Where the Rivers Meet
an excerpt

Mike stepped up into the pit, and a wave of revulsion swept over him. Fresh, bloody stains adorned the walls, the spatter indicating that someone had been hit more than once with a blunt object. Further evidence lay in a pool of blood at the base of the wall. A fist-sized chunk of matted black hair lay pressed against the stone. Mike walked out into the center of the arena, which was roughly diamond shaped and no larger than a two-car garage. There was no room to run.
We’re not in Kansas, he thought. No 911. No courts, no jails. Besides, who would come anyway? Someone like me.
From out of the door stumbled the erstwhile bully, wide eyed and shaking. He pressed his back to the wall, looking up at the raucous crowd perched on risers around the rim of the pit. There were both men and women present, all quite content, as if the evening’s entertainment had thus far been enjoyable, and they were looking forward to more of the same.
At one corner of the pit, a wooden balcony extended over the edge, large enough for one man to stand and view the fighters below. The balcony was occupied by a heavy-set man wearing a black robe and a stylized skull mask. He spoke, and his words elicited a cheer from the spectators. His words echoed out into the crowd, far louder than Mike would have expected, especially with the mask muffling his voice.
A he bend down and produced a pair of long sticks, each studded with triangular pieces of what appeared to be stone. These were cast down into the pit, landing a few feet away from where Mike stood.
His opponent remained against the wall as if rooted there. If he had any intention of fighting at all, Mike did not see it. The man was consumed with terror; there would be no entertainment or sport in watching him die. Taking a weapon against him would amount to nothing more than an execution.
Mike took up the clubs. There was no way he was going to kill a man in cold blood, but he doubted the crowd would have much patience for a show of mercy. He took a test swing, hoping he could buy himself some time to think, to come up with some way of saving his opponent’s life without angering the onlookers.
Nothing came to mind. As the crowd began to murmur, Mike circled slowly toward the cringing figure against the wall. His mind raced, straining to come up with some way out, but there was only the crowd, and the wretched man who crouched sideways against the wall, his hands extended outstretched in front of his ear, pleas of mercy dribbling from his mouth in a froth of mucus and spittle. A sharp smell pierced Mike’s nose; the man had already soiled himself.
In desperation, Mike tossed the club in his left hand at his opponent’s feet, but the man would not even glance down at it.
“Pick it up,” Mike said. “At least let me knock the thing out of your hands. Don’t just sit there in your own filth. Come on, man, you have to do something.”
The smell assured Mike that no amount of talk would have any effect. Though he still breathed, moved, and sobbed, the man was already dead. Mike crouched down and grabbed the man’s wrist, but the man merely hid his face behind the other hand.
“Get on your feet. If you’re going to die, you might as well try to make it look good,” Mike said. He wasn’t sure if the comment was for his opponent, or for himself. The crowd had begun to groan and hiss, and objects began to fall sporadically from the benches. One landed near Mike, and he saw that it was horse manure.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Mike said. “I just want you to stand up.” Mike tried to use a soothing voice, hoping that the meaning might come through even without a common language, but the terrified man remained fixed in his near-fetal crouch, trembling and gibbering incoherently, his face covered in tears and pasty mucus.
Mike dropped the club and walked back toward the balcony.
“Look at him,” Mike shouted. “There isn’t going to be any fight, ok? I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s thrown in the towel.” He pointed to his opponent. “Look. The guy is obviously not interested in fighting.”
Several pieces of manure rained down, one striking Mike in the shoulder, another exploding against his back.
“Why are you throwing them at me?” he said. The crowd replied with another volley of manure, and Mike was forced to put up his hands to avoid being struck in the face.
The door opened, and another fighter emerged, this one dressed in a heavy leather cuirass, greaves, and a visored helmet that covered his face down to the upper jaw. He carried a two-handed mallet with a stone head as large as a basketball, holding it easily in one hand. The warrior seemed oblivious to Mike’s presence. His quarry was the man against the wall. The crowd cheered wildly, and the warrior held up his great hammer in a salute, facing all four walls before returning to his task.
“Hey,” Mike said. “You’re not gonna get any kind of fight out of that one. He’s done.”
The helmed gladiator made no indication that he even registered Mike’s presence. He lifted up his hammer, drawing a savage cheer from the onlookers, and a guttural, bubbling wail from the helpless victim at his feet.
“Hey, hey!” Mike shouted, but his cries did not stop the hammer from swinging downward in a baleful arc, crushing the victim’s foot beneath its massive head. A fan of blood sprayed the floor in a neat arc, and the man wailed and moaned, his mind lost in the agony.
The crowd laughed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mike shouted.
The gladiator raised the hammer again, much to the delight of the spectators, but this time Mike was ready. As the hammer came up, he grabbed the head and hauled downward, tearing it out of the wielder’s unsuspecting hands. It toppled to the floor with a thump, inches away from the prostrate victim’s hideously shattered foot.
The gladiator turned around, his face close enough that Mike could smell the onions and wine on the man’s breath. Through the slits in the visor, Mike saw the man’s eyes. For a moment, they started at one another through those slits, their wills locking in combat before their bodies joined in.
“You like hitting people with that thing?” Mike said softly. “Hit me.”
The gladiator stood still as a statue.
Mike backed away, standing near one of the discarded clubs. He picked it up.
“Go ahead. Pick it up,” Mike said, pointing to the hammer with the end of his club. He reached down and grabbed the other club. The air whistled around them as he swung them both outward in a wide arc.
The gladiator’s attention shifted from Mike to the man in the balcony. The skull-faced announcer spoke to the crowd, and his words were met with a cacophony of cheers. The manure stopped falling into the pit, and the crowd quieted down, their anticipation radiating down from the seats in a silent wave.
The gladiator picked up his hammer.
Fear and anger vanished. The crowd’s roar became strangely distant, and even the low moans that spilled from the mouth of the injured man seemed to melt away. Mike circled the enemy, his body loose and relaxed, the rage that fueled him tamped down to a steady blaze in his heart.
His enemy took a swing, quick and powerful, but Mike easily avoided the blow. The gladiator was a stocky man, a foot shorter than Mike, but his heavily muscled arms and legs were a testament to long years of heavy physical exertion. The man was solid muscle, and Mike had no doubt that one decisive blow from the colossal hammer was all the man needed to achieve a victory.
Mike didn’t intend to let that happen. He continued to circle, avoiding the probing strikes of his enemy, waiting for a chance to strike a blow of his own. Mike held his clubs in check, believing that patience would give him an advantage. The weight of the enormous hammer would eventually work its way into the enemy’s muscles, sapping away his strength and stamina, while Mike, with his much lighter clubs, remained relatively fresh. He flicked out a club now and then, jabbing at the well-protected midsection of his enemy, hoping to goad the man into pressing his attack.
Then, without warning, the gladiator exploded into a flurry of well-timed blows, driving Mike backward toward the wall. The hammer flew astonishingly fast, and Mike was nearly forced off his feet as he dodged and weaved, narrowly avoiding a broken skull and a shattered forearm in as the hammer whistled around him. As Mike ducked to avoid yet another death-blow to the head, the enemy’s knee came up, and Mike saw stars as the heavy leather made contact with the left side of his face. The blow knocked him backward, and he rolled coming to his feet as the hammer crashed down into the dirt where his body had been. A warm wetness coated Mike’s lips and chin, and he tasted blood.
Perhaps his enemy had used up his stamina in the flurry, or perhaps Mike’s unexpected escape had momentarily surprised him. In the end, it didn’t matter why he left his arm extended and exposed, an easy target for a well-placed blow from Mike’s club. With a short, sharp bark, Mike brought down first the left club, and then the right, on the enemy’s elbow. He felt the impact through his clubs, felt the bones buckle and snap, and he knew that the strikes had destroyed the man’s elbow, even before the hammer dropped from the enemy’s hands and a wail of pain escaped his lips.
The injured fighter grabbed the hammer in his off-hand, but attack was no longer on his agenda. He backed away, keeping the hammer in front of him. It was clear that his only aim now was to keep Mike at a distance, hoping for a miracle or a plea from the crowd to save his life.
Neither came.
Mike spun his clubs, easily bypassing the feeble defense. He spun, delivering a rapid succession of blows to the head, knocking the visor off the helm in the process, revealing a man in agony, a man who feared for his life.
“Feels different, doesn’t it?” Mike snapped. “How does it feel to be the one begging? You like it? You enjoying this now?”
His clubs whipped out, one catching the man’s leg behind the knee, while the other landed against his armored chest. The gladiator fell heavily to his back, his head bouncing off the arena floor. He lay there, chest heaving, his eyes glassy and unfocused. Mike stood over his defeated enemy, looking into the man’s face.
His eyes were closed, and the fear of death had left his features. He lay there, breathing heavily, awaiting the blow that would send him from this world to the next. Mike raised his club, feeling nothing.
There was no room in this world for pity or mercy. And with a single, heavy strike, Mike Finnegan abandoned both.