The Line of the Sol Empress

Chapter 28.1

Freedom is won, not given.

- Writings of the Sol Empress, Words of Faith

[Gabriel]

Gabriel's eyes fluttered open, but struggled to focus. He laid on his side on some sort of cot, a rolled blanket under his head. Blurry shapes moved nearby, while shuffling sounds and scattered murmurs reached his ears.

Someone looked down at him. "Ah, finally you wake. Welcome to the Ring."

A full black beard speckled with gray sprouted from the man's weathered brown face, but no hair covered his bare scalp. Within brown eyes were both the depth of a long life and the warmth of a home hearth.

Gabriel blinked his eyes while lifting his head. "What is the Ring?"

"Freedom or death. Although to some, they be the same thing. Win four matches and you get to leave. If not, you never leave."

What? Gabriel gazed at the surrounding as he sat up. "I shouldn't be here."

Perhaps two dozen men occupied the large cell. Rows of cots lined a curved block stone wall with a few small barred windows. Thick dark metal bars spanned the other side, separating the cell from a hallway where a disinterested guard in a green and red uniform slumped in a chair. A menacing shock rod hung from his belt. But strangely, the door in the bars gaped open, as if the guard had no fear of the prisoners leaving. The haze of fine dust that hung in the air had a musty smell of sweat and blood.

Most of the men had brown skin, like the man who greeted Gabriel, but there were some with lighter skin tones as well. Everyone in the cell wore the same simple black tunic shirts and pants. Also, everyone had a thick black band with a blinking green light around their necks. Gabriel reached to his neck to find he had one, too. Probably some sort of monitoring device.

"No one should be here, yet here we be. I am Augar. What be your name, friend?" the man said, extending a right hand.

"Gabriel," he responded, extending his right hand in turn.

Augar smiled as he grasped Gabriel's wrist in some sort of greeting custom. After a moment, Gabriel responded in kind. Augar smiled. "It would seem you be an outsider, Gabriel. That explains why you be here."

"I am not from this world. My ship crashed outside of Oran and then some goons stunned me before I could ask for help." Gabriel wrinkled his forehead. "Am I in the city?"

"You be in the worse part of Oran." Augar pointed to a small lump on his upper right arm. "You have not the tribe implant. There be a bounty for those like yourselves. The Khan have little tolerance for trespassers."

"And what brings you here to this luxury resort?"

Laughing, Augar showed his white teeth. "My sin be a voice too loud for the Khan. They have little tolerance for dissent either."

"Listen," Gabriel whispered, leaning in. "I came here with my sister, Hope. Have you heard of her? Could she be here?"

Augar shook his head. "This, I do not know. Usually, the women be taken to the manor as indents, indentured servants." He pointed toward a young woman entering the cell, pushing a cart. "That girl, Sura, be such. She might know of your sister."

Walking barefoot, Sura wore only a simple short dress made from the same black fabric as the male prisoners, and the same blinking band circled her neck. Thick shoulder-length dark hair fell across the sides of her head. She had a lithe figure and an attractive face, but her amber eyes, joyless and dulled of life, cast a shadow on Gabriel's heart.