The Second Adventure: A Cat Called Britain (A Caper in Time Part 1)
by Evan Forman and Michael Robertson - 22.12.14
Grime.
Accumulated in the gutters between off-white tiles. Some of it
old, some of it moving, some of it might have been a person.
Crested on a flat plane of perpendicular black lines; a torn,
bloodied fingernail lay in front of John Boss' half-opened eye.
He lay completely still, pretending to be just another dead
thing in what he could only assume was a slaughterhouse. A cool
nip persisted in the back of his neck where the poison dart had
been removed. It was fresh, less than three hours old, he
estimated.
Elvin voices were shouting somewhere behind him, what sounded
like an older one tearing apart a young apprentice, the sound of
his incoherent rage smacking against porcelain walls and steel
bars. One voice fell quiet, the other muttered something before
stepping outside.
Something was dragged along the floor as heavy footsteps trudged
closer. John adjusted his head down slightly to hide his eye,
blinking out sleepiness and looking out from the shadow of the
bridge of his nose. He was in a long room with many cages on one
side of a walkway. "Okay," he thought. "'Abattoir'
is the feel, but what kind of slaughterhouse has overnight
guests?" He spotted loose threads of hay from the corner of
his eye. "That would suggest 'prison' but..." he could
just barely see a young elf hauling a rusty chain over his
shoulder "...what kind of prison warden wears a bloodied
apron?"
The elf's cargo was dragged, twitching and drooling, into view
across the floor. John didn't see a face, just a glimpse of feet
spreading a trail of blood all over the slick floor as they slid
away down the corridor. The elf tried to hold a heavy-looking
door open with his back as he pulled the meat most of the way
through, cursing to himself as the door shut on its toes and he
had to drop the clattering chain and pull each foot through.
John Boss began to stir. He rolled over groggily, checking to
see if there was anyone behind him before he got himself up off
the floor. He'd have shot upwards to make the most of his time,
but he was slowed down by an iron bar between his wrists that
kept his hands apart, so picking the lock in the middle was out
of the question. Unless...no. Boss' momentary flash of
inspiration was snuffed out when he realised that he could not,
in fact, pick a lock with his toes.
Yet.
Now he could finally look around and assess his surroundings.
Every cage in the room had a pile of hay at the end and every
pile reeked of dry shit. His boots had been taken away from him
and his ragged trousers with their frayed rope belt had been
replaced with a wrapped loincloth. He turned around to find the
only other person in the room, a near-skeletal being collapsed
on a pile of hay.
"Hey." He walked towards the prisoner who was curled up and
hugging their knees. He tapped the metal bars with his
handcuffs. "Can you hear me?" They groaned wearily, and turned
over to sleep on their other side.
"Fuck's sake, I just had these boots cleaned last night."
John turned around to see Chel Hagar slinking in through a door
on the far end of the corridor which she softly closed. She
trudged over the trail of wet blood and over towards Boss. "I
don't think you'll get a word out of him, thing's probably
drugged up to his eyeballs."
"Well," said Boss, leaning against the bars, "we seem to have
that in common. So what brings you to this corner of Hell? Have
you finally realised the error of your ways and come to free me
from my chains?"
She smirked and pulled out a notebook with her left hand. John
spotted a gold wedding ring on her steel finger that he missed
the first time. "Actually, you never answered my questions."
He rolled his eye. "Charming".
She pulled out a pen and clicked it. "Name?"
"You know this."
"Name?"
"Am I right in thinking your husband has cultivated the patience
of a saint?"
"Changing the subject."
"Avoiding the question. Perhaps he lives in fear of a mechanical
fist."
"She says it tickles."
John's witty reply died in his mouth. Chel looked up at his
silence from her note-taking.
He straightened up. "My name is John Boss the 34th."
She returned to her notepad. "Age and date of birth?"
He searched the roof for an answer. "35 years
old...um...sometime around Sun's End, 1979."
"I paid a hundred and fifty silvers for five minutes in here.
Don't waste my time."
Boss smiled at her. "Why would I lie to you, Chel? What makes
you think you're worth lying to?"
“Sun’s End 1979 would make you 235 years old."
“I look good for it, too."
"Next question: Where did you come from? Who was your original
owner?"
"I come from Collisterra, and I have no owner."
"Well you do now."
John sauntered over to the cage's door. "And who, pray tell, has
laid claim to this fine slice of ass?"
"Things have long been cosy between the CPD and the Dryadoran
Amphitheatre. After our first meeting I got buried under
incident report sheets and when I got back, you'd been sold off
for...god knows how much."
"Is that what police officers do nowadays? Sell those in custody
to fight and die for silver?"
She slapped the notebook shut, and slotted the pen into the
binder rings at the top. "It keeps the lights on," she said
flatly, as light bulbs dangling from black wires flickered above
her.
John laughed through his nose. "That always happens at the most
convenient times." He widened his eyes and put on a silly voice.
"It's as if the universe is trying to tell us something."
She folded her arms, leaning against a dirty wall. "So, are you
going to give me anything, or will I just get my money back by
betting against you in the show?"
"Answer my questions, I’ll answer yours."
"Fine."
"Why are the lights flickering?"
"How should I fucking know? Maybe they just don't particularly
care about properly lighting this backdoor shitpit?"
"But it's not just here, is it? It's the police station, it's
the whole city, for months."
She laughed off his seriousness. "You just told me you're a
peasant from 200 years ago. You shouldn't even know what light
bulbs are!"
"Light goes on, light in the room. Light goes off, no light in
the room. It's a simple enough concept to grasp. Why are they
flickering?"
She exhaled with frustration. "It's not just the lights, it's
everything: computers, trains, hospitals; entire districts go
dark for about a minute at a time. Radio says it's everything
from trees falling on power lines to solar flares to terrorists
sapping our electricity into batteries to last them the week."
Boss sprung off the door with his shoulder, pacing around the
cage in thought. "And what is it these terrorists want,
exactly?"
"Oh, you know, just the complete destruction of our society and
everything it stands for."
"But what DOES your society stand for? What do YOU stand for,
Chel Hagar?"
"I keep people safe."
Boss spun around to face her, grinning with some vague malice.
"Ah, people! Like the chap in the other cage? Half dead and
starving and bleeding?" He was back at the door, almost pressing
his face through the bars and looking Chel in the eyes. "Or is
he not 'people' anymore?"
She scowled back at Boss, arms folded and legs crossed; standing
just behind where the grubby white tiles ended and the gutter of
blood began. After a short silence, she spoke. "Humans are a
danger to society, to the safety of people I care about. It's my
job to deal with threats, humans are a threat: it's my job to
deal with humans."
There was a sniffle, a quiet sob from a corner. John turned back
to the pile of skin and bones whimpering in the cage next to
him. He looked back at Chel. "Hm, nah. Not buying it."
"Just look at you," she snarled. "At least one good man is dead
because of you. His name was Duin. Two children."
"On the contrary, he wasn't even really a person". He smiled
politely at her, and she stared back at him; a swallowed fury
seething in a fortress of armour and bone.
"Okay," she uttered bluntly. "Now, you talk. Question one: the
graveyard. What were you doing there?"
"Entering your world through a hole in the ground."
She sighed. "From where?"
"Magnusshire, an inn in the little town of Ludorena called...The
Crossroads, where Aerin and I- oh, you've met Aerin Liette,
right?"
She pulled out her notebook and scribbled something down. "No."
"Well that's good because, actually, see I’m afraid I must come
clean, I- ..." He paused in thought. "You know what? Fuck it,
he's coming down with me. So!" Boss stood up straight, lifted
out of his malice. "We were holed up in The Crossroads Inn with
most of the townsfolk, celebrating my victory over a merciless
horde of murderers, rapists, and thieves, when suddenly the
whole room froze still, as if time had stopped save for us.
After tunnelling out of the barman's digestive system, a little
white cat going by the name 'Britain' informs us that we're
about to be sent 200 years into the future for reasons
unexplained. The building collapses in on itself, I wake up in a
coffin, punch open the lid and climb out of the grave of the
legendary warrior, Wüps. Or Soriboise. Those probably aren't
even their real names."
"Those soldiers' bodies got cremated because of humans trying to
steal and desecrate them. That grave's been empty for hundreds
of years."
"Which makes it exactly the right place to hide a body for
hundreds of years."
She paused, her pen lingering over paper.
Boss continued, "it does explain why I was covered in dirt when
you found me, and why I have no traceable origins whatsoever.
See? I don't belong in your world, I’m special and different!
Magical, even."
She smirked a little and stepped off the yellowing wall. "Not
quite magical. A bulletproof eyepatch is a wonderful thing."
John's air of cool detachment dropped. "What?"
"Bulletproof eyepatch. Earlier today. I found the bullet from my
gun in the far corner of the room about a 90 degree angle from
where I shot it at you, having bounced off your bulletproof
eyepatch. See?" She pulled out a crumpled metal shell from her
pocket and held it up to the bars. "Of course, any soldier or
police officer looking to kill knows to aim for the head, so
that's where you put your only armour; that's the only place you
need armour, because you're either dumb and/or well-trained
enough to think you can handle absolutely everything else."
Boss smiled appreciatively. "Well, Hagar, that is a very
impressive deduction. Wrong, but it was an interesting technical
exercise nonetheless."
She smiled smugly with her hands in her pockets, and began
sauntering down the hall. "It's a shame, really. I don't think
I’ve ever met a creature as lethally efficient as you. You could
have been such an asset to the world."
Boss sighed with mock wistfulness. "Oh, then I do apologise for
being born on the wrong side of the law."
There was a silence in the room, except for the hum of
ventilation and a dripping pipe. Chel walked on, lighting a
cigarette on her way out. "The arena life should suit your
tastes. I'm sure you'll give it a whale of a time".
"Chel?"
"Yes?"
"The expression is: HAVE a whale of a time."
She stopped, and spun around. "You are the single most annoying
ape I have ever met, I think."
"I think somebody's grumpy because they don't like being proven
wrong in the presence of apes."
She laughed incredulously. "Wrong about what, exactly?"
"Oh, everything."
She opened her mouth to say something, but their attentions were
diverted when the light bulbs flickered and buzzed above them
again.
"Chel?"
"Officer."
"Officer Hagar, remember all your explanations for why the
lights weren't working?"
She sighed and a stream of smoke billowed out of her mouth, her
eyebrows and shoulders slumped as if she was gently deflating.
"Yes?"
"I don't suppose it's ever occurred to you that the lights were
simply broken to begin with."
She didn't answer for a few seconds, just looking at Boss with
vague disdain.
"Another fucking riddle. Excellent."
The metal door was thrown open and smacked against the wall. An
old elf with stubbly gray hair and vivid green skin came
screaming into the room.
Chel pointed at her watch. "I paid for five minutes, dipshit!"
He towered over Chel, barking one-word questions in Elvish.
She replied, "I said: dipshit. I'm lowering myself to the simian
tongue to call you a dipshit in a language beyond your
depth-of-a-puddle-of-piss comprehension of the universe,
dipshit."
He continued roaring, wildly gesticulating his hands and fingers
at both Chel and the two younger elves flanking him,
occasionally pointing furiously at Boss.
John ventured speech. "So how come you're the only one who
speaks my langua-"
The old elf screamed across the room at Boss, bending over as
his bloodshot eyes bulged out of their sockets. Chel stood there
unphased, as the old elf pressed at his temples as his henchmen
tried to calm him.
She looked back over her shoulder to address Boss. "Some Red
Hand cells encrypt their messages by mixing dead languages like
the one we're speaking right now. Since Central Intelligence
takes about two weeks' notice to tell someone their house is on
fire, being fluent in at least one old language is part of what
makes me so incredibly valuable at what I do."
"Behind you."
Chel turned her head back too late and the old elf shoved her
backwards. Her boots squeaked as she slipped and fell on the
slicked-red floor.
He stepped over her and muttered to himself as he marched over
to Boss, grabbing some sort of metal collar off a hook on the
wall. His young, fresh-faced little assistants followed him
anxiously. He stood at the door of Boss' cage, doling out orders
and coordinating some sort of strategy for getting inside,
pointing and dragging his fingers across the floor of his gloved
palm. They nodded nervously and he turned to Boss.
He tapped the collar against the metal bars and whistled like he
was calling a dog.
An explosion shattered the air and bounced off walls as the elf
screamed out, collapsing after a bullet exploded through the
side of his kneecap. The young elves jumped and covered their
ears. The human in the other cage shot up and let out an
extended scream of terror.
Chel stood at the other end of the room, her gun smoking and her
entire black uniform now shiny with sickly crimson blood. In
spite of the very angry lady with a clear line of sight, the
smaller of the elves looked up to the taller and the taller
shook his head and pointed to his wrist to say, "we don't have
time." The old elf cradled his knee and began crying as his
fresh, dark blood mixed with the stagnant red filth below.
A black metal box on the wall started ringing and Chel held down
a button and spoke orders back to the urgent, crackling voice
from inside it. Tall whipped out a dirty rag from his back
pocket and pressed it against Old’s gushing wound while Small
rummaged around in his apron pocket for a ring of rusty keys and
frantically searched through them with panicked jangling and
muttering.
Distant footsteps came running and the corpse-dragger from
earlier burst into room, his thick rubber gloves dripping with
water and his apron smeared with blood and what looked like
vomit. His eyes widened as he surveyed the wailing disaster in
front of him, and he uttered what Boss could only assume was the
single word that the human and Elven languages shared; indeed,
the one thought that resonated throughout every language in
every culture, from the beginning of time til the final
expulsion of breath at the end of the world:
"Fuck."
He ran his wet fingers through his hair. "Uuuuuh..." The tall
elf picked up the metal collar from Old and began shouting again
pointing at Small and Boss, who had just stood and smiled with
faint bemusement at this whole thing from the safety of his
cage.
"Chel?"
"What?" Boss wasn't sure if she'd been waiting for help to
arrive or relishing in the chaos she'd created.
"What's going to happen now?"
"Think about it John: you're an exemplary specimen of brick
shithouse and you're the property of a gladiatorial arena".
Small and Tall made their way into Boss’ cage, Tall brandishing
a small gun which emitted little bolts of electricity when he
pulled the trigger.
"So I am to become a gladiator?"
She laughed a little. "No, not quite."
The elves circled around him with their tasers, one holding the
collar open and slowly approaching Boss. "In that case, Chel, I
have but one last request of you".
"Which is?"
"Go up and buy a ticket, grab a ringside seat." The metal collar
was clicked tightly around John's neck. "Come and watch the
prize mule take your world to slaughte-"
Small turned a little key in the collar, and placed it in his
pocket.
John Boss was speechless. His speech had been removed. He opened
his mouth and rattled his vocal chords and nothing happened
except for the tiniest, kitten-like squeak. His coolly
restrained malice exploded into a fit of silent, impotent fury.
Unable to shout, he found drop-kicking Tall halfway across the
cell from a standing position a more than acceptable means of
communication. The elves shot out of his cage like frightened
cats and John tried to attack them with his head and feet and
the steel bar separating his arms but the old elf grinned in his
pool of blood and slammed his thumb down on a red button in his
clenched fist.
The collar buzzed and cracked around his neck and John's entire
body felt like it was being burned alive, his skull smacked on
the cold floor and his legs flailed and kicked. His head landed
in such a way that he could see Chel leaving the room, and two
elves in white clothes with white bags rushing down the
blood-soaked corridor to help the old elf. He must have let go
of the button when the doctors arrived, because the burning
stopped and every muscle inside John's body singed as he lay
still and silent.
The room shook with the thud of a drum, and grand orchestral
music rumbled through from above the roof. The two elves grabbed
Boss, Small trying to slap him awake as Tall heaved him up. His
limp legs clumsily walked as he was pushed down the corridor and
out of the room, into a large gray concrete hall lined with
cells and outreached arms. Many of the people (Boss stressed the
word in his mind: people) howled or cried at the thundering
music which got louder and whose seismic shifts got more
powerful as he was pushed closer to a large gate at the end of
the corridor. He swivelled his head to look behind him, but no
sign of Chel; only more aprons, gloves, and boots flitting from
cell to cell, tossing chunks of meat to grasping hands which
shot backwards to safety with their prizes.
One elf raced in front of John and his walking scaffolds,
hitting a button on the wall that sent blinking orange lights
spinning and the colossal (about the width and height of ten
men, Boss estimated) gate sliding open. They muttered urgently
to each other as one elf behind him unlocked the restraints on
his wrists, the freezing steel bar clanging down on his toes and
the leader of the procession pulled the cap off yet another
syringe.
The other elves stopped, holding Boss' arm still as the liquid
was pumped into a vein. He was thrown forward into the large,
shadowy square alcove and the huge gate roared shut behind him.
His body suddenly wriggled awake with a chill, and sprung
upright. His entire being was bursting out in goose bumps and
his legs compulsively bouncing with fear and excitement as his
heart thumping in his chest. The elves stared at him from behind
the safety of the bars as Tall pushed a button. The floor began
to rise and John looked up at the towering vertical shaft above
him. The music got louder as the floor rose closer and closer to
the roof, John's entire body quivering with forced adrenaline.
The light from the hall outside vanished and John was left in
darkness. A voice from above spoke quickly and built up in
tension along with the music.
Finally, the blackness opened above him and the announcer cried:
"JOOOOHN BOSS!" The crowd exploded in shouting and cheering as
John Boss rose up into the arena. He stared out to the circular
sea of faces above him. He had always found himself in front of
an audience but now - almost certainly despised, unable to
address them and with no props, partners, or clever tricks to
impress - he just stood and absorbed his hostile surroundings.
The first thing he noticed was the scale of the thing;
everything he'd seen of Dryadora so far, even this building's
reeking underbelly, repulsed with filth or decayed with
municipal rot but above ground, the amphitheatre seemed to have
been pulled straight from myths and legends of the first
millennium. At the top of the structure was a circle of crimson
sails which looked like they could be lowered down to create a
roof, but today jutted upwards and outwards like a crown of wood
and cloth upon the white marble coliseum. Below them, too far up
to see in any detail, ornate murals had been carved into the
stone depicting various historical events or perhaps legendary
gladiatorial achievements. Below the immortal stone dead, the
writhing mass of the unwashed living began, crowded and rowdy at
the top outermost circle and slowly becoming more spread out and
insularly polite and well-groomed as they got closer to the
perfect white sands of the actual arena, bisected at the middle
by a barrier of spiked steel poles.
The commotion of the crowd quietened down as the announcer began
to speak again, Boss immune to the tension of his runaway-train
voice. In the other half of the arena, a large square of the
ground lowered down a few inches away below the surface and
opened up to be replaced by another from below, this time
bearing a wiry man in the same white loincloth as Boss and who
was somehow holding up a large iron mace on a long chain. The
man was jittery, uncontrollably excited, and wildly paraded
around his half of the arena to the applause and amusement of
the crowd.
The announcer began to shout ten of the eleven Elvin words Boss
knew: "DIECH!"
The crowd joined in. "NEU!"
The other fighter stared at Boss through the barrier.
"OCHED!"
Boss stretched his limbs, trying to weed out the last drips of
chemical sleep from his affecting his body, but enhancing the
chemical dread.
"CAESHED!”
He knew the fear trembling in his chest was illogical, not that
it belonged to him. Barring adverse effects of the drugs, Boss
had countless possible options with which to fight despite his
seemingly limited resources.
"CAI!"
The other fighter leapt up and down with animalistic excitement.
John Boss barely noticed, performing various quick exercises
with machine-like precision.
"COEG!"
Final move, a series of quick press-ups to ready his arms for
possible strenuous lengths of combat.
"CAITHER!"
He got up, and struck his final pose: completely still, feet
shoulder-width apart, hands behind his back, left hand clenched
into fist, right hand around left wrist; formal, even
militaristic. Honourable in the gallery of his own degradation
and completely unmoving.
"TRÉ!"
"DÉ!"
"If this fistfight between two grubby drugged-up men in pants
were an intellectually stimulating game of chess," he
thought, "I’ve just made the first ten moves before the game
has even begun."
"OIN!"
The crowd screamed as the poles fell into their holes in the
ground. The other man ran towards Boss, swinging his mace in
short circles at his side. Some of the noise died off as the
audience realised that, rather than run towards his opponent,
John Boss was not going to move. The fighter continued running
towards him and as they sat and waited for the inevitable,
members of the crowd ventured weak cheers of enthusiasm as he
just kept running. For a full twenty seconds, the crowd watched
on in impatient silence as this one skinny little man ran across
an empty oval of sand while the other, comparatively huge man
simply refused to play.
Finally, the man and his mace had made it to John Boss.
The fight was over.
One: Just as the mace was about to be swung, John Boss's
clenched left fist shot around from his back and threw a handful
of the white sand into his opponent's eyes.
Two: As the mace was swinging, he grabbed it just where the
chain disappeared into a forest of rusty spikes, arching his
right arm as to avoid touching them.
Three: He yanked it to the right, and threw it back, sending it
flying around and hitting the fighter in the back.
Four: He grabbed the man's left hand, his non-swinging arm. Boss
pressed his right outer elbow into his opponent’s left inner
elbow, gripped onto his left wrist with his right hand and held
it upwards. With his left hand, he prized his opponent's fingers
off the chain, squeezed his fingers together, and bent them
backwards with a snapping noise.
Five: The mace was building up momentum again. Boss took two
quick steps backwards before darting back in and breaking a few
of the bleary-eyed man's teeth with a crunching uppercut.
Six: He grabbed the chain at one side of the man's remaining
hand and momentarily cut off all feeling in his right arm with a
quick and easy chop just below the shoulder.
Seven: He took the chain with his other hand and kicked the man
away while pulling the mace towards him.
Eight: Boss threw the mace down, and before his enemy could
think he skipped to his side and kicked in his inner knee,
making him stumble down to a kneeling position.
Nine: Boss grabbed the man by his scraggly, greasy hair and
hauled his head up to look at him. He raised his other fist up
into the air, ready to easily pummel his opponent to death.
Ten: He stopped.
The audience screamed with joy and excitement. Never in their
lives had they seen anything like this: a beast of such
precision and purpose. The announcer up in his glass booth had
frozen still with bated breath.
Then came the chanting.
It started its slow rumble from the top rings and spread down
the amphitheatre like a plague. One word, bursting out of the
pits of a thousand lungs. The eleventh and final Elvin word that
John Boss knew: "Marbah." The high society spectators and the
common rabble became indistinguishable from one another; all
fists and palms drumming against knees, hungry eyes and widening
smiles.
“Mar. Bah. Mar. Bah. Mar. Bah. Mar. Bah. MAR. BAH. MAR. BAH.
MAR. BAH. MARBAH. MARBAH. MARBAH.”
The drumming became a hammering and the air seemed to fill with
thunder and lightning.
“MARBAHMARBAHMARBAHMARBAHMARBAHMARBAHMARBAHMARBAHMARBAH.”
The collar around John's neck fizzled and cracked into life. In
a tinny, hissing whisper, it was the announcer: "Let me say this
in a language you might understand you filthy fucking ape.
Blood. They want blood. And they don't care if it’s yours, or
his. So choose, or we'll drag you both around the ring and paint
the walls with your guts."
The chanting seemed to slow and fade as Boss looked down at the
man on his knees below him, who growled limply and bared his
sparse black teeth like a dog. His bloodshot eyes burned with
the urge to kill, but were otherwise vacant, of love and
intellect and soul. He wore a collar too, but not as chunky and
intricate as John's; perhaps just there to shock. He didn't need
a machine to be silenced, it seemed to Boss that this man had
never been taught to speak at all.
"Can't talk," he thought, "all the other people
down in the pits just growl and whine for food. Bred and trained
from birth to fight and die, to be slaughtered for sport. He has
no option but to murder me, he doesn't know how not to. Empathy
was a disease they cured long ago. I only have two options. 50%
likelihood: kill this man (Mercy killing? I can give him a
painless death or more brutal suffering. No, he's a person; not
my authority to do that) and let the show go on. 50% likelihood:
complete and merciless cultural revolution. Well, factoring out
the possibility of NOT single-handedly defeating the entire
mechanised armies of this new empire. I like the sound of those
odds. Incapacitate."
John Boss adjusted the man's head, looked him in the eyes, and
with one blindingly fast strike to the neck, he was unconscious.
The man flopped down to the white sand, which had not been
stained by a single drop of blood. The audience fell silent for
a moment before exploding into a chorus of fury and disgust.
John Boss stepped away from the sleeping man and looked up to
face the tidal wave of booing and shrieking. He smiled and
raised his open arms, basking in the warmth of his adoring fans.
The announcer spoke again, sounding this time almost desperate
like a father trying to console 50,000 screaming children. Boss
paraded around the arena throwing dramatic strongman poses,
smiling at the women in the audience as he flexed his muscles
(to the sneering disdain of all but one older woman sitting with
her bloated husband who was, as far as Boss could tell, silently
but irrevocably captivated).
The announcer rolled out his 'build-up' voice again, hitting a
button in his booth to start another round of soaring orchestral
music. The poles in the centre rose again. The tall wooden gates
at the other end of the arena opened up and rays of golden light
poured out of the crack and flooded the ring, covering the disc
of twinkling sand. The announcer's rattling reached a pause
before its climax, and he shouted: "BO! KRODAH!"
Bo Krodah's shadow stretched across the sands and dwarfed his
silhouette as he materialised from the heavenly golden glow of
which, from his vantage point on the ground, John Boss could
just about see the wall of electric bulbs. The crowd burst with
joy as he strode out into the ring adorned with ornamental gold
armour. He raised his gleaming sword to greet the crowd, bashed
it against his shield triumphantly and he turned his attention
to Boss, staring out at him through black slits in his
pearlescent helmet, with thick circling horns at the sides;
perhaps to represent elvin ears or the horns of a demon. The
gates rumbled shut and the crowd began the countdown.
Boss picked up the crude and rusty mace from beside the nameless
warrior, whose life had been nothing more than a little
appetiser for the spectators’ evening entertainment. He walked
towards the gladiator on the other side of the fence, swinging
the mace at his side with a steady rhythm. The gladiator stood
still and statuesque in the same way Boss had just before.
Perhaps he'd been watching the fight to observed his tactics.
"What's he expecting?" Boss thought. "Strength, speed,
precision, planning." He bounced from one foot to the other,
looking every inch the accomplished fighter ready for blood.
"TRÉ!"
"DÉ!"
"OIN!"
The poles fell down into the ground.
John dropped the mace and ran away.
Bo Krodah chased after him, his heavy armour clunking with every
footstep as John Boss - the self-proclaimed Prince of The Five
Seas, Hurricane of the South, soon-to-be hereditary Doom Pirate
of the Al-Zahabi Clan if all the paperwork arrived in the next 3
to 7 business days - gallantly skipped around the ring, his arms
gaily swinging back and forth, his toes extended out like a
ballerina's, turning his head side to side with each merry
bounce to check on his pursuer's progress.
The children laughed while many of the adults shouted at Krodah
to hurry up and end this goose chase. He alternated between
trying to sprint in armour and making mad swings of his sword at
Boss, who easily bounded ahead of him while waving and blowing
kisses to people in the audience.
This went on for nearly five full minutes, the only changes
coming from John throwing in a graceful twirl or a cartwheel to
spice things up a bit, but otherwise he just ran in a figure of
eight across the sand. For the fifteenth time, the chase was
heading towards the centre of the ring. John Boss had his arms
spread out in the air like a sprinter approaching the ribbon. In
the blink of his eye, the wall of spiked poles had risen again,
and now they were spinning.
The crowd cheered and Bo Krodah's blood-hungry cackle rattled
out from his helmet. Through the blur of gleaming spikes, John
could just make out the mace trapped on the other side of the
barrier. He started to slow down, but didn't stop moving towards
the humming and whistling wall. He knew how close Krodah was
getting from the sound of his metal boots and the pitch of the
crowd's rising cry: "oooooooooOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAH"
The pace of Krodah's steps crunched to a halt on the sand. He
swung his golden sword at Boss. Pausing for one vital second,
John stopped just centimetres away from the shredder, and spun
around to kick Krodah's sword-hand away with a smack. Despite
his exhaustion, Krodah clung to his weapon and Boss rushed in
between his arms to wrestle it from his grasp.
The crowd clapped like a war chant: "KRO-DAH KRO-DAH KRO-DAH."
Bo Krodah lodged his shield between his chest and John Boss, and
pushed as hard as possible towards the 3 metre high hedge of
hungry steel thorns, whose metallic screech seemed to grow
louder and more expectant as Boss’ dug-in feet ploughed through
the sand. His sweat-drenched hands began to slip over Krodah's
metal and leather gloves in the struggle. Desperately, Boss
started headbutting Krodah through his helmet - refusing to feel
pain as adrenaline whipped through his veins and his thundering
heart screamed against his ribcage, metal and bone furiously
clanging together. His head became numb as Krodah still
struggled to hold his ground. John grabbed Krodah by the
shoulder with his right hand, still trying to pull the sword
away by its hilt. He pushed the gladiator back what little
distance he could, and pulled his head back further than before,
a single rouge spike slicing the back of his bald head; and
smashed his skull into the elf's iron face as hard as he could.
That, and the sound of the spikes down the back of John's neck
was enough to tear the sword out of Krodah's grip.
John slipped to the side away from his reeling enemy and tossed
the gold sword through the wall which instantly chewed it up and
spat it out on the other side. The crowd screamed out, bloodlust
deafening their loyalty to one fighter or the other. The
gladiator blinked through watery eyes, quietly paranoid in the
back of his brain that the ragged bridge of his nose had met up
with the front of his brain. The water cleared from his eyes
and, through the slits of a helmet that could never have
protected him, they adjusted to the sight of the hulk marching
towards him.
Here and now, after a glorious 14-year-long career in this
arena, whose fortune had bought him a life of expensive clothes,
fine food, and endless women; but before what could have been
the beginning of a family life, of an early and dignified
retirement, and the mundane comforts of old age, the trophies
faded from his mind. The women and the cars meant nothing to him
now. For after 14 years of fighting men, Bo Krodah had realized
what it meant to fight monsters.
He clung to his shield with both hands and ducked behind it as
John Boss charged forward and slammed into him like a bull.
Before he could escape, Boss grabbed his helmet by the horns and
tore it off his face, casting it aside to be flattened by the
roaring spikes. The demonic visage torn away, Krodah with his
strong jaw and curly hair might have been quite handsome if it
weren't for the wreckage of his nose and the cocktail of blood,
sweat and snot covering his lips and chin.
Boss tried to rip the shield out of Krodah's hands but he was
pulling back down on it with all his weight. Krodah knew it was
irrational, he knew there was nothing it could do to protect him
now; it was over. He was just putting off the end.
But then the spikes fell into the ground. Krodah shoved the
shield into Boss and sprinted to his gnarled sword. He grabbed
it but stumbled to the ground as he picked it up. He turned
around and clumsily threw a stab at the air above him, expecting
Boss to be on top of him by now.
Instead, Boss had composed himself, calmly sauntering towards
Krodah, tossing the shield up in the air and catching it out of
boredom or whimsy. What scared Krodah was that he knew this
wasn't some kind of mind game. Once the immediate threat of
death had been removed, John Boss - whatever unholy creature
John Boss was - had simply become bored of the fight and wished
to end it; not out of animalistic rage, or personal hatred, but
out of the simple obligation that fights must end one way or the
other.
Krodah stumbled up, brandishing his crooked sword at Boss, who
was standing a few metres in front of him. Krodah's hands shook
as he made a few weak jabs at the air in an attempt to ward him
off but Boss remained still with his arms at his sides before
raising them up to welcome the attack.
Nothing made sense anymore. Was this beast in front of him
welcoming death? Or...
The crowd fell silent in anticipation. Bo Krodah’s hands
quivered in their iron gloves. Still, John Boss did nothing to
provoke him. The strength of his arms faded and lowered, as he
let his sword fall to the sand.
Krodah crumpled to his knees and began sobbed loudly into the
ground, wiping the mess from his face. Decades of combat
training had, in minutes, been waved away a monster of wit who
just...stood there; waiting for Krodah to give him something,
anything to work with. Since his earliest childhood dream of
becoming a soldier, Bo Krodah had thought his death would become
a story of bravery and sacrifice. Instead, he was to become a
sobbing punchline.
Through blurred vision, he watched his tears diluting his blood
on the sand. Expecting a killing blow, he felt John Boss tapping
him on the head. He looked up, and the towering monster had
extended a hand.
Krodah took off his glove and wiped the tears from his eyes.
John Boss gave a tiny reassuring smile. Bo reached up and took
Boss' hand. The crowd was silent as he got up, and cheered as he
unsheathed a dagger from the back of his belt and tried to carve
out the monster's neck.
John ducked downwards, grabbed Krodah's belt and threw him onto
his back. He raised the shield and smacked him over the head
into unconsciousness.
The crowd began to rage when they realised Krodah wasn't going
to get back up.
"So here I am, I've made it: the most hated person in this arena
right now," he thought. "But how can I go even higher?"
John's face lit up. "Brilliant idea, me."
Boss picked up Krodah's sleeping body, draped his left arm over
his own shoulder before taking his right hand and putting his
left hand on his waist and pulling the sleeping gladiator close
in. "Bum-bum, buDA, bum, bum-bum, buDA bum..." He
stepped to the music in his head, and proceeded to perform a
graceful ballroom dance routine with a corpse.
The united cries of the crowd fractured into incoherent
ramblings as people laughed, cried, screamed, whispered, and
made a general attempt to see if anyone else around them knew
what the fucking fuck was going on. Meanwhile down in the ring,
John continued to waltz with a perfectly straight back and
elegant footwork as Krodah’s limbs dragged across the sand.
Hot dogs thrown down from the seats blossomed into beautiful
white roses and gently landed on the polished wood floor of an
opulent castle dining hall. Young girls from minor royalty
laughed with each other, and jewels glistened on necks in the
light of the ballroom's chandelier.
▮▮▮▮▮▮ glanced around the swirl of dancers, and then to John. "I
don't remember this."
He gasped "I'm offended."
"Diddums."
"At least I remember these things."
"How could you forget?"
He smiled and pulled her closer. "Okay, this is a little
fundraiser organised by some duke in Valenshire. 2002. Soldiers
are coming home from up north in pieces and now the people who
sent them up there like to show face. We threw together some
fake noble titles-"
"YOU threw together a fake noble title."
"-and we managed to get in here to...uh..."
Her sanguine lips burst out into a grin. "I'm sorry, what's that
dearest?"
"Something about a King Salazar and a dragon's heart in a jar.
But...it came alive I think? The rest of the dragon, I mean. In
spirit, but his spirit was also made of fire. Completely ruined
this tuxedo. Or maybe that was..."
"You said you remembered."
"You can only carry out so many elaborate heists before they all
just sort of blend together. I said I remembered THIS, you.
Walking through the rose garden on the way in here, seeing you
in this dress, dancing while I looked into your eyes darker-"
"-than the blackest pit of sweet oblivion, yes, I read that book
too. I hope you realise that you're literally flirting with a
figment of your own imagination."
"Not really. Maybe we're just connected, we finish each others'
s-"
"-shut the fuck up and drop me." she whispered.
▮▮▮▮▮▮ fell back, held in John's arms the whole way, her arm
subtly darting behind her. She mouthed the word "up" and in one
fluid movement her hand swung up past John's waist and had
returned to his shoulder.
She smiled. "There is a jewel-encrusted key in your pocket, if
you hadn't noticed."
"Maybe I'm just very happy to see y-" he stopped mid-quip and
his eyes widened as he saw the back of the person his dance
partner had just pick pocketed, and his distinctive feather cap.
He turned back to ▮▮▮▮▮▮. "The duke keeps the jewel-encrusted
key to his safe...in his kilt?"
"Those aren't the only jewels up there. Would you have rather I
reached for those? I didn't want to make a scene. Alas." She
took out a metal collar from behind her back, fastened it around
his neck, and pressed a button.
His convulsing body slammed down to the sand. He could just
about see the mumbling, swivel-eyed Bo Krodah laying to him.
No, not this time. He raged back up on all fours and grabbed
Krodah, ready to snap his neck if anyone tried anything. Three
medical staff, a stretcher, and some butchers (that's what he'd
call the elves in aprons) with tasers, and tranquiliser guns.
John Boss was snarling through his nose, blood dripping down his
face from where he'd head butted a solid helmet.
"Tranquilisers. I'm too valuable now. They'll need to make a
show of my death."
Just as the huge dart pierced his flesh, and as the world went
dark, John Boss heard the sound of Bo Krodah's head being torn
from his spine.