Slave Pits of the Tyrannical God (Path of Transcendence Book 2) (13 page)

The gladiators rise from their seats, stuffing the last of their breakfasts in their mouths. Some take the hard bread with them, as the file out of the mess hall.

I follow them but do not exit the tunnel into the arena.

The Throd'nahk has a group of fifteen newbies in the arena this time.

“Steel is pain. Steel is cruelty.” As has become my habit, I only cast the spell on my left eye.

One of the new slaves looks familiar from when I thought Taereun was a game. A tall man with brown hair looks like someone who was running with the Explorer's Guild, when I was active in the southern part of the Western Reaches. He is a Possessed, and the man I remember was a player. This could be the same person. Considering he is here, he must be a victim of The Nameless' second harvest. I do not remember ever hearing the man's name, but I think he was one of the higher-ups in The Postmen. How he managed to get himself collared in Gor'achen?

I almost jump, when a huge man suddenly enters my awareness. Thrall has the ability to just appear, as if out of thin air. Even though I have at least the basic ability to use spatial awareness, I have yet to spot him walking up to me. He is just suddenly there in my awareness, when does the pop out of thin air act.

“That's seriously fucking annoying.”

Thrall chuckles briefly. “That Possessed is interesting. He is another Maker.”

“Oh? I've seen him before. He's in The Postmen, but I don't know his name.”

“Graham.”

I laugh, but it is not humorous sound.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Graham is one of the co-founders of The Postmen. He was Alva's buddy, maybe her lover. The two of them started The Postmen together, but Graham built the Troubleshooter organization all by himself. He was also responsible for the close ties between The Postmen and the Explorer's Guild.

The new slaves get the same beat down as the slaves that arrived with me. Graham is the last one to take to the sand.

The Throd'nahk gestures at Graham. “Choose your opponent!”

After scanning the line of gladiators, Graham points at Tyrend. “Him.”

With a grin, Tyrend struts over to a weapon rack and picks up the heavily curved scimitar-like swords he used the day I arrived.

“Before you arrived, that one could have been the champion, whenever he chose to claim the position.”

During the time of Taereun as a game, I saw Graham fighting a few times, but while I remember he was effective, I never paid to much attention to him. If he is a Maker, most of his Power will be tied up in abilities that will support his combat skill, and he will likely have very little in the way of active combat abilities. The combat abilities of Makers are more along the line of my dancing swords, abilities that manipulate the items they can craft in an offensive fashion.

When I faced that frog's golems, he was almost certainly using his Power to enhance them, and it may have even required his direct control to turn the one into a martial arts facsimile. If I had known that at the time, I would have just gone straight after that damned frog and dealt with the golems after he was down.

Graham takes up a sword and shield. The sword is bit longer than a common long sword, around the length of a bastard sword with a narrower blade. It is an odd blade that seems to be exclusively made for point work. The shield is nothing special, just a large, round shield.

With the way he holds his sword, while testing its weight and balance, Graham obviously knows what he is doing. The question is, without any Power to support him, how well can he do against a master of the blade like Tyrend.

“Begin!”

Graham closes with Tyrend, but his movements are not reckless. He does not reveal any large openings, when the point of his sword lashes out. As Tyrend sidesteps, he lunges in with a shield bash, for Tyrend to step back.

Tyrend's grin is wider than his normal cocky expression, as his scimitars turn into a whiling tsunami of hard wood. His slashes come from constantly varying angles, but Graham blocks all of them cleanly with either his shield or his sword. Every time Tyrend leaves a gap in his wall of steel, he is forced to dodge or block the point of Graham's sword.

Tyrend is better than I realized, but Graham is nearly his equal. Tyrend is whirling dervish putting out a near continuous stream of attacks. Graham is a heavily defensive fighter, who shuts down his enemy's attacks while launching his own attacks into the openings he creates. This match is going to come down to a battle of endurance if one of them does not make a fatal mistake.

The Throd'nahk's face is a stiff mask as he watches the combat. This is the second batch of new meat in a row that is screwing up his plans. Slowly, his mask cracks, and something resembling malicious glee fills his face. He glances towards the tunnel, and seeing Thrall and myself, he schools his expression into his normal imperturbable lack of expression.

As for the rest of the gladiators, most of them could clean their lower jaws off the sand with a shovel. By most standards, all of them are masters of their chosen weapons, but they are not even close to Tyrend and Graham's levels of skill.

The end of the fight is almost anticlimactic. Graham leans back slightly to let one of Tyrend's scimitars pass by his face and smashes the second with his shield. As he thrusts his long sword at Tyrend's stomach, he stops cold. The point of Tyrend's other scimitar is already at his throat.

“You used that trick on too many times. If you had saved it for a sure kill, you would have had me.” Tyrend's grins is cockier than normal.

“I thought I had you the first two times, and the way you moved made it look like you never noticed the setup.” Graham's voice has a bit of a sullen air to it. His breathing is also a bit heavy. His endurance is not a match for his skill.

Tyrend claps Graham genially on the shoulder. “Be proud! You're one of the top hundred fighters I've ever faced or seen. Learn everything the Throd'nahk has to teach you, and you might have a long life in the arena.”

“Come with me.” Thrall leads me to the training hall.

“You are progressing too slowly. I'm going to try something different. Put the helmet on and channel your Power into it.”

After doing as Thrall says, my entire perception of the world around me is from my spatial awareness. Thrall is a blazing beacon compared with the inanimate matter. A sudden brilliance lances out from him and hits me.

This pain is one of the worst I have ever felt. Just like when my soul threads were severed, this pain is not in my body.

“AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!” My scream echoes in my own ears as I lose control over my channeling, and the sensory blocking from the helmet ends.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?”

As I step through the Shadow of the Od and begin to attack Thrall, he does not defend himself from my strikes, but I do no damage to him. Hitting Thrall is akin to hitting a Thrall-sized block of iron.

“AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!”

My nearly unending screams echo in the training hall, as I futilely attack Thrall. It feels like my mind and soul are being torn apart, until something gives way inside of me and Power floods through my fists. The pain eases, and the impact of my punches drives Thrall back slightly.

Thrall hits me with a casual backhand I cannot avoid, and I fly through the air, before tumbling across the floor.

Shakily rising to my feet, I tear off the helmet.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” I want to kill the fucking bastard, not scream at him, but I already know I am not strong enough to do it.

Thrall begins to speak in a flat emotionless tone. “Your mind and soul are covered with scars, just like your body. While you have torn open the scars in your soul to let your ki flow, the scars in your mind were sealing most of your psi inside of you. I thought that having you train your awareness would loosen the psychic scars and let you wield your psi, but it was having no effect. I used my own Power to tear open the scars in you mind.”

When he finishes his statement, Thrall stares at me. He gives the impression that he is pondering something.

After a few moments, he frowns. “Your scars cannot be self-inflicted.”

Now, I stare a him blankly for a few moments. I never told him about what Galen said to me, but I have the feeling that very few secrets can be hidden from him. It is not really like what Galen said was a secret to begin with, but I am still uncomfortable talking about it.

“What do you mean?”

“That priest does not fully understand what he is talking about. Scars and other injuries can be burned into the patterns by the belief of the individual, but there are certain visible signs that self-inflicted scars leave behind. You have none of the signs.”

Thrall frowns, looking away. “The damage in your patterns was inflicted in such a way as to seal your Power. I do not know by who or why. There is nothing in your memories that gives an indication of that. It must have happened while you were unconscious after the accident.”

My Power was deliberately sealed by someone? Why? It makes no sense. Who on Earth would know enough about Power and have a reason to seal my Power?

“Okay. Now what?”

“Wait until after the gladiatorial match, before you start practicing with psi again. If you try to use it now, you might cause more damage.”

“Brand, this is Graham.” Tyrend points his thumb at Graham as he sits down.

“Greetings, Brand.”

Graham is about 6'4” tall, with a solid build. He does not have the massive bulk that most of the gladiators do, but he is not even close to a lean or athletic build. A number of old scars are scattered across his body, but none of the wounds would have been life-threatening. His brown hair was already cut short, which is uncommon in the Battleground, and is even shorter now. His brown eyes have a hard glint to them. He could pass for anywhere from late twenties to late thirties, but in the Battleground, you can almost never tell a person's age based on his appearance. Being Possessed and a founder of The Postmen, he has to be decades older than he appears.

I nod, without saying anything, and turn my attention back to my dinner. While not particularly appetizing, at least the nightly meal contains some overcooked meat. I cannot tell what kind of meat it is, but I do not suppose it matters. As long as I get enough food every day, I will survive until, I find the opportunity to escape.

“If we win the games in two days, the Blood Rose Stable should rise to third place in the league. The Mistress always brings in slave girls for us after a win, but if we get back into the top three, she will probably give us something special.”

“So, this really is a sports competition between stables for points?” Graham's voice has an introspective tone to it.

I know about the gladiatorial combats and the gryphon races, but with Talon's memories being fragmentary, I do not know the particulars of how they are run. Since being in this stable, from time to time, I would hear the gladiators talking about battles and points, but I did not pay much attention to it.

“Can you describe how this gladiatorial league operates?”

Tyrend glances at me, with a hint of surprise in his gaze. “You really don't pay attention to anything except whatever training you're getting and servicing the Mistress do you?”

My eyes narrow slightly, but I am not sure why his words annoyed me. “It's hard to find pussy as good as Elan'fer'sha.”

Tyrend grins. “Bastard. You get laid every night, and I get to listen to the twists fucking no-teeth in the ass.”

“Getting three girls to yourself every time you win in the arena isn't good enough?”

Tyrend shrugs, as his grins turns into a smirk. “I like my girls with some proper padding and big tits, but every time I the Mistress, I get hard. I don't know why such a skinny woman makes me want to fuck her so much.”

“The league.”

Graham is looking at us with his nose so far in the air, he is lucky he does not fall over backwards. In his eyes, we are a pair of uneducated barbarians with no respect for proper standards of political correctness and social justice.

Fuck him. Now that he is trapped in the Battleground, sooner or later, he will learn that Earth's rules are nothing more than a reeking pile of goblin shit. Being a slave in a DokkAlfar's stable should give him a good boost along the path.

Tyrend gets his smirk under control. “Well, there are gladiatorial leagues in each of the Great Citadels, another in the imperial capital, and some others for the provinces. Other than the gryphon races, the leagues are about the only thing that second-class citizens and non-citizens care about. They argue, bet, and fight about whose team is better. When we enter the arena, they scream our names, or curse us for being too good.

“Each league has two seasons of twelve ten-days each year. The stable with the most points at the end, becomes the top stable. Then, at the end of the season, there is a tournament between the sixteen gladiators with the most points for the league champion. Here, the winner becomes the Gor'achen Champion. Every five years, there is a big tournament in the capital. The provinces and the citadels all send their top three stables and their league champion.”

I cannot keep from smiling. The true power of blood sports. Since at least the latter half of the twentieth century, Earth nations have used blood sports to keep their populations dissolute. Even today, the blood sports still exist, with most of the real violence and danger sanitized from them. At least, the team blood sports still exist. Boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and all other sports that focus on individual achievement have been eliminated. Even the team sports no longer have MVP awards, they have been replaced with Most Helpful Player awards, the player who sacrifices the most for other team members to score.

Media idols and politicians are the only places where the cult of personality still exists, but the media idols at least are regulated and policed by the government. The ones who step outside the undeclared lines of political correctness soon disappear.

I wonder how being in the Battleground will affect the Earth. How will they deal with the arrival of a god who demands worship? What will they do when the bad people that do not respect their political correctness bullshit world come?

The arena teams are a true blood sport that makes the Roman's use of their gladiatorial games look completely amateurish. It sounds like their second-class citizens and non-citizens have the fanaticism of European soccer fans. If they are so focused on their teams that they do not get riled up enough for any kind of organized dissent, it is one of the ultimate pressure valves for a culture that exist with top dogs crushing those beneath themselves and the ones being crushed in turn crushing those beneath them. Only the slaves at the very bottom of the food chain have no one to step on, but they do not matter, because if they are on the bottom of the slave pile, they are too weak to be a threat to anything.

Graham looks at me with a mix of curiosity and disgust on his face. “You actually find it entertaining to be in this situation?”

When I turn my stare on Graham, he flinches slightly, before locking his stare with my own. His eyes are filled with disdain and animosity.

I do not know what he is thinking, but I can make a few guesses. Considering what The Postmen developed and Alva's reputation as being an Earth communications engineer, he is almost certainly college educated and possibly an engineer. With that background, he is probably fully inculcated in Earth's politically correct culture. Whether or not he believes in it, he should be used to secretly looking down on third world cultures, while publicly pandering to their differences and uniqueness. So, the DokkAlfar's complete disregard for anything resembling his values should classify them as pure barbarians in his eyes. As nothing more than a slave of the DokkAlfar, I should be even less than a barbarian in his eyes.

“Isn't it better to be amused, than to so scared my dick is shriveling up … like you?” My voice is pitched to carry clearly to everyone in the room.

“Is the new meat scared?”

“New meat, I'll put my stiff rod in your ass. That will put some steel in your cock, even if it won't do much for your spine.”

Tyrend laughs and claps Graham on the shoulder. “You should go hurt a few of them.”

“That's not how I operate.”

“That wouldn't be politically correct would it?”

Graham's head snaps around, surprise and anger clear on his face. “You're a player!”

“Do I look like a fucking Possessed to you? You're the only Possessed here.” I school my own expression into one of pure disdain.

“The new meat's a Possessed?”

“A Possessed? One of them freaks that don't die?”

“What the fuck did you do that for?” Graham's hate filled snarl matches his glare.

“Because you're from Earth.” My words are in English.

“Nah, I heard you can kill Possessed now, and they stay dead.” One of the other pieces of new meat that came in with Graham is staring at him with a hate filled look. He may have lost friends or family to the Possessed in the past.

“How does that ugly fucker know that the new meat is a Possessed. You think that he's one too.”

“If any of you faggots think I'm a Possessed, you can try to kill me, but I'll take that as an offer to cripple you and leave you alive. Imagine life in the slave pens with no women and all those stiff dicks needing a hole. It'll be real fun, just ask Broken-shoulder.” I point at the wretch, where he is squatting next to one of the homosexual gladiators, with his hand grabbing the faggot's loincloth.

I cannot stop from ginning like the Cheshire Cat, as I rake my stare across the gladiators. I want at least one of them to step up, but none of them are willing to make a move. They all turn away from me, looking at one another, waiting for someone else to make the first move.

The DokkAlfar guards are watching the show with smirks on their faces. They are pretty much safe from any of the other slaves attacking them, and they do not know that I am free kill them at my leisure. If the slaves are fighting amongst themselves, their job becomes easier. So, they can just sit back and enjoy the show.

Tyrend smirks at me. “You really know how to make friends.”

“Fuck all of them.”

“Graham, sit down. Brand is the only person here you don't want to fight. He forced the Throd'nahk to use his Power in a spar.”

Graham looks from Tyrend to myself and back to Tyrend again, before sitting on Tyrend's side of the table.

“I've seen the Throd'nahk's Power. There's not a single one of you that compare to him. So, why doesn't he fight in the arena? Do you know?”

Tyrend looks at me, slightly wide-eyed. “Transcendents aren't allowed to fight in league matches.”

“He's only in the Second Circle of Coalescence.”

All the DokkAlfar hostilely glare at me, their hands reaching for their weapons,.

Tyrend's eyes open so wide the whites are visible all around the irises. “Don't fucking phrase it that way. That's rock ape talk.”

I smile at one of the closer DokkAlfar, and he shivers slightly. Confusion passes across his face, before his glare redoubles in intensity.

“Elan'fer'sha needs me for now. These pissants won't dare to touch me without her permission, and she won't give it just because I use Dvergar terminology.”

After glancing at each other, the DokkAlfar studiously pretend to not hear anything I say. They have no delusions about who is more valuable.

“How are the league battles organized?” Graham is just as studious as the DokkAlfar in ignoring me.

“There are two parts: a battle of champions and a general melee. In the battle of champions, each stable puts up ten champions. If a champion wins, he continues fighting. The side that wins can put any remaining champions into the general melee. The side that lost all its champions has to use only the designated general melee gladiators. Some put only their weakest gladiators up in the battle of champions, and stack the general melee. Others stack the battle of champions. Others distribute their strength evenly. You can never be sure what you'll be facing. Even the losing stable in the battle of champions can walk away with nine points, while the wining team gets fifteen, ten for the victories and five for being the overall winner. The same applies to the general melee.”

It sounds like the stable owners probably play a lot of strategy games with the lineups for the league matches. They play head games with one another to get the most points, and the gladiators pay for those points with their bodies and their lives.

In two days, things will get interesting.

Thrall told me not to come to his domain today, because I am going to be fighting in the arena this afternoon. Without any training or anything pressing to do, I am bored. If any of the gladiators was strong enough to give me a decent challenge, I would probably start a fight. Tyrend and Graham together could probably get me to work up a sweat, but only Graham is in the mess hall. Besides, I am not sure that Tyrend would want to spar, and I do not want to alienate such a useful source of information.

Graham is sitting by himself near another corner, while watching me out of the corner of his eye. Without Tyrend around, he has done his best to avoid me, but he seems to be constantly observing me. He probably does not know what to make of me. I speak English, but I claim to not be Possessed. Most Earthlings could never conceive of another Earthling wanting to come to the Battleground of the Damned in their Earth body.

“Gladiators, assemble!” The Throd'nahk's voice is clearly audible in the mess hall, where I am idling.

The other gladiators rise to their feet and start filing through the tunnel to the arena. Some are grinning. Others are frowning. Some are calm. Others are antsy. Graham looks like he is nervous and trying to hide it, as he rises to his feet.

In the arena, there is a cart filled with weapons and armor. After gathering all of us who would be fighting, the Throd'nahk begins handing out the weapons and armor.

Graham is given a sword that has a blade close to four feet long but only about an inch wide. He slings the baldric for the sword over his shoulder and takes a shield. His shield is kite shaped and lacquered with The Postmen's logo. In the center two pigeons in flight are separated by an upright sword. Over the sword a single word is etched in all Roman capital letters: POSTMEN. On the bottom of the shield, the guild motto is also etched in Roman script: We Always Deliver. Both the sword and shield are clearly Items of Power.