spiked with long nails. I spot a scythe and wicked barbed ball connected by a chain to a wooden rod.
These aren’t miners like we saw in Sooma Ryone’s mines. Perhaps these are males who came to this forsaken planet to stake their own claims. They’re itinerant males, the dregs of the galaxy, who came seeking their fortunes and whose only fun is watching males fight in this cage.
I see their eyes on Elyse as if she’s the biggest diamond in the galaxy. Places like this have a shortage of females. Sooma Ryone must have given orders that she be protected in the hopes I’d die tonight and he’ll take immediate possession. Thank the Gods his guards aren’t letting any of the crowd paw her.
The crowd noise swells, telling me my opponent is entering from the other side. For a split modicum I wonder if I’m seeing a play of the poor lighting, an enormous shadow. Then I get my first glimpse of Ormek.
He’s huge—a mountain. Humanoid, but just barely. His shoulders are easily twice as wide as mine. From the neck down, he’s quite humanoid, although his musculature is otherworldly. His head, though, is bestial.
He’s vaguely bovine, with a thick mane of coarse hair trailing halfway down his back and ringing his neck. His pointed horns swoop down, following the line of his jaw and jutting out away from his body.
A formidable opponent.
I inspect him for weakness. His upper body strength is prodigious. I will never be able to pin him through strength alone. Pin? I’d better ask the stakes.
“To the death?” I ask my guard.
“What do you think, asshole?”
The guard was probably right, no one in the crowd will give me, an unknown newcomer, a weapon. I won’t be able to wrestle this male to the ground. My only chance is to wrest his weapon from his huge hands.
“Ormek versus Wrage,” Sooma Ryone’s voice announces over the loudspeaker. I’m not surprised he’s watching, nor am I surprised he’s doing it over vid. I can’t imagine him for a minima walking through the filth and stench of these caverns, or deigning to stand amid the unwashed masses that throng here.
“No weapons allowed in the cage until the timer hits two minimas,” he says.
I don’t know where the timer is, but I know when the match starts as the din rises a notch.
I stand where I am, waiting for Ormek to approach me. One of his weaknesses is his speed. Although he’s well-muscled, his bulk alone will slow him down.
He thunders toward me, his nose making a distinct snorting sound as he breathes. Perhaps another weakness is his intelligence. That remains to be seen.
He opens his arms wide in an attempt to grab me, but I slip away before his slow movements reach me.
This goes on for the full two minimas of the warmup. I scurry to a corner, he lumbers toward me, and I scurry away. I know the fight will change the moment he’s handed a weapon.
Hearing a ding and the frenzy of the crowd, I assume it’s time to up the stakes. A filthy, grinning toothless male hands Ormek the rod with the swinging spiked ball. Although it doesn’t have a long reach, it’s deadly. Since my opponent’s arms are longer than mine, it’s easily within his ability to kill me in modicums.
The cage is built of vertical bars that reach to the stone roof. Horizontal bars at five, ten, and fifteen fiertos high ring it in its entirety. I scramble up to escape my foe. Even when I reach the top, with his weapon he’s got access to me from my calves down. And I’ve limited my mobility.
Squeezing myself into the top corner, holding on with my hands, I’m far enough from his swing to buy myself some time. But I’m trapped up here, unable to get down without putting myself in harm’s way.
“A weapon? Someone?” I ask the crowd, not taking my eyes from Ormek.
Their taunts drift to me over the boos.
“Give a weapon to the loser? Why?”
“This isn’t even fun to watch. Why prolong it?”
“Drack you.”
I’m completely helpless up here—backed into a corner, unable to scramble out until he takes his eyes off me, for which I would need a miracle.
I’ve avoided looking toward Elyse’s corner, managed to forget for long moments at a time that she was here, watching. I need to keep my eye on my goal—winning. I’m surprised when her voice rises above the crowd.
“Wrage. Here! A weapon.”
I glance at her, certain