Heart's tale

Chapter 11 part 1

 The sun was breaking through the narrow visor, blinding the eyes and burning the trembling eyelids with the hurty dust particles that had settled on them.

"Two, two, one!" the herald's voice boomed overhead.

He was supported by sparse clapping and laughter from the stands.

"The last circle!" the voice shouted again.

Somewhere in another universe, the screeching sound of gates opening was heard, and the animated ones spilled out into the arena. Hastily assembled from various cheaply-purchased parts at the market, with no consciousness of their limbs, they scrambled to the ground like stranded fish, sprawling to and fro. The last to emerge from the gate was a huge golem, limping on its left leg. He had a mighty ax in his hand, and Ruchi swallowed, foreseeing trouble. Another gate opened on the opposite side, but no one came out.

The golem turned its head toward the people and moved to them, trying on the ax for a swing. A short fat man standing beside Ruchi, with whom they had managed to get through the previous two rounds, threw his mace and ran back to the gate where they had just entered the arena. But the gate was already closed. Ruchi heard his partner sobbing and moaning behind him and tried on the shield in his left hand – it didn't seem very reliable against the block of stone coming at him. The golem ran into one of the crawling pieces of wood in front of it and stumbled. It lost its balance, dropped its ax, and fell to one knee. The guard felt he had a chance, rushed forward, swinging his sword as he ran. He swung it as hard as he could against the golem's stone head, but the sword bounced off and flew out of Ruchi's hand, striking out a shower of sparks.

The man staggered back, crouched down, and dropped his shield in the dust he had just raised. The golem slowly turned its head toward him, crunched something inside its stone body, and then rose. Just as slowly it reached for the ax and took it in its rough hands when the dust cloud caught up with it as well. Ruchi grabbed the shield by its leather strap and crawled back to where he thought the sword had bounced. As he crawled, glancing back periodically at the approaching golem, sweat trickled down his eyes, and he could see neither the dark outline of the hilt nor the gleam of the blade in the dust. For a moment he could see the fat man, somewhere on the edge of the arena, beating off the dummies crawling toward him with his club.

The golem, meanwhile, was approaching and swinging the heavy ax to strike. Ruchi got to his feet and wanted to run, but found himself pinned against the gate. The golem was beside him in two leaps, and the man instinctively covered himself with his shield. The blow struck right in the center of him, the helmeted head rang like a bell, and a sharp pain pierced Ruchi's arm. The shield cracked and fell, exposing the man to the golem – and it retreated a step to take a second swing. Ruchi grabbed his arm and squeezed his eyes shut. There was a rumble, and Ruchi, inwardly accepting death, was surprised to find that even in death his arm did not cease to ache.

Grunting, he raised his head and opened one eye first, then abruptly yanked his good hand away from the injured one and opened the visor. There was no golem in front of him, or rather there were stones scattered around the massive carcass of a huge red creature covered in sharp scales. The carcass was moving its imposing gray tail, which looked more like stone than scales, in front of the guard's face. It seemed that if it swung that tail, it would turn Ruchi into a flapjack right where he lay. Out of the corner of his eye the guard noticed the ax thrown to the edge of the arena by his right, good hand, and began to crawl sideways toward it. The creature turned its muzzle to him, and he saw two small blue eyes, full of hatred, and a large mouth of sharp teeth with two curved buckets of fangs. Sensing what the man had in mind, it screamed furiously, so that Ruchi's whole body trembled and the visor on his helmet fell down.

The guard remembered who the first-born standing before him was. It was a desert hunter that lived on the slopes of the quarry. Its amazing paw structure allowed it to stick to the surface, and some, the especially nimble ones, managed to climb the wall into the City's sewage drains. If they could be caught, their paws were cauterized and sent here, to the arena. But in recent years the beggars had become such serious competitors that there was almost no food left in the drains, and such a phenomenon as the desert hunter could be called a rarity. But here it stood before him in all its terrifying glory. A degenerated one, a species of first-born that had lost its mind over the millennia. A creation of the Heart as he was, Ruchi.