Chapter 18 - Enter the arena (Training arc)

　　They all left then to train at their stations, young goblin forms thrown headfirst in the works. Artisan limped but not as bad now as the day before—the night had brought healing. They were dark creatures and foul, but with bodies that knew how to mend.

　　The prince took his only possessions—always the four: the locket, the ring, the buckler and dagger. He went the way Artisan had said, past the quarters where he had slept and strangled. The howling still beat from the other locked doors—the commons, the mid-ranks. Only elites were allowed to roam free. Though free did not mean here what he had once envisioned.

　　The others seemed mindful or at least mostly docile. Those beside him who walked through these halls. Rookies perhaps, though none the prince recognized. An earlier batch. And none bore a mark.

　　He would learn what he could, all in due course. Survival came first—he would strive not to die. Not at least till his task was completed. But his life was not his, not to live nor to hold. And if it came to death, then he should learn beforehand... what the rookie games meant in its wroth and its mystery. The boxes, the forest, the blood-stained beach sands.

　　"Toe the line, you ingrates!" A fell voice booming in from behind. The prince turned to see; saw a guard and his captives. Rookies brought in from the ragged death-plains. There were seven, all bruised with lined faces. Some the prince knew or had seen in swift passing—fighting and clamouring, the all against all. Not a speck of heart nor good reason between them. They were there when the huntress had left him—no, truth be told... when he had left her.

　　They were gagged now, most bound and some chained. Commons or mid-ranks, all mindless fodder. He would get to them first if the world would allow.

　　--

　　The arena was cold but not at all uninviting. The raw stench of sweat spread like salt in a wound—the prince savoured pain like another a fine dish. The pain of the body, the pure and the physical. It was easy to hold like the grip of a sword.

　　Vile halfwit brutes met his gaze as he entered. They were rookies still, but harder; thirty in rags—they all wore a number. Denoting their rank from the first to the thirty-first, for the prince got a plaque just as they did... thirty-and-one in a squiggle-tailed script. None of them spoke; there was nothing worth saying. The whirl of their blade told him all he should know.

　　There was a lean stone-eyed watchman, clad in armour and not merely rags—a salvaged mail breastplate with dents in the iron. From a squire, most likely. Some war-broken youth who belonged to the earth. A human. One from the Enderhorn line—Cedric knew the heraldry of the etchings: a large midland eagle, wings unfurled in defiance. Its beak open in a silent screech.

　　He might have known him once, this child. Now he knew only vengeance.

　　They gave him a blade—a dull one, made of wood, but at least without paint. The prince cast his dagger and his buckler aside and he joined the line, practiced the forms with the rest of these animals. Some captain or other—a larger, more menacing type, set the pace for all to follow. Flourishing through the moves with a semblance of skill. Slow, at first.

　　Crack went the whip of the watchman, lashing the skin of those out of step. Mostly the high numbers, but as the dance went on and on, even some single digits began to lose focus.

　　Cedric was hardly sweating. It was nothing to a prince who had trained for this his whole life, albeit in a better body. Though the green-skinned suit started to fit him, and his arms felt strong—not like Vol`krin, not yet. But not too far off.

　　Flowing through the motions, the prince started almost to enjoy it. This, it seemed, did not sit well with the watchman, who drove up the pace till all were left staggered or panting—only the first and the thirty-first held strong. Even the captain was flagging, lumbering through the steps and flailing.This narrative has been purloined without the author`s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

　　And for a time there was discord—the watchman striking the air near the captain, a snap of the whip in all-too-clear warning. The captain then snarled, and the watchman snarled back, both tossing their weapons. They flung fist-first into a brawl, each clasping hard round the neck of the other. Rising tall in their fury, they stood, battering in pre-ordained rhythm—a blow for a blow, savage hits all and straight to the temple. A crowd thronged around them—rookies with numbers now hooting and hollering, craving for blood or the cracking of bones.

　　The prince saw it all in strict-tempered dispassion; he was not here to stand round and to merely play witness. If magic could measure his triumphs in battle... then he would show the statistician some numbers she had never before seen.

　　"Will you stand idly by," he shouted at the thirtieth in rank—a gutless fat wreck who had little to offer, not in body nor in will. The prince swung his blade in a wide daring arc. "Or will you face me?"

　　The thirtieth sunk back, tried to weave in the crowd—such a coward was he.

　　"No one, then?" the prince roared. "You gutless worms!" And there it went, his strict-tempered dispassion`. He was a daft fool and he cursed himself when all the heads swung round.

　　Had he learned nothing then, from Landsbury, his wretched death at the hands of a traitor? Was he still so hopeless, so princely and vain?

　　They could ravage him, this pack of mongrels. Tear him life from limb and there was nothing he could do—this body would not withstand the thrashing.

　　But the next one might.

　　At least he had lives now, more than the one. Though the threat of madness ever loomed, surely he had some lives he could squander; lives that... depended on him—his mind flashed to reason. To Artisan. To Linaria.

　　Fool of a prince.

　　He had tempted the fates. And he could not fall.

　　So be it.

　　He would not fall.

　　The air wove electric around him, the same shift in aura he had summoned before. When Gorkon had spoken and the prince then spoke back—the same charge or energy bolting hard to the core.

　　Prepared to engage the one and the many, the prince eyed his buckler—he would need it to try and fend the horde off.

　　But there was no horde.

　　The thirty, the captain, the lean stone-eyed watchman... they all simply stood as though at mass or attention—not a grunt, not a word. Not a hint of commotion.

　　Was it a spell he had cast, or their feral sense of honour—were they more soldier than beast than he had thus far supposed?

　　Number twenty-and-three stepped silently forward. His wooden blade raised high, he came vaulting and running... a brave move but broken; nothing beats stoic inaction—this thought the prince, who was himself fool more than poet. In so many ways was he less than he wanted; he could count them, but still only ever fall short. Like a cretin come running with no guard of reason—this was he also. Always exposed, ever without cover... certainly when he had needed it most. So easily incensed he was beast more than man. This last thought he added in self-spiteful sorrow. And who could rebuke him? Surely not he.

　　The prince dipped in low, stabbed the man hard in the chest. Twenty-three was down, passed out from the blow, the hard landing—either or both; it did not matter now.

　　Next was eighteen, a strong-looking man with fangs both large and jutting. He took a sensible stance, bent low with strong footing, the blade right before him, hands on the hilt... and on the crossguard. This fool was playing a trick—one a goblin should not, for with a proper blade, the crossguard was off-limits, save to those with a plated gauntlet. Items not readily pilfered for goblin-sized hands. The technique would ingrain an unnatural movement—pointless at best in the world of real weapons. Self-harmful more likely.

　　Eighteen was poised to pivot sharply, handling the blade to change the direction of his thrust. Cedric, stepping in slightly, baited the man to commit—a close-quarters fight is what eighteen wanted. Or so he thought.

　　As eighteen rushed in, the prince moved in faster—pre-empted the thrust by hacking at the crossguard, slashing down hard on the man`s fingers. Cedric moved in for a finishing blow... but the man yielded, threw up his arms in a harmless manner.

　　Then came twelve—a scrawny and fast one. He lashed out with a flurry of rapid strokes, but the prince simply blocked, again and again. By the tenth blow, the man lost his footing, and the prince pressed on, striking several times, hard against the man`s block... and by the fifth stroke the block broke clean open. Cedric hit the man in the gut, the chest, the shoulder—not drawing blood; this one`s skin was tough, almost like leather. Not at all like the soft flesh of the hatchling, which had proven easy to pierce. The prince thought back to Vol`krin, how this mighty rookie had bled from the wooden blade strikes.

　　Twelve yielded—another at least so civil as to admit defeat.

　　"Ngeh," uttered the captain suddenly as seven prepared to square off with the prince.

　　Seven stepped back, and the captain stepped forward. He looked like a rookie and he did not—he was too large and muscular... but not so tall and imposing as a higher class goblin, like the menacing mad bone-warrior.

　　"Gru," he said. "Gru, Gru, Gru." A war-chant, seeking the heat of battle before battle.

　　The prince stood stoic, like the warrior-poet. But deep within, he could feel the same fire burning.