Post by countlivin on Apr 23, 2019 4:50:39 GMT
Chapter 19: The Recruit
Saul Arrem
The blade felt powerful in Saul's hand, yet it was coarse. From the moment that Munrow placed it in his hand, he wasn't sure whether he was holding the hilt or the blade itself. On one hand, this weapon was the way he would ultimately protect himself in the arena. It was the way he would keep his sister alive... On the other hand, it was a constant reminder of how much his life could have been different. The sword was a constant reminder of Munrow.
"Is it too heavy?" the man asked Saul, watching him stared down at the katana. After a moment, Saul didn't validate him with a response. Munrow spat again, "Boy, is it too heavy?"
"No," he replied, taking his hand and sliding it along the steel edge. At one point, it caught on his skin wrong and a bit of blood was drawn. It hurt, yet in a strange way, made him feel a rush of energy. "It's fine."
"You say it's fine, but you really gotta know," he continued. "Does it feel like an extra length of your arm? Does it feel like if you swung, you aren't gonna have to put in your weight just to make sure it doesn't catch you at the other end? Or maybe it's too light. Ain't gonna do anything but a scratch if it's too light."
Saul gazed up and down the blade. It had a red band wrapped around the hilt. Its silky texture felt good in his left hand. On the tip was a bit of serration. He wondered why Munrow had given him a real blade to practice with, especially one so fine... "It ain't too light," Saul replied. "I've never held a sword before."
"So you don't damn well know." Munrow stepped forward aggressively and ripped the sword away from Saul again, holding it behind his back. "Let's see..." He began to inspect it while muttering various numbers.
"Why does it even matter what the weight is, sir?" Saul asked. "All that really matters is that I hit my mark."
"Yup. And you ain't gonna hit your mark if your balance is off." Munrow shook his head. He finished muttering to himself and tossed the sword into Saul's hands. "Here. Looks to be about right."
Almost the moment the katana landed in Saul's hand, Munrow's own was brought down with great force. Saul only barely managed to parry the strike in time. "What the hell?" Saul shouted. "You didn't even say go!"
"The tributes ain't gonna fight nice, boy!" Munrow spat a couple of inches from Saul's nose. A drop of saliva came close to his eye, and he wiped it off with his thumb. "They're gonna be hard. You're going to see things in the arena that you didn't think humans were capable of. And they're gonna do it... Not just because they're Albar scum, but because they're expecting you'll do the same." He paused for a few seconds, and then raised his hands in disbelief. "Well? What are you waiting for?"
"Waiting for... what?"
"I just left a huge gap open in my right side." He pointed to a section of his torso. "In the time it took me to finish speaking, you could have sliced me open in three different areas."
"I was waiting for you to finish talking."
"Please," Munrow snarled. "Don't give me this polite crap. The other tributes aren't going to care. If you want to survive... if you want to serve your District like a hero, you're going to have to man up, son."
"Don't call me son," he said. He bit the bullet and lifted the blade high above his head. But, just as he was about to bring it down onto Munrow's cranium, he felt a pain in his side. Munrow had slid a gash into his side with his own blade. "AAGH!" Saul cried. The pain seared through his body, and he could feel the warm trickle of blood flowing down his side.
"You left yourself uncovered," Munrow advised. "Don't ever leave a side of yourself uncovered. If I were you, I would play on the defensive side. Only go for a blow after you've parried. That way, your opponent won't have any time to—" Before Saul was given a chance, the blade was swung at him once again, this time beside his right shoulder. He blocked the blow and, in an instant, swung the blade back around into his side. When it impacted, the blade was facing parallel to his body so the face lay flat on his side. "Good," he smiled. "Yet, you'll want to use this side," he said, taking the blade and turning it so the edge met with his skin. He slid it backwards slightly to draw blood. Taking the opportunity, Saul drew back as hard as he could, causing a larger wound. He grunted, yet stood up straight, bearing the pain. "This may be only practice, and I have no intention to kill, but you can be sure I'm going to make this as... well, educational as possible."
After three days had passed, the only time Saul and Munrow had taken to pause the training were brief stops for lunch, and for breathers. Munrow didn't allow Saul to flee to St. Rhodes' during the night. His reasoning was that he would take his sleep for granted. Every word that Munrow uttered made Saul hate him a bit more. So he had spent the last three days in this room. It was a cold, dusty, plain room with no windows. Munrow had called it his basement, but he was blindfolded when they entered, so he couldn't be sure. It was times like these, pitch black in the dead of night, when Munrow had given only himself time to sleep, that he thought of home. He missed Peara. He missed Ethel. Hell, he even missed the man he used to call Mr. Munrow.
Saul sat on the ground, slumped against the concrete wall. The only thing he could see was the light from the locked trap door above his head. The only thing he could hear was the gentle drip of water leaking through floorboards. The only thing he could feel was the cold of the sword on the touch and a feeling of regret. He could barely even breathe. He made sure, since the room was so filthy and dusty, to take long, calculated breaths, so that he wouldn't have an asthma attack. Down here, an asthma attack might mean death.
What if he had not told anyone about the fire? Would the Peacekeepers have even discovered it? It certainly wouldn't have been pinned on him and his sister... If he had stayed quiet, he wouldn't be starving on the floor of a dusty basement right now. Peara wouldn't be sleeping by herself in a locked bedroom. Saul stabbed the blade into the dirty ground and clenched it hard in his palm.
Maybe... There was a way to stop all this... Saul slid his finger over the edge of the blade and put his blood to his tongue. It tasted of iron. It tasted of his longing for another way. Munrow had given him a sword. It wasn't a practice one, it was real... One look at it would tell anyone that. Why had he done that? Perhaps, this was more than a practice.
Saul gazed up toward the lit hole in the ceiling. He read the clock from the other side of the window, and saw it read six in the morning. It was morning. He knew he should have slept, yet he was consumed by such an intense hatred that it kept him going. There was something about spending nights alone in a dark room with his thoughts and a deadly weapon that seemed... soothing to him. He knew that with one final act, he could always end it. He wouldn't have to take part in the awful tournament that the world had conspired him to. There is always a choice... However, he knew if he died in his cell, Peara would never last more than a day. He knew that if he died, what Munrow said would be true. Saul couldn't let that happen.
He found it ironic how Munrow had mentioned playing on the defense when he screwed up countless times the past few days. All he ever played, in any facet of life, was defense. Yet, with a weapon in his palm, he felt strangely offensive. He felt as though he had a power he never had before. He would be lying to say he didn't enjoy it somewhat. And throughout the course of the last few days, he had grown quite good... At one point yesterday, he landed a blow on the arm that caused the man to jump in pain and have to attend to the wound. He even came to appreciate swordplay as an art like Munrow did... Even with all the hatred, there was still something admirable about how much effort the man poured into training him.
Munrow would arrive soon, and with him, he would bring his vast collection of weapons with which to dismember Saul. But, the long night had given him a long time to think. There were other ways of ending things. When the man opened the door, it would remain unlocked until lunch. That would give him a few short hours to land a blow on him deep enough to escape. Yet... If he managed to do that, there were other ways to solve the problem...
66% of readers chose to [A. Go for the kill.]
Saul felt a tingling sensation in his sternum. He knew what it was like to kill a man. The regret weighed down on him like a thousand tons against his body. For a long time after the incident months ago, he felt like he couldn't even move. Saul knew what it was like, yet this time it was different. The pressure and weight was not coming from outside—it was coming from within. The regret was snared in his chest, clawing its way out. If he felt this way right now, how would the Games change him? How would they change Peara?
Hours and hours went by with nothing of a signal that he was not the only one in this District. The last few days, Munrow had shown up before the crack of dawn to begin training, yet something was off today. The light shone thorugh the trap door above his head to light up the room in front of him. It was the light of morning. Saul began to wonder whether he was coming today.
But alas, before too long, he heard the creaking of footsteps on the floorboards over his head. They were very heavy footsteps, like each one had been taken with the utmost precision and care. Saul knew them to be Munrow's. The man hardly ever did anything without being certain about it. That notion made it harder to realize his betrayal was among that list.
Above him, Munrow peered down through the slits in the trap door. The look on his face indicated tiredness and disdain. He twirled one of the tassels on his beard as he bent down and inserted his key into its slot. When he dropped down into the chamber, the light of day spilled in. He hung a lamp on the wall and lit a match on his shoe.
Saul wasn't sure what time it was, but he had a vague idea. "You're late," he announced.
"You have an eye for detail, Arrem," he spat, lighting the wick inside the brass frame of the lamp. "I had to pick up something from town before coming over. And I'm sure you don't mind. I worked you down to the wire the last three days. A long breather can't hurt."
"I'm going to go insane," he stated, standing up using the wall as leverage. Saul clenched the handle of his sword tighter than he had before. He prepared his resolve. At the end of the day, he would have more than his own blood on his hands…
"Can't hurt, insanity," Munrow replied. "There was a tribute a few years ago, Pallo I think his name was… He ate four of the other tributes before he got axed at the Feast."
"He ate them? That's disgusting…"
"Yeah, it was pretty volatile." He bent down to his bag and began to remove the sword and scabbard from it. It was just as polished and sharp as it was days ago. Saul's katana had worn away, so there was a thin coat of dust on it. "And the Capitol didn't spare any gory detail. You could see every time he took a bite… There was a look of desperation, and almost enjoyment… Those are the people you are going to meet in the Games. They're twisted… psychotic. They're evil. So if you think you can carry your District on nothing more than faith… you're going to get eaten."
"Then how come we didn't send in our psychotics? Why can't we fight fire with fire?"
Munrow stood face to face with Saul and looked him in the eyes for the first time since before he was a traitor. "Because even evil people have a place in District Eleven. It's a quality they don't share with you and your sister. You don't belong here."
"How does our not being here help the District?" Saul broke into shouting. He could feel his fingers tightening so much that his own fingernails cut into his palm. "We have every right to live here! This is our home!"
Munrow stood in front of Saul for a moment, as though preparing for an attack. When it didn't happen, he spoke, very calmly, "The Hawk has eyes on you, Saul."
"And now you're prattling on about some metaphor?" Saul screamed, filling the empty, dusty room with his cries. "Would it kill you to treat me like an equal for once? Even before this whole ordeal, you were always a sick maniac. I understand you are doing what you can for Eleven, but I'm doing what I can for my sister! My own blood! Maybe if you had any family you would understand what I'm going through!"
"The Hawk doesn't like what he sees."
"I can accept that I'll have to go into the Games, but you had to drag my sister into it, too! She's all that I have left… Do you have any shred of conscience at all?" Saul wanted to kill him so badly. The only way he could hold himself back was by ranting on. "I sacrificed my life to you since I was eight years old… You were like my father, Mr. Munrow. Was I not your son?"
"The Hawk will reap its prey."
"Who is the Hawk?!"
Munrow stared Saul dead in the eye and held his ground. Not a word of the answer was uttered, and it was enough to push Saul over the edge once and for all. He screamed at the top of his lungs and lunged forward with a stab to the left side. Like lightning, Munrow parried it and worked his way around to the right shoulder.
Saul placed his palm on the side of the blade and fully blocked the blow. Munrow stepped back and then to the side, enough to give him space to think. In a fit of rage, Saul stepped forward again, this time attacking from the right towards the legs. Munrow lifted his leg to dodge the strike and threw his own blade towards Saul's abdomen. He ducked further below the sword and attempted to counter it with a swipe towards the face of his own.
Munrow caught it with his own sword and the two forces held tight against each other, scraping steel in the dank dungeon. Saul leaned into the moment and so did the man on the other side. "I'm going to kill you," Saul whispered, pressing all of his weight into the clash.
"Now… That sounds like a victor talking…" Munrow barked back from the other side of the crossed swords. Munrow broke free of the bond, sending Saul flying forward. He dodged to the side to avoid Saul's blade and leapt behind him to get a clear shot at his back. Munrow landed a little jab into Saul's back before he landed on the floor. The blood flowing down Saul's back hurt like living hell, yet it was somewhat freeing. For a moment, he could concentrate on the pain in his lower back rather than on the pain in his heart. A single tear of frustration landed on the ground before Saul stood again just in time to parry a thrust at his head.
More and more lunges and parries were tossed at the two combatants. Saul's threats were only complimented with pointers on his technique. Saul didn't care about technique. He just wanted this man dead. He didn't have time to be frightened by the thought. Before too long, both Saul and Munrow had grown weary and tired. Normally, if this had been a practice like the previous few days, they would have taken a break to catch a breath. But, the stakes were real.
One last burst of adrenaline came over Saul and he leapt back into battle. He threw strike after strike at the man, hurling them as fast as he could so that Munrow had very little time to counter them. The more he swung the katana, the more rage Saul could feel welling up in his mind… the more pain he felt being lifted from him.
When the last strike fell, it caught Munrow off guard enough to plant itself in the space between Munrow's right shoulder and his neck. It didn't cut deep, but enough to knock him to the ground. He clutched it with both hands tightly, trying to keep as much blood in as he could. Saul stepped over his victim with one leg on either side of him and slowly passed his blade into both hands.
"You had this coming…" Saul placed his right hand on the butt of his blade and drove it downwards towards the old man's chest with all that he could muster. He knew that in a single moment, all of his pain would be relieved. He would be free. However, as the tip collided with his skin, something unexpected happened. The katana felt as though it was going to buckle under Saul's weight, and before he could put all his weight into it, it snapped in half, leaving the lethal end on the floor and nothing but the hilt in Saul's hands.
Munrow coughed loud and long, as though the wind was knocked out of him. Saul took a deep breath, remembering to shield himself from the dust. But, Munrow eventually brought himself to rise upright again and stare the boy back down in his confused eyes. The man reached to his collar and pulled from his button-up shirt a bloodied vest of steel chain mail. Saul felt cheated when he saw it… He wasn't given anything like that… So many of the wounds he'd suffered the last few days could have been avoided. He almost won…
"The Hawk will reap its prey," Munrow repeated, and he lifted his leg above him and kicked Saul onto the ground, knocking up a cloud of dust. Then he put a blade deep into Saul's right forearm, sending a jolt of pain through his system that had no other comparison. Saul was screaming at the top of his lungs; the pain was almost too much to bear. The sword had penetrated the ground, pinning his arm to the dirt. No matter how much Saul writhed around, he couldn't make it hurt any less, much less escape…
Munrow fell back against the wall, sitting in the same position Saul had been this morning. "I'm sorry, Saul…" he croaked slowly, breathing heavily to match. "You were like a son to me."
"You're… a liar!" Saul shouted back through pauses in his screaming.
"When I took you in… I was just doing so because I was instructed to take an apprentice at my shop," he continued. "I spent the first year completely apathetic to your existence. I mean, who could blame me? My father was terrible to me as a child, and my mother wasn't there enough to matter. I never thought I'd have a son."
"You don't!" The blood seeped from the wound in Saul's arm, and he began to feel faint.
"But as the years went on, I grew a sort of admiration for you, Saul. You're resourceful, caring… I've never met anyone as good at climbing trees as you are."
"Why did you… sell me out?!"
"Saul, boy… I had to. You won't believe me, but I knew this day would come from the moment I took you as my apprentice."
"You're lying…"
"I ain't lying." He sighed, finally managing to stop the flow of blood from his neck. "I aint even supposed to be telling you this, but… Saul, listen. I need you to know this when you're in the arena. I am sorry for everything I put you through. I do have a conscience. It's just… It's never done the District no good."
"Go… to… HELL!" Saul screamed at him through his own slowed breathing. "Why would you… do something like this… if what you're saying is true?"
"Because," he sighed, "the Hawk will reap its prey."
Saul's eyes closed slowly and his head fell back to the ground. He felt himself slowly drifting back into unconsciousness. And he realized… finally standing off against Munrow hadn't brought him relief from his pain. That's what sleep did. He knew if he ever woke up again, it would all come back, but for now… he could… wait… and…
End of Chapter 19
Saul Arrem
The blade felt powerful in Saul's hand, yet it was coarse. From the moment that Munrow placed it in his hand, he wasn't sure whether he was holding the hilt or the blade itself. On one hand, this weapon was the way he would ultimately protect himself in the arena. It was the way he would keep his sister alive... On the other hand, it was a constant reminder of how much his life could have been different. The sword was a constant reminder of Munrow.
"Is it too heavy?" the man asked Saul, watching him stared down at the katana. After a moment, Saul didn't validate him with a response. Munrow spat again, "Boy, is it too heavy?"
"No," he replied, taking his hand and sliding it along the steel edge. At one point, it caught on his skin wrong and a bit of blood was drawn. It hurt, yet in a strange way, made him feel a rush of energy. "It's fine."
"You say it's fine, but you really gotta know," he continued. "Does it feel like an extra length of your arm? Does it feel like if you swung, you aren't gonna have to put in your weight just to make sure it doesn't catch you at the other end? Or maybe it's too light. Ain't gonna do anything but a scratch if it's too light."
Saul gazed up and down the blade. It had a red band wrapped around the hilt. Its silky texture felt good in his left hand. On the tip was a bit of serration. He wondered why Munrow had given him a real blade to practice with, especially one so fine... "It ain't too light," Saul replied. "I've never held a sword before."
"So you don't damn well know." Munrow stepped forward aggressively and ripped the sword away from Saul again, holding it behind his back. "Let's see..." He began to inspect it while muttering various numbers.
"Why does it even matter what the weight is, sir?" Saul asked. "All that really matters is that I hit my mark."
"Yup. And you ain't gonna hit your mark if your balance is off." Munrow shook his head. He finished muttering to himself and tossed the sword into Saul's hands. "Here. Looks to be about right."
Almost the moment the katana landed in Saul's hand, Munrow's own was brought down with great force. Saul only barely managed to parry the strike in time. "What the hell?" Saul shouted. "You didn't even say go!"
"The tributes ain't gonna fight nice, boy!" Munrow spat a couple of inches from Saul's nose. A drop of saliva came close to his eye, and he wiped it off with his thumb. "They're gonna be hard. You're going to see things in the arena that you didn't think humans were capable of. And they're gonna do it... Not just because they're Albar scum, but because they're expecting you'll do the same." He paused for a few seconds, and then raised his hands in disbelief. "Well? What are you waiting for?"
"Waiting for... what?"
"I just left a huge gap open in my right side." He pointed to a section of his torso. "In the time it took me to finish speaking, you could have sliced me open in three different areas."
"I was waiting for you to finish talking."
"Please," Munrow snarled. "Don't give me this polite crap. The other tributes aren't going to care. If you want to survive... if you want to serve your District like a hero, you're going to have to man up, son."
"Don't call me son," he said. He bit the bullet and lifted the blade high above his head. But, just as he was about to bring it down onto Munrow's cranium, he felt a pain in his side. Munrow had slid a gash into his side with his own blade. "AAGH!" Saul cried. The pain seared through his body, and he could feel the warm trickle of blood flowing down his side.
"You left yourself uncovered," Munrow advised. "Don't ever leave a side of yourself uncovered. If I were you, I would play on the defensive side. Only go for a blow after you've parried. That way, your opponent won't have any time to—" Before Saul was given a chance, the blade was swung at him once again, this time beside his right shoulder. He blocked the blow and, in an instant, swung the blade back around into his side. When it impacted, the blade was facing parallel to his body so the face lay flat on his side. "Good," he smiled. "Yet, you'll want to use this side," he said, taking the blade and turning it so the edge met with his skin. He slid it backwards slightly to draw blood. Taking the opportunity, Saul drew back as hard as he could, causing a larger wound. He grunted, yet stood up straight, bearing the pain. "This may be only practice, and I have no intention to kill, but you can be sure I'm going to make this as... well, educational as possible."
After three days had passed, the only time Saul and Munrow had taken to pause the training were brief stops for lunch, and for breathers. Munrow didn't allow Saul to flee to St. Rhodes' during the night. His reasoning was that he would take his sleep for granted. Every word that Munrow uttered made Saul hate him a bit more. So he had spent the last three days in this room. It was a cold, dusty, plain room with no windows. Munrow had called it his basement, but he was blindfolded when they entered, so he couldn't be sure. It was times like these, pitch black in the dead of night, when Munrow had given only himself time to sleep, that he thought of home. He missed Peara. He missed Ethel. Hell, he even missed the man he used to call Mr. Munrow.
Saul sat on the ground, slumped against the concrete wall. The only thing he could see was the light from the locked trap door above his head. The only thing he could hear was the gentle drip of water leaking through floorboards. The only thing he could feel was the cold of the sword on the touch and a feeling of regret. He could barely even breathe. He made sure, since the room was so filthy and dusty, to take long, calculated breaths, so that he wouldn't have an asthma attack. Down here, an asthma attack might mean death.
What if he had not told anyone about the fire? Would the Peacekeepers have even discovered it? It certainly wouldn't have been pinned on him and his sister... If he had stayed quiet, he wouldn't be starving on the floor of a dusty basement right now. Peara wouldn't be sleeping by herself in a locked bedroom. Saul stabbed the blade into the dirty ground and clenched it hard in his palm.
Maybe... There was a way to stop all this... Saul slid his finger over the edge of the blade and put his blood to his tongue. It tasted of iron. It tasted of his longing for another way. Munrow had given him a sword. It wasn't a practice one, it was real... One look at it would tell anyone that. Why had he done that? Perhaps, this was more than a practice.
Saul gazed up toward the lit hole in the ceiling. He read the clock from the other side of the window, and saw it read six in the morning. It was morning. He knew he should have slept, yet he was consumed by such an intense hatred that it kept him going. There was something about spending nights alone in a dark room with his thoughts and a deadly weapon that seemed... soothing to him. He knew that with one final act, he could always end it. He wouldn't have to take part in the awful tournament that the world had conspired him to. There is always a choice... However, he knew if he died in his cell, Peara would never last more than a day. He knew that if he died, what Munrow said would be true. Saul couldn't let that happen.
He found it ironic how Munrow had mentioned playing on the defense when he screwed up countless times the past few days. All he ever played, in any facet of life, was defense. Yet, with a weapon in his palm, he felt strangely offensive. He felt as though he had a power he never had before. He would be lying to say he didn't enjoy it somewhat. And throughout the course of the last few days, he had grown quite good... At one point yesterday, he landed a blow on the arm that caused the man to jump in pain and have to attend to the wound. He even came to appreciate swordplay as an art like Munrow did... Even with all the hatred, there was still something admirable about how much effort the man poured into training him.
Munrow would arrive soon, and with him, he would bring his vast collection of weapons with which to dismember Saul. But, the long night had given him a long time to think. There were other ways of ending things. When the man opened the door, it would remain unlocked until lunch. That would give him a few short hours to land a blow on him deep enough to escape. Yet... If he managed to do that, there were other ways to solve the problem...
66% of readers chose to [A. Go for the kill.]
Saul felt a tingling sensation in his sternum. He knew what it was like to kill a man. The regret weighed down on him like a thousand tons against his body. For a long time after the incident months ago, he felt like he couldn't even move. Saul knew what it was like, yet this time it was different. The pressure and weight was not coming from outside—it was coming from within. The regret was snared in his chest, clawing its way out. If he felt this way right now, how would the Games change him? How would they change Peara?
Hours and hours went by with nothing of a signal that he was not the only one in this District. The last few days, Munrow had shown up before the crack of dawn to begin training, yet something was off today. The light shone thorugh the trap door above his head to light up the room in front of him. It was the light of morning. Saul began to wonder whether he was coming today.
But alas, before too long, he heard the creaking of footsteps on the floorboards over his head. They were very heavy footsteps, like each one had been taken with the utmost precision and care. Saul knew them to be Munrow's. The man hardly ever did anything without being certain about it. That notion made it harder to realize his betrayal was among that list.
Above him, Munrow peered down through the slits in the trap door. The look on his face indicated tiredness and disdain. He twirled one of the tassels on his beard as he bent down and inserted his key into its slot. When he dropped down into the chamber, the light of day spilled in. He hung a lamp on the wall and lit a match on his shoe.
Saul wasn't sure what time it was, but he had a vague idea. "You're late," he announced.
"You have an eye for detail, Arrem," he spat, lighting the wick inside the brass frame of the lamp. "I had to pick up something from town before coming over. And I'm sure you don't mind. I worked you down to the wire the last three days. A long breather can't hurt."
"I'm going to go insane," he stated, standing up using the wall as leverage. Saul clenched the handle of his sword tighter than he had before. He prepared his resolve. At the end of the day, he would have more than his own blood on his hands…
"Can't hurt, insanity," Munrow replied. "There was a tribute a few years ago, Pallo I think his name was… He ate four of the other tributes before he got axed at the Feast."
"He ate them? That's disgusting…"
"Yeah, it was pretty volatile." He bent down to his bag and began to remove the sword and scabbard from it. It was just as polished and sharp as it was days ago. Saul's katana had worn away, so there was a thin coat of dust on it. "And the Capitol didn't spare any gory detail. You could see every time he took a bite… There was a look of desperation, and almost enjoyment… Those are the people you are going to meet in the Games. They're twisted… psychotic. They're evil. So if you think you can carry your District on nothing more than faith… you're going to get eaten."
"Then how come we didn't send in our psychotics? Why can't we fight fire with fire?"
Munrow stood face to face with Saul and looked him in the eyes for the first time since before he was a traitor. "Because even evil people have a place in District Eleven. It's a quality they don't share with you and your sister. You don't belong here."
"How does our not being here help the District?" Saul broke into shouting. He could feel his fingers tightening so much that his own fingernails cut into his palm. "We have every right to live here! This is our home!"
Munrow stood in front of Saul for a moment, as though preparing for an attack. When it didn't happen, he spoke, very calmly, "The Hawk has eyes on you, Saul."
"And now you're prattling on about some metaphor?" Saul screamed, filling the empty, dusty room with his cries. "Would it kill you to treat me like an equal for once? Even before this whole ordeal, you were always a sick maniac. I understand you are doing what you can for Eleven, but I'm doing what I can for my sister! My own blood! Maybe if you had any family you would understand what I'm going through!"
"The Hawk doesn't like what he sees."
"I can accept that I'll have to go into the Games, but you had to drag my sister into it, too! She's all that I have left… Do you have any shred of conscience at all?" Saul wanted to kill him so badly. The only way he could hold himself back was by ranting on. "I sacrificed my life to you since I was eight years old… You were like my father, Mr. Munrow. Was I not your son?"
"The Hawk will reap its prey."
"Who is the Hawk?!"
Munrow stared Saul dead in the eye and held his ground. Not a word of the answer was uttered, and it was enough to push Saul over the edge once and for all. He screamed at the top of his lungs and lunged forward with a stab to the left side. Like lightning, Munrow parried it and worked his way around to the right shoulder.
Saul placed his palm on the side of the blade and fully blocked the blow. Munrow stepped back and then to the side, enough to give him space to think. In a fit of rage, Saul stepped forward again, this time attacking from the right towards the legs. Munrow lifted his leg to dodge the strike and threw his own blade towards Saul's abdomen. He ducked further below the sword and attempted to counter it with a swipe towards the face of his own.
Munrow caught it with his own sword and the two forces held tight against each other, scraping steel in the dank dungeon. Saul leaned into the moment and so did the man on the other side. "I'm going to kill you," Saul whispered, pressing all of his weight into the clash.
"Now… That sounds like a victor talking…" Munrow barked back from the other side of the crossed swords. Munrow broke free of the bond, sending Saul flying forward. He dodged to the side to avoid Saul's blade and leapt behind him to get a clear shot at his back. Munrow landed a little jab into Saul's back before he landed on the floor. The blood flowing down Saul's back hurt like living hell, yet it was somewhat freeing. For a moment, he could concentrate on the pain in his lower back rather than on the pain in his heart. A single tear of frustration landed on the ground before Saul stood again just in time to parry a thrust at his head.
More and more lunges and parries were tossed at the two combatants. Saul's threats were only complimented with pointers on his technique. Saul didn't care about technique. He just wanted this man dead. He didn't have time to be frightened by the thought. Before too long, both Saul and Munrow had grown weary and tired. Normally, if this had been a practice like the previous few days, they would have taken a break to catch a breath. But, the stakes were real.
One last burst of adrenaline came over Saul and he leapt back into battle. He threw strike after strike at the man, hurling them as fast as he could so that Munrow had very little time to counter them. The more he swung the katana, the more rage Saul could feel welling up in his mind… the more pain he felt being lifted from him.
When the last strike fell, it caught Munrow off guard enough to plant itself in the space between Munrow's right shoulder and his neck. It didn't cut deep, but enough to knock him to the ground. He clutched it with both hands tightly, trying to keep as much blood in as he could. Saul stepped over his victim with one leg on either side of him and slowly passed his blade into both hands.
"You had this coming…" Saul placed his right hand on the butt of his blade and drove it downwards towards the old man's chest with all that he could muster. He knew that in a single moment, all of his pain would be relieved. He would be free. However, as the tip collided with his skin, something unexpected happened. The katana felt as though it was going to buckle under Saul's weight, and before he could put all his weight into it, it snapped in half, leaving the lethal end on the floor and nothing but the hilt in Saul's hands.
Munrow coughed loud and long, as though the wind was knocked out of him. Saul took a deep breath, remembering to shield himself from the dust. But, Munrow eventually brought himself to rise upright again and stare the boy back down in his confused eyes. The man reached to his collar and pulled from his button-up shirt a bloodied vest of steel chain mail. Saul felt cheated when he saw it… He wasn't given anything like that… So many of the wounds he'd suffered the last few days could have been avoided. He almost won…
"The Hawk will reap its prey," Munrow repeated, and he lifted his leg above him and kicked Saul onto the ground, knocking up a cloud of dust. Then he put a blade deep into Saul's right forearm, sending a jolt of pain through his system that had no other comparison. Saul was screaming at the top of his lungs; the pain was almost too much to bear. The sword had penetrated the ground, pinning his arm to the dirt. No matter how much Saul writhed around, he couldn't make it hurt any less, much less escape…
Munrow fell back against the wall, sitting in the same position Saul had been this morning. "I'm sorry, Saul…" he croaked slowly, breathing heavily to match. "You were like a son to me."
"You're… a liar!" Saul shouted back through pauses in his screaming.
"When I took you in… I was just doing so because I was instructed to take an apprentice at my shop," he continued. "I spent the first year completely apathetic to your existence. I mean, who could blame me? My father was terrible to me as a child, and my mother wasn't there enough to matter. I never thought I'd have a son."
"You don't!" The blood seeped from the wound in Saul's arm, and he began to feel faint.
"But as the years went on, I grew a sort of admiration for you, Saul. You're resourceful, caring… I've never met anyone as good at climbing trees as you are."
"Why did you… sell me out?!"
"Saul, boy… I had to. You won't believe me, but I knew this day would come from the moment I took you as my apprentice."
"You're lying…"
"I ain't lying." He sighed, finally managing to stop the flow of blood from his neck. "I aint even supposed to be telling you this, but… Saul, listen. I need you to know this when you're in the arena. I am sorry for everything I put you through. I do have a conscience. It's just… It's never done the District no good."
"Go… to… HELL!" Saul screamed at him through his own slowed breathing. "Why would you… do something like this… if what you're saying is true?"
"Because," he sighed, "the Hawk will reap its prey."
Saul's eyes closed slowly and his head fell back to the ground. He felt himself slowly drifting back into unconsciousness. And he realized… finally standing off against Munrow hadn't brought him relief from his pain. That's what sleep did. He knew if he ever woke up again, it would all come back, but for now… he could… wait… and…
End of Chapter 19
