word 'win' to me in the snow leopard fight?"
Renton shook his head, the same disgust on his face again. He spat on the floor, which garnered a disapproving look from the healer. The manager of the Rings said, "I wasn't disguested at you. Politics, boy."
Zack was confused. He had heard the word thrown around before, but never really understood its meaning. "Politics? What does that have to do with the fact you threw five men and three snow leopards at me all within the same day?"
Renton said, "I forgot how stupid you really are. Do you really think I'd do that?"
"Yes," Zack replied without hesitation.
Renton rolled his eyes. "Think. It's not profitable. You may find it hard to believe, but there's no one out there more than me who wants you to win your freedom. Think of the hope it would bring to the future criminals and slaves who come her to fight for their freedom? They'd fail, of course. No one is a freak of nature like you, but they'd try harder than ever before. And then they'd bring the most entertaining battles, which brings in the most money."
Zack sneered. "It's always money with you, isn't it?"
Renton shrugged, unapologetic. "It's the only thing that makes sense in this cold, cold world."
"If it wasn't you who ordered the fights to be stacked like that, then who was it?"
Renton nodded to the healer, who left the room and shut the door behind him. The older, grey haired man breathed out a frustrated sigh. "Adjutant Nicolas Lagrand. Apparently, your name reached one of his harem candidate's ears, pretty young girl by the name of...Nemiri?"
"Yemiri," Zack corrected. His heart raced, but he forced himself to stay calm. There were too many questions and Renton was clearly in a mood to give answers.
Renton continued. "Never once heard a word from the Adjutant in all the time I've lived in Bergen. He kept to his tower of ice and I kept to my Rings. I thought he respected that. But the other day day, his two cronies come in and make threats, and more annoyingly, ideas about how to run my Rings."
Zack shook his head in wonder. What did the Adjutant want with Zack? He asked, "I still don't know what that has to do with me."
Renton shrugged. "I don't know either, boy. I don't like people telling me how to run my Rings. Sure, men and women die here, but it's either that or the quick death of the gallows. I'm fair. I'm the only form of justice where you have any agency in this damn backwater hole of a town."
Zack studied Renton. The man was clearly a greedy bastard, but he was right, he was fair. Zack had made his concerns about not killing anyone half a year earlier when he had shown up at the doorstep, and Renton had readily agreed, on the stipulation that Zack not lose a single fight. He'd been able to capitalize off of Zack's success and had not been secret about it.
Money had nothing to do with Zack, except for the prize money he'd use when he won his last fight to start a new life with Yemiri. He flexed his fingers. His body was completely healed. "How long was I out?"
Renton frowned. "Good old Adjutant Lagrand's lackeys wanted me to pit you in a fight the very next day and make you lose, but you were out. Told them the only way you were fighting your one hundredth fight before waking up was if I strapped your to a stick and had my men wave you around like a puppet. They almost jumped on the idea but thought better of it. It's been a week since then."
A week. And he was eating unconsciously that entire time? That didn't make sense. But nothing about being an Elementalist made sense Zack. He couldn't underestimate the hunger.
Renton looked at Zack warily.
"What?" Zack asked.
Renton said, "It took twenty men to take your off of the already beaten corpses of the snow leopards. You were a goddamned crazed beast. I had to get Fabiola and Astrid in there to try and calm you down. It finally took the butt end of the desert woman's spear to knock you out."
Zack smiled. "I have good friends."
Renton's frown deepened. "Boy, I'm sorry about what's going to happen. I know it's your last fight, but trust me when I say I had no hand it in."
"What are you talking about?" He asked, confused.
Renton sighed. "Your last fight. The Adjutant sent down an edict in script. something even I can't ignore. His lackeys read it out to the public yesterday. You're to fight Fabiola and Astrid. It's to be a deathmatch, with the Adjutant's men to witness. Whatever Lagrand has heard about you, you've somehow acquired his ire."
The blood in Zack's body drained to his feet, and he suddenly felt very alone.
9
Fabiola and Astrid stood grimly on the opposite side of the Ring, the desert woman with her wooden spear and metal head, the Astorian blonde with her knives held in a reverse grip casually at her sides. Unlike before when the crowd had screamed Zack's name, they were quiet, tense while witnessing Zack at the precipice of his goal.
He grimaced.
Out of hundreds of fighters, former criminals, and current slaves of the Rings, his friends were the last people he wanted to fight. It wasn't only because they had taken them under his wing to spar, treating him kindly because in a way, they too were a unique set among the groups of fighters. From his countless spars with them, Zack just knew how dangerous they were.
Or, more accurately, he knew how skilled and dangerous they were in the spars while they were holding back. He did not want to see what they were like with no restrictions.
And yet, they waited for him to make his move.
Unlike his previous fights, he was no longer shirtless, having no need to catch his opponents off guard with his thin frame. They knew how strong he was, and having witnessed what he looked like after giving in to the hunger, they probably saw the limits of his strength as well.
Whatever his history was with his new friends, he needed to win the battle. By beating them, he would win his one hundredth consecutive fight, solely relying on the savage beast contained with his Elemental powers. He'd then be able to go to the slave market and purchase Yemiri's slave title.
But it wasn't that simple. Renton had made it clear to Zack that the final battle was a death match. Pinning his opponents or forcing them to submit would not be enough according to the Adjutant's edict. He didn't know exactly how laws worked, but if a law could make even Renton fold under its pressure, Zack knew that the man had no other choice but to relent.
He focused the simmering rage in his chest on the idea of meeting the Adjutant and ripping his heart out, if he had one. Whatever word that had come out to the Adjutant about Zack, the man had clearly thought him enough of a threat to send orders to stack the odds against him. For that, Zack hated the man he had never met.
Zack focused on the task at hand. With his current powers and skill, he was cer
tain he couldn't beat Astrid or Fabiola on their own, let alone together. Astrid was too slippery and Fabiola too skilled.
Whatever plan he came up with wouldn't be enough, so he launched himself forward at Fabiola, much in the same way they had casually begun their sparring sessions, jumping into a relaxed rhythm. Luckily, the desert woman had decided not to press the rhythm of their interweaving attacks, putting on a good show for the crowd.
To the spectators, they saw a series of interlocking exchanges and near blows. But to Zack, it was a practiced dance. The crowd roared.
Zack shouted, "We need to put on a good show. I'm not killing you."
Fabiola frowned, and she yelled back, her voice conflicted. Unlike their usual spars, her shoulders were tense. "If I fight, I give it my all. I'm a warrior of the Twisting Sands."
Zack growled in frustration, thrusting a heel kick at her chest. Astrid parried the blow with the butt of one of her knives, exchanging places with the dour-looking Fabiola.
The petite blonde woman smirked. "Can't convince Fabiola not to give her best once she gets going, Zack. One of us is going to die here, and it sure isn't either of us."
Zack pawed at her head, which she deftly ducked. Their exchange wasn't as smooth or rhythm as it was with Fabiola, but Astrid's reflexes were quick as a cat's, loosely parrying and sidestepping with casual ease. He urged his friend, "Please just tell Fabiola to trust me. Whatever happens, tell her to treat this like a spar, a show."
A blur of metal twisted over Astrid's shoulder, and Zack swayed to the left on instinct, Fabiola's spear tip slicing his cheek. Blood dripped down the right side of his face, and he grimaced. Even in the tense situation, Astrid chuckled, "Sorry, kiddo. Fabiola does not do tricks. Trust me. I've tried."
Even in the heat of battle, he couldn't tell if Astrid had meant that another way. She had a way of cracking jokes in the most inopportune times. Zack ducked another half-hearted spear attack and said, "Please."
Fabiola snarled while Astrid threw one of her knives, which Zack couldn't avoid, the knives lodging into his bicep. The desert woman screamed, "Don't play with us! You'd do anything to save your friend! Why should we help you?"
Zack stepped back reluctantly. The crowd cheered even louder, hooting at their hero losing blood so quickly in the match. He sighed and yelled back, "You're right. I would do anything to save my friend. But you're my friends now, too."
Fabiola screamed, and Astrid frowned. The two wove between each other in perfect sync, and Zack reacted instantly, familiar with their attack pattern. Without hesitation, he summoned the hunger, knowing that stretching his sanity to the same point as before would mean that even achieving his freedom would be completely meaningless if he couldn't think straight.
He fed the hunger his frustration at his friends' stubborness, but nothing more than that.
His blood pumped hard with the trollbear's strength, and he didn't bother dodging Fabiola's spear as it connected into his side, breaking one of his ribs on impact. His knee buckled at the strike, and even though he wanted to bend the ground, he refused to break.
Raging at the pain, he gripped the spear and yanked it from Fabiola, whose eyes widened. He kicked her in the chest with his beast-fueled strength, knocking her back into the wall.
Astrid shot him a look he had never seen before, a manic, feral glee like a cat attacking a wounded mouse. He invited her knife attack to his neck, and it lodged in.
Still, he did not move, and the crowd gasped. This was it. Zack would not feed his hunger like that anymore.
Astrid's mouth opened in shock and then gritted her teeth. She said, "Oh Zack, I'll make it quick."
He snarled, and his hand shot out choking her jugular. With his other hand, he released it from the grip of Fabiola's spear. Astrid swiped desperately at Zack.
A shower of blood erupted against Zack's face, Astrid's neck thick with blood. She closed her eyes and fell limply to the ground.
Zack bent down over the woman's body and picked up her knife. He walked over slowly to the desert woman who laid crumble on the ground. She pushed herself up, wheezing and clutching her chest where Zack had kicked her.
At the sight of her friend lying in a giant pool of blood, Fabiola screamed, her eyes wide in disbelief. Zack was a blur, his palm thrusting her shoulder, pinning her against the wall of the Ring. The crowd above them screamed for her death, and his hunger joined in their chant.
But he resisted it. This wasn't what he wanted, but it needed to be done. Hopefully, Fabiola saw that in his eyes.
He matched gazes with her as she saw her fate. She muttered, "You monster."
Zack's only reply was to lift the knife, slicing it above the hand that pinned her to the wall and across her neck. Blood sprayed against just face just like it had with Astrid, and the desert woman collapsed in his arm.
He set her back down slowly while blood began to pool. Grimacing, Zack set the knife down and tucked his hands back under his fur sleeves. The crowd cheered his name. To them, he wasn't just a legend, he was a killer.
Zack had publicly won his freedom fighting and winning one hundred consecutive fights, regardless of the Adjutant's attempts to put him down in the final few.
He shook his head at the sight of his friend's bodies. Renton stood from his seat and seemed to scan the battlefield. His grin was wicked and menacing. Two men standing on each side of the manager surveyed the battlefield as well. They gave an approving nod to Renton and disappeared into the shadows.
Zack staggered to his gate, exhausted, completely covered in blood.
--
Epilion the healer stood between the two medical beds that each held Astrid and Fabiola. Zack and Renton walked through the open door and closed it behind them. Zack's wounds had already healed since Renton had given him his last supply of trollbear meat.
The manager of the Rings addressed Zack, "That was quite the bloodbath."
Zack snorted. "Isn't that what you wanted, to show the Adutant's lackeys that you followed his word to the letter? How could they have known that I would have been able to kill them?"
Renton shook his head. "That bastard, acting like he can tell me what to do. I'm glad you're more vicious than he could have ever imagined."
Zack looked at the bodies of his friends, talking to Epilion. "Astrid and Fabiola?"
Epilion sighed. "They have to be in this room for a while. I'd like to get their armor and clothes removed before we send their bodies to the crematorium."
Renton put up a hand. "It's fine, Epilion. You can leave. There's no need for cremation with these two."
The healer's face blanched. "Why? It's standard with the bodies. I gave my report to the Adjutant's men, those creepy looking twins, and they left without a word. Did I do something wrong? It's not like I need to examine the bodies, right? I've never seen so much blood."
Renton walked to the man and put a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head. "No, good man. You've done nothing wrong. It's just Zack here wants to say goodbye. He'll be taking care of their bodies in his own way. Nothing to worry about."
Clearly relieved at having not been in trouble, Epilion hurriedly exited the room, leaving only the manager of the Rings and Zack. Renton raised a curious eyebrow at Zack and cracked him a grin. "You can tell them to stop acting now. I've seen enough real deaths to know when I'm being conned."
"I guess they don't call you Goldeneyes for nothing. The gig is up!" Said the formerly lifeless Astird. She rose slowly up with her hands out, eyes wide. "I have come back from the dead! The Barrow King has summoned me to do his bidding! Yargghhh!"
The Flesh Elementalist Page 7
