Fiend's Fourth Hurdle

The wagon creaked and lurched over uneven ground, wheels jarring against stone and rut. Caelvir leaned against the side, the rough wooden edge pressing into his back.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

Rumble. Rattle. Rumble. Rattle.

A symphony of groaning, creaking, grinding, and hobbling.

The rhythm was sharp, not soothing at all. The road was never smooth, just like the path that had brought him here.

Around him, the other gladiators sat in silence. Some beside him, some across. Their faces were carved in hard lines, shaped by time and battle. Bodies like statues of old gods sculpted by endless violence.

All of them bore the marks of survival, scarred arms, torn lips, broken noses.

Maybe they too had reached their hundredth. Maybe today was the same day for all of them.

Caelvir glanced at each one, searching for familiarity, but none came. Likely they were from other branches of the Dust, different pits in the same kingdom. It didn't matter. No one spoke. No one exchanged nods or tales of victory. There was nothing to celebrate. Only the silence of the dead.

Time had passed. He had changed. His body, once gaunt and hollowed from starvation, now bore real strength. His muscles were practical, those earned through blade and bone and blood.

He had killed all who crossed his path.

Children, men, women, even the blind.

From zero to a hundred, that was the count.

He didn't carry their names, nor their stories or memories

But he carried what mattered, and that was the experience. His muscles carried the unteachable reflexes that lived deeper than memory.

As the saying goes: Out of sight, out of mind.

Or maybe... out of life, out of name.

The wagon lurched again.

Rumble. Rattle. Rumble. Rattle.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

The chains clinked softly as the wagon jolted, the iron chains rambling around his wrists and ankles along with his neck. The same for the others. Even now, with their hundred behind them, the chains remained. It reminded them of their status as gladiators as slaves of the Iron Arena in shackles.

Caelvir's hands rested on the object in his lap, the sword wrapped in stained cloth.

The Sword of Seren.

Once hers. Now his.

The woman who had once wielded it had died by it. Caelvir's hand had delivered the blow. Seren's sword bore only her name now, but her will was lost.

Others had held it since—Lysara, Valkira. Both had returned it to him. Both were gone. Lysara by his own hand, her kindness repaid in blood. Valkira had left the Dust before him. She was probably waiting for Lysara to come, he guessed.

He blinked slowly, gaze drifting to the sun above. Its light was pale, but still it shone. A far cry from the pit's darkness. The air outside was sharp and clean, free from piss and rot. He drew it in, letting it fill his chest, his belly now full from a real meal. A reward for his hundredth fight. He had eaten until he could eat no more.

That was rare.

His mind touched briefly on Aelric—the lean man who had once shared scraps with him. Caelvir had eaten what Aelric hadn't. That debt, too, remained. He'd gone to find him after the fight to say farewell, but Aelric was strangely gone with no trace to follow. Nonetheless, whatever the fate had in mind, Aelric would survive. Caelvir knew that.

Still... he hoped they wouldn't meet in the Iron. He didn't want to think about the possibility of a death match against him, both for personal and practical reasons.

There were others he owed too.

Venara. He had been invited to her mansion twice, welcomed by warm food and clean clothes, soft words that didn't come with blades. She had liked him, he thought. Well, she cared enough to help him that far.

Caelvir had expected her to make an offer in his final fight, but she never did.

He didn't blame her. Who would go against royalty? Only a fool most would say.

The Queen had intervened. That woman with eyes like obsidian and a voice that made men kneel. She had made her offer to him, to brand him, to own him, to free him in her own twisted way.

Caelvir had refused.

Many called him a fool. Who rejects royalty?

But a hand offered by that woman is the last thing he would ever take.

He clenched his fists. The chains tugged slightly.

But he calmed himself. His wrath would come later.

Most gladiators winning their hundredth fight in the Dust are marked, bearing the name of a master. However, he had now chosen the Iron without a branding. That put him at a disadvantage.

The chains pulled at his neck. He looked down at his hands.

Crude things they were, calloused and chipped, but something inside them had changed.

After his last fight, he had been healed. No, not healed but rather regenerated. His skin still bore the scars, especially the one given to him by Lysara, but his insides… they hummed with something new. He felt his blood, his bones, his muscles as pieces of himself. He had a sensation of control over them as one could know and control movements of one's finger, 

Caelvir could feel everything inside.

Let it be the pumping of blood or the strain of each muscle, even went as far as the pressure in bones.

This did not seem like the vague awareness a man had of his limbs. This was a deeper and a more intimate sense of one's body.

It was like trying to explain color to the blind or sound to the deaf. He could not explain it, only feel it.

His stomach gurgled softly. It was full. An unusual thing. Strange enough to make him smile, almost.

And then, the wagon stopped.

Time had passed faster than it should have. The road no longer rose and fell. The silence broke.

"Get out, you cunts," one of the guards barked.

They obeyed. One by one, iron clinking, they stepped down onto the stone.

Caelvir's boots—he had forgotten from whom he'd plundered them, A blind man, maybe? Or someone with soft feet. It didn't matter.

Before them rose the Iron Arena.

Two statues, giant and grim, loomed on either side of a massive gate. The gate itself was forged from dark iron, streaked with rust, stained with old blood. Beyond it, the faint echo of roars roamed hungrily.

He stepped forward along with the others.

And the gate opened.

The smell was different from the Dust.

Less rot. More steel.