Bloodguard

chapter 1

Leith

The battered wagon wheels rumble over one pothole, then the next, rattling the bars of our cage and scraping the rough metal along the cut in my shoulder. I tighten my jaw in an effort not to wince. It won’t do me good to remind any of the nine fighters locked in here with me that I’m injured.

Instead, I keep my gaze fixed on the dried blood still on my hands from my last match. The blood isn’t mine. It’s Yular’s, I think. Or maybe Mundag’s. Both trolls were thrown into the arena with me yesterday, and, like the rest of us, they chose to fight to the death to feed their families.

They just weren’t as brutal as me. Nor were they as desperate.

Crossing my arms over the thin leather armor covering my bare chest, I lift my chin and stare at the scarred face of the fighter across from me. Two bottom tusks rise over the ogre’s upper lip, the left one jagged and broken next to a gash that stretches from his mouth to his ear. His eyes catch on mine—then harden, letting me know he still has some fight left in him. I openly stare back, letting him know I’m all fight.

The sound of a horn announces our arrival, and the ogre huffs and looks away. No sense kicking things up in here when we might not even get paired today.

I can’t help the slight sinking feeling in my gut as the horn’s final note fades on the wind, reminding me there’s a real chance I won’t ever hear that sound again. The arena is unpredictable as fuck.

The wagon slows when it reaches the outer wall surrounding the coliseum complex, and heavy chains clank as the massive wooden gate swings open with a splintering groan.

Every foot the gate widens, chants of “Bloodguard!” from the arena build in volume like a brewing storm, rolling through the wagon.

Sullivan, the veteran fighter beside me, spits on the floor. “Filthy wretches,” he mutters.

I toss him a raised brow—he nearly spat on my boot—but he just grins.

Like me, he’s human. Unlike me, his skin is lighter and his hair is the color of faded straw. My skin is rich brown from all the time spent outside training, and my hair is black as tar—but both are just as dirty as Sullivan. His scraggly beard may be longer than mine, but it only barely covers the boils thickening his throat above his armor.

Sullivan is a tough old fighter. Slightly taller than my six feet and with more bulk, his size makes up for the twenty years between us. That doesn’t make him better, though. It just makes him someone to watch.

“I want to be a swordsmith,” he once told me. “Spend my life making weapons I’ll never need again.” His blue eyes had shifted to mine. “What about you, boy?”

“Me?” I’d asked. “I’ll be the one you make weapons for.”

Three years later and I’m thinking he had the right of it.

I glance at his forearm, where a sword and thorny vine have been tattooed, each for his two previous victories. For the next two victories he wins, he’ll get a rose and a crown—and finally his freedom again. Lucky bastard.

I shift my weight on the hard bench as the chants get faster and faster. “Bloodguard! BLOODGUARD!”

A young gladiator, his muscles obviously bigger than his brains, seems enlivened by the crowd’s excitement and raises a fist above his cloud of dark curls, barking out a quote from the recruitment pamphlet that lured most of us to this shit life. “‘Fight for the gold, win for the glory!’”

“Glory never did the dead much good,” I grumble.

“At least they fed us today.” Sullivan coughs and then spits again. He’s been sick for weeks and struggling to hide it. Weakness is the first thing that will get you killed around here. Stupidity runs a close second.

The wizard on the bench across from us clearly doesn’t know that, though. He frowns at Sullivan, the sour expression the only thing marring the man’s smooth, white face.

“What’s wrong? Does my spit disgust you?” Sullivan asks, smiling. “Get over it. You’re just as screwed as I am.”

Sparks of magic light the wizard’s dark eyes. “ You disgust me.”

“Why?” Sullivan challenges. “We can’t all be fancy little lords like yourself.”

The wizard lunges, and I ram my heel into his chest and kick him back into his seat.

“Save it for the arena,” I warn.

The wizard gapes at me. He likely didn’t expect my strength or speed. Most don’t, which is why I’ve survived this long.

Sullivan nudges me. “Damn shame he needs his staff to control all that magic, ain’t it, Leith?” His smile gathers more of an edge. “Too bad he shattered it during his last fight.”

Cracking it over an ogre’s skull, if memory serves. It’s what secured him the win and a spot among the ten of us here.

My glare keeps the wizard in place, which is not a hard thing to do. All the rage and bitterness pulsing through my veins is surely reflected in my features. His features reflect only terror of the upcoming match now.

He doesn’t stand a chance without his staff, and he knows it.

The rules allow us to use anything we can reach within the arena once the match starts. But even if a staff lies among the pile of swords, shields, and daggers we’re offered, the wizard won’t have the time to bind his power to it. He’s starved and weak. We all are.

“I—I have a family,” he stammers as I continue to glare. “A wife and children who need me.”

Wizards, like elves and other beings with magic, have trouble conceiving, so he likely has no children and is playing for sympathy. He won’t find any here.

Sullivan laughs, as do the other gladiators, and angry tears cut lines into the wizard’s dirty face.

Figures. Those who are scared always cry.

I don’t laugh or sympathize. We all have loved ones. It doesn’t make him special.

My chest tightens just thinking of my little sister, her body ravaged by illness and not enough coin for a proper healer, but I quickly shake off the useless emotion. She doesn’t need my sympathy right now. She needs me to focus—and fucking win.

The cheering builds as we rumble closer to the main structure. I try to let it galvanize me, but after years of this shit, it’s hard to see the joy of either gold or glory in the fight to come.

The promise of housing, food, and money to send home lured me, just the same as all the other gladiators in this cage, to the wealthier kingdom of Arrow. And at first, this really was a land that surpassed my dreams.

But only a month after I arrived, an assassination attempt on the queen left her in a coma, and in a blink, gone were the games intended to “train” the finest warriors in Old Erth. Gone were the days of hearty meals and opportunities to heal and rest. And gone were the cheers for besting a competitor without a death blow.

Decrepit and filthy conditions claim most of us now. The arena claims the rest. Those left standing are rewarded with fairy elm soup that never quite satiates our hunger and a pittance per win. But…even a pittance helps our families, and cold broth is still food.

Eyes on the prize , I remind myself.

I blink up at the coliseum as it finally becomes visible from my spot in the corner of the wagon. A showy display of elven architecture, the stadium is made of glittering stone. Archways mark several spectator entrances, each one with a statue of a different Bloodguard—the name originally coined for the first eight generals in Arrow’s army—standing guard at the top. The main entrance boasts the largest statue of all: a phoenix, the symbol of this empire.

“You can almost taste victory, eh?” Sullivan’s words echo my thoughts, but there’s a bleakness in his gaze. We’re both so close—and yet it’s hard to hold on to something as useless as hope in a place like this.

Still, he only has two matches left. Four for me. Four more out of what felt like an insurmountable hundred, and I’ll win the title of Bloodguard. I’ll be a citizen of Arrow. I’ll be rich. And I will have everything I’ll ever need—and so will my family.

The tall, broad-chested moon horses hesitate as we reach the tunnel that stretches under the coliseum and widens into underground stables and staging areas, but a crack of the whip has them moving again. The steeds cast a faint glow like the moon, hence their name. Their front legs are extra-long and their haunches wide, giving them added strength to pull our heavy wagon.

Moments later, we’re inside the tunnel. The shade is a welcome reprieve from the suffocating heat, but there’s little time to enjoy it before the humid stench of horse manure and death steals my breath.

“Fuck me, that’s awful,” Sullivan mutters, reaching up to pinch his nose. I don’t bother.

Eventually, the horses pull the wagon back up and out on the other side of the stands and onto the main coliseum floor, but they hesitate again, as though they can taste the scent of blood permeating the sand.

“It’s been said that the sand cloaking the arena floor was once as white as the snow on the mountains of Amdar,” the young fighter says with awe. New Guy must’ve memorized the damn recruiting pamphlet.

As a group, we eye the arena floor. After the last three years of brutality, only a field of sickly gray remains.

The carriage driver curses and snaps his whip at the steeds again, and they trudge forward, jerking us backward in our cage. This time, I can’t hide my grimace.

“What do you think they’ll throw at me this time?” Sullivan asks, absently scratching under his breastplate.

“Maybe a pair of fire elks?” a dwarf with a septum ring and a thick gray braid suggests, rubbing her hands along her thighs. “Those bastards from Canvol will burn through you if they don’t eat you first.”

“It could be anything,” I answer truthfully, my tone bored.

Usually, we’re paired to fight each other one-on-one, but sometimes they like to throw in a few beasts to keep things interesting. And although not a rule, everyone knows the closer a fighter gets to winning Bloodguard, the more shit they give you to try to take you out.

I pull in a deep breath and try not to focus on the fact that only two have made it to Bloodguard since I arrived and the High Lord took over Arrow.

“Whoever or whatever it is,” Sullivan says, leaning back against the bars like he hasn’t a care in the world, “I’ll try to make it quick so the rest of yous can see how fast I kill and conquer.”

I almost crack a smile at his cockiness, but then the air thickens in the wagon as we begin to circle the arena.

“Bloodguard! Bloodguard! ”

I work my jaw from side to side, trying to relieve the tension pulling the cords along my throat. By all of Old Erth, I will never get used to the entirety of this warzone. In this colossal space, we are insignificant. Specks of dust along an illustrious painting. Mere saplings in a forest of gargantuan trees.

Like always, I try to pretend the size doesn’t matter. Like always, I know it does. Plenty of space to run. Nowhere to hide.

I sit back, grunting a curse at everyone who couldn’t wait to arrive. The stands are full today—with spectators garbed in clothes of every color instead of the black we’d grown accustomed to over the past month. My stomach sinks like a stone.

“Well, shit,” Sullivan says.

“Guess the period of mourning is over,” the dwarf mutters into the heavy silence, her voice pitching low as she stares at her boots.

No one speaks as we each contemplate what this will mean for our upcoming matches. The High Lord’s been tempering his thirst for blood out of respect for the queen’s death this last month after her nearly three-year coma. Bets have been down as well—no one wanted to seem disrespectful while the kingdom mourned the loss of their beloved monarch.

I take a deep breath and concentrate on slowing my racing heart. Panic will only get me killed faster. Because today—today, the High Lord will most likely try to gain back that loss in revenue by making a spectacle out of our lives. And our deaths.

No one is safe today.

No one.