His speed was sickening. My arsehole puckered a little as I threw myself back. I didn’t totally wimp out, desperately batting at the swords with my batons.
Both swords clanged like bells ringing my doom, and that was just the first move. If I was expecting a reprieve, I was wrong. The skinny prick just kept coming like a copper haired blizzard.
I backpedaled with all the grace of a kid escaping a wasp. It wasn’t pretty… It also wasn’t an entirely legitimate response to his skill.
True, I was in a shit ton of trouble, but I was also over-egging my fear while I got a measure of his skill and the rhythm of his movements.
The twig-legged wanker clearly delighted in my display.
“You are far worse than I expected, Earther.”
“You’ll tire soon…” I wheezed. “Then you’ll be mine.”
“Fool,” he snapped, increasing the ferocity of his strikes to the point it became too much just to escape with the occasional block. My ruse with the Essau sticks had run its course, and I had to reverse so that they lined my forearms.
Boos rang out from the crowd as the swords clanged against my shell-like defense. Slashes got through on my arms which bled steadily, but he hadn’t managed anything too deep that I needed to worry about.
I was able to ignore it as I followed his strikes. As I counted the beats between them, I felt the ebb and flow of his patterns at work. They were more complex than a simple one-two, but they were predictable.
When I feinted to strike, he stepped back and then lunged forward. If I tried to circle he would cut me off, leaping like a ballet dancer to cover my escape.
He was also slowing. Not much, but there was a clear and unintentional reduction in speed.
“Pathetic, Earther!” he shouted as he peppered me with strikes, trying to rile the crowd up and give them a show.
Their boos for me answered him, and he loved it. He fed off their adoration. “Have you all seen enough?” he roared to the crowd. “Shall I finish this coward?”
The crowd roared in answer. This was the moment. He sped up again, now intent on finishing the fight. I blocked the blows, but after three, I grunted in pain and feigned a stumble. Victory flashed in his eyes. I fought the smile attempting to crawl on my face as he lunged forward.
He overextended.
I side-stepped, and he tried to leap to cut off my escape, but he almost fell off balance. He did manage to slash back at me in a desperate attempt to score any kind of hit.
I took a knee, avoided the blow and used the short end of the baton in a tight right-hook at solar plexus. I hit a little high, but it was such a good shot, completely un-telegraphed and with bonus power from the gloves, I’d have been disappointed if something didn’t crack as I smashed his sternum.
Something did crack.
I grinned at the look of abject failure in his eyes as he folded like a house of cards. Slumping to his knees, arms dropping as strength left him. The crowd fell silent.
I jabbed him in the temple with the butt of the Essau stick, then spun the right stick around in my hand and drove it down across the back of his head. His burnished copper hair parted as skull cracked open like a soft-boiled egg.
The crowd gasped. And the announcer called the fight. I could lie about hearing him later, and brought the stick down a few more times to make sure of the win. Once his pretty face looked like a plate of spaghetti Bolognese dropped on the sand and I was completely satisfied he wasn’t getting back up and catch me with a sly one, I stepped back and raised my sticks in the air.
The outraged boos were ringing around the arena louder than ever. I had around thirty seconds to cheer my victory before the Arena Guards arrived, and I was roughly escorted from the arena feeling like a million dollars.
I was deposited into the arena antechamber, and all but one of the guards scurried out like they might catch the plague from me.
I eyed the remainder. “Everything okay?”
He pointed over my shoulder. “There are showers in the back. Get cleaned up quickly. The Monarch has requested your presence. You have five minutes.”
Not waiting for a response, he stormed from the room and slammed the door behind him.
Confused by the treatment, considering I’d won, I took a seat on the bench. Then I realized I was tired and probably suffering from blood loss from my arms, so I lay down and closed my eyes for a minute, basking in the memory of the moment I duped the elf.
I replayed the scene a few times in my mind, and then checked my stats. The victory should have boosted me nicely on the path of the warrior if nothing else.
Name: Earl Henshaw
Title: 10th Ranked Pool Fighter of the Velkyn Arena
Level: 10
Class: Warrior
Stats:
- Toughness: 18
- Mental Acuity: 14
- Harmony: 0
- Total: 32
Progress in Class:
Warrior, Level 6: 5/60
Tradesman, Level 0: 0/10
Mage: 0
As happy as I was with the increase in the warrior path, the levels made zero fucking difference to anything as far as I could see. At least the Toughness and Mental Acuity increases were tangible. Apart from bragging rights, I wasn’t sure what…
I must have fallen asleep during my meanderings because the next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake.
A voice roared in my ear. “I told you to clean up, you bastard. The Monarch is ready for you now.”
I gave him a bleary thumbs up. “I’ve felt better, but I’m ready. Lead the way.”
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My head rocked back with a heavy blow that damn near broke my neck.
My senses came back in full focus, and I kicked out at a knee. It was like kicking a fucking wall, but I was already moving. I had an edge with the gloves now, and the guard was so surprised that he hadn’t even reacted.
I landed a right hook on his temple before gripping his gorget and swinging around onto his big old back. From there, I wrapped an arm around his fat neck and attempted to get a gloved grip on his throat.
As my probing fingers found his windpipe, another pair of hands ripped me from his back and threw me across the room.
A familiar deep voice spoke, “You are not quite ready for that yet, Earl.”
As my swimming vision cleared, I saw Captain Estwin standing over me. “And you never will be if you continue on your current behavioral trajectory. The Monarch is deeply displeased with you, and I doubt this little incident will endear her further.”
“Bastard hit me,” I growled. “I was half asleep.”
“I’ve no doubt he had his reasons. You are always quick to provide them.”
To my surprise, he offered a hand to help me up. I took it as I was now as weak as a newborn kitten bathed in vodka.
“I will say, after finally witnessing you fight, I will be sad to see you disposed of, if that is the fate the Monarch chooses for you.”
“Why would she want to kill me? I just won, didn’t I?”
He shook his meaty head. “It’s not often I’m left speechless, Earl.” Then he spun on his heel, and with impressive nimbleness for his size, marched out of the room.
While my unsteady legs wanted to collapse, I followed after him, barely conscious of the death stares I got from the other arena guards.
The throne room was not well attended, but the Arena Monarch’s anger made up for that. It seemed to fill the empty space. Her charcoal eyes reflected light as she glared at some sort of hologram that replayed my fight.
I grinned at the sight. I looked truly terrified as I escaped the attacks of the swordsman. Watching it back, it looked obvious I was faking it, but he ate what I was feeding him like a starving man.
As the battle swiftly turned to my skull bashing efforts, the Monarch wafted her hand, and the hologram disappeared.
Those eyes were on me now, and I could still see that light in them. “What in damnation was that, Earther?”
“That was a very cool fucking hologram. Is that what you guys have instead of Tv’s?”
Her voice dropped low and dangerous. “Why did you not stop after you’d killed him?”
I shrugged, then lied about my reasons. “You guys have magic. He might have come back to life, so I needed to make sure the job was done right.”
Her fists were clenched, her purple knuckles straining white. “Nonsense! It was senseless and barbaric. Why would you keep hitting him, you fool? Do you have any idea how bad that looked?”
It was my turn to get angry. “Hold the fucking phone, pet. Let’s get one thing straight heeeerrreee—!”
I slammed against the throne room’s double doors. I felt blood dribble from my mouth and down my chin as the protruding metal rivets made their presence known to my ribs again before I hit the floor.
“Yes, Earther!” she boomed. “Let us get one thing straight. You are here to do as you are told.”
“No,” I gasped. “I’m here because you motherfuckers kidnapped me... I didn’t want to come… but I’m happy to fight.”
I expected her to rage some more, but she paused, clearly mulling something over.
“I will admit, your ability to read a fight and your opponents is extraordinary. I’ve seen very few with instincts like yours outside of elite fighters.”
I thought she was finished, and I was about to reply, when her neutral expression turned back to anger. “But what kind of animal continues to attack a dead opponent in the confines of a tournament? There will be outrage over this. It will reach other systems and arenas. The Velkyn Arena’s prestige will fall.”
I waved off her concerns. “It’ll be fine. You’re a clever Monarch, you’ll be able to twist it.”
“Perhaps, but you still owe me for this, Earther. And this cannot happen again.”
I felt neither threatened nor subdued by her anger. “I can’t promise that. It’s part of who I am.”
“What in all the cracks of the Union does that mean?”
“I dunno. It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes, once I start fighting, I can’t stop until I’m completely sure my opponent can’t fight back, which usually means dead. The sports psychiatrists and prison psychiatrists and family psychiatrists don’t know why either. So I’ve just learned to accept it as part of who I am.”
“A Berserker?” the Able said with touch of surprise. “Though an odd one. It’s rare for the loss of control to happen only some of the time. A true berserker is usually consistent in their loss of control and rarely so skilled once provoked.” He spun on the Monarch. “We can work with this. One of my protégé’s has the Savage Soothe skill.”
“For beasts?” the Monarch said with a puzzled expression.
The Able smiled and tapped his nose. “While it is not well known, the skill can and has been used on people too. Particularly in institutes for the insane, though there is some anecdotal evidence that its usefulness against Berserkers is without equal.”
The Monarch’s gaze fell back on me. She was almost neutral again. “This sounds worthy of an experiment. What’s the range on the skill?”
“I’d say twelve feet, Monarch.”
“Make sure his next fight is not with someone whose death will cause issues, and have your apprentice down at the gate ready to act.”
I cleared my throat and interrupted. “Er, not gonna lie, my Monarchyness, but this sounds a lot like mind control and that is creepy as hell.”
She glowered at me for a long moment, her mouth twisted in a sour expression as if she’d just bit into a lemon. “It is hard to describe how little I care for your thoughts on this matter. So I won’t. You have no choice. You will be made to fight until such a point as it is untenable, at which point you will be killed. No one on Velkyn will mourn your passing, and by the sounds of it, no one on Earth would either. Now get out of my sight and do not return until you have proven yourself on your new leash.”
The Able cleared his throat. “There is the other matter, my lady.”
Her smoldering eyes flickered from me to him and back again. “Ah yes. I can hardly believe I forgot.” She stood now, anger radiating from her again. “The Able informs me that you have been repeatedly asked to stop performing the Akra salute in the arena, and that you are undoubtedly in full understanding of how inflammatory it is. He told me that you had promised to stop?”
I shrugged as she approached, which was apparently the wrong answer. She wasn’t very big. Up to my chin at best, and if it wasn’t for her magic, I’d snap her in half in a heartbeat.
“Not only did you perform it again,” she said with a finger thrust in my face. “You managed to incite what few fans to violence. That was yet another foolish decision on your behalf if you wish to have any future on the arena circuit. You must stop with the Akra.”
“Fucking hell,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “I feel like I just got married here. It’s just a middle finger!”
“But you know that it offends the crowd.”
“That’s their fucking problem. If they’re gonna boo at me, then they’re getting the middle finger. End of. I’m willing to do the soothing thingy at the end of my fights, but I’m not stopping the finger.”
“Earl,” the Able said warningly. “It means nothing to you. Why would you cause so much trouble over such a petty thing. Please, reconsider.”
I didn’t look over at the Able. When you had an apex predator in front of you, it didn’t pay to take your eyes off them. And that was exactly what the Monarch was. I could see it in her eyes now that she was so close.
It didn’t matter either way, as a moment later, every inch of my body was covered in a glowing, purple light. It got worse a moment later when the energy pushed into the backs of my knees in an attempt to force me to fall.
With everything I had, I held my feet. There was strain in her face now from the battle between us, but I wouldn’t go down easy.
She won in the end with a simple word. “Guards!”
They came rushing and seemed to instinctively know the script, smashing me in the back of the knees. I buckled over, defeated by insidious teamwork.
“Lift his arms.”
Meaty, gray hands gripped my arms and yanked them above my head with irresistible strength. I would have killed everyone in the room at that point… if I could move. But all I could do was lock eyes with the Monarch and promise death with my eyes.
She met my stare unwaveringly. “Now his middle fingers. Push the others down.”
I was helpless as each of the guards forced my middle fingers upright and made sure to form my hands into the middle finger salute position.
A purple blade formed above me, and I finally comprehended what was about to happen. All of the commands I gave my body to thrash like a madman failed. I remained locked in place.
The blade flashed toward my fingers, and I felt the pain. It wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting, but then judging by the expressions of those surrounding me, the result hadn’t been expected.
After back and forth, I couldn’t follow between the Monarch and her Able, she barked a command for Captain Estwin to bring the royal shard.
I waited in enraged wonder, fingers still firmly in place. My disappointment was immeasurable at the sight of Estwin marching across the hall with a saber-style sword complete with jewel encrusted pommel.
The Monarch took it, swung it around in an unexpectedly impressive display of swordsmanship, then removed both fingers in one smooth strike.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t ruin his ability to punch,” the Able chuckled as the barrier holding me dropped and I could speak again.
“You absolute bitch. I can’t believe you just chopped my fucking fingers off.”
Wisely, the guards kept hold of me as the Able set to work healing the two bloody stumps where my fingers used to be. And, as usual, it took him a painfully long time to heal them over and they still throbbed like hell.
She ignored me and responded to the Able. “If it does, then it is his own fault. We have been more reasonable than this animal deserves.”
“Indeed, your highness.” He bowed low. “I will escort him back to his room and make sure he causes no more trouble.”
As I was led away by the Able and Estwin, I shouted over my shoulder. “You better be able to magic my fingers back.”
The Able nudged me. “I suggest you remain silent before our patient Monarch makes good on her promise to kill you.”