Don’t read this chapter if you’re squeamish.

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Chapter 1-5: Pit of Blood

After what feels like hours without any break whatsoever the guards call an end to the labor. “Ya’ll can ‘ave five hours o’ rest until the bouts tomorrow! Is more than ya shits deserve!”

The slaves start dispersing into the various dim tunnels and corners of the deep mines, trying to find what little comfort there is among the rocks, rodents, and pools of blood.

All I can do now is find a dark hovel to sleep inside until morning.

* * *

The next day the guards roughly rouse us all and then herd us back up out of the deep mines with a forced march. When we reach the blood pit they forcefully seat us in the stone stands surrounding the cage.

I can see that fucker Hung up on his dais overlooking the entire cage. “Start the fight Cutter! Don’t make me wait any longer!” He yells down while seated on his throne.

Cutter unlocks the weapons case and lets Cizin select a short-sword and dagger, then sends him in for the day’s first fight. He’s up against a huge, fat Wilder man some 195 cm tall that was given a single long handled battle-axe. He clearly has a good amount of muscle under that layer of fat and his height and body mass both dwarf Cizin.

When they both walk into the cage and the guards lock the gates behind them the crowds start to get rowdy, even the other blood-slaves are joining in. Sadistic degenerates.

Cutter up on his little stone podium yells “Get ta it! Bloodier da betta!” through his makeshift speaker system, which signals the start of the fight.

Fatty makes the first move, charging at Cizin across the cage. When he gets within striking distance and swings the axe downward Cizin deftly parries the axe head with the dagger in his left hand, and with the sword in his right hand he cuts into the abdominal fat of the Wilder.

It’s not deep enough to do much damage though; it’ll just bleed a bit.

This kind of confrontation continues for a while with Fatty swinging his axe towards Cizin and it being parried every time by his dagger while he cleaves into the Wilders fat with his sword.

At this point it almost seems like Cizin is toying with the man. It also looks like he’s enjoying it immensely as his sword cuts into the man, indiscriminately splattering his blood all over the ground with each swing. Starting to think more and more that I just might be the only sane one down here after all.

The Wilder is covered head to toe in shallow lacerations and is starting to foam at the mouth with a frenzied appearance now. When he goes in for another heavy swing of his axe Cizin dodges it with a sidestep and right as the axe hits the ground, with one powerful stroke, he slices the Wilders left arm clean off. It makes an unpleasant, sticky sound as it falls to the ground

It’s very clear to me now that Fatty never stood a chance in hell of killing Cizin. He may be small, but his skill and strength are stunning.

With a loud howl the Wilder tries to bring his axe back from the floor in an upwards swing, but it’s far too late for him. Cizin… impales him right through the heart with his razor-sharp tail. It pierced right through his rib cage in a single swift thrust along with a gooey cracking noise.

Although he hasn’t fallen down yet Fatty is clearly already dead. Cizin is simply holding up his body with his tail, damn it’s much stronger than it looks it should be with how thin it is.

After standing there for a moment completely still, he slowly brings his weapons up to Fatty’s neck and crosses them over it with the sword on the left side and the dagger on the right. With a final sudden movement he decapitates him, sending the head arcing through the air.

I didn’t notice it yesterday, but now I can tell that the entire cage is slightly slanted towards the outer edges and there is a trench around the outside that collects the spilt blood.

I can see it now because so much of Fatty’s blood is pooling on the floor that it’s starting to flow outward into the gutter. It runs off out of the cage on one side and down into the blackness of the deep mines to pool in the depths.

Hung’s booming laughter fills the blood pit. “Truly beautiful Cizin! We think he barely has an ounce of blood left in him! Now where is that pissant boy?!”

Looks like it’s my turn. I’ll have to kill somebody for the first time, but I have no choice. It’s either them or me and I must have the resolve to kill them if I want to make it out of this.

Two of the guards force me into the cage without any weapons and still only wearing a loincloth. Do they expect me to beat him to death with nothing but one bare arm?

No, that’s not it… they just expect me to die. Fucking assholes.

Now that I’m in the cage I can see my opponent. He’s only a boy, not much older than me, and he’s completely covered in old burn marks. He also looks wholly terrified and is shaking.

I didn’t expect this. He doesn’t seem to be like one of the Wilders. I don’t think I would feel bad about killing one of those drooling degenerates, but he’s just a normal person.

However as soon as Cutter yells “BEGIN!” and before I can work up the courage to attempt to kill another person, the boy breaks down and starts crying out in fright and openly weeping. “Please don’t make me fight! I don’t want to do this! No! Let me go work in the mines! I… I’ll work! I-I’ll do it! Please, please, p-please. I don’t want to do this anymore! Let me see momma! Please!”

I hear one of the guards outside the cage laugh coarsely. “Wants his momma does he!” Then he turns to the guard standing by him. “I memba’ dat girly. Was a cute one, least compared ta dat burnt coal’offa son. Where she end up anyway?”

“Oh her, she went ta Lord Magnus few months back. Last I saw ‘er she was missin’ an arm an’ had ‘is child in’er.”

The boy’s getting hysterical now, begging them to let him go, not to make him do this, to let him see his mother again.

“Oh fer fucks…. Who picked the brat fer this fight?! Milord Hung demanded a good show today! Gotta do everythin’ myself….” Then Cutter commands his goons with a wave. “He refuses ta fight. Prepare em for slaughter.”

As soon as Cutter’s goons grab the boy he starts sobbing and wailing even more loudly as his voice raises another octave.

“Wait! Stop! *hic* I changed my mind! I’ll fight. *hic* I’ll fight, I’ll fiiiiiiiiigggggggghttttt!!! Please! I’ll do it! *hic* Please! PLEASE! I’LL FIGHT!!! MOMMY!!! HELP MEEEEE!!! NOOOOOOO!!! GODS NO!!! *hic* MOM!!! MOMAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!” Tears and snot are running down his face as they drag him towards the altar in the middle of the cage.

Seems like it’s too late for him though. Cutter shows no sign of stopping them as his men tie the boy down to the altar. One of them takes out a small syringe filled with a bubbling white liquid and injects the boy with it. His eyes go wide with a frenzied, manic look to them and he starts frantically struggling against the ropes even more than before. He’s clawing so hard at the stone altar with his hands that he’s torn off all of his fingernails and everywhere the rope touches his skin is bleeding profusely.

Looks like its Cutter’s turn now as he’s walking menacingly up towards the altar. He reaches into the boy’s mouth and grasps his tongue, pulling it out with one hand while the other unsheathes a large butcher knife. Then he… slices the boy’s tongue off in one swift motion. The boy’s tongue-less shrieking and gurgling gets rougher and more intense like death itself as he’s half drowning in his own blood.

This… really isn’t something I want to see.

I try to look away, but one of the guards grabs my head firmly and forces me to watch as Cutter uses his knife to systematically cut off all of the boy’s fingers and toes. “You best watch slave. This is what’ll happen to yer sorry ass if ya defy Boss Cutta.” Then he continues. “He always gives’em a nice big dose a stimulant to keep ‘em alive, awake, and feeling every bit a the pain when’e butchers ‘em.”

Every single one of Cutter’s motions looks very practiced like he’s done it a thousand times before. Whenever he cuts off a body part he casually throws it into a large tray that one of his goons is holding.

After finishing with all twenty digits, one of the guards hands him a saw and he starts slowly cutting off all four of the boys limbs one by one and as he carves into them copious amounts of blood gushes out to join the rest of the caked blood on the floor of the cage. The grating sound of the saw cutting through his bones sets my teeth on edge.

After finishing with the limbs he cuts off his ears, nose, lips, and scoops out his eyeballs. When Cutter’s knife starts closing in on the boy’s groin I manage to force my eyes shut despite the guard’s finger’s trying to keep them open.

After a few more minutes, when the boys’ screaming finally stops, I open my eyes again. At this point the corpse is headless and has been eviscerated from groin to neck. His head is off to the side and has been scalped as well as the top of the skull cut off to remove the brain. Cutter is pulling out the last of his internal organs and intestines now.

These people, they aren’t human.

For the first time since I’ve been thrown into this pit I violently heave the contents of my stomach out of my nose and mouth and all over the blood-soaked floor of the cage. Some of the viscous, acidic vomit gets caught in my throat and I choke on it while it burns up through my esophagus, larynx, and the inside of my mouth.

All of the guards and some of the rabid blood-slaves start laughing and jeering at me.

“What’a sissy-bitch!”

“Ya won’t last long down’ere with a stomach like that!”

“You wanna go back to yer momma like em boy?!”

“I bet a week’s rations tha’ he gets gutted in da next fight!”

“Ya don’t like da butcher pit? Maybe you’ll like my cock more later!”

“Got anotha’ cute little lass down here at last! If you don’t die righ’ now I’ll get acquainted with yer cute little pussy later!”

Screw these sick fucks; I’m not going to die down here. I have to be stronger, unyielding.

I’m still queasy and shaking a bit as they bring out another slave to fight me. This one is a young man, maybe 6 or 7 years older than me. ‘Guess that wasn’t enough blood for them yet’ I think to myself.

This one has the crazed look a rabid Wilder about him. I can’t have mercy on him if I want to live, as I doubt he’ll show me any mercy either.

“Oh fer… GET GOIN” ALREADY, SLAVES!” Cutter screams impatiently.

The second Cutter signals the start of this fight I run towards the altar in the middle and kneel by it.

I taunt him to get him mad. “Going to come over here or not, you spineless dipshit?!”

The crazed Wilder runs up to the altar like I want and reaches over it to grab me, but before he can get a grip on me I yank his wrist to unbalance him. As he stubbles over onto the altar trying to catch himself with his arms I grab the back of his head with my hand and start beating his face against the stone.

Crap, I don’t think I’m hurting him very much, I’m not strong enough. Besides a large cut on his forehead he got from the sharp edge of the altar and a broken nose, I’m mostly just pissing him off.

He tries to punch and grab me while his face is getting bloodied, and after a few more hits he gives up trying to grab me and puts power into his feet to jump over the altar and as he does he lands on top of me.

Shit, this is really bad. He’s bigger, heavier, and has both his arms.

Now that he’s on top he’s punching and beating me in the face and chest as I try to claw at his eyes and shift my weight to throw him off me, but it’s not working. I have to do something to get him off before he beats me into unconsciousness; if I black out right now I’m a dead man.

In desperation I reach down to his groin and grasp his genitals as hard as I can like I’m trying to rip them off. He finally stops punching me as he screams out in agony. I manage to get his weight shifted off me as he falls onto his side clutching his groin.

I take advantage of him being distracted by the pain and jump on top of him myself. I grab at his face with my hand, sticking my thumb in his mouth so I can get a grip on him and then I repeatedly slam the back of his head into the blood-crusted rock floor.

I can’t win in grappling with one arm and I don’t have enough strength to kill him by striking him, so my only option is to use his own body weight and the hard ground.

But… SHIT! He just bit off the tip of my thumb! He’s furious with me now. The moment after the pain hits my hand he punches the side of my head hard enough to send me hurdling a meter through the air.

The next thing I know he’s dragging my body towards the wall of the cage; I must have blacked out for a few seconds. Then he hurls me as hard as he can right into the metal bars of the cage wall. The taste of iron pervades my mouth as I cough up a glob of blood and slump onto the ground.

Well shit. Am I going to die here after all? Kind of a pathetic way to go out, I haven’t even been here two days yet.

Just as he’s moving towards me to finish me off my hand touches something hard and roundish that’s not part of the floor. This is… a large rock? Where did this come from? I don’t remember seeing anything in the cage except blood and the altar. Screw it, doesn’t matter; this is just what I need.

As he lifts me up by my neck with the intention to slam my head against the bars and crack me open like a coconut, I smash the rock into the side of his skull with all the strength I have left. Again, again, AGAIN! Fall down dammit, FALL DOWN. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” I scream as I keep hitting him until he clumsily knocks the rock out of my hand.

It worked though. He’s bleeding massively from all over his head. His eyes are also getting a glazed over look to them and he’s stumbling a bit. I throw my weight into him and knock him onto his back again.

He’s on the ground now but I can tell he’s starting to recover. I have to finish him off immediately, but the damn rock is too far away. I have to make sure he’s not going to be able to kill me.

Wait… I do have one thing I can use besides my arm….

I quickly jump on him while he’s still nursing his head and bite deeply into his throat; I need to keep him bleeding and dazed if I want to finish him off.

I can feel my teeth break through his crusty, rancid skin and sink into the flesh of his neck. After I gnaw away at him for a few seconds my face is greeted by a huge spurt of blood. It’s spraying out all over me and the floor now as he’s rapidly exsanguinating. I think I bit through his jugular vein.

After he starts sprinkling the ground with his blood I jump away before he can get ahold of me. I don’t believe I’ll need to do anything else to kill him. That throat wound should bleed him out…. Not dead yet though as he’s getting up again.

I keep my distance as he tries to stagger towards me; he’s very obviously unsteady on his feet now. His expression is hysterical and he’s foaming at the mouth but there isn’t much he can do anymore.

After avoiding the Wilder for about two minutes at last his eyes go dead. With one last squirt of blood from his neck and a throaty gurgle he falls over with a loud thud, joining the other men that have become corpses in this cage.

The blood pit is surprisingly silent, only a few murmurs can be heard as I look around. I see Cizin right by the edge of the cage with a stupid grin on his face.

What’s that asshole so happy about?

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” I yell loudly filling the entire blood pit with my pained voice.

My adrenaline rush is fading….

The last thing I hear as I fall down onto my knees and my world goes dark is Hung’s aggravating, booming laughter right before the crowd starts roaring with a deafening noise.

* * *

“URGH!” I wake up with a grunt as my body impacts the ground. “What the fuck are--“ is all I can get out as I turn around before Cizin interrupts me.

“You’re welcome.” He states in a sardonic tone.

“What for…?” I ask as I rub my face which just hit the ground. Where am I anyway?

“For carrying your sorry ass all the way down here. You passed out after your cage match and weren’t waking up. After they ordered us back into the deep mines if your unconscious butt was still in the blood pit they would have butchered you and served your tasty fleshy bits for Cutter’s dinner.” He explains pointedly. It looks like we’re in the mines now.

“Oh… well thanks then. Maybe you aren’t so bad after all.” Oops, probably should have left that last bit out….

“Gee, good to know you thought so highly of me.” He rolls his eyes at me. “Shut up and get to work before the guards finish what ‘Spurty’ up there in the cage started.”

Well he might not be a bad guy but he’s still kind of a dick…. I do owe him one though. “Thanks again man.”

“Yeah yeah, save it. I’ll still gut you if they throw you into the cage with me so don’t be too thankful now.” He tosses me a pickaxe and points to the guards who are eyeing us.

“Don’t suppose we get a break… I’m still bleeding and he bit off part of my goddamn thumb.” I question hopefully, but don’t think I’m going to get the answer I want to hear….

Cizin just starts laughing his ass off like I said the funniest thing he’s heard all day. Then he turns around and walks off while gasping for air he’s snickering so damn hard. ‘Guess that’s a no.’

At this rate I’m not going to last down here. My injuries before I got thrown in still haven’t healed; I can’t afford to be getting new ones.

Dammit all, I’ve already become a murderer, but this hellhole won’t conquer me. I won’t let it. Fuck Hung and his men. They won’t break me.

As I walk off to start digging again my thought is: ‘Maybe Cizin will teach me how to fight and kill if I ask him.’