Chapter 61
Chapter 61
“Nubian Pharaoh, you are
up.”
Kanda–who stands next to
me–grabs her huge axe and walks toward the guard.
I finally feel like I can breathe again.
“You better win, shifter. I put some pretty penny down on you.” The guard tells her.
She gives him an
unbothered look as she walks
out.
The guards close the door
behind her and we rush to
the small opening to watch—including me.
“He called her shifter, she’s
not a werewolf.”
She smells nothing like a
werewolf.
“Girl, there are different
kinds of shifters.” Sheril says.
“Werewolves are the most
predominant ones but there are also werebears and
werecats. Kanda is one of
those last two. Never seen
her shift though so I don’t
know which it is.‘
”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“Zao likes collecting rare
people. To him, we are like
animals.
”
The piece of shit.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have one of my personal
favorites. The Nubian
Pharaoh. She’ll be going against the One–eyed Tiger. Two seasoned champions. This is going to be good.”
All I can see is just a bit small part of the pit. “I can’t really
see much from here.”
“Yeah, we can only get
glimpses from the fight.”
Suddenly we hear the crowd cheering. The fight has
started. I can hear the sounds of metal clashing together.
I get glimpses of Kanda and the man fighting. This fight lasts much longer than the one with poor Musa.
From time to time, the
crowd roars which I can only
assume is when one of the
fighters is near death. I can
hear groans and grunts as the sound of sword fighting
continues.
It feels like an eternity when
finally the announcer speaks.
“And there you have it! We
have a winner! What
show!”
I hold my breath waiting to see if they announce it but
soon the door rattles and the
guards walk in. They push
Kanda in who has a few
wounds but is alive and
kicking.
“You did it!” I cheer.
She smiles. “Definitely broke
a sweat there but I made it.”
“Enough! You!” The guard
takes one of the other two
girls by the arm and pulls her. “Your turn.”
“Oh God! I am not ready!
Please!” She shouts but he
drags her out of the room.
Needless to say, that fight
ends quickly and she never
comes back.
My heart pounds as I wait for the guards to come back but they don’t.
“It is break time. After three
fights, they take a
thirty–minute break.” Kanda says as she wraps her wounds
in bandages.
“I’m going to die!” The last girl says.
I sit in a corner away from everyone trying to calm myself. There is only three of us left; me, Sheril, and this
petrified girl.
Damit! What am I going to do? I had a bit of fighting training with Victor but, is it enough? Who will I go up against?
I touch my face. It is warm
until my hands go further up
and I touch cold metal.
These people are crazy. Look at what they did to me. I am
not sure that even Father
would have thought of
something like this.
…Father. Oliver killed him. I
can’t deny that I feel sadness
for the sadistic bastard. He
deserved what he got but
still…he was my father. I do wish I could have gotten to
know more about him.
I think of Colt and how
much I miss him. Is he
looking for me? I am sure he
1. is. I wish he would find me
right now but that is just
wishful thinking. I know I
am going to fight. The question is, will I survive?
The guard suddenly rushes in. He points at me and throws me something which I quickly catch. “Put that on. Alpha Zao wants to see that
on you.”
“What…is it?” I ask standing
1. up.
“A mask? I don’t know!” He
says with anger.
I look at it and it is a tasseled
nose and mouth mask. The
dangling tassels are made
with rhinestones and the
bottom part curves into a v
shape that frames my jaw and chin when I put it on.
This is obviously just for
looks because it does
nothing else. Honestly, it gets in the way when I move NôvelDrama.Org copyrighted © content.
and the strands flail around
making beaded noises.
“Now come.”
I gulp and slowly walk out.
“Good luck!” Kanda says still
tending to her wounds. They
lock the door behind me and
lead me to the field.
I am surrounded by a small mass of people. This is
nothing like the Colosseum I
have seen on TV from
Rome. It is small and made
out of wood but it looks
dangerous. There are pikes sticking up everywhere from
the walls. I am sure that it is
so that we don’t try to
escape.
In the crowd, I spot someone
who looks familiar but from
here, I can’t quite make out
where I have seen him.
I wonder if my mind is
paying tricks on me.
The thing that suddenly really catches my attention is
the fresh pool of blood on
the sandy floor. I can also see the bloody drag marks of
when they dragged the
bodies away. I try to cover
my nose—though the damn
mask won’t let me—the
smell of the blood is strong.
In front of me, the guards bring a man tall, bald with a
scar across his face, and one of his eyes is white. I can only assume he can’t see
from it. The man bares his
teeth at me with a nasty
smile.
“What a pretty little thing
you’ve brought me.” He mutters to the guards.
The man holds a huge axe who effortlessly rests it on
his shoulder.
“Well here is a treat ladies
and gentlemen…” The
announcer says.
I have no idea why he
mentions ladies when there
are only men here.
“Here we have one of our
veterans, The Caspian Rogue
against our very new Persian
Princess.”
I roll my eyes. This is just so
ridiculous.
Did he say, Rogue? How in
the world am I supposed to
take this man down without
shifting?
I notice that he has a collar
with spikes that go inward
towards his n*ck and now
thinking about it, Kanda and
a few others have it too though theirs was smaller because they were all smaller
in statue than this man. I can
tell that if he shifts, those spikes will kill him.
I see. So Zao doesn’t want us
to shift. They didn’t put one
of me and I am sure that it is
because of the mask.
My eyes find Zao at the top
of the wooden stadium. He
talks with some men and has
a smile that pisses me off.
This is all just a f**king game to him. This man is third on the list of people I
hate. Ezra is first and Oliver
is second.
The guards let us go and run away. Suddenly, the Caspian f**ker swings the big axe at me. I was not ready for it but somehow I barely managed
to doge going backwards.
The axe hits the ground,
lodging itself on the muddy
sand.
People in the crowd roar
with excitement.
As the huge man tries to take
the axe back with both hands
trying to use his strength, I swing my daggers and slice his arm up. He immediately pulls away but with that momentum, he manages to
take the axe with him and
swings the axe at me. I twirl around, dodging the close
encounter with the sharp
metal.
As I had intended, I rely on my speed which works well against this man. He has a heavy weapon and is much bigger so he is slow but one hit is all he needs to get me. I dance around him trying to stay far away from his
weapon.
Thank you, Victor. Those lessons did come in handy. I
would not have been able to
last this long if not for what
he taught me.
At first, the cheering of the
crowd was a distraction but
soon I find myself forgetting
about it and concentrating on the fight.
This man continues to swing
the axe and I continue to
doge it but then he does something I do not expect. As he swings the axe, he lets it go. The axe flies a few feet away but now with his bare hands, he grabs me by the hair and then he swings his other hand and hits me on the chest, making me fall and hit the ground. It takes all of my air out and my
daggers fly from my hands.
As I try to find my breath,
the man swings his giant foot and plasters it on my chest.
He puts his whole weight on
me and it almost feels like he is going to crush my chest in.
As if he has won, he puts his arms up in victory, and the
crowd screams with
excitement. My chest starts
to hurt and I can feel he is
about to break some bones.
I am very surprised when from nowhere, Sheril
appears and kicks him in the
chest. He staggers back and finally, I can breathe.
The crowd goes wild.
“Suprise my people!” The announcer says. “It is a fight
of two against two. Enter Lady Death for the female
team and another new
recruit for the male team,
The Chieftan.”
As he says this, Sheril immediately offers me her
hand which I take. She lifts
me up and motions to the
other new contestant
running in.
Two against two. The crowd
goes crazy.
Sheril swings her spear at the Caspian guy I was fighting.
I look at the man who is
rushing in our direction with every intent to hurt us.
If I think about it too much, I
will psych myself out.
I grab my knives and rush
the man that runs in our
direction. He is smaller than
Caspian–I am sure that is
not his name but I don’t
know it so that is what I call
him. The man has
momentum but so do I. I
jump in the air with knives at
the ready–which he was not
expecting- and wrap my legs around his waist, then I start stabbing him on the shoulders, n*ck, and back
where my hands reach. The
man has no time to do
anything, he holds his bleeding n*ck—where I sliced at the jugular, and just like that, he falls on the ground with me on him. I get up and do not look at
him. I know that if I do, it
will haunt me for the rest of
my life…I just deliberately killed a man.
The crowd started booing
me instead of cheering
which I don’t really give a
shit about but it does confuse
1. me.
I look back and see Sheril
locked in battle with
Caspian. Shutting all my
emotions, I stride towards
them, looking for an opening and when I find it, I dip in and lodge my knife into Caspian’s back. This surprises him and distracts him enough. He reaches back with his hands trying to grab the knife that is still
stuck on him. Sheril takes
advantage of this and
immediately digs her spear
into his chest.
Caspian stumbles back and then falls to the ground,
dead. Some cheer and some
boo us.
“What a twist!” The
announcer cheers.
Sheril and I are ushered back
to the barracks by the
guards.
“Damn. Good job.” Kanda says. “You live to fight another day.”
As she says this, the guards take the girl that is left but
she doesn’t go quietly. She
screams and stomps as they
drag her.
“Thank you.” I say to Sheril.
“That brute had me.”
“You have luck on your side, girl. This is the first time that they do a two against two.”
I don’t know how lucky I really am, I mean being in this kind of position does not seem so lucky to me but if
that out there was luck, then
I’ll take it. However, I killed
man. He probably had no choice but to fight too and
maybe he didn’t even want
1. to. I took his life do easily
and now…this will haunt me.