A Pair to End The War

Arena of Death

I jolted awake and smashed my face into multiple bars. I fell back with a groan, holding my now bloodied nose, "Ouch," I tried to stretch, but I was in a cage that was barely big enough for me to sit down. Besides me I could hear someone else waking up, doing the exact something I just did.

Orico suddenly spoke up "Where are we?"

"I don't know I just woke up,"

I heard the sound of Orico shaking the metal bars, "Great from one cage to another,"

I chuckled and leaned against the back of my cage, "Yup, seems about right,"

To my left, I heard Landon sigh, "Before I open my eyes, please tell me I'm not in another cage,"

"You're not in another cage," Orico lied.

I chuckled and Landon sighed, "Great,"

A booming voice echoed through the area, "Welcome back dwarfs to your daily arena fight! Today Vincent the elf will fight!"

I pushed my face against the bars of the cage and saw another gate open. Out walked another prisoner who was a tall Elf, missing his right arm, multiple scars, a damaged and dented sword in his only free hand, and a scar over his chest. I almost recognized him, he seemed familiar, but how mutilated he was, it was impossible.

"Vincent seems like an underwhelming name for someone as threatening as him,"

I chuckled, "You're right,"

"Vincent will be facing the deadly Nargrok-mole in a battle to the death," The announcer shouted as a crowd cheered. A look of slight fear came over the elf's face as he heard that, but it was soon disrupted when a roar came from another cage as a giant mole with ridged claws and a curved mouth came burling towards the elf. He dodged out, he ducked under the mole's swipes with its claws but was hit by the spiked tail of the creature, he cried out in bloodied pain as he rolled against the ground, his side bleeding from multiple puncture wounds. The crowd cheered and the elf hit eventually stopped on the ground and tried to get up, but his body fought against him. The elf forced himself to get up, but the mole was already there, it clamped down on the elf and tossed him into the air.

I closed my eyes and listened as the cheers roared around the arena. I opened my eyes and saw that there was absolutely no evidence of Vincent, except for a blood trail on the side of the mole's face. I gulped, just thinking about the fate Vincent suffered, made my stomach hurt.

"Well, not much of a fight today, but tomorrow I'm sure we'll have a better fight! We introduce a new fighter to our ring; we've captured a human troop in our forest. Tomorrow we'll see the one that the humans called, Logan! He will face off against the mighty Mountain Wolf," 

"What?" I gasped, the Mountain Wolf is big enough and agile enough to take on an adolescent dragon in just sheer strength, but its claws and teeth are sharp enough to shave diamond. The dwarfs above all clamored and shuffled away, their voices growing distant to the sound of the forge.

"Logan, you're going to be ok!" Landon said, reaching his hand over.

"Nothing I haven't been through before I'll be fine," I said with a shaking voice.

"Logan, the Mountain Wolf is nothing to shrug off, ok? None of us were expecting this to happen, now you're fighting a severely dangerous beast. You can't shrug this off, you'll need help," 

"I don't think they'll give you any help Logan sorry," Terrance groaned, already giving up.

"No, they won't help you, and we can't help you during the fight, but we can give you advice on what we do know," Craig snapped at Terrance for his demeaning words, "and your hopelessness isn't helping anybody Terrance,"