It was Hardt who answered my question. "Killing should never be easy, nor handed out indiscriminately. A person's life is a one-time thing. No one should take that away without good reason." He didn't know. Couldn't know. Life is only a one-time thing for the powerless.
"What if they deserve it?" I asked with a smirk. I thought everyone down in the Pit deserved it. Murderous bloody criminals, the lot of them. That mistake is all mine and I will live with the guilt of those deaths for the rest of my days.
"Especially if they deserve it," Hardt said. "Mercy is the mark of the great."
I snorted. "What a load of slug shit! Mercy is the luxury of the powerful and the mark of the foolish." I was eager for an argument, though in those days I was rarely not in that mood. "Leave an enemy alive and they're most likely to stab you in the back."
"Not everyone is Lesray Alderson, Eska," Josef pitched in, his eyes on the table.
I fucking hate that bitch. Maybe not as much as Prig or the overseer, but her name was definitely high up on my list of people I'd like to see thrown off a cliff. Knowing Lesray as I did, I knew a drop off a cliff probably wouldn't be enough to kill her. She'd likely grow wings or turn the ground to jelly beneath her. I hoped she was dead, that the Terrelans had killed her, but I knew I wouldn't be that lucky. I rubbed at the scar she had left me to remember her by, a rough patch of skin on my side almost as large as a fist.
"You have a bleak outlook on life, little soldier," Hardt said. "You can't have seen that much of war to make you so bitter."
I looked to Josef then and found him staring into his empty bowl. Maybe most wouldn't have seen it underneath the dirt and dust, but I knew the pain on his face. Hardt was right. I hadn't seen much of war at all. I had barely tasted the shock and pain of it. Josef was a different matter. His home had been far closer to the Orran-Terrelan border. Back in the days when the war was just starting, before we were brought to the academy, that border was where the fighting took place and where some of the most horrible atrocities were committed.
"Well," Isen said after the silence became uncomfortable. "I might go gamble away some of my winnings."
"Brother..." Hardt had a way of growling a word that made it sound as dangerous as a cave in.
"Nothing we can't do without," Isen said. He loved to gamble, despite being awful at it. I have long since noticed that those who love to gamble most are those who are worst at it and can't afford to lose. Isen was a man of vices. Sometimes I think he only fought in the arena to have something to throw away at chips or dice.
"I'll tag along," I said after shoving the last of my bread into my mouth. It was partly to spend time close to Isen and partly because I didn't want to be close to Josef and his grief. So many years after it had happened and he still shut down when he thought about it. I had no idea how to deal with him in that state, I never had. He was my best friend, closer than a brother, yet I didn't know how to help him. I think that might be why I truly found it so distasteful, because I simply had no idea how to fix whatever was broken inside of him.
I gave Josef's shoulder a squeeze and quickly followed after Isen, staying close to him as he threaded his way through the maze of stone tables. Near the edge, furthest away from the Trough, there were a number of tables, each crowded with people. The men and women around them were shouting, jostling each other and watching with excitement. Those who sat around the tables were quieter, mostly ignoring the crowd and only paying attention to each other.
Isen greeted a few people in the crowd and then pushed his way towards the table. I followed, meeting any eyes with a fierce hostility I hoped would warn people away. I think it worked, no one paid me much attention at all back then. A young girl following after Isen; they probably thought I was his, and Isen was well-liked amongst the scabs.
"Mind if I play?" Isen asked the gamblers, not waiting for an answer before slipping onto one of the spare stools.
"You got something to stake?" said a broad man with a high voice.
Isen laughed and didn't answer. At the start of the next game, he joined in, slapping down a little cloth bag on the table. One of the other gamblers eyed it suspiciously then picked it up and sniffed. A wide grin spread across the woman's face, showing a set of brown teeth with a few missing. She nodded and the others placed their own stakes in the middle of the table.
The game was one played with small discs of stone. Some of those discs had a variety of symbols carved on both faces, and others left one face blank. The discs were set out in front of each player, though the player chose which face to show the world, and they took turns in trading with each other. I thought about asking the rules to the game, but I didn't want to give away my ignorance to the other scabs, so I contented myself to watch and figure out the rules for myself. It seemed to be a game about matching symbols and scoring pairs, but I'm certain I missed many of the intricacies. Isen won the first game, collecting all the stakes from those who hadn't dropped out. With a few prizes on his side of the table, he was less cautious in the next game and lost his stake to a man with only one eye. I watched the game for a while as stakes were traded back and forth on wins and losses. It seemed to me that few of the gamblers were truly playing to win. There was little of any real value in the stakes, but I think, for most, the attraction was the game itself and the distraction it offered.
After a while I moved away from Isen's table. He was paying me no attention, caught up in his little game, and I was looking for something else. The games were varied, with some tables playing Trust while others simply had men and women testing their strength against each other, each trying to force the other's hand onto the table. I wasn't likely to last a moment in such a game; my arms were like sticks.
I found what I was looking for at a table where the players had split off into pairs. The stakes here seemed more important. The gamblers weren't trading worthless baubles, but things people needed and truly wanted. Food, bandages, even alcohol. I pushed my way close to the table, meeting any stares with my own hostile gaze, and settled in to watch the players.
I watched for a long time. The gaming was more intense. Players growled at each other when they lost, or even threatened violence. I wondered if those scabs watching would intervene should one of the gamblers actually attack another. I wondered, but I already knew the answer. I wouldn't intervene, so why would any of the others. They were here to watch people throw away things they needed on the luck of the draw. There was no value in getting involved in a fight. The Pit made mercenaries of us all.
After picking out my prey, I waited until he had something I wanted: a fresh heel of bread without a spot of mould on it. Then I slipped into the seat opposite him. He was a small man with a bald head, but a chin thick with greasy black hair. He eyed me suspiciously and then shrugged. Oh, I hated him for that. I decided right then to teach the slimy fucker a lesson for underestimating me.
"Gotta have a stake to play, girl," he said in a voice like broken glass underfoot. He cracked his knuckles and looked down at his own winnings. I have to admit, his treasures made him look like a winner. I wasn't cowed.
I glanced at my hands. The only thing I had of any real value was the bandages Hardt had given me. I'd stopped expecting him to ask for them back, they were mine now and sometimes they felt like the only thing keeping my arms attached. More than that, they were where I hid my shard of mirror, my weapon that gave me courage and kept me safe.