by L J Andrews
“Freedom.” Roark rested his head against the warm rock wall. “There will be no freedom until I have avenged them, until this forsaken land is protected from every murderous emperor. It was what they would want.”
Elder hung his head, brushing back his hood and wiping beading sweat from his brow. “As I said, a hero. Ro, you’ll escape one hell and go to another.”
“You don’t need to come, but I hope you will. Don’t pretend you aren’t a prisoner too,” Roark said.
Elder offered a tight grin and checked the security of Roark’s sheathed weapons once more. “I have faith in you and would be honored to join a man like you even on such a fool’s quest you have undertaken. Especially someone who claims to believe in nothing.”
“Your confidence is astounding.”
Elder patted Roark’s swollen bicep and chuckled. No longer a thin, graceful scribe, Roark’s body was broad, tanned, battered, and iron strong. The wastes and wilds of the Bloodlands would do such things to a person with vengeance poisoning his soul. Once he’d made the deal with Lord Tama, Roark knew his defense would be his educated mind until his body could match the contenders of the ring tournament. When he became a warrior not only in brains but steel. And now he was.
Roark had earned fame without freedom. The tag of The Cruel came only three months after Roark took his first step into the bruiser arena. The reputation of breaking men and leaving them to suffer showered him in delicacies other fighters didn’t receive. Some he despised, like visits from women intrigued by slave fighters. But the mirror, books, paper and toilet room—Roark didn’t take those for granted.
With a rush of boiling air, the heavy iron grate clanged away from the opening to his cave-cell. Roark glared at the two guards of Lord Tama. The sight of their overhung jaws and drooping earlobes from brutal piercings raked down his spine like needles. Though he’d lived among them for over a year, Roark carried only animosity for the Cy cliff dwellers.
“Holy man, you are to be out in the ring,” the largest of the two guards said.
“I am offering Lord Tama’s prized fighter an added blessing.” Elder faced Roark his rigid expression back in place. The heel of his palm felt cool against Roark’s blazing forehead. “May the Mount of Rays bless you this day.”
The guards kissed their palms and pressed them reverently to their own chests. No one was protecting anyone in the Bloodlands. No emperor, no army, and certainly no made up gods in the Mount. Elder backed away, his gaze trained on Roark as the guards crossed into the cave, each holding iron shackles.
“Time to prove your worth, rat.”
The same warning Roark had heard every time he entered the Ring, followed by the clasped, heavy metal around his skin. Today was the last he would hear the words. Or he vowed he would end it all himself.
Bodies smashed in the amphitheater carved in the cliffside. More than typical. Roark deduced it was brought on by watching the final fight of Ro the Cruel. The iron swords heated beneath the scorching sun once the guards tore away his shackles and left him in the center of the ring. Subtle evidence lush life once enrobed the cliffs were all around. Dried, white corpses of trees and shrubs, beds of dried rivers and ponds surrounded the arena. Now all that remained was dust, blackened twigs, and scavenging beasts cannibalizing their own species along the ledges.
Once the guards left, the crowd wailed and roared in delight. Roark completed the obligation of turning full circle, waving one hand in greeting. How he despised them all when they cheered louder. It wasn’t long before the heavy iron bars at the opposite end of the ring clanged open. Two men were dragged inside, one stumbled and earned a swift kick to his spine from his handler.
Roark swallowed and met the hallow gaze of the taller in the duo. He’d been cleansed for fighting, his hair chopped and butchered in lazy cuts. Roark imagined it might once have been long and sleek before captivity. His taut skin over his back marked weeks of beatings so severe it made Lord Tama seem like a lamb. The second who’d stumbled licked his full, scabbed lips. His brown eyes glazed in the sunlight—the man would die if his thirst didn’t quench soon.
“One hundred,” Lord Tama’s rumbling voice reverberated over the crowd. Using wide tubes to speak so sound echoed he quieted the calls for blood and sport. “One hundred battles are required by our bruisers in the Cliffs. How we love them. We cheer for them. Attach to them. So, it is always a challenge on the final fight to say farewell to a beloved player.” The crowd hissed and roared their disapproval. Roark closed his eyes, loathing the demented view these people kept on fellow humans. “That’s not to say we will take it easy on our favorite fighter.”
The people shrieked in maddening pleasure. Some even chanted Roark’s arena name, commanding he crush the bones of the already broken opponents.
“For his freedom, Ro the Cruel stands once more in the Ring,” Tama bellowed. “Let the match…begin!”
Roars of the crowd could certainly be heard across the distant Sea of Ash. Roark clamped his jaw, narrowed his gaze on the two rival bruisers, and unsheathed one longsword. Lord Tama sat back in his ivory throne on the highest terrace surrounding the Ring. His stretched earlobes tossed over his shoulders like locks of hair. The Lord of the Cy wasn’t young, nearing his sixtieth year, but had the strength of five men. And enjoyed beating his bruisers almost as much as drinking his wine.
A woman with creamy skin scrubbed Tama’s short, snowy head and laughed through a guzzle of bitter wine, though the Lady of Cy sat beneath a shade in the back. The Lady’s frosty eyes narrowed, but she said nothing as Tama pinched the mistress’s waist before he turned to yet another woman. The second mistress had a browned complexion that matched Roark’s and he wondered if she might be from the ruins of Jershon. She tensed and slogged a bottle of wine as Tama dragged his pierced lips along the nape of her neck. Roark would drink until his senses dulled too if he had to please the desires of Lord Tama.
With a wink of his milky eye, Tama nibbled on his female companions, ignored his wife, and silently commanded Roark entertain his paying customers. Roark paid little attention to the lord and focused his last glance at the shadowed gaze of the tall, young man on the balcony. Furv was dressed like a Cy noble, though he wrapped the black linen robe around his bare chest more than Tama. His lip was pierced in the center with a gold stud, as were the dimples in his cheeks. He’d avoided the lobe stretching so far, but it wouldn’t be long. Furv wasn’t the same boy trembling in the back of the trapper wagon. From Elder’s reports, the boy had the ability to spin words of fancy and favor. There was still a mischief to his lips, but there was darkness in his countenance. Elder knew things, things Furv had to do to survive, but Roark was too disgusted, or cowardly to ask specifics.
Furv nodded his head just slight enough Roark caught the glance, then the boy leaned in to whisper close to Lady Cy’s ear. Roark shoved the obscene spectators from his sights and focused ahead. Both bruisers had taken the wide flanks, clearly planning to surround Roark on either side. All he needed to do was get close enough they could hear his voice.
The bulky man with heavy scars on his back had crimson sunburns across his light skin. Roark took liberty and named him from the port empire of Zahara. The other, the likely guess from Mulek from his burnished complexion that deepened the longer sun pounded down. Roark rolled the longsword a full turn in his grip then began the show.
His booted feet skidded across the grainy stones making the Ring floor. The Zaharan slammed the weathered blade he’d been given against the chipped cutting edge of Roark’s sword. Steel sliced like the shriek of the carnivorous eagles perched above and waiting for fresh flesh. The bruiser gasped and tried to check Roark’s second strike. Fatigue and dehydration slowed the senses—and if these men faced any of the ten other bruisers in the caves, they would be dead. The Mulekian had stumbled twice already and Roark hadn’t touched his steel.
With strength he’d built over the hellish years traversing the Bloodlands, Roark clambered onto the
Zaharan’s back. Turning the cutting edge of his blade away, Roark clutched the hilt of his weapon against the haggard bruiser’s throat. The crowd roared.
Roark winced when the man gasped for air as he choked him from behind. Without drawing too much attention, Roark pressed his cheek against the bruiser’s mud-caked face, so his lips were next to his ear. “I will break a bone,” he said in Zahara’s tongue though his lips hardly moved. “Lift your hand and I’ll snap the wrist.”
“You wallow…in…blood,” he replied in flawless Zahar. Roark’s guess of empire was right.
“No,” Roark snapped and kicked at the struggling Mulekian from behind once he stood long enough to strike. “I will free you. Broken bruisers are taken to the undertunnels.”
“To be…harvested…”
Roark grunted and tugged tighter when the man struggled against his grip around his neck. “You must trust me. You will be freed when the mount priest comes to bless you.”
“Death…would be…freedom, Cy scum.”
Roark glared and knocked his head against the Zaharan’s skull. The bruiser moaned and sunk to his knees. Roark squeezed tighter. “I am no Cy and I will kill you should you insult me again. Give me your hand. You will not die today if you allow me to do this. One hundred times I have stood in this ring—no man has died—they live on. Perhaps, they are even with family. If you have someone you love missing you, give me your hand. It will be swift, and it will heal.”
Roark had seen the dejected expression many times. The man had nothing to lose. After a haggard breath the Zaharan acted as though he were trying to shove the hilt off his throat but gave Roark his wrist. Roark dropped his blade and wrenched the bones in a way that caused a clean break. The broken man roared in agony and clutched his wrist. Roark offered a subtle nod when his flashing dark eyes met the bruiser’s damp, furrowed brow. He raised his arms over his head and absorbed the tremble of excitement from the crowd.
“How Ro loves pain,” Tama bellowed through the speaking funnel.
Roark paid no mind. The Mulekian had stumbled to his knees. A rusted, sharp, double-bladed ax two arm lengths by his side. The weapon had caused Roark to fret at first glance, but the haggard man could hardly lift the head. The man clutched his stomach and vomited when he saw the twisted wrist of the first bruiser. Roark retrieved the longsword from the dust. The crowd hissed and snapped at the too-easy target.
“Leave…me,” the bruiser spoke in broken Cy.
Roark curled his lips in a twisted snarl to appease Tama. The Lord was leaning over the terrace rail revealing his brown teeth through his satisfaction.
Roark’s Mulekian tongue was rough, but he found the words after mentally seeing his scribal studies again. “I break bones, but do not kill,” He muttered and lowered to his haunches. The stench of vomit burned his nostrils, but Roark didn’t shirk away. “You will go to the priest under the guise of harvesting, but he will set you free. There are unused tunnels for escape. Now, do you prefer the knees or ribs?”
The dying Mulekian vomited again. His black skin was scabbed from hours in the sun without water. His scalp had lashes from barbed whips and Roark nearly broke when salty tears crushed his dirty cheeks. “Kill me. I…cannot live like…this. I have…nowhere…to go.”
Roark stiffened. Never had he been asked to kill. Most bruisers he faced behaved like the Zaharan. Having no option and choosing to trust Ro the Cruel out of desperation. “I cannot kill you.”
The Mulekian gripped Roark’s threadbare tunic. A madness soaked his eyes that came from a mind too tortured to go on. “Kill me, I beg of you.” His voice was found, and the smaller bruiser was stronger than Roark anticipated.
The crowed hooted and jeered. From above it must seem as though their favorite bruiser could be losing. Roark’s eyes widened. “I…can’t take your life. I plan to shred my soul by killing one man, and that is not you.”
“Call it mercy.”
Roark shoved the man once he started coughing russet blood over his lips. “No.”
In a feat of strength Roark thought lost, the bruiser wrenched the longsword from Roark’s grasp and swiped the blade over his own throat. Roark’s jaw dropped as he reached for the blade one breath too late. The bruiser choked as steaming blood soaked his neck and chest. As he fell, Roark imagined he grinned.
“Fool,” Roark hissed in Mulekian. His fists balled at his sides when the fallen man’s head thudded on the blood-soaked stones.
Roark’s performance nearly created a rockslide when the spectators leapt to their feet and cheered with fury. Their sedition for pain and blood satisfied.
Slamming the second sword on his back to the stones, Roark stomped across the arena as Elder made his appearance to bless the dead and see to the transport of the broken. His gray eyes met with Roark. Elder’s lips twitched as if he intended to speak, but his weathered mouth only tightened when Roark stomped past without a second glance.
The iron shackles were returned to his wrists and the two guards gripped Roark beneath his arms as they led him from the Ring. His jaw pulsed and both lungs seemed unable to take a full breath as he trudged toward the shadows of the cave prison.
Roark glared at the entire arena as Tama applauded the tension of the battle from his box. “Freedom negotiations will proceed at sundown. The first in six years. He wishes to leave us, but we know I can be persuasive. Who desires our dear Ro to stay among us?”
The heavy iron gates slammed shut on Roark and his transport guards just as the wild shrieks and cheers filled the Ring. He would slit his throat the same as the Mulekian before he stayed in this wicked place another day.
Chapter 12
Baron Bradach
The sky stained red. Heat unique to the Cyprus Cliffs soaked Roark’s face as he stood in the corner of Lord Tama’s greeting hall. The cliffs’ position in the neutral land space between Jershon and Mulek had a collision of Mulek’s dry air and Jershon’s humidity. Not to mention half the Guld Jungle swept beneath the base of the barren cliffs and it was the time of the monsoons. Roark felt as though he’d just stepped from a bath even though his skin crackled and begged for more moisture. It seemed only the lord and his Cy guards could find comfort in the climate. Of course, they were hardly dressed while the others were donned in linen tunics and heavy belts. Even Roark’s tattered clothes covered more than Tama’s hide cloth around his waist and shoulders.
Tama showed more nakedness than most Cy folk, and Roark’s working theory was because the lord wished to reveal the gold piercings and spikes lining his chest and middle as a way of noting his position on the throne of the cliffs. Roark glanced at Elder who tugged at the collar of his storm-gray cloak, his brow drenched in sweat and his tongue flicked over his lips for the tenth round. If Roark cared less for his life, he might demand the mount priest be allowed to disrobe, or at least have a drink. Roark turned his head and pressed his lips into silence.
“Remove those restraints. Ro is our friend now,” Tama said through a sip of wine. He spoke in common tongue of the Bloodlands, and Roark was impressed at the fluency. He’d half expected the lord to use a criminal translator. The guards gripping Roark’s arms lashed the sharp keys across the shackles until the iron clattered on the stones in a heap. “Sit, Ro.”
Roark followed the point of Tama’s finger and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Ro the Cruel was a friend, but not to sit at the same table as the lord and superiors. Roark shuffled to the narrow stool tucked against the wall and took his place though he never took his gaze off the man with long, red hair next to Tama. His brow furrowed as he stroked the braided length of his russet beard.
“How can this be the prized bruiser?”
“Looks are deceiving, Baron Bradach. You should have seen him when he first arrived. I have a remarkable way of shaping fighters from nothing. It’s an artistic gift for which I have great pride. Since you show such disgust for my dear Ro, I will begin negotiations first.”
There would be no negotiations.
Roark was leaving with Bradach or flinging himself off a ledge, but despite the dark thoughts his face kept flat when Tama steepled his fingers in front of his jeweled lips and winked.
“Ro, I know it is your desire to sail with the sea barons. I assure you, what awaits is a life of misery should you take this route.”
“Lord Tama, you understand I sit next to you? I would be wary how you insult me and my men.” Bradach met Tama’s eyes as he rubbed the ornate filigree on his blade.
“You can’t expect me to let him go without a fight, Bradach. I’m merely painting a vivid picture.” Tama drummed his fingers on the table and trained his grin toward Roark again. “The sea is a new battlefield, and I urge you to ask Baron Bradach how often imperial patrols attack ships. Baron crews have an incredible turnover, Ro. Because they die. Now, if it is the sea air you crave, join us as a trader. One month every quarter enjoy the Gulf of Tjuvar, the Black Lakes, even occasional visits to the South Sea are yours. What’s more, you shall be adopted by the Cy folk and live among us as an equal. You shall train the next generation of bruisers, and I will offer you a percentage of royalties from the Ring tournament. Think of it, Ro. This is the opportunity your fame has afforded you.”
Roark kept his lips tight, his eyes never blinked, and his breaths came steady. It seemed Baron Bradach awaited his reply when his head tilted, and he smirked as if to test Roark to bend so easily. “Fair offerings, Lord Tama,” Roark said. Elder raised a brow. “But I have a mind for exploration beyond the Ring.”
A deep crease built in Tama’s forehead and the flush in his leathery skin sent a brisk rush against Roark’s spine as countless beatings rippled through his mind. It took a great deal of self-control to remain undisturbed on the wobbly stool. “I know you are wise, Ro. You know the forgotten languages clearly by the inkings on your arms.” Bradach’s brows flicked in interest as his bright eyes landed on Roark’s leather-wrapped forearms. “With that wisdom,” Tama continued with a touch of warning. “I cannot believe you are foolish enough to refuse my generous offer.”
