Last Knight (The Champion Chronicles Book 2) (33 page)

***

Marik had not moved and barely breathed from the moment he had first put eyes on Conner.  Everyone around him was screaming for one or the other and sometimes both.  They did not care who won, for they only wanted to see blood and death.  He had heard from the traveling merchants of the gladiatorial contests and they had talked about how gory and violent they were.  But even their vivid descriptions had been an understatement of the truth.  These were not contests of skill such as the tournaments that the Karmon Knights held; these were brutal contests that served no purpose other than to entertain the bloodthirsty crowd.  For all the refined culture that the Tarans claimed to hold as their own, they were truly just as simple and barbaric as the rest of the world.

              He watched in horror as Conner’s opponent attacked.  He had heard him be called Sak’hurai.  He was sure it was somehow related to Master Goshin’s native country, Hurai.  They had the same olive colored skin and short, yet muscular stature.  Whatever he was, whoever he was, his skills with the blade were amazing.  He swung them effortlessly and so fast he could barely follow them. 

              But amazingly enough, Conner parried every blow.  It was almost as if he were anticipating each and every thrust and slice.  As much as he was amazed at the skill of the Hurai, he was more amazed that Conner was able to stand toe-to-toe with him.  He thought for sure that Conner would come out on top, until he could see Conner lose focus.

              He had seen it a thousand times in squire training.  Their swords would get used to a particular type or rhythm and they would lose concentration on their opponent. And then the opponent would change something up and focus would be lost.

              The crowd cheered at the sight of first blood and then again when Conner stumbled after taking a slice to the thigh.  A chant began to rise from the crowd.  It was a Taran word that Marik did not know, but he could only assume that it meant
kill
.  They were clearly cheering from the final blow to fall upon the Knight of Karmon.

              His heart leapt at the sight of Conner regaining his strength and attacking one last time.  He caught the Hurai off guard and took him down.  He rose up and cheered, alone in his celebration of Conner’s victory.

              But the fickle crowd quickly turned, and the chanting continued, this time for Conner to finish off the Hurai.

***

Goshin had watched in silence.  As the battle had begun, his eyes were closed in prayer to the Creator, but with the first sound of steel on steel, he opened them.  Conner had learned much in his training, but there was no doubt that a Sak’hurai would master the poor boy quickly.  Even as Conner countered each of the Sak’hurai’s attacks, Goshin knew it would only be a matter of time before the more highly skilled warrior would expose a weakness.  But as the fight progressed, he actually began to wonder if the Hurai who called himself a Sak’hurai was truly a Sak’hurai, or Conner was indeed that skilled with the blade.  He did not see any weakness in the Sak’hurai’s attacks, so maybe indeed it was Conner who really was that skilled.

And then it was over.  As much as the Sak’hurai had exposed a lapse in Conner’s focus, Conner had taken advantage of one of the hardest tenants of the Sak’hurai code.  Sacrifice.  In most cases, it applied to life, living a life of sacrifice.  But in the time of war, it also applied to the battlefield.  Victory rarely came without cost.  He just hoped that the sword strike that Conner took was not too low on the chest.  A shoulder wound would heal, one through the heart would not.

The young man who stood over the bloodied body of the Sak’hurai was not the same boy that he had trained.  He could see much of his training in his actions, but this Conner had so much more confidence about himself.  He was different, and Goshin wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.  Confidence in the face of battle was not a taught skill.  It was learned only through experience.  Death was something that you quickly became used to, and he could see that Conner was clearly used to it.  He just hoped that some of the boy Conner was still there.

***

Conner’s chest heaved with the exertion of throwing punches at the face of the Hurai.  His knuckles were bloody and sore, but he did not feel the pain.  Neither did his shoulder, or his right arm, or his thigh.  Blood dripped down from his arm and pooled on the ground.

              The crowd was chanting a single word over and over again.  He could only guess that they were calling for him to end the Sak’hurai’s life.  But the energy that had fueled his fight was gone.  Even if he wanted to, he did not think that he could have even lift up a sword.

              The crowd suddenly silenced.  Conner looked up to see Prince Tarcious standing on the platform, a familiar face standing next to him.  He was glad Master Goshin was alive, but he did not look well at all.  He was very thin and his olive skin was almost white.

              “
Tarki!
” Prince Tarcious shouted and the crowd responded with a cheer.  It was the same word that the crowd had been shouting.  A few pockets tried to start the chant up again, but the prince lifted a hand to silence them.  “Kill!” the prince repeated in Commoner.  “No mercy!  You will finish the fight by cutting off the head of your opponent.  There will only be a victor when there is death.”

              Conner shook his head.  “I have had enough of killing,” he shouted back.  “And fighting.”

              “Hurai blood will be spilled!” the prince shouted.  From the inner folds of his robe, he pulled out a long, jagged dagger.  He held it up high, so everyone could see it, and then looked directly down at Conner.  With his left hand, he gripped Goshin’s shoulder.

              Conner took a step forward, and yelled out, “No!”

              Goshin did not move, but he looked down at Conner and gave a slight nod.

              Conner did not hear anything over the shouting of the crowd, but he could read Goshin’s lips as he said, “It is time.”

              Prince Tarcious turned and drove a dagger into the chest of Goshin.  The old Hurai dropped to his knees, grasping the handle of the dagger, but he did not try and pull it out.

              The prince leaned over and whispered into his ear, “Our secrets die with you.  I will have the Ark of Life, and none will stop me.”

              Goshin kept his gaze on Conner until darkness overcame him and he fell forward.

              Conner let out a scream and charged at the arena wall just below the prince’s platform.  But two centurions met him before he got to the wall and manhandled him back to the center of the arena.  Yelling and kicking and fighting, he didn’t have the strength to resist the centurions.  He couldn’t help but let himself be dragged back towards the tunnel that led back to the dungeons.

              Prince Tarcious glanced down at the still body of Goshin before he returned to his seat.

              Harroke stepped forward to the edge of the platform and addressed the crowd.  “As promised, Hurai blood has been spilled!  The Knights of Karmon have proved themselves to be the best warriors on this great earth!  No one man will stand up to a Karmon Knight, but how will the Karmon Knight stand up when faced with 80 opponents!”

              Cheers rang out again as twenty men were pushed out from each of the four tunnels that led from the four different dungeons.  Centurions raced to pile swords, pikes, maces, halberds, and other weapons of war in the center of the arena.

              Conner stood at the tunnel entrance, tears and blood staining his cheeks.  He looked around him at the familiar faces that were in the group.  David was there along with his other conspirators.  There was not a friendly greeting, only a meeting of the eyes.  They all knew that being called to this battle meant the end.

              “I guess we must all die,” a voice said from the back of the group.  Garonk pushed his way forward and stood next to Conner.    His dirty face was stained with tears.  His hands shook and his voice cracked with fear.  “They chose me.  And all the other best fighters.  I do not know why they chose me, but I guess it is my time to die.”

              Conner just looked down at Garonk without replying.

              “You are injured and bleeding,” David said. With the help of others around, they ripped shirts into bandages to clean up Conner’s wounds as best they could.  At least they were able to staunch the flow of blood.  They pulled off Conner’s dirty tunic to use to clean up his hands.

              “This is not your first battle?” David asked, pointing at the three freshly healed scars across Conner’s chest.  “That must have hurt.”

              Conner shook his head.  “No pain.”

              “The barracks will be unguarded,” David whispered.  “And there are only four centurions in the tunnel with crossbows.  If we can all rush the tunnel, we should be able to overwhelm those guards and then make our way into the barracks.  Then, we just escape into the city.”

              “To be hunted and slaughtered?” Garonk cried out.

              “You would rather be slaughtered here for entertainment?” Conner snapped back harshly.

              Twenty eyes looked up at Conner.  He had surprised himself as well as the others by speaking.  The suddenness and violence of Goshin’s death had stunned him, but with the return of the pain of his wounds, so came his senses.  He knew that there would be time to mourn his good friend and this was not that time.  With a strength that he did not think that he had, he pushed aside his burning anger and channeled it into clear thoughts.  Revenge would come later, he promised himself.  But right now, he needed to escape the arena once and for all.

              “It is time to fight,” Conner said with a scary coolness.  “We will clear the arena floor, and then with our weapons, we will fight our way through the centurions and out into the city.”

              “We will fight,” David said.  “All of us, but until we have weapons, we will be worthless.”

              “Then you will get your weapons,” Conner said, turning to the pile of weapons in the center of the arena.

              “There are not enough weapons for all of us.  And there are sixty others that will be racing for them as well.”

              “We need just two.  The Sak’hurai’s Sak’turanas.  The Hurai’s swords.  I must have them.  And then we can get more.  Who is the fastest runner?”

              “I am,” a short and skinny man said, stepping forward.

              “You will run to the Hurai, and you will get both his swords for me,” Conner said.  Then to the rest of the twenty, he said, “You will all stay behind me in a group.  When you can, you pick up a weapon.  When all of us have weapons, then we will run to the tunnel and freedom.”

              A trumpet sounded and the race for the weapons began.

***

Marik was the only one in the entire stands that was seated.  His head was in his hands and he was trying to hold back tears of anger.  He needed to do something, to help Conner.  It was clear that this person in black was pure evil. There was no other explanation as to why he would kill Master Goshin in such a manner.  He had to do something, but he knew there was nothing to do.  Centurions patrolled the crowd and they were armed with crossbows.  If he tried to jump into the arena, it would be easy for them to shoot him dead in two steps.  And he had no weapon.  He only had a small hunting knife on him.  His sword and bow were buried outside the city where he had last camped.

              There was nothing that he could do to help Conner.  He was on his own.

***

The skinny man, Rion, ran as fast as he could to get to the weapons.  He was not the first, but it did not matter because his goal was not the pile of weapons, but the Sak’hurai’s two swords.  The Sak’hurai was starting to wake up and made a feeble attempt to try and keep Rion from taking the weapons, but he was still not all together with it.  The Sak’hurai sat up and went to reach for his weapons, but Rion was too fast.  He slid on the ground and grabbed the two swords before anyone else realized what he was doing.  And then he darted back towards Conner and his group, dodging a handful of prisoners who had tried to stop him.

              Another prisoner who had just grabbed a mace with a spiked ball on the end of a chain backed away from the dwindling pile of weapons.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Hurai try and stand up, but the prisoner with the mace swung the weapon, connecting with the face of the Hurai.  The foreigner from the far west died instantly as his face was smashed in.  His body was thrown backwards from the force of the blow, landing on his back. That prisoner did not see another armed prisoner coming from behind and was struck through with a spear from the back and out his chest.  He dropped the mace and another snatched it up.  Death came quickly to the combatants and within just a few minutes, almost half of the prisoners were dead or dying.

              Back with the rest of Conner’s group, Rion handed Conner the twin Sak’turanas.  Conner twirled them in his hands to test their balance.  They were perfect.  The edges were razor sharp and there was not a single blemish the entire length of the blade.

Conner took the lead with his group right behind him.  He headed straight for the center of the arena where most of the fighting was taking place.  A few prisoners who had grabbed a weapon moved away from the main group of fighters.  Some were by themselves, staying out of the fray until they were attacked.  Others clumped into groups of two or three, using numbers to help keep them alive. The longer they survived, the better chance they had of getting out alive.  As long as the prince let the victors live.

As they neared the main group of fighters, Conner engaged the prisoners one at a time.  There was no organized combat, just a mass melee of desperate men. If they had decided to join together like Conner’s group, they could have overwhelmed the exhausted Conner.  But Conner was able to easily dispatch the unskilled prisoners one-by-one.  He did it with cold precision.  They were out to kill him, so he had to take care of them first.  He aimed to slice off heads and stab through the heart.  Anything to quickly kill.  As each one fell, their weapon was picked up by someone in Conner’s group and they joined the combat, making it that much easier for Conner.

By the time the other prisoners had recognized the organized attack, it was too late.  The group of Conner’s twenty armed prisoners had easily outmatched the remaining prisoners.  And as soon as all twenty had a weapon, they backed away from the fighting, which was now down to small pockets of two or three prisoners hacking and swinging away.

A flight of crossbow bolts raked through the group.  Conner looked up into the crowd to see a line of centurions in the first row reloading their weapons.  He looked at his group who started to back away more quickly.  Five had fallen and were unmoving.  They all had multiple bolts sticking out of their bodies.

“To the tunnel!” Conner shouted.

A second flight of crossbow bolts was fired, but the prisoners had already started to run, so most of them struck into the ground.  Conner was still facing the centurions and he hadn’t turned to run away.  He could see three bolts heading right for him and he had no time to think.  He turned his body and sliced his swords through the air, splitting two of them into shreds.  But a third struck into his side, the force of the blow causing him to stumble backwards.

He moved as quickly as he could, his back to the group, facing the centurions who were loading for a third flight.  He turned to look at his group, which had reached the tunnels, their swords and weapons were up, and they were shouting a battle cry.  He was still fifty feet away from the tunnel entrance.  With a last surge of energy, he turned and ran as fast as he could towards the tunnel.

A third flight of crossbow bolts never came.  As he half ran and half limped towards the tunnel entrance, he kept expecting to be struck from behind.  His only option was to get to the cover of the tunnel as fast as he could and join the rest of this group.

But just as he reached the tunnel, he came to a stumbling stop.  Two rows of centurions were at the bottom of the tunnel.  There were more than the four that had been there before, and they had all emptied their crossbows into his group.  Bodies were scattered on the tunnel floor, multiple crossbow bolts in each body.  None moved.  He looked from the bodies to the centurions, most had already reloaded their crossbows.  In unison, they lifted their weapons and fired.

***

Marik watched in horror as the centurions appeared from the crowd and fired two rounds of crossbows into the fleeing group.  His heart raced as the first flight did not hit Conner, but then his heart sank as one of the bolts from the second flight struck him.  The bolt hit Conner low on the abdomen, a spot that was likely fatal.  He’d seen injured men survive arrows, even struck near where Conner was struck.  But he knew from his many battlefield experiences, that was where the kidneys were and an arrow in them would cause much bleeding.  And a crossbow was thicker and struck with much more force than a typical arrow.  If Marik had a moment to think about it, he would have been astonished that he survived the first hit.

              The centurions didn’t fire a third volley, but they held their crossbows at the ready.  He wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t fire at Conner’s back.  There were no rules on the battlefield; you did what you needed to do to survive.  But when Conner suddenly came to a stop at the top of the tunnel, he knew that the group that had run in there was dead.  And then Conner was struck multiple times with crossbow bolts.  He stumbled backwards three or four steps, just from the force of the blows, and then he fell onto his back.

              Marik’s heart was pounding so fast, he thought it was explode out of his chest.  He wanted to jump down into the arena and kill each of those centurions.  But he had no weapon himself.  There was nothing for him to do but to weep for his fallen friend.