DragonTribes #1: RiverTribe

Chapter 10: The Arena

Alicia woke up, her eyes heavy and her body cold. She tried to lift her arm to rub her face, but her arm was extremely heavy. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at her wrists. She was wearing heavy metal bracers attached together by a chain. She extended her legs. Her ankles wore the same metal objects. Then she scanned her surroundings. The floor and walls were the same grey stone. The front wall was metal bars. Alicia looked to her right. A muscular man with the same attire was lifting his arms as if lifting weights. Alicia cowered and scooted left as much she could.

The man snorted, "You have no need to worry about me."

"Who are you? Where am I?" Alicia uttered.

"I'm Axel, you're in the cells of the forced Arena competitors." Axel cracked his knuckles.

"Be quiet!" A man yelled from down the hall.

"Yea, don't anger them! It'll make it worse, much worse! The dragons, the dragons, they'll be worse." A scraggly man spoke from the cell across from them.

"Don't mind Gruce, he's got something wrong with his brain." Axel chuckled at the man.

"I said be quiet!" A man stood with a pole arm in front of their cell.

Axel quietly rose and cracked his neck. The man slowly lowered his pole arm, trying desperately to show no sign of fear. Axel walked closer ever so slowly.

"Sit... sit back down!" The man stuttered.

Axel grabbed the man's shirt through the bars and pulled him close, his feet lifted off the ground. The man dropped his pole arm and averted his eyes from Axel's glare.

"Leave us alone and just do your job of sitting over there with the keys." Axel dropped the man.

The man gulped, grabbed his pole arm, and scurried down the hall, the keys in his pocket jingling.

"Couldn't we just have escaped?" Alicia watched Axel walk back over and sit down.

Axel rested his arm on his raised knee, " There's no point. The only way you can run is into the arena. Then you have to somehow climb out, survive guards and dragons, and escape without ever being seen again."

Alicia sighed, " How long have you been here?"

Axel raised four fingers.

"Months, days, years?" Alicia studied the cell for another escape route.

"Years, and you're the first female I've ever seen here." Axel said.

"Um, thank you?"

Axel laughed.

"Today is novices' day, you'll be up after the other two. I'd start lifting if I were you." Axel studied Alicia.

Alicia glanced at Axel's thick arms, "Novice in what? What kind of arena is this?"

Gruce laughed hysterically, "Novice, a novice!"

Two heavily armored men walked down the hallways passed their cells. Axel glanced at them, then looked back at Alicia.

"The arena of the Grassland Tribe. It's to the far north of the Amazon River. The arena is empty till the week of the Red Moon. Four days before, the arena opens for an audience, beginning with the novices..." Axel paused.

"No, please! Let me go!" A man yelped as one of the guards dragged him down the hallway.

The other guard followed behind holding the man's shackles. The man fell on his knees. The guard behind him kicked him back to his feet.