Doomsday Warrior 04 - Bloody America (18 page)

Rock and the Black Menace squared off, circling each other slowly. The black gladiator was more wary now. He knew this was not an ordinary man, not an ordinary fighter. He felt no fear, an emotion he had never known—just caution. He would win of course, of that there was no doubt in his mind. For he had many tricks up his black sleeves. Rock hefted the duo-blade at chest level, moving it slowly from side to side, ready for whatever plan of attack the Menace chose. He had decided from the start to let the genetic monster attack—he would counterattack. The man knew too much for Rock to go in. Besides it was
his
job to kill Rockson. Let him try—let him make the first move.

Above them the stands were in pandemonium. They were thrilled by the bloodiness, the violence of the battles below. Safe in their plush seats they could watch the death games with pleasure. They were somewhat surprised at the abilities of the prisoners, especially the two Americans. Already six gladiators—some of them quite famous—Ivan the Blood Letter, Notov the Terrible, and Rodor the Brain Smasher, lay dead on the ground, their own bodies ripped into pulp. And even the Black Menace seemed to be having a little trouble. But it only made the games more exciting. If the prisoners died too quickly, where was the fun? Dubrovnik must have planned it this way. They could always count on him for a surprise or two.

The Black Menace watched Rockson, checking carefully for any weakness. The man was strong. He moved like a cat. But somewhere there was a vulnerability, an Achilles’ heel. Suddenly the Menace feinted to the right with his sword, and as Rockson responded, he twisted and came at the American’s side with the pike. The razor-sharp tip grazed Rock’s ribs, gouging out about half an inch of flesh but not penetrating the rib cage. As the weapon slid past his body, Rockson lashed out with a sidekick to the Menace’s groin, catching the black warrior squarely in the testicles and lifting him nearly a foot off the ground. Even with a steel-plated groin cup beneath his black leather pants, the kick took the wind from the Menace. He landed sitting, his weapons falling to the side. Rockson moved in instantly, slashing with his duo-blade with the hook-tipped end at the black killer’s throat. But the ebony gladiator was nearly as fast. He whipped his head to the side, and the hook dug into his left ear, ripping it from his head. A flow of hot blood washed down the side of his face and neck. He slammed up again, with the middle arm still holding the shield, and was able to knock Rockson backward with a blow to the chest. He quickly grabbed his weapons again and leaped to his feet with amazing grace for such a large man.

Now he was growing concerned. No one—ever—had hurt him like this. The ear could be sewn back on—that didn’t bother him—he was not concerned about his looks. But the sheer fact that the American could inflict such damage was quite a shock. He would have to use one of his tricks, something he rarely did, preferring to rely on his own innate abilities. But survival was the name of the game and Rockson must die.

Rock glanced over to the warriors battling it out just yards away. The clanking of metal against metal. The sudden scream of a man whose life had just ended. Archer was wreaking havoc, a huge mace attached to a long chain in one hand and a five-foot-long curved sword in the other. He waded through the gladiators like an elephant through a forest of trees, whipping the weapons through the air, cutting off hands, smashing in skulls. He was tipping the balance to the prisoner’s side, and they fought with increasing vigor, suddenly realizing they had a chance.

Rock quickly turned his head back toward the Menace who was circling to the left now, moving rapidly, trying to tangle Rockson’s feet up. The black warrior opened his jaws wide, showing the freefighter the rows of teeth that could shred a man’s face with a single bite. Rock sensed that the motion was to distract him and, detecting a sudden movement from the arm holding the pike, he dove through the air to the right, the opposite direction of the Menace’s circling. As he leaped the gladiator pulled a small trigger at the bottom end of the pike, and a small explosive charge situated near the other end shot the spearlike tip of the weapon straight forward—a projectile of steel death. But the Doomsday Warrior was already gone. The bolt shot forward at two hundred miles per hour across the stadium grounds, slamming into the back of Qatar the Chest Opener. The bolt pierced clear through the gladiator, exiting out through his chest with little globules of dark red heart tissue coating the tip. Qatar fell to the ground stone cold dead, much to the delight of one of the prisoners who had been only seconds from death. The prisoner turned and joined his comrades in their increasingly successful struggles against the ranks of trained killers.

The Black Menace growled with rage. Even his tricks weren’t working. He let out a bellow of anger and, throwing caution to the wind, charged at Rockson, all of his arms moving at once, a cyclone of steel death with just one target in mind. But in anger he was forgetting himself. Rock’s mutant senses gauged the angle of all the weapons as they came in at him. He ducked suddenly down so that he was inside the Menace’s flailing reach, only inches from the steel-hard black flesh. Rock jumped up just as quickly and ripped the hooked end of the duo-blade into the black mutation’s throat. The hook slipped easily inside the thick neck and deep into the windpipe and jugular vein. Rock pulled the shiny blade out, ripping with all his strength, and it emerged hooked around the artery and breathing tube. As he pulled back, the two fleshy tubes that gave life burst in half, and blood sprayed over his face and chest. The Black Menace dropped his weapons and threw his three hands over the gaping wound in his neck. He tried to scream but couldn’t as his larynx hung by a thin veiny tendril nearly down to his shoulder. He staggered backward, looking at the freefighter in bewilderment. His legs trembled violently as they tried to hold up the nearly quarter ton of weight. Rockson stared at the gasping genetically bred mutant and wished it had all been different. The man was cruel—but brave, too. If he had been with the freefighters he would have made a hell of a warrior. But such was not to be.

The Doomsday Warrior swung the knife edge of the duo-blade around with a sudden and powerful slicing motion. The edge tore into the bloody throat and clear through the neck. The Black Menace’s eyes rolled up as the head, cleanly severed from the body, toppled and slowly, as if in a dream, fell to the ground. Somehow the body stayed standing for nearly three seconds before it, too, toppled over like a century-old tree struck by lightning. It slammed into the red-caked mud, the three arms twitching in death spasms. Then it was still. The most feared of the gladiators had met his maker—and destroyer—in the form of Ted Rockson.

Seventeen

B
oos and hisses poured down from the stands in a tidal wave of anger. The Master of Death was dead. The gladiators were being mowed down like so many pigs led to slaughter. Rockson joined Archer and the remaining prisoners in their winning battles against the “unbeatable” gladiators. Nearly half the gladiators lay dead, strewn around the stadium ground, their life’s blood pouring from their skewered bodies. Of the original fifty prisoners, two dozen still stood, many wounded, their flesh coated with their own and their opponents’ blood. But they fought on, made bolder every minute by Rock’s success against the Black Menace and Archer’s smashing weapons that seemed to take out a gladiator with every thrust. The warriors who had just minutes before seemed so fearless were now falling back, panic on their faces, eyes wide with the growing realization they might well die to a man. Never had such a thing happened in the fifty-year history of the death games.

Rockson carried the dead Menace’s sword in one hand and his duo-blade in the other. He waded into the thick of it, slashing at every gladiator in sight. Archer glanced over from the midst of a group of three opponents who had surrounded him and yelled out to his leader and mentor.

“Rooockson, Rocksooon!” A big smile crossed his blood-stained face. With a gigantic sweep of his long, curved scimitar, he took out two of the gladiators at once, their chests cleaved nearly in half. They fell to the ground, joining their quickly cooling comrades, and the third man, a fighter whose face had filled the cover of
Blood Warrior Magazine
just months before, walked slowly backward in terror at this madman of extraordinary power who mowed down gladiators like blades of dry grass. He didn’t see Rockson coming up behind him. The Doomsday Warrior tapped the red-helmeted fighter on the shoulder.

“Looking for me?” he asked with a thin smile. The gladiator swung his battle-axe up through the air. But it wasn’t quick enough. Rock’s duo-blade slammed into the fighter’s stomach, going in nearly a foot and severing the backbone. The once famous face turned ghostly pale, and he slumped to the earth, gurgling blood from dry lips as Rock pulled the blade out.

The gladiators fought on. They had no choice. But the tide had turned. The prisoners fought like men possessed. They would live—it was those who had tried to destroy them who would die. The mopping up took only minutes. The final remaining eight gladiators, sensing their impending doom, made a break for the gate, but it was locked. No one escaped, not even those who had made their fortunes on death. The crowd of prisoners, their eyes blazing like exploding novas, closed in. When they stepped back, eight bodies spouting streams of red fell to the ground.

The stands erupted in pandemonium. Bottles, cups, even pieces of chairs were flung down by the enraged crowd. It was not just that their champions had been decimated, not just that their day of fun and games had been rudely interrupted by victims who did not wish to die on that particular afternoon. Worse—it was a defeat for the power of the Red Empire itself. That slaves, half-breeds, renegades, mere peasants, and untouchables could defeat the strongest men in the empire—it was unacceptable, impossible—yet it was true.

Dubrovnik’s voice boomed down from the colossal speakers. “Calm down, my comrades. I assure you these men will die soon enough. They will suffer all the torments of hell.” But the crowd would not be assuaged. They continued to roar out their disapproval, their hatred of these ragged victors below who raised their weapons high in the air and let out their own bellow of joy and pride.

“Release the cats,” Dubrovnik ordered over the P.A. Within seconds the large gate at the far end of the arena opened up and the predators emerged once again, their eyes wide in anticipation. They started toward the fighters at the other side, but as they reached the center of the coliseum, they came upon the bloody corpses of the fallen gladiators. Dead prey was a lot easier to catch than living. Even a cat knew that. They stopped dead in their tracks and began eating the presliced meals that lay as if on a dining table around them. It was a carnivore’s dream of paradise: so much flesh, organs hanging out of body cavities, ready to be slurped up. They each found their own delectable meal and sat down for dinner.

Rockson turned to the other fighters who stood around him, wiping the blood from their torn garments. He stared at them with a grim, proud smile.

“Comrades-in-arms—we have won.” The men cheered. Whatever fate befell them now, they had for at least one brief moment lived as men. “Too long have you been enslaved, used for the evil sport of the leaders who sit up there in the stands sucking their liquor. Freed men, who have freed yourselves with your own blood and pain, I say to you now, we may all die, but let us die as warriors fighting for that very freedom. Join me in killing the real enemy.” He paused and turned, dramatically shooting out his arm and pointing an accusing finger at the stands where the elite sat, still stunned by what they had seen. The freed men stared up at the Red audience and their faces filled with anger. They had had enough of being stepped on, used, tortured.

“We are with you, Rockson,” Dajinsky, one of the strongest of the freed men said—he who had killed nearly four of the gladiators by his own hand. “What should we do?”

“Use the nets as ladders,” Rock said quickly, knowing they had to move fast before the Reds could call in army reinforcements and choppers. “Throw them up over the walls. Then we can climb up into the stands and destroy our real enemies—not these pitiful pawns in the game.” He swept his hand across the arena of dissembled gladiators. The men touched hands and weapons in solidarity and grabbed up the five nets that had been used in combat. The nearly ten-foot-long rope weapons were thrown up over the walls that ringed the stadium arena, and the freed men began scrambling up them. The Russian high command moved in a panicked wave, rushing from their seats, confused, crying out in blind fear as the blood splattered warriors came up at them.

A mighty Afghani muscleman carrying a mace was the first over the top. He grabbed the scrawny throat of Drunski, one of the arena guards, and twisted the neck in one violent motion, breaking it. He threw the Red backward over the wall and down to the field below. The crowd was now a mass migration of terror. Generals jumped over the rows of seats, commissars fell, trampled to the concrete aisles by the maddened crowd whose only thought now was for survival—their own. The scattered guards raised their pistols and fired, hitting in their haste the fleeing spectators.

The victorious freed men now knew that they could take on anyone. If they had been able to destroy the gladiators with all their training and strength, the few guards who stood in their way, the fat bureaucrats pulling out their silver-plated derringers and daggers, were hardly something to fear. They waded into the crowd, swords slitting throats like chickens, blades digging deep into caviar-bloated bellies. Rivers of blood began flowing down the stands, making the concrete walkways slippery with the liquid essence of death.

Archer joined in the battle, having replaced his net and trident with a heavy battle-axe—more suited to his slamming style of warfare. He swung the double-bladed shining death tool back and forth at anything that moved, leaving a trail of corpses—Red masters now red pieces of meat, their lips quivering violently as their last thoughts echoed from their fading brains. Everywhere was death, garbed in long black robes with a bony smile on its skull face. Today was its day. So many souls to take into the black beyond—souls that would endure agonies a million times more painful than those they were experiencing now. Souls destined for hell.