4. Freedom Traders #2
The strange battleboxer lost his balance as the guard let go and slid to the ground with a grunt. He landed with his back propped against the rattling cage door. Imalroc lunged to his feet, awareness pouring through his arms, chest, thighs, everything crackling to life.
It took the stranger a moment to realize what was happening. He stared dumbstruck at Imalroc’s rapidly rising form and then scrambled to get to his feet, clanging his wrist manacles against the gate behind him.
“Not empty! Not empty!” he yelped after the guards. “Shit, come back!” There was no reply from the guards, and the only answering sound from the hallway was the aftershocks of the drums.
“Alright you, hang on there, sit down. Sit!” The stranger sounded like he was trying to train a dog.
Imalroc’s lip curled. He stepped forward, stiff-legged. The stranger pressed back against the grating, his feet still scrabbling uselessly for purchase on the slick floor. His obvious terror did not set Imalroc at ease. Frightened battleboxers could do impossible and deadly things.
Imalroc snarled, “Don’t try that dominance shit with me, unless you want to be gutted.” He stepped back and leaned against the opposite wall, keeping well clear of his guest.
The man froze, and his chest heaved a few times, but he eventually stopped wriggling like a worm on a hook. “Eternals,” he breathed at last. “You half scared me to death. And I can’t die tonight.”
Odd way to put it, but some version of the same mantra had looped through Imalroc’s head since he had seen Navona. His heart slowed and head cleared enough that he could better examine the battleboxer.
The man was short and stocky, with bulging arms. Dark hair covered most of his head, but one side of his scalp was shiny and red, with streaks of lumpy scar tissue running down his neck like dripping wax. He had gotten a little too friendly with fire.
“I’m Coel. And you look...” The battleboxer squinted at Imalroc. “Like you’re new.”
“Not exactly.”
“No? I’ve left blood in every battlebox in this city by my count, and I’ve never seen you.”
Imalroc said nothing.
Coel seemed to misinterpret his silence as an invitation to keep talking.
“Not too friendly, I take it? No matter, it’s good to keep yourself to yourself when you first start out.
Who’re you fighting tonight? I’ll give you a few tips.
Unless it’s me, in which case, sorry. I’ll have to knock you out, because I can’t die tonight. ”
“Vativa,” Imalroc answered, sinking into a squat. The drums had gone silent, and for a moment there was only the sound of water plopping into puddles.
“What about her?” Coel asked warily.
“You asked who I’m fighting. Why are you so sure you won’t die tonight?”
Coel’s eyes bulged. He drew his knees toward his chest. “You’re... you’re the fighter they brought from Kirinoll? The one called Imalroc?”
“Why can’t you die tonight?”
Coel glanced around as though the cell were crowded with others. “Because tonight’s my last fight. Ever. Make it through tonight and I’ll be free.”
It took Imalroc a moment to unravel his tongue. Whatever he had expected Coel to say, that wasn’t it. “Your masters agreed—”
“No, not them, of course not them. There are... others.” His milky blue eyes shone, and Imalroc was torn between thinking he looked deranged and wanting desperately to hear whatever he said next.
Coel beckoned him forward.
His gut stirred with instinctive warning. He inched closer but stayed in a defensive crouch, safely out of the man’s reach. “What others?” he asked, voice low.
Coel answered him in an eager whisper. “There are representatives from the Southern Felds in Lakara on the hunt for fighters. Freedom traders. They take you south, and then you can choose to stay and fight if you choose. They’re building an army.”
“Stay and fight what?”
Coel leaned in. His answer was so quiet, it was as if he mouthed the words. “Her. The Queen.”
“These... freedom traders,” Imalroc whispered, creeping nearer still. “You called them representatives. Who are they representing?”
“If you know to ask that question, then you already know the answer. The one who comes to strike the chains from the wrists of the slaves.”
Imalroc lurched back on his heels. “The Advocate.” He could hear the wonder in his own voice, and something like fear. Only it wasn’t fear, it was something far worse, and far better.
Hope.
Coel grinned. “I suppose I should thank you.”
“Why?”
“The freedom traders have a plan to take me right after my front fight. My owners want to watch your fight with Vativa, so I’ll be left in a holding cell. I’ll escape south because everyone will be watching you. Try to make it a long one, will you?”
Imalroc couldn’t keep his eyebrows from jumping sharply at the request. “How long have you fought in the battleboxes?”
“Three, almost four years. There are trainers all over the Eastern Felds since the war. Taking young folk who’ve got no one to speak for them.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up in this shithole.
Been fighting in front fights ever since.
” Coel rubbed the scarred side of his chin with one bound hand. “What about you?”
“Eleven,” Imalroc answered.
The other battleboxer’s hands slipped from his face, his mouth gaping open. “Eleven years?” Coel squeaked. “You’ve been fighting for eleven years? And still not broken? I’ve never even heard of someone lasting so long.”
“It’s not unheard of in Kirinoll. Some last long enough to win their freedom.”
“They say Kirinoll fighters don’t fall.”
Imalroc had heard the saying many times.
It was the phrase Colm Lydak used to bellow during training, every time Imalroc ignored his instructions and went to the ground.
He swallowed back a wave of bile. He had fought for three times as long, against battleboxers far better than the ones Coel faced in front fights.
And yet by tomorrow, Coel would be running south to freedom, and Imalroc would be waiting still, waiting for Etiana to book his next fight, waiting for the onyx to pile up high enough, waiting for Rerdas to touch him again.
The sound of guards’ boots marching toward them broke through his bitter thoughts.
He bent close to Coel and murmured, “Listen, if you get out, if you really make it to the Southern Felds, tell them to come for me. Tell them... I want to be free too.”
Coel nodded solemnly. The guards’ shadows fell across his face from outside the cell. They conferred in whispers when they saw two battleboxers just beyond the gate, and Imalroc retreated to his corner.
“Who thought it a good plan to put two of them in one cell?”
“Some idiots, I’m sure. We only need the closest one for the front fight. The other one...” The guard hesitated, eyeing Imalroc. She shouted, “You! Stay still. Not one move when we open the gate!”
Coel wormed away from the entrance. One of the guards ducked through the open cell door, seized him by the collar, and dragged him to his feet in the hallway. The cell door banged shut, bolts falling back into place.
Imalroc waited until the guards moved down the hall, the chained fighter between them. He hooked his fingers through the grated gate and pressed his cheek against the metal to watch Coel’s stooped, vanishing shadow.
“Good luck,” he hissed. Then he opened his jaw, sucked in a breath and screamed, “Good luck!”
The echo of his own shout rang in his ears, but the hall was silent.