Khaller took a long drink. I surmised that this next part of his story was not a very pleasant memory for him.
"Kosher," he began, "was a lowlife thug. He was the head of a group called the Takers. They consisted of pickpockets and petty thieves. They were a nuisance in the slums. They stole from already poor people. I'm not one to condone stealing, especially now that I am a commander in the king's army. But if you must steal, at least do it from people who wouldn't even feel it. But the Takers were cowards; they took from the helpless. One day, I saw them in a group of eight crowding around an old woman. They stripped her of all her valuables, which wasn't much, and pushed her to the ground. This irked me badly.
So I tracked them to their hideout. There were fifteen of them in total. I dispatched them pretty easily and gave them enough of a beating to make them consider an occupation change. I returned the bag to the old woman; she was really thankful, and I went about my business. I thought that was the end of it. It was not.
"A couple of days later, I was tracked down by them. This time, they came with their leader, Kosher. He had apparently come to take revenge. He told me to kneel at his feet and grovel, and perhaps he would let me keep my life. I obviously told him to piss off. And so we fought."
Khaller trailed off, his eyes distant, a small upward curve forming at the edge of his lips. My mother tapped him on the arm before he continued.
"Ahh, sorry. Kosher was an interesting fellow, you see. He just couldn't feel pain, no matter how much you inflicted upon him. He was better in single combat than I was. But I compensated for that ability gap with my prediction talent. He couldn't land a single hit on me while I landed several. But for some reason, he just wouldn't go down. I had never seen anything like it. We fought for hours; eventually, people began to gather to watch.
"Eventually, I began to tire out, but Kosher still had the same intensity. His stamina was unnatural. My prediction ability began to lose its edge. I could still tell where and when his attacks would come, but my body could no longer react fast enough to evade. And soon, his attacks began to land. Unlike him, I could very much feel pain. His punches were hard and brutal. He seemed to also know where to make a man hurt, which was ironic for someone who couldn't feel pain.
Soon, the fight became completely one-sided. He pummeled and battered me with punches and kicks, and even through all the pain, I felt ecstatic. My itch for a good fight was fulfilled; I was enjoying it. I began to grow even further during the fight. Kosher noticed this and swiftly put an end to the fight by knocking me out."
Khaller massaged the side of his head, as if feeling the pain again.
"I woke up in his hideout. He was sitting close to me. I had gotten a new idea of how to deal with him. I urged him to let us fight again, but he shut me down, saying if he was going to fight that long, he'd rather get paid doing it. Then he told me of a fight house in the foreign quarters; he said there were plenty of strong people to fight there, and I could do it earning a lot of money. I was obviously intrigued. He took me to the place one day. It was an empty warehouse, but the real location was underground.
"Anyway, I got introduced to the owner of the establishment. It was surprisingly a woman. Most things like this were owned by men, but I guess she figured out man's primal violent urges, and she made a lot of money off it. I wasn't sure if she herself was a combatant. She didn't look like one, but you could never be too certain. She gave me the rundown of how things worked. I would fight, and I would get paid. The higher the demand for me was, the more frequently I would fight, and the higher my pay would be. There were tiers in this fight house. An amateur obviously couldn't be paired against a seasoned veteran. It wouldn't be any fun.
So, people closer in abilities were matched up. The longer the fight, the better; it was good for betting. Match-fixing was not allowed. If the woman in charge, her name was Madam Cati, found out a match was fixed, there were serious repercussions. I didn't know what the punishment was, but sometimes on the street, I'd see former fighters missing a limb or two, so it wasn't hard to infer.
"Despite Kosher's insistence that I be promoted to the veteran's lineup as he vouched for my skill, Madam Cati made sure I started from the bottom and made my way up; she said that's how things were. And so I did. It didn't take me long to get to the top. I became a fan favorite in little time. The fight club opponents were no Kosher, but they gave me a fairly difficult time. I had to constantly develop ways to defeat opponents.
But soon it became clear that none of the fighters there could put up a decent fight against Kosher or me. And so we were only paired against each other. Our fights were the largest crowd puller in the history of Madam Cati's fight club. One fight of ours generated her the same amount as all the others did in six months.
But Madam Cati was clever; she knew the value of our fight was tied to its rarity. We only fought thrice a year, once every four months. Madam Cati forbade us from fighting one another outside the fight club. Fighting Kosher was fun for me, so it was difficult to adhere, but I did. We were both constantly growing against each other. But I never could completely bridge the gap; it's hard to be on par with a person that doesn't feel pain. Over the many times we would fight, I could feel the difference in ability between us growing until it got to the point I began to have doubts creeping into my mind. For the first time, I began to think that I would never be on the same level as him."
Khaller emptied the contents of one of the tankards and threw it to the floor.
"This Kosher, how many times did you fight him in the fight club?"
"Thirteen."
"And how many of these fights did you win?"
Khaller looked at my mother furiously, his eyes full of hate—hate that she made him relive these moments he had clearly suppressed.
But she met his gaze, unflinching.
Eventually, he looked away and answered begrudgingly.
"None."