Death's Reckoning by Will Molinar Page A

him with a solid blow. The man’s defenses were weak and inconsistent. The cut man kept his left arm up to block, but that left his torso open, and his right arm was unable to mount an effective attack.
    The more injured man tried to keep the fight close by grabbing the other and grappling with him near the edge of the cage. But the other man was smart enough to break away and continue to exploit the left side. It was a game of slip and feint the injured man was losing.
    He gave up the close quarters match and circled around the opposite direction. Every so often, he reached up to wipe the blood from his eyes, but it streamed down anyway. The blood covered his face as if he were wearing a carnival mask on that side of his face.
    The other man chased him, and for some seconds neither could land a blow. The crowd screamed its frustration, yelling for more action, more violence, more blood. The operators of the arena, men wearing special chest guards, padded leather aprons, and helmets, acted fast. One of them climbed to the side of the arena wall and pulled a rope connected to the top of the cage.
    A cache of weapons clattered down into the cage area. Swords, knives, maces, hammers, all manner of killing tools landed in a tumbling heap. The two arena fighters broke apart and watched them fall. When the barrage ended, they scrambled for whatever they could snatch up. By pure chance, the bloody faced man stumbled over a truncheon made of iron and rolled away from his opponent. He came up swinging with wild strokes but hit nothing but air.
    The desperate move bought time and space, and his opponent was wise enough to back off, eyeing the weapons at his feet. The half blind truncheon wielder tripped and fell backwards. The unarmed assailant saw his chance and jumped forward, tackling him to the ground. They rolled around in the dirt, smashing into empty cups and other weapons, scratching and clawing while the crowd roared approval.
    An instant later it was over.
    Bloody mask rose battered and bruised. His torso was slick with blood that was not only his. The other man laid on his back staring into space. A knife protruded from his sternum. The crowd went wild.
    Giorgio was still. The dull thud of his heart awakened from the vast amount of stimuli. It pumped not fresh blood but the raw vitality of the outside energy. His newfound power siphoned it from the violence and hate. Their energy, their passion, their sheer bloodlust, all of it filtered into the shattered husk of his form, and he felt alive once more.
    The power flooded his veins and invigorated his soul, casting aside fear and doubt. Over the course of the next several days, Giorgio became a sponge to the activity in the arena. He spent time near the fighter’s handlers, men who capitalized off the death and suffering of others. Their life force was vile and meaningless; it tasted foul to the ghoul the former thief had become.
    Night after night the same loud mouthed braggart from the first night was there. The uncouth slob wore dirty clothes, had greasy hair, a scraggy beard. He was obese and stank. Everything Giorgio wasn’t.
    Most people avoided him when they could and with good reason. His obnoxious behavior annoyed even the most ardent fan. He got into an altercation almost every night. Security looked down on any fighting outside the arena and shut it down fast. The aftermath was a simple ejection from the arena. This tended to elicit cheers from witnesses. But they never banned him from the fights. Every night they let him back in, only to start the cycle again.
    Giorgio kept his eye on him. The man’s aura was sickening, so shallow and vain, so chauvinistic and narcissistic, yet so captivating. This man deserved what was coming, and Giorgio studied him, wanting to know him in an intimate way.
    So conceited and out of touch with reality, he never noticed his silent stalker, not even when Giorgio followed him to a rundown boarding house, a decrepit building on the