The Soul Engine Ch. 21 (Original Fantasy) (Patreon)

A/N: The Grand Melee begins in earnest. This is not necessarily a good thing.

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The volunteers, Mikael and Thayla included, are allowed out onto the Colosseum Floor first. The central arena that the Colosseum is built around is a massive space with a sandy floor and for a moment Mikael finds himself flashing back to the much smaller pit in which Thayla had ended his life. But… no. He needs to focus. It’s not surprising that there’s still plenty of lingering trauma over those events, but Mikael can’t let himself focus on it right now.

Instead, he pushes those feelings down, gives a worried-looking Thayla a single sharp nod to show he’s still good, and then focuses on everything BUT the sandy arena floor. Like for instance, he’d thoroughly underestimated the number of volunteers. It quickly becomes apparent that plenty of the volunteer fighters hadn’t bothered to partake of the lounge’s hospitality and had instead been waiting close by for the actual event to start.

To be fair, Alether was a border city of no small size, so it shouldn’t have been all that surprising, but where Mikael had initially clocked mere dozens of warriors in the lounge area before, now he counts what has to be at least a hundred different heads slowly spreading out over the arena around him and Thayla.

As in the lounge area, the two of them split off from the others and quickly find a wall. Down at the other end of the Colosseum, there’s a yawning opening covered in shadow where Mikael assumes the prisoners being forced to partake in this Grand Melee will spill forth from. He can’t see any gates or bars down there, but they must be further in, hidden by the sun beating down hard overhead.

There’s plenty of room in the Colosseum for a hundred fighters to spread out and all have some breathing room from one another. Which is why it’s noticeable when a group of thugs follows him and Thayla off to their chosen part of the wall. They’re wearing leather jerkins and wielding an assortment of weapons that look relatively well-maintained. They also don’t actually say a word to the two of them, but just from the glances the more antsy ones are throwing their way, mostly towards Thayla… their intentions are obvious.

Zadicus’ little speech in the lounge might have been the Lord of the City’s attempt to engender a certain amount of camaraderie among the volunteers so that his dissenters amidst the prisoners would all die first, but it was obvious his efforts were always going to have a limited effect. Everyone was here for the same thing after all, and only one of them could win.

Still, the Grand Melee hadn’t begun yet, so Mikael pretends to ignore the thugs aiming for an early victory and focus on everything else. Like, for instance, the stands. The Colosseum Stands are packed to the brim with people. Looking around, he imagines there must be tens of thousands of them. Maybe even as much as half the city.

Not all of them looked that happy to be there either. Sweeping his gaze back and forth across the gathered crowds, Mikael sees just as many unhappy faces as he does happy ones. He sees just as many jeering at the warriors down in the arena as he sees cheering them on. Honestly, he’s not sure everyone who’s come to watch the Grand Melee is here by choice.

He and Thayla had of course noticed the crowds streaming towards the Colosseum as they’d made their way to the volunteer area, but now Mikael was recontextualizing the way those guards had been corralling people along. He felt a little foolish now for assuming they were just there to manage traffic flow and keep anyone from being trampled to death.

No… Zadicus wanted an audience. And what the Lord of Alether wanted, he got. Mikael’s jaw clenches and he draws his sword for lack of anything better to do, checking the buckler strapped to his arm and making sure it’s nice and tight. Beside him, Thayla draws her own sword and shield as well, giving him a resolute nod with tightly pressed together lips.

Just as they’re preparing for battle… a clanking sound suddenly rings out from the yawning blackness at the far end of the Colosseum. And then… there’s a rush of noise, both metallic and decidedly human in nature, as hundreds upon hundreds of people dressed in anything from rags to roughed up evening wear come rushing out onto the Colosseum Floor.

Each and every one of them is chained and shackled at the wrists and ankles like Mikael was. They’re ‘armed’ for lack of a better word with absolute trash for weapons. The lucky ones have knives. Some get pans. Others get spatulas, or even just rusty pieces of metal that Mikael can’t even discern the purpose of.

A hush falls over the Colosseum. The massive audience watching from the stands all go quiet as they see their fellow citizenry, reduced to such a state. Mikael notes more than a few teary eyed faces as some reach out towards their loved ones, as if to somehow cross the gulf of space between them but to no avail.

Zadicus couldn’t have planned it better himself. As silence falls over the Colosseum, A loud clap can be heard from the Lord’s Podium, a large platform overlooking the arena floor. All eyes, both on the sand and in the stands, look up towards where the scarred man stands, a broad smile on his face. When he speaks, some magical effect makes sure that his voice carries across the entire Colosseum.

“Welcome, one and all, to the SECOND GRAND MELEE!”

Mikael half-expects some booing… but the crowd is deathly silent. Looking around, he notes the guards in the stands, heads on a swivel as they look out for any troublemakers.

“The first was such a success that its still remembered fondly to this day! FIVE HUNDRED entered this arena, but only one left with the FIVE THOUSAND GOLD PRIZE!”

Five hundred. Mikael starts to feel a pit in his stomach as a realization begins to sink in.

“But you might be asking yourselves… how can we possibly top those numbers?! As it turns out, quite easily my beloved subjects! Today, ONE THOUSAND stand before you! And they compete for the chance to walk away with TEN THOUSAND GOLD! Just like before, last one standing gets the GRAND PRIZE!”

And there it was. The reason behind the rounding up of hundreds of innocent people on trumped up charges right before the Grand Melee was set to start. A stupid, asinine, selfish reason. Mikael shouldn’t have been surprised, but he still was. Zadicus had decided to go big for this. He’d decided to go all out in order to prove himself to the Council of Lords no doubt tightening his leash.

No wonder the guards had been arresting people off the streets for accidentally knocking things over with their hips. They’d probably had quotas to meet, each and every one.

“Ah, but you didn’t all come here to listen to me prattle on, did you?! No… you came here for the same reason any of you visit one of my arenas… to see some BLOOD! Without further ado… LET THE SECOND GRAND MELEE COMMENCE!”

Mikael jolts at the suddenness of it all. Zadicus had been much freer with his information to all of them in the volunteer lounge. He’d been expecting the man to repeat pretty much everything he’d said back there… but no. They got what they did because they were the group Zadicus wanted to make sure won. Everyone else… was mere fodder for the man’s bloated ego.

Immediately, the group of eight thugs from earlier turn to Mikael and Thayla, ugly looks on their faces as they brandish their weapons. They quickly spread out in a half-circle, trapping him and Thayla against the wall they’ve put their backs to. Meanwhile utter bedlam erupts all over the arena floor, but every fiber of Mikael’s being is telling him to focus on the battle right in front of him. Distractions are just going to get him killed.

“Heh. Yer a Knight of the Rose, ain’tcha?”

Stiffening as she lifts sword and shield, Thayla narrows her icy blue eyes at the thugs through the visor of her helm.

“I am indeed. You all would do well to turn around and find easier prey.”

The thugs look around at each other, then at Thayla and Mikael. He suspects most of them might not know their numbers very well just based off their general appearance and likely intelligence, but then they don’t need to know math to know that there’s a lot more of them then there are of her and him. The spokesperson for the group lets out a bark of laughter.

“Hah! I don’t think so, bitch. But hey, we’ll give you a chance to take off that fancy gold armor and then get down on your knees and suck our cocks, and if you do a really good job, maybe we’ll let you leave with your head still on your shoulders afterwards.”

There’s a pause in which Mikael finds himself admiring Thayla’s restraint as the Knight of the Rose goes as still as a statue before finally answering.

“I refuse.”

The spokesthug’s ugly face gets uglier when he smiles at that.

“Hoped you would.”

Then, he flicks his eyes towards Mikael.

“And you? You ain’t no knight. She payin’ you? Whatever it is, it ain’t enough. Join us and you might not get the grand prize, but you’ll keep yer life.”

Mikael tilts his head to the side at that and considers the other man’s words. He’s been thinking about these eight men as thugs… but he needs to adjust his thinking. They’re probably not quite as piss poor at fighting as Tak and his friends were. Else they wouldn’t have agreed to sign up for the Grand Melee in the first place. Sure, they’re opportunists… but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.

Which is why Mikael doesn’t respond with words. Instead, he launches himself forward with all the extra speed that the Soul Engine gives him, deciding to go on the attack before these bastards can do it instead.

“Wha-?!”

His sword sinks into the throat of the spokesperson for the group of eight, silencing him with a gurgle. Mikael follows him down to the ground, feeling Thayla leaping to his side and knowing she’ll have his back. And while he’s down there with the dead man’s body, their chests quite close together… he sucks the bastard’s soul right up, feeding on him and drawing in the excess energy.

Bolstered by that power, Mikael is up on his feet a moment later, blocking a sword with his buckler while Thayla fights off several more of them on her side all on her own. Mikael would have loved to go back to back with her… but the truth is, their fighting styles couldn’t be more different. There’s a reason that Mikael only has a buckler while Thayla’s shield is larger and more encompassing. There’s a reason that the Knight of the Rose is in full golden plate armor, while Mikael is in a mixture of metal and leather.

Speed. To put it in vaguely remembered terms from his old life, Thayla is a tank. Mikael is a dps. And in a battle like this one, where this bout is but one small step in an entire chain of conflicts they’re expected to not just take part in but win at… Mikael takes his damage per second quite… literally.

He’s goes for the next man faster than the poor fool can even blink and stabs him in the heart with enough force that his sword tears right through the leather jerkin. He rips it back out along with the soul, though this time the teal pull of energy is more noticeable as it floods into his chest. Noticeable enough in fact that…

“Spellcaster!”

One of the other fighters calls out what Mikael is doing to his fellows… only to die with a gurgle a moment later when Thayla takes advantage of his distraction to slip past his mediocre defenses and cut him down to size. And even hearing that Mikael is more than just a sword-and-board average warrior doesn’t help the group of men who have decided he and Thayla are excellent targets. No, far from it.

Over the next minute, they proceed to dismantle their enemies. Nothing that their attackers do helps them, not even trying to flee. Mikael supposes he could have spared some of their lives and let them retire from the battlefield… but he was going to need all the juice he could get if he was going to overpower Zadicus. And the comments to Thayla had left them as acceptable targets in Mikael’s mind.

Afterwards, having sucked up eight more human-sized souls into the Soul Engine, Mikael is feeling spectacular. Physically speaking, anyways. Emotionally speaking, he looks out across the arena and sees a one-sided slaughter taking place. There are a couple of battles like his and Thayla’s taking place here and there. It’s a Free For All, so it’s impossible to say that there are two sides and one is defeating the other or anything like that.

But wherever he sees the much better armed and armored volunteers fighting the so-called ‘criminals’ that Zadicus rounded up for this spectacle, Mikael usually sees it only ending in one way. It makes his jaw clench, even as he shoots a glance up to the man himself, the cause of all of this. The Lord of the City isn’t even looking Mikael’s way. Just as Avina had said, Mikael’s use of the Soul Engine hasn’t registered as any more important than any of the other magical effects flying around the arena.

In fact, right as he’s thinking that, an explosion rocks the ground beneath his feet as the spellcaster from the bounty hunter team Thayla pointed out earlier fires off a massive ball of flames right into a concentrated mass of prisoners charging his group’s position.

The smell of burnt flesh on the wind and the screams filling Mikael’s ears make him clench his jaw beneath his mask. For a moment, he can’t bring himself to move. In the end… in the end, he has to give in just a little bit. He can feel the dead men in his fractured mind reaching out to him, offering him succor. They’ve all been in battles like this before, fragments that they are. Many of them died in battles like this.

If Mikael wants to not just survive, but also win… he’ll need their expertise. Letting out an explosive breath, Mikael looks over to Thayla and gives her a nod. Then, side by side, the two of them wade back into the fighting.

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A/N: Fight! Fight! Fight! Ah, but will Mikael be able to remain himself in all of this fighting?

Leave a Like if you enjoyed please, and toss me a comment if you have the time!

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Speaking of which, if you have the time I have a BIG request to make! Much like with A Savage Nature, I am trying to post The Soul Engine up on Royalroad now. Since TSE is an original fiction, my hope is I can rise way higher on RR's leaderboards than I did with ASN.

That said, getting the foot in the door early on is really difficult, especially on a website I've only posted to once before. If you're enjoying this story and you have the time/inclination to go and Follow/Favorite/Rate it over on Royalroad for me, that would mean a lot! Every little bit of support will help =)

The Soul Engine: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/74638/the-soul-engine-isekaifantasy