Nicholas Smith - Captives

The crowd went wild, screaming enthusiastically as he raised two curved axes. He turned slowly, holding the weapons in the air until he faced the booth where Magnolia sat watching.

The warrior wasn’t wearing much: just short black pants with a length of chain for a belt. His thick pectoral muscles were adorned with a tattoo of a hammerhead shark.

El Pulpo smiled and looked over at her as if gauging her sense of awe. Both the announcer and the gladiator looked like clowns, but she kept this opinion to herself.

Another figure entered the arena, and she was not surprised to see the salt-and-pepper hair of Xavier Rodriguez. But she wasn’t prepared to see him wearing only a leather loincloth and boots.

“What the hell did they make you wear?” she whispered.

Magnolia stood and watched X cross the arena. He held a hand up to shield his eyes from the lowering sun. Like his opponent, he, too, was covered with markings, but not of ink. His were the scars accrued over a lifetime of battles.

He pulled a chain that was wrapped around his waist and secured with a lock. But where was his weapon? Did they expect him to fight with his bare hands?

She didn’t doubt his fighting skills, but this wasn’t fair. Unless the chain was connected to a ball of spikes.

Armored Cazador soldiers streamed onto a platform that rimmed the fighting arena, about ten feet below the lowest seats. One of the warriors tossed a short sword to the dirt about twenty feet from X. It stuck in the ground.

A low growl came from the other side of the booth, and Magnolia stood as a Cazador soldier pulled Miles into the booth. The dog wore a collar with the spikes turned inward, and he yelped in pain when his handler yanked on the chain.

“Don’t hurt him!” she snarled.

She jumped up from her seat, but el Pulpo blocked her way. He smelled of perspiration and barbecued meat.

“Sit,” he commanded.

Magnolia held his gaze. This was her chance to stab him in his only eye, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. That would be a death sentence, not just for her but for Miles, X, and Rodger, too.

She sat back in the chair and crossed her legs, biding her time. When she looked back down at the sand, she saw that the chain X held wasn’t connected to a ball of spikes, but to a half-naked man.

The crowded screamed with excitement as X pulled the chain.

Magnolia stood again and made her way to the railing. She squinted in the waning sunlight at another gladiator with a nasty scar on his chest, stumbling out into the pit. Rodger Mintel stopped a few paces from X, raised a hand to shield his eyes, and looked up at the booth, his big brown eyes meeting hers.

El Pulpo nudged Magnolia and grinned. “Time for blood, mi amor .”

“Stop looking at Mags and get out here!” X shouted. He pulled Rodger farther in from the gate. They were still three or four steps from the sword the Cazador soldier had thrown out. He needed the weapon if he was to have any chance of defeating the giant roaring at him from halfway across the stadium.

“Come on, man!” he yelled.

Rodger tugged back. “I can’t… can’t see…”

The crowd roared as the announcer introduced the two Hell Divers through his cone-shaped device.

“Entering the Sky Arena to face Hammerhead tonight is sky jumper Rodger Mintel, a.k.a. Rodger Dodger, and Xavier Rodri-i-i-i-igue-e-e-e-ez, known by his own people and his enemies alike as the Immortal .”

This goofball reminded X of one of the old-world announcers from the fighting videos he had seen growing up. He loved watching the mixed-martial-arts fights, but he never thought he would be starring in one.

You won’t be a star if you get whacked…

X slowly turned and scanned the hundreds of Cazadores looking down at them. Behind the warriors, citizens of the Metal Islands stood in front of their seats, screaming and clapping, showing off their pointed teeth.

People were chewing on strips of meat a kid was hawking from a box on a rope around his neck. Of all the strange and perilous situations X had found himself in over the years, this might be the weirdest.

“Kill him, X!” shouted a voice he knew.

X looked up at Magnolia, who had cupped her hands over her mouth. Then he turned to study his opponent, a huge man tattooed with images of an octopus and a shark. He lifted up two massive axes, his massive chest expanding as he sucked in air through his breathing apparatus.

He also wore some sort of optics that looked like old-world night-vision goggles. Hammerhead turned them on X and Rodger and let out another howling roar, pounding the tattoo of the octopus in the center of his chest.

X had fought all sorts of monsters on the surface, from Sirens and huge birds of prey to giant sea snakes and octopuses, to rock monsters. But he had never fought a man with monsters covering his skin. This was going to be interesting.

Shoving the announcer out of the way, Hammerhead started across the field. The little man hit the ground hard, and the crowd laughed as he scrambled away on all fours.

So much for a handshake first , X thought on his run to pick up the sword. Rodger let out a yelp as X tugged on the chain tethering them together.

“Stay behind me!” X yelled.

He grabbed the sword out of the dirt. Hammerhead was still about thirty feet away and running at them, snorting like one of the nightmare hogs back on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

As X backed away, he tried to cut the chain, but the dull blade only pushed the welded links down into the sand. He would have to fight this man while chained to Rodger.

At last, Rodger ran up and joined X, staying just behind as ordered.

“What… do we do?” he stammered.

“Help me bring this fucker down, and stop looking at Mags.” X said. “Oh, and try not to get us killed.” He raised the sword. It was solid, with a sturdy hilt, but the blade was rusty and dull. He would need to jam it into Hammerhead’s face to kill him.

Rodger held up his fists, and X readied himself as their opponent came lumbering across the sand, roaring like a monster out of the wastes. Hammerhead stopped about ten feet from X, who waved Rodger farther behind him. The crowd screamed in delight as the gladiator raised and lowered his axes in a taunt.

“Stay clear of this asshole,” X said, “and try and get this slack around his neck when I attack.”

“Are you s-serious?”

X didn’t have a chance to respond.

Hammerhead, done with his posing, strode toward them. X pushed Rodger away. He took off running, screaming like a small girl and holding the slack of the chain in both hands.

If X were just an observer in the stands, he would have laughed, but being part of the drama was far different. This was a fight to the death—nothing funny about that.

He followed Rodger as they tried to flank Hammerhead, but the guy was not just huge. He was also fast and ran diagonally to cut them off.

X held his ground and twirled the sword. “Over here, you ugly pile of shark shit.”

Hammerhead roved his mechanical optics away from Rodger, the weak link, back to X. The sound that came from his breathing mask was a cross between a cough and a grunt. He pinwheeled his arms with the axes to confuse X on when and at what angle he would strike.

X backed away and waited for the opportune moment. He watched the blades carefully as they sliced the air. When Hammerhead got within striking distance, he swung the left axe, and X brought his sword up to meet the blade.

Steel met steel, and sparks flew.