Alien Chronicles 2 - The Crimson Claw (2 page)

Fighting outside the practice arena was forbidden, yet twice Ampris had gone to the whipping post for losing her temper and retaliating against Sheir’s constant provocations. After a long day of relentless drills, punishments, screaming instructors, and harsh discipline, Ampris would stretch out on her bunk to rest her aching muscles. But always there was Sheir lying in the bunk above her, humming softly in her throat while she dangled one foot over the side. It was a constant temptation to lunge for it, to bite through her heel tendon and cripple her.

The punishment for such an attack was death, but sometimes as Ampris lay there, burning with dislike, she told herself it would almost be worth it. Every night they played the same contest of seeing who would be the first to drop into sleep. If Ampris could not battle her fatigue enough to outlast Sheir, she paid for it with a sharp nip to her ear or shoulder, a swift rake of claws that Ampris had to fend off before Sheir bounded back into her bunk. If Ampris was not the first to awaken at the dawning before the whistle sounded, the same thing happened.

No one in authority intervened, as long as Ampris and Sheir stayed within the rules. After all, the trainees weren’t supposed to make friendships. Once graduation day came and their training ended at the Bizsi Mo’ad, they would be sold as professionals expected to kill each other in the arenas.

Now graduation day was finally here, and blood smell filled the air. Ampris inhaled it with a quiver of her nostrils. A month ago she had asked permission to be trained to stay here as an instructor. She did not want to spend the rest of her life killing others for the sport of her masters. She’d heard the grim tales of life in the arena circuit, how tough it was, how cruel.

High in the spectator seats today, buying agents were watching the graduation combats, making their own evaluations separate from those of the school’s judge. Cams, marked with the crest or colors of their owners, floated above the arena, taping the competition for absentee bidders who would participate in the auction via linkup.

The only way around this fate was to be withdrawn from the auction for further training as a school instructor. As a life, it would not be much . . . years spent in this dreary compound, where there was no art, no music, no kindness. The Bizsi Mo’ad, once a training camp for officers at the apex of the Viis empire’s conquest years, now trained warriors of entertainment owned by the gambling-mad Viis aristocracy. This facility knew nothing beautiful, or tender, or true. To live here meant years spent in the clang of practice weapons, in the shouting, in the harsh, unyielding discipline. Not much of a life at all, yet it would
be
a life.

Not the death sentence handed to each graduate that went into the auction, and thereafter into the ring.

Ampris loved to fight. Yes, she found it to be an addiction, that sweet yielding to the rage and savagery inside her. But as much as she loved to fight, she wanted to live more.

Nothing had come of her request. And now she stood in the starting gate, waiting to be decanted into the arena. She and Sheir would fight to the death unless the referrents pulled them apart in time.

They weren’t supposed to kill each other in the arena final, of course. Above all else, the Bizsi Mo’ad centered itself around profit. The more trained, healthy graduates it could put into its empire-famous auctions, the more money it made. Therefore, the combat referrents prowled around the perimeter of the ring with nets and stun-sticks in hand, ready to intervene if today’s combat turned deadly. But Ampris knew she could not hold back, or Sheir would tear her apart.

Now, locked in her gate, Ampris glared into Sheir’s yellow eyes and growled in warning.

Sheir curled her lips back from her teeth and laughed low in her throat. “Soon,” she called. “My score will be the highest in the school. I will bring much money at auction, going to the Blues or the Greens. You will lie dead on the sand, and they will throw your bones to the carrion eaters.”

“Boasts do not draw blood,” Ampris replied softly, determination heavy in every word. “You won’t beat me.”

Sheir didn’t listen. “I will sink my teeth into your soft throat before any referrent can stop me. I taste your blood already.”

She was using the conditioning words, although she was unskilled and lacked the modulator device used by their trainers. Still, Ampris felt the savage element inside her stir in response. She flattened her ears to her skull and turned her gaze away, trying not to listen.

“Coward!” Sheir called. She stuck her hand through the slats and extended her strong claws. “I will feast on your heart—”

“You will bite air,” Ampris retorted. “You cannot match my quickness.”

“What’s the matter, golden one?” Sheir asked, her voice like oil, yet mocking and bitter at the same time. “Do you fear me? Do you worry that I will slit that pretty hide of yours?”

Ampris bared her teeth. But she said nothing, knowing that Sheir would keep this pointless argument going on forever. Sheir hoped to appear so aggressive, so dangerous that she would be sold privately for a high price. According to the rumors, the more money a gladiator sold for, the better he or she was treated. Or maybe Sheir was building her battle courage with her boasting. Ampris, with one kill already in her past, knew such courage was false.

Out in the arena, a howl of agony filled the air.

Both Ampris and Sheir lunged at the front of their gates, crashing against them with twin roars of excitement. Ampris saw the male Kelth thrashing in agony on the sand while blood spurted from a gash in his side. The referrents closed in with nets and stun-sticks ready, but the victorious female was strutting back and forth, brandishing her blood-stained glaudoon high in the air. Throwing up her slim, pointed muzzle, she yipped shrilly.

The spectators up in the metal seats ringing the arena jumped to their feet, shouting and banging on the benches until the air rang with noise.

“Blood,” Sheir said, panting heavily. She groaned from within her gate. “The smell of it . . . oh, the sweet smell.”

Ampris backed her ears and forced her gaze away, even as she felt the trained savagery inside her awakening, coming more fully alive. She knew she must draw on all her strength, all her courage, and find the blood fury. It was always there, seething hot beneath the control she kept clamped on it.

Sheir was throwing herself against the gate, howling like something mad.

Medics came running to clear the mess.

The Viis mediator stood nearby, towering head and shoulders above the abiru workers. Green-skinned with blue markings on his throat that spread up to bracket his eyes, he puffed out his air sacs while he made his evaluation. He spoke his decision into his hand-link, and the score flashed across the board hanging over one end of the arena.

Ampris stared at it, watching the names and scores shift and waver until the new ranking had been established. Someone at the end of today would be school champion, and that someone would sell tomorrow to the highest bidder in the annual auction. The rest of them would then go on the block, with their scores affecting how the floor bids would be set.

When she first came here, cabled in restraints and panting in terror, she had not believed she would survive. Only her anger had kept her going. The first practice drill had left her collapsed on the sand, her muscles cramping. The first kick to her ribs had brought her staggering upright with her vision blurred by tears, her heart thundering in her chest, her fur bristling around her neck. Terrified, she knew that if she didn’t learn, didn’t excel, didn’t find her inner strength she wouldn’t last the first week. She knew she couldn’t give up. She couldn’t let betrayal by those she had most loved and trusted destroy her.

And she hadn’t. She was a survivor of the toughest training program in the empire.

The wounded Kelth was dragged out of the arena, while slaves raked the sand. Medics pushed his floating stretcher past the starting gates, arguing with each other as to how to best conceal the sutures so he could go into the open auction tomorrow afternoon—the sale for the failures, when the Bizsi Mo’ad cut its losses ruthlessly.

A warning bell rang overhead, and a handler came running along the catwalk above the starting gates. Ampris drew herself erect, flexing her muscles in readiness. She found it suddenly hard to breathe. Her heart was pounding.

“Ampris!” Sheir shouted. “It is time!”

Ampris said nothing. She closed her eyes and tried to master her ragged breathing. She tried not to listen to the anger drumming inside her heart. Oh, yes, she was ready to fight Sheir. She wanted to claw and rend and bite. She wanted to take a glaudoon and thrust it through Sheir’s vitals, paying back every taunt, trick, and cruel act. But she knew she must remain in control of herself. She would fight with a bold heart and a cool head, remembering her training, using skill and knowledge. If she didn’t, Sheir would maul her badly.

Not for the first time Ampris wished she knew the old religion of her people. What were the Aaroun prayers? Who were the Aaroun gods? She knew only the panoply of Viis deities, all unavailable to her.

The gate opened with a snap that startled her. Ampris ran out into the deep sand, stumbling slightly as it caught her feet. A handler seized her on one side and unfastened the buckles to her battle harness. Another released the catch on her battle collar.

Astonished, Ampris twisted in their hands. “What are you doing?”

It was forbidden to speak to a handler. One of them slapped her across the muzzle. “Silence!”

Pulling the harness and collar off her, they gave her a shove that sent her staggering on into the openness of the arena. Another handler ran after her and pressed a glaudoon into her hand.

Ampris took it absently, looking behind her. Despite her puzzlement, she knew the drill: Run from the gate into the center of the arena as fast as possible. Turn and get set to meet your opponent.

But she heard no bell, heard no second gate slam. She looked behind her again, and still Sheir’s gate did not open.

Ampris backed her ears, trying to understand what was happening. Why had the handlers stripped her? Instead of switching on the modulator on her battle collar so that the conditioning words would activate her training, she was entirely on her own.

Anger flared inside her. This wasn’t fair.

Then she realized she wouldn’t have to battle the equipment for control of her emotions or her wits. She could keep her cool head. She could remember her own strategy instead of being driven artificially into bestial rage.

But where was Sheir? Ampris could hear the other Aaroun screaming and slamming herself around inside her gate. Why hadn’t they turned her out?

“Run, you fool!” a handler shouted at her. “Get to the center and look like you know what you’re doing. The judge is watching!”

Collecting her wits, Ampris turned and did as she was told.

She had confused impressions of sound—great tides of it washing over her as the crowd shouted. They weren’t cheering for her, she knew. They were cheering for combat, for blood. She felt dwarfed by the arena, arching up high, high over her. The spectators themselves, a mixture of trainees, instructors, buyers, and the merely curious, were a blur surrounding her on all sides. The cams hovering overhead floated lower to record her.

She reached the center of the arena and stood awkwardly, feeling increasingly ill-at-ease and nervous.

The scoreboard changed colors, shimmering as names and scores were abruptly canceled. As they vanished and a blank red screen glowed in their place, Ampris stared up at it and backed her ears in alarm.

What did this mean? Why weren’t her name and number on the board? Wasn’t she going to be scored at all?

A fresh roar from the spectators made her look up swiftly, expecting to see Sheir coming at last. Instead, she saw the judge and referrents leaving the arena, the latter dragging their nets with them.

The blood drained from Ampris’s head. She stared, unwilling to believe what their departure meant.

The loudspeaker boomed, bringing quiet to the stands.

“Scoring is halted,” the announcement came. “Combat is challenge by trainee One-one-A to instructor. Open rules.”

Cheers swelled up from the trainees in the stands. The announcement, however, had been made for the buying agents, some of whom were craning their necks and murmuring to each other. Some tossed down their refreshments and moved intently to the edge of their seats. Others spoke hurriedly into their hand-links.

Ampris stared with her mouth open, unable to believe her ears. Her request hadn’t been denied after all. But which instructor was she to fight?

That mattered less than the fact that the combat was to be held under open rules. Suddenly she understood all too clearly what the red scoreboard and departing referrents meant. This was to be a real competition, a real battle, with no team of referrents to save her once she was pinned or struck down.

This was to be a fight to the death . . . and if fortune did not suddenly smile on her, it would be
her
death.

Ampris’s courage deserted her. What insanity was this? In seeking to avoid dying in an arena, she had brought about that very situation. And even sooner than she might otherwise have had to face it.

Her heart froze in her chest. Her legs lost their strength, and she barely kept herself from sinking to the sand. She wanted to run, but all the gates were closed and guards stood everywhere.

From the holding pen came a ragged, savage cheer. “Ampris!” the graduates called her name. She saw several of them holding their fists aloft and snarling.
“Saa-vel harh!”

Ampris swallowed hard. Saa-vel harh meant to draw first blood. It was both a war cry and a wish for victory. They were cheering for her, giving her their support.

Her heart started thumping again. She drew in a full breath. Never mind that her heart was beating too fast, or that her mind was racing, or that her grip felt awkward and slippery on her glaudoon. They had wished her victory, these comrades who were not supposed to be friends.