Kasar awakened to the screams of the Bronze City. Bronze no longer, but a blazing pyre of bloody liberty. He knew exactly what was happening as he propped himself with his elbows. The slaves he’d freed had taken to the streets and no one was safe. Akonai was dead. Oshi, Rhind, and Xinobu too. He didn’t know them half as well as he’d like. Now he never would. Beregar had lost an arm. Sipha was out there somewhere.

  He saw droves upon droves of bodies. Men, women, and even children begging for mercy as the people they spent years watching fight, bleed, kill, and die now loom over them. Kasar listened as a mother fought, her baby ripped free from her arms and tossed into the fire. He winced and sobbed as Sipha herself cuts the woman’s gullet open and move onto the next batch of poor souls.

  Poor souls?

  Kasar almost laughed. Had it been Sipha’s child, Beregar’s child, Vorza’s child, would they have done any different? Was it owed? Vorza’s hand fell on Kasar’s shoulder.

  Kasar flinched, but saw his mentor’s eyes. His mentor’s eyes. Not the creature he faced before. Vorza’s eyes held sorrow in them that Kasar couldn’t respond to. He only held his mentor’s arms and pierced together what had happened based on the scars and pain he felt on his body. He’d snapped out of the trance. He’d saved Kasar in dying moments skewered by his mother’s saber.

  They sat near the entrance of the pits where more bodies lay strewn about. Hundreds of Bronze Guard and thousands of soldiers all slaughtered. He gasped at the number of freed slaves also dead. They died fighting. They died free. Now the survivors butchered the city.

  Vorza and Kasar watched from the hill where the pits stood a city caught in the fire and blood of its own making. The gravity of tragedy shattered any hope and scope Kasar held in his heart. In his fatigued and hurting state of mind, he could only watch in beautiful horror.

  Bodies flung from roof tops. Bodies cast into the fire. He heard vaguely through all of the carnage, Beregar’s wild warcries as he hounded down civilians and soldiers alike, hewing a bloody path through them, singing, laughing, screeching all the while. The bloody stump where his arm used to be now bore a metal spike plunged through his gory limb. He skewered through people as if it was a spear he held.

  Some gladiators forced civilians to fight each other. Others forced them to simply execute one another.

  Akonai City would never recover from this. As far as future cartographers were concerned, the city was a splotch in the middle of a vast desert.

  “They should stop,” said Kasar, his voice feeble compared to the depravity before him.

  “But they won’t,” said Vorza. “And you can’t stop them.”

  Kasar tried to stand, but Vorza held him down.

  “I won’t let you,” he said.

  Kasar decided he would try and stop them. He shoved Vorza’s hand aside and limped over to the bloodshed. Sweat dribbled down his brow from the heat of the city despite the desert night. He walked past gladiators he’d supped with and trained with now turned into animals. They hacked their way through people and Kasar approached them, saber drawn.

  “Hail Grimblade!” cried one.

  “Hail Grim!” cried another, hacking down with her axe into a woman’s head, and cackling, spitting, and singing.

  “Stop this madness!” cried Kasar. He grabbed their weapons and tossed them aside.

  They glared at him, confused, irritated.

  Sipha approached from behind. He turned to face her. She was covered in a thick layer of blood and mud. A wide grin lay plastered on her face and she grabbed Kasar’s hands and spun him around to dance.

  He wrenched his hands free.

  She stared at him, hurt and stunned. “Grim?” she asked. “We’re free! Just like you said.”

  Around Kasar more people died and a sick repulsiveness rose from within him. He caused this. In a way he caused this madness. “You need to stop. You’re free. So get out of here. Start a new life.”

  Sipha shook her head and scoffed. “These bastards took my mother, my father, my sisters…” she faltered and Kasar realized she had more. So many more to list. “I am going to carve every one of them apart.”

  Kasar seized her by her shoulders. “Leave, Sipha! It is done. No more need to-”

  She pushed his hands off of her, his hands slick with the blood of her slain enemies. “You’re delusional, Grim. This is owed to us. These bastards watched for years.” She spat at a corpse. Kasar couldn’t even recognize whose it might have been, civilian or freed slave. “They had this coming. They just didn’t know it.”

  Before she could join more of the carnage, Kasar snatched her wrist and pulled her back. “No,” he growled. “Enough.”

  She cut into his forearm to have him unhand her. “I can’t believe I…” She broke off from her sentence and Kasar frowned. “Get lost, Grim. She dove back into the fray and if anything fought with more hate, more cruelty, and more zeal.

  Kasar stepped back from it and closed his eyes. However, he couldn’t shut off his ears. He had to listen to the destruction of this city for as long as it took.

  Vorza approached from behind and draped an arm around his shoulders. “We should leave, lad,” he said. “I need a student. You need a mentor. What say we stick together for a while and find ourselves some safer ground.”

  Kasar gave a small nod.

  “You did what you could,” said Vorza. “More than what most can say. More than what I could say.”

  Vorza led Kasar away from the carnage. Away from the pits. Kasar ignored the chants of his name. The bellows of his deeds. And the warcries of a bloody freedom.

  However, Kasar felt something was missing. He turned to Vorza. “Why let this happen?”

  Vorza grumbled and pinched th bridge of his nose. “Kasar…” he droned. “We can’t stop them-”

  “But we can save them,” snapped Kasar.

  “This stubbornness should have some limit, lad.”

  “Listen to me, Vorza,” said Kasar, planting his feet in the dirt. “How many city states are there with these pits?”

  “Dozens,” said Vorza.

  “So our work is not done.”

  “Our work?” asked Vorza. “What in the fates’ do you think you are, lad?” roared Vorza. His fists clenched and unclenched. “You’re not some hero. You’re a boy who learned of a dead culture from parents who died for that same culture. Stop trying to follow them!”

  Kasar dug his feet deeper and flashed Vorza a dry smirk. “I am going to finish my work. I am a Devil.”

  Vorza stared at him agape and when Kasar turned to march back into the fire, he heard Vorza curse in Vrodian and follow after. He smiled as the two jogged toward the chaos.

  “What’s your plan?” asked Vorza, setting into a steady beside Kasar as they traveled through the bloody ruin of Akonai.

  “I need to give everyone a message.”

  “A message? You’re going to deliver a speech?” asked Vorza.

  “No, I’m just going to talk to them, fighter to fighter.”

  “Okay,” said Vorza. “A mage would be best for that. I know just the one.”

  “Who?” asked Kasar.

  “The same bastard who set that spell on me when Akonai died. Likely bound the spell to Akonai’s lifeline as one final maneuver. Almost worked.”

  “Yeah,” said Kasar, remembering the terror of his own mentor hounding he and his friends down.

  “I’m sorry, lad,” said Vorza.

  “It wasn’t you,” said Kasar. “This mage. Where would he be?”

  “Galdeen always was a rat. I have some idea.”

  They jogged through the warzone, and Kasar winced at every chant and howl of his name. The gladiators had moved to a different section of the city where the main keep lay. They tried to break their way through and Kasar already could see what would happen. At some point they would break down those reinforced gates, and slaughter everyone inside. In doing so, they would lose many.

  Too many for the fights that came after. If they wanted to channel even a fraction of this violence, Kasar wished they did it to free more slaves, not butcher these city folk as complicit as they may have been. He wept for the children and how they never had a choice. Never possessed the chance to speak up.

  After all, how could any of these people speak up with a god-king like Akonai.

  The evil smear he placed on these people was the true evil. The choice they made was compliance or death. Now death came to their doorsteps like a wave, and not even the word of their beloved Grimblade could stop them.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Not unless he made his voice larger than life itself.

  Galdeen. He needed that mage.

  ***

  They reached the little fort on the outskirts of the city where the violence raged the least.

  “Galdeen’s inside there,” said Vorza. “I can smell the Blue Triggers he set around that place.”

  “How do we get in?”

  “Front door,” grumbled Vorza, cracking his neck. “I’ll cut through his traps. Watch and learn.”

  Vorza danced through the traps and let the first trigger on purpose to show Kasar how they were laid and hidden, and what they did. An arcane runice circle formed the trap and when stepped upon, it would trigger. Once Vorza demonstrated one in action, dodging the lightning explosion with sidestep, Kasar could spot the rest as if another eye had just opened. He grinned and nodded to Vorza.

  Vorza chopped through a runic circle and Kasar saw the spell trap dissipate when his saber struck the runes. Like a sword carving through cloth.

  Kasar tried to do it himself, but felt Vorza tackle him to avoid the explosion.

  “You fool!” he cried. “Align the edge like you would in a strike.” He grabbed Kasar by his collar, and threw him toward another rune. “Just because it’s magic, doesn’t mean you should forget technique. Now are you a Devil?”

  “Yes,” yelled Kasar, hacking down with his saber into the dirt where the rune blazed. It dissipated and a grin split his face open. “I did it!”

  Vorza gave a hearty chuckle and slapped Kasar on the back. “Now for practice, do the rest on your own. Try not to die. Also hurry, before Galdeen sends his soldiers after us.”

  Kasar rolled his eyes, but obeyed, carving through the runes one by one, learning to detect them better than he ever had. After a few minutes, he returned to Vorza smoking a pipe.

  Kasar raised his brow.

  “Found it on a body on the way here,” said Vorza. He puffed some smoke and pointed at the young Devil with his pipe. “You should have noticed.”

  Kasar probably should have but he didn’t feel the need to have his senses trained on his own mentor.

  “Now this is freedom,” he said. “Been too long. Must have been a wealthy bastard. Couldn’t tell on account of… Well whatever was left of him.”

  Kasar sighed and gestured to the empty field ahead, devoid of runes. The fort stood straight ahead.

  “Back to work then, eh?” said Vorza. “Freedom indeed.”

  ***

  The two Devils fought their way through several fortified soldiers to get to Galdeen. He was shocked at the soldiers’ loyalty.

  As if reading his thoughts, Vorza spoke. “He triggered these soldiers with the same spell.”

  Kasar ducked under a spear thrust and slashed a soldier’s belly open. He spun around and kicked a second out of the window where he fell with a sickening crunch in the flames that licked at the building’s side. They were on the fourth floor of the fortress and had hewed through two battalion’s worth of enraged soldiers and even a few Bronze Guard. Kasar marveled at how quickly he could dispatch these grunts.

  With Vorza by his side, they moved like a spinning whirlwind of steel. Eventually, they neared the room inside which Galdeen hid. He sensed the tendrils of Blue Magic weaving out from under the door and toward he and Vorza. The spell reached Kasar’s nose. It smelled like rotting corpses and his head started to throb. Vorza rushed in and hacked through the Blue tendril and cursed.

  “Thank you,” said Kasar.

  Vorza nodded and jutted to the door. From behind the two Devils more soldiers burst in, their eyes bearing a glossy sheen that Kasar began to recognize as the Blue spell that consumed them. He wondered if he could sever the spell or have it end like Vorza’s had.

  “Don’t try it,” said Vorza, already recognizing Kasar’s intent. “It takes a certain mind to repel it. Only Galdeen can end it now.”

  Kasar steeld himself as he turned and kicked down the door. Several spells hurtled his way and the Devils swerved out of their way. They smacked into the soldiers who barreled forward.

  “Stop them or I cut your ears off!” roared Kasar, trying not to frown at his insult. Ears? Where had he gotten that?

  Galdeen took the bait and the soldiers behind them staggered and fell to the ground.

  Vorza gave Kasar an amused look and the two Devils closed the door behind them, trapping Galdeen.

  “Wait!” he stammered. His existence angered Kasar. He sat with a goblet of wine that slobbered down his flabby chin, and several bronze platters stuffed with food lay scattered around. Galdeen looked like a man who had never known scarcity. “Don’t kill me! I can help!”

  Kasar smacked him in the nose and felt pure satisfaction at the yelp and sound of bone crunching against his knuckle. Galdeen tipped backward from his chair, but Kasar snatched him by his collar and pulled him back to face him. “Release everyone you have.”

  Galdeen’s lips quivered as his nose drained blood into a river down his lips and chin and onto his fine silk toga.

  “NOW!” roared Kasar, balling his fist.

  Galdeen gave a small nod and his eyes flashed blue.

  “Kasar,” said Vorza with a small chuckle. “The madness… It’s quieting. Listen!”

  Kasar trained his senses out toward the city. Already, he’d grown used to the carnage raging in the distance, but now all he heard was bliss. A calm that finally settled over the city.

  “Why?” asked Kasar, his voice coming out in a growl.

  “In the chaos I could make my escape.”

  Vorza kicked over the table of food and spat at the man. “Wanted to finish dinner first?”

  Galdeen whimpered at the looming Devils.

  “I need you to send a message for me,” said Kasar.

  ***

  Sipha felt as if her world had been nothing but pain and death and loss for years in the pits. When she met the naive boy Grim, she felt his idealism infectious and started to believe for a moment that she could be more than a gladiator. That she could sing for a crowd like her mother and she always did before this life. That life seemed so long ago.

  She ripped free her blades from a dying woman. Perhaps a woman with dreams of her own. She wore simpler clothes. Her hands were those of a laborer. Beregar knelt beside a group of people he’d slain with his spiked stump of a hand and scimitar in the other one. His eyes shone of horror and face dripped with blood. The people he’d killed looked like the dead woman’s family. Perhaps they worked the stone mason store that lay in ruins beside them.

  All men and women of honest stone and metal.

  Dead before them in their glorious revelry. That hate and violence was hers, that much she knew. However, she remembered the pain in Grim’s eyes when she cut him so that she could keep cutting. It felt like a dream she wanted to keep living even if in her heart of hearts she knew it was barbaric. She wanted blood, but not this woman’s blood. Not her sons and her husband’s blood.

  Akonai was dead, but somehow she remained a slave to his hate.

  “People of Akonai,” said Grim’s voice from behind her. Not not said, but boomed. His voice surrounded them all Beregar shot her a shocked look. “I am Grimblade. Together we have achieved freedom.”

  Around them, the surviving and haggard gladiators snapped out of their dream and revelry and gathered around the ruin of their own making\. In the distance where the keep stood strong against their assaults, the people sighed in relief as the freed slaves dropped their make shift battering rams and listened to Grim’s voice.

  “I speak to you as a fellow free man. Drop the bloodshed. Drop the hate. If you are to still let the hate fester, use it to truly crush the god-kings of the desert that hold more brothers and sisters like us.”

  Beregar and Sipha shot another glance to one another.

  “Set your eyes on channeling this hate to break the chains that bind them. Defy the god-kings. Always defy. Don’t let their control enslave you still. Choose to rise and make them pay. To those in the keep that wish to only return to your lives… Forget it. Your luxuries are gone because we’re done bleeding for them. I want you to live so I beg my friends that I fought beside and trained with, if you have any respect for me, give them mercy. Should they choose to stay in this city, they must serve us. The enemy is all around us. Word will spread and a story will be spun. A story of fear for the god-kings, and a story of hope for those enslaved like us.”

  Sipha gulped and wiped the tears from her eyes. Or maybe it was blood. “Damn it, Grim,” she chuckled. “Now you got me thinking about others.”

  “Me too,” grumbled Beregar. “I wish I could keep going. I was having fun. Now…” He glanced at the dead around them. All of the warriors did. “Now I feel sick. I just wanted to vent. I wanted to feel like I was doing something long overdue.”

  Sipha wanted to retch, but instead she sat down on a fallen beam of wood. She shook and realized that somehow thats stupid, naive, idealistic boy struck a nerve inside her the way a musician strums a chord. She wanted to care even if it hurt. No one else did, but they wanted to care as well. How could some even spare a thought when the blood around them was all they knew for so long.

  The answer was simple. He’d not been in the game long enough to understand. Inside her heart she knew that wasn’t it. The truth was, Grim was a stubborn bastard who’d defied a god, and she and the rest wanted to feel like that. Feel in control despite shackled. How had he harnessed that? Where did it come from?

  It wasn’t fair!

  “So if you wish to help me do some good,” boomed Grim’s voice again. “If you’re on my side like you have been all this time… Chant my name and let the desert know Akonai is FREE.”

  Sipha balled her fist. Beside her Beregar gritted his teeth. “What did he say before?” asked Sipha.

  “What?” asked Beregar.

  “Something about how people die for gold and glory all the time. Why not die for freedom and to do the right thing?”

  Beregar shrugged.

  “Before you say that it’s easier said than done, we have done it. We’re free. And he’s willing to go further.”

  Several gladiators now pooled around her.

  “We are free like he said we would be. Where do we even go from here? Our lives are crushed and this?” she gestured to the bodies around them innocent and otherwise. “This is all we have left. All we know how to do.”

  “What are you suggesting?” asked Beregar.

  Sipha smiled at him and each of the warriors she’d fought alongside. “Grim!” she yelled, half heartedly at first. “Grim!” she cried again, with more power. “Grim!” she roared and a few others followed along. “Grim!” she bellowed and Beregar’s voice thundered over hers and everyone’s, a grin splitting his face. “GRIM! GRIM! GRIM! GRIM!”

  ***

  Kasar let go of the Blue mist that Galdeen cast for him to speak into so the city could hear. He sighed from the strain of using it, and settled onto a chair. Vorza munched on a pheasant leg and tossed one to Kasar. He chewed on it, numb and tired, but hungry. The juices from the meat made him moan. It had been a long time since he had such a succulent meal.

  Galdeen licked his lips as he watched them eat and Kasar smiled at his envy.

  “Kasar!” hissed Vorza.

  Kasar perked up and heard it. It rose slowly but steadily. A rolling wave of free men and women who had chosen mercy over violence. It turned into a tsunami that spanned the entire city of people roaring his name, chanting it like a warcry, and even sobbing for him for the mercy they received. The city lit up for his ears and instead of a churning ocean of death, Kasar heard humanity and hope. A genuine desire and openness to do the right thing.

  “What was that about not giving a speech?” asked Vorza.

  “It wasn’t a speech,” snapped Kasar, tears pooling in his eyes at the pride he felt. “It was just an honest message to my allies.”

  “Mhm,” mused Vorza with a chuckle.

  “Besides,” reasoned Kasar. “Speeches are for nobles and people with sticks inside their asses.”

  “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Beregar told me.”

  “Oh dear,” laughed Vorza. “If you’re learning things from him as well, we might have some conflicting lessons coming your way.”

  “Maybe a few things revolving around Vrodia and Ingstad.”

  Vorza huffed and puffed and his face flushed.

  Kasar raised his hands in defense and laughed. “I of course can see you’re right,” said Kasar, not wanting o get political.

  Vorza grunted and turned away. “Rhind was fine,” he said finally. “For an Ingstadian. Shame he’s dead.”

  Kasar figured that was progress. He looked to the city. The free city. The sun rose from behind and Kasar watched as a new future lay ahead of them. It wouldn’t be easy. Several other city states would come after them to send a message. They had to send a message of their own back.

  They would defy them all.