Aloha from Hell

The place reeks of dust, sweat, and blood. When I step onto the floor, the crowd shrieks like banshees at spring break. The scene is twisted and familiar and, in a terrible way, comforting.

The guards lay out weapons on the ground. I start to reach for the na’at in my coat, but decide that no one around here needs to know anything about me other than that I don’t like getting spit on.

The gear on the ground looks like it was pulled out of a garbage dump. Rusting swords and battle-axes. Spears with broken shafts repaired with duct tape. I stroll around the weapons like a window shopper at Christmas, taking my time. I find a battered old na’at and pick it up. It’s stiff, and the first time I try to open it, it jams. I get down on one knee and whack it against the steel toes on one of my boots. It springs out to full length and holds. I notice guards haven’t hauled out any other prisoners for me to fight. That means they’re going to throw guards at me to fight. I wonder how many.

Turns out it’s just one.

When my opponent comes out, I’m not sure if it’s a Hellion or someone is backing a moving van into the arena. The guy is big the way a sonic boom is loud. Just a big knot of muscles with a head on top, like a cherry balanced on a fist. He’s holding a shield the size of a car hood in one hand and has a Vernalis over his other. A Vernalis is like a metal crab claw that extends up to the fighter’s elbow and is as long as an average person is tall. When it snaps shut, it can cut a tree in half. Maybe I should have stayed in the back of the pen with the other scaredy-cats. I’m giving serious consideration to cutting and running, but the guards are still holding guns on me. And I can’t do any hoodoo here, can’t even click my heels three times and say there’s no place like home.

No one gives a signal, blows a whistle, or drops a hanky. Crab Man just howls and charges me. I get out of his way, but not too far or too fast. I stay put and try to look confused long enough to spring the na’at’s blade and slice the Crab Man’s Vernalis arm. I leave a nice gash but don’t do any real damage.

He howls, some in pain and some because he didn’t get to draw first blood. He swings the Vernalis at me like a club, but it’s a feint. When I move in to stick him, he brings the shield around like a battering ram. I throw myself on the ground just before the shield splatters me like a dump truck. I roll to my feet and Crab Man and I circle each other. I try to extend the na’at again, but the mechanism jams when it’s just halfway out.

I can’t fight him like this. The Vernalis gives himscais give too much reach. I need to get in close.

I attack this time, feinting left and right. Getting the shield and claw swinging at me just a little too late. I duck forward, closing the distance between us. Crab Man is used to fighters not wanting to get near him, so he doesn’t have a lot of inside defense. I spear him in the side, but he’s fast for a guy his size. He catches me in the back with a big elbow and I fall against him. He snaps his knee up hard enough to toss me on my back ten feet away. The Vernalis crashes into the ground near my head. I roll out of the way just as Crab Man spits a ball of fire at me. I reflexively block it with a kind of shield hex that bounces the attack back at the opponent. Goddamn. They left a hole in the cloak for the fighters. We can throw hoodoo out here. If the Andes Mountains weren’t trying to beat me to death, I could probably get right out of here.

I throw a blinding hex at Crab Man’s eyes. Part of it hits his arm, so I only get one eye. He howls like I pissed on his Batman #1 and a bolt of lightning hits the ground a few feet behind me. He has some big bad hoodoo under that claw, but I have an angel in my head and it can see the flash of power when he throws the big stuff.

I move around him, trying to stay on his blind side and draw him in closer. The magic he tosses at me is like the rest of him. Big and powerful, but not all that fast or creative. Being in the arena with him is like playing tennis in a meteor shower, but one where I can see the meteors a second before they hit. I keep tossing sharp little barbs of hoodoo at him. Waves of white-hot razors at his legs. Blasts of arctic cold at his eyes and balls. Muscle disruptors that have him shaking and spasming like an epileptic. But I can’t pull out the big stuff. I could air-burst this place and turn the air into a blowtorch, but Crab Man is too close and the arena’s too small and burning myself up with him isn’t part of what little strategy I have.

Crab Man keeps on with the blockbuster spells, raining fire and brimstone. If he keeps on tossing the big stuff this fast, all I have to do is keep out of his way and he’ll wear himself out.