Dally would be beaten bloody in an hour, and be happy about it. That was what he thought as he stepped out of the tunnel, swamped by a wave of cheers from the crowd. An acrid cloud of smoke hit him from a thousand cigarettes. The crowd swelled, ocean-like, pointing into the spotlight where Dally stood illuminated. The gold thread on his robe glowed. He grinned at them all, even while jogging to keep pace with Boss Yaral. When they reached the cage, Dally shrugged off his robe and stood, with outstretched arms, bathing in the love of the crowd. This was how gods felt, wrapped in smoke and light.

They weren’t here for him, though. Across the ring, a far louder cheer rattled the windows as it cascaded through the stands. The light panned across the cage, dropping Dally into darkness along with the crowd.

The other fighter wasn't scary looking, for a four-year champion. Like Dally, he didn’t have too much of the devil in this form. A sweetly human face was ruined only by grooves, to account for the snake-like stretch of his jaw, and yellow eyes. Those eyes were big, though, like a cow’s, and almost looked innocent. He was as clean-shaven and trim as the thralls on the war bond posters. Dally would have shaved like that, maybe, if someone spared him the blades.

The phonocast screeched the name Seth Greenlees; reigning champion of the western counties for the last five years. By now the crowd was standing. Even the magi in front, their seal earrings glittering as they craned their necks.

Seth was who they came to see. That was okay. Dally was looking at the champ too, trying to hide his awe behind gritted teeth. It was faker than usual, his dumb-mad-fighter expression. There was no way Dally could actually beat this guy, but getting ruined by him was an opportunity in itself; a leap above the small ring he’d come up from. If Dally looked good in the fight, he’d get better training and food, a chance to make something of himself. Maybe Seth would actually say something to him, like ‘that sucked less than I thought’.

He shook himself out of the fantasy - it was time to change. A shiver rippled the skin on Dally’s back, he stretched his neck forward to pop the spines loose. The nearest men in the poor seats were leaning away from him, staring up as bone and muscle crunched above them. These urmage labourer types probably thought a thrall would rip their heads off. That was part of their fun - sitting where he could reach and grab them. Dally fixed his eyes carefully on the cage. Looking at them was asking for trouble. They were scared enough with him standing there breathing steam, shaking the squirrelly feeling out of his limbs.

In the other corner, Seth was also done putting himself back together, already glowing with sweat. It was hot under the lights.

Dally had never seen him except in pictures. Now, he had to stare, because it was like looking at a better, more dangerous version of himself. Same razor-edged tail, a little too long and heavy. Both of them hunched slightly, with clawed hands hanging past their knees. Even with that hunch, Seth had a half-foot on him. His crest spines brushed the wire ceiling of the cage. He looked heavier than Dally too - maybe another fifty pounds of muscle, sliding under shark-slick skin. Thin, silvery scars glowed under the lights, criss-crossed by shadows from the chain-link cage. He had no real deformities, though, which made Dally briefly cross his arms over the mound of scar tissue under his ribs. Baby Seth hadn’t needed fixing, he came out just perfect.

The one thing Dally had on him was teeth. The champ’s were scarlet, but it was a lacquer, and chipped on the points from gnawing. Dally’s sprouted naturally red right from the black pits of his muzzle. They were lucky teeth.

Dally had held his hands out to be taped as he thought, but when he looked down, they were still bare. Yaral’s assistant trainer had a look on his face like Dally was stupid and snorted as he swung out of the corner. When Dally glanced at the other corner, he saw no-one was taping Seth either, hands or feet. With his feet unbound the ends of his scythe-claws arced just above the floor.

Dally stooped to speak to Yaral. His own voice sounded rough to him, too quiet.

“Am I missing something?”

“Dally… you thought you could stay out of blood matches forever?” Yaral clapped a fatherly hand on his back, avoiding the spines. “You just play the game best you can, alright? You’re a good boy. Good fighter. Okay?”

Dally’s breath rushed into his lungs. He couldn’t stop his eyes from blinking too fast. The lights were swelling above the cage, burning brighter and brighter. This was why it was a large crowd — the biggest show was on. They got to see the returning champ gut a second-tier nobody. Yaral was looking at Dally, waiting.

“Sure, boss,” Dally said.

Seth was pacing his corner like a caged tiger, moving in and out of shadow. Scythe claws tapped on concrete, and he grinned so the crowd could see a second row of teeth.

“You need a written invitation?”

“As if you can write,” Dally yelled back, automatic.

The crowd cackled at their bullshit, but Dally barely heard it through the roar of his own pulse in his ears. He drifted to his own corner, bouncing on his feet as the gate rattled shut behind him. Whenever his claws touched concrete, they flinched back to safety up by his ankles.

On the phonocast they were now talking Dally up like he was something to watch; rising contender and favourite from the dry rings; fourteen feet tall and thirteen hundred pounds. Seth’s introduction was longer. Much longer. It was a slow blur, right up until the siren. Dally caught a flash of painted teeth before Seth smashed into him, and the world spun.

Dally landed on the bottom and writhed, hissing as claws raked down his side. He blindly clamped his teeth on the nearest flesh, rewarded with a hot rush of blood in his mouth. Things happened that he didn’t understand. There was an arm around his neck, another twisting his shoulder until he could feel something like cords snapping. Seconds passed, of being shredded and biting again and trying to twist away.

When the siren rang at the end of the round, he was still underneath. Seth bounced up with his arms raised, howling into the wave of cheers. Dally stayed flat and panting on the concrete. He lashed his tail out to roll, but once he was on his stomach he just lay there, mouth spilling blood on the floor. There were sharp lines of pain down his back and sides where the Seth had clawed him, and his shoulder leaked blood from a deep bite.

Dally remembered that he’d bit, too. When he squinted up into the light he saw there was a red wash the whole way down Seth’s back, trailing from the curve between neck and shoulder.

“Hey,” someone said, “get up.”

Dally snarled, faint, as he pushed himself off the concrete. He swayed as he stood, squinting through a whorl of black.

The referee put a silk-gloved hand on Dally’s chest, shoving until he staggered towards his corner. “Atta boy.”

Dally didn’t notice Yaral had come up behind him until a bucketload of water crashed over his head. He yelped, shocked, and watched it drain red into the cage gutters. An assistant smeared styptic powder into his wounds and Dally tipped his head back, panting.

Okay. He was alive, for some reason. Seth hadn’t touched him with his scythe claws, and he easily could have; Dally had spent the whole round on his back, his stomach wide open. That meant the champ’s job was to drag this out, make it a real show. And Dally, if he was being honest, had forgotten that his own un-taped claws existed. Maybe Seth had been counting on that, too.

When the siren blared again Dally screeched, but stepped aside to let Seth rush. The chain link rattled as he bounced off, and then they were circling, wary. Dally’s hands felt awkward, somehow, and he realised that he was making fists. Stupid. This was a grappling game. He tightened the fists, lips parting in a red-toothed grin.

“You think you’re hot shit, huh?”

Seth snorted. “I’m gonna eat that tongue first-”

Dally got a punch in before Seth caught his arm, and then another one before they crashed together. Down and rolling, it was uglier than before, sweaty and jagged with broken spines. Dally wound up on the bottom again, and stayed there.

When the bell sounded this time, Seth didn’t let go. He snarled into Dally’s arm, sinking his teeth deeper. From under him, Dally had a good view as a trainer stood over them with a piece of copper pipe and casually snapped it against the side of Seth’s skull. Seth yelped, his jaw going slack. He left Dally behind, glaring as he backed into his corner.

Three more rounds passed like this. Dally was getting slower, leaking from gashes all down the front of his body. In between bouts he slumped against the wire, trying to remember what he was doing here.

He was losing. On purpose, but also because he couldn’t do anything else. Each round Seth got more smug, and less wary of this dumb-shit dry ring fighter who didn’t use his claws. Dally figured the champ would string this along for at least eight rounds – a good length. This meant Dally had another three rounds of beating to get through. Then he’d do… something.

Next round Seth put a hole below his rib cage. He dug in with a scythe claw and used it like a hook to pin him down. While Dally writhed Seth grinned by his ear.

“You done yet, smartass?”

“No,” Dally said. “Please-”

Seth’s claw slid deeper until Dally howled. His own frantic scratching felt pathetic, even when Seth’s skin was collecting under his nails. Panicking, he finally kicked up with a scythe claw and felt a brief jolt of relief as the tip snagged flesh. Seth twisted, eel-like, so that the claw slid harmless down the side of his body. The champ snarled and clamped his jaws on Dally’s throat. Dally stopped breathing.

The bell rang, and this time Dally needed a nudge from the ref’s boot to get him up. He did get up though, gasping, and limped back to the corner with fingers pressed to his side. While he had been worrying about being gutted or choked, Seth had torn a long line down his thigh with the other claw. Dally hadn’t even felt it. The new gash leaked in dull, red pulses.

Dally spent the break on the ground with his back against the fence, heaving air in. He had about two more rounds before Seth wanted to end this, but what if he couldn’t move by then? Dally's tail struck the fence once, and he hunched forward to rub hard at his face. Red spots danced behind his eyelids.

The next round Seth circled him, cheerful, tapping his claws. His smile crumpled as Dally’s leg buckled.

Dally’s fall was as ugly and real as he could make it. Claws and spines snagged on the fence in a metallic jangle. Dally sprawled out, and Seth appeared over him, a yellow-eyed shadow with bright teeth.

“Get up.”

Dally only blinked up at him, bleary-eyed. The floor was comfortable, cold against the hot scrapes on his back. He fake-coughed once, which turned into a real coughing fit, burning his throat. Blood slowly warmed the concrete underneath him.

A kick thumped against his wounded side, making him hiss.

“Bitch, I know you can stand,” Seth said, “saf bitch, come on.” Another kick. And again. Dally made a lazy attempt to drag himself up the fence, then let himself sprawl boneless on the floor.

By now the crowd had pitched up into one, long scream. ‘Blood!’ Someone yelled, starting a chant that rippled through the stands. Seth’s eyes flickered back to his own corner, lip twisted in a snarl. His trainer was watching in silence, a hand in his pocket. This wasn’t enough for them; they barely went six rounds.

Seth tried picking him up and snarled when Dally crumpled to the floor. He tried hooking a claw in a hole and yanking. Nothing. Eventually Seth stood stiff, lost, looking back to the humans in his corner. He didn’t shrug, but there was a visible hunch in his shoulders that read ‘what the hell do you want?’

That was when Dally wrapped his tail around Seth’s leg. It was easy. He dragged him down, flailing, and gutted him.

Dally had never sunk a scythe claw into something alive before. It peeled open the flesh of Seth’s belly, causing Dally to pause in confusion as the body beneath him dissolved into hot, wet stickiness. Seth was screeching now; a high pitched, raw sound Dally had never heard come out of a thrall’s mouth. He himself was grinning for some reason, lips stretched back around red teeth. Eventually, Seth stopped thrashing. With all the power drained from his muscles he was heavy and liquid-soft. Dally hissed blood, suddenly alone. The champ’s eyes were still wide open, surprised, staring at nothing. This was what a dead body looked like.

Bile rose in Dally’s throat, along with a giddy rush – he wasn’t dead.

Distracted by his thoughts, Dally had kneeled over the body, maybe wanting to get a closer look. He tore into Seth’s shoulder with his teeth, ripping away a chunk of meat.

—--

In the tunnel, Dally changed form with one bloody hand braced against the wall, adding to the stains already on the plaster. His human body was colder, shakier. Seth’s blood looked worse on his smooth human skin, turning sticky between his fingers as it dried. He scraped at it with his nails, but barely any came off.

Yaral watched and waited with hooded eyes, leaning on the same wall. He’d taken out a rune pen, the glass chamber sloshing blue as he tapped it restlessly on his hand. Dally could only watch out of the corner of his eye, as the last of his spines sank under his skin. It was a relief when Yaral drew back a hand and snapped it hard across his jaw. Dally staggered on his bad leg, panting as he caught himself.

Yaral straightened the gold rings on his fingers, his face frozen somewhere between rage and confusion.

“You killed him.”

Dally swallowed, the taste of blood and fat lingered. “Sorry, boss-”

“Fuck.”

It was easy to see why he was pissed. The champ had been worth a hell of a lot more than Dally, and whatever deal Yaral had made for the fight was ruined. A long second passed while Dally stared dully at the ground in front of his feet. The pen hovered in the edge of his vision, a promise.

“Yeah, you’re sorry, huh.” Yaral said, eventually. “Next time use your head.”

He turned to stalk away, expecting that Dally would follow. Which he did, limping to catch up. The hole in his thigh dripped steadily, but he could walk okay. Okay was a lot better than expected. He had killed Seth Greenlees, and when he blinked, he could still see the empty eyes, the wet gleam of spilled intestines. Dally hadn’t thought he would eat him, but he had done that too. Now in this weaker form his gut ached. He had managed to tear off most of the meat before Yaral got him off the corpse – hot, bloody gulps that he barely chewed.

After a minute, Yaral stopped tapping the pen and slid it back into the breast pocket of his overcoat. Dally let out a low breath. As they walked, he found the boss still staring at him. Slow, up and down.

“Make sure Ingham cleans you up when we get back,” Yaral said. “You’ve got an inspection tomorrow. Clean, alright?”

Dally blinked, remembering the smiling mage by the ring, the family crest in gold thread on his sleeve. Yaral’s mercy made more sense now - he didn’t want to mark the stock. Dally was up for sale.