Promise of Blood

A pair of shirtless men left the fighters’ stalls at the end of the room. They entered the Arena side by side and without ceremony. The workers cleared out, and the fighters faced each other. The man on the left was smaller, leaner, his muscles corded and defined like a warhorse. His curly brown hair bobbed into his face now and then, and he blew it away each time. Formichael. The Proprietor’s favorite fighter—or he had been when Adamat had last come by the fights. He was a warehouse worker, young and handsome, and it was whispered the Proprietor was grooming him to be something more than a simple thug.

The man on the right looked twice Formichael’s size. His hair had a touch of gray at the sides, his face bore a poorly shaved beard. His eyes were piggish, set deep in his face, and they examined Formichael with the singular intensity of a killer. His arms looked big enough to win a wrestling match with a mountain bear. Pits marred his knuckles where they’d broken—and been broken by—men’s jaws, and his face was covered in the puckered scars of bad stitching jobs. He flashed a set of broken teeth at Formichael.

Despite SouSmith’s advantage in size and experience, he was obviously tired. His chin sagged from a long day of hard-won fights, the corners of his eyes betraying exhaustion, and his shoulders drooped ever so slightly. What’s more, experience had long worn out its welcome. SouSmith was getting old, and his chest and stomach had given way to flab from excess drinking.

The foreman descended to the second step of the ring and conferred with the two fighters. After a moment he stepped back. He held up his hand, and then dropped it, leaping back.

Three hundred men yelled as the two fighters lashed out at each other. Fists met flesh with dull slaps that were drowned out by the surge of voices.

“Kill ’em!”

“Make him bleed!”

“The gut! Flush him in the gut!”

Adamat’s voice was drowned out in the cacophony of wordless cries. He didn’t even know what he said, but his heart poured all his frustration with Palagyi, his anger that his wife and children were away, into his shouts. He leaned forward, fists flailing in mockery of the two men, screaming at the top of his lungs with the rest of the rabble.

Formichael connected with a vicious jab to SouSmith’s ribs. SouSmith stumbled to the side, and the younger man surged forward and pounded on the same spot, perhaps on an old broken rib, fists flashing in the dim light. SouSmith reeled, trembling, toward the side of the pit until he was up against the wooden slats that separated him from the crowd. Fingers reached out from the onlookers, nails gouged at his bare head, spittle splattered on his cheek. Adamat watched, the fighter’s head just beyond his reach. “Go on,” he shouted. “Don’t let him back you into a corner!”

Something audibly cracked, and SouSmith fell to one knee, hand up in front to ward off Formichael’s blows.

Adamat’s voice fell to a whisper. “Get up, you bastard,” he growled through his teeth.

Formichael punched SouSmith’s hands and arms, beat them down until the older man was on both knees, suffering under the onslaught. Formichael’s face flushed with the promise of victory and he slowly let up until the punches were mere taps, then altogether. He stood, chest heaving, examining the man at his feet. SouSmith didn’t look up.

Bah, Adamat thought. Finish him already.

But there was nothing of that in Formichael’s plans. Grinning, he bent over and grabbed one of SouSmith’s arms, pulling him up into a single, brutal punch. SouSmith went back to his knees, his whole body shuddering. Formichael would string this out, letting SouSmith’s exhaustion keep him down and continuing the beating until SouSmith was nothing but a pulp.

Formichael delivered several more single punches before letting SouSmith fall back down to his hands and knees. SouSmith’s face was a mess of blood and pulped flesh. He spit into the sawdust. Formichael turned, raised his arms to the crowd, bathed himself in the roar of voices. He faced SouSmith once again.

The big man rose to his feet in less than a heartbeat, all twenty-five stone following his fist into Formichael’s pretty young face. The impact lifted Formichael off the ground. His body flattened out in midair and then bounced like some child’s toy off the wooden slats before tumbling to the ground. He shuddered once before falling still. SouSmith spit on Formichael’s back and turned away, plodding up the stairs and toward the fighters’ stalls. Hands reached out to slap him on the back in congratulations; curses lashed out for bets lost.

Adamat collected his winnings and then waited until enough of the crowd was milling about to slip unnoticed back to the stalls. He entered SouSmith’s room and closed the curtain behind him. “That was quite the fight.”