A wretched smile slithers over the Battlemaster’s scarred features as he runs her hair under his nose. “Roses, and is that - lavender? My, my, and here I thought the Great Commander of Salt lacked human emotion.”
“I can tell you I do not lack rage,” Sigvid hisses through gritted teeth.
“Excellent! I want you good and berserkery when you enter my Arena. You should start considering your combatant name. Once your old life burns, you will abandon Sigvid Thordsson forever.”
“Fuck the name.” Sigvid spits. “But, I will tell you what accessory I will wear when confronting the sun again. Your head dangling from my belt.” Sigvid is shaking with fury.
The Battlemaster tilts his head to the side. “Fascinating. Men have watched their old lives burn in this cauldron for decades. To my knowledge, no one has ever fought so hard to retain something so trivial.”
He holds the hair up to the light of the sconce. “I’ll tell you what. You tell me the importance of thishair, and I will let you keep it.”
The physical item is insignificant. Yet, the thought of losing it tore Sigvid apart more than those steel brushes ever could.
Fucking why, though?
Only her soul leaving her body is worth anything to him now that she sold him to the Arena.
Fuck Queen Avina. Let her die.
Yet, those are not the words that leave his lips.
Instead, Sigvid grits his teeth. “It belongs to the only person who matters to me.”
The Battlemaster twirls her curl as he slowly paces around the cauldron. “The only person who matters, hmm?” He drops the hair into the vat, like lint from his tunic. “No one matters to you anymore.” He takes a torch from a guard and drops it in, igniting everything inside.
“Welcome to the Treland Arena, Combatant 2694.”
7
SIGVID
September 1st,Year 100, 9th Era
Treland Arena
Sigvid scratches a tally into the grimy stone wall of his Arena cell with a makeshift shiv.
“How long?” A baritone male voice quips from the cage adjacent to Sigvid’s. It belongs to the current Arena Champion, which everyone just calls ‘Champ.’
“Almost one moon cycle.” Sigvid plucks an apple from his tray and takes a large bite. “You?”
“Three winters and too damn long.” His neighbor laughs bitterly through a full mouth of food.
He is undoubtedly enjoying that evening’s hot meal of roasted pig, root vegetables, and an apple. It is not a bad meal, but they did have pork earlier in the week. Someone in the kitchen iss getting lazy.
Their cells had three walls for extra privacy and are funded by wealthy sponsors, ensuring their downtime is what these lords considered the minimum of relaxation. Sigvid can not help but notice that he and the Arena Champion are the only ones who received the most ‘comforts’ from sponsors.
“Had we gone in the practice ring any longer, I think you would have gotten the better of me, Beast.” Champ refers to him by his Arena name. They found camaraderie in the shared abandonment of their previous lives.
“You did not make it easy.” Sigvid finishes off the apple and tosses the core through the bars of his cell door and out into the dreary hallway. “Three winters is quite a long time spent defending your life.”
Champ is not nearly as tall or thick as Sigvid, yet he compensated with swift reflexes and an even faster tongue. On a good day, he could persuade the dumbest guards to dance like they had gone mad.
“Where did you train before the Arena?”
He laughs heartily. “If you count brawling in taverns as ‘training,’ then every tavern in Pinewater. A rough city in Timber south of Scarwood.”
“Your survival without proper training impresses me.”
