The Ditches

Chapter Nineteen

No one follows. The alleys that weave toward The Ditches are empty. Marela's people are like folklore. They'll be watching, she said. The heavens open and the clouds dump a deluge over the capital. My hair plasters to my head. Drops of water slip underneath my collar and soak my skin.

The Ditches stand before me. A factory that makes ointment for ditch itch. A rash common in rine farmers, who spend their autumn picking the harvest from plants that grow in watery ditches. A front. Bouncers stand sentinel either side of a demure door and I slip inside, keeping Whyan's box nestled tightly under my jacket.

A wall of stale warm air and the scent of too many drunks hits me. Alcohol, piss and sweat. Body odour and blood. The Ditches hasn't changed, and the smells mingle to create something new. Something absolutely fucking despicable. I swallow the urge to gag.

Sunday evening, the biggest fight night of the week. I push through the roaring crowd; drunken dicks jostle me as I pass. The noise of people intensifies in my head and then silence. A voice shouts over the loudspeakers, declaring a fight. But I keep walking, eyes scanning for Whyan.

The sound of fists on flesh echoes around the warehouse and the two competitors grunt and groan. I head closer to the ring, it's not really a ring. Just a thick line of black tape marking out a square. The crowd goes wild as one fighter is thrown to the ground.

A flash of grey curls catches my attention and I push people aside, marching to front row tables, located by the side of the ring. Tables for those richer than the average punter, without an audience blocking the view of the fight.

Whyan sits at a small circular table, and I take the vacant metal seat beside him. Even the rich aren't provided with comfort, it is The Ditches, after all. They draw a certain crowd and that's the way they like it.

Behind Whyan, from the shadows, approach three burly bodyguards. A silent threat, a warning. If I make a move for Whyan, they'll react.

"Busy," Whyan says, with a subtle gesture to the attending mob. "Can you sense the anticipation from the crowd? The excitement?" he says calmly and with a smile on his lips.

"Where's Hara?"

Whyan smiles still. "She's over there."

I peer across the room, and I see her. Sat at another table, with Garge. Dressed to fit in, jeans and a t-shirt and hair tied back. We make eye contact. Hara bites her lip.

"I have what you want," I say, and I place the black box on the table. "Release Hara."

"What's this?" Whyan says with a smirk. "It's funny, don't you think, a place as vast as the capital and yet I often see the same faces. It's almost as if someone is following me, waiting for me to slip up." Whyan clicks his fingers, and a waiter comes to the table. "Same again. And Ramet, what will you have?"

"Nothing."

The waiter walks away and when I next look at the table the box is gone. I jump to my feet and frantically search for the waiter, but I lose him in the crowd.

"Sit," Whyan says, commanding my attention. "You've made me some money in the past. I never bet against you, even the first night that you fought here, because I know entra are superior fighters. But tonight, oh tonight I'm betting against you."

My heart beats fast. "I'm not fighting tonight." I glance to Hara, she's still there.

Whyan slides me a flyer. "I beg to differ."

There's a picture of me, in black and white, and besides my scowling face is another entra. The text above our pictures condemns us to a Deathmatch. In the background the crowd chants, "Stran, Stran, Stran," the name of one of the current competitors. A veteran. The eventual winner, I'm sure. I look up from the flyer and into Whyan's dead eyes.