The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1) by Michael Beckum

Author:Michael Beckum [Beckum, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wild and Woolly Press
Published: 2015-01-26T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

A GOOD DEATH

* * *

WE REACHED THE main floor and headed immediately out into the street where an enormous crowd of slaves was being forced toward the amphitheater that adjoined the building where I’d met with Kiga. As the Angara shoved me down the steps and into the flow of the nervous throng I saw Milton, Elia, and Bruk far to my left shuffling along with the chaotic crowd. They couldn’t see me.

“MILTON!” I yelled, trying to be heard above the noise of mob chatter. “MILTON! BRUK!”

An Angara took exception to my shouts, and slammed me in the back of the head. But before I was bent forward I caught a glimpse of Bruk looking my way. By the time I’d recovered from the shot I’d taken to my skull, we were at street level with the others and I could no longer see my friends.

As we trudged forward, a rumor began to filter back through the mass of captives that there had been another pair of returned escapees—a man and a woman—apparently the woman had killed an Angara who’d been trying to retake her, and so we were on our way to witness her punishment, and probable execution.

My heart stopped beating. It had to be Nova.

Lost in my own head, and deeply distressed, I finally noticed someone on the periphery of my vision trying to get my attention. It was Bruk and Milton and by their faces I could see that the two of them were thinking the same thing I was.

“Is it Nova?” Bruk asked.

“No idea,” I said looking straight ahead. “Don’t look right at me. Pretend you don’t even see me. They’re looking for you.”

“Because of that book?”

“Don’t even think about it. They can get inside your head.”

We walked a bit, pretending to ignore one another.

“What can we do?” I asked Bruk. “How can we save Nova, if it is her?”

“We can’t,” he replied, looking around at the Angara on all sides, heavily armed and already enraged at the murder of one of their own. “Unless we’re in the pits with them.”

“Well, then maybe I’ll have a chance to help her.”

“What do you mean? They’re taking you to the arena?”

“Listen, Bruk,” I said, ignoring his question. “Two doors down and to the left from where we were, there’s a storage room…”

My Angara guard finally caught on that I was speaking and clubbed me again in the back of the head. I nearly fell over, but caught myself. I was going to be lucky if I didn’t pass out from a concussion.

“Two doors down, Bruk,” I continued, “and…” BAM! I literally saw stars.

I fell to my knees, momentarily unaware of where I was. When I shook it off it surprised me to see a seven-foot tall panther man standing over me holding a mace that had a clump of my blood and hair on it.

“Keep it up,” I told my guard with a smile, “and there won’t be anything left for the arena.”

He booted me in the face, and I slammed over backward onto the dirty ground.

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