The torches beside the pit crackled.
Orange-red firelight illuminated the circular pit, some twenty-odd meters across. Its walls were rough earth, and a layer of dry straw covered the bottom.
The straw was stained with dark brown blood.
Three Razor-Toothed Giant Lizards lay at the bottom.
They were over two meters long, covered in gray-green scales, with two rows of serrated teeth jutting from their mouths, each as thick as an adult's thumb.
Their murky yellow eyes watched the crowd around the pit. Perhaps because they had been starving for so long, low hisses occasionally rose from their throats.
"Place your bets! Place your bets!"
A bald pirate stood beside the pit, holding up a wooden box with a scattering of Copper Leaves and Silver Moons inside.
"I bet this scrawny monkey won't last thirty breaths!"
"Bullshit! I reckon he can run for fifty!"
The pirates crowded around the pit, their faces flushed with drink and excitement.
Holding their cups, they shoved one another as they tossed money into the box.
A pirate leader stood at the edge.
He wore grease-stained leather armor and carried a scimitar at his waist. A raised scar crossed his brow, and his left eye socket was empty.
He studied the islander before him with his one good eye.
The islander was a middle-aged man.
He was nothing but skin and bones, his coarse linen clothes hanging from him like a rag.
His hands were bound behind his back with thick hemp rope, and a wad of torn cloth had been stuffed into his mouth.
He looked pleadingly at the leader, his bloodshot eyes filled with tears and terror.
"Your turn."
The scar-faced pirate kicked him in the back.
The man lost his balance and fell straight into the pit.
He somersaulted through the air