Page 6 of Gladiator's Captive
Chapter Four
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Rager
I waited, the stone walls of my cell dusty and dry in the remote corner of the basement where they kept me. Anticipation lined my muscles, made my fingers twitch with the thirst for blood. The human guard moved in the wide hallway between the gladiators’ cells, his footsteps heavy and slow. Even from the distance, I could smell the alcohol on his breath, rendering his mood foul and altering his reflexes.
I was going to have to kill him. It wasn’t a problem.
Finally, light appeared at the end of the long hallway leading up to my cell. I wasn’t kept with the other gladiators, too violent and too valuable to keep in the general population with the hundred or so others owned by Arenius. Leaving them behind wasn’t going to be hard. Each of these men would kill me in a heartbeat and I would gladly return the favor.
“So, this is the fucking champion of Valcan.” The guard appeared at the end of the hallway. The stench of liquor was heavy on his breath, his eyes small and beady, his mouth twisted in a belligerent smirk. At his belt was the wide metallic circle holding the keys to my freedom.
The guard approached the bars to my cell, his grimace deepening into a snarl. He peered at me, his arms resting on the metal bars, his hatred of me clear on his reddened face.
I smiled, hidden in the deep shadows. Killing him wouldn’t just be easy, it would be my pleasure.
“What’s so special about you, heh? You’re nothing but an animal, Rager. A motherfucking animal. And you’re going to die like one.”
I knew what he intended to do before he even did so himself. The guard reached for the long prod at his side, the usual weapon of the Galactic Empire. It looked like a stick, blunt and black, except for the tip, which was covered in metal. It also was capable of sending a million volts into a man’s body, liquefying his vital organs instantly. But not now. No, that guard wasn’t out to kill me, only to play with me for a while, prove to himself that he wasn’t terrified of the legend.
“Rager, the Breath of Death.” The guard slurred his words, lifting the prod through the bars, the vile sneer on his lips revealing yellowing, crooked teeth. “You’re not so fucking scary now, are you?”
The guard made a jerky motion toward me, stretching his arm inside the cell in his attempt to hurt me with the prod.
I made my move. Striking fast, faster than the human could react to, I grabbed the arm holding the deadly prod. The sound of bones breaking bounced on the stone walls, soon followed by the scream of the guard. I lost no time. The prod didn’t even hit the ground before I grabbed his head with both hands through the bars and twisted, hard. The sounds of his neck breaking were dry and muffled, then silence came again, disrupted only by my heartbeat, which was still constant and slow. It took no time to reach for the keys, then the door opened and I was out.
I turned to look at the cell in which I had spent the last ten years.
Never again.
I knew the gladiators’ quarters well, so it was no trouble to navigate the hallways, my eyesight perfectly adapted to the darkness. Another two guards fell to my hands, never even having a chance to sound the alarm before closing their eyes forever.
Soon, I left the dusty, plain stone walls and climbed the staircase up into the glorious villa above, to where Arenius and his family lived. I had never seen it and the contrast struck me. Polished floors and spacious, clean rooms were wrapped in the velvety silence of the night. I was glad for it. Killing guards didn’t bother me, but innocent servants were another matter. Dyed linen lined the walls and comfortable furniture was artfully displayed around a large square pool, an ostentatious display of wealth on the desert planet where water had to be imported from off-world. I passed more rooms filled with comfort and luxury before finally stopping in front of a room almost filled by a huge desk made of a rich imported essence of wood I knew to be extinct for a hundred years.
This is Arenius’ office.
As I slipped inside in absolute silence, I spotted him. Short and round, he stood near a wide balcony. Valcan’s desert stretched beyond the villa’s walls for miles, sharp rocks and twisted canyons devoid of life.
A raging inferno spilled in my veins and I fought to control my impulse to send the man over the railing and to his death.
“Rager,” Arenius said sharply, turning to me. His small, dark eyes were completely devoid of surprise or fear. “I was wondering when you’d gather the courage to come up here.”
“If you knew I was coming and did nothing, then you must want death as badly as I want to give it to you.”
