by Guy Estes
“Peace, Sister,” he said as he slowly backed away. “It was only a bit of fun!”
Some of the witnesses laughed. Anlon returned his practice weapons and left.
Later, Aleena lay on her cot in her cell, fuming. Doors throughout the arena kept shifting under the blowing wind.
Who in the seven hells does that arrogant, braying ass think he is? How dare he mock me like that! I who have defeated opponents worse than any he has ever dreamt of! I have overcome slavers and demons! I have slain a dragon with a single blow! I –
Sudden realization dawned on Aleena as it occurred to her that she was experiencing exactly what Anlon had experienced yesterday, when she had bested him at archery. She hadn’t meant anything by it, but Anlon could not have known that. She, too, had given him a smile as she outshot him. She had meant it in good humor, but he hadn’t taken it that way. He took his first defeat just as she was taking hers.
Still, her dark aspect groused, yours was intended as harmless fun done on sudden impulse. His was done as revenge. And he did it in front of an audience.
A need he wouldn’t have felt if I hadn’t goaded him. Can I truly blame him? Even now I want to get back at him, just as he got back at me.
And it was then that Aleena determined not to get even with Anlon. Nor would she provoke or tease him. She would not let her pride use her gift to shove her about like a piece on a game board. She would not dishonor what the gods had given her. It had felt so warm when he first called her sister, but when he said it yesterday it was soaked in bitterness.
When they met the next day, Aleena opened the conversation with an apology.
“Anlon, when we had our little archery contest, I meant not to anger you. I just did it on a whim and a bit of foolishness. I smiled at you to show you that, not to antagonize you.”
“Of course, Sister, just as I did yesterday.”
Aleena could plainly see he was lying, but it was a small enough thing and she decided not to pursue it. Still, it pained her to have him call her sister when he was lying. Did their bond not mean more to him?
“What shall we do today?” he asked.
“Well, we haven’t tested each other with the weapon we both favor. We haven’t gone at it with longswords.”
“Indeed we haven’t. Shall we repair to the training yard?”
They got their wooden practice swords and stepped out onto the same training yard where Aleena had met her first defeat. Aleena, knowing she would have to answer to authorities and to her own conscience, had always had to suppress her instinct towards aggression, so she tended to be defensive when faced with a single opponent. She wanted to be able to tell herself and Sharleah that she had acted in self-defense. Letting her opponent make the first move all but guaranteed that. In swordplay aggression usually paid off, but Aleena’s skill was such that she could be confident in her ability to fend them off and counter them, usually simultaneously. Her ability to read and anticipate an opponent bordered on psychic. An opponent’s aggression could be used against him; he could rush headlong into a trap a savvy opponent set for him. Aleena was nothing if not a savvy opponent.
Being charged with murder wasn’t an issue in the arena, though, so she had shed her defensive tendencies and followed her gift’s aggression. Anlon’s primary consideration was to prove himself, both to himself and to any audience, and he was every bit as savvy as Aleena. Consequently, both of them tended to take the offensive.
Anlon was holding his sword low. He swung it up diagonally at Aleena’s hands. Aleena countered by deflecting his blade with hers, her sword held pointed at the ground. She then pivoted her blade to the horizontal and stabbed him in the belly. Anlon’s face was stiff as they returned to their ready positions. She swung down at the left side of Anlon’s head. He stopped her blade with his held horizontally, it’s point in the perfect position to thrust at Aleena’s throat. In their third bout, Aleena captured Anlon’s sword arm and executed what would have been a solid pommel smash to the face, followed by slitting his throat had they been using real swords.
People stopped to watch them, but their sparring was surprising for its lack of suspense. Their bouts never lasted longer than a few moments. One would attack, the other would defend and counter. The counter would either work or the other would successfully defend against it and launch a successful counterattack. Sometimes Aleena could use Anlon’s aggression to set a trap for him, but sometimes she couldn’t. After two hours of bouts, they stopped. They each had an equal number of wins and losses.
“So it is to be a draw,” Anlon panted.
“It would seem so,” Aleena replied, equally out of breath.
Anlon laughed and put out a hand. “A good fight. If I must lose, I shall lose to a worthy opponent.”
Aleena lay in her cot that night, her mind mostly relieved of its burden. Relations with her brother were once again cordial. Still, she could not completely dismiss the question of why he was here, at a gladiator arena, of his own free will.
It was raining heavily when he next called on her. The locals noticed the unusual number of storms they were having, considering it wasn’t the storm season. Rather than play on the practice ground, they sat at a table in the dining hall and watched the rain through the open doors.
“Are you still interested in escape?” Anlon quietly asked over a tankard.
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’ve racked my brain trying to think of something.”
“I’ll stay with my original plan.”
“Which was?”
“To wear Marcus and the guards down. People are creatures of habit. If I spend enough time going about a daily routine and not causing problems, they’ll grow accustomed to it and relax their guard. When a suitable opportunity presents itself, I’ll escape.”
“Perhaps you can win your freedom through the games?”
“No. You said it yourself. Marcus makes a fortune off of me. He’ll never let me go. For that matter, I’m not sure the other gladiators would let me go. They’re quite keen to take my head. ” She sighed and shook her head. “Nevawn’s claws, but they despise me.”
“You know why, don’t you?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“In a word, jealousy. You’re the most prized gladiator here, the only gladiatrix, you get privileges none of the others do, you’re quiet and aloof, and you defeat them with the same ease as brushing your hair. And to add the final polish, you’re far more beautiful than any woman any of these gladiators could ever have. You’re their superior in every way, and they know it, and it drives them absolutely mad. Isn’t that obvious?”
“No.”
“How can you not see it?”
“I’ve been the recipient of enough unprovoked hatred that I’ve come to accept it as normal. At any rate, the opinions of slave holders and blood-lusting spectators mean little to me. My sole interest is going home.”
“Are you certain you want to go back?”
Aleena looked at him, perplexed. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“From what you’ve told me, your classmates treat you just like these gladiators do.”
“I also told you how my parents and teachers treated me. Of course I want to go home. My old foes are there, but so are those who love me. Here, in captivity, I have only foes, except for you.”
“Had you not been brought here we never would have met.”
“Probably not. I’ll admit that has been one good thing about all of this. But when I’m free I can travel to the steppes, just as you can travel to the Ophirees. I’ll have choices. Here, stagnating in this butcher shop, I have none.”
“And when you return home, how will you be met by your classmates?”
“Well, I had my two friends, but when the economics forced their families to look for greener pastures, I was alone, and remained so right up until my abduction. The other children wanted nothing to do with me. In fact,
I think they were glad to see me gone."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't fit into their nice, neat little definition of the world and how it is supposed to act. I was perfectly capable of functioning without them. Neither their blessings nor their curses determined how I lived my life, and that infuriated them. So, now that I am no longer cluttering up their narrow little view of the world, they can function."
"It seems you've spent much time thinking about this."
"I have. I am a person who likes answers."
"And truth."
"Yes," she said, gazing into his eyes, "And truth. I do not like to dance around the subject, so I will come directly to the point. Why are you here?"
"Why am I here?"
"You heard me, Anlon. Stop delaying. You are here of your own free will, and you move like one who is familiar with the place. The people here defer to you. Why does a Chosen warrior frequent a gladiator's arena?"
Anlon sighed, then was silent for several moments, gathering his thoughts.
"I am here," he finally said, "in an effort to keep my gift from becoming my curse. This gift is a primary element in my composition. It yearns to be free, and I yearned to test it, to see just how skillful I was, but I have no desire to commit murder. I and my group of horsemen stumbled across Jase and his when they were cornered by eight members of another tribe. It seems Jase and his boys stole some of their horses. I leapt to their defense and slew all eight. Not long after that Cahir's father died and he became High Chieftain. During the coronation, Jase and some of his friends stepped forward to directly challenge Cahir's legitimacy." Anlon snorted in derision. His eyes smoldered and his lips turned down as he remembered. "I could not merely stand there while the honor of my Chieftain and best friend was openly questioned, and by that prattling weasel, at that! This I said, to one and all, and before I knew it I was among Jase and his friends,
my blade flashing. I had Jase on his knees, wounded and subdued, and I wanted to spare him, despite my hatred of him. Never had I seen a sight more pathetic than the look in his eye as I held him there. But I could not afford the luxury of mercy. Had I let him live, he would have stabbed Cahir in the back when he least expected it, and I was not about to let that happen."
Anlon stopped, and Aleena clearly saw the tears he held in check rising in his eyes. He went on.
"Jase had some friends in the neighboring tribes who came to challenge me. I defeated all of them, but I was bringing a less-than-savory reputation to the tribe. If I continued to fight, I would dishonor the Charidian. If I ceased to fight, my challengers would slay me, and that would dishonor the Chosen in addition to the tribe. I was at my wit's end. And then I met Marcus. We made a bargain. I would fight in his arena if he could arrange for my challengers to meet me there instead of on the grasslands. This way, I can preserve my honor, and the Chosen's, while keeping my tribe's hands clean and still test my gift. Now, I know you had to deal with some of the issues I did. How did you first decide what to do with your gift?"
"Oh, I had some help in making that decision." Aleena told him about the first time she killed, and subsequently wound up here. She did not doubt Anlon's story. She knew he was telling her the truth, but she still felt uneasy. In fact, the dread that lay in the pit of her stomach was worse. She had seen Anlon's eyes as he related the tale. He was desperately trying to fool himself and, for the most part, he was succeeding, but even he did not totally believe his own justifications. She had seen the pain in his eyes, the doubt and remorse. She believed him when he said he did not like the killing, and she believed him when he told her about his temper, for it was his lack of control over that temper that caused him to kill, even though he knew the killing would bother him later.
His first kills were probably justified. What would she have done in that situation? If Jase had indeed stolen those horses, her moral sense said he should face the consequences of his actions, but if she had been in Anlon’s place she knew there was a better than even chance she would have gone to her colleagues’ defense just as Anlon had. Thieves should face the consequences, but there was something to be said for loyalty to one’s neighbors and community, too. Aleena got to see Anlon in action a few days later. He fought in the arena with grisly efficiency. To Aleena, he appeared to be a human paradox. While she still believed him when he'd said he despised killing, some part of him appeared to revel in it. It was the cheers, she finally decided. He feeds off the crowd's adoration. Though she was loath to admit it, Aleena knew exactly how he felt. In addition to her skill, her beauty set the audience afire, and there was also her novelty – she was the only gladiatrix. Consequently, they’d cheered louder for her than anyone else She, too, had been intoxicated by the crowd’s adoration the first few times she drank of it. Its appeal faded, however, when she saw the crowd’s scorn for a champion gladiator who was finally bested. Aleena realized the audience liked the spectacle and cheered whoever gave it to them. They cared not a whit for the poor bastards who bled and died for them.
Though it pained her to admit it, Aleena did find she felt some sort of exhilaration during the bouts. She did not enjoy killing. She would do it if it needed to be done, and she would lose little sleep over it. But, she admitted to herself, she did enjoy the freedom of battle. In battle there were no perplexing, irrational social ambiguities. There was only Aleena doing what the gods had designed her to do. Battle was her purest form of worship for Nevawn and Crewahk. She would have no objections at all to gladiatorial combat if death wasn’t required and if the gladiators were free agents rather than slaves. But death was required. The crowd would be satisfied with nothing less. And the gladiators were slaves.
A few days after that, they both got a surprise. Aleena was preparing to step into the arena on the busiest day the stadium had had in months. She had a simple mail hauberk for armor, though she had not been given the usual padded garment to wear beneath it, and was armed with a battle-axe. The blade was the type known as a bearded blade, which meant that it was asymmetrical. Most of its foot-long edge ran towards the butt end of the haft, which was forty inches long. Just as Aleena was about to enter the arena, a man stepped up next to her. She turned to behold Anlon. He was armed with a longsword.
"Brother! What are you doing here?"
"I was just about to ask you the same!"
The doors to the arena opened, and they stepped out onto the warm sand, the bright sunlight and the roaring cheers washing over them. After a few paces, they stopped and turned around to see Marcus in his private box.
"Aleena and Anlon!" he shouted. "Brother and sister! This day, the arena pits you against the world!"
More cheering erupted as the gates across the arena swung open and a motley hoard of gladiators poured out, screaming and waving their weapons as they rushed towards the two champions. They had time to look at one another, then the human tide was upon them.
Aleena slid to her right as a grimy man bore down upon her, his sword raised high. Her axe was held low and right. She swung it up, putting her whole body into the swing, and her blade hit his raised left arm just below the shoulder, severing it and lodging in his left cheek bone. She wrenched her weapon free as he fell, spinning and decapitating another enemy. She was in the midst of the swarm, then, her world reduced to the range of her weapon. She butted with the end of her axe's haft, hacked chests open, split skulls, and wreaked havoc among her enemies. They were hindered by their own numbers and inferior skill, but Aleena was paying for her success. Her mail protected her from cuts, but it did nothing to blunt a weapon's impact, and she was in as much danger of having bones broken and organs pulped as she would be if she were naked. On the other hand, no armor a gladiator wore would spare him the bite of a properly swung battle-axe.
Anlon was making his presence felt, too. His longsword cleft enemies, slashed throats and bellies, and pierced hearts. The fighting had dragged on before he and Aleena could evaluate their positions relative to one another. Withou
t signaling each other, they simultaneously arrived at the same conclusion and put the same plan into action. They began hacking a path through the swarming bodies towards each other. The sand underfoot had become a syrupy quagmire of blood and offal, caking up on Aleena's sandals and oozing between her toes. She hewed a man down before her and found herself next to Anlon.
They understood one another's thoughts and actions. They were able to synchronize their movements perfectly, so that they could act in unison and become a single entity of battle. Anlon cut down foe after foe, his powerful arms and shoulders swinging his long sword with fluid grace and unerring precision. Aleena’s axe sent an equal number on their way to the Otherworld. The number of their foes was dwindling, and Aleena and Anlon had time for a quick glance at each other. They grinned, then returned to their tasks. Anlon cut a man down while another darted in from behind to slash his hamstrings. Aleena's axe crashed into the back of his skull, stopping when it became wedged in his upper jawbone. She placed a foot on his head and pulled her axe free and stood. She and Anlon were alone. Their enemies were slain, to the very last man.
The audience thundered its approval of the single best fight they'd ever seen. The reverberations of their cheer seemed to dim the sun itself. Anlon spread his arms and basked in the attention, absorbing the adoration of thousands of spectators like a tree absorbing sunlight. Aleena stood next to him, indifferent to what the nameless crowd thought of her. She had learned that public approval was fickle, at best. Besides, why should she feel the need for approval from people who came to watch others die? She was most curious to see how they would react if they were in the arena, feeling like a joint of beef on a diner's plate. She let Anlon drink his fill of their attention, then they both left the arena to bathe and see to their wounds.