Last Man Standing

Chapter 13: The Pits

My father was once desperate enough to participate in the pits, both as a fighter and a betting patron. After months of roaming Romallia to find work and shelter for us, he finally gave in to this underground scene to earn some quick coin.

There's usually one underground ring in every large city, where the shadiest of men arrive nightly for brutal entertainment and the chance to win more coins than they walked in with. From what my father told me, I understood that all men who are to fight must put their name in a bucket for a random draw in opponent. After the matches have been set, the patrons place their bets. The two combating men choose a piece of paper out of a box that states the weapon they are allotted for the fight. When the arbiter calls for the match to commence, the two men strike each other until there is only one left breathing.

My father was lucky to survive the pits, but it lead him down a different path that I now wish he never took.

The night that he participated in the battles, only he and one other man continuously bet that he would win. My father was a strong man at the time, but his physical appearance suggested otherwise. Working a farm and fixing homes didn't give him as much vigour as some of the professional fighters participating, so it wasn't a surprise that most people counted on him losing. But my father was smart; he outmaneuvered his opponents by playing to their weaknesses and eliminating their strengths.

This caught Hadrien's attention.

Hadrien was the only other man who bet on my father that night. Later in our acquaintance, I asked him how my father fought.

He said, "When a man came running, he impaled his feet and killed him. When a man began swinging a sword, he got beneath it and tackled him to the ground for some hand to hand combat. When another tried kicking him to the ground, he played along until he was at a close enough range to get behind him and strangle him. Your father played it smart. He made the audience and his opponent think he was going to lose; a false sense of security."

After the games ended, Hadrien offered my father a place in his home as a working gladiator. My father was hesitant at first, but after a long conversation with the man about the living situation, the money, the work involved, and of course, what would happen to Marcus and I, my father was all too eager to accept Hadrien's offer. The three of us moved into Hadrien's training grounds the next morning. As long as my father continued to win in the arena, my brother and I were allowed to live there with minimal guidelines. It was just like when we would stay at a farmer's home, except for the fact that my father was now training to kill instead of chopping grain stocks. Marcus and I helped out in the kitchen and were allowed into Hadrien's private quarters to do a bit of cleaning and serving, but we spent most of our time with the gladiators. We were in charge of fetching them water and serving them their meals, and we did a few other small errands for them when necessary. By acting as their servants, Marcus and I got our first look into the rigorous training techniques that they followed to prepare for the arena.

~*~*~*~

As I stood in the pits of the Steppe, a giant knot began to form in the depths of my stomach. This was where my father found his new profession that would later lead to his death, so I couldn't help but wonder what the pits were about to do to me.

The lord of the city is rarely involved or even aware of these happenings, but in this case we had the lord's son participating in the games. And unfortunately for me, I was going to be one of his fighters.

The scruffy man directed us down to the first floor and through a tunnel into a smaller room. One wall had a line of cages that were packed with potential fighters. Another arbiter was walking up and down in front of the cages as he advertised the stock for the eager patrons before him, shouting out random facts about each man that were most likely manufactured to encourage the customers to choose specific fighters.