A/N: Thank you SnidgetHex, enjoyedit, and pallysd'Artagnan for reviewing! I'm glad you liked the start of this. ^_^
Chapter 2
It was impossible to tell how much time passed underground without daylight to mark the hours, but Porthos figured he and Aramis had been left to rot in their cell at least overnight. They'd snatched some sleep here and there, teetering between needing the rest and being too tense to find any. When they started hearing noises echoing down the tunnels, Porthos assumed it was morning.
It was still a while before anyone came down their way. Porthos glowered at the man from the day before as he approached their cell with another, burly looking man with a shaved head and wearing an animal pelt as a cloak. That one roved his gaze over the musketeers with an eager gleam in his eye.
"Hm, yes. Fresh meat." He pointed at Porthos. "He fights first."
"I ain't doin' a thing," Porthos growled.
The man scoffed. "You fight, or you die." He flashed them a yellow, toothy grin. "Either way, it'll make for a good show."
"What show?" Aramis asked.
The man sneered. "You'll get your turn." He nodded to his second-in-command and the two left.
Porthos slammed his palm against the bars of their cage.
"Easy, Porthos," Aramis cautioned. "It sounds like you're going to need to save that energy."
He clenched his fists. "What do you think he meant? Some kind o' cage fight?"
Aramis shrugged. "I imagine you'll be finding out soon."
Indeed, it wasn't long before the thug from yesterday returned with three others in tow, all of them armed with pistols which they immediately trained on Porthos and Aramis. Porthos backed away from the bars as the leader unlocked the door.
He gestured to Porthos. "Come on."
Porthos didn't budge.
The man smirked. "You heard what Gunther said: you fight or you die." He drew his own pistol to add to the mix. "What'll it be?"
Porthos glanced at Aramis, then slowly started toward the door. Two of the guards kept their weapons aimed at the marksman in case he tried to rush them. The others kept their distance, not giving Porthos the opportunity to get the jump on them before they could get a shot off. Which meant he was forced to head down the tunnel they directed him through.
The passage eventually narrowed until they came to an iron gate set against the mouth of the shaft. Porthos figured he'd grab the pistol of whoever had to come open it, use them as a human shield in the confined space, and take out the other three.
But none of them moved closer and instead a cog system creaked and the gate rose on its own. Porthos looked between the armed guards and the doorway, clenching his jaw as he realized he had little choice. He stepped through the open gate and into a large, circular pit. No, not a pit—an arena.
Dozens of torches ensconced around the walls high up lit the underground cavern, the bottom of which was a flat stretch of rock and sediment. Nearly twenty feet up, large iron spikes protruded from the walls, creating a pointy partial barrier between the arena and a balcony above winding around the entire circumference. It was cut into the stone, behind spaced arches that provided windows looking down into the pit, and they were filled with spectators.
The iron gate closing behind him made Porthos startle. He then whipped his gaze around the pit. It was lined with gates all around one arc, some small like the one he'd just come through, others much, much larger. Another small one at the opposite end from him opened and a brawny, shirtless man came striding out. He raised his fist high to the audience, earning several cheers, before turning to face Porthos and cracking his knuckles.
Porthos curled his lip. Fine. If these people wanted a fight, he'd give them a fight.
He stalked toward his opponent, the two of them circling initially, sizing each other up. The other guy attacked first, swinging a mighty punch. Porthos threw an arm up to block and delivered a left jab toward the man's stomach. He doubled over from the impact, but it was just a ruse to get close and he head butted Porthos in the abdomen, propelling him back several feet before flinging him to the ground.
The wind got knocked out of him and it took him a full minute to get his breath back. His opponent had backed off in that time, shooting him an unimpressed smirk as the crowd roared. Porthos pushed himself to his feet and charged.
They exchanged several more blows. Losing patience, Porthos finally tackled him to the ground, both of them brawling until Porthos managed to end up straddling the guy and punched his face three times in quick succession until blood splattered the sediment from a split cheekbone and he stopped moving.
Porthos shoved himself away and staggered to his feet. Boos and jeers mixed with wolf whistles and cheers resounded from above. If this had been a fight club in Paris, he might have basked in some of the glory of victory, but in this place, forced into beating the crap out of someone, Porthos's stomach soured.
The two contenders' gates were drawn up. His beaten opponent dragged himself to his feet and limped toward his exit. Porthos glanced at the guards waiting for him at his.
"Come on, then," the leader called. "You don't want to be in the ring for the next fight. Trust me."
Seeing as he didn't have much choice in the matter, Porthos grudgingly walked out of the pit. His guards backed up, still giving him a wide berth so he couldn't easily attack them. The gate closed behind him and he started back down the tunnel, only to stop in his tracks when he heard a dragon's screech, followed by an uproar of cheers. He whipped his gaze back toward the arena and saw a brown, collared dragon entering the ring. His heart dropped into his stomach. He now had an idea of what Vrita and Rhaego were wanted for…
"Keep moving," his captor barked.
Porthos let himself be escorted back to his cell where Aramis was pacing. The threat of getting shot had him backing up as the door was unlocked and Porthos stepped back inside. Then it was locked and the men left.
"Are you all right?" Aramis asked, looking him over. "What happened?"
"I was right," he grunted, shrugging out of his coat since he was sweating quite a bit. "Gunther's runnin' a fight ring. He's got this entire arena and a balcony full of spectators."
Aramis frowned. "I take it you won?"
Porthos shot him a dry look and eased himself to sitting down with a wince. He was going to have a few bruises and aches, but overall he'd had worse from a fight. "It gets worse though," he said grimly. "It looks like he's stagin' dragon fights too."
Aramis stiffened. "Then…"
"Yeah. We need ta find a way out of here."
"We'll be noted as missing soon," Aramis remarked, then sighed. "Not that anyone will find us in an underground fortress," he added dourly.
No. Unfortunately, they'd probably have to rescue themselves. They just had to figure out how they were going to do that. Their best chance would probably be to and from the fight ring, but Porthos had been heavily guarded and finding an opening was going to be difficult. Not to mention then finding their dragons and then the way out of here.
Guards came to them again a while later. One had a plate of gruel which he set on the floor inside the cell.
"Reward for winning your fight," the guy in charge said. He then pointed to Aramis. "You're up next."
Aramis glanced at Porthos, then shrugged out of his coat, leaving it behind as he headed out. Porthos watched darkly as the cell was locked and Aramis led away. He went over and picked up the plate of food, grimacing at the gloopy porridge. His stomach growled, hungry after that fight.
Porthos hesitated before shoving a spoonful into his mouth though. Aramis was a good fighter, and Porthos had taught him most of his own dirty tricks, but they had yet to learn what rules these barbarians played by—if any.
So he set his ration aside to save for Aramis's return, just in case.
.o.0.o.
Rhaego listened to the echo of dragon shrieks that reverberated through the rock. They rattled the earth and his bones with blood-curdling pain and desperation. It was a relief when they finally stopped, though the underground fortress was anything but quiet. He could hear men scuffling about, like rats in the dark. He couldn't see anyone though, not from his cage. Not his rider, or Vrita. He threw his head back and belted out a questioning trill.
A few moments later he heard Vrita's answering call. She was here, somewhere. He chirped back: he didn't know where Aramis and Porthos were. She responded that neither did she.
He craned his neck around and tried to gnaw at the metal bindings on his wings, but it was no use. Growling in frustration, he raked his claws across the ground.
"This one's restless," a human said, coming down the passage into sight. There were four others, all carrying poles with small metal loops on the end and acimite tipped spears. Rhaego bared his fangs at them.
"Feisty too," another said.
They started unlocking the door of the cage. As soon as it was open, Rhaego kindled his inner fire and opened his mouth wide to incinerate them all. Yet before he could get a geyser of flames out, one of the men threw a fistful of refroidi into his mouth. He jerked back, choking and coughing as his fire instantly fizzled out.
The humans poured in, hooking their poles around the notches in the metal collar around his neck. Rhaego tried to rear away but their distributed weight and pull forced his head down. They used the leverage to start dragging him out of the cage. He tried to dig his feet in, but another man circled around behind him and jabbed one of the acimite spears at his leg.
"Go on, get!"
Rhaego snarled in response and fought the entire way that they hauled him down the tunnel. But it didn't do any good and they eventually reached an opening into a cavern. Then they started to unhook the poles from the collar and Rhaego snapped his jaws at the men, aiming to take their heads off. But the ones with spears were ready and thrust the points at his face. One blade scratched his cheek and he recoiled sharply with a hiss of pain.
The men continued to force him to retreat until he'd fully entered the cavern, and then a gate was brought down between him and the guards. He whipped his head around at his new surroundings, gaze jerking every which way as his senses were overloaded. Torchlight flickered across the walls high up. Noise rippled from an upper balcony. He could smell blood mixed with sediment, sweat, and the heightened musk of excited humans pressed together.
Movement caught his eye and he shrieked at it. People were gathered in the balconies. Rhaego took an instant disliking to them, but there was a ring of sharpened stakes extending out from the base of the balcony, not that Rhaego could launch himself that high with his wings strapped painfully against his back.
Grinding gears had him whipping around as a large gate on the opposite end of the cavern was drawn up. He straightened as another dragon came shuffling through, collared and wings bound just like his. It had a jagged scar running down one side of its face through a gnarled eye socket.
The other dragon snapped its head to the side, fixing Rhaego with its one good eye. Its nostrils flared and it let out a piercing screech as it started to stalk around the perimeter of the pit.
Rhaego reflexively flinched and cowed slightly. Normally he didn't back down from strange dragons encroaching on his space, but he didn't like this, didn't like the excited whoops that rippled through the watching crowd above.
He tentatively called out to the dragon, telling it he didn't want to fight. The beast's eyes flashed, but the only response Rhaego got was a rapid burst of "fight," "eat," "kill." This wasn't a dragon that had spent much time among humans, learning their language. Or, at least, not outside this place.
This was a wild dragon, held in captivity and conditioned for one thing: battle.
Belting out a challenging roar that vibrated off the walls, the dragon charged. Rhaego tried to scamper out of the way at first, but he had nowhere to go. Forced to fight or die, he spun around and snapped his jaws at his advancing foe.
The other dragon reared back but swiped his claws at Rhaego instead. They caught him across the chest, scoring shallow gouges through his scales. He screeched in pain and lunged, tackling the other dragon and rolling across the ground in a lightning storm of gnashing teeth and talons.
He buried his fangs in the other dragon's shoulder; the brute latched onto his foreleg and pierced him down to the bone. Blood flew in splatters and flecks in every direction. Above, the crowd roared and hollered and banged the walls.
Rhaego hit the wall and cried out, loosing his hold on his foe as the impact jarred through the metal fetters on his wings. The other dragon swung its head and head butted him, slamming him into the wall again. Rhaego rolled and kicked out with his back legs, raking his claws down the other dragon's belly. It reeled back with a shriek and retreated, limping to the other end of the pit.
Rhaego rolled back onto his stomach, panting heavily. There were murmurs from above, some angry shouts. The other dragon didn't move, so neither did Rhaego.
Finally, after several more moments, a loud voice called out that it was a draw. Disappointed yells went up from the balcony. The other dragon's gate opened and it immediately turned to hobble toward it, leaving a trail of blood behind in its wake. Once it was through and the gate shut again, the one near Rhaego was drawn up. He simply stared at it, body thrumming with pain and weakness.
A couple of minutes later, the men with spears and poles filed in and spread out to surround him. Rhaego snarled and tried to muster the energy to attack, but they were quick and had him hooked in a matter of seconds. He resisted being dragged back to his cage on principle, though once again it did little good and only exacerbated his wounds. They locked him up and left him alone, and only then did he collapse in exhaustion.
He heard Vrita's throaty trumpet calling out to him, asking if he was okay. He glanced over his wounds and didn't know what to say. Her calls turned even more anxious and he finally responded that he was here. It was the best he could offer. Vrita was quiet for a moment before once again asking if he was okay.
He didn't answer and instead curled in on himself to lick his wounds. He was not okay at all.