Baited (Gladiators of the Gryn #2)

Blayn

BLAYN

M y sword blade slices easily through the flesh of the challenger, his armor a hinderance rather than any assistance. I swing around as he falls, the dust of the dome rising at my feet, and roar out at the crowd, beating my wings in defiance of everything.

Then I fall on him, hacking at what’s left.

Life, death, it is nothing. I have the scent of blood and guts in my nostrils, and I am invincible.

“!” a voice I should recognize calls out.

I rise, because I need more blood, more violence, more of the crowd baying and more of the fight. If I fight, nothing else matters. The voices don’t matter, the silence doesn’t matter, the dark doesn’t matter.

“!”

As I beat into the air, my feathers sticky with the fluids of my fallen opponents, my tattooed skin slick with blood which doesn’t belong to me, I’m jerked back to the ground.

There’s a noose around my leg. And one around my neck. The sword tumbles from my grip as I grasp at my bonds. A thick net covers my wings, and I am immobile as I’m dragged down and down below the dome, into the ante chamber.

“Vrex,” Maxym grumbles. “You’re a liability, .” He’s sporting a cut to his arm which goes deep, his brow pulled low over his eyes, brooding as usual.

I lift my head and howl for the return to the violence.

The captain turns the hose on me. The water is icy, as I like it, but he doesn’t need to know. No one needs to know anything. What is in my head stays in my head because if it gets out, I don’t know what I’ll do.

The harder he pumps the water at me, the more I roar out, until they add the jolt of blue electricity and my muscles go rigid, stopping any further fight long enough to get me into my cell.

And the lights go out as the restraints are removed. For a long time, I stand in the dark, listening to the drip of water and my breathing.

Another gladiator games completed for the owners of the dome, the one place where violence is extolled and where my singular skill in disposing of a challenger is welcomed. Who knows how many more in my future.

The silence is broken by the howl. I am not howling. It is the things in the blackness which scream out, wanting me to answer, to speak, to…

“Will you vrexing shut up, !” Rych bellows from outside the dark. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

I’m not sure what sleep is anymore. Speech has deserted me in the velvet night. I can’t reply, all I can do is growl.

“Vrex you,” Rych snarls back, his voice at once inside the cell and far, far away. “Wait until they let you out, . I’ll give you something to howl about.”

“It would be my pleasure to fight you.” If I say the words at all, Rych doesn’t respond.

I stare into the silence and wait for them to come.

A chink of light has me roaring out, leaping for it, grasping for it, only to be thrown back by yet another blue jolt.

“Chow time,” the captain, a grizzled Xnosson bull, says. He’s flanked by two Zarvu guards, but then most employees in the dome come with guards when it comes to handling me or Klynn. “And don’t try a disappearing act again, .” He sighs. “There’s a parade this morning, and I’m not spending the best part of today chasing you through the undercroft.”

My blood freezes as I’m hauled to my feet by the Zarvu and dragged out into the light. Rych is leaning against the wall and yawning, but his eyes are fixed on me as I’m put into restraints.

He falls in step as we’re led through to our dining hall, the one kept away from the challengers and other gladiators.

“I haven’t forgotten,” he snarl-whispers. “You and me in training today.”

My desire to fight rises. I attempt to grasp at it, but the feeling slips away.

“Parade.” It’s the only word I can get out, my teeth chattering.

“Vrex,” Rych snarls, rounding on the captain as we’re marched into the hall, where Maxym and Klynn are already eating. “ Another parade, captain?” he says loudly.

My fellow gladiators raise their heads. Maxym spots my bonds and gets to his feet.

“Steady, all of you,” the bull says. “This is a special one for a new patron of the dome. The procurator expects you all to attend, new standing orders.”

“Take the restraints off ,” Klynn says, his voice cold as he, too, stands up.

“You Gryn cause me more trouble than all my other charges combined,” the captain mutters. “Take off his restraints,” he orders the guards.

They remove them and step away hastily, but I’m hungry, so I walk towards the kitchen hatch, shaking my wings and ignoring everyone else.

If I eat, I can forget. And if there is a parade, I want to forget about it until it happens. Forgetting about things helps if there’s food.

The hatch opens and a platter is shoved at me.

I do not like what is on it.

“Food,” I growl.

“That’s your rations for today, Gryn,” the disembodied voice on the other side of the hatch says.

“Food,” I repeat at a higher volume.

“Didn’t you hear me? Stupid Gryn. That’s all your ration?—”

The voice cuts out as I shove my arm through the hatch and sink my claws into cloth and flesh.

“Gak you!” Another platter is shoved out of the hole and into my waiting hand.

I let the voice go and carry the two platters across to the table as Rych shakes his head.

“Slamming your claws into innocent bystanders isn’t the only way to get what you want, you know,” he says as I shovel meat and grain into my mouth.

I shrug. I have two platters and he has one. I extend my wings around my food, glowering at him and the others.

“ doesn’t see it that way, Rych,” Maxym growls with a half smile, concentrating on his own rations.

“How about we get you another tattoo before the parade? That’ll take your mind off it,” Rych says to me.

“No pass,” I grumble.

“He sliced up one of the clerks in the ante chamber at the last games, so he’s not allowed out into Tatatunga for the next two nova-weeks,” Klynn says, running a sharpening stone down one of his favorite blades.

The snick of metal against rock sets my feathers on edge. I wrap them tighter around my food as I shove the first, now empty, platter away and get started on the second.

If I eat, I can forget. And I want to forget the parade more than anything.