Page 155 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

155

Valor’s Near-death Challenge

V alor

“1239, you’re up.”

I let everything go. Every thought, every emotion. Pictures of Willow and Braveheart leave my mind like sand slipping through my fingers.

Zedd just did me a favor. She called me by my geneslave number. She’s right. That’s exactly who I am.

While Zedd was giving a verbal description of the beast’s attributes, the largest drones lifted his enclosure and placed it so the doors lined up with the cage for the match. Both doors were opened and the creature did not hesitate to move through to the other enclosure, undoubtedly lured by the scent of the blood seeping into the sand from the previously slain animals.

After circling the enclosure, the beast turns and watches me approach. His body is almost quivering in anticipation. Sticky saliva is dripping from his bared teeth as a low growl reverberates into the night air. Not a sound can be heard from those watching, but I can sense the mixture of anticipation and fear.

I shut it off and focus. When they open the door, I burst in, grab a handful of sand, and throw it in the beast’s eyes.

Without waiting to see if that served to partially blind him, I leap onto his back as if I’ve done this a hundred times before. While I waited, I pulled off my coveralls and now wear only a loincloth. The other contestants looked at me as if I was insane, but the fabric won’t provide even a modicum of protection. My skin on his leathery scales will help me remain on his back.

While my competition fought their matches, I surveyed this beast in his cage. He’s equipped to kill me in many ways and has few vulnerabilities.

That thick tail is made of muscle and could kill a male with one well-placed snap. It’s obvious I must avoid the teeth and claws. The only weak spot I saw was the eyes, which unfortunately are very close to his razor-sharp teeth. This is why I needed to be above him, not below.

I wish I had Braveheart’s claws and fangs. My only weapon is my brain and prodigious strength. That will have to be enough. Failure is not an option.

I’ve got one arm under its jaw which is helping me hang on as well as allowing me to place pressure on its carotids. Unfortunately, as he is tossing his head back and forth, I’m unable to exert enough pressure to cut off its air supply. There’s not much I can do in this position other than punch the animal, which I do with all my strength. I beat its throat and cheek repeatedly.

This does little harm and only serves to enrage the beast more.

Bashing it in the head will only hurt my hand and not his thick skull. I’m trying to lean forward enough to punch it in the eye. When I change my center of gravity to reach its eye, it uses my position change to try to buck me off. The strength of my legs and the one arm around its neck save me from flying off, but I can’t risk that happening again.

After settling back and locking my legs around his neck, I keep wildly punching, but this animal has so few vulnerabilities, I’m not harming it. The beast has a little ear slit, and I decide I have little to lose if I attack that. My thick fist accomplishes nothing, but when he suddenly rises up on his hind legs, I lose my balance. After flinging myself forward and inadvertently striking over his ear with the flat of my hand, it tosses its head in pain.

Did that hurt, asshole? Perhaps I punctured his eardrum. Having found a vulnerability, I keep boxing its ear, over and over, causing the beast to land hard back onto all four legs and buck harder, trying to shake me off.

I’ll never be able to kill it like this, but I’m definitely destroying his concentration.

By the tenth or maybe it’s the twentieth time I bash its ear, it begins roaring in pain every time I whack it. I’m not winning and have no idea how I can disable or kill it, but at least I’m the one on the attack, not him.

The next time I strike and he roars in pain, I see my opening. This time when he bellows, he lifts his head. When he lifts his head and tosses it to the side toward me, it gives me the perfect opportunity to punch its eye.

Which is exactly what I do. I box its ear, it bellows and tosses its head back, and I rear back and punch him so hard in the eye I feel the viscous fluid give way. This is not what I wanted. I had no quarrel with the big beast until he tried to kill me. But I need to win to keep myself, Braveheart, and my beloved Willow alive.

I do what it takes.

Now that the beast is wounded and blind on one side, I leap off its back. I can feel the waves of encouragement and elation washing over me from the two people I love.

Before the animal can turn to see what I’m doing, and empowered with the extra boost of psychic energy, I grab its tail as tightly as I can and use all my might to swing the animal in a circle. I bash the poor thing’s face into the metal over and over as I swing it against the bars for long minutes, abrading its scaley hide even after I think it expired.

I don’t trust the network to open the cage, and I want to take no chances, fully believing they would watch as the animal uses its last gasp of life to kill me with those still-sharp teeth or long claws.

I’m still swinging the carcass when I hear Zedd’s voice above the cacophony of booing sound effects.

“Stop, you animal. The beast is dead. Sadist.”

Leave it to Zedd to pit me against a wild animal who outweighed me by twice, force me to kill it to keep myself and those I love alive, then vilify me to everyone in the galaxy for my bloodlust. I guess we’ve accumulated the last of our donated credits.

I see Willow and Braveheart running to me through the crowd. At first, it terrifies me that I can feel them but not hear them. Have I lost our psychic connection? Then I recall I shut that down. Once the channel is open, all I hear is Willow.

“You’re magnificent! I’m so proud of you. I love you.”

Then I hear Braveheart, “I love you, brother. No one else could have done what you did.”