Chapter - 31

I looked back and forth from my master to the goblin, not saying anything and not understanding why the goblin was giving up my information. At this rate I would never see an end to the violence. So much for my plan to milk my injuries for a couple of weeks while secretly training my strength some more. What was this goblin thinking?

I could see the greedy glint in my master's eyes as he calculated the amount lost by having me stay at the arena against the amount of effort, he would need to put in to bring me here each day. Now while Silvan would often go out of his way to make life more difficult for his slaves, he would rarely make a decision that resulted in a regular amount of effort being put in on his part. I remained silent, knowing that any attempt to convince him in one direction or the other would not only be ineffective but would also result in being struck some more.

After a long moment my master said, "I'll give it a try, after all if he learned such a useful skill in the time he was here before maybe he can learn enough to stay alive a little longer." Then he turned away from the goblin and faced me directly. "I am going to leave you here for six days. At the end of those six days you had better have won every fight or I will flay you to within an inch of your life now that I know you can heal." I felt my throat tighten up. Six more days, if I only fought every other day that meant that I would be fought a total of three more times. I would need to survive against three more fighters who would have equipment and experience.

I did not reply. My master did not expect his property to respond to his words, merely to obey them. He swept out of the room as fast as he had come in. Six days plus today would cost him seventy coppers. With the fifty I had earned today and another hundred and fifty from the coming fights that would net him a total of one silver and thirty coppers. Of course, if I did not win at least one more fight he would end up having to pay money to the arena. Money which I was well aware he would not be willing to part with easily.

Looking back at the goblin who had convinced my master to leave me in the arena I shot him a dirty look. "What in the Hell did you go and do that for?!" I said to him, enraged that he had made me fight more frequently. "I was going to take some time and get stronger, but you ruined it, now I will likely die here!" The goblin listened to my angry words and then gave a long sigh. "You would not get much stronger pretending to be injured. You cannot get enough exercise nor is that elf likely to give you any more food than you already get. At least here you have the benefit of the trainers. With their help you can get stronger." I looked at him again, my rage slowly starting to turn into confusion. Was this goblin trying to help me?

Watching my face as it went through a series of emotions, he looked a bit sad for a moment. "It seems we need to have a longer talk about your future, because living as the property of that elf is not going to keep you alive for very long, I have seen many of his slaves come through here. Teka as he called the latest before you, has been in his possession less than six months."

I paused for a moment, chewing on what the goblin had told me. If Teka had been in the possession of Silvan for less than six months then that meant that he had purchased him, cut out his tongue almost immediately, and then fought him every single day until he got too injured to continue. "Yeah," I said. "I think we had better have that talk about my future and while we are at it, isn't it about time you told me your name as well?" Upon hearing my response, the goblin looked delighted. He went to a corner of the room where some boxes where stacked up and pulled out a chair and placed it in front of his desk and gestured for me to sit. I guess this is going to be a long talk then.

*****

It was nighttime now and I was once again laying in my cot, using magick to heal my wound. If I kept at it, I would likely be done by morning and could spend the majority of tomorrow practicing with Lilly like Gikats the goblin had suggested. That was the name he had given me during our talk and really it had been less of a conversation and more of me shutting up and listening to what this brainy goblin had to say. It seemed that Gikats had taken a liking to me, perhaps because I spoke to him like anyone else, judging by how Silvan treated them goblins were not well liked. In any event Gikats had decided that he did not want to see me used up and discarded by Silvan as he had done with so many other slaves and had devised a plan to prevent this.

The first step of the plan was for me to train with Lilly and work on my agility-based skills during the day and he would have her come to me on the nights I didn't fight to take me out for some stealth training. Once I had gained sufficient skills, he would try to contact a buyer who would possibly be interested in purchasing me away from Silvan. I had asked why I needed to wait for this mysterious buyer to get me away from the cruelty of the elf but Gikats had responded that this buyer did not act out of the kindness of his heart and if we wanted him to be interested in me I would first need to become someone he could use.

For now, I had two goals. Number one, stay alive and win every fight so that Silvan would allow me to remain in the arena. And, more importantly, number two, to train my agility and stealth skills as high as possible as well as improving my dagger skills and learning to throw weapons. It was a tall order but improving one's situation in life never came easy.