At the center of the ring, Samman stood behind a stone altar, his thickly muscled arms folded across his broad chest. Trinity lay writhing atop the altar. She wasn’t held down by ropes, but tendrils of mist.
Stone didn’t hesitate. He stopped, drew his Webley, and took aim. He was a crack shot and the distance would be no problem for him, familiar as he was with this weapon.
He squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
“Your weapons do not work here,” Samman called. “You cannot even pick up a rock and strike me with it. The arena would turn your blow.”
Stone had no reason to doubt the man’s words. “I don’t need a weapon.” He continued to stride toward the altar.
Samman smirked. “We shall find out soon enough. You are swift, but you cannot outrun the mists inside the circle. They answer my call.”
So, Samman didn’t suspect that Stone could resist the power of the arena. He would have to use that to his favor.
“I just might be faster than you think.”
“Perhaps,” Samman said, “but can you outrun the mists while carrying your woman? I assure you she is in no condition to move on her own.”
“What do you want with her? She’s done nothing to you. I’m the one who brought her here.”
“It is not a question of blame. I hate all outsiders, as I hate all Ogygians who allow outsiders to enter our city. So, I must kill you.” Samman glanced down at Trinity. “All of you.”
“If you were going to kill her, you would have done it already.” Stone hoped that was true.
“I will see to her after she has watched me kill you. It seems you are a source of hope and resolve for her, and a defiant spirit will not increase my power. She must submit to my will before she dies. Only then, I may control her spirit in the arena.”
Stone narrowed his eyes. “You’ve killed in the arena before.”
“You are not as foolish as I thought. It is true. Many of the men who ventured here might have survived, but I made sure they did not. By breaking their spirits before death, I control them. It is the nature of the Arena of Souls. Soon my power will be so great that it will extend beyond the arena, and I can wield it in Ogygia. Then I shall bend them to my will.” He paused. “I dared not try to kill your friends during the battle as I had originally planned. They were armed and there were too many witnesses about. I will, instead, deal with them after you are dead. I assume you brought them into the arena with you?” He grinned.
Stone had heard enough. He had to get to Samman before the man realized that Stone could not be affected by the mist. Once he made that realization, Trinity would be the only leverage he had, and there was no telling what he might do. If his power in the arena was as great as he claimed, he might be able to kill her before Stone could do anything about it.
Stone charged forward. Immediately, Samman sent tendrils of mist whipping out at him. Stone cried out in feigned shock and surprise, and leapt to the side. As the tendrils flayed him, he staggered and whirled about, batting at them as if he could knock them away.
“You remain on your feet,” Samman said in the clinical tone of a zoologist discussing the behavior of a wild animal. “That is more than I expected, but this is only a fraction of my power.” He raised his hands above his head and the tendrils dissipated, as did those torturing Trinity. She sat up weakly on the altar, saw Stone, and cried out.
“Brock! Get out of here! Leave me!” Even in the face of terror and impending death, she remained courageous.
Samman swept his hands in a wide arc, and a dozen ghostly figures appeared behind him.
Despite their vaporous forms, Stone could tell they were natives. These must be the spirits of the men Samman had killed. He had only an instant to register this thought before the ghostly figures charged him.
Despite the utter control he held over his mind, he felt the spirits’ touch. Each seemed to burn his flesh as they collided with him. His grunts of pain were genuine, and it took all his strength to remain on his feet, staggering to and fro, each stumble bringing him closer to the altar.
Trinity continued to call his name, her cries causing him greater pain than the assaults by his ethereal attackers.
“Do not despair,” Samman said over the sounds of their voices. “You should take pride in how well he is doing. No man ever stood up to my attacks as long as he has. Of course, it must end soon.”
The icy streaks of pain that striped his flesh intensified. Stone brought his hands up to cover his face and began to thrash around. He reeled toward the sound of Trinity’s voice until he felt his foot strike the altar.
He opened his eyes to see Samman standing before him. Shock registered on Samman’s face as Stone struck him full force on the chin. The spirits faded into nothingness as Samman wobbled backward. Stone pursued him, lashing out with a series of kicks and punches that put him down on his hands and knees.
“Mercy,” he pleaded. “I am beaten.”
Stone hesitated. He knew he should finish it — end Samman’s life so he could never kill again, but to kill a surrendering enemy went against everything he believed in. He’d seen enough of that in the Great War.
“Kill him, Stone,” Alex said. He and Moses had made it to the arena. “Then get us out of here. Neither of us has much left.” Beside him, Moses leaned against a triptych, breathing heavily.
For an instant, Stone wondered if he could carry Samman back to Ogygia to face justice and still make it back in time to get his friends to safety, but he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them behind again.
“I…”
He was spared the necessity of making a decision when Trinity stepped forward and smashed Samman’s temple with a stone the size of her head.
“I guess he was lying about the arena turning rocks aside.” She dropped the stone on the ground alongside Samman’s lifeless body and brushed her hands on her pant legs. “I thought you were a goner for sure, but you were faking, weren’t you? How did you manage?”
Stone quickly explained how he and the others had managed to stave off the worst effects of this valley of the dead.
Trinity swallowed hard. “I’ll try it. Now, how do we get out of here?”
“According to Akente, there’s one way off this island.” Stone scanned the horizon, but the cloud of mist obscured the skyline. He pictured his grandfather’s map in his mind and immediately identified a natural harbor at the island’s northwest corner. He didn’t need to see the sky to know which direction to go, and he led his friends in a straight line toward that spot.
Ten minutes later, the mist suddenly ended at a row of alien-looking trees. In the distance, the water of the harbor sparkled in the sunlight.
“Thank you, Lord.” Moses dropped to one knee and slumped over, gasping for breath. Beside him, Alex sank to the ground, similarly exhausted.
“What now?” Trinity rested her head against Stone’s chest, and he wrapped her in a tight embrace.
Before he could reply, Trinity shrieked. All around them, the trees had come to life. The closest one leaned toward them, its giant leaves opening up to reveal a blood-red mouth lined with green, teeth-like spikes. He had been mistaken. They weren’t trees at all.
“Venus flytraps!” He drew his hunting knife and sliced a clean gash through the mouth of the flytrap. The entire plant shuddered, and then attacked with fury. He leapt backward and felt an icy shock. They were pinned between the deadly mist and the carnivorous plants. “Follow me!” He took Trinity by the hand and ran along the line of writhing, hungry flora. Moses and Alex drew their machetes and hacked away at the plants as they ran.
At the end of the cluster of flytraps, they hit a sheer rock ledge that ran all the way to the water. It was the end of the line. Time for what Trinity would call an act of heroism though he considered it more an act of desperation. Stone sheathed his knife and turned to the others.