[Demda]

Demda didn’t know what to do. How could she beat the orc, the orc, that had scared away thirty of his kin with a single slash of his own sword and a look? What was her old master’s purpose here? Did he mean to humiliate her and then reclaim her? That would almost seem too good to be true. As if being his slave could be considered good. Or did he mean to humiliate and then kill her?

Question after question and Lash simply got closer. He was taking his time, walking toward her with his blade drawn. He had all the time in the world in which to kill the wretch. And what could Demda do? Run? For how long, and to what end? There was no way to escape from the arena.

Still, part of life’s struggle was to prolong inevitable death for as long as possible, and so Demda ran. Lash let out a laugh when he saw her begin to run, and a chorus of onlookers followed him in his mirth. He didn’t follow the girl, but boomed out, loud enough for all to hear. ”Go ahead and run little whelp, get yourself all worked up. I like my meat chewy and stringy.” If his words weren’t clear enough, the slaver running from his mouth as he looked at Demda left no doubt as to what he meant by them.

Demda slowed down on realizing that Lash wasn’t going to run after her. The laughs in the crowd didn’t bother her so much as the appearance of her master did. In Demda’s experience, the crowd didn’t really have a say in how a battle went. The only effect that they could have on a combatant was completely psychological. They couldn’t make a weak person strong or a strong weak. It was that realization that had kept Demda alive for those many months that she’d been fighting in the Angry Pits.

”I’m going to kill you, then I’m going to mount your bloody corpse in front of the entire Arena. Haha, I’m going to enjoy this.” Lash began his walk once more, moving slowly toward Demda.

”I should’ve known it was you, as if learning your name wasn’t enough to remind me. Everything right down to your dark skin and hair to the way your middle fingers form a web near the hand, all of it screamed mother. You look a lot like her, you know.”

Demda didn’t understand what he was talking about. Probably just trying to confuse her for the fight. His words didn’t immediately register. She continued to backtrack, circling him so that she didn’t end with her back against the wall. Doubtless, that was what he wanted.

Lash seemed to notice her lack of recognition, and gave her an ugly grin, ”You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you, you stupid little whore.” He continued to close ground, but only slightly as Demda was attempting to put him behind. But his longer strides inevitably took him further than her shorter legs could manage. ”We’re brother and sister.”

This time it was Demda’s turn to laugh. ”Ju lie, fething stupid orc.”

”Go ahead and laugh, it’s true. I was the unwanted half-orcish product of ****, the very cause of our family’s banishment to the outskirts of the corrupted woods of Silrosia, while you were the love child of our parents.”

Demda had to smile at the absurdity of it all. Her ‘brother’ wasn’t much of a storyteller, that much was evident. She was half-tempted to end his life now just to halt the stupid lies that were falling from his mouth. She’d never even heard of a place called Silrosia. While she was by no means well versed in geography, Demda reflected that the place was probably made up, just like the rest of his weak story.

The rest of the audience was listening with rapt attention. Brother and sister fighting? What drama! Lash certainly knew how to work a crowd, if nothing else.

Even if he was a filthy liar, it bothered Demda slightly that she knew so little of her past before Orckon, and that this orc was just now beginning to fill in the blanks with lies. Demda would’ve moved in for the kill, but he was more skilled than she. Her only chance was to stall.

Lash’s mirth turned to a darker mood, as he was probably realizing how little effect his story was having on the young half-elf. ”Shall I tell you how I killed our parents?”

”Why not?” Demda retorted, thankful for anything that would delay her death at his hands.

”I came through the barch with my goblin buddies, led them through it to our house near the center of the forest. Once I found the house, we entered. The door was unlocked. I made my way toward the bedroom, and found your dad on his way down the hall. Oh, I had a good bit of fun with him. That stuck up bastard always hated me, and me him, so I showed him what for. I peeled off his fingernails and made him swallow them; I bashed every one of his teeth in, until he started to choke. Then I ripped his manhood off. Then I let him wallow in his pain to die. By the time I was finished, my goblins had done for our mother.” Lash smiled another ugly one at that, and he stopped in his tracks, unwilling to end their bout just yet. ”Then I found you, in our mother’s room, cowering in the corner. The goblins were about to do for you too, but I stopped them, wonderful cuss that I am. I figured it was unfair the way they made me grow up in an elf city as a half-orc, shunned and reviled while they didn’t treat me much better than the rest. So in my infinite mercy, I found it in myself to allow you to live… in Orckon, for the rest of your days.” Here a grimace marred his already ugly features, and he took a couple of long steps forward. ”Little did I expect that you’d manage to live for twenty years, a little bit longer than I lived in Silrosia. I figured you wouldn’t last more than a month.”

While Demda didn’t remember a single thing that he’d recounted to her, neither did it ring of untruth. She half-remembered living in a forest, although she’d always managed to pass it off as nothing more than a dream she’d had once. The uncertainty was killing her. It nearly did for real, when she hesitated to take a step back, and Lash struck outward, slashing his sword horizontally toward her neck.

Demda managed to duck out of the way, but not before her old master’s scimitar took a lock or two off of her head. The momentum of his swing took the sword out of line for a moment, which gave Demda an opportunity to strike. She propped herself up on her arms, and swung both legs backward to attack his ankle. The blade at the back of her boots bit into his flesh just an inch or two in, eliciting a roar from the half-orc. By then he’d recovered from his swing, and was bringing the scimitar to bear above his head, preparing for a vertical strike to cleave Demda in two. Demda took a leaping roll to the side to avoid his blade. Nevertheless, the scimitar clashed against the back blade of her boot.

The roll eventually took Demda to her feet, and she stood up, whirling around to take stock of what Lash was doing. He was advancing at full speed, for a half-orc, and holding his sword between the two of them. He telegraphed a downward diagonal slash from his right to his left, aiming to hit Demda low, near the hips. As quick as she could, Demda performed a round off into Lash’s sphere and above his sword blade. Once her hands found ground, she whipped the front of her feet across the orc’s throat, causing another few cuts, although they were minor against his tough skin.

It probably should have ended there. Lash was too strong not to be able to bring his sword back in a reverse cut that would’ve cleaved the girl in two. As Demda found her feat, an explosion rocked the Arena. There were screams in the lower levels of the stands as parts of them fell into the ground. Across the fighting pit, Demda could spot a small portion of the wall crumbling, and a small cadre of warriors pouring through. Her attention remained on them for only a second. A second less than Lash’s attention was focused on them. Demda used the window of opportunity to get in close to the half-orc, and knee him right in the…