Sky Pirates

Sky Pirates

Copyright © William King 2012

 

Website: www.williamking.me

Contact: [email protected]

 

E-books By The Same Author

 

THE TERRARCH CHRONICLES

Death’s Angels

The Serpent Tower

The Queen’s Assassin

Shadowblood

 

Chapter One

No matter how many times Ulrik went into the Pit it never got any better. His stomach churned. His limbs felt weak. Visions of his own death filled his mind.

His surroundings did not inspire hope. The walls were mortared blocks of damp ancient stone. Near-exhausted glowglobes flickered in the ceiling. Rusting fetters held huddled prisoners waiting to die. He took a deep breath of air that stank of urine and stale sweat and listened to the low murmur of whispered conversation, of prayer, insults and flat jokes.

He dilated the pupils of his magically altered eyes; the faces of the other fighters leapt out at him, some scared, some blank, some mad with drug-crazed anticipation.

“What are you looking at, slit-eye?” said a shaven-headed stranger, his skin marked with the blue dragon tattoos of some street gang. His nose was broken, one of his ears had been half-bitten off. His right hand had been removed and replaced with a demon claw, the product of some fleshgrafter’s transformation vats. It was leathery, four times the size of a normal man’s and ended in razor sharp talons. The weight of it had forced the man’s arm muscles to overdevelop. His left arm looked scrawny and wasted in comparison. His whole body had a lopsided, hunch-backed look.

“I don’t know,” Ulrik said, “but it’s looking back.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“I could change that.”

“Enough, the pair of you,” said Old Moth, the trainer. Sparks flickered as his painwand clattered against the bars. “Save it for when you hit the sand.”

It took all Ulrik’s willpower not to flinch. He knew what that innocuous stick of rune-embossed metal could do and he did not want to be suffering from its effects when he stepped into the Pit. The stranger felt the same way. When Ulrik glanced at him again, he was studying the ceiling above his head, his hands balled into fists.

The roar of the crowd echoed down the dark tunnel that led to the arena. A bell tolled. Two burly handlers rose from their stools, lifted their painwands and dragged another captive from the holding pen. Moth looked on, his ancient pockmarked face as cold as the surface of the lesser moon. The prisoner was only a boy, half-trained. He screamed as he was hauled out, fighting the handlers. Skin sizzled as painwands bit flesh.

A fool and a coward, Ulrik thought. In his stunned condition the boy would be easy meat.