War Pigs Read online

  War Pigs

  Jay Requard

  Contents

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 4

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Falstaff Books

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jay Requard

  Copyright © 2016 by Jay Requard

  Published in America by Falstaff Books

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Part I

  Nothing Else Matters

  1

  Ruthless

  Crouched at his end of the pit, Lut flared his knees open, stretching his inner thighs. The looser they were, the easier it would be for him to kick, traverse, attack—practiced movements that had to be called upon without conscious thought of their execution. Shur had reached the highest point in the sky already, the god's fiery shield ensuring that there would be no shadows, no glare. The dry air burnt like a furnace.

  Miseries aside, Lut could not have picked a better opponent.

  The Stocky Male, a name he assigned based on look alone, bobbed on the balls of his feet at the pit's other end, too comfortable for what was coming.

  It did not worry Lut, however—he had found his fight. Years of homelessness out in the forests, hunting since he could walk, watching his father enslave himself to corrupt warlords and petty chiefs for the scraps they deigned to give would be over soon. This was his time, his moment.

  Nothing would stop him.

  "Stay out of range," called Lut's father. Bare-chested and scarred, Grus stood behind his son. His lower tusks had never seemed sharper, sprouting past his thick purple lips. "Sting him when he closes."

  Fingers laced, Lut rolled out his wrists, his mind narrowed to the task. Bone and sinew popped. No distractions, no mind.

  An elder Tent strode to the pit's center, his goatskin mantle smeared in blood. He waved them inward to an inch-deep pool of brown water. Lut looked at his opponent, searching his onyx eyes for a shred of doubt. They were both Without-Tents, those thrown to the edges of society for being too wild, too strong. Around them cheered a wall of rich Tents and wealthy Inners, the latter the highest class of Mystland's Wagani clans.

  The Tent referee held his hands up to both fighters. "No eyes. No cheeks. No bites. No pauses." Taking a step back, he chopped his hands earthward. "Fight!"

  Lut closed the distance, shoulders and fists set forward. He harried Stocky Male, touching his nose with a right straight followed by a jab. On instinct, his opponent back stepped, wary enough to avoid a right hook. He ducked in, throwing an overhand left. Lut crushed Stocky Male's jaw with a left knee strike. Exhaling a painful groan, he watched as his opponent crashed to the earth.

  He reached his father at the pit’s edge before the Tent referee called the end of the match. Held up in the old warrior's arms, his elation dimmed as he basked in the smattered cheers, noticing how the Tents and Inners observed him like a prized cow they would haggle over as bits of gold and precious stones were passed between the winners and losers of a contest that mattered more than his.

  He paid them no attention for now. No distractions, no mind.

  Shur had burned blessings upon him.

  Lut lay under a thick oak as a monsoon shower fell, a reprieve from the valley’s hard summer heat. The humidity helped him breathe as the grass bit the undersides of his naked legs.

  He repeated his mantra quietly, focused on what he saw behind his closed eyes. “No distractions, no mind.” His thoughts centered on his prize.

  He'd be given a weapon if he went to work for her. An axe or a spear, or maybe even a sword—The Azure Queen’s Black Hoods often looted good iron. He'd take it on raids with him, feeding the wealth of a goddess while the iron's legend grew. Legends that would speak of the weapon carried by Lut, worshiped by those who would kill for it as the centuries passed on beyond his short time in the mortal world.

  And he would meet her.

  A whisper among his society, uttered in reverence for her beauty and her terror, the idea of the Azure Queen had haunted Lut's dreams since the time of his whelping. Fatherhood, old age, rest—none of these things appealed like the chance to be close to the divine, even if it meant an early death. If mortal heroes were the ones who dared their end with a smile, then he wanted to strive against more than something mortal.

  Lut wanted a legend, and he wanted her.

  Off in the distance his father, dodging the smoldering fires set by those who had escaped the deluge for the safety of the trees, made for the spot where they had settled their camp. Grus crossed into the shade of their oak, his olive face beaded with rainwater. "The field was cut in half the first round."

  "So do we have our match?"

  "We have a seed we won from the first fight. We just need to find the person to plant it in." Grus looked to the closest nearby campfire, where another father shouted at his son for a shoddy performance. "What I need is to get in front of one of the Inners. I might convince one of them take you on the winter raids if you perform well."

  "Find me one of the fighters who wasn’t injured. Someone with lots of Inners behind them," said Lut. "Hint that I have a broken foot."

  His father offered a small, sincere nod. “I’ll be right back."

  2

  The Game

  Rain pelted the earth, softening the ground to a wet mash of grass, mud, and twigs. The pit’s boundaries, once cut and sculpted at the start of the day, had eroded to rough banks where no solid position could be gained. Lut studied them with concern, as much as he did the puddle forming in the depression's center. Half a foot deep, it was enough to drown someone in.

  He and his father sat at their end of the field, shivering from the chill wind on wet flesh. Grus whispered reminder after reminder.

  "Keep your guard high."

  "Never give your back unless you know the way out."

  "Squeeze your hips as you pull the limb."

  "Set your bar and bend."

  Lut heard none of it, too focused on what lay beyond this match. He had seen a few of those who had already made it to the Champion's Round, bloodied bruisers who had limped from their contests no prouder than when they had entered. Shur may have shined blessings earlier on, but now they were of a cruel kind under the gray skies, where victory sometimes resulted in effects worse than any loss. On this day, the sun god had taken more than glory—he had taken lives. A few of them had been victors, too worn by their battles to go on.

  Off in the east, near where the valley ascended to the brier hills, a clamor rose from the Tents, a racket of hand drums and bone flutes. Clad in fine skins, a cavalcade paraded a lone fighter at the core of their mass. A grim-faced male, his skin crinkled on his muscular frame, browned by days under the sun.

  "Who is this?" Lut asked his father.

  "One of the Inners' brood." Grus laughed at the display the Inners’ servants performed at the
northern edge of the pit. Tents danced and prostrated for their master’s chosen son, a sycophantic display no good Without-Tent would condone, let alone participate in. "He got an easy pick the first round. Fought one of the smaller males."

  "Did he finish him?"

  Grus jabbed a finger in one of the large nostrils of his snout, digging a passage. "Battered him until he quit."

  Lut studied Grim-Face as they walked to the puddle at the pit's center when the Tent referee called them out. Young and spry, the Inner fighter walked far too upright. Real fighting bent a person. The mud beneath the water sucked at Lut's feet, cooling bones broken by years of kicks and wrestling. For Grim-Face's part, he said little when they met, offering only a slight nod of respect.

  "No bites. No cheeks. No eyes. No pauses," said the referee. The afternoon rain had washed the blood from his goat-hide, dyeing the fur a ruddy color. He stepped back. "Fight!"

  Grim-Face skipped back to create distance. Lut formed his own guard, his right hand by his cheek while he extended his left. Water sloshed as they circled, neither able to find footing in the mud.

  Lut flicked a pair of jabs only to have them parried. Grim-Face faked a low kick into a right haymaker. Lut darted forward, slipping under the punch to tackle Grim-Face into the mud. Landing at the puddle's broken edge, he landed atop his foe, who wrapped his legs around Lut's left leg. Bearing Grim-Face's dead weight, he yanked his wrists free of grasping hands and swung up, reaching the temple. He punched three more times, wrestling to free himself between each blow. The hold on Lut's leg slacked.

  They struggled back to their feet, trading knee strikes to stomachs and thighs. Grinding his teeth through the exchange, Lut slipped his hands past Grim-Face's arms and laced his fingers behind the Inner's head. Pinching his forearms together, he wrenched to the side, dragging them back to the water. Grim-Face rolled atop Lut, who wrapped both legs around the larger male's waist.

  Lut gasped as his head was plunged below the puddle's thrashing surface. The world, now a breathless void, flooded his lungs with a foul spew. A fist cut his cheek, shearing flesh on the pronounced bone beneath. The water numbed the torn gully as warmth masked his face.

  Choking, Lut grabbed hold of Grim-Face's right arm, hugging it to his chest while he shifted his hips hard to the right, catching the limb between his legs. His opponent's arm framed, Lut squeezed his hips together as he levered his entire body against an elbow joint. Sinew popped, bone crunched.

  Watching his victim scream silently past the puddle’s surface, Lut let his consciousness go as he felt Grim-Face fall with him.

  His wound swelling the left side of his face, Lut squeezed handfuls of earth as the bone needle pierced the gash on his cheek.

  Grus's hands were steady as he stitched shut the raw edges of the cut. "You impressed the Inners with your last match. They'll buy into you for the raids,” he said, tying a small knot at the end of the cut. His black eyes met his son's, filled with a deep pride.

  Lut did not match his father’s smile. Exhaustion weighed him—some of the body, but all of the soul. The Inners and Tents had barely cheered when he had been pulled from the water after breaking Grim-Face’s arm, puking the water and blood that had invaded his lungs. When the daze left, the world had refocused, and expecting celebration for a win he had fought to obtain, part of Lut had craved the glamour a warrior of his tenacity deserved.

  Instead the Inners and Tents had only whispered and eyed him, passing their bits of treasure back and forth as they discussed which of them would lay claim to his soul when the winter raids commenced, where they would gamble his life while they grew richer, fatter, and less appreciative of the glory he had achieved.

  He would accept none of it.

  "I'm going to the Champion's Round," he said, the volume of his voice lowered to a near-whisper. "I want to fight for the Azure Queen. Not the Inners."

  Grus paused as he washed his hands of his son's blood. His mouth parted in confusion, revealing his dirty, crooked teeth. "My father raided for Inners," he said, wounded. "I raided for Inners."

  "I know," said Lut. "But I don't want to serve them. I don't want to fight to be a Tent. They will never take us in. They’ll never—"

  "It doesn't matter what they will do." Rising to his feet, Grus stalked a circle around their campfire. Ata had come with her night, a pause between the first day of fighting and tomorrow, when Shur’s war-festival ended. "They let us hunt. They let us have glory, and blood, and worth. They let us live under the stars!"

  "We give ourselves our worth, not them," Lut replied. "They take and take, gorging themselves on the spoils we gather. The Azure Queen will give me good iron. She’ll give me the best food, let me keep the spoils I win—serving her will sever the bonds the Inners have chained me with for so long. Instead of stars, I can have legend, a legend I earned. I won’t have to be homeless anymore."

  "She won’t let you breed. Our line will be finished." His father turned from the fire, looking at the stars in the sky. The wind shifted the oaks around them, a quiet song in the broad leaves. "And I cannot come with you."

  Such sadness in his father’s voice shook Lut. Gambling on a third fight, in the Champion's Round no less, offered more loss than gain. What if he failed? What if the world he had grown up in was the best it could ever be? What if he dared too much?

  Yet the chance to meet a goddess, to touch the hand that bore nothing but glory, honor, and an everlasting name—Lut would dare for that. He emerged from his melancholy. "Will you watch me?" he asked Grus.

  Shadows slithered across the old warrior's knotted face and tusks, washing it in despair. Grus forced a sad, lonely smile. "You are my son. I will always watch."

  3

  Out of the Shadows

  Lut and his father plodded to the pit as dawn arrived, hours before any of the crowd gathered for the final day of bloodletting. The air clung to their naked chests and arms as the world bronzed with the coming light. Wind rippled the pit's silver puddle. They sat on a small knoll overlooking the field, legs crossed in lotus.

  Surveying the scene where his dreams might finally come true, Lut recalled the days he had hunted in the hills as a child with his father, trapping what stringy meat he caught to flavor the weak stews he often made from roots and wild herbs, a meal he went without more times than either liked to admit. If he won this next fight, those hardships would vanish, replaced by a soft bed, good food, and the safety of a goddess unhindered by the society she ruled.

  Sunlight spread across the battlefield.

  "Do you know who I'm fighting?" Lut asked.

  Grus, his stare faraway, shook his shaggy head. "They never tell you the final opponent in the Champion's Round. One just hopes for the best."

  Shur shone bright by the time the crowd arrived in a unified march. Male and female Inners, muddled by their drinking and mating, tossed flippant blessings to the Tents as they took their stools at the front, who in turn murmured something about it to the Without-Tents, the filthy and downtrodden who stood in the back, ready to compete.

  Lut snuffed his hateful thoughts. No distractions, no mind.

  He and his father watched the first match muted, but as the day went on, they were swept into the crowd's growing passion. Bones broke, faces ripped, but for Without-Tents like Lut, that's all there was: the thrill of fighting. The heart beating in his chest infused lust into his blood, a lust to be the best among those who dared for more than simple glory. Males and females fought, won, lost, lived or died, but at least they knew there were brave. Lut wanted more than that. He wanted to know he was the bravest, the strongest, and the most skilled, whatever qualifier the masses awarded for a good bloodletting.

  But more than anything, Lut wanted to find freedom from it all—and his goddess would let him earn that.

  A Tent referee, this one older and clad in a rotted bearskin, entered the pit. The heat off the puddle's surface wavered in the air, agitating the flies. He held up his scarred hands. "Lut! Dras!
"

  Lut made his way to the battleground. A hundred feet to his left, another male appeared from the masses. Lean arms and powerful legs sprouted from a muscular torso as his opponent strode to his side of the pit. The skin around his black eyes was tight and tough, the mark of a real fighter who had put in the work. The way he walked, forward and fluid, promised a skilled warrior both on and off his feet.

  The two met in the center of the muddy depression. Lut cocked his head to the side, searching this male for any cracks in his stoniness. Dras' dead eyes looked back, holding no sign of fear or anger.

  The Tent referee, the lids of his eyes smeared in fresh blood, opened his arms. "The last fight, where the last seed finds the soil while others fall to the wind. He who wins may count one favor of The Wicked and one favor alone. No bites. No cheeks. No eyes. No pauses." Arms held high, he leaped back, striking the mud with both fists. "Fight!"

  Dras charged with a spinning back-kick leading the way. Lut dodged to the side and wheeled right. His opponent closed on him. Lut threw a left cross, hard and fast, and grunted when the bones of his fingers crashed against Dras' elbow. Quick to respond, Dras whipped his leg out, slicing his shin into Lut's thigh with a hard kick.

  Lut reeled backward, putting himself at distance again. Dras dipped low for a tackle. Lut shot his legs out behind him, falling atop Dras' back while he searched for a front headlock. Dras shucked free and stood, popping a quick jab-jab-right combination. The third punch brushed Lut's chin as he returned a second left cross on the inside, this time touching Dras' cheek. Both winced. Lut received a hard left that snapped his head back.

  Bleary-eyed, hot salt dripped from Lut's broken nose, finding a way past his lips. Open-mouthed to draw breath, he fired a jab-kick combination when Dras' straight right cracked his jaw and wobbled his legs. Dras barreled into him, ramming a shoulder into his stomach. The two landed in the puddle's center with Dras on top.