There were too many men for the bleachers to accommodate, so they stood in the aisles between them. The noise was a shock to her ears after the silence of her drug-induced sleep. And the smell was noxious. Horse dung, unwashed male bodies…and something else, a scent she couldn’t quite identify. Excitement, maybe. Did that have an odor, she wondered? Fear did, and its stink was in there, too.
The ground between the bleachers was loose dirt. It was hard for her to walk on it in the stilettos she wore. She looked at her feet and caught sight again of her nearly invisible clothes. Why had they put her in this terrible outfit? Dreading what was coming, she lifted her head and wore the frostiest expression she could muster.
The men led her down to the center of the arena, then around to the middle of one of the bleachers, where a huge, throne-like chair sat in front of the bottom row.
“Princess,” one of the men said, indicating she should sit in the chair.
Fiona’s brows went up. “Princess?”
They said nothing more to her, just took up positions on either side of the chair. Fiona sat, if for no other reason than it blocked most of the audience from staring at her body through her barely there clothing.
A man walked past her. He looked at her, marking her with his eyes as his. She let her gaze focus on something behind him, cutting him from her attention. Kelan followed him. Like the other man, he wore only a pair of black boxer briefs. His feet were bare. He had bruises on his chest, on his face, a cut on his lip. His high cheekbones made the hollows in his cheeks look stark. When his eyes met hers, they were stoic. She could tell he was in pain.
What was going on? How had her world turned so upside down?
He paused in front of her then knelt. The entire arena went silent as he bowed his head. His black hair spilled forward. Tears welled in her eyes. She caught his face and whispered, “Kelan, what’s happening?”
He leaned his forehead to hers. “It’s some kind of role-playing game. I don’t know anything about it, what the rules are, how one wins. Just go with it. Buy us some time.”
“Why do you have to fight again? You’re already injured.”
His eyes hardened, and in them she saw the echoes of his warrior ancestors. “I will fight for you forever.”
She blinked her tears away. One of the men next to her was becoming restless. She noticed a red bandana hanging from his pocket. “Wait,” she ordered Kelan, then reached over and took the bandana. She looked into Kelan’s eyes as she tied it around his black hair. She pulled him close so that she could kiss his brow. “Finish this for us so that we can go home.”
Kelan nodded and stood, then walked into the center of the fighting floor. An announcer stepped into the middle of the arena. He held up his hands. There was no microphone, but the acoustics in the building let his bare voice carry.
“This event has been nearly twenty-one years in the making! King’s very own daughter is coming home at last. The fighter who wins tonight’s challenge will earn the right to deliver her to King—and to be her bodyguard and her champion.
“Now, listen up! This is no free-for-all. Each contestant will fight until he has defeated three others. The first to do so wins the challenge.” He looked at the two men, then went over and lifted Kelan’s right arm. “Fair notice to all who think to attempt it. This is no ordinary man; he is the War Bringer. And the princess has already chosen him.”
Fiona forced herself to watch Kelan in the ring as if she was accustomed to such violence. But she wasn’t; she felt the pain of every punch or kick that he took or delivered. It was surreal when he finally got the other guy down and snapped his neck.
She’d just watched him kill a man.
The next guy brought a knife to the floor. It took five long minutes for Kelan to help him fall on it, ending that round.
The third guy carried two swords. He tossed one to Kelan. Fiona gripped the arms of her seat. The swords were long and wide and looked hellishly heavy. Fighting with them was a specialized and archaic skill set. Kelan was tired. His footing wasn’t as steady as it had been with the first challenger. At least the bandana she’d given him kept the sweat from his eyes.
At one point, he had to duck a forward thrust. He went down in a crouch and stayed there, his wide back bared to his opponent. As the man ran in to finish the fight, Kelan unwound, slicing the heavy blade across the guy’s stomach, then running it up his body, through his chin and out the back of his head.
Fiona wanted to vomit at the blood that spilled from him. A chant started in the stadium. Faint at first, then growing louder. “War Bringer! War Bringer!”
And then a fourth man came forward to challenge Kelan.
Fiona couldn’t take any more. She started to rise, but one of the men posted beside her chair pushed her back down. “No!” She shoved herself free of his grip and rushed to the stage, slipping between Kelan and his latest opponent as the last victim was dragged offstage.
“No, Fiona,” Kelan growled as he pulled her behind him.
The announcer hurried into the arena. Fiona stepped around Kelan. “He has met your terms. Three fights. Three wins. This is over.”
The announcer held up his hands, silencing the roaring crowd. Before he could speak, the fourth contender thrust a knife into his back. The look of shock and pain seared itself in Fiona’s mind. Kelan stepped in front of her and forced her back.
The fourth guy laughed. “Fuck the rules. King wants a champion for his daughter who will stop at nothing.”
Kelan still held the bloodied sword from his last battle. He was so intensely focused on his new opponent that he didn’t see the crowd begin to stir…or hear the siren wailing in the far distance.
A siren! Fiona had never been so happy to hear that sound. It meant a return to reality very soon. But what were the cops going to say about the four dead men, three of whom Kelan had killed?
They had to get out of there.