UNLIKELY FRIENDS

There was – I cannot know if it still is – a belief among my people. The priests said that the gods created the world so that they could play out their games on the field. They also said that the gods made us the most powerful pieces on the field so that there could be some turns in the game. Then they also said that priesthoods were created to regulate the game according to the will of gods: we, after all, are their children. That our priests were right I cannot tell, but their elaborate ideas on humanity and its sacred place in the pantheon could not save their necks when the Empire came down on us.

_____

I am a slave.

The man who once was is so parched, so thin a memory not even a ripple remains. Sometimes, I feel helplessly far – that is, when I can muster the courage to feel at all.

_____

The echo at the back of my mind gains momentum. I dwell in the flowing void where should be my consciousness, scraping away all feeling, peeling off layers of emotion, of sensation.

But the echo has not faded, only grown into a thrumming promise just beyond my hearing. Slowly, I open my eyes.

Faint afternoon sunlight peers through the narrow slit in the high corner of the low wall. Incense-smoke clings to me in the close turbid air of the Champion’s cell. Occasional shadows flit over the slit. I sit there: still, contemplating, choosing; waiting.

The walls thud with every heavy beat of the drums above. The noise from the crowd builds like a tide: waiting at the periphery of my hearing; a silent promise, a building dread. But I keep it at bay.

I sit holding my sword: calm within, unmoving, and almost shut to the roar outside.

I am waiting; waiting for the call.

*************************************************

The noise was steadily rising. The air was hot under the burning glare of the cruel midsummer sun and oppressively humid from the steam rising off from the drying arena floor. The foul smells of the scarcely washed and often spilled blood and vomit and liquor and bowels clung close to everything. The air in the stands was thick with the reek of the poor, sweat and rare perfumes at the same time.

But all this was unnoticed, for the mad crowd was almost drunk in its passion to witness the games. Drunk and screaming.

Kurse sighed elaborately.

It was always the same in the fighting-pits. The mad crowd of cheering, abusing, shouting, leering and fighting losers in the stands: thugs and peasants and slave-masters and merchants and nobles and more nobles. All screaming and thirsty for bloodshed. And, of course, then there were the champions, the fighters. Once farmers and sons and husbands and fathers and lovers, living peacefully in some corner of the vast world, some land far off; once free men, all of them. Now they were slaves, mine-workers, prisoners, gladiators and nameless dead men.

Kurse shook his head dramatically. Such were the ways of war. Such were the ways of the world. Our world. Anyways, they fought now, to survive. And in each fight more than half of the participants would fall to the survivors’ swords, to the crowd’s passion for mutilation and entertainment.

But today is special. Today only one man would win the challenge. Kurse wondered on the theories of coincidence for a moment then dispensed the thought. He had serious work at hand. He squinted up at the blazing sun, scowling. He liked the shadows better. But work was work, and that was that.

The King and his train had not yet arrived and the fighting had not begun. Kurse looked down on the arena floor. Still empty. He looked up to the announcer’s box. No movement there. Slowly, he scanned the viewing stands for any sign of trouble.

Satisfied, he rose from his seat far back in the Common Viewing Stand, brushing the dust off his cape and then pulling out his padded black-leather gloves.

_____

No wretched fool among the thugs and peasants in the Common Stands noticed the tall, broad man slip out of the press. No one noticed his face under the hood. No one noticed the polished-steel gauntlets on his black gloves. Or the knives he wore under his grey cape.

They all were, after all, drowned in the drunken delight of the fight that was about to happen in the arena below.

**********************************************

The world is painfully clear.

The ringing in my head would not slow. I cannot feel much of my shield-arm, the left one. It is limp from a hammer-blow. But somehow, it is still clinging to the heavy shield. It’s the practice maybe, I tell myself. Or maybe I am too much a survivor, after all.

I try to lift myself from my kneeling position, telling my body that fighters are still out there. But the leg will not yield. It gave way when the warrior had slashed my thigh open with his spear.

My entire body racks with the terrible pain. Bruises and slashes and blood – most of it not my own – cover me everywhere, and the pounding in my head threatens to overwhelm all other pain. I look up again with watering eyes.

The fires still burn at places and the spikes in the pits are visible here and there on the arena floor. There is murky, greasy smoke all over the scene and dust-clouds obscure everything else. But the wild cheering of the crowd is gone, and a deep sense of foreboding hangs heavy upon the atmosphere. I want to scream, scream to death if I can. But I find myself trying to rise for another fight.

Eight warriors are sprawled dead on the muddy ground: all, except two. I tell myself that. I take a moment to clam my nerves and flex the aching muscles. Slowly, I lift myself up, swearing to myself that I will do my best to die today.

There is a sharp hiss and I turn around instantly, ducking under my broad shield almost in reflex. There is a cracking thud and the shield splinters, pitching me backwards. I try to roll on my left side and come up in a crouch. But the weak arm gives way and breaks with a crack.

The pain should have been there, I tell myself as I rise to face the warrior. But the broken arm hangs limp at my side, mute to sensation. That’s one step closer to death, I console myself.

The attacker’s charge almost catches me off-guard. I parry away the first blow from his short-sword feebly and take a reeling step back, steadying my feet and digging my heels in place.

The warrior stops to circle me. A sad mistake, alas. I stand my ground, turning in place to face him, taking close measure of him.

He is tall and lean and half-armored. His helm has been knocked off his shoulders and his armor is in tatters. He is fast and skilled, I can tell by his movements. But he is also thoroughly spent and impatient. And I am even more. He wants to finish the fight fast. He has keen features, a handsome face and young green eyes. He reminds me of my son. I say a silent prayer of apology to the gods.

I look him straight in the eye in the moment he pauses before charging me. Look him in the eye and make it easier. Easier and quick. His eyes look strange in that moment of confusion, of realization. I want to scream my pain in that moment but I feel my body disobeying. I want to go back to my dead wife and children, to my dead life, to my dead people, to the dead man that I once was. I want to roar my helplessness. But the warrior beaten into me disobeys my plea; the gladiator within defies my urge to die. It says survive.

It takes my hands only a blink of the eye. I stretch out in a fluid swirling motion, my sword a blur. The boy’s attack never came. He sways sideways and topples to the ground, dead before his chest touches the ground.

I do not look. I turn to the viewing stands instead, to the glare of the shimmering sun. My sword rises above my head of its own self. It is then that the roaring tide from the audience erupts and washes over me.

Then suddenly my knees buckle and my legs give way under me. My hand comes off wet from my side. I stare at the blood and wonder if it is my own as I fall to the ground. Then the world darkens. But the cheering never stops.

Me and Glory? We are unlikely friends at best!

*********************************************

Kurse sees the warrior fall. He smiles to himself.

So, that settles this. A special day indeed.

The competition today had been special. The Champion was challenged by nine warriors from different corners of the known world. The King had himself ordered the gong struck. Then the Champion had emerged from the pavilion and the fight had begun. As unbelievable as it was, the man had struck five champions down alone. And exactly when it had seemed the armored warrior would end it, the Champion had struck. Then he had fallen. No, today had to be entertainment as its best. Just as well. The fighters were all dead now, anyway. Well worth the ticket-price.

Checking his equipment again, Kurse silently slipped through the crowd in the Royal Stand. The crowd’s roar was slowly receding as realization dawned. But all attention was anywhere but on Kurse. He moved swiftly.

A very old and gaunt man was slumped in the high-backed cushioned chair in the center of the Stand, swathed in heavy and expensive white furs and loaded down by tones of jewelery, a gracefully decorated circlet of gold sitting oddly on his bald head. The man was bone-thin, withered, weak and very old. And he was sleeping. Kurse moved behind the chair without a sound. The Knights on the sides of the chair never noticed anything.

In one movement, Kurse’s hands slipped under his cape and a knife came out in gauntleted hands without even a scrape of metal on sheath. The roar of the crowd had fallen to a whisper now. Then something happened very fast for anyone to notice.

In the moment that followed, there were waves of surprised gasps from the audience as the realization of the Champion’s death dawned, and the King’s head slumped a little lower in his sleep as a bloom of red appeared on the back of the High Chair in the Royal Stand where Kurse’s knife exited the padding of the furniture.

Me and Mercy? We’re unlikely friends at best!

_____

But all eyes were fixed on the loved and favored Champion lying motionless in the arena below and no one noticed an old, humble King dying in his chair.

And no one noticed a tall, hooded man with black gauntleted gloves slip secretly out of the Viewing Stands. Or the bloodied knife under his cape.

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THE END!