Chapter - 17

Sleep came slowly for me that night with thoughts of dread at entering the arena filling my mind. The next morning, I awoke feeling exhausted having not spent nearly enough time asleep. In any case I rose to my feet and bowed in preparation of Silvan entering the basement where we slept. Teka still lay on the floor where he had been left the night before. He appeared much the same but while that meant he had not died during the night it also meant that he could not be expected to recover soon. A few moments later Silvan reached the bottom doorway and I glued my eyes firmly to the floor so as not to earn myself a beating today right before having to go fight for my life.

"I hope you have prepared yourself well Dung because today may mark the last day of your miserable existence. Hurry up and eat and then meet me outside, we must arrive early if we want to register you as a new fighter in time for you to earn anything today." Without waiting for, or in that case probably without expecting a reply he turned and left with the usual bucket of gruel in the center of the room as usual. I glanced over at Beetle and he gestured towards the pail "Fighter eats first, you need all your strength." He wouldn't say anything more nor would he meet my eyes when I looked at him. Lacking any better options, I shoveled some gruel into my mouth until I no longer felt hungry and then wiped my mouth and headed up the stairs to face my future.

When I arrived outside, Silvan was waiting for me with an impatient look on his face, one foot tapping the ground rapidly. When I got close, he reached back as if to strike me and then stopped himself thinking better of it. "I don't want to reduce your miserable chances of winning any more than they already are," he muttered as he lowered his arm. "You can forget about armor or good weapons for now, even though we have them you cannot use them until you fight and raise your rank." Thinking of how Teka's tongue had been removed shortly after he had become the elf's fighter, I decided not to say anything in response. This was bad news; I had been counting on at least having the leather armor and small buckler that Teka normally carried to help keep me alive. Seeing that I had heard him and chosen not to speak Silvan smirked a little and turned to walk up the pathway into town. I followed a couple paces behind him with my gaze lowered.

*****

When we arrived at the arena there was already a milling crowd surrounding the entrance where spectators would give their entrance fee. Silvan led me around the crowd and towards a smaller booth towards the back where a tarp had been raised on poles next to a sturdy wooden door and under the shade of the tarp was a desk with a chair on either side and a bipedal humanoid with pale green skin sitting behind it looking bored. As we got closer, I saw that it had yellow eyes and a broad flat face with a wide mouth and pointed ears. He, assuming that it is a he, looked like he would have been just over three feet tall had he been standing. Silvan took the chair in front of the desk and I remained standing only a couple feet behind him, ready for any orders given.

"Welcome to the arena," said the creature in a greasy nasally voice that was more used to uttering insults than pleasantries. The way he seemed to stumble over the word 'welcome' was a dead giveaway. "I want to register my slave here to fight," my master responded without batting an eye as if he dealt with this type of being regularly. "Okay," said the ugly and diminutive humanoid sitting on the other side of the desk from Silvan. "New fighters start with a teka and nothing else 'cept the clothes they come in," he said as if reciting from a script. "New fighters must stay ten days in arena, fight ten fights. After that you can come get them and just fight them when wants to" I internally winced at the broken way in which this being was speaking. My master only nodded as he had heard all of this before. "Fill out papers, then I take slave." Silvan was already dipping a quill that sat ready on the desk into a small dish of ink and beginning to make marks on the parchment that was sitting on the desk in front of him. After a couple of minutes had passed, he laid down the quill and then stood up and proceeded to walk away without looking at me or waiting for me. I was right about to follow him when I felt a calloused and wrinkly hand grab my arm, the creature may be short, but his arms are long, probably three quarters of the length of his body!

"You no hear me?!" that voice was really irritating and something about this creature made me want to bury my fist in its face. "Ten days! Ten fights! You no leave till after that done! Maybe if lucky your master comes back after that. Many slaves just left here until die, masters just collect money and leave here." I looked down at the creature in horror, finally grasping what he was saying to me. I decided to remain silent for now, not knowing of anything to be said that could help my situation. I was pulled along to the sturdy wooden door which was unlocked with a key produced from within the folds of my handler's dirty clothes and then I was unceremoniously shoved through and the doorway was shut behind me. I heard the click of the lock and then finally began to look around me at my new surroundings.

On either side of the door that had just closed behind me was an armored guard with a short spear clenched in their right fist. These guards seemed to be of a similar species to the creature outside but where he had been just over three feet tall these creatures were closer to six feet tall and had bulging muscles all over their bodies. I was in a hallway and the walls surrounding me were made out of what seemed to be bricks cut from stone. The guards were ignoring me thus far and having nothing else to do her I proceeded down the hallway to see what else was in store for me. All-in-all this wasn't so bad thus far, at least the lighting was better than in my normal sleeping chamber with a torch placed every so many feet. After walking for a bit, I reached the end of the hallway and came into a small room with another creature like the one I had met outside sitting at another desk while reading a book and seemingly oblivious to the world around him. Four doors were spread behind him along the walls of the back half of the room.

As I got closer I was able to note several small differences between this humanoid and the one outside, namely that this one was wearing glasses and had tufts of white hair coming from behind his ears in two unruly poofs of starkness against his skin, also was that his skin was much darker than his paler kinsman. What truly struck me as odd though I did not notice until the sound of my footsteps alerted him to my presence and he looked up at me, carefully placing a thin slip of leather in between the pages of his book and closing it. Then he spoke and I noticed the true difference between him and the creature outside. "Good morning sir, how can I help you today? Are you a new arrival or a returning fighter?" His voice was crisp and clear and altogether different from the one outside that seemed barely literate.