FROM PITS TO THRONE: A Crown Forged In Chains

Chapter 5: The Bargain Struck

One month had passed since Laim’s arrival in Korthos; one month of blood, sand, and the roar of crowds that grew louder with every victory. The city had begun to claim him as its own. Taverns toasted “Laim the Unbroken”; children scratched his name into alley walls bookmakers adjusted odds in his favor for the first time.

But in the cells beneath Jarrett’s Arena, nothing had truly changed. The straw was still foul, the food barely enough to fuel the next fight and the chains though lighter remained still.

Laim sat on the edge of his pallet, sharpening a small shard of flint against the stone floor. Garrick watched him from the doorway of the adjoining cell with arms folded.

“You’re brooding again,” the old fighter said.

“I’m counting,” Laim replied quietly. “Thirty-one days. eighteen fights, if you count the scraps in the yard. Not one coin toward freedom.”

Garrick spat into the straw. “Jarrett’s stringing you along. Every win fills his purse, not yours.”

Laim’s eyes were hard. “Then it’s time to change the terms.”

Garrick raised an eyebrow. “You are planning to ask the fox for the key to the henhouse?”

“I’m planning to make him see it’s cheaper to let one hen go than lose the whole flock.”

That evening, after a brutal bout against a spearman from the southern jungles which left Laim’s shoulder dislocated and later popped back in by Garrick’s rough hands, he demanded an audience with his master.

The guards laughed at first. Slaves did not demand. But when Laim refused to leave the training yard, planting his feet and staring down the captain of the guard until the man grew uneasy, word had to reached Jarrett.

The arena master received him in the small office above the boxes, a room paneled in dark wood and smelling of ink, wine, and wax. Ledgers were stacked on a broad desk, a window overlooked the empty pit as the sand was raked smooth for tomorrow’s games.

Jarrett lounged in a high-backed chair, goblet in hand, studying Laim as if he were a horse at auction.

“You wanted words, slave,” he said pleasantly. “Speak them.”

Laim stood straight despite the ache in his shoulder. He had rehearsed this a hundred times in the dark.

“I’ve brought you more gold in one month than Vorus did in a year,” he began with a steady voice. “The crowds come for me now. They wager on me. They chant my name. And every time I win, you grow richer.”

Jarrett inclined his head, neither confirming nor denying.

“But I get nothing,” Laim continued. “Not better food that lasts, not a single copper toward manumission. I fight on scraps while you buy new silks. How long before the crowd tires of an unbroken streak? How long before someone luckier or paid to be luckier puts me in the sand for good?”

Jarrett’s smile thinned. “You think highly of your worth.”

“I know my worth,” Laim said. “And I know yours depends on me staying alive and winning. So here’s my offer: eleven more months. Eleven months of victories, no matter who you put against me. At the end, you grant me freedom; papers signed, sealed and witnessed by the Lanista Guild so no one can claim otherwise. In return, I keep fighting like a man possessed. The crowd stays hungry. Your purse stays full.”

Jarrett set down his goblet and leaned forward. “And if you lose before the eleven months?”

“Then I die, and you lose nothing.”

Finally Jarrett laughed a short but sharp sound.

“Bold. Very bold. Most slaves beg for mercy. You bargain like a merchant.”

He rose and paced to the window, looking down at the empty pit.

“There is…another consideration,” he said carefully. “Certain parties paid well for your quiet end. They will not be pleased to hear you’re thriving.”

Laim’s pulse quickened, but he kept his face stone. Robert’s gold, reaching even here.

“Then let them be displeased,” he said. “Their gold bought a dead prince. You’re selling them a living champion instead. By the time they realize the difference, I’ll have earned you ten times their bribe.”

Jarrett turned with his eyes calculating.

“Eleven months,” he repeated. “Unbroken victories. Then freedom.”

“Sworn before witnesses,” Laim pressed. “And during those months, I get proper food, Garrick as my personal healer, and no poisoned blades or rigged fights.”

Jarrett’s smile returned colder now. “You think I’d cheat my own investment?”

“I think you’d do whatever keeps the gold flowing.”

The arena master considered him for a long moment.

“Very well then,” he said at last. “We have a bargain. I’ll have the scribes draw it up. The Lanista Guild will witness publicly. That should keep certain… interested parties at bay for a time.”

He extended his hand.

Laim stared at it. A slave did not shake hands with his master. But this was no longer merely master and slave.

He clasped it firmly.

“Eleven months,” Jarrett repeated, his grip tightening until bones creaked. “Do not fail me, Laim. Because if you do, I will not be kind.”

The agreement was signed the next day in the guild hall, a grand marble building near the harbor. Three lanistas, men with gray-hair who trained fighters for all the arenas of Etoibard watched as Jarrett pressed his ring into hot wax. Laim made his mark beneath, the first time he had written anything since leaving Miraolden.

Word spread quickly. The unbreakable slave had bargained for his freedom. Bets shifted as new songs were sung.

In the cells that night, Garrick raised a smuggled cup of ale.

“To eleven months,” he toasted. “And to the fool who thinks Jarrett will honor it.”

Laim drank, but his mind was already turning.

Because the very next week, the fights will grew harder.

Jarrett began matching him against undefeated champions brought in from other cities, men with reputations as fearsome as Vorus had been.

First came Kharl the Hammer, a giant from the northern mines who fought with a war maul heavy enough to shatter shields. Laim defeated him by blinding him with thrown sand and striking from behind, a trick the crowd booed at first, then cheered when they saw the cunning of it.

Then came Lira of the Nine Blades, a woman who wielded a weapon like a steel whip tipped with razors. She opened a long cut across Laim’s chest before he trapped the whip around his buckler and closed to kill her with a dagger to the throat.

Each victory came at higher cost. His scars multiplied. His sleep grew shallow.

Yet something else grew too: a reputation beyond the pit.

Nobles began sending gifts of fine wine, roasted meats, even a soft wool cloak. One lady threw a rose onto the sand that Laim, on impulse, tucked behind his ear before killing his opponent. The crowd went wild.

Lord Ermin Rein’s silver token burned a hole in Laim’s hidden cache. He had not sought the man again, it would be too dangerous while he remained Jarrett’s property still but he felt the politician’s eyes on him during fights.

Three months into the bargain, the injury came.

The opponent was called the Red Bear, a massive fighter from the eastern forests, armored in chain and wielding a spiked club. The fight was brutal and long. It was Laim’s speed against the Bear’s raw power. The crowd was on its feet the entire time.

Near the end, Laim slipped on blood-slick sand due to exhaustion. The Bear’s club caught him across the left thigh with a glancing blow, but the spike tore deep into muscle.

As Laim rolled away despite the pain, he rose up limping and finished the Bear with a desperate lunge that buried his sword in the man’s eye. Victory was secured but as guards carried him from the pit, his leg would not bear weight.

Garrick’s face was grim as he probed the wound in the torchlight.

“Torn muscle. Deep. It’ll heal, but not clean. You’ll walk with a hitch forever if you’re lucky. Fight again too soon and it’ll tear wider.”

Laim lay sweating on the pallet. “How soon?”

“Two months at least. Maybe three.”

They both knew Jarrett would not wait that long.

Sure enough, the arena master visited the next day.

“A pity,” he said, almost sincerely. “The crowd loves you. But an injured fighter is a dead fighter. I’ve had offers for you as a house servant, perhaps, or labor in the quarries. Better than the pit with a lame leg.”

Laim’s blood ran cold. This was the betrayal beginning.

“No,” he said through clenched teeth. “The bargain stands. Eleven months of victories. I’m not finished.”

Jarrett spread his hands. “You can barely stand.”

“I’ll stand,” Laim snarled. “And I’ll win.”

Jarrett studied him for a moment then shrugged. “Very well. Rest a week. Then we see.”

But Laim saw the calculation in his eyes. Jarrett had promised someone, probably Robert’s agents, no doubt that the prince would die in the pit. An injured fighter was easy to arrange an accident for.

That night, pain kept Laim awake. He thought of his family, of Tamira and little Silas, of Calista alone in heaven knows where, of his mother trapped in Miraolden with the tyrant.

He would not die here. Not after coming this far.

Garrick brought strong willow tea and bound the leg tight.

“You’ve nine months left on the bargain,” he said quietly. “Jarrett is cornered now. The guild witnessed it. If he kills you outright, he will loses face and coin. He’ll try to make you lose fairly.”

Laim nodded. “Then I won’t lose.”

The old man looked at him for a long moment.

“You’re changing, boy,” he said at last. “The pit’s making you something else. Pray it’s something that can live free when this is done.”

Laim closed his eyes.

When he finally slept, he dreamed of Miraolden’s green hills, of his father’s banner flying high, of Robert Hawks’ head on a spike.

And in the dream, he walked without a limp.

Far across the world, his sisters dreamed too of home, of family, of a day when chains would fall away.

But for Laim, that day was still eleven fights away.

And the next opponent was already on his way, a champion Jarrett had bought for a fortune, said to be unbeatable.

The bargain held at least for now.