Interlude
THE FIGHTER
Seven years after the blade
The woman met the fighter in a basement that smelled like sweat and stale alcohol. In the years after the sun fell, humanity embraced the comfort of violence in a world that could no longer avoid it. The fighting rings were set up with makeshift ropes of cloth, surrounded by cheering spectators.
The woman slid into the stands, blessed blade at her back, accompanied by a machinist and a priestess. “Who are we betting on, Val?” she asked the machinist.
The girl did not hesitate. She had known as soon as she walked into the room.
“That one!” she said, pointing.
The fighter was a muscular young man with dark hair and a short, unkempt beard. He was large, but not the largest man here; fast, but not the fastest; strong, but not the strongest. Yet, he still wore a permanent crooked grin, as if he had not a care in the world.
“You sure?” the woman said. “You don’t want to lose your coin.”
“I’m sure!” the machinist proclaimed, and happily handed her bet to the dealer.
When the match began, it was vicious, like animals ripping into each other. The fighter was outmatched. He took hit after hit from his opponent, bruises blotching over his eyes and cheekbone and jaw and shoulder. But through it all, that smile remained.
The woman nudged the machinist’s shoulder. “Sorry about your silver, Val.”
But no sooner were the words out of her mouth than did the tide turn.
The fighter landed a devastating counter, fist colliding with his opponent’s jaw so hard that the sound echoed against the ceiling.
And that was merely the beginning. His strikes were unrelenting, one after another after another, until his opponent was on his knees, and then the ground, and even then, he did not stop until he was dragged away.
Through it all, he wore that grin, teeth now stained red.
The woman was impressed.
Later, she pushed through the crowd to talk to him as he wiped blood from his face. He eyed her up and down and did not bother to hide his lecherousness. She appreciated that at least he was straightforward.
“Heard the Vindica Ultis was here,” he said. “Not a very holy place for a godly warrior, huh?”
“You’ll be glad I’m here.” She gave the fighter a vicious smile. “You were good.”
“I know.”
She appreciated that, too.
“You looking for a job?” she said.
He did not ask, Doing what? He understood that there was only one service of value he had to offer.
“Depends. You paying?”
“If you’re worth it.”
Again, a wolfish grin. “I’ll be worth it.”
She extended her hand. “Kyrene.”
He took it. “Marko.”
The exchange was candid. The arrangement simple.
The woman was certain of what she was getting—a brutal man who had learned to thrive in a brutal world.
And in the three years that followed, as she watched him inflict the convenient service of violence again and again, she would never question this.
She believed that the fighter would spend the rest of his days living this way, and he would die this way too: selfishly and unapologetically.
But the night the fighter died, his final thoughts were not those of gold or pride or fame, but of a promise he’d made and the machinist girl who was screaming his name. He died not in service to his own ego, but in a desperate attempt to save someone he already knew could not be saved.
Still, he tried anyway. Just as once he had taken strike after strike and kept going, that night, he kept crawling even as his flesh and bones were torn apart.
The fighter was not a good man in life. He enjoyed violence, and he thought of himself above all others. And yet.
And yet . . . what is the value of one final act of selflessness?