Another snap. A growl.
James gives a shout. We approach a city of sorts. Is he calling for help? Calling out a warning? Not a single body appears. We pass dwellings with arched doorways and pillared corners, sweeping curved steps and clay-tiled roofs. All encased in shadows and webs.
All empty.
I hoist myself up onto an elbow and try, through the bumping and jostling to catch a glimpse of our pursuer. There’s nothing to see besides the dead-looking houses and a cobbled street flying away behind us. We round a bend and our cart bangs a corner.
The horse yanks us around another, then onto a broad street twice the width of the one prior. James doesn’t bother to direct the animal. It knows the way. The lines of abandoned homes melt into the shadows while the street stretches forward in a long descent, growing wider and wider, eventually ending at . . .
The coliseum.
There really is one, but it’s not like the dusty broken one in history books. This one is quadruple the size, curved walls stretching skyscraper high toward a dark, stormy sky. Girth so broad I have to turn my head to see where it bends out of sight. Evenly spaced flags line to top edge, but what draws my gaze and keeps it is something else entirely.
The coliseum is on fire.
Flames consume the stones at the base of the coliseum and fill the archways with angry glowing eyes. Double iron gates bar the way through a mammoth arched entryway like the closed mouth of a forge. Three marble statues, stretching half the height of the coliseum itself, form a semi-circle around the entryway and stand unmoved and unbothered by the flames licking their feet—Shadrach, Meshach, and What’s-His-Name unharmed in a fiery furnace.
This thing is huge. It’s not merely a fighting arena inside the city—it is the city. And it’s about to collapse.
James and the horse keep lumbering toward it.
“Stop this thing!” I yell at him.
He doesn’t seem to hear. Closer and closer we get. The crackles of fire grow louder than the clamor of the horse cart, and heat hits my skin.
James fumbles with the keys at his belt. At this rate it seems like he’s going to let us careen right into the deadly flames. Then a giant beam of wood lands in the road in front of us. Human forms, cloaked and hooded, stand on each side of what could be a railroad tie. Each wields a single sword.
“Spores!” James shouts, as if that means anything to us. He pulls up short, flailing his little gladius. He seems resigned, like he expected this type of roadblock by these mysterious people. Spores.
I don’t have time to get a good look because even though James has stopped running, the horse has not. It leaps over the fiery beam with a whinny of terror.
The wagon does not.
Wheels catch stone. We go airborne. A suspended moment of horror. A mere breath before impact. I throw my arms up to shield my head. The cage shatters in a smash of spikes and slivers. I tumble, bone on stone, down the road. I brace for the impact of the cart, still picturing it flying through the air. After enough breaths and the cacophony of crashes and screams, I dare to look up.
The cart lies several feet away—on top of a different body. One of the caged. My muscles and bones groan against my command to lift myself up. Sharp pain shoots up my back, neck, and left arm. It hurts, but not enough to imply anything broken.
I rush to the cart at the same time Erik does. Together we lift it off the other man. Blood covers the downed man’s head, and his chest doesn’t move. I’m the last person able to perform any sort of CPR. I’m pretty sure he’s dead. My mind processes the fact the same way it might the death of a video game character, which concerns me.
I don’t want to lose my humanity in this Nightmare, but did it follow me into the virus to begin with?
“Sorry, mate,” I say quietly to the dead man.
Erik shakes his head. “This is messed up.”
The other captives scatter. A few bodies lay within the flames of the coliseum. Unmoving. Burning up. A cry comes from behind us. One of the cloaked Spores leaps at James with a mighty yell. James throws out his little sword and deflects a blow. Only now do I realize that no one is actually holding those Spore swords. The weapons float and fight of their own accord.
One cloaked and hooded attacker surveys the wreckage while his sword keeps James busy. Then I see the other three Spores running straight for me and Erik. I head toward the smashed cart and pick up a length of wood that’s far too long and heavy for me to wield against a sword, but with the right swing it could knock a man out. I twist to meet the attack.
Two Spores go for Erik, who holds one of the spoked cart wheels as a shield. A disembodied sword gets trapped in the spokes and tossed aside. The other comes for me.
A cloaked, broad-shouldered man a head taller than me whirls to meet me with his sword. I catch bursts of a sickly smell—like hot tar and manure. This dude needs a shower.
Stench’s sword swipes over my head and sinks into my wood bat. At least it has poor aim. I grope for the hilt, but it burns my fingers like an electric stovetop on high heat. I recoil and instead yank my wood bat free.
I swing for Stench’s head. He ducks and loses his balance. We are so close to the coliseum, which at first seemed like a second prison but now seems to be a place of refuge. Except for the fact that it’s burning down.
The doors are still closed. Between me and the door, James lies in a heap on the cobblestones. I assume his keys were for the coliseum gate, though it’s so huge I can’t imagine it being unlocked with a single key. It’s more of a crank-and-chains type of gate. Also . . . still on fire. It may melt soon.
A smaller cloaked Spore steps up to James—a female, maybe? Her floating sword zooms in front of her and presents its hilt. She grips the pommel in both fists and plunges the blade downward into James’s skull.
He doesn’t even twitch. Doesn’t scream. That’s how quick his death is.
Rage boils my blood, though I have no loyalty to James. He was nothing more than my captor. But he was a human. These Spores, however, don’t seem to be. Nothing with a beating heart would treat another person this way.
A clatter snaps my attention back to the two Spores attacking Erik. I spot a fifth Spore back in the shadows, watching the attack. The shortest and smallest of the Spores and, if I’m not mistaken, a child.
Erik’s cart wheel falls to the ground. That’s all the opening they need. I expect one to run him through, but instead both Spores lunge and grab Erik’s arms. He tries to shake them off. Another latches on to him, and he yells for help.
I rush toward them, but Stench regains his feet and jumps into my path. I barrel into him and land a fisted blow to the side of his head. He cries out and crumples to the ground.
“Stay there,” I growl.
The other two Spores now have Erik by the ankles and drag him across the cobblestones toward the shadowed houses and the child Spore. Erik claws at the ground, groping for purchase.
“Hey!” My bellow shakes the heavens louder than thunder. “Hey!”
