Death's Reckoning (28 page)

“Hold it, people. Let them finish.”

Giorgio gagged and stomped his bare feet on the table. Spittle flew from his lips, and he tossed as hard as his strapped body would allow.

Unri started his chant once more in the same harsh tongue, and the other four men joined in this time. Unri put his bottle down and pulled out a metal object with a long handle. Something stamped on the end of it like a branding tool.

Giorgio’s eyes snapped open and looked around, altogether insane and inhuman. He looked upon the branding tool with absolute horror. A yell erupted from his throat, but it was not his own voice. It was an animalistic growl that rattled Cubbins’ nerves and made him wince.

The other officers backed away, hitting their boots against the outer wall, and Cubbins couldn’t help but join them. He shared a look with Bigus, and there was real fear in the older sergeant’s eyes. Cubbins slipped on the murky surface of the floor and had to catch himself by throwing up a hand and gripping the wall. His hand came away filthy, covered with slim.

It wasn’t possible. The man before them was not human, couldn’t be. The skin, so pale it was almost translucent. It stretched and bended in places it shouldn’t have been able to, and his bones popped. The skin grew red hot. Sweat dripped down as if he were dipped in the drink, and it drained down to the table to hiss and steam off.

His skin smoked. Fumes rose and mixed with the fetid odor of the previous work of the night. Cubbins and the others coughed as it reached them, and now curiosity was no longer enough to keep them interested in the proceedings. Some of them bolted for the exit.

Unri slammed the branding tool onto Giorgio’s neck. His body went rigid, and he screamed the scream of the damned, a sound so frightening Cubbins would never forget it as long as his days continued. Giorgio’s mouth opened much too wide to be possible, and he vomited forth some kind of eldritch substance.

Cubbins stared, his jaw tight, eyes hard. A blob sprang out of Giorgio’s mouth, like a giant ball of phlegm. It hovered above his body, trailing a small tail behind it. More issued forth, and Giorgio’s body wracked with a major convulsion. He snapped his legs straight so hard a knee joint popped out of the socket.

The cousins and Yuri steadied themselves as the five of them stopped chanting. They held the tent up high over the drifting form of whatever it was that came pouring from Giorgio’s mouth. It pulled itself out, dripping tendrils, and when it extracted its full body length, Giorgio went limp on his back.

The glob of pink jelly floated up and stopped, trapped at the top of the tent like a curtain.

What is it you want of me?
The voice came from the glob. It was turning into a more humanoid form by the second. Bigus almost jumped out of his boots, and Cubbins heard Jenkins shout. Cubbins had forgotten about the young sergeant and told him to keep his mouth shut or leave.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

The five foreigners looked unconcerned. Unri stepped back a single pace and said something to his men in their language. They all nodded and tightened their grips. Unri faced the apparition, which now had the vestiges of arms, legs, and even the outline of a face, a cruel but concerned visage that struck Cubbins as odd.

“Tell us of your master,” Unri said. “Where does he lie?”

Why do you hold me here? I am undone.

“Tell us what we wish to know, and we will free you.”

The apparition tried to float up and away, but the material kept it locked down. The ghost shivered, like a rock skipping across water.

I enjoy
e
d my host. Why have you taken him from me? Woe to me, I am undone.

“Your reticence shall be punished. You will tell us where your master resides. Speak or suffer.”

Unri made a motion to his men, and they lowered the enclosure. The strange gossamer curtain pressed down upon the specter’s form, and it wailed in agony.

Why do you do this?! I have done nothing. I am nothing but a poor, miserable spirit. I have done nothing to you! Release me. I beg of you! Release me!

“Your master does much harm, to many peoples. And through you, terrible things are done in his name. You will show us where he is. You do this. Now!”

The last command was harsh, and the spirit wailed and struggled to free itself, but the sturdy men held it tight and refused to be intimidated by the horrible sounds the ghost made. It shivered again, and Cubbins felt a supernatural fear radiate through his body, but he also felt an acute pity for the creature.

Please! It burns! Ah, it burns! Release this wayward spirit you have so condemned. Please, ah the pain! Woe be to me! Ahhhhhhhh!

Unri’s face flushed, his salt and pepper beard bristling. He stepped closer and shouted. “We release when tell us where master is! Not before. Tell us now!”

The pain! It burns!

Jenkins groaned and covered his ears. Bigus was gone. Cubbins hadn’t noticed. A rush of dizziness struck him hard. He steadied himself on his knees with both hands. Unri and his men remained undaunted. The swarthy leader took up the bottle again and dashed the ghost with the fluid. The spirit raged and wailed. Its limbs failed, but it was ineffectual, and soon its protestations grew weaker and weaker, fading out to mere shrugs of its amorphous appendages.

Cubbins had to wonder what the substance was made of, what could make a ghost feel pain but he figured he would never know. If he had a chance to speak with Unri about it, though, he would.

Please! Release me! It burns me!

“Lead us to your master, and you shall be free, spirit,” Unri said, his voice devoid of emotion. “This your only salvation.”

Cubbins couldn’t believe his eyes but the ghost seemed to be weeping.

* * * * *

It felt like an earthquake. The crowd yelled so loud, they stomped their feet so hard, and they clapped their hands together in unison with such ferocity Jerrod was certain the entire structure would collapse. None of the exits were clear. There was no escape if things went sour. All of them were headed for the slabs.

The toughs fought back the mob. They weren’t getting paid enough, not for all the money in the world. But they fought hard, shoving, yelling, getting punched, kicked, or knocked around. Jerrod no longer cared about the consequences. He was about to take out steel and start hacking members of the crowd.

Their fists weren’t enough. As strong and well versed in the art of crowd control though they were, the toughs couldn’t win this without getting hurt too much themselves, and Jerrod would be damned to let that happen.

The crowd was unarmed. No weapons were allowed in the arena save the security, and once he gave the order, the situation could be controlled. There would be a price to pay. Zandor might try to usurp his authority within their partnership, but this was too much.

The rafters were nothing but rickety supports no better than sticks holding up a mountain. Even for Jerrod’s brutal sensibilities, this was insane. Rusty nails held together every single bit of wood but the arena. They were all dead. Before the match with Thruck even started, they would all die. This was the end. They had to get out.
He
had to get out, to hell with everyone else.

Jerrod put his hand on his sword, ready to hack his way through the crowd to freedom and life. But it wasn’t to be. Someone in the crowd behind him slammed an errant elbow to his head, and he stumbled. One of his men shoved the scrub back into the mess of idiots, and Jerrod shook his head. It rang. He squinted and tried to focus, but the blow had been hard, and it was difficult to focus. Getting a hold of faculties a few moments later, he turned and faced the portion of the crowd where the man came from.

“Another one of you shits run into me, and I stick a foot of steel into them. You got that?”

An instant later they backed away even as the press of the crowd behind them shoved forward. Fucking pigs, all of them. Then the match started.

Thruck’s opponents came first, a set of three different pairs that would work together to try and take the beast down. All six in their gladiatorial glory, armored and armed and ready to fight.

The crowd cheered for their favorite while the fighters spread out around the edge of the arena platform. Two stood on the far side, another pair in the middle, and the last on the opposite end, leaving the other ramp open for the creature everyone had waited weeks for.

When Thruck stepped forward from the shadows of the walkway, even Jerrod felt a tremor of excitement. He had to cover his ears from the volume of the crowd. First a scream of exultation came then the chanting began again.

“Thruck! Thruck! Thruck!”

Thruck looked quite… frightening, even to a seasoned killer like Jerrod. His armor had been forged by the best smithies in Sea Haven. His fearsome helmet made by Peterson and his sons, a terrifying spiked affair with horns of a bull sticking out on both sides.

His gauntlets were similar, with razor sharp ridges that went up the side with a pointed edge that could rip out a man’s throat. The shin guards were the same, and Jerrod could imagine Thruck slamming a man’s head into it and splitting it open like a busted tick.

The shoulder pads protecting his torso had ridges from upper arm to neck and spikes in front and back. Leather straps crisscrossed across his back, holding it together. He carried a double bladed axe with a head twice the width of a man’s chest and a handle that reached Jerrod’s neck. How the smithies had created such a monstrosity in so short a time was a mystery. Jerrod was impressed.

Thruck didn’t wait for introductions. Instead, the beast bellowed a war cry and charged the two men in the middle. He was much faster than he had any right to be, and before anyone could blink, the ogre closed the distance and cut one man in half, right across the waist.

The crowd groaned as the top half of the man’s body flopped forward, and what was left of his lower half spurted blood as both halves fell to the ground.

Thruck was already heading for the other man, and had he been a normal man, he might have blanched at the sight of an eight foot tall beast splattered with blood coming his way, but he didn’t. The arena fighter faced Thruck head on.

It was the last mistake the fool ever made. Thruck batted aside the man’s puny sword stroke and plunged every inch of his axe into the man’s throat. His head popped off like a grape.

The crowd responded like madmen set loose upon their tormentors, howling like monkeys. But some were taken aback and quailed at the ogre’s ferocity. A lot of them looked sickened.

Faster than it seemed possible Thruck had only four opponents. They were smarter. They hesitated entering the circle, not sure which pair it should be. Both pairs entered at the same time, making the right decision in Jerrod’s mind. It was obvious two men had no chance. Even four would find their lives in serious danger.

Thruck was surrounded end to end. He bellowed a challenge, an ear splitting roar, and stayed near the center. The men circled, wary but confident. Two men were armed with sword and shield, a pair of veteran arena fighters Jerrod had seen a few times before. They were good, capable men that sometimes worked together when Derek and Desmond ordered two versus two matches.

The same could be said of the other two, stout men with long spears helpful against Thruck’s incredible reach. But Jerrod wondered if the thin poles could do much damage against his lanky but considerable bulk. It was said ogres had thickness of skull that was disproportionate to the rest of their bodies. Though in truth all their bones were thicker, a necessity due to their larger frames. And this ogre was armored.

The beast let the men circle, tightening their net, then he charged through a gap in their formation, taking a swipe at one of the swordsmen’s mid-section. The man dodged aside, missing a disembowelment by a fraction of an inch. Thruck jogged around the outside of their group.

The men spread apart a few paces and came at Thruck weapons raised. The spearmen stayed on the outside with their weapons up while the swordsmen stayed front and center. It gave them extra reach around the outside with the spears, but if Thruck busted through the center, the advantage would be lost. They were trained fighters and fought for their lives every night. They might’ve had a chance.

The spearmen jabbed from the sides in a concerted attack that made Thruck pay attention. It allowed the swordsmen to close with him from the center. But Thruck was too experienced a fighter to allow this to happen for long. He sidestepped the fighters, taking away their advantage in numbers. Then he struck at one of the spearmen closest to him.

The man ducked, lest he get decapitated. Thruck stormed forward, his aggressiveness knocking the man backwards in his attempt to save his skin. The spearmen had to move fast, hitting the dirt and rolling away from Thruck’s chopping axe dug chunks out of the wooden floor.

Thruck chased him with the other three men in hot pursuit. A swordsman took a hard swipe at Thruck’s knees, but the ogre was ready for it. He swept his axe around, and the man got his sword up in time to block, but the axe was much too powerful and sent the sword crashing into his chest. He went sprawling.

Another swordsman came on strong, and Thruck sent a massive boot into his belly. The man sailed through the air and doubled over. His spine might’ve been broken, for he lay still, out of the fight.