Death's Reckoning by Will Molinar

turned the assailant over and put the unconscious man in shackles.
    Another man set for the gallows. Another death.
    Collin Hawkins died in his arms a minute or two later. The light faded from his eyes as his body went limp. Cubbins closed his eyes. There was blood on his fingers and down his chest. It could have been anyone’s blood on any other night.

 
     
    Chapter Six
    The wooden stands of the subterranean arena creaked and groaned from the constant stomping of hundreds of feet. People cheered for their favorites when they won, shouted at them when they lost. Bloodcurdling screams of rage from the bowels of their hate filled the cavernous hall.
    Some of them were drunk, and while most wanted to be, they had bought their tickets with all the coin they could scrounge together. Some would have good nights, most would lose out to the house as they always did. Yet it never stopped most from trying.
    Very few among them were immune to the chaos. Most of them, stunned and exhausted by the toil from their backbreaking work, stood in dumbfounded silence. They were like beggars who had lost their senses or lunatics at an asylum. The others, bolstered by an occasional win, would shove and cajole these numb spectators.
    One among those not cheering was coherent in both stance and thought. He was suspended from it all. Giorgio, once a proud member of the Thieves Guild, stood stiff but stern. His thin arms wrapped about his bony shoulders as if freezing even though the ambient temperature was stifling. His clothes were dirty and covered in grime from the streets. His cold, dead eyes glared and soaked in the noise, the violence, and the blood. Giorgio stood alone off to the side, in the middle of the maelstrom that were his senses. Two men fought to the death in the final match of the night.
    Other matches were fought to mercy or until one was unable to fight. Their arena was a square cage, large enough to fill the circular floor and leave space along the outside, digging into the sand.
    Most spectators had given up their spots on the bleachers and were up against the fence. They screamed and shook the cage with mad lust. It was heavy enough to take the brute of their force but it wouldn’t be too far to believe that at some point it would break apart and scatter the inhabitants to smithereens.
    The security men for the arena were overwhelmed by the crowd’s visceral manner. Even members of the crowd, less violent men and women, were shocked by the vehemence, but they did nothing but ride the wave into the shore of death and destruction.
    Dirty fingers gripped the cage and shook hard. The flesh dug dip and cut on the steel frame, bleeding down hands and along forearms, but it didn’t stop the troubling, terrible shaking.
    Giorgio watched it all, taking it in. The scene played out before him as if it were a play. The participants were sweaty and covered in dozens of small wounds and blood covered their bodies. They grappled at the corner of the cage. One man banged the other against the steel frame. The crowd threw rotten fruits and vegetables, tankards, empty or full of stale ale.
    The cage bars halted most of the larger projectiles, banging off the steel and bouncing back into the closer spectators, but a lot made it through to either strike the fighters or land amongst the ever growing pile of junk at their feet.
    A man close to Giorgio was much louder than the rest. He stood apart from the crowd, yelling as loud as a man could yell until his voice was hoarse, and his veins stood out on his forehead. He stood a few levels down on the abandoned bleachers from Giorgio, and his words grew more obnoxious and vitriolic by the second.
    “Cock sucking swine! Sons of whores! You-you, you fight, ya yellow bellied, gut sticker! Fight!”
    His chosen fighter was losing. The loser had a nasty cut above one eye that interfered with his vision, and his opponent used it to his advantage. He took quick steps towards that side, hoping to catch