THE INITIATION
Eight Years After The Escape
Barric felt the steel cuff on his neck, his rage hot and terrible in his gut, burning the place inside him that had known freedom from slavery, and he chafed at it being taken from him. He looked at his side, to Bryant, wondering if the man could hold out.
Freedom had always been Bryant’s. He had grown in a house of privilege, had known no darkness and tribulation. These last few months had taken something from him that Barric hoped would come back some day.
The tunnel was long and crawling with darkness and fear. The darkness was still. It did not carry with it the thundering roar Barric had heard so much the last few days. He thought of the terror he felt when the sound first reached his ears, and he thanked the gods for the quiet. The tunnel ended in a great door many times bigger than any Barric had ever seen, and it was shoved open by a handful of slaves, large, but too old to be fighters any longer. These were the retired gladiators, the ones who survived contest after contest and found life wanting at the end of their trials. The doors opened and the morning sun slammed into Barric, blinding and assaulting him. It was sharp and angry, the sun, blistering with rage, as it seemed everything was from this city, from this continent. He fought to shield his eyes, only then remembering the shackles around his wrists and arms.
He let his eyes slowly gain their footing and saw the grandeur of the arena all at once. It was big, bigger again many times than any structure Barric had ever seen. The seating was black stone. It looked evil and bloodthirsty. The walls around the pit were yellow in color, as was the bulk of the arena. It held in it a sense of loss and terror that brought a thread of hopelessness Barric could not fight.
Bryant looked up and his shoulders slumped.
Barric only then wondered if this had been a terrible idea. Selling himself into slavery had been a design needed to find the ones he looked for. Now with the deed done, Barric wondered if the whole thing had not been a horrible mistake.
The guards snarled in their faces and spat out commands Barric had no hope of understanding. They were not beings who commanded any tongue that could speak words Barric could understand. They were quite like every guard Barric had seen since he came here.
Demonic in every way, these beasts had been coughed up by the depths of some hell unimaginable to serve the monster that owned this place. They were cruel and barbed and held more hate in their bodies than any ten men could command.
They spat out a command and Beretas nodded. He pointed to the wall. “We stand there. They are going to bind us. We are going to earn our place at the table today or die in the doing.”
“How is that?” Bryant asked.
Beretas was the only one who understood the words spoken by the beasts. “They call it The Initiation. I know not what it means, but it can’t be good.”
Barric let the monsters bind his wrists and ankles to the wall, then he tried its strength. The bonds held. Barric looked at the oblong eyes of the creature before him and wondered if, by the end of his time here, if he would be able to kill one. After the punishment he received at its hands, he hoped for the chance.
The wall beside him held weapons of all sorts embedded into it. They were stuck in blades first, their handles protruding from the wall for any hand to grab. Barric fought to reach one when the demons walked away. They were maddeningly close, but completely out of reach. He focused instead on the wall around him and the men and women bound beside him.
Bryant hung on a curve not far to the left. Barric fought to gather his friend’s eyes and when he did, he saw Bryant filled with misery and suffering under his enslavement. Barric knew he needed to get Bryant out of this place as soon as possible, and set his mind toward figuring out the way his father had escaped.
Hours of heat and sun, and the gates opened for the day’s show. Men and women of all ages and races entered the arena. They snarled and cursed and threw refuse at them. The crowd jeered and laughed and shouted profanities, and Barric could do nothing but weather the abuse and wait for what came next.
The arena was a bowl on three sides, a massive wall on the fourth. It was eight stories tall and sported dozens of booths for viewing. Rich and powerful people began to fill the seats, and they grinned and laughed at Barric and his brothers. Directly below the tall wall a number of pits had been dug like a honeycomb of despair.
Barric watched as demons with long poles bearing hooks and other cruel implements reached into the pits and snagged a warrior. They pulled a gladiator to the arena floor and shoved him forward. When a massive beast of a man was pulled up, the whole of the arena erupted in raucous glee and chanted a name. The word was hard to understand at first. It stood wild and unbridled in its terror, and the chanting of it filled Barric with fear. He swallowed his trepidation, waiting for the name to make sense. Soon the crowd found unison and the word Angrier filled the world.
The garq snarled and flexed his enormous muscles. He stomped his foot and roared to the world around him. His savagery and monstrous appearance could not be denied.
The monster stomped to the wall and wrenched a spear loose but a few feet from where Barric hung. The monster barked out a word or curse Barric did not understand and swung the butt of the spear, catching the man bound to the wall four men down in the face. The man screamed in pain and Angrier roared.
He stomped closer up the wall and Barric saw the beast’s fangs protruding from his lower jaw and jutting from under his lip. Dark green fur covered his body and blonde hair sprouted from his head. The monster roared again and sunk a devastating punch into the gut of the man beside Barric.
It was then Barric understood the heart of the Initiation.
From the pits, another four men were drawn, and they rushed to the walls to rip weapons out.
Angrier swung his attention to the men behind him as the crowd howled, then Angrier yelped and jumped up and down. He was more animal than man, and Barric did not wish to face him in any contest.
The four men looked nervously to one another as Angrier stepped into the center of the arena and planted the butt of his spear in the ground. He growled and let the four men surround him. They looked at each other, terrified by the man before them, and Angrier spun to look at the pinnacle spot in the high wall. From the topmost section, a large beast stepped forward. It was tall and lean, wolfish and cruel. It held a great scepter with a severed head topping it. It spread long sinewy wings and loosed a bark, whine, howl that silenced the arena.
Angrier barked at it and it laughed.
The monster in the stands let out a laugh that was darkness and madness bound and forced out onto the world as a curse and a threat. Its laugh contained such wrath for the world and such hilarity for the plight of the suppressed that it leeched all hope and power from Barric’s soul. He looked at the thing that owned him and could not find the strength to envision his freedom.
The rotting head was pointed at the ground and Angrier burst into action. He leapt forward in one great bound and slammed his spear butt into the face of the man before him.
The man let out a ragged tear of a cry and hit the ground, grabbing his face.
Angrier swooped his weapon around, slashing a deep cut into the man creeping up behind him. He caught the next man to rush him by the throat, lifted him, then slammed him to the ground, and Barric heard the man’s back snap in a loud report that brought the crowd to cheering. The garq fought on, crushing and destroying every hope the four men before him had of victory or escape.
Soon they were running from him and the crowd was booing. Angrier threw his spear, catching one man in the back, and the poor bastard lifted into the air then slammed the ground. He groaned and Angrier laughed.
Once the fight was all but over, Angrier took back his spear and played with his food. He sliced genitals. He skinned limbs. He bit into his enemies, pulling away meat and bone and chewing it to spit it back on the victim. The screams of the men blended with the screams of the crowd to form a tapestry of suffering that ruled every person, every soul, and stained Barric’s mind and heart.
When the worst of it was over, Angrier lifted the still living men into the air and tossed them in a hole in the center of the arena. The crowd raged and the beast went back to the pits to be hefted and set back where they had found him.
More pain and horror, more savaging of the men bound to the wall around Barric, more fighting and blood.
This place was a church of hate and destruction. This place was of bone and muscle and rage.
Barric knew, when the sixth body went into the hole in the middle of the arena, he had made a terrible mistake in coming here. He reminded himself of his father, Gondik Ironspine, the man of the Four Families, who had escaped this place, leaving behind three of his brothers-in-arms. Barric had come back to suffer their fate, to help them escape and bring hope to their cause. But this was too much. This terror, this darkness, far too much for him to keep hold of his sanity.
Then he saw the six beings taken from the pits. They were shoved onto the arena floor and Barric felt his blood go cold as he looked at the one who led them.
There was something about her. Something terrifying that dug into the heart of him like no other sight ever had. He did not understand his fear of her. Did not know why he could not bear to look at her, but the horror of it was so real, so terrible in its complexity, that to witness her face was to stare into the very depths of his most naked fear.
She stood for a long time, staring at the men bound to the wall, as if she could feel something was amiss. As if she could tell that nearby a thing feared her. She turned to the wall and began to walk its curves.
Barric was nearly crying when she stopped before him and looked up at him with apathy before her face broke out in a laugh.
She spat at him and grinned.
“You have the look of your father to you,” she said.
Barric stared into her eyes, seeing something he could not place.
“You look just like him. Large, dumb, thick headed.” She snorted in laughter and grinned. “You ended up here. Of all the hell holes in the world of warriors, you ended up right before me.”
Her face, her hair, something of it brought naked panic to his heart and he suddenly needed away. He needed to run from this person, needed to slam his head against the wall until his brains broke free of his head and he escaped her.
“You are in hell now, my son. I hope you enjoy it.”
Barric gagged in horror as she jerked a sword free of the wall and slid it into his arm. He howled in pain and fear and confusion and felt the wicked blade crunch through his bone. He screamed again as she twisted the blade and his bone splintered. He wailed and she laughed.
“You are pitiful,” she snapped. “I was right to be rid of you. If you survive The Initiation, I will make your life a hell. If you live, then this arena will be a horror to you. I sold you into slavery once. Now I will take everything you have left. Your pride, your sanity.”
Barric could not take much more. He held back his begging as he wept. A man no more than a boy stepped up beside her.
“Mother, they are calling the fight,” he said. “We must away.”
Barric looked into the eyes of his brother, seeing his own.
Barric felt his heart go out to the man but he held his words in check.
“Baiter, look what we found here,” the woman chirped. “This is your brother. The stain of my loins. He will suffer here as no one ever has.”
The boy looked at him, and in that moment he seemed to contain love, even understanding. But soon it was jerked away by a cruel smile.
“He will be fun to play with. But that is for later. Darkfess grows angry,” the young man said.
Barric saw the woman before him grin. She grabbed ahold of him, pulling herself to his face. Her weight hung on his arm and he nearly cried out in agony.
She looked him in the face. So beautiful, so powerful. She kissed his lips and pulled back. “Later then, son. I will teach you soon the level of hate I held for your father. Until then,” she pulled back and bit into his face. Barric screamed as her teeth ripped into his cheek. She came away with a hunk of meat and chewed it viciously as she dropped to the ground.
Barric wept bitter tears as she went to her battle and the pain she would inflict on her enemies.
He couldn’t help but to root for her. Seeing her death would be far too much for him to bear.
Bladesport
by Jesse Teller
Available on Amazon – Continue Reading
Jesse Teller 
Leave a comment