He could have pretended he wasn't quite sure why he still came to that place, but it would have been a lie. Two nights in a row Razkar how thrilled the baying crowds of the Blood Pits, sated their lusts and given them all the carnage they could ask for. Human, Eypharian, Akalak, all have fallen to his blades and in that transient manner of fads the multiverse over, the fame of "The Scalper" had burned brightly... and then been replaced by something, anything, more tantalizing.
The Myrian hardly noticed. He barely felt the prick to his pride, that he had been so quickly forgotten.
Well, not completely.
The crowds that flocked to the stands in the subterranean Pit often thought themselves contenders, but the fact they were up there and not down below told Razkar all he needed to know. The gangs always had representatives there, too, watching for promising talent. Into the mix were the usual thieves, drunks, whores, money lenders, gamblers and bored Sunberthians looking for a violence fix... and all of the parted when The Scalper walked steadily to the stands.
You need a fix, too, don't you? Can't just train and work on your wyrd all the time. Can't just instruct the few novices that come across your path. Not even the Casino is enough; you need to see death, large and real and wet.
"Certainly getting it today..."
The Myrian muttered to himself as the two brawlers hammered each other below him. The Pitbull had made it interesting, as he usually did in his sadistic, innovative way. Debris from broken chairs and tables littered the arena, a plethora of impromptu daggers, clubs, coshes... anything that could rend and rear and batter.
But Razkar's attention was on the fighters.
Both were unarmed, though whether that was preference or by order, he didn't know. The larger man had form, power, smashing blows that could be heard even in the stands, fists like hams pounding his smaller opponent.
Not smaller by much, though, and yet...
The other was not without his tricks. Razkar gave a thin, approving smile as the smaller fighter goaded the Boxer on, let him spend himself in fruitless but impressive-looking blows on his forearms.
Let his waste his strength. Then pick your-
The barbarian did just that. With a single blow to the jaw that set the crowd howling in new tones of awe and joy, the Brawler unleashed himself on his opponent, throwing punches and chops to the bigger man's face and throat, kicking out his knee-
-and Razkar blinked when he heard a howl of rage he recognized all to well roar around the Blood Pits like a hurricane.
Impressed as he was, he did not share the crowd's ecstasy. He was an island of motionless, watchful calm in the bedlam, watching the Brawler brutalize and demolish his prone opponent as if he were a mortal enemy. The crowd seemed to wince and spasm as blow after blow fell, then a piece of a chair lodged into the barely-conscious Boxer's eye-
Again, that scream. That howl. The man wants to fight the whole world, make it pay for... what, exactly?
The Myrian did not know... but he made a decision as he turned away, not bothering to watch the final blow, knowing the fight was over and the Brawler had one. He made his way swiftly down to the gladiator alcoves, darkened, barely-lit notches in the tunnels that the guards gave him swift access to. They knew him, after all, and aside from that, didn't want any of him.
Razkar waked until he found the right alcove, then whatever the youth was doing inside it, he would hear a voice speaking fluent Common in a growling, rasping accent say:
"You bring much hatred into the arena, barbarian. I know something of that. But few have brains behind their anger, too. You fooled that big bastard well, down there. He ran himself dry trying to knock you down, and when you were ready, you chopped in down in ticks. Brains, hate, ability... two of those things will take you far. One will destroy you."
The Myrian would cross his arms over the harness crisscrossing his chest, the gladdii on his hips clear to see, the kukri across his pectoral, the geography of scars and tattoos covered what seemed to be every spare inch of tanned flesh save his black, implacable eyes.
"Hate will tip the balance against you one day, barbarian. It will push you, goad you, trick you just like you did that dead man back there. Make peace with it, or harness it, would be the free advice I would give..."