I hobbled out under the eyes of a sparse and near-silent crowd, and slowly made my way across the arena. The size difference between me and my opponent became more obvious the closer I got, to the point that I doubted the truth of my own eyes.

  The ugly motherfucker must have been nine feet tall! His skin was a sickly shade of yellow and green that had a scaly look to it. His features were too big, even for his size. A massive nose, huge eyes, and a thick-lipped mouth. What really caught my attention were the claws. Five inches long at least. If he caught me sweet with those, I was done.

  A voice boomed across the arena.

  I couldn’t understand a word of it, so I focused on my playmate. “Look at the size of you, ya big fucker. That’s a whole lot of dying you’re gonna have to do.”

  Whether he understood or not was irrelevant. I just liked to shit talk a bit before I got to work.

  The announcer shouted something loud and isolated. If I was a betting man, I’d have put my money on the word meaning fight! As the crowd roared, the giant fella burst into motion.

  He looked at me like a wolf looked at an injured rabbit, and the speed he charged showed that he wasn’t messing around.

  I set myself in position and waited, watching his movements and trying to come up with a strategy and gauge his movements. He wasn’t actually that fast. It was more an illusion created from his size. Sure, he closed the distance quickly enough, but it was easy enough to side step and sway away from his groping hand.

  My first trainer had always said that effective fighting was measured in inches not feet. The old tyrant got that much right at least.

  The giant struggled to turn with the momentum he’d picked up, and if I could’ve moved properly, I’d have gone after him. Sadly, for this fight, he’d have to do most of the legwork.

  I set myself again, and again he came. His charge was more measured this time, and when he reached me, he lashed out with a one-two combination of open-handed swipes, looking to get his claws into me.

  His height worked against him, and I ducked under both strikes and returned a sharp left of my own which brought the knife to bear.

  The blade slashed a deep gouge in his tough, scaly skin, and while he screamed in pain, it wasn’t close to a telling blow.

  His next tactic was to lunge at me, trying to smother me with his body and bear me to the ground where he could keep me still and finish me off. I spun away on my good leg, took an elbow to the face and sprawled to the ground just to the right of where he landed.

  He moved fast, desperately trying to slap me into the ground with an outstretched hand. I rolled away and regained my feet.

  Whatever this thing was, he wasn’t a great fighter. Just massive and incredibly strong. But he was also tired, and I guessed he’d probably had a rough ride leading up to this fight as well.

  Now that I had thought about it, I noticed the signs. The desperation in his movements, the dark rings around his eyes. Sure, they could have been a racial feature, but I didn’t think so. The whites of his eyes were red too. I took it for him being an angry bastard, now I wondered as I backed off.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He got back to his feet and lunged at me again. This time, he had his arms out wide so as not to give me much space to work with. Caught wrong-footed, I had to use my injured left leg to escape. I sprang away like wet cardboard, which is to say, I was stuck to the floor and collapsed as the big bastard landed on top of me.

  It was a horrible position to end up in, but there was a saving grace. The fetid, sweaty giant hadn’t expected me to fuck up so badly either, and he reached out to where we both thought I’d land.

  Only a second to play with while his mind caught up, but that was plenty of time to stab the ever-loving shit out of his face with my bladed left fist.

  He screamed like a stuck pig and rolled off me like he’d landed on a fire pit. My leg was roaring in agony and pouring with blood once again. There was no way I was getting back to my feet, so if I let him off the hook now, I was screwed.

  In a spasming, full-body flip flop—the kind you’d expect from a freshly caught fish as it was pulled onto a boat—I managed to close the gap enough to grab some of his lank, greasy hair.

  That caused him to panic even more, and he pulled away faster, hoisting me into the air. It was the wrong move. Like a wasp that just wouldn’t fucking leave you alone, I landed against his face again; only this time, I could reach an eye.

  I sent a thudding left hook into the bulging orb, burying the knife the full quarter inch of range I’d allowed it. A stinky roar of pain erupted from his mouth, but the damage was done.

  I pulled back for a second blow, but the knife was pulled free of my bindings by his bloody eyeball.

  For a split second, I considered pulling it free, then I slammed it deeper in with the palm of my hand just as his hands gripped me. Sharp claws punctured wounds all along my sides, but I still kept palm striking the blade deeper until it reached the hilt.

  He wobbled unsteadily, his grip slackened, and his arms began to windmill before he staggered and fell.

  Still holding his hair with my right hand and my knife with my left hand, I managed to land on top of him.

  As the dust settled, I rived the knife from his ruined, squelching eye socket, dodged an incoming slap by falling out of the way rather than any remaining grace on my behalf, and then plunged the dagger into the side of his unprotected throat.

  Blood welled out of the wound, but there was plenty more where that came from. Like an out-of-control sewing machine, I butchered his throat and upper chest.

  A loud sound boomed out around the arena, but I ignored it. I would deal with whatever else came after this lump of leather clad shit had stopped twitching.

  Stab. Punch. Stab.

  I might have even bitten his throat at one point, but my righteous fury was brought to an end when a hand landed on my shoulder. I turned as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast considering the mess I was in, and snarled ready to kill the owner of the hand.

  “It is over. You win, Earther.”

  I tried to focus through the blood in my eyes, but all I could really make out was six glowing lights.

  I wiped at my face and blinked a few times before I could make out six of the Be-Steady guards surrounding me, all with energy-coated spears leveled at me. The arena was eerily silent, which was unusual. I was normally booed, cursed, or screamed at.

  Somebody kicked me. “How you get hold of an Unalaran Hunter’s knife?”

  “Took it,” I answered, with a bloody grin as I began to fade out of consciousness.

  A bolt of energy hit me. Not an attack. I actually felt a little better.

  One of them spoke again, “Not took. Must be given. Explain this, Earther. Who give?”

  “Took,” I said again.

  The guard scowled. “Up. You walk from arena, or I kill you where you lie. Already you have broken rules.”

  “Rules?” I asked, but didn’t move.

  He thrust his spear so that it stopped an inch from my nose. “Up.”

  From whatever the blast was that they hit me with, I did actually feel a lot better. Tired, and lacking a lot of blood. I wasn’t exactly ready to run a mile, but I could stand. Most of my anger was gone for the moment, so I batted his spear away, and forced myself to my feet, feeling pretty pleased with myself.