This room had tiers built into it, and on each rock ledge people were sitting and others were filing in from other smaller tunnels. People watched, faces alight, and a sense of excitement swept through the cavern. On a raised platform on the far wall, the Sapa had arrived. She lounged on a pile of furs, two people hovering beside her holding platters of food.
In the center of the room was a sunken pit.
“A colosseum,” Niklas said.
A nearby guard snarled and jammed the back of his spear into Niklas’ side. Niklas grunted but Nera was already in motion.
She kicked the guard in the back, sending him staggering. He spun, and she used her tied hands to capture the end of his spear. She planted a boot in his belly and used the leverage to leap into the air. She wrapped her legs around the man’s neck, and got a quick glimpse of bulging eyes, before she dropped her weight back. As they fell toward the floor, she used the strength in her thighs to twist, and snap, the guard’s neck.
They hit the dirt, but she was already climbing to her feet. The poison on the spear head had eaten through her bindings and they fell onto the dirt floor. She dusted herself off.
Other guards surrounded her, spears and knives pointed her way. She sank into a fighting stance. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted Niklas close by, his big body tense and ready to fight.
The Sapa called out, and reluctantly, the guards lowered their weapons. The Rumin leader shot Nera an inscrutable look. Then she waved her hand to the guards.
One guard stepped forward and dragged the body of his dead friend away. Another, rather warily, ushered all of them to a small area right above the pit. They were pushed to their knees on the dirt floor.
Niklas shifted until he was pressed close to Nera. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“Nothing good.” She eyed the energized crowd. “These people have survived a long time doing things their way. I don’t think they’re interested in what we have to offer, or in letting us go.”
He nodded, his gaze brooding.
The Sapa stood and clapped her hands. Nera stared at her. The woman was really beautiful—with a round face, straight nose, and deep, dark eyes. The old woman was standing behindher, swaying, an eager light in her eyes. Two men joined the leader, sitting down on nearby piles of furs. They, too, were handsome and well-built with strong jaws and thick, dark hair.
Niklas was studying them. “I bet that’s how they select their leaders. Those who are the least deformed, the most physically strong, healthy, and attractive.”
Nera raised a brow. “How you look has nothing to do with how smart you are, or if you’d make a good leader.”
“They may not believe that. They obviously see some pretty terrible birth defects, and a lot of their babies must not survive. To see one arrive in perfect condition…it must be special to them.”
Guards moved out of a neighboring tunnel, dragging a bound man between them. His head was hanging low, and his shoulders sagged.
In the crowd, a woman stood and cried out. She started yelling. She hugged a small girl with no arms to her ragged skirts.
The man lifted his head, looked at the woman and child, heartache etched on his face. Then the guard shoved him, and he stumbled over the edge into the sunken pit, sprawling onto his hands and knees in the dirt.
The woman started wailing and turned her daughter’s face away from the pit, pressing it into her skirts.
A second later, Nera heard the zombie. Four guards escorted the creature, working hard to keep it contained. They all held long poles, with vine-rope loops attached to the end. Each loop was around the zombie’s neck.
At the edge of the pit, they slashed the vines confining it away and then pushed it in.
“Oh, gods,” Avril gasped.
“This must be how they punish their lawbreakers,” Niklas said.
The man and zombie looked at each other. The man’s face was covered in fear and resignation. The zombie’s eyes lit with a wild hunger. It shambled forward.
The man fought. He had no weapon. No hope. But he fought. Nera hoped the little girl in the stands remembered that.
Soon, the zombie slashed into the man, blood splattering onto the sand floor. And then the fight was over.
The zombie crouched over the man’s dead body, biting into his belly, and making horrible noises as it feasted.
“It’s like the gladiatorial combats of very ancient Earth.” Niklas leaned closer, his fingers brushing Nera’s. “There are partial e-records of the Roman Empire. They forced gladiators to fight amongst themselves. The public loved to watch the gory spectacles.”
Apparently not much had changed over the millennia. At the less-civilized edge of the galaxy, there were pit-fighting worlds where fighters battled against each other to the death. “But they didn’t make them fight monsters.”
