The New Handler

The Red Pit has two faces, and I work under the ugly one.

Above me, the arena is red banners, brass horns, painted shields, hot sand, and benches packed with shouting mouths. The nobles wear silver masks so they can pretend blood is theatre, while the rest of us wear rags and engulf the violence.

When the crowd roars, the whole stone bowl shakes as if the city has found a throat. It is a magical and terrifying place to work in.

Below, where I belong, the Red Pit is cages, chains, drains, meat hooks, bucket lines, old blood, fresh blood, and bosses who believe shouting makes ropes stronger.

I'm carrying a slop bucket almost as big as myself when Brak finds me.

“Nip,” Brak says.

I stop and try to pretend I didn’t hear him, which is better than walking away after a senior cage hand says my name. Goblins who keep walking are doomed.

Brak hooks two fingers into the back of my collar and lifts me just high enough that my toes scratch the floor.

“When a senior cage hand says your name,” he says, “that's not weather. That’s an instruction.”

“I was bringing this to the pig cages,” I say.

“Someone else can carry the slop.”

Brak drops me. He’s old for a goblin, which means he has both ears, most fingers, and the suspicious squint of someone who has seen every foolish thing done twice. He wears a leather apron stiff with stains and carries a hook for pulling chains, bodies, and goblins out of bad places.

“You have a new job,”

I look down at the bucket. “I already have a job.”

“You had a job. Now the bucket job is for someone else. You are moving up.”

I don’t like the sound of moving up. In the Red Pit, moving up usually means going toward the arena sand, and arena sand is where people discover how many bones they have.

“Who died?” I ask.

Brak grins without humour. “Gritch.”

Gritch used to boast that he handled Grum the Old Breaker and still had his head attached.

I look toward the heavy cage row at the far end of the underlevel.

“Oh,” I say.

“Yes,” Brak says. “Oh.”

We pass the chain lifts. The big iron platforms wait under square holes in the ceiling. When a fight is called, monsters are chained onto the lifts and hauled up through the guts of the arena to the sand. I can hear the crowd above even now. Feet thumping on benches, and horns test short ugly notes.

We keep walking until we reach the holding cages of things that kill. They can be human, orc or goblins. Ogres and giants were a crowd favorite. Sometimes there are truly horrific monsters that nobody should've caged.

Brak leads me to the ogre holding bay that's holding Grum. He was famous and lived long enough to get a name.

The cage stands at the end of the row because that is the furthest you can him. The bars are thicker than my arm and bent in three places. The floor outside is scratched into grooves where something huge has dragged chains while disagreeing with everybody.

Inside the cage sits Grum.

I have seen ogres before. Grum looks less like a person and more like a wall that has learned anger. He is enormous, grey-skinned, scarred across the shoulders, and bald. One of his eyes is clouded. The other is small, dark, and fixed on me.

“That,” Brak says, “is your new responsibility.”

I keep my hands still at my sides. Quivering hands get noticed and I needed to hide that.

Grum doesn’t roar. He doesn’t lunge. He sits with his back against the far wall, one massive hand resting on the floor. His knuckles are split, and old blood darkens the cracks around his nails.

Quiet things are either tired, sick, or thinking.

I swallow. “Why'd he kill Gritch?”

“Because Gritch was stupid.”

“That explains many deaths. It doesn’t explain this one.”

Brak gives me a sideways look. “Careful. Questions cause problems.”

I close my mouth. I was thinking questions give answers that keep me alive, but Brak was just as capable of beating and killing me as Grum.

For a moment, Brak says nothing. Then he leans closer.

“Grum likes the sand,” Brak says. “Always has. You put armed fools in front of him, and he makes them armless. They hit him, he hits back, and the crowd screams for more.”

I look at the ogre. Grum blinks slowly.

“Two fights back,” Brak continues, “he crushed a shield-man so flat the corpse clerks argued over whether he still had teeth. The crowd sang for half an hour. After that, Grum went strange.”

“Strange how?”

“He didn’t want to use the west lift again. He wouldn’t cross the red drain. He has snapped two chains and bent a hook resisting them.”

“And Gritch?”

“The last fight was cancelled.” Brak’s mouth tightens. “Grum sat on the chain plate and wouldn’t move. Gritch jabbed him with a fire-prong. Grum broke him.”

I wait.

“In half,” Brak adds.

I wish I still had the slop bucket. A bucket gives a goblin purpose. Without one, I’m just a small body near a large problem.

Brak kicks a dented feeding trough toward me, then pulls the cloth from a meat cart. The smell rolls out wet and thick.

“First rule,” Brak says. “Stay out of reach.”

Not a rule I needed to be told.

The cart holds meat chunks, cracked bones, liver, and a whole sack of something that once had feathers.

“Push the trough to the mark,” Brak says, pointing at a scratched line several steps from the cage. “Then hook it through. Slowly. No squealing. No cleverness.”

I nod.

Grum’s good eye follows me as I drag the trough toward the mark. The ogre’s nostrils widen, but he doesn’t move.

The stone floor feels warm through my thin soles.

I stop.

Brak hisses. “Why are you stopping?”

I look down. The warmth fades before I can decide if it’s real.

“The floor felt warm,” I say.

Brak’s face changes for half a breath. Then it hardens.

“No, it didn’t.”

Yes, I want to ask more questions. No, I'm not that stupid.

So I push the trough to the mark. My hands shake, I grip the edge harder to force my hands still. I lift a dripping lump of meat toward the trough.

The chain above Grum’s cage clicks.

Grum’s head snaps up.

The click comes again, just a small settling sound from old iron, but Grum rises so fast that the cage seems to shrink around him. His shoulder hits the bars. The whole row rings. I stumble backward and slip in old grease.

“Don’t run!” Brak barks.

I don’t run. Running would mean trusting my legs, and I’m frightened, not stupid.

Grum presses against the bars, breathing hard. His good eye is not on the meat. It’s on me.

I hear the crowd overhead begin a chant for some other fight, some other beast, some other unlucky fool.

Grum’s lips pull back from yellow teeth.

“No,” the ogre rumbles.

My ears twitch. Brak goes still. The word is low and broken, but it is a word. I do the only thing my terror allows. I talk.

“Not the lift,” I say. “Only food. I only bring food.”

I point slowly at the trough. “Food there. No lift. We can find another way.”

For several breaths, Grum doesn’t move.

Then the ogre eases back from the bars. One huge hand comes through the feeding gap and drags the trough closer. He begins to eat, but his eye stays on me.

Brak grabs the back of my shirt and hauls me back.

“Lucky. If you feel forward, you would be in two pieces now.” Brak snaps.

I don’t argue with that.

Brak says. “Don't bother talking, he doesn't understand much.”

“But he listened.”

“Dogs listen too. Doesn’t mean they understand shit.”

Grum stops eating.

Brak also stops talking.

The ogre looks down to the ground in front of him. Slowly. Carefully.

I feel the air change. Not cooler. Not warmer. Just heavier, as if the stone under the Red Pit has leaned closer to hear. From somewhere below the cage row comes a faint knock.

Once.

Then again.

Brak’s face shuts like a trap.

“Feeding done,” he says. “You saw nothing clever. You heard nothing clever. Grum is just meat with fists, and you are the goblin who feeds and leads him until Vorga says otherwise.”

He shoves the empty cart at me. “Take this back for more, you need to feed the other four.”

I grab the handle, but Grum makes a sound. Not a roar. Not a growl. Something smaller.

I look.

Grum has pressed his forehead against the cage wall. His cloudy eye faces the stone. His good eye watches me.

The ogre’s mouth barely moves.

“Below,” Grum whispers.

The knock comes again under the floor, softer this time, almost polite.

Brak has already gone.

I wish I could do the same.

What should Nip do?

1. Tell Brak immediately that Grum spoke again.
2. Pretend I heard nothing and get away from the cage.
3. Whisper back to Grum and ask what is below.