Page 136 of Bloodguard

chapter 49

Leith

The guards manhandle me all the way to the arena entrance. It’s bad enough that every gladiator before me damn well died, but everything in the arena today feels, well,different.

The horn blasts, and the chanting begins. “Bloodguard.Bloodguard!”

I’m thrown into the sand, tripping over the first of at least twenty dead gladiators.

The gates come crashing down. The severed hands of the body I tripped over are still gripping the bars.

Two possibilities occur to me as I rise. Neither of them is particularly cheery.

One: A large group of gladiators were all pitted against one another, as Sullivan and I were.

Or two: They were, indeed, thrown in one at a time, and whatever their opponent was killed them so fast they were replaced as quickly as they fell.

Deathly pale faces are all that greet me as I look to the stands. There are those whose partners are fanning them, trying to revive them, and more who are pouring goblets of water over their faces to wake them.

Even more are too frightened to move.

I step over the handless body and walk toward that of a young giant larger than Luther, but one who never learned to fight. He probably thought his strength would be enough.

It wasn’t.

His open ribcage, absent a liver and one of the four kidneys giants have, tells me who was stronger.

Throughout the arena, the bodies lie almost in a row. They weren’t arranged this way. The pattern isn’t neat enough. There’s also no clear cause of death.

The only thing they have in common is that they were all running toward the exit.

Nice.

Real. Damn.Nice.

They should have done me the favor of killing it, them, or whatever the hell I’m up against.

A dagger lies beside a dwarf whose smoking asshole was made larger than his head.

I pocket the dagger, not wanting to dwell too much on that. There are enough nightmares ahead to keep me awake for the next year.

There’s another giant, this one smaller than Luther. Likely younger, given he’s only as tall as me.

Oh, and look at this. He’s holding part of his brain. He must have caught it as it launched from his eye sockets.

The eyeballs lie staring at the gladiator who has his foot rammed into his mouth. Another gladiator might have fed him the severed foot to silence his screaming. He must have choked on it. Considering how the others died, this was the best way to go.

There’s a boomerang blade tossed beside him, and I know it’s Maeve’s doing. Though it’s not my own blade, no guard in Arrow would think to include a Siertosian weapon like this. A piece ofmyculture in this twisted hellscape that poisons their own. I focus on the genius of its design. It’s better than allowing my stomach to fall at my feet, like that poor bastard cyclops who was strangled with his own intestines. I’m trying not to be obvious as I search each row of the royal box. Maeve… She isn’t here. I turn around, pretending to stretch, but there’s no sign of her.

Look at the weapon. Look at the weapon. Damn it, look at thefuckingweapon.

A week or so ago, when I was using the one she bought me to help her collect medicinal ingredients in the forest, I told Maeve how my mother taught me to use a boomerang blade. It was the same one her father used to bring down birds to eat. She spent weeks teaching me the right way to throw it. I’d toss it over and over, practicing with each hand until the muscles on my arms and shoulders threatened to tear.

Once I mastered the motion, it would smoothly return to land by my feet. Then the hard part began. I spent over a year learning not only how to strike my target but to catch it upon its return. It was tedious and frightening and so worth it. It was also a way to catch food, until the birds were smart enough to abandon Grey.

I toss the boomerang in the air with the confidence my mother insisted I demonstrate. It is larger than any I’ve used before but weighted perfectly, so I should have no problem adjusting to its size. When all my fingers remain attached, my confidence grows, as well as the enthusiasm of the crowd. Thank the moon that muscle memory is a real thing. And while I still can’t find Maeve, I feel her with me in this weapon.

It should help me today.

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