1 The Dream Rider (11 page)

Jonas pointed to the group under the black banner. “They
are the most evil criminals of this world. It is not enough for them to murder
and rape. They take pleasure in torturing their victims. While their fighters
are not always well suited for the arena, they do get one from time to time
that is extremely well adapted. Some say they worship evil spirits and their
crimes are tributes to those they look to serve.”

Goose bumps rippled over my skin just thinking about the last
thing he said and I changed the subject quickly.

“What about them?” I pointed at the last area marked with
a yellow banner overhead. Their clothes were the dirtiest of all the fighters
I’d seen. There were a few larger men with their group but nothing like the
ones from the red team.

“Ahh,” Jonas sighed. “They are the ones Mallock has not
deemed fit for citizenship. Their only crime is that they are different. Some
have mental disabilities. Others deal with physical deformities that prevent
them from contributing to society in a way that Mallock believes valuable. Most
of the time, the green and yellow sides are not pitted against each other.
Mallock’s game master, Jari, prefers to have us fight against the warriors from
Red or Black. I’m not entirely sure why.”
 

I felt bad for the members of the yellow group. They
hadn’t done anything wrong, yet they were rounded up like cattle for the
slaughter. I wondered how many times anyone from that roster had actually won a
battle in the arena. It probably didn’t happen often.

“So, what’s the story with your group, here? Darwinius
said you’re all criminals. What is your crime or Petra’s? What about the rest?”

Jonas walked a few feet over to the screen and stared at
it for a few moments before answering. “We are rebels,” he said plainly.

“Rebels?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “We defied the emperor and his laws. We
believe the people of this world should be free to choose their own paths.
Mallock has imprisoned all of us and forced us to serve him within the walls of
the great city. The ones who have taken a stand against him are labeled as
rebels, revolutionaries. Some of us are brought here, to the prison. Others are
taken to labor camps where they are forced to work the mines until they die or
lose their sanity.”
 
His voice
trailed off, burdened with sadness.

“How long have you been in this place, this prison?” I
questioned.

“It’s hard to know for sure. We only see the open sky when
we go to the arena. It is the only time we are permitted to breathe clean,
fresh air. The rest of the time we are kept underground. Mallock’s invasion
began five years ago. It was sometime shortly after then he brought us
here.”
 

Freedom was something I had heard people talk about on
television or in cheesy country songs. I’d hear people speak about how the
troops defend our freedom in America. But I never really thought about what
that meant. I always appreciated everything the soldiers did and the sacrifices
they made, but now I was beginning to understand what it all meant. These
people who surrounded me had been stuck here for years, deep underground.
They’d not seen the light of day in that long, save for once a week when they
were taken to the arena. On top of it all, they were forced to fight to stay
alive.

The last thought led me back to something I’d wondered
about before. “I had one more question concerning the games. What is the point?
Eventually, no matter how good a fighter might be, they will get beaten. It’s
only a matter of time. Right?”

Jonas nodded in agreement. “Yes. A warrior has only so
many battles within them. That is why Mallock offers a glimmer of hope. Any
fighter who wins thirty times earns a full imperial pardon and is released back
into society.”

“Has anyone ever won thirty fights?”

“No. Mallock makes it nearly impossible. He adds devices,
traps, and other things to the arena to make it more difficult for both
fighters.
Wild animals, his own men, booby traps.
He
makes sure that no one ever earns a pardon. It has happened on more than one
occasion where both combatants die.”

There had been something else on my mind during our
discussion. I figured now was as good a time to ask as any. “How many fights
has Darwinius won?”

Jonas’s eyes looked into mine, probing me for something.
Was it hope? His answer was as staggering as it was simple. And I remembered
what I’d heard before about how many people Darwinius had killed.
“Twenty-nine.”

 
The answer
Jonas had given me wasn’t exactly comforting. But he tried assured me that
everything would be okay. He certainly had a deeply rooted belief that I was
some kind of savior, sent to bring his people out of bondage like Moses from
the Bible. However, I still didn’t completely believe any of it was real. He
had presented some interesting things to consider, but I held onto belief that
no matter what happened I would awake in my dorm room and still
be
my ordinary self.

Jonas excused himself and started to walk over to begin
working with some of the other combatants. “Shouldn’t you train me or
something?”
 
He looked over his
shoulder at me and shook his head. “You already have everything you need.”
 

I strongly disagreed with his assessment, but what could I
say? With nothing else to do, I just stood near a rack of wooden swords for a
few minutes. After watching some of the others sparring, I pulled one of the
weapons by its handle. The sword’s grip was worn smooth, I assumed from so many
people using it over time. It wasn’t as well balanced as the blade I’d used to
kill Mallock’s assassin, but it wasn’t meant for killing. I considered where
I’d left sword as I placed the wooden one back in its holder. I wondered if I
would be able to find it again, a pointless thought seeing as I was locked in
an underground prison.

I stood off to the side, watching the others practice with
swords, spears, and an assortment of other weaponry. I tried to observe their
moves and techniques to pick up new ideas. Each person had a unique style.
Petra was clearly a brawler, happy to use his brute strength to his advantage.
Nela was better with smaller weapons, like short swords. Elda preferred a
curved blade, like the one I’d left in the park. Both women were fierce
fighters and had no problem sparring with any of the men in their group. Tota,
though, was different than all of them. The way he practiced reminded me of
martial arts movies I’d seen as a kid. He would jump off the wall and flip over
the opponent, seemingly defying gravity with his maneuvers. The other members
of the group seemed competent enough, but there was no question
who
the best were.

After a long period of training, Nela walked over to me,
wiping a layer of sweat from her forehead. She picked up a cup of water from
the table and took a big gulp.

“You’re pretty good,” I said, coolly.

She set the cup down, her face taking on an air of
seriousness. “Pretty good
will get
us killed in the
games, Finn. This isn’t make-believe. It’s real. I know you may think it’s just
a dream. But we have to be better than good to survive. That means you, too.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Before I could think of
anything apologetic to say, she turned and walked away, never glancing back in
my direction. I felt like I’d said something wrong but I had only meant it as a
compliment. She’d seemed friendly before. Now she seemed annoyed. I couldn’t
figure out which. I decided she was just trying to focus on her workouts, and
let the thoughts go.

After a few more minutes I was bored and my butt hurt from
sitting there for so long. I stood up and started walking across the floor
towards the doorway that led to my cell. There were a few guards standing just
outside of it, watching the black and red groups train in their perspective
corners. I could have sworn they were laughing at me when I approached. Their
words confirmed my suspicions as they did little to hide the subject of
conversation.

“How long you think he’ll last against Darwinius?” the
shorter one asked the other, raising a finger in my direction. It was the guard
that had greeted me earlier in the morning.

“He won’t go more than four minutes against Darwinius.
Unless the game master throws in a few things to make it last longer. After
all, Darwinius is getting close to thirty wins. Only one more to go and he’s a
free man.”
 
The other guard
finished his comment as I stopped just short of them.

“I want back in my cell,” I stated outright.

The two looked at each other. “If you go back in there,
you’ll be locked in the rest of the day and all night. We can’t let you out
once you’re in there.”
 
That
prospect hadn’t sounded fun. So, I decided to turn back and keep watching the
others.

I was half way across the floor when I heard a familiar
voice boom through the training room, “You’re right to not practice with the
others, boy. It wouldn’t do you any good anyway. Tomorrow night you will die by
my hand.”
 
I didn’t turn around to
see who it was. I knew it was Darwinius. Rather than striking fear, though, his
words sparked a fire in my gut. With each step I became angrier and angrier
with until I reached the rack of faux weapons. There was a cylinder next to it
containing several training spears. I stopped next to the containers and looked
down for a second.

“Nothing to say, little dog?”
 
I could hear his buddies laughing in the background as he
continued to hurl the insults my way.

I yanked a spear out of the cylinder and twirled it around
in my hand for a second. Then tossed it up in the air and grabbed it in the
center. I peered over at the training dummy that stood in the far end of our
area. Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing and were waiting to
see my reaction. I could feel the same strange feeling begin to course through
my body.

I noticed Jonas watching with narrow eyes from off to the
side. His face stoically anticipated my next move. I held the spear for a
moment longer then lowered it back to the ground, resting the tip on the hard
surface. I didn’t hear it, but I imagined Darwinius laughing on the other side
of the room. After a few seconds, the noises of the training room resumed. Satisfied
that no one other than Jonas and his followers were watching, I quickly raised
the javelin again and in one motion launched it at the target. The projectile
zipped through the air at the speed of a bullet. When it struck the dummy, the
wooden pieces and straw exploded in a burst of splinters and sawdust. The sound
of the impact resonated off of the walls throughout the room like a gunshot.
Everyone stopped what
they
were doing to see what had
happened. As the dust settled, I could see the shaft of the spear sticking out
of the wall; wide cracks webbed out from where it was lodged.

The members of Jonas’s band looked at me in awe. Their
eyes went from where I stood, to the spear, and back. Their faces were full of
disbelief. Jonas’s expression was different than theirs as if showing what he
knew all along; I did have some kind of superpower in this dream world. I
looked down at my hands as if seeing them for the first time then back up at
Jonas. His face suddenly cast a look of worry.

I frowned and turned around just in time to see one of the
guards extending a metal wand in my direction. The tip of the thing touched my
chest and I felt a sudden jolt go through my body. I fell to the hard floor,
conscious but unable to control my movements. I hit the right side of my face
on the stone surface, but I couldn’t feel it. My whole body was numb.

The two guards grabbed me under my armpits and hauled me
back towards my cell, dragging my feet as they went. “You wanted to go back to
your cell, eh? Well, now you can be in there all night.”
 

When they dumped me onto my cot, my limbs still felt like
they were made out of rubbery goo. After a few minutes, though, my body began
to slowly regain its senses. It was like coming down from a strange, horrible
high. As sensation started to return to the nerves, it felt like thousands of
little needles sticking into my skin.

The ruddy guard stood over me for a few seconds. “Night
night, frag,” he spat before bringing the butt of his gun across my face.

Eventually, I woke to silence and deep darkness. The
sounds of combat could no longer be heard. I was alone in a prison cell on an
alien world. The foul stench returned for several minutes before my nose
olfactory senses started to acclimate to it again. I wondered how long I’d been
unconscious and why the guards had deemed it necessary to knock me out. The
iron taste of blood lingered in my mouth.

I groaned as I pushed myself up from the cot and tried to
stand. Even though I could barely see anything, the room seemed to spin for a
second. I dizzily stumbled over to the door and bumped into it, bracing myself
for a moment with my elbow.
What had happened?
Then I remembered. The guard had touched me with
some kind of taser and then hit me with his gun, I guess for ruining their little
target dummy.

There was a bigger question that superseded all others,
though. It was becoming more and more prevalent in my head as the minutes waned
on.
Why was I
here?
Jonas had said I was here to save them. That much I got. What I
didn’t understand was why it had to be me. I’d grown almost comfortable with my
mediocre life on Earth.

“You shouldn’t make so much noise. If you are going to
stumble around like that, at least do it quietly.”
 
The deep, male voice hissed from across the corridor. It
sounded like a guy I’d met from Nigeria in college. Either my neighbor was a
light sleeper or he hadn’t gone to bed yet.

I peered through the bars and saw the whites of his eyes
staring back at me from the darkness of his little window.

“Sorry,” I replied quietly. Though, if he were really
worried about making any noise, I thought talking might be a problem as well.

I could see his eyes narrow in a smile. “I’m kidding with
you, earthling,” he said in his thickly accented voice. “The guards are too
busy betting on who will win tomorrow’s fights.”
 

I lowered my head for a second. It throbbed from where the
guard had hit me. If this really was a dream, the pain felt real enough. “Those
games seem to be pretty important around here, huh?”

“It is the only pastime the emperor allows. The games are
his way of trying to connect to the people, to make them love him.”
 

“Do they?” I wondered.

My eyes had begun adjusting to the darkness, and I could
make out the man’s face a little better. He shook his head slowly. “They enjoy
the violence. But secretly, they still hate the emperor. He came to this world
and took everything from them. In return, he only gives a little bloody
entertainment. The crowds mindlessly cheer on their favorites warriors, but
deep inside they are ripe for a revolution.”
 

“Revolution? They couldn’t defend themselves when Mallock
invaded. How could they rise up against him now?”
 

His eyes tightened into another grin. “Because all it
takes is a great leader to turn the tides.”

There it was. Now my neighbor had bought into Jonas’s
theory. “I’m no leader,” my retort was a little too loud. I quieted down as I
finished my point. “I’m just a college kid.”
 

“I saw what you did to that target earlier. You have the
strength of a god. I have never seen anything like it.”
 

A
god?
Now he was
going too far. Before I could protest the god comment he spoke up again.

“You are the dream rider that the prophets foretold would
come in time of need. You can lead the people against the emperor and deliver
them to freedom.”
 
The man’s voice
was filled with conviction and sincerity.

I moved to the side and leaned against the wall. My head
was still pounding and standing up had made it worse. “And how am I supposed to
do that? I’m stuck in this prison.”

“You have to win,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

A quick snort escaped me. “Win? How am I supposed to beat
a man that size. And he’s won twelve battles. I don’t know the first thing
about fighting.”

“You don’t have to know. You just have to let your
instincts take over, like Jonas told you. It is said that the dream rider will
come, not in glory or with riches or with immense physical strength, but with
humility.”
 

Humility.
I had that in
spades. When you were as average as me, humility was part of the package. Some
called it low self-esteem. I just called it facing the facts.

I noticed that Taurus had not been training with any of
the groups throughout the day. I couldn’t help but wonder why. He was strong,
intelligent, and probably a capable fighter. I decided to ask about it as a way
to change the subject. “I saw you in the training area today but you weren’t
practicing with anyone. Are you not a fighter?”

He shook his head. “I am not allowed to fight because of
my skin. The emperor does not let those with dark skin do battle in the games arena.
We are servants, only.”
 

“I wonder why he doesn’t allow you to fight?”

“My people come from the plains, far to the west of the
city. Our strength is matched only by our wits. When
Sideros
was attacked by Mallock
, it was the army from our territories that the
king sent against him first. Though we are superior tacticians and warriors,
his technology was too much for us. Most of my people were killed in the early
battles. The few who survived were made servants in the prisons, given no
chance of ever earning a pardon through the games.”
 
His voice trailed off in a tone of despair.