Last Man Standing

Chapter 14: An Old Friend

Tiberius had one of his physicians patch me up after the fight, just as he did with his other champions. None of them looked as bad as I did, but that's only because they were real warriors who knew how to kill their opponent with minimal damage to themselves.

I was, unfortunately, a fraud. A scared little girl pretending to be a boy, who was all talk and no action until forced to kill.

I couldn't kill the Galacian warrior who attacked me in Gram's house, and I was beginning to wonder how I would have reacted if I actually killed Brutus back in Brixen. Or if I had actually made my way to the Galacian camp that was holding my brother captive, could I have really brought myself to murder all those men until Marcus was free? What if I froze before I even had the chance to save him, and then wound up dead myself?

But did it really matter who my first kill was? The point was that I had finally done it and there was no taking it back.

My hands were shaking involuntarily, rattling the chains around my wrists. Tears streaked my dirty cheeks, and my breathing was laboured as I held back my sobs. I couldn't focus on anything; my eyes were darting around the room in search of answers where there weren't any. Tiberius' laughter was ringing in my ears, and grinding my teeth was doing nothing to quench the deafening sound. My insides lurched as I reluctantly rubbed my fingers together, feeling the warm, thick blood of my opponent that painted my pale hands. Everything was coming at me like a title wave, leaving me dizzy and on the brink of fainting. I never wanted to feel this way again, but I knew that at some point I would have no choice.

The physician put one last mound of goopy medicine around my swollen eyes before grabbing another sticky substance to fill my cuts with.

The scruffy man sauntered into the small room with a satisfied smirk on his face, clutching a large coin bag in his hand that must have weighed a ton.

I scowled at him before turning to the physician. "Leave us."

He was surprised by my command, "But Tiberius asked me to patch you up properly before-"

"Leave us..."

I was in no position to bark orders at this man, but my tone of voice had clearly rattled him. He left his tools and medicines by my side before scurrying out the door, closing it to give the scruffy man and I some privacy.

He didn't change his demeanour despite mine. He continued to smile.

"You're a crafty little thing, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Using the helmet to take out your opponent... it was ingenious. I didn't even consider it until you already had it in hand. You really did a number on him, boy. His face looks like shit; completely unidentifiable. You painted that arena with that man's blood! And I mean that literally; red splatters shot out with every smash of that helmet, coating the floor and roaring crowd-"

This pushed me over the edge; I couldn't hold it in any longer. I turned aside to hack up the contents of my stomach. There wasn't much due to my minimal diet as of late, but it still burned like hell on its way back up. The dry heaves were even worse, for no salvation was to come. It took me a couple of minutes the squelch my gag reflex.

The scruffy man was not sympathetic. He continued as if nothing happened, "And when you broke his one hand before restraining the other? Well, that was just sharp thinking..."

I was stunned by his impertinence. "Are you serious?!"

"You shattered his hand to a limp mess! Taking out his strong point in order to utilize your own..."

I swallowed hard to keep my insides in check, not wanting another vomitus episode to commence. "Oh? And what is my strong point?"

"Your rage, of course!" I didn't respond, so he went on. "You're at your best when you're angry, Marcus. When you saw that orphan boy in Brixen getting punished for stealing, you threw a knife right through the Captain's hand-"