Band of the Phoenix

The roar of the horn broke through the silence of the salted stone which was warded permanently. The crowd of miserable survivors which Loof–now forever known as Zern–sat amongst, breathed in the foul salted air thick with humidity and hate, and reveled in it. The malnourished and fever stricken bodies rose like zombies from their slumber and assembled themselves in a shambling mob and marched up the stairs towards light. 

Zern followed the crowd picking up his half shattered shield and his chipped sword. He didn't say a word, there was no one to say it to. He didn't growl as a person fell over in front of him falling into his legs, there was no point. He didn't even flinch as a knife cut the side of his cheek for not standing up properly, there was no reason to.

For all their talk about show and presentation, the Zyneri'i only cared to use half dead slaves and their most broken criminals in these games of sport and entertainment. The Zyneri'i claimed to love elegance, yet they threw the most inelegant of creatures into a pit and set them lose against one another. The Zyneri'i claimed to carry on an ancient tradition of their warriors dying in glorious combat to weed out the weak, yet it had only thinned their blood to the point of forcing slaves to do it in their place.

At the head of the column of men the only man who really knew how to fight and lead, Wenor, held a spear in both his hands and gave some words Zern didn't listen to. The man was generally incredible, able to keep fighting even after a year of fighting in these pits, a year of being no closer to the freedom he spoke so fondly of, the freedom so few now seemed to see.

The gates at the top opened and the caged sunlight finally completely shone through. Wenor lead the charge forward as they quickly rushed into a jungle like environment and fanned out into a semi-circular formation outside the gate.

From atop the circle the crowd cheered wildly. The humans of Cikor which the tigerlike Zyneri'i ruled over seemed to enjoy these games even more than their masters which had established it. These people had now become accustomed to the determination of Wenor to keep his men alive as much as possible, they'd even crafted an epithet for the man 'the servitor.'

From atop the dome pit a spider-like web of chains connected and held up a collage of small pod-like buildings which the Zyneri'i viewed these games from. From atop one of them this game's presenter began his introduction. 

Within the group people spoke language to language, translating the best they could, by the time they got to Yinitiri the speech barely made sense.

"I, Yulock Gondahari, preserve you, gorgeous of games. Now, I preserve you Wenor, gorgeous of warriors, to ferment again Opokonorugam, gorgeous of chasms."

Zern translated the sentence into a more comprehensible one in his mind, 'I, Yulok Gondahari, present you, the greatest of games. Now, I present to you, Wenor, greatest of warriors, to fight against Opokonorugam, greatest of calamities.' 

Zern gulped holding his shield up with his double edged shortsword. 'Opokonoeugam, greatest of calamities.' he thought repeating the name and title, what abomination are they throwing at me now?

He stood carefully in the carefully managed wall of weapons. The collection of weapons were almost random, they were from all over and of all types, daggers, glaives, spears, axes, there was no symmetry in this fight. 

He looked into the thick jungle foliage. He set his jaw forward, something within the foliage in front of him was going to try to kill him, skewer him in the worst way possible. The foliage did not move, only occasionally swaying in the wind of the coming storm. Out in front of that a flat plain of mud and grass stretched for forty yards from his position, not a single piece of cover–decline or inclinde–could be found.

In the sky thunder rumbled as the sprinkles of droplets increased to thick bulbous blobs of water. They clanged against the shields and echoed when hitting the thick leafs of the foliage.

Nothing moved.

Zern's eyes turned towards Wenor who stood firmly in place spear forwards. The man knew what he was doing, Zern would trust the man to keep him alive as he'd done since being lumped in with him a few months prior. Wenor kept watch so Zern did as well.

There was rustling in the distance.

The weapons which had begun to become lax straightened, the eyes which had become dreary shot up, and Wenor who had been on edge focused.

The rustling continued and came closer progressively.

Thumping followed.

Zern's eyes focused towards the foliage line.

Thumping.

Rustling.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

The soldiers held their weapons at the ready looking out into the foliage only forty yards away. The rustling and thumping had stopped but nothing else had replaced it. A lum hum like an animal's breath quietly pierced the silence of the rain.

"Hold, and be ready!" Wenor said, gripping his spear more quietly.

The humming seemed to increase but the rustling had stopped and the thumping was barely audible.

Zern tightened the hold around his sword and shield. He was on the end of the formation, if the middle collapsed it gave him a few moments to scramble to cover. Cover, he needed to find some in case everything went awry. He scanned the forty yards and further out hoping to see something in the foliage. He held his sight on the plains, deep inclines had appeared leading up to him and stopping only five yards or so away.

Zern wondered to himself when those pieces of cover had finally decided to reveal themselves, why did these advantages always appear at the worst of moments? 

He tightened his grip around the sword. He felt hotter than usual, had the humidity suddenly increased? He focused, straining his eyes, he saw it. He was sure of it. He looked down, that pool of water was too viscous, too thick. It splattered again, the drop was too thick.

"It's here!" Zern screamed rolling forwards as he avoided an enormous jaw clamping down on him by rolling forwards and dropping his shield.

He crashed into a thick grey wall of a leg. It was twice as thick as he was wide and had rubbery tough skin. He thrust his short sword into it and pierced into the thing's leg. It made a terrible squelching sound before the creature, with an enormous kick backwards, threw him fifty yards and into the thick foliage which broke his fall.

He landed with a thud.

He groaned and moaned at the pain in his ribs.

He breathed in.

Pain.

He breathed out.

Even more pain.

Bruised or broken, he thought putting his free hand over his ribs and stumbled up.

He looked around, the leaves of a thick and enormous fern had broken his fall but the actual force of the kick was what had broken his ribs. For a moment the pain seemed to disappear as he looked around, foliage like a jungle of no other was here in this canopy. Floru grass, glowing like the beautiful stars within the night sky, stretched down within a vine-like way from the bottom of outstretched branches towards the ground, while verminteeth grass reached up towards the sky.

"Aim for its legs!" Wenor shouted from afar as a roar broke the beauty.

Zern cursed and forced himself into a jog then sprinted through the foliage and into the plain. He broke the foliage line and paused for a moment before gripping his sword and charging forward.

The grey beast butchered across the plains. The mud had been fertilised with crimson, men had been skewered on the thing's sword-like claws and devoured on its knife-life teeth. The grey beast was over fifty feet in length and twenty feet tall, terrible spikes ran down its back and enormous tail which became more like spears sticking out at its head and neck.

Of the fifty or so men which had been alive only a few moments before, barely thirty remained.

He forced himself to charge quietly towards the beast who was devouring a particularly large slave. In the distance he saw Wenor slicing at the things ankles trying to draw the monster's attention from the others but to no avail.

Thirty. 

He winced but continued running forwards.

Twenty five.

Wenor sliced the thing's leg but it just seemed to seal over.

He charged forwards increasing his run into a desperate sprint. He was only a few yards away now.

Fifteen.

The creature swept another five away in a single swipe against a shield and pike wall. Blood splattered against the wall of the arena.

Wenor continued to slice at the beast's legs but to no avail, the thing healed faster then he could heal it.

He dodged the sweep of the creature's tail and almost fell over as he did. He looked up at the creature's stomach. There were scars there. He turned to the legs in which Wenor had been slashing at, nothing.

The stomach, that's where it's weak, he thought to himself.

He ran and screamed, but nothing seemed to come out of his mouth. Had it been damaged in the fall? Perhaps he'd hit his throat against something. He charged forwards towards the beast and towards the stomach.

He fell over but quickly pulled himself up dodging the tail of the beast.

Five.

He was finally under the beast.

Four. Three.

He raised his sword and sliced up into the creature's stomach. The creature roared as his sword traveled ten feet through the thing's stomach.

Wenor screamed and jumped to the side avoiding a kick by the creature's foot.

He lowered his sword which seared with a viscous green liquid on it. The fluids of the creature's stomach flushed all over him. He screamed, his skin burned, and evaporated. He fell to the ground. He wailed. There was nothing so painful, his bones tore themselves from his flesh and then repositioned themselves. His eyes burnt in and out, they burned from the inside and then from the out, before reforming and repeating the process. He screamed, louder and harder, he panted, groaned, wailed, he wasn't himself, he was a helpless child crying out. His skin flew into the air like ash, before reforming and repeating the process. Again, and again, and again, and again.

Pain. 

Again.

Screaming.

Again.

His eyes blurred in and out of existence, constantly covered and seeing within green before blacking out and then repeating it again.

He riled on the ground and didn't even notice the death of the enormous beast on top of him. The creature itself couldn't even handle its own internal fluids, it burned and dissolved its own regeneration unable to keep up. Blood fell into the pool, a thick honey yellow covered mixed in with the green acid.

Zern could do nothing but scream, unable to move from the pool that tortured him all the while keeping him alive to writhe in his agony. Even in death the creature seemed to take pleasure in killing and suffering.

The yellow slithered like river water arriving at an ocean, it mixed, mingled, merged before spreading further. The new substance becomes a luminescent chartreuse mixing into the blood and body of him. It soaked into his searing skin and dyed his flesh a new color on the inside. He swallowed it, but no burning came this time. His eyes burned for one final time but no more, the color green which he'd seen for so long disappeared and he could see normally again. His ragged breathing paced itself before steadying itself into a careful rhythm. He stopped screaming, the pain had stopped?

He leaned forwards and rose from the chartreuse solution he was bathed in. He held up his hands, they were normal? Had he been imagining it. He looked down at his chest which had hurt like nothing else a few moments before, now it was fine. Had he been imagining that as well? He groaned war could do awful things to people's mind, was this just one example of it?

He cursed and got back into the mud before tunneling through it and out the underside of the slain beast. The rain had picked up, and as he stood up his near naked body previously covered in mud was quickly washed away.

He had come out near the head of the beast. Its red cat-like eyes stared at him unmoving. That beast had killed so many in such a short time.

Wenor ran over to him, dropping his spear before embracing him in a hug.

"I didn't think you had it in you, you beautiful bastard," Wenor said. "You killed that thing, the thing that not even I could lay a dent into."

"How many?"

Wenor left the embrace and looked down to the side, "Including you and I, four of us. The rest were killed."

Zern nodded.

"You're damn near naked," Wenor said, looking down at him. "How'd that happen?"

He simply shrugged.

Wenor sighed and turned towards the beast's head before taking a sword on the ground and stabbing next to the thing's eye. Wenor carved around the eye before ripping it out and throwing the sword to the side. The man scowled, picking up the eye and climbing on top of the beast before presenting it to a roaring ground.

Zern picked up the sword and did something similar but not with another eye; instead he cut off a small piece from the creature's leg which had previously grown back again so quickly. The creature did not grow back this time. He scrunched his hand around it, he'd keep this, there was something strange and different about this beast compared to others.

His thoughts were interrupted as a small army of soldiers rounded up him and three others before shipping them away into the darkness once again. They put a bag over his head and dragged him into the treacherous darkness once again.