Blood Red Road

push Artashir forwards. He looks around the Colosseum. He drags in deep breaths through his nose, his head held high. Then his face changes. Hardens. Like he’s made a decision. He stares up at the Cage Master an spits on the ground.
    The Cage Master gives a little laugh.
    Then Artashir throws back his head an roars. Bellows like a wild beast that’s bin hunted down, that’s cornered but that’s gonna go down fightin.
    He starts to run. He sprints up the center path. Hands reach out, hit him, grab at his tunic, tryin to pull him down. He throws a punch an gits hisself free. Manages to stagger on a few steps more. But the crowd surges forwards onto the path, howlin like wolves at a kill, an bodies close over him. Waves pullin down a drownin man. Artashir disappears.
    My stummick heaves.
    It’s a shame when a good fighter goes down to the gauntlet, the Cage Master says. He looks at me. He reaches out a clammy hand an strokes it down my cheek. Now it’s yer turn, he says.

    The girl’s smaller’n me.
    She comes at me hard, right from the off. She moves so fast I cain’t even see her fists. The first punch to my face. Then my ribs. An I jest stand there. Like I’m asleep.
    But then the red hot kicks in an at last I unnerstand what it is. It’s like animals. A animal will do anythin to live. Even chew off its own leg if it’s caught in a trap. That’s the red hot. An I’m gonna hafta learn to use it if I wanna survive in the Cage.
    The girl’s tough. And she fights hard. She fights mean. She lost her last two fights. This is her last chance. So she’s got the red hot in her too.
    But mine is stronger than hers.
    I watch what she does.
    I learn fast.
    She gives me a helluva beatin before I learn enough. Then I git lucky. I go at her with a flyin kick to the stummick that slams her hard aginst the bars an that’s it. She don’t git up till the keeper pulls her to her feet.
    An it’s over. The end.
    The end fer her. The beginnin fer me.
    They don’t tell me her name. There’s a little pink birthmark on her face. It looks like a butterfly.
    Like the Cage Master says, it’s a shame when a good fighter goes down to the gauntlet.
    But one of us had to.
    An it sure as hell warn’t gonna be me.

    The Pinches is outside on deck. They’re celebratin their good fortune with a jug of squonk an a roast pigeon. Tonight’s our last night on the Desert Swan. Tomorrow they move into a place in town. The Pinches an Em, that is. I’m gonna be moved to the cellblock where they keep the cage fighters.
    I lie on my bunk. I’m chained, hand an foot, like usual. Em sits beside me. She’s got a cloth dipped in cranesbill juice an dabs it, real gentle, on the cut near my eye.
    I ain’t hurtin you too much, am I? she says.
    I know my body’s sore. It must be. But I feel the hurt from a long ways away, like in a dream. Like I ain’t inside my body no more. Like I’m floatin around somewhere outside it. I’m sorry, I whisper to Em.
    Sorry fer what? she says.
    You shouldn’t of had to see that, I says. Her an the Pinches stood with the Cage Master on his balcony. She saw everythin from start to finish.
    I was so afeared, she says. She would of killed you if she could.
    I ain’t gonna let nobody kill me, I says. I’m gonna live. I’m gonna live an I’m gonna git us outta here an we’re gonna find Lugh. I promised him I would an I … oh Emmi … Emmi, what’re we gonna do? What am I gonna do?
    An that’s it. I’m undone. The tears trickle at first. She tries to wipe ’em away, but they start comin too fast.
    Shhh … She strokes my face. Shhh … don’t let ’em hear you, she says. Don’t ever let ’em hear you cry.
    She gives me the cloth to stuff aginst my mouth.
    She lays down beside me on the bunk. She puts her skinny little girl arms around me an holds me tight. It’s all right, Saba, she says. Everythin’s gonna be okay.
    I double up in pain. I howl into the cloth, my whole body shakin.
    I weep fer the girl with the butterfly on her cheek.
    I weep fer Emmi. Fer Pa. Fer Lugh. Fer me.
    Fer what we used to be.
    Fer what got took from us.
    Fer what’s lost to us ferever.

HOPETOWN
ONE MONTH LATER

T HEY CALL ME THE A NGEL OF D EATH .
    That’s because I ain’t never lost a fight. Every time they take me to the Cage, I let the red hot take me over an it fights till it wins.
    If it’s the third time unlucky fer the girl that’s jest bin beat, I turn my back so’s I don’t hafta see her run