The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains (5 page)

Yet, we have been outnumbered twenty or thirty to one before and been victorious. Mooncrest, the mines of Kakisteele, the west, mountains of Shanador, and the scroll, it all sounds much better than here, no arguing that.
He closed his eyes and thought of them, the quest unfinished, and smiled just a hint before the sound of the men around him became unsettling and broke his line of thought. His mind snapped back to reality, the arena, death waiting for one false move, one hesitation, and the creeping gloom before his eyes set in.

Three black robed men entered, same that had gone below minutes earlier, hoods shadowing their complexions, floating to three onyx thrones that sat above the stone pews and rows. Far above some hundreds of feet from the coming battle on the arena floor, yet Saberrak could see them well enough. A fourth entered through the same passage aloft, waving his hand to the crowd as they silently stomped their feet in admiration. The low roars like thunder issuing was breaking some of Norrices men, he saw the winces of fear and smelled the urine from two or more. The gray gladiator stood like a statue in the middle of seven humans, five quiet dwarves, a sickly white shaggy minotaur, and a starving troll. He could not imagine what they would put against such a large force, yet he knew soon enough it would be apparent. The dwarves had axes and hammers, the men blades and shields, the troll and the white had nothing, being more beastly than the rest.

“
Aaahhooo, aaahhooo!”
The crowd whispered some chant to the three lords of Devonmir, receiving raised hands each time they spoke. Thousands of voices, in the dark, thousands wanting a feast for the eyes.

“Bad enough they stomp in the silence, now they chant for our deaths. What do we do Saber---“

“Do not talk to me by name, do not pretend to know me. Do not look at me either. Tell your men the same.” Saberrak gruffed out harsh and quick to Norrice.

“What, how can you say that at a---“ His voice was a pleading whine of a man beaten.

“In here, your paper laws and friendships mean nothing, in fact they are a weakness that they will exploit. Do not look at me I said. If they think we are allies, we will fight each other in the next match. They cannot have slaves becoming close with one another, it is a threat. I will help you and your men, but do not speak to me here. It is too quiet, they will hear us. If you value your life and that of your men, do as I say.”

Norrice looked onward to the crowd as they chanted and stomped. “Then what do we do?”

“Act savage, insane, give them what they want and do not get killed. If you are serious and organized they will break us apart. An insane slave is less valuable and more likely to get less attention than one that appears to be militant. It is a show, play your part and we talk inside on what to do next.” Saberrak turned his head, talking through the side of his mouth as he looked around the masses.

“How do we escape this place?” Norrice stroked the small beard that was filthy and itching and ran his fingers through his brown curls to look nonchalant.

“Let’s survive what is coming in a moment, then we will see about escaping. Quiet, no more words.” Saberrak hushed just as the crowd hushed. All eyes were on the man dressed in blacks and gold armor polished beyond need. His hands raised up then lowered once the air was again silent as a tomb.

“Lords and ladies, noble guests from far and near, the three great lords of Devonmir welcome you to Ajastaphan!” His words were music to the crowd, sweet tones and accents colored his voice, and he projected his wind well across the cavernous underground to all who gathered. “Lords Koligail, Trehad, and Maroguille all welcome you! As do I, your master of ceremonies here in the noble arena, Napralis ten-scars!”

The crowd
ooohed
and
aaahed
much to the outward delight of the master of ceremonies as he directed his hand toward his lords, and received the silent nods of approval from the three black robed rulers of the city of Devonmir. “After my days of battle were behind me, and my days of training gladiators for you long past, it is my pleasure to now announce your entertainment, to announce those about to die for you!” The stomping of feet and clapping of hands was thunderous, and nearly drown out the clinking of two massive doors opening slowly, inch by inch.

“Take out their tendons, legs, arms, necks, and spines. If they are dead, as I was warned, the eyes and flesh will avail us nothing but wasted energy. Prepare yourselves now, Annar give us strength
.” Saberrak whispered loudly for those around him to hear.

“These traitorous deserters and captured criminals of many a race have vowed to win their honor through combat here and now, for you! Lord Maroguille and Lord Trehad have offered their best to oblige them into the next life! Let the games begin!” Napralis ten-scars raised his hands as coins swarmed through the merchants, the doors nearly open, and the crowd went frantic with bets and fever of the coming bloodshed.

“Norrice?”

“Yes Saberrak?”

“What do you think our odds are?” Saberrak grinned, twirling two double-bladed greataxes, one in each hand. He stood in the middle, horns lowered, ready to charge whatever came to from the left. The shaggy white minotaur and the troll were looking to their right with the dwarves huddled together.

“Not good. That number one they just painted on the wall in blood over our door looks less impressive than the three and the two they are painting over the doors that are opening. My guess is, not good at all.” Norrice shivered, the Harlian man had never thought to end up in a place like this, a place they told horror stories about for generations now in Harlaheim.

Saberrak looked up behind him, several stories up, and met the gaze of Chalas Kalaza the brown. He looked for Lady Kaya, but with all the black robes and masks, picking her out of all the women in the crowd of thousands was impossible. He now knew her allegiance was with the spiders of Johnas, but he had thought her eyes held a glimmer of hope last they had met.
Could have meant something
, he thought,
could be nothing
. He raised an axe toward his horned nemesis above, then to the crowd, and stalked forward ahead of Norrice’s men. The doors swung open, and then everything went into motion at once. Saberrak heard the crowd whisper loudly in unison,
“To the death!
”

From the front, two beasts of enormous size some ten feet tall, stomped with clawed feet of gray dead flesh. Their eyes a hollow black with red pinpoints from deep within, their muscles seemed decayed, and their enlarged heads of what were once trolls held but bone and blackened rows of sharpened teeth. Their entrails sloshed above their moving legs, darkened and shriveled entrails from being most unused. No breath, no pulse for sure, and their boney hands drug the ground as they loped forward in the hunger of undeath.

From behind a symphony of roars and hisses erupted from something that the crowd cheered upon its entrance to the arena floor. Saberrak looked back, a quick glance as he kept forward, and he saw a lion. It was green and sickly with no hair and missing parts of flesh. The surprise not from the expected rotting, but from the three necks sprouting three lion heads that moved most unnaturally from one body as it prepared to pounce on the other minotaur.

The gray gladiator felt the blue twinge to his eyes, fighting it as he dove ahead and under the clawed reach of the monstrous former troll. His axe slashed upward, then the other, severing a repulsive enlarged bone hand half his size. It hit the black stone floor and its owner hissed through sinew and bone, turning those beady red lights of eyes toward the minotaur. The crowd roared, the underground arena boomed and echoed so loud that none could hear anything else. The Harlian men charged the other rotted troll, a furious battle cry of more fear than courage. Saberrak backed up from the reach of his one-handed foe just as the other troll grabbed a soldier and bit his top half off. Blood showered the men of Harlaheim and the scream was horrid for morale, yet bliss to the crowd.

Swords plunged into the legs and torso of the dead beast, fear guiding the attacks and forgetting Saberrak’s advice. Madness took over in the arena. Dwarven howls of pain echoed as the three-headed lion creature had crushed the troll that was supposedly with them. Instead of feasting, it began its hunt for the tastier dwarven morsels and avoided the shaggy white minotaur. Saberrak was left to face his monstrosity alone, and he rolled again, this time taking a leg off at the knee with one swing and cleaving the hamstrings of the other leg with his second weapon. The claws grazed his armor, the minotaur too quick for the undead beast, and it fell to its one hand and knees with a sickening slosh of loose flesh and rot.

The crowd screamed as another dwarf was devoured and the standing undead troll ripped another human in two and began to eat the bottom half. The white minotaur dove into the green lion, interrupting its meal, and the two rolled over and over, dwarf corpses spreading blood over the floor and the combatants. Saberrak slashed his axes across the back of the neck, then the spine, then kicked forward as his adversary fell into pieces before the onlookers. His weapons and armor now covered in black paste and rotten stench of the dead that still walked. The
booos
cascaded through Ajastaphan as Saberrak stood victorious over the first dead beast to emerge and marched toward the second troll that was having its wicked way with the Harlian men. He twirled his axes and charged it from the flank.

The dwarves tightened with shield and hammer, three remaining in front of the lion that had just finished the white minotaur. The horned beast lay twitching as the crowd howled for more bloodshed and carnage. Swords plunged into the legs of the dead troll as it ripped another man down with black bone claws. Norrice slashed a tendon near the knee and ducked under another claw meant for his head. His men screaming in terror, covered in black decay and ichor, dodging bites and claws as the blood of their kinsman showered the air. The once giant troll shuddered, its dead flesh toppling over as Saberrak the gray landed horns first into its side with a sickening thud.

“Take the head!” He roared to Norrice and the Harlian men.

As it staggered to get up, the horrid reborn troll grabbed another human assailant, one of three left around it, and bit the legs clean off. One man ran in shock, leaving NorrIce and Saberrak cleaving away at rotted spine and exposed sinew of the neck. A few gory moments later and it was unmoving, much like the five corpses surrounding it.

Another dwarf went down with a roar and chewing noise blended with the snapping of steel and bone. One head hanging lifeless, the fleshcrafted lion took blow after thudding blow from the two dwarves remaining. A greataxe flew into the head in the center landing in between the eyes, snapping it back like a branch breaking in a storm. The dwarves moved in, wailing away with yells and hammers galore. The lion withdrew, keeping distance, eyeing a few human morsels instead of the resilient bearded men it faced.

The crowd cheered as the gray minotaur leapt on a dead run, over the bodies and carnage left in its wake, and planted his remaining axe behind the only moving head of the altered giant feline. The head severed clean off, the body thrashed, black and purple liquid covered Saberrak and the two dwarves standing off with the beast.

The true living troll crawled to its feet, body regenerating and regrowing from the vicious lion that had crushed it. Norrice looked around and found his remaining man trying to get past the sealed doors out of the arena. He went to calm him and stop his shaking, obviously terror stricken from the horror of the battle. The two dwarves backed to the gray minotaur that had finished their beast. Saberrak raised his axe to the crowd, pulled the other one free from the dead lion at his feet, and pointed at Chalas Kalaza as he let out a bovine roar.

The crowd stomped, clapped, stood and cheered. The lords of Devonmir looked down and talked amongst themselves, then to the master of ceremonies. Napralis raised his hand, yet the crowd silenced little after such a show.

“The lords of Ajastaphan applaud you, brave warriors. For the gray minotaur, the bidding shall start at ten thousand gold coin. Do I hear ten thousand?!”

Saberrak hung his head, as did the remaining men and dwarves. The troll covered its ears, still healing and weak.

“Do I hear eleven thousand?!
Yes you there
, do I hear twelve?!” Napralis continued the bidding, the selling of the victorious to the noble crowd and lords gathered.

The ogre guards, armored and armed, came through the three sets of doors followed by human slaves by the dozens. The cleaning and carrying of the dead began. The buying continued, and Saberrak the gray of Unlinn was but a slave once more as he was escorted back to the barracks and removed of his armor and axes. He cared not who had purchased him, it mattered little. He looked to the crowd for a friendly face or some hope, yet he found none. The doors closed behind him and the others.

“We survived, we won, still in one piece. You were absolutely unstoppable my gray---“

Saberrak looked down at Norrice, deep eyes with shadows of horns tattooed underneath, “It has just begun Norrice, and it will not stop while we are still breathing.”

“The trolls, the fl-fl-flesh-sh, blood, blood, bl-bl-ood, BLOOD! Aaarrhhhh!” Norrices man went from shaking to shouting, his eyes agaze at nothing in the torchlit dark, yet the terror had hold. Saberrak had seen it before from men captured from Chazzrynn. Unlinn was worse, the ogre would terrorize someone like that, he knew.

“Better shut him up Norrice, the others here will kill him before the guards do.” Saberrak looked around, fifty men, twenty ogre, and two passages out besides the arena doors.