Laughter fills the alleyway behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I see five shapes of varying heights. I need to scale the wall. I turn back, but pull short as I find there are now two shadows sitting on top of it.
I take off my pack and hold it in my hand.
“Look, the child’s gonna fight us.” A small man smiles, he grins at me and my eyesight is so clear now, I can see he is missing most of his teeth.
“Do y’think they’ll take ‘er?” one asks. “She’s small.” I shudder in revulsion, whoever they plan on selling me to, it can’t be good.
He mistakes my shudder for fear.
Aquin is always telling me to use my height to my advantage. I slump my shoulders forward. “W-what are you g-going to do to me?” I ask, keeping my voice shaky and high as a child’s voice would be.
“Have you run away from home, little love?” the tallest man in the middle speaks. “We have found many like you. Young ones, lost and afraid. We’ll show you somewhere warm to sleep. We’ll give you food to fill your belly.”
This man is the creepiest by far, I sense danger emanating from him and wonder if anyone, even a child, could fall for his words.
“Somewhere w-warm?” I ask in a small voice.
“Sure, sweetie,” Creepy says.
“You’ll keep someone warm, anyways,” another mutters. They all snigger and start to move closer. I let them surround me. The space is too wide to force them into single file. The pathway I left might have been a better fitting space. At least here I don’t have to worry about attacks from above. It might be the only place with high roofs I had passed out here so far.
The two up on the wall do not move. All they see is a little girl, they don’t think they are needed to help capture this one. I throw my bag half heartedly at one of them. He catches it with a laugh and starts rifling through it with the man next to him. Two distracted.
The first move comes, very predictably, from behind me. I cross one leg over the other for momentum and lean to the side kicking my foot high, the kick is full force and straight to the middle of his face. There is a crunch as his cheek bones and nose are broken. It had been six months since I had trained and the movement was not as precise as my kicks usually were, still, it had still done the job.
There is a moment where the remaining four are frozen with shock. The two men drop my pack, spilling the contents onto the ground.
I take advantage of their shock and run to the man on my right. I grab the hand he punches towards me and roll my back to his body, I use his momentum and crush my elbow into his throat. I hear the snap of the small bones through his throat and know he will die soon. I spin behind him as I hear the ting of a dagger being released. The dagger thuds into his chest. I rip it out with a squelching sound, throwing it into the forehead of the man who I threw my pack to. Three down. The two men from the walls are on their feet about to jump down the wall. They have realised this isn’t going as planned.
I run at the next man to my right. The dagger thrower. He launches another and I spin above it, catching him just as he is retrieving a third. I land and jump high to level a punch straight to his eye. His head hits the wall behind him and he bounces back towards me, I kick high under his chin. He crumples to the ground. I hear a whistle of a weapon behind me and roll sideways. Someone grabs at my legs as I do, but I kick them away and roll my legs back over my head, then jump to my feet. The two men from the wall have landed now. Three to go.
The remaining three stand in a line and look at each other.
They rush me at the same time. I run to the side and take a few quick steps up the alley wall and flip over their heads. A knife scrapes my back as I do so. I land behind them, sweeping the legs of the creepy man from under him. I round house one of the wall men in the face and slit his throat with his knife and then throw the same knife into the skull of the other wall man, who is trying to run away. I don’t hesitate. They won’t have a chance to bring more friends.
The leader finds his feet. “Wh-who are you?” he says. It’s his turn to stutter. I know his is real.
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. It does not change anything.” He tries to run, I knew he would. I launch up and land on his back, then twist his neck and feel him go limp. I drop his head and it lands with a thud on the ground.
I rest my hands on my knees. My punches had been slow and my muscles were burning. The last six months had taken a lot of my endurance. But there was no time to rest. If more came, I might not be able to fight them off.
There are seven bodies around me. I check the first and confirm it is dead. I go to the fourth one who threw the daggers at me and push a dagger under his ribs when I feel his heart is still going.
A part of me is surprised at my ruthlessness, considering I have never killed anyone before. But the actions are almost automatic. It was them or me, and I chose me.
I have probably prevented them from selling children to become whores or slaves in the meantime.
“Thank you, Aquin,” I mutter. I pillage the bodies, collecting several daggers which look to be of decent quality and taking any coin they have on them. Which is a lot. I find it sewn into their clothing and hidden in their boots.
I leave them with their clothing on, which is more than they would have left me with. I go back to my bag and quickly repack it. I grab the wooden band from my veil and feel around for my veil. Where is it?
I walk back and forward along the alleyway. The veil is my ticket back into the castle. I will not be able to return without it. My fingers sweep across some cloth in the far corner of the alley. I sigh in relief, but it is short-lived. The veil has been torn in half. It is ruined beyond repair. I stare at the pieces in horror.
“So where to now?” a voice calls.
I whirl, a dagger drawn in front of me. A tall figure stands on top of the wall. I scan behind me and along the roof tops to make sure there is no one else. I stand up once confirming it is just one person. Though, I remind myself, I was only one person and look what carnage I had just created.
“None of your fucking business,” I say. I knew when I left the assembly I would have to be a bit rude. A lot more, if I took those men as an example.
“Well I would advise that you may want to make it your fucking business,” the voice retorts. The voice is feminine, which surprises me. It doesn’t make me trust her for one second. Again, I’m female and look at what I had just created. Plus, the pure fact she is brave or stupid enough to be out alone in the outer rings tells me a great deal.
I take the bait. What have I got to lose? I can’t return until I get another veil.
“And why is that?” I put a few layers of sarcasm into my voice.
“Because you have now alerted most of the outer ring you are here. There are eyes everywhere. Actually, there are eyes watching and listening to this very conversation.” I peer side to side. I cannot sense anyone. Is she bluffing?
“What is it to you if everyone knows?” I say aggressively, trying to mimic Jovan’s voice when he had erupted about the sleds.
“It means a lot less to me than it should to you,” she responds cryptically, tossing her head. “What you just faced were the whore-hounds. An unskilled group. They’re the poorest of thugs. The men who are coming next, however, they’re the real deal. We are talking about men who have trained and who have spent their lives fighting. There are many among these who could easily rival what you just displayed.”
This catches my attention out of everything she has said. Suddenly my plan of run until morning, find out who makes Seedyr weapons, find a new veil somehow and make my way to the castle in the first sector seems impossible. I had thought the outer rings would be similar to the villages back on Osolis. It wasn’t. Veni! I had bitten off more than I could chew. And I had not counted on there being fighters better than the level of the thugs who had beaten me in the castle.
I say nothing. It is encouragement enough for her.
“Do you have anywhere to go?” she presses.
I still don’t answer. I’m wary of the ears and eyes she mentioned before and I do not want them to know that I am not familiar with the area.
“I have a place you can stay,” she says.
I scoff aloud. “And you would just offer this out of the kindness of your heart?”
She snorts. “Don’t be fucking hilarious. I’m a business woman. Before, I mentioned I don’t have as much interest in your safety, but I do have some.”
“I’m not a whore, you bitch. So don’t even try that shit.” I smile at using so many bad words, though the moment is tense.
“As you look to be a child, I sincerely hope you are not a whore.” She spits this out and I know the concept is disgusting to her. Or she’s a good actress.
“I’m a business woman,” she repeats as she walks along the wall. “I make my money by placing the fighters I own into competition fights held throughout the outer rings.” She lets this soak in. “If you come with me I will provide you with food, shelter, relative safety and clothing. In return you will train daily and, when I deem you ready, you will enter the pits and win my coin.”
I can hear shouting in the distance. The woman looks nervously towards the sound. If this woman, who lives here and owns a fighting business is scared, I definitely should be. Her offer doesn’t sound too bad.
“How do I know you are telling the truth?” It is the only thing holding me back. I would imagine being a paid fighter is probably the most respectable trade I can get into out here and, if she is sincere in what she has offered, I would see it as an opportunity to survive until completing my quest and getting some material.
She laughs and shrugs. “You don’t.”
We stare at each other and I can hear the shouting grow closer. With a deep breath I nod my head.
“I will fight for you in return for the things you offered. I would also like a cut of the coin won. And half of everyday as my own time,” I say.
She snorts. “You have death at your back and you’re negotiating. You got balls.” I think of the ball at the castle with the dancing and music. It doesn’t seem to fit the context of her comment.
“I will give you a small cut of the coin. And if you prove to be a decent fighter, I will increase the percentage. And you’ll get half a day off a week, just like everyone else,” she says. Her jaw is set, she will not be swayed from this.
It is my turn to snort. “I’m a good fighter.” Half a day a week is not ideal, but this is my safest option at the moment.
“We’ll see,” she says with an arched brow, turning away.
I scale the wall at a run and pull myself onto the top.
“One more thing,” I say. She looks over her shoulder with a frown.
“If you try to take advantage of me, I’ll rip your head off,” I say and then wonder belatedly if I should have put a bad word in there, too.
She smiles, but it does not reach her icy blue eyes. “Right back at ya kiddo.” She pulls herself onto the roof of a building and then turns back towards me.
“You coming?” She glances to the shadows moving at the end of the alley. I swallow hard knowing this is a pivotal moment in my likely short existence. The shadows creep closer, making my decision for me.
I follow the woman up onto the rooftop, in the midst of Glacium’s lethal outer ring.