Posted by AlOmega on January 20, 2000 at 18:56:22:
In Reply to: Coliseum - Chapter 2 - Another Day posted by AlOmega on January 20, 2000 at 18:54:45:
COLISEUM
CHAPTER 3
Arena
by
AlOmega
No! It could not be. But Barbanne sat stoically before her. For a brief moment recognition seemed to sparkle in her eyes. Then nothing. She wondered not for the last time how this could be? And who could she ask? Surely not Barbanne who in a few moments would be facing her sword. One or the other would perish this day. And no answers would be forthcoming from the dead. Nor questions either.
The Arena toadies came as they always had. But she hardly listened. Only the lovely Barbanne held her interest. The smell of Barbanne’s sweat drifted to her nostrils with the breezes from the beckoning door. She longed to reach out. Touch her. Ask unanswerable questions. But the Arena waited. The damn Arena of Death. Like some soulless thing perhaps a golem animated by wizards or necromancers, she walked into the Arena. She stood silently shoulder to shoulder with Barbanne. She glanced at her when they bowed. Still the same freckles and sad eyes she remembered. And then she turned to face her.
And Barbanne turned her around just as quickly.
"Defend yourself, you lout!" she emphasized with a slap to her shield arm. Their opponents were running toward them. Toward them! Not this day would she face Barbanne!!
It took her only a moment to ascertain the enemy force bearing down on them. By now she could hear the sands crushed by armored feet.
"‘Tis only Barbarian scum," she said with a mixture of disdain and joy.
"They’ll split you sternum to navel if you aren’t careful, Low. And enough with the talk. That’ll come if we survive."
Always of few words, the fair Barbanne. But those words were always truthful. Almost mechanically, the two Shield Maidens faced their attackers nearly back-to-back though not entirely. There were twenty of the Barbarians this time, she reasoned. And they must of need guard one another’s back to live to see the next morning.
In her joy and eagerness to fight once more beside her friend, she left herself open for a trident thrust to her midsection. One tine ripped a line crosswise just below her navel. But a back handed shield blow laid him out cold. Another came in to take his place but two swift sword thrusts removed his sword arm and his head. He hadn’t deserved that honor but she had no time to thrust her sword into him and withdraw it before being attacked again. An opponent attempted to come in from behind her right side. She flipped her sword and stabbed him - no her - in the stomach, twisted her sword blade to insure she would be out of the fight for a moment, and withdrew to catch another trident between the tines. That opponent had his net around her ankles. Barbanne’s swift side slash left him holding loose fiber. His surprise was overcome by a thrust to the heart.
The two separated now that there were only four opponents apiece. She caught Barbanne’s swordplay out of the corner of an eye as she sent another opponent to Hel. Barbanne’s sword swing from above revealed the first male’s viscera to the sun and mingled them with those of the second male foolish enough to crowd too closely.
Dispatching the last of the Barbarians, she moved to the moaning female. Those pleading eyes shook her. As the female reached up, she thrust her sword deep beneath her ribs seeking and stilling her heart. A faint ‘thank you’ seemed to rise from the bloodied sands as she knelt beside the female. For some unknown reason, Low closed the female’s eyes.
And then she stood like always, viewing peacefully the aftermath of carnage she had wrought. As she spied Barbanne, she dropped sword and shield and rushed to her. As they met - without shield or sword, they embraced tightly. Neither heard the reverberation from the crowd. To them, the Barbarians were nothing. Silence only did they hear. Blessed silence.
They had much to talk on that night. She learned that Barbanne had been captured almost six months after she had been. From the first, the Barbarians had determined that she was a fighter and would not make a good slave either in field or house. Although the training - such as it was - fell across similar patterns, Barbanne’s Arena was nearly seventy miles away. But both quickly came to the conclusion that someday - probably sooner rather than later - they would have to fight each other. Questions of which one was the better fighter lead to which was the better lover. They talked and loved far into the early morning.
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They’re conclusions were fairly wide of the mark as the two women found out the next day. The Barbarians (they both thought of Them as such) had expected the two to match up well as partners. They explained that the purpose of this was to determine which one was better since neither had been defeated in Arena combat. For They’re purposes, the two were in a virtual tie.
She, for one, wouldn’t have been surprised if They had taken her excrement and worshipped it. Stupid. Went a long way with these Barbarians - "stupid", that is - but she felt that they have exceeded the bounds of "stupid" far too many times. What did surprise her was the sense deep within herself that Barbanne felt much the same. This was something new to her. But that was lost when They proposed an arrangement - nay, an agreement - between the two women and the Barbarians. If the two women could instruct others well enough over the coming year, they would receive their freedom. To trust was what was required of the Two and that was a great deal. Thus it was that two days later, they were reviewing the crop of student-warriors.
Her first instruction and she was instructing slaves, she thought. It didn’t take too long to eliminate the old and young. Three younger students - two boys and a girl, however, met their basic prerequisites. They were from a village near where she was raised. Though fraught with accent and Barbarian words, they communicated surprisingly well. One of the boys and the girl were twins. They seemed to be about fourteen or fifteen. The other boy was younger perhaps eleven. All three were surprisingly fast and quick learners. But that didn’t surprise her as much as finding out they had entered training as warriors by the time they were seven. That was rare. But, as they explained, training as a warrior was the only life left to them. Their parents had died when they were young and the Warrior Guild was the caretaker for their village. But there was even more to their story, she found out probing deeper. All three were originally foundlings without home or hearth. Apparently their birth-village had been wiped out and after finding one another, they had managed to find another village to take them in. There was more, she thought. The twins looked unremarkable although their white hair would have been apparent even during a blinding snow story. The other boy was short and stocky but was more muscular than a typical twelve-year-old. But life was sacred to the Guilds - even the Warrior Guild - which was the reason the trio had been taken in.
The rest consisted of a mix of Barbarian and dwellers from other lands. There was one near Barbanne’s age who was called Vicki. Slim and dark with an eye for detail, she claimed to have been a Priestess in her native land. She adapted quickly to lance and shield and showed promise in net and trident.
Another called herself Vic-Eye. She was a bit older which was cause enough to remove her from the ranks of students. But Barbanne put a stop to that claiming there was ‘something about her’. Whatever it was, she was glad they had not summarily removed Vic-Eye from the training cadre. She had recently acquired a mate - apparently from her own country. As she trained the two, more than once she remarked to herself that the two worked as one. In the Arena, every factor that can prolong your life should be utilized. But in her mind all she could see was their names - Vic and Mart Eye. They would be forever thus linked in life and in death.
Petra on the other hand was a giant of a woman. Just over a head above her own height, she early on realized that Petra’s talent lay in her reach and swordplay. She did not take well to the shield, however. That was what caused Low to teach the double sword technique she had learned from Jewelie. It was all she had from the young woman from Cathay - that and her memories. After several days, Barbanne matched herself against Petra. Both women nursed dark bruises from that encounter even though they used only the practice wooden swords.
At the opposite end of the size scale was a woman called Lissa. She was inclined to dismiss the diminutive woman outright thinking Lissa was not as good as the children she had already dismissed. But a twinkle in the woman’s eye caused her pause. Something amiss here. When she set sword in hand, the woman reacted swiftly and without malice by touching her lightly on the shield arm with the practice sword. Only a few lessons were necessary to bring her to full sword and shield status. She did caution the overzealous Lissa to keep her speed in check. The less the Barbarians knew, the better. It was something both instructors cautioned their students. The Barbarians always needed people for the Arena. It would not do for them to let their owners know the extent of their training. Thus, when overseers ventured in to view the students’ progress, they invariably fought well but still too badly to be pressed into the Arena.
Sy was from a western island near the edge of the known world. He had received a great deal of training there, she realized when they crossed swords. But like most males, he believed that strength and power mattered more than finesse. Several smart raps to the buttocks soon changed that. But afterward he took the bruising and subsequent jokes good-naturedly.
Ly Hans was another matter entirely. Initially she had thought his name was Light Hands or Lions. He had been quite adamant that his True Name was Ly Hans. He was also adamant about using his hands and feet in battle rather than sword and shield. Like Sy, Ly Hans suffered several bruisings before learning that sword and shield kept other swords from cutting off hands and feet.
Rachille was first and foremost a spearwoman. She used the spear like a sword even going to the extent of having a sword attached to a short spear shaft. Thus she could throw the device or fight with shield. The lengthened shaft enabled her to retain control of the device even when someone with superior strength attempted to manhandle it from her.
Barbanne took another younger female under her wing. She didn’t know why at the time. Although a striking blond, there was little remarkable about her, she thought at the time. Crossing steel with her in practice, she received a startling revelation. Crystie had been taught the Under/Over style. Barbanne was quite the expert at it she remembered. Like Barbanne had been with Petra, she was hard pressed to teach this quick blond a thing or two. Each had their share of cuts and bruises when she shouted "Enough!".
Mystic was as mysterious as her name - which she would never give to anyone. She originally may have been a well-born lady though how that rumor started remained unclear. Or she may have been a Priestess or one of the Highborn prostitutes that were said to be in other lands. Or maybe both. Or simply a farmer girl. She did learn quickly both spear and sword. She also had an unusual talent for the trident and net. After entangling Barbanne during practice, rumors circulated that maybe she had been a fisherwoman. But that remained her secret.
Then one day the training was called to a halt. Something was amiss, both trainers knew. Something serious.