Larten beaten up

Larten seriously thought that he was going to die. No vampire
challenged him at first, but he received many wayward punches and kicks.
One overeager individual threw an ax. It missed its target and went
swishing by Larten’s head, skimming past his skull by only a couple of
inches. He turned to swear at the clumsy oaf, then saw that it was Chok
Yamada. Larten was new to many of the vampire ways, but he wasn’t so
naive as to openly curse a Prince!

As Larten raised a hand to salute the laughing Prince, a vampire
slammed into him. Larten yelled with shock and spun to face a tall, ugly
General with a nose that had been broken many times.

“First to three,” the General grunted. Before Larten could ask what sort
of a contest he was being challenged to, the General grabbed him by the
neck, felled him, and pinned his arms. “One to me,” the General laughed,
letting Larten rise.

Larten was prepared when the General attacked again. He tried to slip
out of the bigger man’s way and grab his arms, but the General read
Larten’s intentions. He slapped the young vampire’s hands apart, wrapped
his arms around Larten’s waist, picked him off the ground, then smashed
him flat and pinned him again.

“Try and make it interesting for me,” the General sneered as a shaken
Larten picked himself up and gasped for breath.

Larten swore and swung at the General’s nose. The General twitched his
head aside, caught Larten’s arm, and twisted it up behind his back. As
Larten screamed, the General forced him to his knees.

“Beg for mercy,” he growled.

Larten told him where he could stick his demand.
The General roared with laughter, then flipped the youth over and
pinned him for the third and final time. He walked off without any parting
comment, leaving a dusty, dazed Larten to stagger to his feet and glare at
the floor with red-faced embarrassment. Around him, several young
vampires jeered and applauded slowly, sarcastically.

Before the furious Larten could challenge those who were jeering,
another vampire hailed him. “New-blood—come face Staffen Irve if you
dare. Let’s see what you be made of.”

Staffen Irve wasn’t much older than Larten. He was holding a club with
a large, knobbly metal ball hanging from a short chain at one end. He tossed
a similar weapon to Larten and said, “Have you used these before?”
“No,” Larten said, testing the club’s weight and the swing of the ball.
“Then you better be a quick learner, boy,” Staffen chuckled, and took a
swipe at Larten’s face. If it had hit cleanly, Larten would have lost several
teeth. But he was able to duck, and the ball struck his shoulder instead.
Larten grimaced and lashed out. His ball bounced harmlessly off Staffen
Irve’s ribs. Staffen grunted and whacked Larten’s shoulder again.

Larten lasted less than a minute. He fended off a few of the blows and
managed to land a couple of his own, but when the ball smashed into his
right leg just below his knee, he went down hard and was finished. Staffen
pounded Larten’s back a few times, hoping to goad him back to his feet, but
when he realized the duel was over, he stopped and offered Larten a hand
up.

“Not bad,” Staffen said as Larten stood on one foot and squeezed back
tears of pain. “You ain’t the worst new-blood I’ve seen, but you’ll need to
put in a lot of work before the next Council.”

The vampires who had been watching him laughed at that. To Larten
they sounded like a pack of crows. He would have liked to wade into them
and tear their heads off, but the fight had been knocked out of him. Turning
his back on those who had borne witness to his shame, Larten hopped away,
trying hard to drown out their catcalls.

Staffen Irve’s mild compliment should have given him hope, but Larten
didn’t think any amount of work would prepare him for the next Council or
any after that. In his own eyes he was a failure. On the trek to the mountain,
he had dreamed of winning every challenge and becoming an instant hero.
While he knew that wasn’t realistic, he was sure he would at least hold his
own and not be disgraced. Now he knew better. He imagined more
vampires laughing at him, the laughter following him as he limped away,
and his head dropped ever lower.

***

The Saga of Larten Crepsley: Birth of a Killer, Chapter 17