THE RISE

Dressed in simple robes, an out-of-towner on a stroll, I walked into the village past an old dirt farmer pushing an empty cart back from the market. “You sold your produce awfully quick,” I said to him, looking at my watch. “It’s only eleven-thirty.”
“Sold!” said the man bitterly. “Hah!”
This was all I needed. The village that was home to the small offshoot fighting ring that I was to start my great work in had been completely taken over by Argento’s gang like a parasite. And just like a parasite, I noted as I walked through the village, they were killing the host. Women watched from behind shutters, their cheeks hollowing gradually from malnourishment.
Only one person was brazen on my slow walk to the centre of the village and the traveller’s inn. An older woman, who was sat at a table in front of her house, thrust her chin out defiantly at the sight of me, this masked, sauntering stranger.
“What of it?” she said.
“What?”
“I shall say it again,” she said. “What of it?” She explained that the next time the men in red tried to come near her family, she was sworn to stop them. She eyed me suspiciously, as if I was at all likely for the purpose. “You some kind of assassin?” she said suspiciously. I shook my head.
“I heard you have a fighting arena in the village. I wanted to enter.” The old woman laughed bitterly.
“You won’t have much sport, strong thing like you. Only the boys fight in the arena, for table scraps. They’re having meat tonight. Stiff competition.”

The thing about fighting for a living is that getting into a fight is very easy. Getting paid for it is the hard part. When I entered the gambling house, people playing arcane card games and throwing dice on all sides of me, I knew that I had to play my cards very carefully. A black syntho holster adorned nearly every belt, and some of the gamblers even wore short swords – an affectation, I was nearly totally sure. Still, I had no desire to find out. Fate smiled on me in one small respect, which was that finding the big fish that had set up shop at the top of the foodchain in this particular undersized rockpool was easier than I anticipated.
“Hey, you! Masked man!” came the shout. The source of the voice was a young man with prodigious sideburns and hair that brushed his shoulders. “Come sit with us!”
He explained at leisure while his entourage watched me carefully, all hands resting on the butts of their pistols, that he was a very social person, and he always liked to get to know visitors to the town. He found my mask instantly fascinating saying that it ‘told a story nobody else could hear’. At last, he offered his hand for me to shake and introduced himself as Darling Woodsey, studying my expression carefully for any sign of a smirk. Luckily my deadened nerves seemed to likewise deaden my expressiveness.
“I heard that you have a fighting arena in this town,” I said.
“That we do, that we do!” said Woodsey, brushing his hair behind his ears and leaning forward. “Would you by any chance be interested in partaking?” I nodded. “Exceptional!”
“But I don’t want some poor starved village boy, you understand me? I want to fight your strongest man.”
Woodsey’s eyes widened. “Oh, you are a fancy dan! My strongest man, you say?” He clapped his hands to his cheeks in an imitation of schoolgirlish shock. “I like your attitude. You’ll have your brawl, masked man.”
I nodded to him and made my exit. While I was stood outside leaning against the post a large, muscular man emerged. Great, another side of beef, I thought. I watched him approach and then said: “Going to talk me out of it?” He didn’t say anything, but gave me a look up and down and up again that made me think there was more going on behind his eyes than I gave him credit for. You get them sometimes, in the outskirts of the big gangs. People big enough to be hired as muscle and smart enough to think they should be the one doing the hiring. They usually don’t last long in the heartlands, because any boss worth his salt is going to keep someone like that as far away as possible.

When the big guy walked away I stayed where I was outside the gambling house a while longer, and then went to find lodging at the road inn just out of the village. “Travellers don’t last long out here these days,” said the old woman behind the counter, but when she saw the colour of my money she handed me a key all the same.

I was sleeping when the sound of a vase crashing in the hallway shocked my super-sensitive ears into alertness, and the rest of me along with them. “Goddamn idiot!” I heard a voice hiss.
I looked at the door. It was wood, and damn near falling off its hinges. I thought I could give it a little hand there, and get the advantage on my attackers – my assumed attackers, anyway, nobody else was on this floor. Then I considered the possibility that I might be made to pay for the door. That was a dangerous precedent to set.
Instead, I waited for the tell-tale footstep on the creaky floorboard, pulled open the door, and grabbed the two men by the collars before they knew what happened.
“What kind of time do you call this?” I said, grabbing the guns out of their hands lightning-quick.
“It’s about two-thirty-ow!” said one, the older of the two. His compatriot, a young, whiplike man had nudged him in the ribs and hissed a quick ‘shut up!’ I noted the wince that the older man gave and figured this happened a lot.
“You here on Woodley’s orders?” I asked.
“We never heard of any Woodsey!” said the whip.
“Is that his name, is it?”
“You know damn well-” the man began, and then stopped. “I don’t know!” he said, resentfully.
“Sending folks to knock me off I can deal with, but this is just shoddy work,” I said. The older man perked up:
“We wasn’t to kill you, he was very clear on that!” he said helpfully. “Just shake you about a bit, so you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.”
“Well,” I said bitterly. “Mission accomplished there. You want to go by the stairs or the window?”
“Stairs,” said the young man. I threw him with such force that he didn’t hit a single one on the way down, and he made a crater in the floorboards at the bottom. The older one I gave a hand to for being so community-spirited. I said “So long, soldier,” and he gave me a gummy smile. The whip groaned and put his head out of the crater. “Uh’ll getshou nest chime,” he said, which was meant to be “I’ll get you next time.” That next time would never come if I had anything to say about it.

Darling Woodsey was sitting languidly when I reached the arena, as two young men scrapped viciously like starving dogs in front of him. As I watched and he gazed disinterestedly one man hurled the other to the ground and planted a foot on his neck. A tiny movement and the fight was over.
When Woodsey looked over at me his face lit up. “Fancy Dan the Mystery Man!” he said delightedly. I looked around for any sign of the giant man who had locked eyes with me outside of the gambling house, but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably hiding away preparing himself, shooting himself full of combat drugs or something, I thought.
“You’re a little early, F-D!” said D-W, and gestured to a seat next to his own. Wishing to be gracious to my new friend, I climbed up and settled in as Woodsey explained to me the complex dynamics of the local scene that had arisen since he had taken over and made the prize of battle include hot meals and visits to the geothermal baths. He explained this over the sounds of frantic violence which came from the arena.
I waited for my turn. Woodsey was not as stupid as I had hoped, and the inept assassins last night might well have been a double bluff. He had seen some of what I could do, now. When the fighter who emerged, hands wrapped in electrician’s tape, was a small, thin man who seemed to vibrate with potential energy, I wasn’t much surprised.

There was no time for words. He lunged forward, fists raised. But when I swung to meet him, trusting in my augmented bones to win the day, he had disappeared. Something smashed into the back of my head and I wheeled. He was gone again! He wasn’t strong, but his technique was immaculate.
I swung my fists out from my body in two directions blindly, and received a wind-expelling blow to my abdomen. I finally caught sight of him and swung fiercely, but he rolled backwards as if it was as natural as breathing to him and then sprang back in to land a series of blows on my upper arms, one after the other.
I could feel my muscles tiring, but I continued. Even with my enhanced stamina, I struggled to keep up. I had never faced his like before (And never faced his equal in speed since). A rare break in the combat came, and I saw the sweat dripping off his brow. It was then that I realised the only way I could win…

Go on, Fancy Man! Give it a try!