“Is this the Crumblelands?” Gray asked, gazing about the ruined city around him.

  Settie laughed and laughed, until she was wiping at her eyes. “Hardly. The Crumblelands, as you call them, are a thousand miles east of Cradleport. You are ten thousand miles south, in the Belly of the World. Besides, there is no magic in the Crumblelands, not anymore, precious Gray. It’s as dead as Cradleport and all of the Nursery Islands. It lies on the equator, and hence, there is no mana.”

  It was a week later, and he was finally outside, enjoying the early morning sunshine. The air was still cool, but so dry. The ocean was several hundred miles away, according to Captain Settie, who he was trusting more and more. He didn’t know what she wanted, and they still hadn’t talked about what she’d called the kill squads.

  They hadn’t talked much about anything. Both of them were focused on him getting better. Yellow, that kind dog, was a better companion. He had such expressive brown eyes, and Yellow was always checking on him, to make sure he was okay. If Gray fell, Yellow would bark and bark, until Settie came.

  Settie carried three rough iron swords, from small to long, and set them in a rack in the middle of the weed-cracked street. Her manor was close to the Hellbinder, which was at least a thousand feet high, if not two, rising high into the sky.

  In the early morning, Gray thought he heard the bustle of a market, but no, it couldn’t be. On the other side of the wall was the Weeping Well. He thought it might be a demon market, maybe, with demonic, brightly colored animals, selling their wares. It was a thought that made him smile.

  He pointed. “What is that?”

  Way in the distant, across the tops of the houses, he could see what looked like a spire. Most of the time, it was lost in the heat of the haze. He still didn’t understand how there could be rain and snow in such a dry, hot place but he had very little experience with deserts.

  Settie sighed. “I want you focused on the training, precious Gray. For now, the simple answer is that it is the Second Pylon, keeping the Weeping Well closed. There were seven pylons for generations, completely sealing off the gateway to hell. Then, two hundred years ago, there was some…trouble.” Settie turned away. She stood quietly with her back to him for a long time. Wheeling, she raised her voice in frustration. “You see? One question leads to a thousand questions. It is not time for you to understand everything. I need you focused on one thing, and one thing only.”

  “Getting stronger,” he said grimly. “I had given up hope. I had friends who were strong.”

  Settie turned. “Like Carter.”

  “Poor Carter,” Gray whispered. He felt his new heart beat faster. It was a miracle. He didn’t feel dizzy, or weak. He only felt ashamed and angry. He raised his own voice. “Let’s not talk of Carter, or of the Battle Royale, ever again, shall we?”

  “Then stop asking me questions. Trust that all will be revealed in time.”

  “Once I’m strong enough.”

  “Yes.” She took the biggest sword, as tall as Gray, and she wielded it like it was a toothpick. Yellow energy leaked out of her core, swirling through her muscles. It was eerie, and yet, it was also beautiful. That magic gave her so much strength.

  He wanted to ask where other people were. He was in a vast city. Had the demons killed everyone? Why were they so alone?

  He didn’t dare ask her, though, because he didn’t want to talk about Carter or the Battle Royale.

  “Can you wield this?” She pushed the giant sword into his hands.

  He dropped it. “Wielding a sword you can’t life makes fighting rather difficult. Funny how that works.”

  She tried with the other two swords, but they both ended up in the dirt.

  He winced. “We should start with a bokken, Captain. I know the forms.”

  She gave him a quizzical look. “How do you know the forms?”

  “I am a battle-tested servant of the Arena.”

  Her curiosity turned to amusement. “You had the one battle, surely. But were there others?”

  He shook his head. “I only needed to win that one fight, but I’ve been training my entire life. Well, I started every training at least.”

  Her amusement became pity. “And then you had to sit down and watch.”

  He nodded. “But everyday, I started with the forms. Every single day. I didn’t miss one.”

  “If you did, they would’ve tested you again, to see if you were worthy.”

  “I made sure I was worthy,” Gray shot back. “My life depended on being useful, and I was. Or Master Kreef would’ve figured out a way to kill me. It wouldn’t have been hard. Life in the Arena is cheap.”

  She laughed, softening again. Her moods changed so very quickly. “Yes, I know all about your Master Kreef. Word has it that what he lacks in imagination he makes up for cruelty.”

  If she knew his boss, it meant Captain Settie had spent a lot of time Cradleport, but why? Gray thought he knew, but of course, he couldn’t ask. The dragon woman didn’t like questions.

  Settie gave him a thin stick.

  “Let us see your forms, then, precious Gray.”

  He went through the attack forms first. Then he went through the defensive forms.

  She watched, nodding, as sweat drenched him.

  When he was finished, he stood there, gasping. The stick seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.

  “This is good. Since you know the forms, all you need is conditioning. I am very pleased, Grayson Fade. Very pleased indeed.” For the first time, she seemed unbelievably happy. Her smile was brighter than the sun, and he watched as her skin flipped from simple flesh to black scales. It was like when Yellow shivered and shook himself.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  The dog was sitting at the end of the street, keeping watch. Being outside, he had turned from friendly puppy to watchful guardian.

  “Where are all the people?” Gray asked. He then raised a hand. “Never mind. Yes. I need conditioning. I need to be strong to handle the truth of these ruins. Good thing the Hellbinder is there, keeping us safe, right?

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything more.

  He took the stick from him and put it next to the swords in the rack. “We have found a way forward. We’ll run, of course, and we’ll have you do pushups and hang kicks, and belly forwards, sometimes called crunches. We’ll have you sweating and grunting every day and in every way.”

  “In every way?” He grinned. “Sounds fun.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What is the one rule I’ve given you so far?”

  “No questions.” He laughed at her glare. “Oh, right, the other rule. No sex with anyone I don’t want to bond with until the end of time. I’ll have to make trips back to Cradleport for that.”

  Her mouth disappeared into a line. “We’ll have to push you. You have the instincts for combat but not the muscle. If we build the muscle, you just might survive the Testing, but what I really need is your core stronger. And yet, if you can’t protect yourself, if you die, then the power of your core won’t matter. It is a dilemma.”

  “We’ll train both,” Gray said.

  “Yes. Yes, we will.”

  That first day, they only ran around the block. To call it running would’ve been a kindness. It was more of a light jog. He still hugged and puffed as he passed rows of disintegrating houses, noting that their mansion was in rather good shape compared to the others.

  No gluttony lizards or lust crows bothered them.

  Settie hammered a bar into place between houses, and he hung from it, but only for about twenty seconds. She wanted him to do kicks, while hanging from the bar, but there was no way he could. He couldn’t even get his feet up a couple of inches. Pullups were also impossible. He did do one pushup, but that put him in bed for the rest of the afternoon.

  That evening, she had her usual meats, cheeses, and bread, but along with it was a single brown muffin, bursting out of the paper baking cup.

  He was groggy from his nap, and thought a cup of charbrew would go very well with the treat. “A muffin, Captain? It’s not frycake, but it is a nice little sweet.”

  “It’s not a muffin,” she said archly. “It’s an ironbite. It will give you mana. If you have a gluttony resonance, we will know. If you don’t, we will know that too.”

  “It looks good. Do I eat regular food first? Or do I go right to the ironbite?” He was wide awake now, and ready to eat. He’d never been so hungry. That made sense, since he’d never been able to exercise that much in his life. He generally lost consciousness before the real sweating started.

  “Normally, precious Gray, it wouldn’t matter. But let’s have you start with the ironbite. You might have a strong reaction, and I’ve cleaned up after you enough for one lifetime.”

  Settie had charbrew for them both. Twice a day? Despite her claims of pervert, she had to be rich.

  They sat across from each other. There was a formal dining room, but being two people and a dog, the kitchen table was just fine.

  Gray sipped his sweet charbrew, and then unwrapped the ironbite. It was made from a dense, solid dough. Inside were raisins. He hoped they were raisins. He couldn’t ask. No sex and no questions, not for the dragon woman.

  “It looks like a muffin,” he said.

  “It’s not. It’s an ironbite. Take a bite, chew, and swallow. You watched gladiators train. Did you not watch them eat?”

  He nodded. “Out of a trough somedays. We had smack gravy, which was meat, grease, milk, and flour. They would eat it on thick biscuits, gallons of gravy, trays of biscuits, and the manners, dear captain, the manners were atrocious. Old Agatha would’ve died. You dared not talk with the gladiators while they were eating, or they would spray you with food. Worse yet, they ate with their elbows on the table.”

  The captain’s normally dark brown eyes gleamed a bright red. “Eat.”

  “Will it give me mana?”

  “No. It will aid in the absorption of mana. Eat!”

  He steeled himself and took a bite. It tasted like sawdust, and yes, those were raisins, but the dried fruit didn’t help the muffin taste better. He chewed and chewed and chewed. Swallowing took several minutes.

  That amused look was back on Captain Settie’s face. “Oh, my precious Gray, you are so new. How do you feel?”

  He raised a finger, swallowing again and again.

  Once he got it down, he immediately had to drink charbrew to get some of the sawdust texture out of his mouth. He went to talk, but he couldn’t. That thing lay in his belly like a bloated frog, and he kept having to muffle his burps.

  The nausea hit, and head to sit there with his eyes squeezed shut. He couldn’t talk.

  The captain’s familiar voice soothed him. “It is not sitting well, I think. Breathe. Breathe through the nausea. It will subside. Focus on the warmth of the raisins, the sunshine on them, the full grapes that bring wine, that bring fruit, but then, as the sun fills them, they shrink, growing in sweetness and power. It is the sunshine in you. Focus on that. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. You have a powerful heart. I went to extreme lengths to give you the strongest heart a human can have. Trust in that heart. Trust in my voice. And breathe.”

  Gray had seen orchards before, he’d had wine, grapes, and raisins. How could he turn that nausea into sunshine?

  It felt impossible.

  Then he thought of Oma, her shack on the water, the glow of the light around her doorway and in the window. There was the chuckle of water lapping against the bank of her little island. Did he know what her island looked like? No, but he knew it was there. There was dark loam there, and soft grasses growing there, and flowers, such flowers. Big red roses that looked like they might burst. He smelled them, and they smelled even better than the frycake and charbrew.

  Slowly, the nausea faded away, and he felt the glow of the ironbite in his belly, spreading out. He opened his eyes and saw his hands glowing with that yellow light. He touched his belly, and felt the swirling power there.

  He smiled. “I can feel it doing something to my core, Captain, but I can’t take another bite. I’ll throw up.”

  She frowned. “This is going to take forever, Gray. I am not pleased. You have to push yourself.”

  He leveled his gaze at her. “Are you willing to clean up after me? I wouldn’t want Yellow to get at it.”

  “Yellow wouldn’t eat your puke, Gray. It’s not food you ate. It’s an ironbite.” She sniffed. “And you thought it was a muffin.”

  “I’m starting to hate you, Captain,” he said lightly. He was feeling better, but he still didn’t want to try anymore of the mana-infused food.

  “Good,” she whispered. “Cling to that hate. It will help you in the weeks ahead. We are just starting, precious Gray. Millenia ago, I loathed my teacher…until I loved her enough that it broke both of our hearts.”

  “Is that your sorrow?” Gray asked.

  Settie shook her head and a tear trailed down her cheek. “If it was only that, dear, dear Gray. If it had only been just that.”

  Yellow went still, and for a second, Gray could feel the dog’s fear. The air in the kitchen turned tense. Then, the house shook with a demonic roar. The air around them cracked and popped. The walls trembled as the air was filled with yellow sparkles.

  Another roar brought more showers of sparks.

  Settie shot up. “Go upstairs. Pray my wards hold. They should, after all I’ve done to strengthen them after the unfortunate gluttony lizard inscident.”

  “Why shouldn’t your wards hold?” Gray laughed, remember how much she hated questions. “If you say such cryptic things, Captain, I’m going to fucking ask what in the fuck is going on.”

  “A Pride Serpent. A big one. It shouldn’t have been able to escape. Things are more dire than I first thought.” Settie charged out of the room, her hands glowing with yellow light.

  Gray got up, but that muffin in his belly was still glowing. It made him feel drunk. He then realized something. He was feeling too dizzy not to ask his questions. “This house is a fucking wreck, and the whole town is in ruins, completely deserted. I know that the Belly of the World is a crowded place. It has to be because this it’s where all the magic and dragons are, right?”

  Settie turned, and the house shook again. Whatever was outside was massive. It had to be because its roar sounded like a hundred seacows, stranded on a beach, during mating season, all howling at once.

  The captain’s face lost all color.

  Gray found her fear a bit terrifying. “Which side of the Hellbinder are we on, Captain? We’re on the side closest to hell, aren’t we? Aren’t we?”

  Settie didn’t reply. She turned and ran out of the door.

  Yellow, though, took hold of Gray’s tunic and pulled him down the hallway. It was clear that the dog knew that whatever the Pride Serpent, neither he nor Gray could fight it.

  It was up to the dragon woman to save them.