The stable was old, run down and obviously hadn’t been used in days. If there was one up side, it was that it wasn’t exactly dirty nor did it smell. Instead, the hay looked fresh if not a few days old while there wasn’t any noticeable signs of dirt or filth anywhere. Considering the circumstances, Laz had to admit there would be worse places for him to have been stuck.

As for the men with him, they all took too a few stalls, threw a few of the saddle blankets on the hay and laid down, oblivious to the world around them and decided to sleep, leaving Laz to head upstairs by himself. Just before he put a foot on the old, rickety stairs, he turned to the men who he could no longer see and said,

"Those of you who are still here must want to live, at least a little while longer. Tomorrow, we will only have two days to turn a bunch of prisoners into a fighting unit, something I can’t do by myself. I still have a lot of living and a lot of women left to do so I will need your help to do it. When that sun rises tomorrow, I’ll expect the last few days will be behind us. If you want to live, you can’t be dragged down by the chains of the dead any more. If you can’t get over it, then leave this place. Because I won’t have any of you getting in my way of surviving another day. Understood?"

Laz said his peace and then waited. It took almost a full minute before he heard anything back.

"Yes first."

"Yes first."

"Yeah first."

And so on until every man who was going to respond, did.

It wasn’t nearly twenty voices he heard.

Laz then walked upstairs to the loft and closed the door behind him. It wasn’t a huge place, but it looked like one large room with several beds, a chimney for a fire and even a separate stall containing what was considered a toilet by their standards and a large wooden tub with a tap. If there was a down side to it, the tap only contained cold water as there were no heating systems installed in a stable such as this.

Laz didn’t care though and stripped, pulling open the tap and using a small bucket to rinse himself down, sadly there wasn’t any soap. Laz stood in the cold water, looking out the small window. For a stable, there wasn’t a need for glass windows but since it was inside a massive fort, it made sense that there would be some extra expense put into it. As for the window, it looked out over the open yard in front of the stable that was nestled next to the massive stone wall. While there was very little activity going on, the moon light shining through was enough for Laz to lose focus as his mind started to wander, exhausted from the day.

"And how the fuck am I going to get out of this one...?"

There was answer to the question, no matter how many times he asked.

When Laz woke up the next day, the sun had just started breaking over the massive walls of the fort when loud shouts came from outside the stable, stirring him.

"Oh. Right..." Laz said, shaking the sleep from his eyes. He woke up, threw on some pants and walked outside, not bothering to cover up. The day was warm already and even though Laz had rinsed off, there was still a sheen of oil coated to his body that was hard to ignore. As for the other gladiators, of which Laz only counted seventeen, Laz turned to them and pointed.

"Two. Three. Four. Five..." And so on until he hit seventeen. They nodded. They didn’t need a name anymore as each of them were sure they would never return home anyway.

There was a legion of solders escorting over five hundred prisoners in chains and leaving them standing against the wall. While the stall was there, there was a lot of open grass area beside it due to not wanting to put buildings too close to the wall in case of a collapse.

Laz stood in front of the prisoners and looked at them while his seventeen guards patrolled behind him. When the prisoners were all gathered, one of the guards just threw over the keys, scoffed and left.

"Where’s the rest of my supplies?" Laz said in a deep voice, startling the guard while not looking over at him.

"On their way. Weapons too. If any of them try to start trouble...."

"I’ll kill them myself so fuck off for now," Laz said before handing the keys to number two.

"Unlock them," Laz said and number two complied. The chains were all interlocked to all the prisoners on the link so once one was unlocked, a group of fifty were freed. None of them made a move and instead started rubbing their wrists to restore circulation.

When number two had freed the second group of fifty, one of them, a large, dirty bearded man, made a lunge for the sword strapped to his waist and tried to draw it. Two, who had once been known in the arena as a master of man versus man combat slapped his hand away and buried the long iron key into the man’s exposed eye, shook it enough to scramble his brain and then pulled back, allowing the man to drop to the dirt dead. Two then brought out the number three key and went to the next line of prisoners like nothing had happened.

None of the men with Laz nor Laz himself had reacted. The moment one of the prisoners tried to betray or harm them, they would be killed without hesitation. Laz didn’t even need to say it for the men to understand it. There was no mercy to traitors and this trash legion was the only thing any of them had.

The last two lines of prisoners were all women, one hundred and eight in all. They weren’t beauties either, many of them looking dirtier and more dangerous than the men which they had to have been to survive in the cages. But that didn’t matter either. As long as they followed the order, they would be a part of the legion.

After the first man had his brain stirred via iron key, no one lunged at Two again even though many of them shot him angry or murderous looks. But just like Laz and the others, two’s face was devoid of emotion.

Once all the prisoners were free, Two handed the set of keys back to Laz who took them and held them up as though displaying them.

"Welcome to the Trash Legion. From now on, you’re my responsibility. You betray us, you die. You betray each other, you die. You slack off, fuck around, or don’t follow orders? You die. Sounds harsh? I don’t care. You got a problem with me? Then this is the one chance I will give you to try what many of you are thinking about doing without killing you. But I do promise, I will make it hurt. Strength is king in this legion and if you’re stronger than me, you can lead us into death in two days. But after this is over and since I don’t want to die, I will make each of you into something that won’t pass out the first second you met a monster on the battlefield. I hope do hope your tiny brains can understand this point. Now then, feel free to come at me if you think you can beat me," Laz said, finishing his speech and then squeezing his hands together, compressing the iron keys and key ring tightly together until they formed the basic shape of a ball before throwing it over his shoulder.

Of the fifty something prisoners who had wanted to fight him, ten backed off right away. For the remaining forty, they were a group of the strongest among them, used to being in charge due to always being the strongest. What’s more, there was even nine women among the men, eyeing Laz like prey.

The numbers gladiators backed off, leaving Laz by himself as the group surrounded him.

"You fighting us one at a time?" One of the men hissed, his body thin and frail while his green eyes reminded Laz of a snake stalking it’s prey.

"Nope. Don’t have the time. Plus... I need to go find some soap..." Laz said, stretching before waving his hand.

"Leave some pieces of him in tact. I want to enjoy myself later," one of the woman cackled, licking her lips. She was slightly thick with a muscular build, but the stench coming off her was enough to keep anyone from getting too close to her.

"Me too," Said a rather large man with a bare chest and big hands. Compared to the rest of them, Laz looked like a muscular pretty boy that seemed to arouse the anger of most of the guys and the attracted the eyes of most of the women. Needless to say, he looked like a noble compared to the people they encountered every day whether in prison or outside of it.

Several of the larger ones charged at once, while others stayed back to measure the situation. Before long, everyone who had charged forward was laying on the ground passed out. If they weren’t expected to fight in two days, none of them would have escaped breaking bones, but Laz needed them whole.

The next half hour was just an exercise in how much punishment the human body could take before it passed out without a single one of them causing Laz any stress. The last one standing was a thin man with a stick like body, long hair and a gaunt face, years of malnourishment showing signs on his body. Laz had no idea how this guy was standing much less why he decided to participate in this, but he was also the only one who hadn’t attacked up until this point.

Now that it was just Laz and him, he didn’t hold back.

Running at Laz at full speed in the field now cleared of bodies, Laz smile as he made to block the attack, only to find his body sent back several steps by the impact.

"Finally..." Laz said, charging forward.