The Sentinel

I

Left, right, left, right. Left, right.

Left. Right.

Halt.

It did not matter to him how many times he had taken the eight long steps into the arena. Long ago, he had lost count. Nor did it matter to him that each of those steps brought him closer to his last. Long ago, he had lost all hope, and all fear.

Three years ago, he had lost his parents and his sister to the nooses of the secret police. Seven months ago, he had lost his fighting companions to the armies of the Dictator. Two weeks ago, he had lost the last streaks of colour in his hair. It was now a spectral silver, even though he was only thirty-one.

He had only two things left to lose- his life, and his honour. To spare one was to forfeit the other.

Long ago, he had made his choice.

The twilit square rang with the cries of the watchers, clamouring for his blood. Crimson-faced and fiery-eyed, shaking vengeful fists, they stood behind every shattered windowpane, their red and black uniforms like glowing embers amid the soot-stained walls. High overhead, flanked by two shimmering standards, the Dictator of Palladium leant over the balcony of the ruined Chancellery. Arms folded, lips set in a thin hard line, he seemed to be carved in marble like the edifice itself, if not for the steady tapping of one booted foot.

On the cracked pavement below, Venger stood impervious to the yells of the crowd. The broad beams of a streetlight flickered a dull yellow on his silver hair, the steel buttons on his black officer's uniform, the metal toecaps of his tall burnished boots. Across his chest, three rows of gleaming scabbards on leather straps held a battery of sharpened knives.

Among the skeletons of overturned cars, the Challengers stood facing him, casting long inky shadows across the square. They smirked at Venger, swinging their stout iron bars, and he gazed back unruffled. These were no different from the band he had faced the previous week, and the countless weeks before- murderous ruffians of the Dictator's infantry, eager to get their hands on the condemned Traitor and stain the flagstones with his radical blood. He would destroy them all, as he had always done. Or he would die with daggers drawn. He would never beg for the mercy the Dictator offered him before each Challenge.

Deep inside the shell of the Chancellery, a clock began to strike.

The catcalls of the watchers died away into the dark. Amidst the blackened rubble, the Challengers clenched their iron bars, their narrowed eyes glinting in their shadowed faces. Venger set his teeth.

All eyes turned upward to the Dictator as the last toll of the Chancellery bell, long and deep, faded on the smoke-laced wind.

The Dictator raised his head. "Traitor to Palladium," he began, his shrill voice reverberating off the scorched marble walls. Venger stood motionless as his captor continued addressing him with the words he now knew by heart:

"For your crimes against the State, you have been summoned here to make the Defector's Choice. Either repent of your treason and spare your forsaken life, or risk the Challenge and condemn yourself to a bitter end. The decision is yours."

Venger cleared his throat. "Understand," added the Dictator more forcefully, "that this is your last chance." In the deathly silence, the uniformed spectators stared intently at their leader as he stood aloft on the balcony, illuminated by the dull rays of the streetlights. "The State has accommodated your defiance for too long, and therefore defeating this night's Challenge will not win you another week. It will earn you execution."

A low murmur of anticipation rose from every corner of the square. Icy simpers crept onto the tough faces of the Challengers as they shouldered their iron bars.

"I hope that I have made myself clear," said the Dictator.

Venger drew a sharp breath, willed himself to hold still in spite of the adrenalin coursing through his veins, the images flooding through his mind. His adopted sister hanging from a lamppost outside his narrow house, her slit wrists dripping silver Cyan blood onto the pavement below. Hiding Cyans is a crime against the State, the red paint had read on the brick wall behind her. The drab concrete barracks where he had spent four bleak years, and which he had fled in the dead of night with nothing but his uniform and his iron rations. The dim and crowded basements where he had rallied scores of solemn-faced cohorts by the light of a single lantern. Fellow revolutionaries fighting hand-to-hand with the Dictator's soldiers before the blazing Chancellery. The paved streets of Pallas strewn with their bodies, stained scarlet and silver with their blood.

It would all end here.

Venger's blue eyes flashed as he met the Dictator's gaze. "I will risk the Challenge," he replied.

The Dictator arched his thin eyebrows, looked Venger up and down from his silver hair to the steel tips of his boots. Then a slow cruel smile spread over his pallid face.

"So be it," he announced. "The Challenge is on."