For Te.

The First Movement

Nothing truly dies on TreArkh. That was the First Law. But the voice had told him otherwise: that Jayson was the exception to the rule. That he was outside the cycle of eternal recurrence.

That he really could die.

He wasn't particularly keen on testing that theory.

Jayson squinted at the red demon head that lay only inches from his own. One of the eyes was missing, the other yellow and bloodshot. Both the demon's horns had been snapped off, leaving two empty circles of bone above. The left half of its jaw was hanging loose, lending it an awkward sort of grimace.

All in all, it didn't look too happy.

"You look how I feel," said Jayson.

Jayson twisted round to look back towards where he'd been thrown from. As expected that rather unfriendly ogyr he’d met earlier was still approaching. It was dragging a club of ludicrous size behind it haphazardly through the sands. Jayson locked eyes with the ogyr and immediately regretted it.

The ogyr didn't look too happy either.

The ogyr had poured all its power into its upper body and arms, ogyric magic used exclusively to maximise strength and raw power. As a result its body had been monstrously distorted. The ogyr’s brightly coloured clothing did little to offset the pure aggression that now emanated from the creature’s enormous frame. If anything, it was a little disconcerting.

The creature lifted its head, roared, and began to charge straight at him.

Jayson yelped, and managed to roll out of the way as a spiked club the size of a tree trunk came smashing down into the sands where he had been. Using his left hand as a guide, he aimed his right at an angle to the ground and fired off a burst of percussive force, the very last of his reserves. It was just enough to lift him off the floor and land him, rather stylishly as it happened, in a standing position a few feet away. Jayson would have taken a moment to admire his own skill, or, even better, allow others to admire it, but now was probably not the time.

He looked up into the ogyr's bulging right eye, steeled his nerves, and started clapping. The ogyr looked at him quizzically. That is, as quizzically as is possible for a angry ogyr half coated in blood and sand. Jayson seized the moment. Still clapping, he turned and ran.

The arena was at least three hundred feet across, and littered with dead bodies of every kind. Blood of different shades painted a grotesque rainbow over the rocks and sand that formed the arena floor. A flock of small vault drones tailed him as he ran, buzzing quietly as they flew. Despite clapping frantically and running as fast as he could, he took a moment to glance into the seats above. The crowded stands were yelling and chanting together. He noticed that many of them were waving banners with the ogyr’s face on it. That didn’t bode well.

Don't get distracted, Jayson thought. Or you'll die. He turned his focus back to the all-important tasks of running and clapping. He needed a plan.

The bottom of the arena had four large open arches at each point of the compass. Two of them, opposite each other, led to cells which Jayson and the many other, now dismembered, creatures had charged out from. Almost immediately after Jayson had been unceremoniously thrown into the cell with a throng of other warriors, a horn had sounded, and demons, kobles, and other clines had poured out of the gates into the arena. Now only pieces of them remained.

From what he had seen, this one ogyr was responsible for most of that carnage. And now it was out of distractions. Jayson hopped over arms and legs of different colours, swords and spears of all shapes and sizes, broken pieces of brightly coloured armour, and, curiously, several smashed electric guitars as he hurtled towards the edge of the arena.

One of the other arches seemed to lead into the city by way of a closed gate of twisted black iron. Opposite that, the last arch was gateless, and peered out onto the marbled green and blue sky, wisps of cloud flashing past its mouth.

Jayson turned as he ran, towards the wall that curved into the gateless arch. He heard a roar behind him and turned to see the source. The great body of the ogyr was hurtling towards him, bounding on three limbs in a crazed animal gallop. As it came it threw up a wave of sand, stone, blood, and body parts on either side, as though it were a ship cutting through the clouds. Jayson eyes widened, and he turned all his willpower to his legs, flinging himself headlong towards the wall of the arena. He was less than careful, clapping more haphazardly, and using every stumble to throw himself further away from the monster bearing down on him.

He needed all the speed he could get and willed himself to keep accelerating despite his exhaustion. Jayson had survived the combat so far mostly by staying out of it and avoiding being seen, using only an occasional burst of force to manoeuvre out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, those small expenditures had added up; his amulets were running on empty, and so was he. Jayson winced. There was only one way he could think of to refill the amulets quickly, but damn was it going to hurt.

When the wall was about ten feet away, Jayson stopped clapping and lifted both his hands up and splayed out his fingers so that the square amulets tied to his hands would be the first thing to hit the wall.

He slammed into the wall palm first, and his whole body quickly followed, crashing into the large redstone bricks that made up the arena wall. The amulets thrummed with energy, absorbing most of the force. His forehead and his right leg took the rest of the impact, and he found himself kneeling on the floor, the sand spinning around him.

He looked around at exactly the right moment to stare directly into the wide, bloodshot eyes of the ogyr, only seconds from crashing into him. With no time to think of any other course of action, he twisted both arms behind him and fired a measure of percussive force at the wall.

Jayson hurtled on his knees across the sand, leaning back and skidding through the narrow gap between the ogyr’s legs. He couldn’t help but grin in his woozy state. It was a rush to used the amulets like this.

Before his skid had finished, a huge crash sounded behind him: the sound of the ogyr hitting the wall. So far so good. Well, not exactly good, but at least he wasn’t dead. Yet. Jayson span upwards into a standing position, mentally checking his body for serious injuries. He was sore all over, but it didn’t seem like anything had been broken. He put his hand to his aching forehead and felt a welt there, wet with blood, that smarted to the touch. Wincing, he turned back to the mess of ogyr and wall that lay in front of him.

The ogyr, in its wild stampede, had knocked out a small section of the wall, scattering sand and fragments of brick all around. It rose up slowly nursing its head, and started rooting around the sandy floor, presumably searching for Jayson’s corpse.

“Miss me?” Jayson said.

The ogyr turned around with alarming speed and such a shocked expression on its face that Jayson almost laughed out loud. He turned over the options in his head. Clapping wouldn’t do any good now – the carvings on his amulets were already pulsing white light and staring out at the world vacantly after his kneeling skid stunt. He would need to exhaust the stored energy before he could accumulate more.

“I’m not going to die here”, he said gritting his teeth. “Not here. Not now.” He clenched his fist and took a deep breath. There was only one option left.

He’d have to get lucky.