“What in the karmic hell…” Greenblatt said when he saw the colosseum. It was incredible to him that in all his journeys, he had never seen the Pit. It was nuzzled in between two large mountains, the metal walls at least five times the size of Kiva Noon’s gate. The entire place was powered, spotlights running along the sand as if to lure in passing travelers. A device somewhere inside was casting a voice into the air at a volume that would be impossible to mimic. A screen on the outside had a scrolling text running across it reading: “TONIGHT – SHIELA THE LIONESS – THE MENAGERIE – THE HORDE – DOUGLAS GRAVE”
“She’s going to be on tonight!” Devlin said. He rode his own animal separate from the group as he led them on. The animal was thinner than a pack beast, but almost just as tall. It was a wonder how the small old man was able to work his way into the saddle. Krav tried to remember what Rufus called these things. A horse. “My Shiela’s going to be on tonight. Can you really get us in there, Ulrich?”
The Pit Lord swallowed hard. It had been months since he left. They would certainly remember him, but he was only supposed to return with the head of Sinestra Mode, and he had left that in Kiva Noon at the request of Greenblatt. “I will do everything in my power to, yes.”
They approached a large stable area and left their animals with the slave attendants. Even the Pit Lords slaves were dressed to impress. The man who took the pack beast was decorated in glittering makeup and a shimmering toga. The woman who handled the horse was similar, and she sported a feathery headdress. There was a place in the stables for armed guards to rest, and 001 and 002 did their best to blend in with them.
There was a line to get into the Pit. They seemed incredibly out of place there, all of them except for Mac and Devlin. The old man had put on his best outfit to meet his dream girl, a sporty vest free of dessert grime, a bolo tie, and a sharp jacket. Mac kept her fancy garb from Mallum Vid on for the journey, and while it had been bitten by desert winds, she still looked like a celebrity compared to the rest.
The strangers in line were all very apparently rich beyond anything Krav had seen. The fat man in front of them was carried on a palanquin by four incredibly strong slaves. In front of him, a couple wearing soft robes and ornate masks held each other arm in arm, their finery woven with silk and gold thread. At the front of the line, a woman and her retinue of personal attendants was haggling the price. She was arguing that her attendants should be half admission, but the young man in the call box simply shook his head and waited for her to add more metal to his scale.
They finally got to the front of the line, where Ulrich pushed past them all and leaned against the box. The young man inside was still counting up the scrap from the palanquin patron when he heard the tapping at the window. “Just one second please.”
It tapped again, and he turned, annoyed. When he saw the golden skull dangling from Ulrich’s neck, he flushed and stammered. “Lord Ulrich! Why didn’t you come in through the back?”
“I brought friends with me. Do you mind getting us in? I owe this man a favor and he’s a big fan.”
The young man squinted at the group. They didn’t seem like they’d particularly fit in with the crowd. The girl he could manage to say was an escort for the evening. The old man could be argued to be a well off merchant who finally scraped together enough change to enter the Pit. But the other two, the short one and the lanky one, they looked like they belonged to one of the groups meant to be executed.
“I’m not sure, Ulrich. I need an articulable reason to let anyone in without a payment.”
“They’re my retinue for the evening.”
The young man shook his head. “No more than three per retinue. New Rules from Jerod.”
Ulrich’s brow tightened and he lowered himself to the holes in the box office window. “Jerod isn’t warlord.”
They would have continued arguing for hours if it wasn’t for the annoyed festering coming from the line behind them. A woman was loudly asking them to hurry along before Shiela was on. Ulrich worked out a deal with the young man in the box office. Mac was his escort for the evening, Greenblatt his technician, and Devlin his sponsor. As for Krav… Krav was his offering to the clan. He had to wear a rope around his neck while being led around the Pit.
“What the hell kind of deal is this?” he said, pulling on the chord.
“It’s a temporary inconvenience, you’ll live,” Greenblatt said. He had the end of the rope wound around his wrist. The facility looked like an old sports stadium. They entered into a hall that ran the entire circumference of the arena and doubled as a marketplace. All around them, stalls steamed with freshly prepared food and gleamed with shiny souvenirs. The merchants here were shouting their wares and showing them off to each of the richly dressed individuals that passed by. Ulrich led them to a red double-door labeled “EMPLOYEES ONLY” and knocked three times.
There was a return knock, a similar pattern. Ulrich slapped an open palm on the door, then it swung open. A small girl around Krav and Mac’s age hid beneath a clipboard and stared through a pair of unscathed glasses. Black hair shimmered like it was freshly washed, and when she saw the group of strangers at the door she flustered. Then she saw the golden pendant on Ulrich’s chest and brightened. “Lord Ulrich? You came back from Kiva Noon? There’s a bet going on claiming you turned traitor and ran.”
“They make those bets every time someone’s gone for too long. I brought a boy for the execution. Try not to let him fight tonight, I'll be back to pick him up.” With a pat on his back, Ulrich sent Krav stumbling through the threshold. The girl side stepped him as her fell to the floor.
“Yes, Lord Ulrich. You should find Lord Jerod. He’s the one who started the pool against you.”
Ulrich nodded and slammed the door. Krav stood and dusted himself off. He found himself in a long concrete hallway lined with fluorescent lights. The echoes of a mighty crowd roaring in anticipation rang all around him. There was an otherworldly cold to it. He turned to the girl, “So what is this? Daycare?”
She hid behind her clipboard and led the way down the hall, her heeled boots clicking on the concrete. “This is the hold. We have enough prisoners for tonight’s show, so you’ll probably just hang out with the backup performers.”
Krav stopped following her and turned to walk back to the door. “Oh, that’s ok, lady. I don’t really perform.” The door didn’t have a handle to turn. Instead, there was a bar that was supposed to unlatch it when depressed. Krav slammed against it a few times before turning back to Lana. “What gives?”
“You don’t know? Lord Ulrich just offered you up to the arena.”
That fat, hairy, piece of shit, no good scab head. Krav kicked against the bar, then again when it didn’t budge. His heart rate rose as he removed the axe from its scabbard and raised it. The girl plucked it from his hands with a deft motion.
“Oh, I’ll take that. You aren’t permitted a weapon as a prisoner. Not until you're in the arena anyways.”
“Give that back!” Krav said. He lunged for his axe, and the girl dropped her clipboard. Lana reached for a long collapsable rod at her hip. She flicked it out to unfold it, and smacked Krav across the face with it. As soon as it made contact, an electric zap rattled his brain. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground seeing stars.
“I have to keep bigger guys than you in line. Why don’t you try getting up and we can continue walking?”
It took Krav a minute to raise himself off the floor. He followed Lana like a dog, his eyes watching the axe as it bounced from a loop on her pants. There were a few times he felt like he could reach it and behead her, but each time he remembered the stinging pain of Lana’s weapon.
She told him about his fate if Ulrich didn’t return. The prisoners of the Pit were offered to the crowd like lambs to the slaughter. They were dosed with a heavy helping of zerker to keep them from running away and ruining the show. Depending on the night, they were raised into the arena and made to fight whatever they felt like leaving them in there with. Tonight, the opener was a name Krav already knew. The old man Delvin didn’t shut up about her the entire trip over here. Shiela the Lioness was readying herself for the opening act.
The prisoners were sectioned off. Krav was led into a large room that spanned the entire underbelly of the arena. At the edges of the chamber, there were grates that allowed the prisoners to gather and peer into the arena, a front row seat to their fate. There was a long hall that ran throughout the uncountable cages and cells. Lana led him through, the eyes of dozens of condemned men on him. In the center of the chamber was a platform surrounded by guards. Directly above it was another grate that looked like it led directly to the arena.
Lana led Krav to a cell marked “THREE” and nodded for a guard to open it. He had the electrified weapon she had, and when he smacked it against the bars, they sparked and crackled, sending the prisoners retreating from the door. The guard swiftly opened the gate, shoved Krav in, and locked it behind him.
“Your group isn’t schedule for execution tonight. Just try to make some friends before Ulrich comes back.” She smiled at him before returning to her duty at the door. Krav looked around. The prisoners in his group looked like they had been there for days, their cheeks hollow and bellies empty. None of them looked up at him as he was thrown it.
The back of cell three had a grate that made the arena visible. Krav made his way back there and climbed to peek through. Outside, loud music blared like he had never heard before. There were thunderous drums and a duo of stringed instruments he didn’t recognize. There was a singer in their band as well, but he didn’t really sing. His voice was violently pitching between a high screech and a low growl. Multicolored spotlights ran across the arena in random patterns. Maybe Ulrich would take his time, this looked like fun.
Then he noticed the other prisoner’s garb. He was growing tired of his robes, and these guys had some cool uniform threads on. Each had on a faded black jumpsuit with a red sash tied around their waste. Krav liked the look and went to a guard to ask for one for himself. As he retied Rufus’s skull to his new sash, he heard the singer announce something.
“AH-TEN-TEN-TENTION,” He screamed and began pounding his chest like an animal. “AH-TEN-TEN-TENTION! SHIELA THE LIONESS HAS TAKEN HER POSITION AT THE GATES OF DREAD! TAKE YOUR SEATS NOW AND BECOME WITNESS TO THE QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE!”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The other prisoners all ran to the grate to see what was coming next. There was only the chatter of the crowd coming from the arena now, the music had gone quiet as the band seemed to take a break before the show. Krav heard the click of a cell opening somewhere in the chamber. Then pleas and cries for help as the prisoners were dragged out and forced onto the lift. Everyone watched them, dead men rising into the air as the grate above them grinded to one side, making room for them.
The lift jolted to a halt and the condemned men earned the cheers of the growing crowd. Some of them stayed on the lift, quivering in place like children left in the dark. Others ran for the edges of the arena. The veterans tried to hide. All along the arena floor there was debris to mimic the desert outside. Sand covered the floor, boulders littered it. There were a few cacti and collapsed wagons, and it was there the veterans prayed the lioness wouldn’t find them.
A clock hanging over the arena ticked as it counted down. The five minutes it started at felt like an eternity to those outside the arena. They waited with bated breath for the celebrity executioner to make her appearance. For those inside, they were agonizing seconds. They were the last five grains of sand in the hourglass of their life. As soon as they hit zero, there was a buzzer that rang out through the whole of the Pit.
The music returned, an oppressive harmony of heavy metal. Krav couldn’t understand the singer anymore as he rasped into his microphone. The vocalist was looking at a large gate on one end of the arena, and Krav followed his gaze. The gates were opening.
They were massive, large enough that Krav would have believed it if you told him Shiela the Lioness was a hundred feet tall and as wide as Kiva Noon. She wasn’t that large, but for a woman, she was impressive. Shiela the Lioness walked into the arena with catlike grace. Her gait was like a runway model, one heeled boot crossing in front of the other. Long, muscular legs rose to a sequin leotard that glimmered in the spotlights. Powerful bare arms sported a massive, three-pronged claw in each hand. They skated through the sand as she walked. Her chin was raised high above her veiny neck, and she stared down her nose with bored eyes. Long blonde hair plumed from a ponytail, and her presence alone was enough to make the prisoners start to piss themselves.
One of the veterans tried to ambush her. He leapt from atop a boulder with a scream. Before he could land, Shiela had bisected him with one claw. The crowd went mad at her first kill, and the cheers seemed to egg her on. The was moving quicker now, and quicker still with each kill. She was speed walking towards a man who was frozen in fear. As soon as she was in range, she stabbed both claws into him and pulled them out with so much force he was thrown aside. Then she was jogging.
She slashed through two men who held each other like terrified children. One claw passed through both, and then she was running. Another prisoner tried to fight back, heaving a heavy rock over his shoulders and screaming as he charged. Shiela cut him down at the elbows and the rock fell behind him. It landed on one of his own legs, and he fell to the floor a double amputee with a broken leg. He screamed and reached his red stumps for his disembodied hands as he waited for death, but Shiela was moving on, her movement a full sprint now.
Krav could barely track her among the spotlights. She was low to the ground, claws trailing behind as she ran at full speed from one prisoner to the next. He had forgotten to count how many prisoners went in, but he tried to keep track now. Each time he had a number in his head, he had to recount when he noticed there was much less. Fifteen turned into twelve. Twelve into ten. Ten into seven. He couldn’t see her moving, but he could see her victims as they were split in half, decapitated, and shredded into bloody chunks. Seven turned to five, five to two, then there was just one left. The one she had left with no legs and a broken leg.
The final prisoner was sobbing as he clutched his hands to his chest with his stumps. Shiela appeared behind him. Her claw slammed down into his chest, then she lifted him high into the air. Blood spurted like a fountain around her claws as he slid lower and lower to the hilt. It rained down on the Lioness, who opened her mouth wide and stuck her tongue out to taste every last drop.
When the prisoner stopped moving, she swung her claw down, sending the corpse tumbling to the floor. The crowd roared with their approval as she walked towards the band. The music was only comprised of the string instruments and drums now, the singer was swinging his microphone by the chord and watching Shiela as she approached. The Lioness leapt from the arena, took two steps running up the wall, then landed on the stage to an uproar of fanfare. She grabbed the microphone from the singer, who offered it to her with a bowed head.
“People of the wasteland!” she cried. Her greeting was met with an echoing applause. “I hope the night brings you to us well! If you didn’t enjoy that last performance, it was because someone didn’t spike my prey before releasing them! Show them you want more! Give me the fight I deserve! Cry out for an encore!”
As the crowd began their cheers for more of the Lioness, Lana paced around Krav’s cell. She bit her nails and checked her clip board over again. “This can’t be right. I specifically asked them to dose the last batch with zerker.”
“When do I get to go up there?” Krav asked. He was hanging from the cells thick steel bars. “Give me my axe back and I’ll give them a show!”
Lana looked at him, her face flushed. She knew that Lady Shiela would be displeased with her. Those were hardened criminals, each condemned to this place through great wrongdoings. Yet without the zerker drug to keep them fighting, they all turned into babies. It was no way for the paying customers to enjoy the show, she could hear Shiela biting into her now. She waved over a large guard and demanded to know what happened.
“We have a stock issue, Lana. Someone ran off with the weapons and the drugs last night. They’re all going in unarmed and sober.”
“Unarmed we can deal with. Go through all of their personal belongings and salvage every weapon you can. Just scatter them around the arena. As for the drugs, there should be a couple stalls in the marketplace selling intoxicants. Tell them it’s a favor requested by the clan directly.”
The guard stood above her, scratching his head and frowning. It would be blasphemous to ask for zerker on behalf of the Executioners. Every guard down there was a card-carrying Pit Lord, except for Lana, who was a slave. Even then, they dared not overstep their duties. Only the proudest guards wanted to draw the eye of the executioners. He voiced his concerns. “Won’t they be upset we didn’t report it outright?”
“Not as upset as they’ll be if we send out another cell that isn’t up to par. Just let me worry about the backlash for now.”
Amongst the crowd, Greenblatt was the only one who actually sat down on the bleachers in the arena. Everyone else was standing to get a view of Shiela the Lioness, even Devlin. The old man was cheering his superstar on until his voice was raspy and weak. Then he cleared it and turned to Greenblatt. “You hear that? She’s going to go another round! What a lovely, lovely day! I get in for free, and I get to see my favorite act twice? I must say, Mister Greenblatt, you and your people really know how to treat a guy.”
Greenblatt shrugged, his arms crossed. He had been among the wasteland long enough that bloodshed no longer intrigued him. Shiela was a whole different breed of raider, however. He stared at her through a gap between the couple in front of him. Covered in blood, she looked like any other mad marauder. But the way she fought was on par with many of the warlords he had met who ruled by strength. Given the skillset of his companion, it was safe to assume that most Pit Lords were at that level of martial prowess. It was a small miracle that Greenblatt got to Sinestra Mode before Ulrich did. At least then there was something left to bury.
He turned his chin up towards her, nodding at the Lioness. “She’s quite skilled. Are they all like that?”
Devlin ignored the question all together. Instead, he took the opportunity to gush about her. “Quite skilled and very sexy. God bless, the things I’d let that woman do to me.”
Greenblatt nodded and leaned back in the bleachers. Something incredibly large on the other side of the arena caught his eye.
Out of the market, Ulrich led Mac up a flight of stairs towards the high-rise VIP section. He still didn’t know why she had to come with him. While the others shed their disguises as soon as they entered, she was adamant to remain in character. She swung from his massive arms, feigning drunkenness and quite overselling it.
“You don’t have to do that,” he told her.
“But it's so much fun!” She climbed his arm to whisper to him. “I’ve always wanted to go undercover. So, what are we doing?”
“I need to have a word with... my boss.”
“Your warlord?”
"I have no warlord,” he frowned. At the top of the stairs stood two guards. They nodded at Ulrich’s pendant beneath their helmets, which were made from the heads of wild dogs. One of them fished through his coat for a key and slotted it into a door behind them. He held it open for them.
The VIP room had a large window overlooking the arena. As Ulrich entered, the lights pulled his eye to Shiela the Lioness who was on the stage basking in a roar of approval. The rest of the place looked like it was part conference room, part viewing area. Near the window, a row of couches was positioned to stare out the glass. A large oval table that looked perfect for a fortune 500 board meeting held up a steaming feast for the Pit Lords. Most of them were here, either filling a plate from the table or lounging on the couch.
Each Pit Lord looked like they could have been a champion of their own clan. they were musclebound, beastly human beings. Loken and Hati were passing a rolled cigarette back and forth between them on the couch. The former was a blonde, the latter a red head, but besides that they were almost twins. They were the first ones to notice Ulrich.
“Hey! Hey guys, look who it is!” Loken said. He took one last drag of his cigarette before passing it to Hati and rolling over the back of the couch. He jogged across the large room and hugged Ulrich, the heavy man’s gut keeping Loken’s hands from reaching each other around his back. Ulrich didn’t return the hug.
“That means we lost the bet, dumbass,” Hati said. He didn’t even turn to look at Ulrich.
“That means I lost too!” called another Pit Lord. Boris the Wall waved at him from the table, one large plate of food in his hand. He was smiling beneath his bushy handlebar mustache.
“Me too,” Groaned a large man with a scythe. Mateo the Reaper was laying down on the couch and lifted his wide brim hat to see if Ulrich actually had returned. The two nodded at each other wordlessly.
“Fuck your bets,” said Douglas Grave. He was a thin framed man with hard muscles poking through his skin. He wore baggy cotton pants that tucked neatly into his boots. On his back, he sported tattooed names of every prisoner he killed in one-on-one combat. It had filled in neatly since Ulrich left. He wasn’t paying attention to them. Instead, he pounded his head on the glass. “Tell Shiela to get the hell off the stage. I want my turn.”
“Just wait for it,” Jerod said. He sported an oversized augmented arm and wore a black two-piece suit. One sleeve was removed to accommodate his weapon. He wore his hair back in a smart ponytail and scratched his stubble-ridden face. A smile spread beneath his mustache when he saw Ulrich. “Welcome back.”
“You started the pool. I wouldn’t say I feel welcome.”
“Only for a bit of fun,” he shrugged one arm, clearly unable to maneuver the augment very well. “Did anyone actually win the bet?”
“Shiela, I think,” Boris said. He dropped on the couch and winked at Mac, waving a cooked bird’s leg in the air as if to entice her. The girl’s eyes darted to the table full of food.
“I notice you came empty handed,” Jerod said. His stubble rippled as he frowned and asked, “No luck in Kiva Noon?”
“The warlord was dead by the time I got there.”
Jerod nodded and began to make himself a plate of food to join Boris. “They shouldn’t have let you past that gate without her head in your hands. I’ll have that slave attendant at the box office thrown into the pit for that.” Jerod popped something golden brown into his mouth and crunched hard. He was watching Ulrich with narrowed eyes like he was a smear of shit on his shoes.
Beneath his calm, Ulrich boiled. It was still hard to believe this man was next in line to be warlord. Jerod the Ballast was not the way forward for the Pit Lords. He wore a groomed raider’s face, but it was still a raider’s. Their previous warlord, Talin the Great, was a kind man. He understood that the Pit was made for entertainment. It was Talin who built the Pit, who united the local startup gangs into the clan. Talin, who created the first Executioners and used them to conquer the arena. He was a man who knew what it meant to be a leader, not Jerod.
Ulrich looked out the window at his Warlord. The Pit Lords installed him to a throne overseeing the arena, and he was large enough to easily pick out in the crowd. He was an overengineered mess of tangled wires and air tubes. The body they planted his remaining tissue in was entirely metal. He looked like a sleeping mecha warrior waiting for a kaiju to break into the arena. The only thing Ulrich liked about the look was the nice touch the Black Thumbs added to his head. It was a horned skull, perfectly mimicking the pendant they all wore. Still, he would have given anything to have Talin back just the way he was. Alive, healthy, and ready to lead them away from whatever path Jerod was ready to put them on.
