“You ready?”

The face that looked up to Auereliano was grim, set in pale curves and jagged angles, lips drawn tightly together in a twisted grimace. “No,” the young man sputtered, setting his jaw and tightening his eyes, knowing his hesitance mattered very little. Auereliano smiled as he doubled his grip on the man’s left forearm, hearing him gird himself against the scream. It wouldn’t be heard over the din of the melee around them, even as Auereliano wrenched the arm upward and felt rather than heard sinew and bone settle back into its proper place. Although the man’s eyes opened with a placid vacancy and the little color that blushed lips and cheek went to a sickly grey, he would not pass out. The demon expected nothing less; this company was known for their resolve.

This was The Valley; the only valley in Arda that traveled from barns to docks, from granary warehouses to the mouths of hidden caverns. It was far from a secretive society, mostly touted as a gathering of foolish animals, men and women that sought relief from the day to day in the terrible meeting of angry flesh. The valley was a fraternity of pain, amalgamated of that which could not exist in tournaments and fighting schools: the anesthetic of the mob. Most of the participants were social castoffs, the broken minded barbarism of war created veterans hungry for more than the civil touch and parry of steel. The attendance would always be men who had long forgotten the soft naïve flesh of the young for the overlapping scars of experience and women who, ravaged by the truth of life in the heartbeat of conquest, developed tastes that simmered with unquenchable revenge. Above the hard wet smacks of blows were screams of names long forgotten to bitter pasts, fallen comrades and lost innocence mourned with broken teeth and shattered bone. It was therapy for the vicious.

The valley was ruled by The Driver, a man respected by all in attendance and whose decisions in the course of battle would be respected without question. As always, two would begin the fight. There was no ego involved in the choosing, while men, women, naga and vampire would saunter into their circle with advantage, it would not last very long. When one opponent would fall, when the blows were too many to fight off, the driver would tap another fighter. It was a malicious twist to a childhood game, the tapped fighter then rushes into the circle, taking on that fighter that was winning advantage. This continued relentlessly, one uninterrupted fight that could range from one on one to up to four on one. No one person would be declared the winner, and the losers were dragged out of the ring, brought back to consciousness and quickly slotted to return. It was the sapping of homicidal rage and energy that would promise the lot of the fighters a quick trip to Arda’s unforgiving gallows. Here, blood was traded for blood and no man was a mountain.

It was rare to find Auereliano seeking to curdle violence, but Arda was a tapered change for the creature of the void. The needs of the body were new, and as such, he was attracted to the extremes of his new nature. Even though his days were filled with the gamble of card and dice, there were games of chance that required more than a potent bluff and a partisan perspective. When the wagers begin to lose their spice and the losses carry the same baffling emptiness as the wins, Auereliano finds himself here, resting in the pulse beat of collected noise. Circling the fight like a hyena, joined by carrion hunters overcome with the same hunger, he watched every connecting punch, every slip into a choke, every snapping kick to the unprotected jaw. And then, the tap and he loses himself in the dance, causing damage with the flail of elbows and knees, until blindsided and taken, he would be removed and wait his turn again.

Tonight had proven no different. It started with a meager speck of a man who tended to an old gentleman of the upper crust of Arda’s elite. There was little of a professional fighter in the man, but when faced with a six foot tall fishmonger, he was an animal. It was feral but thankfully short, a few clubbing blows removed the butler from the fight, but not the smile from his face. A baker named Perchance struck the fishmonger with such force from behind that the man befouled his thick cotton pants. It drew a raucous cry from the crowd as the Driver sent two men rushing in after the baker, the scales tipping with scolding efficiency. Perchance held his own long enough to gain an ally, if only for a brief second, a lucky punch emptied his mouth of what was left of his teeth. He sat hard in the middle of the ring, pulled out by fighters waiting for their shot, clapping him firmly on the shoulder, thankful for a good show. The three remaining men threw arching blows at each other, their fervent swings making the crowd rock back and forth on itself, the ebb and flow of a living sea. Auereliano was tapped to break the litany and he spun into the fight with a snarl.

One of the men had drawn away from the fight, turning giddily on shaky legs into a two handed blow the demon drew out from four paces away. Auereliano balled both fists together and swung them into the man’s gut, hearing air escape in a violent rush, lifeless body flipping over his arms and slamming unconscious to the floor. It drew a thick “Oh!” from the crowd as Auereliano pushed forward; grabbing one of the two remaining men by the crown of the head. He bent him backward, a tremor of anticipation shivering from the crowd, and brought an elbow like a guillotine into the exposed throat. Auereliano felt cartilage rupture and was met with a spray of blood against his face, carnal war paint patterned against his features. He pushed the choking man into the arms of the waiting crowd, not given a chance to celebrate before two new participants, chosen by the driver, slammed into him from either side. He went down in a flurry of blows, scratches and bites, curls of flesh drawn in slivers from exposed skin, laughing all the way.