Claimed by the Alien Gladiator, page 24
“Did everyone else get out?” I whisper to Suriat, who lies close to me. It occurs to me now that I didn’t see any other wagons.
“Yes, their wagons have already departed.” His hand squeezes mine. “Viktor is alive. Now we should be quiet and still until we reach the dump.” I’m grateful Suriat waited behind, but I wish Viktor was in the wagon with me so that I could check on him, make sure he’s not bleeding out.
The stench under here is terrible, stronger than it should be for freshly-killed people and animals. I wonder if the Raxu saved some corpses from a previous fight or obtained dead bodies from elsewhere, just to be sure nobody could sniff us out. I applaud the intent, but the execution is pretty disgusting. At least Viktor is probably still unconscious and not suffering from the smell.
* * *
The ordeal of being at the bottom of a noisy corpse wagon while worrying about the man I love is interrupted. We hear muffled shouting and the wagon creaks to a halt.
Suriat holds my hand. I’m glad he’s been able to survive and escape with us, not only because he’s helping me and Viktor, but also because he’s a good man. He deserves to be happy and free.
Fabric rustles above us, and stronger light filters down. It sounds like Ditakian guards are interrogating our driver, who grunts out that he’s taking bodies from Broken Stone to the city dump, like usual. And he hasn’t seen anything unusual.
Bodies shift over us, and more liquids spill down on me and Suriat, who squeezes my hand again. I gag involuntarily and manage to pull a hand in so I can clasp it over my mouth. I swear I can hear the Ditakians sniffing, and I only hope the stench of the dead is enough to hide my human scent from these guys.
The light is shuttered once more, as the tarp is thrown back over the wagon. It starts up again, creaking and squeaking, swaying, rolling over bumps. I’m holding it for now, but I am going to puke so hard when they let us out.
Never mind the nausea though. What if Viktor has been found in another wagon and taken into custody, or killed? Even if they haven’t found him, what if he’s dying, or already dead?
I just want to look into his fiery eyes, feel his body against mine. I don’t care where we end up, as long as we’re together.
* * *
The wagon tilts, as if we’re ascending a ramp, then it really starts bumping along. Other bad smells filter through, all sorts of bad ones, a veritable medley of disgusting aromas. We must be at the dump.
Raxu voices grunt outside. The tarp is drawn back, and the weight of corpses lessens. Soon a hairy paw is reaching for my hand, and I’m pulled up and out into the hot sunlight. And I take that moment to heave my guts out. Suriat clambers out of the wagon and vomits too.
Wiping my mouth, I take a look around. It’s a dump, a giant one, like a mountain range of trash and who knows what else. Small hills of garbage are in our immediate vicinity. Eremipo’s skyscrapers rear up far in the distance, meaning we must be on the outskirts of the city.
“Emily! Suriat!” It’s Leefa and her kids, running to us. I hold out a hand. “Don’t come too close.” The cloak Tasiman gave me is nasty as all get out, but it’s all I have to cover myself with.
The eldest wrinkles their nose. “You’re smelly!”
Leefa says something in their ear, and the kids settle down but still cover their noses.
“It’s okay, I know I smell terrible. Where’s Viktor?”
“He’s over this way. He’s asking for you,” Leefa says. My heart leaps up, and I almost collapse with relief that he’s alive and awake.
She takes me by the arm and leads me around some of the garbage hills. Viktor is being held up, though not very well, by Slaga. Gerakos and the other surviving fighters are there, too. When Viktor’s eyes meet mine, it’s like a shot of the best drug coursing through my veins. The fire in his eyes goes right to my blood.
“Emlee,” he says. I run to him and hug him, careful not to jostle his wounded arm. “You stink to high heaven.” Slaga grumbles in agreement.
“Suriat and I were buried under a pile of corpses, some of them not very fresh. Of course I stink. Are you still bleeding?”
“I think it stopped. Thanks to you.” He gives me a weary smile.
“Where’s the boat out of this shit castle?” Slaga asks.
A short figure in a cloak appears from behind a garbage hill and hustles towards us. Drawing back the hood for a moment, it’s Tasiman. “Quickly now. Take these weapons. The transport will be here soon.” Tasiman hands out a few energy pistols. The gladiators take them except for Slaga, who claims he doesn’t need one.
“Why didn’t you give these to us earlier?” Suriat asks, while examining a gun.
“Because you would’ve used them when you didn’t need to, and you would’ve brought the entire force of city guards down on us. Out here, you can fire weapons without drawing so much attention. Quickly now, follow me.”
He bustles down a winding, unsteady path, toward a growing source of confused noise. As we follow him, a river comes into view. A big, nasty-looking, slow-moving river with barges and boats on it. All the crew members on these vessels are Raxu, and they are very clearly ignoring our strange party as we approach a shabby dock.
“Watch out!” Gerakos yells, a split second before a shadow passes over, and energy bolts hit the ground around us. We duck down and cover our heads.
“Women and children, keep going,” Tasiman shouts. Leefa shoves her kids down the path, then tries to pull me along, but I only walk a few steps before something in me insists I can’t leave Viktor behind. She gives up and hustles after the kids who are waiting in uncertainty for their mother.
There’s a hovering vehicle gliding above, and somebody’s shooting at us. Slaga takes a hit in the shoulder and drops Viktor, who starts crawling towards me. I crouch down beside a piece of metal and hold my arms out to him.
Then there’s a clinking crashing sound as a crazy net made of chains shoots out and falls on Viktor.
“Gladiators of House Oloran, surrender now,” Sideran’s voice emanates out of a speaker. Motherfucker, he couldn’t let us go, could he? Is he actually up there, or just transmitting from somewhere else?
I crawl over pieces and piles of trash, trying to reach Viktor and hoping I don’t contract alien hepatitis. He groans and pushes at the heavy metal chains on him.
Suriat and the others exchange shots with whoever’s in the vehicle. The bad guys have the advantage because they’re inside that flying tank and don’t have to expose themselves much.
“Give up, Viktor! Give me the human and I’ll grant you a quick death.” The vehicle is now directly over Viktor. Above us, silhouettes of figures emerge, quickly firing, then withdrawing back out of sight.
My beloved turns to look at me, with sorrow in his eyes. No, I will not let him die. He’s going to live a happy life with me. In freedom.
“Gladiators, put down your guns and kneel down.” Our guys refuse, and keep on exchanging shots from behind piles of trash.
I crawl closer to Viktor. The weight on him right now can’t be good for his arm. If I can just help him –
“Emily, once again I make you the proposal. Come with me willingly, or die in suffering.”
Viktor’s eyes flare up, the fire intense. He struggles under the chains and then actually stands up. He grabs one chain and breaks it, then another, and the net falls away around him as he shakes them off. He lifts his head, inflates his chest, and bellows up at the vehicle.
Our guys keep firing as Viktor steps out of the ruined net, towards me. One step, then another. The vehicle shifts so that Sideran’s lackeys can get a clear shot at him.
A piece of metal rocks the vehicle, throwing their shots wide. Slaga, despite the smoking wound on his shoulder, is hurling big chunks of whatever suitable trash he can find.
“Run, you two!” Suriat says.
I scurry over to Viktor and let him lean his good arm on me. We stagger to the boat, shots firing around us, and I can’t believe how heavy he is, or that I can support him at all.
A barge is waiting for us at the dock. A couple Raxu help Viktor get on board into a cabin. Leefa and her kids are already there. I join Viktor on a metal bench. I look back out the door, but the others have not joined us. Shots are still being traded between the vehicle and our gladiators.
We can feel the barge moving. Leefa and I protest, but the door is locked and nobody answers. Viktor slumps off the bench onto the floor. I jump down and check his breathing and pulse. Seems the same as when he’s sleeping. His makeshift bandages have fresh blood oozing out, but not a huge amount. I can’t even do anything because me and my cloak are both completely soiled with crud. He doesn’t need additional infections on top of anything he’s already got.
“He’s just sleeping,” Leefa tells her worried kids. I lie down on the dirty floor with Viktor and try not to cry. We lost a lot of the team in Broken Stone Arena, and now the rest of them are probably going to be killed or captured. They deserved freedom, too. Suriat especially.
It seems like only a short time passes before the cabin door is unlocked and opened. Unfamiliar Raxu come in with coarse sheets and cover us up before letting us go outside. Viktor is lifted with great difficulty by several of the hairy aliens onto a cart, and a sheet goes over him too. We’re still on the river, surrounded by more piles of garbage. We’re taken to another barge that’s pulled alongside, over a flimsy gangway, and into another cabin.
From there the second barge rocks along for some time. Viktor remains unconscious on the cart, which is too small for him and only supports his body to the upper thighs, so his legs would swing freely if I didn’t hold onto them. We’re finally given some Akarpo fruit and a small knife to open them with. I try to get some juice into Viktor’s mouth, but I don’t want him to choke.
Leefa’s poor kids really need to use the bathroom and are doing the pee-pee dance when the barge rocks to a stop. A few moments later someone knocks on the door.
It’s Tasiman again. He refuses to tell us how he managed to rejoin us, or what happened to the people we left behind. Once again we’re hustled out. This time we’re allowed to relieve ourselves, then we get onto a smaller boat. The Raxu even manage to get the cart with Viktor on it, though not without a lot of grunting. The boat takes us to an even shabbier dock.
“Can we rest here?” I ask. Viktor desperately needs to lie still and get some water. Ideally he should get a blood transfusion and fluids through an IV, but none of that is available. “Can I get a needle and thread?” Leefa knows enough to take the kids off a good distance so they don’t have to see some gross field surgery.
Tasiman wrings his hairy paws. “We don’t have much time.”
“Well, if you want Viktor to survive, I need to sew up his wound and take off the tourniquet.”
Tasiman gets the other Raxu to bring us on shore, where the garbage piles have tapered off somewhat and the real desert begins. There’s a fire going, and when Tasiman gives me a needle and thread, I try passing the needle through the fire to sanitize it, not without burning my fingers a little.
But the needle isn’t strong enough to pierce his flesh. We have to wait for Raxu to bring me something almost like an awl and some thick cord. I dangle the awl into the flames and then get to work. It’s a horrible, gory thing to do, and it’s probably going to look like Frankenstein stitches when I’m done. When the lacing is finished, I carefully unwind the tourniquet and use some of that to cover the wound.
Meanwhile Tasiman has boiled some water and after it cools sufficiently, we use it to wet Viktor’s lips. Enough to get some moisture in him without choking him. With some prodding, I finally drink a little water too along with nibbling on a piece of stale polbread. On some level, I can tell I’m exhausted, dehydrated, and starving, with a monster headache, but I’ve been too focused on Viktor to care.
Tasiman insists we start moving again. Now we’ll be hidden in a Raxu trading caravan. There are wagons sitting in the periphery of this little village. With great difficulty, the Raxu get Viktor into a wagon on a bed of dry grasses, and I sit with him. Leefa and her kids pile into another one. The donkey-like Kybeks are hitched up and the wagons roll on.
Viktor still won’t wake up, but his breathing is regular, and he looks much less ashen than before. He’s warmer, too. The Raxu have given me a big scratchy blanket. I curl into his side and draw the blanket over us, and let myself fall into a deep sleep.
36
Chapter 34
Viktor
I’m floating in the sky, jogged by winds to and fro in wispy clouds. The yellow-white sun of Barya warms me, somehow no longer harsh, merely pleasant. I know this is not my peoples’ home world, Kor’Ditak, where the sun is orange. Still, I feel at peace.
Until I realize that Emlee is not with me. Am I dead? Shouldn’t my spirit go to join the Ancestors on Kor’Ditak? What happens to Emlee now? If she’s alive, did she make it to Eletheria? If she’s dead, did she return to Earth?
The sky darkens and Baryon appears in my arms, a star that is hot and glowing like a giant coal in my arms. It doesn’t burn me. The light softens until Baryon becomes a face. Emlee.
“Viktor? Are you awake?”
The winds tug me, insistently, and rain falls on my lips. I don’t want the dream to end. Great Ancestors, let me hold this star that is my mate, let me hold her in my arms forever.
But the winds tug me, and cold rain splashes my face, and my name is called. Reluctantly, I open my eyes.
Emlee looks down at me and kisses me tenderly. We are in a dim place that shakes and shifts. Light pours in from somewhere onto her face. She hugs me, and I feel her warmth again.
Am I alive after all?
“How do you feel? Can you drink some water?”
“Just lie with me,” I say, folding her into my chest with my arms. Or I should say with one arm, because my wounded one doesn’t cooperate very well. Pain is there, but distant.
Emlee’s heart beats next to mine. I can smell her hair and the rest of her. Hear her breath, and feel her warmth spreading through me. My sun, my mate. My true home.
After a moment she wiggles away and brings me water. I hadn’t realized how parched I felt. She only lets me have little sips and then checks my wounded arm. How lucky I am to have such a caring mate.
“You’re already healing,” she says with a little smile. “You’re probably going to get an awful scar though. I didn’t do the best job sewing you up.”
“I will bear your marks with pride,” I answer back. “Where are we?”
“In a wagon, in a Raxu caravan, somewhere in the desert,” she says, stroking my face and giving me little kisses.
“Leefa and her children? Suriat? The others?”
“Leefa and her kids made it. I’m afraid the others stayed behind so that we could escape. We have no idea if D’jhago was able to slip away during the Death Match.”
I try to sit up but she restrains me. “Don’t blame yourself, and don’t do anything to mess up your arm. Tasiman says we’ll try to figure out what happened to the surviving gladiators from House Oloran and if we can rescue them.”
If they’re still alive, I think bitterly to myself. Suriat more than anyone should be with us. He’s practically my brother, and I left him behind to die.
Emlee tells me what transpired during my periods of unconsciousness. For all that I’m an Ardent Warrior now, my body doesn’t protect me from energy weapons if a projectile hits my flesh instead of plate.
If I were fully recovered, I’d love to go back to Eremipo and kill Sideran with my bare hands. But my exhaustion keeps me from serious anger, or being able to formulate a plan.
She mentions that she was able to bathe at one point and get some new clothes when the caravan stopped at an oasis. I would be jealous that she got naked in front of other males (if even just Raxu), but she reminds me of how she was buried under stinking corpses. Well, I’m thankful she only had her wonderful scent, layered with mine, when I woke up. She also tried to clean me with wet rags, since I didn’t smell so great either.
My mate promises we will take a long bath together, and my cock manages to wake up and give a jerk in agreement.
I drift in and out of sleep, Emlee always there with a little water and eventually some dried meat. If it weren’t for the dull ache in my arm and the nagging despair of having left my fellow gladiators behind, this would be quite pleasant. My mate nurses me as if I’m a child, and I let myself feel like a child in his mother’s arms, just for once.
* * *
Within a day I’m able to stand and leave the wagon when the caravan stops. Leefa has to restrain her children from crawling all over me, since I’m still healing. And also, I have to walk behind some bushes and take the longest piss I’ve ever taken in my life.
It’s also the day where Emlee insists on taking the laces out of my wound. I need a stick to bite on, just to withstand the pain as she pulls the cords out. There’s some bleeding, but she wraps the wound again, and the Raxu give me some herbs to chew on. The leaves taste awful but will theoretically help me to recover.
And then I begin to eat and eat and eat. Everything the Raxu give us, even stale polbread and dried fruits and vegetables. The caravan leader seems unconcerned because as he puts it, the coin that Gerakos brought with us from the Death Match has paid for everything and more.
It reminds me that not only did Suriat stay behind, but so did Gerakos, Slaga, and the others that made it through the Corpse Gate. If any of them still live, we have to do what we can to rescue them.
Within three days, the caravan reaches another oasis. I feel so much better. My injured arm now itches rather than hurting. Emlee has changed the dressing a few times over the lacing scars. She’s mentioned that she might have to go back in with a knife if I’m not healing properly.
