Chapter 2
brYN
My side feels better when I wake. It’s no longer hot to the touch. The rest of me hurts, but I barely acknowledge the pain. That’s not how a human down here lives another day.
The gates unlock loudly and my eyes snap open.
Fuck!
I slept too long.
I lurch up, gritting my teeth and making my way quickly toward the river to drink before the training begins. Someone pushes me, and I shove back with a snarl, not even looking in their direction, but there are too many making their way to the gates and I can’t get to the water.
None for me this morning.
I turn in silence, my jaw working, and shuffle with the others out to the training grounds. I’m put in a circle with another woman I don’t know. We never begin until we’re told, so we just stare at each other, sizing each other up.
She’s blonde. Her hair is shorn very short.
She likely did it herself with a sharp stone so that it can’t be used against her.
She’s thin. Been here awhile. But she won’t be as weak as she looks.
There’s a jagged, angry scar across her face.
It’s made her eye look perpetually swollen. She can barely open it.
But I don’t fall for that. It probably isn’t as bad as she’s making it look; a trick so that I underestimate her. I tense, ready for the signal horn that will commence the practice. I see her body coil as well, and I brace for her to throw herself toward me.
‘That one!’
I’m grabbed by the scruff of the neck and pulled from the circle by one of the overseers.
Survive.
I try not to gasp or show any outward signs of fear.
Have they decided I’m weak? Will they throw me down the nearest shaft?
I keep my eyes down. I don’t struggle. I’m not stupid.
But I will survive.
‘Why?’ the overseer asks the other one, who I notice is dressed marginally better.
I glance up and see them glowering at each other. Both are large though the new one appears cleaner as well as clothed well. He’s not covered in the thin layer of dust everyone down here is, either.
‘Not for you to know, dreg.’
The overseer holding me snorts.
‘Fucked if I care,’ he snarls, pushing me hard toward his better.
I fall against the cleaner one, and he lets out a growl of anger, thrusting me away from him and then wiping at the invisible dirt I’ve left on him.
‘Gods, she’s covered in grime, you cunt!’
The overseer who brought me chortles, does a rude gesture with his hand, and walks off.
I step back and look down, waiting for the smack around the head I’ll get though running into him wasn’t my fault.
But nothing comes.
‘It’s your lucky day, female,’ he rasps out. ‘Come.’
Survive.
I do as I’m told, and I’m taken through a doorway in the face of the rock that I’ve never noticed.
There’s a wide staircase with very long, shallow steps in front of me.
The stones are worn toward the middle by years of booted feet traversing them.
I peer up. It curves slightly to the left around the wide perimeter of the pit.
No one goes up unless they’re to fight in the arenas.
I’m going up. Though I don’t know what to expect, my elation at being chosen makes it easy to follow the orc, which is good because if I don’t go readily, not only might I lose my chance, but he’ll definitely snap my neck like a hen destined for the pot, throw me down a shaft, and it’ll be my half-eaten bones that start appearing on the walkways.
I trail after him along the wide corridor that has openings through it at regular intervals that overlook the pits. These are the windows where the figures stand and watch us, I realize. We’re already very high despite only walking for a few moments.
I’m taken into a small room and told to strip.
I silence the fear in my head and the confusion that pervades my mind most of the time as I let my brown, potato-sack garment, the same as all the other women wear here, fall to the floor without hesitation.
Survive.
At any cost.
I realize belatedly that I’m not alone. Besides the overseer who brought me up, there’s a fae and two other orcs.
My eyes return to the fae more than once and not only because I haven’t seen one here since I arrived.
I think I know him. He was one of the ones who sold me to this place, I’m almost sure of it.
I try to recall more than that, but, like everything outside the pits, my memory of him is hazy at best.
‘She must bear some fortitude to have marks such as these,’ one of the orcs comments, stepping forward.
His hands skate down my scarred body. I stand perfectly still, staring at nothing, refusing to shiver.
‘Aye, that she does,’ the other orc replies agreeably.
‘She’s been here over two months. Usually the prettier ones die in the paddocks, but, as much as it pains me to say it, you were right as usual, Bere.
She’s ruthless and heartier than she looks at first glance.
She’s not lived the soft life of a pleasure slave as I first assumed when you brought her to me.
Worth more than others in the lower level pits, certainly.
Whether she’ll last more than a few actual matches in an arena is another matter, though.
I might be better served by keeping her to the smaller pit fights at my patrons’ social revelries.
They’ll enjoy seeing one such as her spar with other beauties. ’
Bere, the fae, shrugs. ‘As I said, Kobeth. I spoke truth to you. I grow impatient to leave. As much as I’ve enjoyed your food and drink over the past few weeks, I do have a business to run, and almost a sennight has passed in Merediea.
Tell me, do you want her or shall I take her back to the First Circle?
I can still get a good price for her there though the auctions will largely be finished by now, but... ’
The orc snorts. ‘You already know we’ll take her, or else you wouldn’t have wasted two First Circle weeks taking advantage of our hospitality, you fae cunt.’
Bere’s smile is satisfied. ‘Perfect. Shall we talk coin while she entertains us? I assume you’ll want to see how your new acquisition does?’
Kobeth nods. ‘Come. Take final refreshment, then. We’ll watch her with Maldred, see if she has enough spirit to be one of mine.’
Now, Bere makes a sound of annoyance. ‘No more trials, Kobeth. She’s yours. No returns. This grows tedious.’
‘Not a trial, a show, my friend. I’ll pay you top market value for her no matter the outcome. I give you a vow.’
Bere makes a sound of derision. ‘The promise of an orc does not carry the weight you seem to believe it does.’
‘And yet you’ll still come with me now to be amused,’ Kobeth chuckles.
The orc gestures with a finger at me and glances at the one who brought me upstairs. ‘Isen, have her taken to the baths. Ensure she’s washed. Her stink offends us all. Even Maldred will balk at having to be in the same room with her.’
Bere eyes me, giving me a wink, his blue eye flashing violet for a moment. I stare at him, taking in his thin face, the dark goatee. I do know him, and not just from the day he brought me here. Why can’t I remember?
I’m trying to understand what’s happening, but I can’t work it out. Rising from the lowest levels means I have promise as a fighter. I’ll win. I’ll make coin. But I haven’t had a fight yet, not a real one in the true pits. This isn’t how it’s meant to go. It’s not right.
Dread makes my belly clench as Isen, the orc who brought me up, nods and takes hold of my arm.
My sack is left where it fell on the floor and I’m drawn along another hallway.
We pass other orcs, some demons, and there are even, oddly, some pixies.
They’re richly dressed, with imperious expressions, somehow staring down their noses at Isen though they’re much shorter. Me, they don’t even look at.
I’m thrust into a warm, steamy room. There’s no one else here that I can see. Just me.
‘Bathe,’ the orc orders in a lazy tone.
I look around the bathing room in wonder. I must waste too much time for Isen’s liking because I feel his boot connect with the middle of my back, and then I’m under the water.
I splutter to the surface, scrambling to the side because it’s much deeper than I am tall. The orc laughs loudly at me.
‘Humans,’ he chuckles as he moves away looking uninterested again now that I’m not half-drowning.
I make my way to the steps, finding soap and clean cloths.
I’m not sure when I last bathed, and though I know this is not for my comfort, I take advantage.
I soap my hair and my body thoroughly. I use the rough cloth to rid myself of the dirt and dust I’m caked in from however many days I’ve been in the training arena with the other human slaves.
Several weeks, they said just now, and yet that fae said something about only a sennight passing outside the pits.
It sounded as if time passes differently here, but I have no way of knowing the true variance. I haven’t seen the sun, and there are no seasons to feel down here, deep under the ground, nor is there any way for me to compare time here with the outside.
Something niggles at me deep in my mind. Again.
I’ve forgotten something. It’s important. I need to remember. But I push it away. These thoughts keep plaguing me and they’re getting stronger, more impossible to ignore. They’re going to get me killed.
Survive.
‘It doesn’t matter!’ I scream silently into the void of my mind, the places where everything is in disarray.
There is only where I am now. Here, in this bathing room. This is my present reality. It doesn’t matter what came before it, what I can’t recall.
The feeling fades away, leaving me in the hot water, the prelude to something that won’t be good for me, I’m sure.
I’ll need to fight. I’ll need to win. Prove my worth to the orc in charge of this place, Kobeth.
Survive.
‘Out,’ the overseer says a few moments later, picking himself up off the wall and gesturing at me with a lone finger to leave the water.