Trapped On Talonque: (A Sectors SF romance) (11 page)

“But to beat Kalgitr?” Atletl questioned, his face set in grim lines. “Do you not watch when his team scrimmages? No one can beat Kalgitr.”

“Maybe we haven’t been playing this damn game all our lives like you, or Kalgitr, but we’ve gotten pretty decent at it,” Nate said. “On any given day on any given planet, someone has to win and someone else has to lose, no matter the game. It might be Kalgitr’s destiny to lose when we meet in the real arena. His luck has to run out eventually.”

Atletl didn’t appear to be convinced, but he didn’t offer any further argument in the face of Nate’s vehemence. He moved off after the beckoning trainers.

All too soon, Nate and his team stood at the center of the exhibition court, facing Kalgitr and his three oversize goons. The ball shot from the middle circle, and Thom fielded it, taking off immediately for the low five at the other end of the field, only to be tripped by Kalgitr’s left defenseman, the ball coming loose as he fell. With supreme effort, Thom angled the black leather ball away from the enemy, and Atletl intercepted, passing off to Haranda. The game went back and forth, using the entire field. Haranda made the shot, banking it off the other side of the court and neatly into the right circle, which was a move he’d invented. The crowd of prisoners cheered themselves hoarse. The nobles were less amused, faces displaying shock. Nate, chest heaving from the exertion in the unrelenting heat, derived a savage pleasure from Sarbordon’s reaction.

“It was a fluke, not a legal move.” Kalgitr voiced his complaint loudly. “They cheat, Great Lord. Let us play another point and see who triumphs.”

“You can’t keep up with me,” Haranda said, hands on his hips, laughing. “Admit it, I’m too fast for you, tub of vegetable curd.”

“Stand down.” Nate was concerned by Kalgitr’s rising anger and embarrassment in front of his ruler. The other player’s face was flushed with anger, and his fists were clenched. Nate had seen him explode in a rage more than once when mocked by a man he regarded as a lesser opponent.

“The teams will play to the second score.” After a whispered conference with Lolanta, Sarbordon made the announcement with a wave of his hand.

The ball came whipping from the low five hole, taking all eight players by surprise, and the second round commenced. Kalgitr and his men obviously hadn’t taken Nate’s team seriously in the first round. Nate wished he could have kept their competitive advantage for the real showdown in the city arena. Now their opponents were on their mettle, embarrassed by the loss of the first point. Atletl collapsed in a heap as he collided with two of the bigger men from the other team. The ball shot straight up in the air. Haranda snagged it and faked Kalgitr out to send the sphere slamming home into the far left circle.

“Two!” The young pilot did a victory dance at the edge of the field, playing to the crowd of cheering prisoners.

Kalgitr pivoted and checked with the king, who nodded. A third ball flew into the court, and the battle was on in earnest. Once again, Atletl got the ball to Haranda, who was driving down the court when Kalgitr tackled him full body, shoving the slender offworlder into the stone wall headfirst. A sickening thud echoed through the enclosure. As the cheers died, Haranda slid to the sand on his stomach, head at an odd angle, the ball dribbling away from his outstretched hand.

The crowd was silent. Thom, who was closest, ran to kneel beside the fallen player, checking for a pulse. Kalgitr rolled away, rose to his feet and brushed sand from his shoulders like a man with no worldly cares.

Thom shook his head. “He’s dead, broken neck.”

Nate spun on his heel in the sand to glare at Kalgitr, who bared his teeth in a satisfied grin and spat in the direction of Haranda’s body. “These men die like any other. They’re nothing special.”

Rising slowly, Thom laid a hand on Nate’s arm. “Not now,” he said quietly.

“There will be retribution, my word on it,” Nate said to Kalgitr. He turned to the trainers who arrived to carry off Haranda’s corpse, wanting to know what the staff intended to do with the unfortunate man. He had only a second of warning from Thom as Kalgitr launched himself across the space between them and tackled Nate, throwing him to the sand. Twisting free, regaining his feet and dancing away, Nate raised both hands to indicate he didn’t want to fight. “You killed my man and I owe you retribution for the death, but let’s settle this in the arena.”

Apparently emboldened by Sarbordon and Lolanta’s tacit approval of his actions, Kalgitr charged. Nate landed a punishing commando blow, flat-handed and deadly, at the base of Kalgitr’s neck. Spinning in a blur, Nate finished with a roundhouse kick to the man’s chin. The crack of Kalgitr’s breaking neck was audible across the playing fields. As the bigger man fell bonelessly to the sand, Nate stood balanced on the balls of his feet, barely winded but on an adrenaline high.

Now the head trainer belatedly screamed at the guards. Sarbordon bellowed orders. Kalgitr’s teammates ran for the safety of the viewing area, apparently fearing Nate might target them next. Five guards came at Nate, faces contorted in fear and anger, weapons ready, clearly intending to kill rather than recapture him in retribution for the death of the crowd favorite and reigning champion, never mind that Nate had acted in self-defense.

The fight was on.
 

With an efficient flurry of blows, Nate killed the first man to reach him. Snatching the dead guard’s belt knife, Nate spun to defend himself from the next wave of attackers. Dividing his attention between the second and third assailants, Nate knocked one out and crippled the other before three more soldiers piled on, followed by others.

Dimly, Nate was aware of Thom wading into the fray at his side, killing two men, snapping the neck of the first and stabbing the second with a knife hastily grabbed from the belt of the first victim. He was strangling a third when four guards tackled him, pinning him to the sand on his back, spears at his throat.

“Don’t kill him,” Sarbordon screamed hoarsely. “He must stand his punishment as a lesson to all the others.”

A moment later, Nate was overpowered by sheer force of numbers. He struggled in the grip of his captors, hardly hearing the strident commands.

The guards dragged him, fighting them every inch of the way, out of the arena to the punishment wall. Nate was a man possessed now, all the rage and frustration at their imprisonment and harsh treatment coming out. There was nothing to lose, no reason to pull the force of his blows. More than one guard went reeling away with a broken bone, but another always came to take his place. With great difficulty, six of them fastened Nate to the wall by the wrists, face to the stones. The guards stepped away, and the beating began, lash after lash of the head trainer’s whip. There was no mercy, each new blow laying him open to the bone, until Sarbordon finally intervened. Nate was dimly aware of the activity around him.

“Enough,” the ruler said. “Take him to his quarters. Celixia may treat the wounds tomorrow. For tonight, no man or woman is to raise a hand to help him, on pain of their own death. See if his precious goddess heals him. If he lives, then he’ll face the test of the games. If he dies tonight, we have our answer as to the will of the gods. And his death will mean T’naritza is to be mine tomorrow to do with as I please.”

“And this one?” Lolanta asked, pausing beside Thom, who had been forced to watch Nate’s punishment from his knees, spears pressed to his chest and back to prevent any attempt at intervention. “What of him?”

The sergeant spat at her.

Eyeing Thom with contempt, her husband said, “If his captain dies, you may have this one for the altars with no further delay. And the other as well.” He nodded at Atletl kneeling in the sand beside Thom. Atletl had been as stunned as the rest of the crowd at the eruption of deadly violence on the playing field. He had belatedly, willingly waded into the fray on Thom’s side, but without the hand-to-hand combat skills of the two Special Forces commandos, Atletl had been easily subdued by the guards.

Without another word, or even a glance for his fallen favorite, the ruler swept away.

Dimly, Nate realized Lolanta paused a moment longer, staring at Thom. “You won’t be so defiant once we have you in our tender care. Many of my priestesses have been eyeing you, red hair. The sisterhood will make special efforts to prolong your suffering on the altar, I guarantee it.”

Thom suggested she commit an anatomical impossibility, which earned him a blow from Murrax that knocked him sideways into the sand. Lolanta laughed and strolled after her husband.

The guards unfastened the shackles on Nate’s lacerated wrists and stepped aside as he crumpled to the sand, his legs refusing to bear his weight. One man motioned for Thom and Atletl to carry Nate to the cart for the ride to the palace and then, once there, to lug him to his bed in their quarters. His teammates laid Nate as gently as possible on his stomach. The guards gestured for them to move away to their own cots.

“Please, let me treat his wounds. He’ll surely die,” Thom pleaded with the guards, but mindful of their ruler’s command, the men ignored everything the sergeant said. After securing the two men to their own beds, the soldiers left, the last man slamming the door violently.
 

“Your captain is a skilled and dangerous fighter,” Atletl said. “To kill one such as Kalgitr barehanded in a fair fight! Not to mention the guards he bested. And you accounted for at least five more. I wouldn’t have believed it possible had I not seen it.”

“Wish I could share your enthusiasm. Kalgitr had it coming for sure, but what a hell of a way for a man like Nate to die. Just hope it goes quick for him and that he doesn’t wake before it’s over. For sure he ain’t going to make it to the morning for Celixia to take care of.”

“Not going to die,” Nate said, jaw clenched. He wasn’t sure the others heard him.

“If the captain dies, we won’t see the setting sun ourselves tomorrow.” Atletl’s matter-of-fact prediction was grim.

“Nothing we can do right now,” Thom answered. “What a fucking mess.”

“Best to sleep now,” Atletl advised. “Regain strength for whatever tomorrow brings us.” He gathered his two thin blankets and rolled up in them, turning away from Thom.

Nate was caught in pain, in red-hot sheets and torrents of agony. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think, he could hardly breathe. There was no escaping the web of suffering spreading from his ravaged back, enveloping his entire body. The other aches and injuries from the day’s combat were lost in the flood of pain from the savage beating he had endured. The world consisted only of the pain and the heat, with a curious coldness creeping in at the edges as he lost more blood. He considered the checkout code but didn’t reach for it in his mind. Not yet. He owed Thom his best effort to survive this. And then there was Bithia.

Nate?

A soft voice pushed aside the sheets of fire in his mind, if only for an instant.

Nate? What happened?
 

The voice whispered his name again, compelling, forcing its way into the whirl of his torment. He knew who called him, but he couldn’t even breathe her name. Words were beyond him. Thoughts were mere fragments between the waves of pain.

A cool breeze fanned his skin, bringing a moment of blessed relief from the torment.

“Bithia,” he whispered through bruised lips, trying to turn his head in the direction of the breeze before hot pain came flashing back.

What have those bastards done to you?
Her voice in his head was tender, concerned, thick with unshed tears. He hoped she wasn’t vulnerable to his agony.

“I killed a man. Several men. And I was punished.” He was blunt, unapologetic, the mental reenactment of Kalgitr’s death crossing his mind, overlaying the vision of poor young Haranda’s murder at Kalgitr’s hands, body left lying broken in the sand.

From Bithia there was surprise, revulsion, shock. A withdrawing, whether from the deed itself or from the intensity of the raw emotions in his mind, he couldn’t tell.

“Kalgitr deserved it, believe me. The bastards all did.” Even in his torment, Nate cared that she understood his choice. But what did she know about men who could kill? She was a peaceful researcher from an advanced civilization who’d probably never seen violence firsthand. What common ground could the two of them have, even if they could meet?
 

Nate sank into the awful fire and pain, reaching for the first symbols of the Mellurean checkout code. He was so tired, crippled by the pain. There was no reason, after all, to fight any longer. Thom would use his code tomorrow at the appropriate time, cheating the bloodthirsty rulers out of their anticipated revenge.

You’re wrong. I do understand. I see in your mind how the one you call Kalgitr killed first, wantonly. That poor boy—

The cool breeze whispered across his back again, bringing fleeting relief.
 

Listen to me, you can’t give in. You have to fight the pain, please. Hold on until morning, until Celixia can come with her healing potions and salves, I beg you.

“I can’t. You have to let me go.” He needed to warn her about Sarbordon’s plans for tomorrow, but he couldn’t even start the communication to send her. What could she do in her own defense anyway? He paused in his effort to summon the code. He couldn’t abandon her. His death would lead directly to hers. She’d have no one to help her.