He looked up at the giant display screens. The Necrodrome seemed so much bigger from the ground. He'd never had a chance to really look at it before--not like this.

  He automatically turned to his right. That was the direction the prisoners always used to fly around the course.

  Every step sent another stab of agony into his side. How much longer could he stay upright before he passed out? Was that the reason the Vasyke had sent him out here--so everyone could watch him bleed to death from his injuries?

  CHAPTER 16

  The crowd went wild the longer Richmond stayed in the Necrodrome. He didn't have to fly or fight. Just him being in here by himself sent them into fits of ecstasy unlike anything he'd ever seen before. People got to their feet and waved their arms. They jumped up and down. Were they laughing up there?

  He stumbled as far as the first obstacle. He paused there to lean against one of the staggered walls. He only planned to wait long enough to catch his breath and maybe think about what to do next.

  He leaned his shoulder against the wall and started to shut his eyes when he heard the telltale whir of a very small engine.

  He knew that sound. It was the motor that turned the rotary guns when one of the weapons tracked a moving target.

  He caught sight of movement in the corner of his eye and dove behind the wall just as the gun opened fire. Agony erupted in his wounded side, but he couldn't stop moving.

  More rotary guns swiveled in his direction. Others rose on masts near his location. The guns belched shots at him. He had to dodge back and forth through the staggered course to keep ahead of them.

  The rotary guns weren't designed to target a person on the ground. He knew enough about them to anticipate where they would shoot next, but he couldn't slow down for an instant.

  He broke through the other side of the obstacle. He couldn't stay inside it without risking getting shot.

  The course lay wide open in front of him all the way around the first bend to the maze. He didn't want to leave the shelter of the walls, but at least the rotary guns wouldn't be able to hit him out there.

  He plunged into the open and raced as far away from the obstacle as he could get. The rotary guns followed him, but he made it far enough to get out of their range.

  Adrenaline and mindless shock kept him running all the way to the maze. The distant throb of yelling voices drifted to his ears from the stands, but he barely heard it. Rotary guns dotted the maze, but at least he would be able to find some cover here.

  He stumbled more than once. Running like this hurt all his injured limbs more than he could stand, but the threat of the guns wouldn't let him slow down.

  He made it as far as the first bend when a streak of Lilri fighter craft ejected from the chute up in the stands. He stopped dead and stared up at them before he fully realized what this meant. Of course the Vasyke didn't throw him into the Necrodrome by himself. That wasn't a bout.

  Now he was completely unarmed and facing countless fighter craft. They banked high over the arena, tilted, and plunged down into the course. They were coming for him.

  He sprang forward and ran for it to the only available shelter--the maze. The rotary guns opened fire as he got closer, but he didn't care anymore. The maze would offer him more protection than standing out here in the open.

  Richmond's mind raced for some way to turn the rotary guns against the fighters. If he hadn't been so injured, he would have climbed up on top of the maze and taken control of one of the rotary guns. He'd done it before. He could do it again. The problem was that he was injured.

  The rotary guns on top of the maze were too exposed anyway. Shooting at so many Lilri from on top of the maze wouldn't work as well as shooting at them from the window of a building.

  The only buildings in this course were around the other side of the arena closer to the gate itself. Richmond would have to travel all the way there to get to them.

  He didn't have time for that. Long practice made him understand the rotary guns' behavior better than anyone else. He'd spent so much time avoiding their fire and taking control of them for his own use, he could anticipate their movements and their firing patterns. He sprang back and forth to avoid their shots and dove into the maze, wincing as his broken ribs grated with his movements.

  The rotary guns could still follow him, but he had bigger problems dealing with the fighters. They revolved over the maze, wheeled from side to side to track him, and fired down at him from directly above.

  Blood loss and exhaustion wore Richmond down. He couldn't run as fast as he needed to. He kept tripping and stumbling into walls and falling over at the worst times.

  But he had to keep moving, no matter what. He had to hide behind walls, wait for the Lilri to swoop into a different position, and then dodge to another part of the maze so they couldn't hit him.

  Too many fighters crowded the skies. They couldn't all shoot down at him at once. Only three could patrol the maze at a time, and even then, only one could maneuver well enough to stay above him and target between the walls to put him in danger.

  All this running tore his lungs apart. He couldn't keep this up much longer. His body was starting to fail. The minute he collapsed, the fighters would shoot him down--or maybe they wouldn't.

  They could have bombed the entire maze and put an end to him. Were they toying with him? Was that what this was all about?

  Why else would the Vasyke keep him alive all this time? They'd sentenced him to death, and yet they took every opportunity to keep him alive.

  They wanted to yank him around on puppet strings for as long as he lasted. They wanted to torment him in front of the crowd. He must have been the best entertainment the Vasyke had found in a long time.

  Now Temobos was dead, and Richmond was still here. Someone else must be running this whole thing in Temobos' place.

  The fighter above Richmond's head punched another blast of gunfire into the wall right next to him. It shattered, and the impact knocked him off his feet.

  He stumbled into a different wall, tasting blood as his ribs screamed. He had to summon every particle of his strength and energy to force himself to stand up and keep going.

  He had to do something. He couldn't go on.

  He thought fast and remembered the rotary guns. He might not be able to save his own life with one of them, but it was all he had right now.

  Richmond blundered to the maze opening, ran outside, and avoided another few more gunshots before he came to the corner where the maze wall met up with the outer arena wall.

  He and his friends had used this wall to climb up into the stands during their recent escape attempt. The rotary guns couldn't target him here, but the fighter craft sure could.

  He scrambled up and barely got his hands on the gun before the fighters wheeled around to confront him.

  They came in force this time. This was the one disadvantage of taking control of a gun in this position: the fighters could come at him from all sides now.

  He swung the gun around. It was agony, but the fighters flew fast enough to trigger the weapon's motion sensors. Richmond didn't have to actively shoot.

  His gun spouted a continuous stream of energy at the surrounding fighters. They had to fly even faster to keep away from him.

  He couldn't aim in every direction at once, though. Fighters circled behind him no matter which way he faced.

  Then he remembered. He was standing just a few feet away from the nearest spectators.

  He reacted without thinking, abandoned the gun, and dove over the wall into the stands.

  The Lilri unloaded on him and an almighty blast went off somewhere. People fell on top of him and hurt his broken ribs again. He might have passed out under the pile of bodies.

  Deafening explosions snapped him back to his senses. Richmond floundered to get up. The fighters couldn't see him. They passed back and forth across the stands, shooting at random sections.

  The spectators panicked and tried to flee. Their own efforts attracted the Lilri's fire. Waves of movement traveled up the stands and out to both sides. He could see from here why the Lilri might think those waves indicated where Richmond was trying to flee through the crowd.

  He frowned. Couldn't the Lilri track his life sign readings?

  He didn't wait around for them to come back and find him lying here helpless. He pushed the nearby bodies aside and took off running for the fighter chute.

  Richmond didn't know if he could get through the energy field. All the fighters were already inside the arena. The chute was his only way out.

  The spectators noticed him first. Cheers and yells followed him up the tiers. More people waved their arms at the fighters to get their attention and draw them to Richmond's location.

  These idiotic Narillians must not have been very bright. They lured the Lilri right on top of themselves. The Lilri didn't hesitate to open fire even when innocent bystanders got in the way.

  People grabbed Richmond and tried to restrain him to stop him from getting away. That was the worst thing they could have done. He tore himself out of their grip just as the fighter craft opened fire and plunged away into another mob of hysterical spectators. The first blast of gunfire hit right behind him.

  The impact flattened a hundred people. They all fell in an outward starburst of collapsing bodies. More people fell on top of Richmond, and then the Lilri hammered the stands with punishing fury.

  The noise and the pain blocked out everything else. Richmond didn't see or hear a thing until the stands caved in and he plunged a hundred feet downward.

  A mountain of bodies and broken rubble fell on top of him.

  CHAPTER 17

  Richmond drifted back to consciousness and immediately regretted it.

  His body throbbed. Breathing tore at his sides. The taste of blood floated into his nose and mouth every time he inhaled. He collapsed there in the dark and shut his eyes again, but the pain wouldn't let him pass out the way he wanted to.

  He felt sick to his stomach. He really wanted to die, but as he was becoming so painfully aware lately, he was already dead. The Lilri and the Vasyke couldn't kill a ghost.

  He summoned all his willpower to raise his head. A faint glimmer of light came through a tiny crack a hundred feet above him.

  His fogged brain took far too long to register where he was. The dim light shone on countless dead Narillians lying all around him.

  The bodies lay tangled amongst broken boulders and twisted girders. A mountain of debris covered Richmond from his chest downward. The weight made it almost impossible to breathe.

  He let his head fall back and winced again when gravel and splintered shards stabbed him in the scalp. He allowed himself one instant of desperation to whimper in pain. His life couldn't get any worse than this.

  He really would have preferred to just lie here and bleed to death. He honestly couldn't think of anything better than that right now--except maybe if he had gotten crushed and killed in the collapse. That obviously would have been better, but bleeding to death would be a close second. All he had to do was lie here and do nothing.

  He could definitely do that. Every fiber of his being told him to.

  But whatever this was that was happening to him--whatever this living death was--it wouldn't let him lie here and bleed to death. This idea that he was now--this concept--it kept going even after his body and mind died to the world.

  He sobbed in agony when he raised his arms and pulled away the first stones from the pile on top of him. He couldn't move the girders and twisted beams. He probably wouldn't be able to move any of the bodies, either.

  Richmond yelled out every time he tossed one of the rocks away. His ribs and lungs shrieked; his shoulders burned. He kept telling himself to stop and give up. His mind didn't want him to do this at all.

  But some force outside himself had already made that decision a long time ago. He couldn't stop himself even when he wanted to.

  He worked for five minutes before he removed one stone that set off a landslide of other debris. A tiny avalanche of boulders, gravel, and smaller rocks poured down the pile onto the floor below.

  He got caught in the slide. It tumbled him out from under all the girders and rolled him across more rubble.

  He buckled on the floor, sobbing and wailing in agony. He couldn't survive this. Why didn't he just die already? Why did he have to keep suffering like this when he didn't want to?

  The light coming from above swirled beyond a small opening way up there. It looked like the cloudy Narillian sky at night.

  Richmond couldn't even be happy about that. He was trapped underground with hundreds of dead bodies for company.

  He lay panting, gasping, and feeling sorry for himself for a long time. He would have stayed there even longer, but this unknown force took hold of him.

  He tried to fight it when it dragged him off the floor and pushed him onto his hands and knees. He couldn't bring himself to stand, so he crawled away from the rubble pile to a clear patch of floor some distance away.

  Richmond wilted, groaning and wheezing in exhaustion. Just crawling that far took every scrap of strength he had. Cold sweat stung all over his body, and in that moment when he finally sat down to catch his breath, he felt blood seeping into his lungs.

  His will to live took over again. He couldn't stay here. Whatever desire he might have to give up and die, it submerged beneath this pure animal need to keep going.

  His mind shut down and the unseen force took control. It wiped out every consideration but the basest, most fundamental urge to survive.

  He blundered to his feet. His brain didn't function well enough to even see properly, but he did keep going. He had to.

  Richmond staggered a hundred yards and collided with another wall somewhere. He rolled off it, but he lacked the strength to stand up straight.

  He fought his vision back into focus, and his brain clicked. He knew where he was. He was in the tunnels under the confinement cells.

  But he wasn't in any part of the tunnels he recognized. The system must spread all over the palace, but he did recognize the rock and the marks of the Lilri slaves' tools carved into the side walls.

  The realization gave him just enough energy to keep going. He stumbled a little farther and wound up in the main corridors leading to the city neighborhoods.

  He paused there to look around. Where should he go? He needed medical attention.

  He at first thought of going to one of the Gelara safe houses, but he wouldn't be able to give himself the treatment he required. He needed help for that. All the people he knew who would help him were either too far away or didn't know what was happening to him.

  He kept walking--if he could even call this walking. He was still trying to figure out where to go and what to do when he heard a vehicle rumbling up a nearby street.

  Richmond ducked into an alley to hide. He didn't even know if the people driving the vehicle would be friends or enemies. He couldn't think clearly enough to decide what to do.

  But he could think clearly enough to remember the locations of the Gelara safe houses Niri had told the allies about.

  Richmond staggered from one street to another, trying to identify any landmark that would give him a clue. That was the problem. He remembered the safe house locations, but he didn't recognize where in the city he was.

  He was just making up his mind to sit down and rest somewhere when he heard the tramp of marching feet nearby. He barely scooted into another shadowy corner to hide before a troop of Lilri soldiers turned the corner.

  What in the name of God were they doing out here at this time of the night? Were the Vasyke continuing with their crackdown?

  Richmond backed away to put some distance between himself and the soldiers. He retreated deeper into another narrow gap between buildings, scooted to its far end, and came out in another street.

  He stopped in his tracks when he saw a building across the street. It was a large apartment complex.

  His mind turned a somersault, putting all the disjointed ideas and memories back together. He knew this building. It was the same apartment complex where Zuna had led him and his friends the very first time they took refuge in a Gelara safe house.

  He choked down emotion at the sight. He only had to enter the lobby, pull open the broom closet, go down the stairs...

  He still wouldn't be able to give himself medical treatment by himself. He didn't even know how the Narillian medical devices worked.

  But Richmond couldn't stay out here on the street any longer. He stumbled out of his hiding place. He made it halfway across the street before he missed his footing and tripped over a rock on the ground. He stumbled a few more yards toward the building before he lost his balance and fell flat on his face.

  The impact sent a blinding explosion of pain through his chest. He struggled once to stay conscious, extended his hand toward the building in one last hopeless effort to get himself to safety, and then the black tide of cold sucked him down into the void.

  CHAPTER 18

  Richmond woke up and squinted at daylight coming through a circular opening above his head. For a second, he thought he might still be in the tunnels with all the dead Narillians, twisted girders, and fallen rubble from the Necrodrome.

  But this light didn't come from a torn breach hundreds of feet above him. The light came through a perfectly round circular tube.

  It exited a smooth stone ceiling only a few feet above his face. He dragged his head up and collapsed again when he saw that he was in a medical treatment chamber somewhere.

  His chest and body didn't hurt anymore. He just felt completely drained of all energy. He didn't want to move, but at least he could breathe without hurting himself.

  He had only seen those round light tubes in one place before. He must be in a Gelara safe house. Had he made it into the apartment complex after all?

  He couldn't have. He'd passed out on the street. Someone must have brought him in here.

 

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