Chapitre 34: All Say That
The announcer burst out laughing, his fellow Knife-Tongues joining in, which only made the noble go red in the face.
"We've paid off the guards long ago, Dedren," the announcer said with a smirk. "Twice what you've been paying them. You're more than welcome to try though. I'd love to reunite you with your wife!"
The noble's red face suddenly went deathly pale, his eyes darting to his son, bloody and beaten on the ground, then to the Knife-Tongues glaring at him and bearing their namesakes at him.
All the fight in him deflated in an instant as he realized how horribly outmatched he was, and he dropped into his seat with a shuddering breath.
"You'll pay for this someday, Inprek."
The announcer just chuckled. "They all say that." Turning his attention back to Morne with a smile, he said "Get on with it. You've got to earn your freedom somehow!"
Morne shrugged and took a few steps toward Dedren's son, gripping his new mace.
He didn't know why a nobleman's son would have such a shoddy weapon, nor did he care. His anger had dissipated in the cathartic beating of his opponent, so as he raised the mace, he felt nothing but indifference.
Crack!
SPLAT!
It took two strikes to cave in the son's head, and when it did, a divot formed in the son's head, and blood and bits of brain matter splattered onto the floor.
Morne didn't bother to bring the mace down a third time. There was no way for an Infutim to live through that.
The announcer, Inprek, seemed to think the same, and he waved his hand at Morne's door. It opened silently, and Morne strode in as Inprek started to declare his victory.
He waited around thirty minutes for the door to open again, but instead, it was the door to the cells that slid open.
In walked the short man, the second man Morne had met in this place, who looked Morne up and down expressionlessly. His eyes didn't linger on the mace, the buckler, or the bloody knuckles.
It was as if he was appraising a pebble found on the side of the road; slightly unique, but nothing he hadn't seen thousands of times before.
"Follow me."
Having given a command, he left without another word.
He didn't seem at all concerned about the lumbering man with a weapon in his hand that followed behind him.
He had no need to fear Morne; after all, once Morne killed him, if he even could, what then? There was a veritable army outside, and Morne was a mere Apprentice.
After confiscating Morne's buckler and mace, he shoved some food into Morne's hands and locked him back up in his cell.
Since he hadn't been shackled to the floor, Morne was free to devour the meal zealously, having no clue when he had last eaten.
It was hours before the short man came back, waking Morne up from his sleep with a flick of the finger and a few spoken words.
"Wake up. You're on."
Morne hauled himself to his feet and followed the short man without a word.
The short man gave Morne the buckler and mace from before. "You're gonna need it," he said, and locked Morne in the waiting room leading to the arena.
Morne entered after the door opened and looked around as the announcer droned on overhead.
Dedren's son's corpse was gone, and the dirt below Morne's feet was soaked through with blood to the point he could hardly see a patch of brown underneath all of the crimson.
The fights hadn't stopped just because Morne had left.
Morne's gaze flicked to the gate when the announcer declared the start of his third round, and he planted his feet and readied his weapon as he prepared himself for whatever would come out of the gate.
He heard a faint growl before his next victim – or rather, victims – rushed out of the gate.
There were six of the creatures. Each had gray skin and was roughly the size of a toddler. Their disturbingly human-like faces were twisted into feral snarls as they glared hatefully at Morne.
A mushroom grew out of each of their heads, small, round, and unassuming, and yet the way the air seemed to ripple around them made Morne's hair stand on end.
The creatures wielded only wooden cudgels each a foot long, and were clothed in nothing but loincloths, yet Morne turned serious in an instant.
Goblins.
Morne recognized them quickly, even though he had never seen one in person before. He had heard many a tale of these foul creatures, and every one of them spelled trouble.
The stories said that they could take the power out of a Mage's Spells. They could also move things with their mind, freezing their prey in place and leaving them defenseless as the goblins tore them to shreds.
Those goblins in the stories also had more mushrooms on their heads than the creatures Morne saw before him, but he wasn't about to risk it.
Before they were upon him, he thrust his finger forward and uttered "Splinter shot."
A blob of energy flew out of his finger and smacked the lead goblin in the chest, earning a snarl of pain from the creature.
It wasn't enough to stop the goblin, but Morne hadn't intended for it to do so. He only made a mental note that his Spells would work and loped forward, not about to let these creatures dictate the flow of battle.
He met the fastest three in the middle of the arena.
His mace crushed the skull of one as he fended off another with his buckler, chunking the biting and scratching goblin away as he brought his mace down on another one.
His eyes widened as his weapon slowed to a crawl mere inches from his target's head, as if it had suddenly been submerged in molasses. The foul humanoid grinned up at him with crooked and yellowed teeth as it raised its cudgel.
Morne swiftly kicked forward, his leg ramming into the cudgel and launching it back into the goblin's face. The goblin was sent stumbling back for several steps before it fell flat on its ass, vision swimming.
The one he had tossed away came back with the other three goblins, while the one Morne had kicked tried to orient itself.
Morne squared his shoulders and stood to meet his foes.
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone