10
Guess I was a little too optimistic about things.
“ ” Al calmly accepted his circumstances even as he heard the shouting bouncing off the walls of the passageway behind him.
Until a moment ago, literally minutes before, he’d been in a fight for his life. The big man with the two broadswords had been a pretty good fighter; for the first time in a long while, Al had needed a double-digit number of attempts before he was able to wrest victory from his opponent. Securing his survival had worn him down dramatically, and although it would be wrong to say he was triumphant, the tension certainly drained from his shoulders as he returned to the living quarters—only to find himself asking…
“Is this your idea of a joke, Ubirk?”
“Joke? You should know I’ve never made a joke once in my life, Al. Haven’t I been saying? Didn’t I tell you this place needed a revolution?” The pretty boy grinned at him, showing that he was still the same old Ubirk. Except that at his feet lay the guard Orlan in a spreading pool of gore, his lifeblood having spilled out from a deep gash on his neck.
It was obvious at a glance what had happened: Ubirk had killed Orlan. A sword slave had killed a guard.
“Killing a guard is the ultimate taboo,” Al said. “This won’t get chalked up as some passing problem. We’ve got a disaster on our hands.”
“Yes, if you look only at what’s happening here, you’re right. I’m not just a sword slave; now I’m a criminal facing serious consequences. If things don’t go my way, I might even be forced to fight a death match as punishment…pitted against the Hornet or something. Ha-ha. Guess I’m as good as dead.”
“And you’re laughing about it?!” Al exploded with indignation at Ubirk’s failure to understand his situation. He stood with his liuyedao at the ready, facing down Ubirk, who held only a crude dagger dripping with Orlan’s blood. He must have been hiding it on his person. It was dwarfed by Al’s thick blade. If it came to a fight, it was obvious it would be no contest. They both knew…
“You can’t beat me, kid. Even you ought to be smart enough to see that.”
“Yes, I know. I know all too well. I’m not under any illusions that I can fight you, Al. After all, even this man here— I had to really get his guard down first, if you know what I mean.” Even as he spoke, Ubirk tossed the dagger on the ground and raised his bloodstained hands. He appeared to be surrendering, but Al frowned, still not sure what he was really up to.
“Al, no matter how many times you turn me down, I’ll keep asking: Won’t you help us? With your strength on our side, I’m sure the revolution would succeed.”
“It won’t. We can’t just sit here on this waterlogged rock and dream stupid dreams. The fact is, nobody gives a shit what the likes of you and me have to say.”
“No, that’s not true! If you were with us, Al—”
“Don’t you ever shut up?”
Ubirk was clearly out of ideas, but he refused to stop trying to bring Al into his fold. Al was hell-bent on getting him to be quiet.
Sorry, Ubirk, but a revolution is a dream. It’s beyond a dream.
Al had no intention of joining Ubirk on his sinking ship just because of a little blathering. Instead, he took a step forward, swinging his liuyedao at Ubirk with all his strength. “I don’t wanna kill ya,” he said. “I’m just gonna chop off an arm, and then when you and I have that in common, I’ll find the other guards and—”
“Throw me to them? I’m afraid I’d really rather not.” Ubirk’s expression drooped; he looked at Al with genuine sympathy. “It’s such a shame, Al, it really is.”
Al tried to bring the blade directly across at him, as if to slice the look off his face, but then he stopped. Well, really, his blade stopped. Technically speaking, his blade was stopped.
“Wha—?”
His diagonal stroke was interrupted when his weapon bounced off a massive sword. He could have given himself a pat on the back for managing to hold on to the hilt, but the sight that greeted his eyes left him no chance for such self-congratulation.
“What the hell is this? Another one of your awful little jokes?” Al swallowed hard, his hand buzzing as he tried to adjust his grip on his sword. A tall figure had moved to protect Ubirk—a terrible, overwhelming figure. The most beautiful and vicious of all the sword slaves on the island with her cruel weapons… “Hornet?!”
“Oh my goodness, what a scary look. You’re supposed to be my sweet little Al. How can you be so cold?” The Hornet laughed cheerfully. The black-haired woman looked down at Al; with her long legs, she stood so tall that he practically had to crane his neck look up at her. Her weapons, those gigantic blades, were already secured to the stumps of her arms; she was truly the definition of a human weapon.
The Hornet was the famed Empress of the sword slaves, a woman whose wiles and fighting spirit had enraptured many, even though she was enslaved on this island. If she was protecting Ubirk, the implications were staggering.
“So you’re on his side? You’re on board with Ubirk’s little rebellion? You’re just full of surprises.”
“Oh gosh, you think so? Did you think I was one of those boring, conservative ladies? That makes me so saaaad.”
“I know better than to call you boring if I want to keep living. But it’s a good point. I’m still surprised. It seemed like you had everything you could want on this island.”
Every other sword slave respected her, and even the guards had bowed to her—the Hornet practically ruled Ginonhive. She loved to fight, and she was undefeated in the arena. She was all but a monarch here. Life on this island had been good to her, and she seemed more suited to it than anyone.
So what was she doing supporting Ubirk’s ridiculous fantasy of a revolution?
“You wanna talk about conservatives, I’m practically the poster boy. Why would you throw away a stable livelihood for some wannabe revolutionary? Have you actually lost your mind?”
“Oh, come now. That’s just rude. But that’s one of the things I find charming about you, my sweet little Al. And you’re being so mean… You’ve finally done what I always wanted you to.”
“What could you want from me?” Al winked at the Hornet, even as he felt the battle lust rising, like a burning point between his eyebrows. He couldn’t imagine what she might have been expecting of him.
“Ha-ha-ha!” The Hornet chuckled. “What I wanted most wasn’t for you to join us, Al. I think it’s much more interesting to have you as an enemy.”
“ !”
An instant later, two massive blades that couldn’t have weighed less than two hundred pounds each came slicing through the air at him. The Hornet was a force to be reckoned with; Al couldn’t have lifted one of those swords even if his life depended on it, yet she wielded them both as easily as if she was swinging a couple of twigs.
The passageway was something less than spacious; there was hardly anywhere to dodge her attacks. Al crouched down to avoid the first stroke, then leaped backward.
“Ohhh, we can’t have that,” the Hornet said, following him and delivering a brutal thrust to his chest. It flung him farther back, his heart and stomach and other internal organs veritably rearranged by the blow.
The second blade bit into his body, battering him from side to side before he could catch his breath, cutting him cleanly—or rather, gorily—in two.
Death was hard to avoid, and it was coming for Al…
“Ohhh, we can’t have that,” the Hornet said, stepping forward and thrusting with one giant blade. Al dodged it by the skin of his teeth. “Oh,” the Hornet said, surprised; Al tried to use his liuyedao to hit back, striking out on pure instinct since his opponent was behind him now that he had spun away from her strike.
The Hornet ducked his counter with astonishing speed for someone so tall, allowing Al’s attack to pass over her head. The next instant, he took a kick from below, his feet leaving the ground. He could no longer avoid what was coming; the massive blade slammed down from above, cleaving him in two…
“Ohhh, we can’t have that,” the Hornet said, stepping forward and thrusting with one giant blade. Al met it with his liuyedao at an angle, forcibly blocking its path. “Oh,” the Hornet said, surprised; Al was already shouting, lashing out at his opponent’s weighted leg with a sweeping cut.
The Hornet leaped gracefully over his move. But having his opponent in the air was the perfect chance for Al—he instantly turned and started running down the hallway. “Yaaaahhh!”
This was the first time he’d ever fought the Hornet, but they didn’t call her the Empress of the sword slaves for nothing. Al knew all too well that in a hundred rounds with her, he would die a hundred times. As much as it pained him, he knew he had to escape the battlefield entirely.
He wasn’t the kind who was obsessed with the idea of always winning every battle he fought. By his logic, survival was as good as victory. Meaning…
“If I can get out into the arena…get the audience on my side…”
“Al! Please don’t make me give up faith in you! Just think about it for a minute—you know this is right!” Ubirk called to Al’s retreating back. Al didn’t want to listen. But he couldn’t stop Ubirk’s voice from slithering its way to his eardrums. “The moment I got our friend the Hornet on my side, I knew I had everyone I needed. I just really, really hoped you would join us…”
Al didn’t want to think about what Ubirk was saying, but he had to listen. For before he could come up with a response, he saw it.
“ ”
He had reached the arena somehow, but everything had changed.
Until moments before, the spectators had been cheering and jeering at the death matches, but they were distanced from all of it; it was always someone else fighting the life-and-death struggles, never them. Now the wild passion was gone, replaced by palpable tension and fear that pervaded the building. And no wonder—there were now armed, rebellious sword slaves milling about in the spectator seating, tying up frowning audience members, taking the place over.
A few people had tried to resist, probably, but Al was sure the revolutionaries had swiftly made examples of them, any would-be heroes reduced to corpses by the sword slaves’ merciless blades.
Al was stunned, but he understood.
“Don’t tell me… He really…”
Take over the sword-slave island and fight the empire.
The dream was coming true.
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