They'll get here. They'll get me out. They'll find me. John chanted the words as the day unfolded around him.
He was still thirsty. He could tell that the water he'd had in the night had helped. That single bottle-worth of liquid had staved off lethal dehydration for a little while longer, and because of it, he had a chance to make it through the day - if only barely. They'd found his bowl and put it back in the cage with another dose of the drug. He'd poured it out, then made a show of "pretending" to drink it, stumbling around afterwards for effect. Sadly, the stumbling part wasn't entirely faked. They'll get here.
He was hot. The sun burned off the last of the storm clouds and left the courtyard literally steaming. Wisps of fog hovered over the puddles in eerie mini-marshes until one of the children came along and splashed in them. The humidity made it feel even hotter than it probably was. His by-now disgusting t-shirt clung to his chest, damp from the air and what little sweat his body was able to give up. He stayed back behind the jumble of boulders, away from the south wall of bars to stay cool and to stay away from the people that were filing by. They'll find me.
He was...scared. The sun marched across its arc, closer and closer to the western boundary that marked his last chance. The pompous Argyle had held a morning ceremony blessing the Final Feast, (which was apparently an all day affair) and, again, condemned John to the Champion at "sunset". After that, every "citizen" worked their way past his cage at some point during the day to murmur a curse, share a perceived injustice against them. Then every one would spit in his direction and file away again, most putting a token offering of food or sweets in the champion's cage.
"Maybe he'll get too full to fight," John muttered after watching the animal man scuttle to his bowl to wolf a delicious looking bit of bar-b-que. It was a specious hope - the animal man looked more manic and agitated than ever, probably as spooked by the crowds approaching the cage as John was. God, he really had to get out of here!
For the most part, John ignored the people and their curses. A guard with a long spear had been posted beside the bars to keep John from grabbing for anyone and John was happy to comply. He refused to acknowledge them or give them the pleasure of seeing him react in any way. He only broke the rule twice - once when Harz the guard came by, his cousin at his side. Instead of the usual ritual, Harz just stared at John, looking conflicted.
"Kerz said you could have killed me, but...you let go. Why?" the man demanded of John, surprising the guard on duty.
John shrugged. "Killing you wouldn't have helped me any." He put no remorse or altruism in his tone. He'd let go, because killing the man wouldn't have changed the outcome in that scenario. It was a simple fact. John could kill when he needed to. He wouldn't when there was no tactical advantage for doing so.
The man, Harz, nodded, still perplexed. He didn't spit, John noticed. Neither did the cousin.
The second time he spoke to a citizen was when a large burly man strolled by carrying a long thin boy. It was his friend, Merk. The kid was sprawled against his Uncle, his face buried in the hairy man's neck and his thin arms draped around the man's shoulders.
"Hey, kid! Hey, is the kid OK?" John left the shadow to step closer, waving to catch the Uncle's attention. The uncle scowled at John's interest. When he answered, it was probably for the guard's benefit who was also looking concerned and sympathetic.
"His heart is acting up. Played too hard in the damn rain last night. He's been droopy all day. Didn't even want to come out for the blessing. Says he doesn't want to watch the contest."
John bit his lip, feeling a sting in his eyes that he didn't have the water to relieve.
"He'll perk up once the excitement and the bonfires get going," the guard reassured. Merk lifted his head just enough to catch John's eye, then buried his face into his uncle's shoulder with a small murmur.
"What did he say?" asked the guard, patting the lethargic boy on his back.
"Uh, something about 'the pretty won't eat him'. He's been muttering that all day."
The uncle spoke his curse and spat at John, tried halfheartedly to get Merk to say something, then wandered away towards the porches. John retreated and leaned against the back wall, burying his own face in the cold concrete. He still had his ally, but what a sickly little boy could do for him was beyond his imagination. He'd only made the boy miserable. He felt kind of sick himself.
When the sun reached two fists above the roof, John began to pace, his mind racing and his heart pounding. People were still filing by, but most were looking dressed up, ready for the evening. Not as "prom night" as the first night, but John could tell they'd pulled out their nicest clothes. The cooking fires and booths had been going all day and an amazing smell of meat, bread, and baked sweets drifted past on every breeze. John had been thirsty for so long, he didn't notice his dry mouth and swollen tongue anymore. At least until a great plume of smoke billowed from the booths and saturated the courtyard in the scent of smoked brisket. His mouth watered so fiercely he had to slurp down the spit or risk drooling. His stomach growled so angrily that he hunched over with the rumble.
A horn blew, loud and clear, and John shivered. The excitement in the courtyard amped up a notch or two and John's terror ramped with it. Even the animal man felt the charge and crashed into the wire a few times, his single clear eye locked on John, his teeth bared. John pressed himself against the back corner gulping air. When the people on the courtyard cheered and began moving towards the booths, he was still only able to relax a little. They were going to eat, he realized as the crowds remained by the billowing smoke. But the contest would follow. The sun was a blinding orb over the roofs, centered with some cruel poetry over the tallest and most stately of the buildings.
John had tried to develop a strategy against the animal man, should he have to fight. He'd scoured every inch of his cage for a loose stick or rock that he could use as a weapon. He'd found only gravel and the bowl. He'd forced himself to prepare hand-to-hand scenarios, but every fight ended in his mind the same way he feared they'd end in real life: He was weak and already damaged. The animal man was fed, rested and...scary. Forcing optimism, he ran through the positives he'd been able to dredge out of his situation. 1, The animal man was blind in one eye giving John a slight advantage, there. 2, He'd avoided the drugs. He was dizzy, shivery and wobbly, but not drugged. 3...surely there had been a three?
He couldn't concentrate. He thought he might be able to muster a burst of strength when it came down to it, but not for long. His only chance was a fast, startling victory in the first minutes of the fight. IF he had to fight.
Damn it! Where are you?
He stared into the sun, mesmerized. He found himself thinking back to a day last week when he'd ended up on the command balcony at sunset with Elizabeth, Teyla, Rodney and Zelenka. There'd been some excuse to be together, but they weren't talking. They'd just watched the sun sink into the waves and the sky explode into color. He remembered thinking about how fast the planet was rotating and how slow the sun seemed to move. He and Rodney had argued about the JPH* he'd need to fly for a jumper to "pace" the sun and - like the Little Prince - witness perpetual sunset. The moment of quiet companionship, friendship, had lasted forever. (JPH = the goofy unit of speed the ancients used. The ancients were terrible at naming things.)
Tonight, the globe seemed to fall out of the sky like a rock. When the last edge dipped behind the building a heavy, cold lump of resolution settled into his guts. They hadn't come. It was too late. It would be over soon...one way or another. The tall pole and its surrounding heaps of logs and kindling loomed over the center of the courtyard, mocking him. Fear slid away - it had no use. He sat down on his boulder to conserve what energy he did have. The crowd was taking its time, still laughing and talking over the food at the other end. It was really annoying, actually. If he was going to die, he'd rather just get on with it.
He sort of took back the thought when another horn blew and the crowd started to move towards the cage in a large happy group. And he couldn't entirely squash the fear. His hands started to shake. He scoured his eyes over the cage again as if a pile of weapons might appear out of thin air. His eyes fell on the bowl again, and an idea flashed through his brain. He scrambled to snatch it up and looked more closely - it was simple carved wood, a solid piece and fairly thick. The edges were smooth. He tried holding the bowl over a fist, but couldn't get a good grip. He needed something to grip it with. He looked around, then down at himself. He smiled.
Ducking behind the biggest boulder, he stripped off his soggy black shirt and wrapped it around the bowl, stretching and tying the fabric until the bowl began to resemble a black jellyfish with a knot and dangle of fabric coming out of the open end. He picked it up by the knot and gave it an experimental swing. Crappy balance, but might give him a little leverage for a harder whack or two. He put the bowl just out of sight of the south bars and stood up again to loosen his canvas belt. He left it in the loops and tied together in the front so it wouldn't dangle, but it was unbuckled and loose for quick retrieval.
The murmur of the crowd was growing louder and the throng was spreading right around the cage itself, four or five rows deep from the bottom step. John allowed himself a little relief - he'd wondered if they'd be moved somewhere else, in which case they certainly wouldn't let him take his homemade weapon and might possibly try to drug him again. He did wonder how he was going to get into the animal man's cage or vice versa. He stood at the very back, a warm summer evening breeze raising goosebumps.
A couple of the women in the crowd noticed his bare chest and began to giggle and point and blow mock kisses his way. John blushed, half with embarassment half with fury. He wasn't exactly shy, but the mocking attention was just wrong. He felt exposed and...used. He turned his back on the women who were against the east side of his cage and heard them gasp as they were confronted with the massive striping of bruises on his back.
Use it, John, a small voice inside his head told him, use the anger. Get these bastards back. But another part of him quietly noticed that that's exactly what these people were doing - they were getting back at the "pretties" who made their lives miserable every day. He shook the argument aside. This was survival. Conscience was for...later.
"Citizens!" bellowed Argyle.
Here we go, John thought. His hands were fists against his side and he kept blinking, hoping his eyes would clear. The crowd cheered. Of course.
"We have feasted together and we have heaped our curses upon the Pretty. When our champion sends him to the ancestors, our curses will go with him, freeing us from the misery of their burden." Lovely symbolism, John snarled to himself. Argyle went on. "We are particularly blessed this festival. The Pretty who will carry our curses is a soldier, a man of power. Our victory will be all the sweeter as we prove that not even a man of such beauty, strength and resources can deny us our glory when we choose to reach for it."
Ok, that really stings! John blushed again, this time out of shame. Some man of strength, tricked by a little girl! "Even soldiers are human," he called, unable to stay silent. "I'm just a guy. I try to be a nice guy. I don't want to die. And I'm not planning to." There, that sounded pretty confident! And don't call me beautiful.
"SILENCE!" Roared the Lord of the Festival and the crowed booed until John rolled his eyes. It had been clear from the beginning that these people would not be talked down.
"We will not be denied!" Argyle screamed, working the crowd up into a froth. "Tonight, we witness TRIUMPH!"
"Not your best speech of the festival, old guy," John muttered, charged by the frenetic atmosphere. He kept his eyes on everyone, his battle-trained observation skills taking in any motion that might have direct impact. Fast and sudden, he kept repeating to himself. He wouldn't last in a struggle. He had to take the animal man out in the first two minutes. He was already starting to shake from stress and the low resources his body had to call upon. The animal man was just as agitated, but looked a little more eager than John. It was pacing the fenceline, glaring and "sssk"ing.
Four guards approached the front of the Pavilion and hooked ropes through the end of the wire wall that extended slightly beyond the native iron bars. Two had metal clippers that they used to quickly snip away the several strands that had been used to attach the temporary fence to the bars. John heard scratching on the solid wooden wall at the back of the pavilion and saw the screws that held down that end of the fence loosen and fall out. When the animal man crashed into the fence, wild with excitement, John couldn't keep himself from skittering to the far side of his half. The now loose fence bent and wobbled, startling the thing. It scuttled away, hissing.
"Let the contest begin!" Argyle bellowed over the cheering.
"Heave on three, men!" called the guard in charge. All four grabbed the ropes, waved the crowd out of their way and braced their feet. "One, two...three!"
The guards pulled on the ropes and the wire slid out of the pavilion like a sliding door on a patio. The noise of the audience drowned out the screaming scraping of metal against iron and gravel. The fence hooked and swayed a couple of times, but the four strong guards heaved with relentless strength and bent or otherwise bullied the thing out of the pavilion, leaving one large, open cage. John was aware of all of that, but the contest started before the gap had reached five feet wide.
With a clicking hiss of pleasure, the animal man scampered through the opening into John's side, then paused, hands splayed, hissing and twisting its head around like it had entered a completely new room. Territorial, John thought. It really is acting like an animal defending and expanding its territory. The moment of inventory was brief. The man zeroed in on John and lunged, pure aggression, pure instinct. John let it close to about two meters, then dashed down the length of the south bars when it was hopping over the rocks. Unable to change direction as quickly on the unstable footing, the man was forced to rebalance before turning in pursuit.
John cut from front to back, staying far enough ahead of the creature to keep it from closing. The crowd screamed and booed, crying out for contact and bloodshed. That would come soon enough, but for now, John was testing the thing's abilities. And he wasn't liking what he saw. It was wiry, lithe and quick as a cat. John spent another moment playing the role of the mouse, deliberately sticking to its blind side, and saw the opening he'd been hoping for, as small as it was: The creature turned its head constantly to make up for the loss of stereo vision, but it kept its left hand out to help it feel its way as it leaped and chased John around the cage.
John worked his way back to his side where he'd left the bowl. The man pursued, more slowly now, having figure out that John was just dancing. It was clearly thinking about trying a different approach. For a moment, they faced each other from opposite sides of what had been John's cage, the 'weapon' between them.
"What's the matter, friend? Can't catch me? Too full of barbecue?" John taunted, hating how breathless he sounded. He still wasn't sure the man understood. It hissed a challenge in reply. "I'm not going to just lie down and die for you, so if you want me, come and get me!"
John watched carefully, then moved at the same moment the creature did. Almost as if choreographed, they lunged towards each other, the animal man's fingers outstretched, John's shoulder lowered. He had one chance. One brief moment when momentum and strategy were on John's side. If he screwed it up, it would come down to strength...and John would lose. The crowd screamed its approval, cheering and chanting
At the last possible second, John ducked to the right - the man's blind side. He felt the claws rake down his shoulder as the thing tried to grab onto him, but John threw one arm over its "balance" arm, twisted it behind its back, jammed a foot into the thing's ankles (hey, it had worked on him, hadn't it?) and fell with it as it toppled onto the gravel. The bowl was two feet away and John snatched for the fabric knot, swung, and brought the solid wooden end down hard on the back of the creature's head. Ronon and Teyla would be so proud!
Its face dug into the gravel and it went limp except for slow twitches and a constant, "Skkkk, skkk, sssssk..."
John pressed his knee into the thing's back, stripped off his belt, wrapped the loop around one wrist and tied the other to it tightly behind its back. And then he was done.
He tried to stand up again, but his head went spinning and he managed only to scrabble a few feet away from the defeated champion. He leaned against a boulder and rolled his head back against it, panting in great heaving gasps. He was trembling from head to toe, and he felt weak like he'd never felt before...like he couldn't even raise his arms again if he needed to. Outside the cage there was utter, absolute silence. John cracked open his eyes to see four hundred pale and stunned faces staring at him.
Oh, wow, he thought. What happens next? Every ounce of his concentration had been focused on making it through that moment. The future beyond the contest had seemed so opaque, he had never even thought to consider what would come after if he won. He...hadn't really expected to win.
"All right!" John heard a small, happy voice cry into the silence. John smiled a weary smile. His friend had been rooting for him. The tiny voice was immediately drowned out by angry murmurs that quickly became shouts and screams of fury. People rushed the bars to shake their fists and yell and curse at him. He was too weary to even flinch. The shaking was getting worse, and his legs were cramping up again. There was a strange black border around everything, it felt like he was looking down a tunnel. He suddenly noticed his parched, dry throat and something else...he was hot. Fever hot. He closed his eyes for a second. It was getting harder and harder to think.
He was vaguely aware of Argyle and the guards huddled together, also shouting and gesturing. He felt a rush of fear when, for a second, he couldn't remember why he was on the ground and why people were yelling at him. He sagged further against the boulder. He was sick, he thought dully. Something was wrong. He was really thirsty. Maybe he could ask someone for a drink.
Half a dozen guards shoved their way through the angry mob towards the gate. Two had to stay by the door to keep the crowd from rushing in, too, and the remaining four marched towards him, their expressions grim. John revived a little when they grabbed for his arms and yanked him to his feet. The headrush from being pulled upright brought panic and he struggled blindly, his vision blacked out by the low blood pressure. The guards wrestled for a moment, then one of them cursed and jammed his knee into John's chest.
His breath burst out of his throat and he gasped, unable to take another in. Emboldened, another guard swung at his face for good measure. When he could finally draw air again, he felt hot liquid streaming out of his nose, choking him and causing him to splutter. The blood tasted salty on his lips. Limp again, John felt his arms pulled over two of the guards' shoulders and he was dragged, feet trailing behind him, out of the cage and into the midst of the throng.
John had witnessed mobs before, usually as an enforcer holding the line against it. But this was...terrifying. He was jostled and shoved against the guards who had to draw close just to keep him from being yanked out of their grasp. Hands reached towards his bare torso and scraped or slapped at him. It was hot and loud and sweaty and John's head began to spin even faster with claustrophobic nausea. The guards weren't happy either. After one large citizen whacked the front guard with a stick trying to reach for John, John saw a terrifying look pass among his escort. They weren't going to take any more for him. They were on the verge of just tossing him to the crowd where he would no doubt be trampled or torn to bits.
"Don't! Don't!" he gasped, pleading with them. He didn't know where he was going, but surely it was better than death by mob.
The supper horn rang out over the courtyard, shrill and clear and the jostling subdued. The horn blew four more times until the crowd calmed down to more or less a dull roar and the guards could move forward again. Someone began bellowing through the bullhorn that had been used for the dance steps and the crowd pulled further away, opening a path. John recognized the pompous tones of Argyle, but couldn't catch any words. The black tunnel had squeezed out all but a flashlight splash of his vision and dulled his hearing.
Argyle continued to soothe, and the guards hurried across the courtyard, John dragging along between them. A flirtatious breeze ruffled his hair. He lifted his head, (after realizing it had been drooping against his chest) took in the scene before him...and balked. Pure panic took over. He planted his feet, shoved backwards and let his arms go completely limp - (a tactic he'd learned from an Athosian toddler, once). He slipped out of the guards' grasp and ended up on his butt. Before they could get another good grip, John flipped over and tried to crawl through the legs around him, bracing for the lunge it would take to heave himself to his feet.
He got as far as drawing his toes under him before the most fed up guard simply hauled off and kicked him. John felt a crack as the heavy boot sank into his ribcage. He was thrown sideways, skinning his elbow against the rough pavement. He curled up, expecting - hoping almost - to be pummeled into jelly on the spot. When he went limp, though, the kicking stopped and he was - again - hauled upright. Again, he was relentlessly pulled forward. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut to keep the spinning, frightening world out.
When the march stopped, he felt thick ropes being tied around his wrists in front of him. The gasps of air he sucked down tasted bitter, what little he could force through his bloody nose smelled of kerosene and oil. He opened his eyes and saw the pile of kindling stacked in front of him, higher than his head. The rope that tied his hands together ran up to loop through a ring at the top of the wooden pole and back down again. A moan of fear escaped his throat and he leaned away from the stake only to be pushed closer.
Argyle himself loomed into the small circle of vision that remained to John.
"You lose, pretty," the Lord of the Festival snarled, his voice low and menacing...personal. John met the man's eyes, sunken in the disfigured face. From somewhere in the crowd a little boy was crying, "He won! He didn't eat me! You can't, he won!" To John's right, two guards were watching, solemn and still, disapproval written in their posture and expressions. He glanced at them briefly, then lifted his chin.
"I win," John whispered.
Argyle cursed, his face so twisted in fury that for a moment, John wasn't sure if he was going to scream or punch. In the end, Argyle stepped back, fists clenched and jaw locked.
"Heave it aloft," he bellowed and flung his arm at the men who were holding the other end of the dangling rope. The men pulled and John's arms were yanked over his head and he was slammed into the pile of kindling.
I win, he thought, and then the agony of being scraped across the pile of logs overwhelmed him at last, and he fell, willingly, into the black tunnel.