The crowds were shouting, roaring too loudly for the unnamed to understand their words. Rhythmic chanting filled the building, a rabid din accompanied by the thumping of heavy shoes against wooden planks.
From what he'd seen of the blood pits on their way into the structure, they consisted of one vast underground chamber divided into several smaller sections by large walls of pitted iron and wood. Wooden stands ran in tightly packed rings above each pit, filled to the brim with masses of screaming, bloodthirsty spectators.
The prisoners were led through narrow corridors with brick walls and a low-hanging, curved roof. The floor was fashioned from hard packed earth covered with sawdust and old memories of bloodshed. The tunnel reeked of urine and fear, made more vivid by the occasional dried blood stain on the walls alongside thick groves made by blunt weaponry. The sounds of clanging weapons echoed off the walls, drifting through the tunnel from some nearby room.
There were no brave souls among the pitiful group of prisoners, none but the hulking form of Naleth. He walked hunched over at the head of them all, his horns almost scraping against the ceiling. He alone seemed quite sanguine about the situation.
That fact was more troubling to the unnamed than anything else in this place. If the giant was happy to try his luck in lethal combat, happy to die at the hands of some monstrous creature even bigger and more dangerous than he was, one could only imagine what circumstances had driven him to the pits in the first place.
The unnamed tried to think of what a worse fate might be but failed to come up with anything convincing. Perhaps an eternity spent having your head popped off by a restraint collar?
The prisoners shuffled together behind Naleth, each lost in their own thoughts and plagued by regrets and petty complaints of what should have been. In the unnamed's case, he expected to be elbow-deep in the dirt, planting potatoes or leeks or whatever vegetables they farmed in the picturesque agricultural regions that surround Havenspire.
The collar around his neck clicked open. Its weight shifted, seeming much lighter.
Thick hands pulled it from his body as one of the guards walked from person to person, collecting the devices as though they weighed no more than a few ounces each.
"You got one job," the thickset slaver with the machete announced, pointing toward the tunnel opening and the roaring crowd beyond. "That gate opens, you go runnin' out. You don't walk. You don't turn around and come back. 'Cause if you do…"
He slid the machete out of its sheath, grinning wickedly as he held the blade near his cheek and ran its flat edge against his grimy flesh.
"I'll feckin' cut you up, understand?"
He chuckled, spat on the floor, then jabbed the weapon toward the tunnel exit.
"You ain't gonna survive this, so get that thought outta ya head right now. Your job isn't to survive, it's to die good. Run around a bit. Make a fool o' yourself. Jump up and down and try not to get killed right away. Do a dance if it helps. Anyfing. Just don't feckin' stand there and do nuffin', got it? These people paid for a show and that's what you're gonna give 'em."
Some of the prisoners nodded. Most stood numbly, trying to digest his words, still unable to comprehend what was about to happen.
"Last one dead," the boss went on, "automatically gets another round. You also get first shot at the slop bucket when we get back to the compound, so keep to ya toes and stay alive as long as you can."
A sickly sensation crawled up the unnamed's spine as the slaver sheathed his weapon and called out to one of the other guards, signaling for him to open the gate.
The roaring of the crowd increased, rising to deafening levels.
At that moment the unnamed understood why they were all dressed in such absurd white outfits. Freshly laundered and stark white, the tunics would make for a better spectacle for those watching from the stands. Bright crimson splashing against pure white—visible from even the cheapest seats in the house.
What kind of monsters would watch something like this?
"Alright, rats!" machete-slaver yelled. "Die well and make it entertaining for feck's sake. One way or another you'll be back at the compound in a few hours, but some of you will eat, and some will starve. So die good, rats!"
It might have been the malice in his voice or the simple movement of the herd, but the unnamed found himself suddenly running toward the jaws of death. His mind was screaming, legs shaking in response to the deafening chant coming from beyond the tunnel, and yet he still ran.
Other lost souls jogged along beside him, some crying, some wearing expressions of grim determination or blank acceptance. They ran like a proverbial colony of lemmings, hurtling into the abyss and the open arms of certain death.
They charged out onto the arena floor and were met by blinding lights and the roaring of a boisterous crowd. The unnamed lifted a hand to shield his eyes, blinking his vision began to clear. He'd expected scaled monsters with horned heads and clawed hands, dire wolves, or something worse. But as the fighting pit resolved ahead of him, he saw only two human figures at the heart of the arena, standing back-to-back.
A lean male and female with short, dark hair and tattoos wrapped across their shoulders, they looked positively serene as they stood with their eyes closed. The pair wore skin-tight outfits which consisted of tightly wrapped bands of black fabric, and both had a line of dark paint smeared across their eyes. Each had a long, samurai-style sword in one hand that they held perfectly upright beside their bodies.
A large holographic display hovered above the pair, listing a series of statistics sitting beneath a vertical sword which looked to be a copy of the blades they both held.
Darksteel Lia
Rank 7
Constitution 10
Strength 4
Stamina 10
Agility 18
Intelligence 0
Overcharge 0
Darksteel Leo
Rank 7
Constitution 10
Strength 6
Stamina 10
Agility 16
Intelligence 0
Overcharge 0
The display read like character stats from innumerable video games, illuminated in flickering golden light. In that moment the unnamed felt the full weight of actually being in the great game rather than simply a standard afterlife simulation. He had no clue how the two sword-wielders' numbers stacked up, but he had a sneaking suspicion that they were very high compared to his own.
The statuesque pair didn't turn or even open their eyes as the prisoners jogged toward them. They stood motionless, an island in the storm of shouts and jeers, thunderous applause, and stamping feet. The unnamed couldn't make out the people in the stands above, but he felt their urgent hunger for bloodshed like a physical force.
Ahead of the group, Naleth had moved to the side of the arena and away from the serene pair, already knowing what was expected of him. A metal portcullis opened in the wall opposite the huge brute and a creature, large and many-limbed, burst from the darkness. Fangs bared, claws flexing, it charged at the giant without warning.
The impact of the monstrous thing hitting Naleth shook the floor of the arena. The prisoners instinctively ran from the sight as the horned brute wrestled with his enemy, receiving a savage cut above his left eye as the beast swiped its claws in a rabid frenzy. It moved with impossible speed, lunging and clawing at Naleth with ferocious intensity, a blended monstrosity, part lion, part demon.
The unnamed turned back to the center of the arena to find that the twins were missing. Instead of interlocked figures standing back-to-back with their eyes closed, shadowed wraiths move through the arena, their long blades slicing a wicked path through the throng of hapless newcomers.
Blood sprayed from a dozen wounds, vivid red against stark white tunics as three of his fellow prisoners died within the first few seconds of the fight.
He ran, skirting around the arena wall, desperately trying to find safety, or at least outpace those running behind him.
A tall man in a blood-flecked tunic elbowed the unnamed in the gut, shoving him against the wall just as the female sword-bearer danced her way toward them.
She moved with terrible speed, her feet barely touching the ground. The statistics that had hovered above her right shoulder were now gone as she spun and leaped through the air, her sword a glinting line of death that seemed physically connected to her body.
The unnamed ran with all the speed his burning legs could muster, jostling two prisoners in a vain attempt to run clear of the pack. He sensed the woman behind and shimmied sharply to the right, attempting to dodge the blow he couldn't see coming.
Searing pain cut through his back and shoulder, two separate cuts that sent him tumbling in a heap.
He fell hard, his head thudding against the wooden barrier to his right. The warrior's lethal blade swiped through the air where his head had been a moment earlier.
The unnamed slumped to the ground, sudden pain in his back and shoulder screaming as the two prisoners ahead were cut down by a series of expertly placed slashes that sent arcs of blood spraying into the air.
The unnamed looked around at the carnage, bleary-eyed and desperately clinging to consciousness. All but two of the prisoners lay dead or dying. The last of the survivors were standing between the two sword-bearers, cornered at the final moment of their savage dance, standing in stunned terror between the deadly pair.
The two figures flicked their swords out to the side in unison. Blood sprayed left and right, arcing out onto the dirt like the wings of a bird to the clear delight of the roaring crowd.
At the apex of their performance, the warriors let fly a loud, percussive shout and thrust their blades into the neck and lower back of the young woman standing between them, holding the pose for a moment in some gruesome parody of a religious statue venerating martyrdom.
The two figures leaned forward, still holding the dying woman between them, skewered by their blades. They kissed her face, each pressing their lips gently on one cheek. Then they pulled back with carefully choreographed grace and let out a second percussive shout as they withdrew their swords.
The pair stood silently. The unnamed watched the scene from his tilted perspective, his head slumped on the ground, body ravaged by constant pain, weariness, and the brutal sword strikes across his back and shoulder.
He turned to see Naleth holding his own against the monster clawing at his body. The brute was covered in blood and one arm hung limply at his side, but he still fought on, snarling with rage as he pummeled his enemy with one huge fist.
The unnamed blinked. Even that meager movement brought a sharp twinge of pain. He shifted focus back to the twin sword-bearers but found only the dead prisoners lying where they had run them through. He twisted his neck, bringing the warriors into focus. They were sauntering toward him, the female at the lead, her sword trailing her in the dirt as her male companion walked slowly after her.
The unnamed tried to stand, pushing against one hand, blood pouring down through his fingers as his muscles quivered then buckled under his own weight. The woman was almost on him, savoring this final kill, teasing it out for the benefit of the crowd and her companion.
The male sword-bearer stopped twenty or so feet away, content to stare blankly ahead as his companion moved closer, lifting her blade and preparing to thrust it down into the unnamed's bare neck.
As he lay on his stomach, neck twisted to the side, something in the stands above caught his attention, a flickering symbol illuminated by vivid crimson light.
He stared in confusion, blinking to test the veracity of what he was seeing.
There it was again, a bright symbol that came and went. It flickered as though someone were holding up a mirrored plate and turning it up and down so its surface glinted in the distance.
The unnamed was taken by the strangest impulse, an unexplainable desire to replicate that symbol as quickly as possible. Before he could register that his hand was moving, he'd begun tracing a line in the dirt, marking out the flickering symbol with one shaking finger. He traced the lines, blood pouring down his hand and into the shallow channels his finger left behind. The symbol looked like a sideways "h" but with the short vertical stroke twisting to one side and continuing past the topmost crossbar.
When the mark was completed, the compulsion that drove him to write it vanished, leaving him weak and foggy.
Something tugged at his heart, squeezing tightly as he fell to his back just as the female sword-bearer's blade drove toward his throat.
The air thickened as she thrust downward. Then the sword slid to the side as it connected with a translucent barrier that cast a faint crimson light as it flared around the unnamed in a protective bubble.
He stared up at the woman's face in confusion as she lifted her weapon and thrust it forward again. The blade was once more driven aside by the crimson barrier.
Dark eyes turned to face him as she bared her teeth and grunted in frustration.
The words "magic shield" popped into his head as he closed his eyes, no longer able to keep them open. Blood still poured from wounds he couldn't see, and judging by the sound of cursing above him, the woman was still trying to stick him with her sword like a shish kebab.
The noise began to fade as he lay in shadow. Confused, exhausted, and still racked with pain, the unnamed gave in to the darkness and let it swallow him whole.