I have slain men, and monsters.
My blade drips blood, beautiful and dark, and like a ghost the past haunts me.
I've killed kings, saved princesses, and bested the Cursed Knight, I have made the Izoara weep. I know you've heard of me—my name is…
"Wake up, inmate!"
A rusty bucket of water hits me square in the face. The guard laughs. My cellmate farts.
So much for the legend.
A guard stands over me with an empty bucket. He smirks. Behind him the rats scuttle off. The cell smells of dirt and regret.
This is Kalcatraz.
I am no longer a champion.
"On your feet pretty boy," the guard says. "It's time for orientation."
I blink blearily at the guard. It's been an entire day since I've been here. And the stench is still hard to get used to.
The guard drags me out of my cell and through the hallway as some of the other inmates jeer at us
"Hey fishie, come here fishie. Come swim with the big boys."
"Mmm, pretty boy got teeth—I like that."
"Someone tell the goblins dinners ready."
I do not answer. I am a hero. Heroes never waver. (And I already took the bait. The guy still can't walk).
Somewhere in the distance I hear something cackling, probably the goblins.
The further we went in, the worse the smell got. I guess this is Kalcatraz: where the rats unionize.
Whatever orientation was, I can't be worse than this. (Spoiler: it was).
The guard took me to bright room lit by lamps. Where the warden, a man who looked like he could swallow a pig and still ask for the gravy said, "Welcome to Kalcatraz, Sir Cedrick."
I knew the man. Iron Watch. A man said to have crushed a riot with his bare hands and shattered a troll's spine. No one escapes his prison.
But before I could I answer the warden pulled out a piece of paper and some ink.
"M-may I have you autograph sir!" The guards jaw dropped.
This was the price of fame I guess. A champions still a champion I thought.
That was before the warden gave his announcement.
"This man right here, is a real hero boys. Better than any one of you lot."
Which is how I found myself half naked wrestling in the mud with a broken unicorn horn taped to my head.
Yes. Taped.
The prison yard is packed. Inmates cheer and jeer. A fight pit made of mud, misery, and broken teeth. Near the edge, standing on a crate, like some goblin king, one of them screeches above the others.
He's wrapped in nothing but a loincloth and a unicorn horn as he jeers.
"Two copper says the pretty boy gets recked!" He howls, waving his bet in the air. "Unicorn's got horn rage—I've seen it before!"
He leans forward. "Look at 'im! The hero's trembling harder than a mouse! Glass chin I say! Glass chin!"
Another goblin beside him nudges his ribs, "Ain't he that knight fella? What's his name…"
"Doesn't matter says the first one," he spits into the ground. "Out here, he's just lunch with a fancy name."
He raises a clawed hand. "Who wants in! Come on! Three-to-one odds he'll squeal first!"
The crowd roars. The horned inmate across of me grins. Okay. I'm pretty sure he ate the last guy.
As for me? I ready myself.
Because heroes don't squeal.
Even if they do have a unicorn horn taped to their head.
He slams me into the ground. I feel the wind inside of me leave, I don't have much time to think. Fast. I need to be fast. Thanks to the mud I slide out easily enough, I pull his arms up as I give a solid kick to his berries.
If they thought fighting dirty was beneath me, they didn't know me at all.
The inmate groans.
The crowd goes deadly silent.
I press my foot deeper in.
"Say it," I tell him.
"N-nyaah," he squeaks, like a broken plate.
Then he falls. Face-first in the mud. The fight was over in minutes.
I turn to the goblin from earlier, flexing slightly.
"Who's next."
He freezes.Then slowly, and dramatically, removes the horn, and tosses it onto another goblins head.
"Not it," he says.