Eden, Dawn Page 60
Chapter 41
The quietness of the empty arena was stark, almost deafening. The contrast from the bustling street, lined with noisy and boisterous Zikalic, was both a relief and a shock. I was immediately confronted with the dusty arena ground before me, the place on which I would surely die.
Leaping down from his platform, Xakanic barked out fresh orders in his grating, guttural dialect. One of the warriors, who had carried him, an impressive Zikalic male with one ear missing and a scar across his cheek longer than my own, moved towards me. His purple eyes absently fixed on my disfigurement as he hurriedly unfastened the bonds around my wrists by somehow deactivating the magnetic force; the bands uncurled and instantly snapped back into their rigid state once more.
I massaged my wrists. Although I had easily kept up with the bearers, the bands had been cinched painfully tight and any tug, although infrequent, had cut into my flesh.
“I will see you soon human … too soon for your liking perhaps,” Xakanic taunted me, his lips curling into a deformed, menacing grin. It was only now that I noticed how yellow and jagged his teeth were. His dark tongue darted out of the side of his mouth again, and his nostrils flared before he turned around and departed the arena. A hundred things came to my mind to say, but every one of them slipped from my grasp of thoughts like a slimy eel before I could wrap my lips around them.
The four Zikalic who had carried his platform left me in the centre of the arena and then strode to four different points around the stadium floor, where they stationed themselves as guards. Their cold, crimson eyes fixed intently on me.
I was alone for a few minutes; in the dust on which my blood would spill. It was a dreadfully unreal feeling. Despite a decade of staving off Death, for the first time, I welcomed it. I suppose, knowing its cold certainty; I now hastened the end.
I’m tired, so freaking tired.
I could only guess that I was supposed to wait until the rest of my people were dragged in, so I took the opportunity to get acquainted with this daunting death-bowl in the middle of the City of Paradise. Keeping my mind active would help me fight off pictures of Jordi’s crumpled body and the harrowing guilt of my failure.
The Great Arena was massive, staggering. Spellbinding. I inhaled harshly, the influx of air stinging my lungs.
The ground area was similar in size to our Gathering Place. Rather than grass underfoot, it had dry sand compacted into a hard floor. Instead of surrounding trees and bush, it was encircled by three steep, structured levels, built out of a concrete-like substance, each filled with thousands upon thousands of seats.
The first level, closest to the action, was almost ten strides high above the ground—a height that even a Sabre couldn’t scale. Shielded by an elaborately decorated guardrail, the seats on tier one were plush and extravagant—no doubt reserved for royalty. The crowing piece was at the south point of the first level: positioned on an enormous balcony that ran easily thirty strides wide, perched an exorbitant throne ornamented with countless jewels.
No prizes for who sits there!
The second level of the arena was relatively well furnished, although distinctly a step down from the royalty-level. The third level, some thirty strides high, was vastly different—obviously for the poorer classes. It had nothing but benches, although the third level was as big as both the first and second level, almost a double-level in itself. Presumably, the poorer Zikalic vastly outnumbered the wealthy.
So typical of a tyrant’s rule.
As an anxious breath wheezed out of me and I dropped my eyes to the ground-level, I became aware of three large entry-points to the arena, smaller in size than the northern main entrance I had been hauled in through. These access-points were all closed by mammoth wooden doors fronted by a thick metal-barred portcullis. I suspected that it was from these entrances that Xakanic would release the beasts he called Mizumba.
As if on cue, the thunderous roar of a Sabre emanated from the southernmost entrance, underneath Xakanic’s throne. My heart missed a beat, or three. I fought every instinct to run. To find a tree somewhere.
Oh, geez. Mizumba means Sabre. Of course, it does.
It was only when I heard several shrieks behind me that I realised about twenty of my people were now unbound, and had hobbled their way to the centre of the arena, joining me in the dirt. The pinched, petrified pallor on their faces mirrored my feelings. Death wouldn’t necessarily come quickly, but it was certain.