Outside of playing weird games with people, stitching cadavers, creeping Crowboy in line, or hitting things with a sharp stick, Kelly tended to not have a lot to do in motion. Well, officially her job was to be there to tell Harry's chips and bits to simmer down, but Harry was usually fine when he was left alone.
Whatever had happened had left her not feeling too spry. She'd have to check this stitches she gave Fletcher, but that would wait. She dozed.
Hedge, The Maze, Some Time Ago:
A huge woman, the tallest and broadest Kelly had ever seen, had to duck to enter the pit. Well, there was the pit, and there was the pit. This place, a combination of gambling den, brothel, pub, and hostel was called the pit, but there was also the pit which was the place where Kelly lived and fought.
The center of the pit was a good 30 feet across. Around that was a ring, 10 feet wide, a ring of cages, split down the middle, so those were about 5 feet wide. Kelly lived in one. Above her was the seating.
She could see a lot from her spot sometimes. A few regulars would come by to sometimes to torment her, or a few who had won some bets would sometimes give her a little something. It wasn't so much kindness in most cases, they just wanted her to keep winning, and clean bandages, tape, clean rags, antiseptic, a partial bottle of spirits or some extra nosh all helped with that. She always hid whatever little she had in the straw, she wouldn't get anything if they saw she already had something. She even took their cigarettes and chaw, though Kelly didn't smoke or dip and never would, but they were fantastic for trading with the other captives.
She knew this big, big woman was trouble. After she and her entourage went to the bar and talked to the man she know knew as Boss, and then Boss asked for Hikida.
Kelly wondered who'd beat who in a fight. Hikida was old but she was nasty, she could knock Kelly or any of the other captives on their ass (it helped she used a taser originally intended for livestock). But damn, that was a big bitch.
And soon the three of them came over.
"This is it." Hikida introduced Kelly. Hikida was a good teacher, but she was careful to never get genuinely attached to Kelly or any of the other slaves.
"This is a little girl." The big woman complained. "I can't fight this. Fuck, look at her, she's still busted up from her last fight."
Hikida corrected. "No that's from two days ago. We've fed her some drunks who paid a lot to take a swing since then."
"Wait." The big woman stopped. "You make them fight every night?"
Boss interjected like the big woman was some kind of idiot. "Well, yeah, we don't make any money if they don't fight. The people want to see the fights."
The giantess shot right back. "What a fucking two bit outfit. You're not going to to get good fights this way. Shit. She's thin as a rail and half starved."
The three wandered off, arguing.
Over the course of the next two days Kelly would learn the very tall woman's name was Awesome Tara. It wasn't a very good stage name, but it got the point across. Apparently she was something like Kelly, but on a much bigger scale, a rare female in the cage fighting scene. The difference was, Awesome Tara was free and did this because she wanted to.
Awesome Tara had been called here to fight, and they wanted her to fight Kelly as her opener. The truth was, the novelty that was Kelly, though it still brought in jingle, wasn't what it used to be and the slavers wanted to get one last big payday out of her and put someone else in her cage. They figured Awesome Tara ripping the guts out of the unlikely girl scrapper was a good way to do that, and set up interest for Awesome Tara's series.
The trouble was, Awesome Tara was a bit of an odd duck. She didn't care that Kelly was a slave or that Kelly was abused or had to live in a cage. She was convinced, and not wrongly so, that Kelly would never, ever beat her in the condition she was in.
After two days, Kelly's cage was opened on the outside edge. Normally, they only opened the pit side. The outside had only ever been opened when they wanted to move her to another partition.
Two of the toughs who kept order the place grabbed her, took her to one of the cheap rooms they rented by the hour. It had been cleared out, and a shackle had been installed on a support beam. They attached that to her ankle. Really, a very minimal restraint. There was actually a cot in here. It was almost a decent place for a human being.
Shortly Hikida joined her.
"Don't get used to this, it's only for the next three days. We reached a compromise with Awesome Tara."
For the first time since that Black Hat had cracked a rifle over her head, Kelly was fed well and allowed to sleep normally. They even took her outside for a bit each day, because they figured Awesome Tara was going to kill her.
They brought her portions of roasted animal carcasses. That was the normal food there, for the high paying customers anyway. They roasted them in an open pit, so the slaves could see it and smell it and never have any. Kelley gnawed down to the bone, to her captors' amusement. One made a joke if she could get that hunk of meat down to a clean white bone like that, he knew another bone she could- and that's when Hikida punched him in the gut.
The three days flew by.
This was the biggest crowd there ever had been in the Pit. Awesome Tara fought with a massive axe, and she insisted her opponent have the same. Kelly's wasn't as big naturally, but she was better off with one closer to her size anyway.
Kelly studied her opponent carefully. When they rang the bell (it was an old school bell someone had scavenged that they just hit with a hammer), she didn't move. Awesome Tara looked at Kelly quizzically, then seemed to shrug, and moved in fast. For as big as she was, Awesome Tara could move.
But she didn't move fast enough this time. Kelly stepped out of the way, began evasive maneuvers. Awesome Tara kept coming, not bothered by this, she'd seen the tactic before. Awesome Tara had plenty of stamina, she wasn't one of those brutes that needed to win fast, she was one of those brutes would could win any old time. Cheers turned to boos and hisses as this prolonged.
That's when Kelly finally struck. Unlike Awesome Tara, she knew her battlefield. The floor of the pit was all scavenged planks, and one of then was really creaky and rotten. Kelly normally kept off of it, but tonight, she attacked... the floor, with the axe they'd given her.
The blow split the board, and normally not much would have happened, but it was rotten all the way through. Awesome Tara's massive leg went in. Not all the way through, her massive leg was far too big for that, but it knocked her completely off balance.
Kelly came in hard. The crowd erupted. Though Kelly wasn't striking decisive blows, she was tearing pieces out of her opponent all the same. But Awesome Tara lived up to her name. She managed to orient her axe to catch Kelly's, but what Awesome Tara didn't anticipate, and neither did Kelly, was the maneuver, intended to catch Kelly's axe pinned to the floor on the haft just behind the head, wound up cutting another board that was suspect, and the two of them tumbled into a wet, sandy pit.
The axes gone by the wayside (it would take far too much time to retrieve either one of them), the two fell on each other unarmed. Kelly was no pushover, but damn, Awesome Tara hit like a truck. They were quickly even on abuse taken.
Kelly saw to her chagrin Awesome Tara was laughing. She was delighted. The pipsqueak was really trying! But that loss of focus cost Kelly. An absolutely massive fist whalloped her, and just as quickly the other caught her neck and she was pinned against the side of the hole.
"That was pretty good little girl. Shit, I hate to do this to you. You ain't even crying or begging or nothin', you're still trying to figure out a way to kill me."
Kelly gasped. "I think... I may have it."
Awesome Tara laughed. "Well let's see it then!"
And saw it Awesome Tara did. A sharped pork rib suddenly skewered the big hand holding Kelly's neck. Another, in Kelly's other hand, went into the side of Awesome Tara's neck, momentarily exposed she reacted to the pain.
Kelly headbutted her opponent twice, caught her doubled over, grabbed her shoulder pads and began to kick her in the stomach. Three of those brought the giantess down into the sand in the hole, and Kelly proceeded to stomp on the big woman's head as hard and ruthless as she could.
Awesome Tara grabbed one of the broken planks, swung it in a might arc, and coldcocked Kelly right in the temple with it. Everything went black.
When Kelly woke up, she was back in the usual cage. Unusually, she was actually bandaged properly. She just lay there for a while, trying to figure out what happened.
Eventually, Hikida showed up.
"You were out for a while. You had a concussion. But you nearly tore a blood vessel in Awesome Tara's neck with your little stunt, so she had to cancel the remaining fights. Boss was going to throw you into the water, but then he saw the crowd reaction."
Kelly was shocked. "Boss got me a sawbones?" That was so out of character for him.
"Oh hell no. Awesome Tara did, paid Boss enough gate to leave you out of the pit for a couple of weeks. So you have about another eight days of the easy life. Boss thought it would build anticipation anyway."
Later, upon exploring her cell, trying to find if anything she'd stashed was still hidden in the straw, she found a message carved in one of the boards in rough, shallow letters. Since it was all on the same plank, only a single word could be carved on each line.
Good
fite
litle
girl
Kelly's stay in Hedge wouldn't get any better until another fateful day, but she noticed from then on she got a single pork rib every other day in her slop bucket.
