Page 7 of Chained to the Horned God

BARSOK

T he ogre’s hammer whistles past my head, trailing hot air like a forge bellows left open.

It misses, barely, but the wind of it still stings my cheek.

The bastard’s got four arms, each as thick as tree trunks, veined and glistening with sweat under the sun that beats down like judgment.

His tusks gleam like polished ivory, and his eyes burn the same molten color as the pits that birthed him.

He roars again—too loud, too full of himself. The crowd roars louder.

They like him. He’s flashy. He bellows and flexes and parades his brute strength like a show mare. The announcer calls him Gornath the Emberborn, Champion of the Smoked Teeth. I don’t care what he’s called. He fights like a battering ram without a brain. Easy to read. Easier to hurt.

His front-right arm swings in. I duck under it, pivot on my hoof, and slam my shoulder into his gut.

He grunts, stumbles, and I hear the wet crunch of bone in his ankle when I bring my knee up into the back of it.

He collapses hard on one side, howling, scrabbling at the ground with his other arms like a felled insect.

I give him a breath. Just one. Enough time to raise himself back to one knee, snarl crooked teeth, and raise the hammer again with a defiant grunt.

Then I take the other leg.

This one breaks easy. It folds sideways with a sound like snapping wood. He doesn’t scream this time. He just gasps, eyes wide. Like he’s finally realized what this place is. Like he just now understood that down here, in the sand, there are no rules. No gods. No mercy.

I step back. Let him crawl. Let them see.

The crowd is a writhing wall of noise. They chant my name with glee. Their mouths scream for death, their hands lifted in unison, fists and cups and coins raised toward the pit. “Bar-SOK! Bar-SOK!”

He tries to crawl to the edge of the ring. Toward escape. Toward anything but this.

I grab him by the back of the skull. One twist, fast and sharp. His neck pops like a ripe melon stem. His body slumps, limp, a sack of meat with no spark left inside.

The cheer that follows shakes dust from the upper columns. The crowd explodes into a frenzy. It isn’t victory they want—it’s spectacle.

I lift the hammer above my head and roar, deep and guttural.

Their chant swells louder. I see a child on a noblewoman’s lap clapping with bloodlust in her eyes.

I see two dark elf merchants shaking hands over a betting slip.

I see Lotor at the highest tier, lounging like a bored cat with wine-stained lips and a crooked grin.

He doesn’t clap. He doesn’t need to. His eyes glitter with something worse than approval.

They throw me a blood-crusted towel as the gates creak open. I stumble back through them, limping. My left side burns, ribs bruised, maybe cracked. My breath rattles in my throat.

By the time I make it to the cell, my body feels like someone poured boiling oil through my veins. The sweat stings my eyes, thick as grease, and I reek of copper and smoke.

Valoa is already there.

She doesn’t speak. She just takes the towel, dips it in the cistern, and starts wiping my face with slow, careful strokes. Her touch is cool and firm, her expression unreadable.

“You should see the other guy,” I mutter, trying for humor. It comes out gravel and blood.

She doesn’t laugh. But her eyes soften.

“You stink,” she finally says.

“Part of the charm.”

She rolls her eyes but keeps cleaning. The towel comes away red. She wrings it, dips it again, and presses it to my chest, over the worst of the bruises. Her hands pause on a particularly angry welt.

“Broken?”

“Maybe.”

She doesn’t press harder. She just nods and keeps moving, wiping me down with deliberate care. My legs tremble—not from pain. From the weight of being seen.

It hits me again how strange this is. How someone so small, so human, can stand next to a beast like me without flinching. How her touch doesn’t make me recoil. How she steadies me in a way no blade or shield ever has.

She changes out the towel. Reaches into her pouch for salve. The smell of crushed lavender and bitterroot hits my nose. She smears it across the raw edges of my shoulder with her fingers, firm and sure.

“I thought you said this was going to sting,” I say, teeth clenched.

“It is. In about three seconds.”

I growl through the burn that follows. She doesn’t apologize.

“I keep thinking,” I say, voice low. “About what this place does. To men. To monsters.”

She tilts her head, brows drawing together.

“The arena eats us,” I continue. “Spits us out harder. Uglier. I’ve seen fighters start with hope in their eyes. I’ve watched that hope rot. Watched them beg for a blade in the ribs before they forget who they were.”

Her hand stops. She looks up, eyes clear and serious.

“Has it eaten you yet?” she asks.

I meet her gaze and feel something tight in my chest shift. Something I buried long ago. Something still warm.

“Not all the way,” I whisper.

She leans in, presses her forehead to mine. No kiss. No words. Just that connection, skin to skin. Her breath mingles with mine, steady and real. In that second, the cell vanishes. The blood, the cheers, the weight of a thousand dead names—all of it fades.

It’s just me. Her. The quiet between battles.

But deep down, I know the quiet never lasts.

The meat’s tough tonight. Gristly strips of something that once had a face and now tastes like it died angry.

I chew through it anyway, leaning against the cool wall, trying not to think about how long it’s been since I tasted anything fresh.

Salt and blood coat the inside of my mouth.

My jaw aches from the last fight. My ribs still throb, wrapped tight under the salve Valoa pressed in with hands softer than they had any right to be.

The cell door grates open, hinges crying like tortured metal. Durk Dragonslayer limps in, dragging his busted leg like it’s made of rusted iron. His armor clinks with every step—mismatched plates strapped over thick green skin and old scars that run like rivers across his chest.

“Nice place,” he mutters, eyeing the room like he’s never been inside before. He smells like old leather and burnt herbs, and I can already tell he’s three swigs into something strong.

He tosses a bottle toward me. I catch it with one hand. The glass is warm and slick from his grip. A faded label I can’t read curls off the side.

“Fermented snakemilk,” he says. “Brought it back from the pits last week. Thought you earned it.”

I pop the cork and take a whiff. It hits the back of my throat like a kicked beehive—sour, heady, tinged with something sharp. I grin. Then take a pull that burns all the way down.

Durk grunts approval and drops to the floor across from me, his weight making the stone groan.

“Your woman’s got guts,” he says, rubbing the bandaged stump where his hand used to be. “Kept me from bleeding out last week. Didn’t even flinch when I told her I’d bite her nose off if she touched me.”

I should correct him. Tell him Valoa isn’t mine. That we’re not anything.

But I don’t.

I don’t say anything for a long second. Just let the words hang there, warm and close. I like the way it sounds. “Your woman.” There’s something about the phrasing that sticks, takes root deep in my chest. She’s not mine. Not yet.

“She’s tougher than she looks,” I finally say.

Durk snorts. “Ain’t that the truth.”

We drink. We share the bottle until it’s halfway gone, then stand and head to the sand pits.

The sun’s dipped low, bleeding orange across the stone walls of the arena.

The training yard is quiet this time of night, most of the others too sore or too drunk to bother.

But Durk and I, we still bleed for discipline.

Still sharpen ourselves on each other like whetstones.

He’s quicker than he looks for a one-handed orc. We circle each other, bare-chested, feet grinding into the sand. Our shadows twist long on the ground, broken by torchlight and the low fog that rises in the heat.

He strikes first, shoulder check into my ribs. I grunt and counter with a knee to his hip. He grins, teeth yellow and sharp.

“That all you got, cow?”

“I’m pacing myself, tusks.”

We go again. Fists fly. Grunts echo off the walls.

Blood sprays once—his, from a busted lip—and he laughs like it’s a prize.

We trade blows until my knuckles throb and my muscles sing.

Until the edge of rage curls under the skin, but never breaks through.

That’s how it is with Durk. We fight like enemies, but laugh like brothers.

There’s no fear between us, only pain, and a little respect.

I catch him with a sweep, knock him flat into the dirt, and offer a hand up. He takes it, grumbling, then claps my shoulder hard enough to bruise.

“You fight like a bastard.”

“Better than dying like one.”

He laughs again and limps off toward the edge of the yard. I stand there, catching my breath, sweat running down my spine in rivulets. The air tastes of ash and rust, thick with the weight of too many bodies and not enough sky.

I turn my head.

Valoa stands in the archway.

Her arms are folded across her chest, one foot planted ahead of the other, hip cocked just enough to tell me she’s trying to look unimpressed. Her hair catches the firelight, glowing like it’s been kissed by a forge. She’s pretending not to watch. Failing miserably.

“Enjoy the show?” I call out.

She rolls her eyes, but her mouth twitches at the corners.

“You boys done measuring each other?”

“Depends,” Durk calls back, “You got a ruler on you, healer?”

She groans and flips him off. He barks laughter all the way out of the yard.

She walks toward me then, slow and deliberate. Her boots crunch in the sand. There’s a tension in her shoulders, but not fear. Not anymore. She’s seen too much, sewn too many wounds shut, listened to too many dying breaths to flinch now.

I straighten as she stops in front of me.

“You’re limping,” she says.

“Got hit.”

“No shit.”

She kneels and touches my side, fingers pressing gently against a bruised rib. I hiss through my teeth.

“Cracked,” she mutters. “You’ll live.”

I study her face. The faint smudge of soot on her cheek. The bruise darkening near her jaw from when one of the other healers shoved her. I want to ask who did it. I want to break their knees.

But I don’t.

Instead, I say, “Thanks for the snakemilk.”

She looks up, surprised. “Wasn’t me.”

“Still. Thanks.”

We stay there a moment, close enough to share breath. Close enough for the world to blur. She leans in just a little, then stops herself. I feel the same pull. The same ache.

But not yet.

Not tonight.

She steps back. “I’ll bring you more salve.”

I nod. She turns and disappears into the shadows again, like a ghost wrapped in copper and fire.

I stand there in the sand long after she’s gone, heart pounding in time with the memory of her touch.