Chapter 13 – Sand and Blood
The Arena floor was a vast, blood-soaked oval of sand. The bodies of the first round's less fortunate were being dragged away by silent automata. Skodar was herded with the other survivors—about twenty of them—into a central holding pen. The sun, filtered through the Arena's energy dome, beat down mercilessly.
A booming, amplified voice echoed across the stands. "BEHOLD! THE CHAFF FROM THE TUNNELS! BUT WORTHY GRAIN NEEDS A WINNOWING! LET THE TRIAL OF PAIRS BEGIN!"
The holographic lottery wheel spun again above the sand, pairing slaves for mortal combat. The crowd roared its approval.
Skodar's name was called. His opponent: a hulking, tusked brute from the Krog species, a known brawler who had already crushed a Ciel's skull in the Tunnels. The Krog grinned, cracking his knuckles.
This was a mismatch designed for a quick, brutal kill. The crowd bayed for Vakhas blood.
The Krog charged. Skodar calculated. He could not dodge with preternatural speed. He could not strike with crushing force. He had to win as a weakling would—with cunning, desperation, and a sliver of luck.
He waited until the last second, then dropped and rolled between the Krog's legs, slashing the back of the brute's knee with his shank. The Krog bellowed in surprise and pain, stumbling. Skodar scrambled up, panting, holding his shank like a lifeline.
The crowd murmured, then laughed. The little blue slave had drawn first blood! How amusing!
Enraged, the Krog turned, his movements now hampered. He swung a fist like a hammer. Skodar took the blow on his shoulder, letting it spin him and dissipate the force with a controlled roll. He made it look more damaging than it was, crying out and spitting blue blood.
He was a leaf in a storm, surviving but never dominating. He let the Krog corner him against the wall. The brute raised both fists for a crushing finale. The crowd held its breath.
In that moment, Skodar saw it—a chip in the Krog's crude armor at the neck. A tiny, vulnerable spot.
He didn't use enhanced strength.He used perfect, untrained accuracy. As the fists descended, he lunged forward, not back, and drove his shank up through the gap.
The stone tip pierced the Krog's throat. The brute's eyes widened. He gurgled, stumbled back, and crashed to the sand, dead.
Silence, then an explosive roar. The weakling had won! A fluke! How entertaining!
Skodar stood over the body, trembling visibly, his act flawless. He was dragged back to the pen, "miraculously" alive.
Round after round proceeded. Skodar watched. He saw the strategies of the other slaves. A cunning Varikdar used poisoned needles. A massive, silent Golem simply overwhelmed. He cataloged them all. Potential allies? No. In here, there were only temporary obstacles or tools.
Between rounds, in the dank prep cells, the one-eyed Grott from the pens was thrown in, bleeding from a wound. "Told you… meaner," he coughed, before an Arena medic injected him with a stim and dragged him back out to die in the next fight.
Skodar's next fight was against the poison-needle Varikdar. This was more dangerous. The Varikdar was fast and clever. Skodar had to stage a longer, more desperate fight. He let himself get nicked by a needle, feigning sudden weakness and disorientation. He stumbled, retched, and when the Varikdar closed in for the kill, Skodar "stumbled" again, falling in a way that his shank lanced up into the trader's gut.
Another "lucky" kill.
The crowd was starting to notice him.Not as a threat, but as a curious anomaly—the Vakhas who wouldn't die.
Up in the royal podium, one of the War Masters, a tall being with crystalline skin, leaned forward slightly. "That one… its pain response is off. The bio-scan shows elevated stress hormones, but its physical degradation is… minimal."
Another, a feline-like predator, flicked her tail. "A resilient specimen. Perhaps from the Gorge batch? It would be a valuable data point if it survives the next round."
The next round was announced. It was not a pairing. The booming voice declared: "THE FINAL WINNOWING! THE BEAST-TIDE!"
The gates around the Arena floor shuddered open. Not one, but a dozen creatures were released: a snarling mix of Zelkar Boars, Silphor Serpents, and Thornback Apes, all starved and enraged by Arena tech-implants.
The remaining eight slaves were pushed onto the sand together. It was a free-for-all slaughter. Only the top three survivors would advance to the final championship bout.
Chaos erupted. Slaves were gored, bitten, torn apart. The beasts turned on each other in a frenzy.
Skodar moved. This was the moment to shed a little more of the act. He couldn't survive this with just "luck." He needed to show a spark of something more, something that would justify his place in the final without revealing the inferno within.
He let his movements become sharper, his dodges more precise. He used the beasts against each other, luring a boar into charging an ape. He killed a serpent not with a lucky stab, but with a decisive, well-placed strike to the spine. He was still bleeding, still panting, but he was fighting with a grim, desperate efficiency that stood out from the pure panic around him.
When the horn blew, only three figures stood amid the carnage: the silent Golem, the massive Brute who had overwhelmed all before him, and Skodar, bloodied but standing, his blue skin slick with sand and gore.
The crowd was on its feet. The Vakhas had made the final three! The ultimate underdog!
As he was led away, Skodar looked up at the royal podium. His eyes met those of the crystalline War Master. He saw not pity, but cold, analytical interest.
He had their attention.
The slave was in the final.
The beast was one step from the podium.
And the ghost was ready to strike.