I was in and out of consciousness for the next two days, mostly due to the painkillers. The cut I had suffered to my side was deeper than I had believed it was and had actually torn muscle. The medical staff was able to fix it with a simple Stitcher injection, but it meant that I wouldn’t be able to move around much while the little machines were doing the work of stitching my muscles back together. I knew this intellectually, in the few lucid moments I had, but mostly I just remember a vague sense of stiffness and a dull ache in my face from the beating my mouth had taken. I awoke fully, after two days, and was practically completely healed. If a little weak. I had been up and moving for a couple hours when a man came through the door to the little recovery room I was now residing in. It was the same man who had been there when I first awakened in the hospital bed.
“Good to see you up and moving again,” He said. “Now you can get back to training.” My answer was a stony silence. I was not in the mood to talk. I doubted, at that moment that I ever would be. Too much of that first fight in the Arena was still running through my head. Far too much. He was not in the least bit put out. He continued as if my silence was completely expected, which, looking back, it probably was.
“My name is Seville, and from this time until your death, I am the man who is responsible for everything you do and everything that is done to you. Do as I ask, and things will be relatively painless. Resist, or refuse to obey my commands, and we will discard you. Do you understand?” I nodded my understanding, and he continued, his brassy baritone almost cheerful, “Good. Good. Follow me, and I’ll take you back to the training square. Along the way, I’ll explain the finer points of the rules you are expected to follow, and show you where your new quarters are.”
He ushered me out the door and I was greeted by a guard armed with and electro-stave, he waited for us to pass, and then followed, just a couple paces behind, while we walked the halls beneath the Arena. True to his word, Gaufrid began to explain the rules I was expected to live by, day to day. I was to wake every day at first bell; shower, eat breakfast and then begin training. I would train until midday, when I would be given time to eat lunch, and then go back to training until dinner bell ringed. I would then be given an hour to myself in my room before lights out was called, and then was expected to sleep until first bell the next morning. If I followed these rules, he told me, and assuming I didn’t die in the next fight, I could work my way up to more privileges.
“We are not cruel unless we have to be,” he told me, “but we expect you to perform when asked, and perform well.”
By this time we had reached the training square, and he was finished with me. He pointed to a group of three men, gathered around a fifth who was holding a short, spear-like weapon, and told me to go and join them. I approached them as if I were approaching a pack of wild dogs. They were terrifying to me, all of them, though the man in the center was by far the most fearsome. A full two meters tall, and powerfully muscled, the man made the others almost weak-looking in comparison. He saw me, and a feral, predatory gleam entered his eyes.
“So good of you to join us, gladiator, I was just telling your fellow survivors some of the finer points of this weapon here,” he said. “It is called an iklwa. Named for the sound it makes when you plunge it into a man’s guts. Ancient, older than this civilization is.”
An involuntary shudder ran through me, eliciting an even wider grin from the brute in the center of the small group, and a few snickers from my fellow survivors. The man ended the snickers by speaking. “Squeamish now are we gladiator? You didn’t seem so worried when you spilled Danferth’s guts with that short sword.” I didn’t respond. I simply took my place in the little group and he began his instruction again.
We learned a lot over the next two weeks. We’d be up early in the morning, eat, workout, and then start training. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally. I never had a moment to myself, with the exception of that one little hour at the end of the day, and that was mostly filled with trying to wind my mind down from the long day’s work of trying to absorb everything our trainer was telling us. I knew, now, how much my life depended on what I was able to learn from him. I didn’t like what I had to do, but I was even more terrified of dying painfully and horribly, than I was of learning the trade of killing another human being. I was constantly worried that I would miss something. That some little bit of knowledge, some obscure little movement, or philosophy of combat would escape my memory, and that it would be that bit that spelled my doom. At the same time I was agonizing over the stark, painful reality that very soon I would have to kill again. That I would have to fight for my life, and kill another human being. It consumed my every thought. I hardly slept for the first week, and then began forcing myself to do so.
The theme of that time between my entrance to the Arena, and my first official fight was fear. All-pervading, consistent fear. It dominated every action I took, or didn’t take. I learned to fight because I was terrified of dying. I forced myself to sleep after the first couple of nights for fear my too-tired mind would miss something. I ate for fear I would be weak from malnourishment. Worked out for fear I would not have the strength and endurance to survive a fight. Everything I did I did for one reason. I didn’t want to die, and so I did whatever was asked, absorbed every bit of everything I could in the vain hope that it would somehow spare me, and as the day when I would have to go back into the Arena and fight came closer, I began to become more and more terrified that something would go wrong. It was almost paralyzing, that fear. I had to force myself to move - to breathe, almost. It got so bad that by the time the day came for me to fight, I was nearly catatonic. My trainer noticed the haunted, stricken look the day before the fight.
“Gladiator!” He bellowed at me, “Wake up! Sleepwalkers don’t fight. They die.”
It snapped me out of my fugue faster than a slap to the face. That man, this beast, knew me well enough to know my fear! Not surprising, looking back. The man had been a gladiator for six years when I had come to the Arena, but at the time I was unaware. I was lost in a world of my own thoughts and fears. I looked directly at him for the first time, and the smile on his face was at once horrible, and comforting. “Why tell me?” I asked.
My trainer looked confused for a moment, perhaps wondering why himself, then rallied. “He speaks!” He bellowed again in that brassy, hard voice of his that was at once loud enough to carry across the din of battle and clear enough to be understood. It was another jibe at my expense, and the others in my cadre snickered at it. I took it for the cue it was. There would be no answer, not then; not for some time, it would turn out. One didn’t show weakness in the Arena’s, not even the slightest hint of weakness, and mercy was decidedly a weakness, even if it was for a raw gladiator that wouldn’t come anywhere near to the same level of his prowess. We finished training for the day, without further asides. But I made sure to keep alert. I was determined to take his advice. I would not allow myself to draw too deeply back into the comfort of my thoughts.
The day of the fight was almost too much for me to handle. I had been told I would be fighting a member of my cadre, we had all been told we’d be fighting one of the others, but they wouldn’t divulge who, or how. That was to be kept secret until we faced each other in the ring. That way the fight would be even better. We had trained together, as hard as we could, and by that time were beginning to know each others' timing and fighting style. It was a nascent, rude form of understanding, but still, the promoters for the fights saw it as a great draw, and we weren’t in any position to argue. I was escorted to the Armory again, this time handed a shield and the iklwa we had trained with. The short, spear-like weapon was heavy in my hand, but much more familiar-feeling than the mace had been on that first day. I remember being horrified at that thought. Repelled at the ease with which my body adjusted itself to the weight of the light, rounded-ovoid shield that was handed to me. I was not a fighter! Was not! Couldn’t be! I was an engineer!
Then the call was sounded and I was told to mount the lifter. So was another of my group, a tall, thin, dark-skinned man with rolling cables of sinew and muscle showing. He was probably a head taller than me, and half my bulk, but he was probably also the most terrifying of the three men in my cadre. There was a feral glint in his eyes, as if he enjoyed the life he’d been put into. Perhaps he had, he was a criminal after all, and a confirmed murderer. We, all of us, didn’t talk about why we had ended up here, but he had delighted in telling stories of the people he had killed. A monster. A beast. He was fidgety, and grinning. He would look at me and smile, but say nothing. He was looking forward to this, I was sure. My stomach was a lead weight pulling at my insides.
The lifter stopped and I looked around me. We both did, truth be told. We were one of about 15 groups that dotted the massive, open field of the Arena’s floor. One hundred thousand screaming, yelling, cheering fans swirled like one massive, heaving organism in a riot of color that very nearly staggers the imagination. We were both transfixed by this for a moment. Then the spell was broken. I shook myself a little and moved forward to the glowing A that seemed to hover on the sand. That got my opponent moving and he quickly took his place. Still cowed by the utter enormity of the crowd, I looked down, and began to move. In those few moments of time between when we reached our spaces and when the horn blew signaling that we were to commence fighting, I lived several lifetimes. Thousands of fights played out in my mind, and I moved my arms and legs around feeling the weight and heft of the Iklwa and shield. I kept seeing flashes of my own death at the hands of my opponent. His two sica scything through me like the whirling blades of the fans I had worked on when I was in school.
The horn blew. It was like thunder, low and rumbling, and it made the coming fight all the more terrible for the ominous tone that was rolling across the field. I snapped around to put my shield between me and my opponent. And none too soon. He was charging me already, feet pounding the sand. He moved with a fluidity that terrified me. This couldn’t be possible! I can’t do this! I viciously stifled the voice in my head, the sane part of me that was very near panic, and raised my shield slightly. My opponent had closed to within a few strides of me, and was leaping through the air, He made a full turn, pin wheeling his arms in a fashion that caused them both to come down at me from above. The first clashed harmlessly across my shield, and I instantly and without thought pulled the shield down and across my body, causing the second sica to slide across the outside edge of my shield. Unfortunately, it slid down and then scraped across my arm, leaving a gash that stung like fire.
I had a brief moment in which to almost congratulate myself on having survived with only a scratch, then my opponent’s right-hand sica came scything across and up at my face. I yanked my body back, mentally gibbering in utter fear, and simultaneously thanking every god my ancestors ever worshipped for escaping an instant deathblow. I wasn’t given any time to recover, my opponent leveling a devastating hail of blows from both weapons. I managed, barely, to get my weapon, or shield between the wicked swords and myself, but only just. The assault on my defenses lasted a full six seconds. The longest six seconds of my life to that date. It was practically an eternity. I saw my death no less than 10 times in that exchange, and each time just barely managed to avoid it. I was beyond fear at that point. I wasn’t even angry. There was only reaction. I was too busy surviving to even think about my emotions. He beat me back across the field for some ten feet, and then suddenly broke off, pulled back and flourished, catching his breath.
In that brief moment, some four to five seconds probably, I had time to rally. I remember thinking to myself that I had actually survived, that I had taken everything he threw at me and not gone down. Adrenaline surged through my veins, making me confident, bolstering my confidence. I could do this. I could block his blows. And as that thought rocketed through my mind, all of the attacks he’d just leveled at me rushed through my head. There was a pattern to what he was doing. I didn’t get anymore time to ponder that, though, my opponent came at me again. He was charging me both weapons out to his left, his torso turned slightly in that direction to allow him a strong backhand swipe with his right and an immediate follow on slash from his left at my relatively weakly defended right side. My mind put this all together in the scant second or so it took him to close the distance between himself and me. My body turned without conscious effort and my shield arm snapped out executing a near picture-perfect bash-parry against both slashes. My opponent neatly followed up again with a double slash from the opposite direction up high, but they were too slow and I was able to easily avoid those attacks by rolling my shield up so that my arm was bent at a ninety degree angle.
He immediately started another barrage at me, it was the exact same combination he’d used before, and this time it all came together. He was repeating a pattern. He was using exactly the same moves we’d learned during the second week while training with two weapons. I began to expect a certain counterattack immediately following a block I would make with my shield or spear. It was becoming easy to beat aside his weapons. To keep him at bay. My mind began racing. Having time to think it went into overdrive. I devised a cunning plan. Having already found the rhythm of the moves he was using; found the pattern he was repeating over and over with just slight tiny variations from one to the next, I started to flag. I began to slow my reactions, letting the attacks come closer and closer to me. It wasn’t hard, I was already tired. We had been fighting for nearly two minutes by this time, and fighting for our lives. This was the most exhausting thing I had ever done in my life.
But I was storing my energy, not using everything I had on every swing. Holding back just a little. Storing it up for when I sprung the trap, and let loose with a quick burst of intense action that would drive him back and off balance. My confidence continued to build. I could see in his eyes that he had bought my feint completely. He was confident, but he was beginning to tire too. I could see it in his movements. In the sweat pouring from his body. In the ever more labored breathing that caused his chest to pump up and down more and more rapidly like the pistons of an engine revving up. I drew it out, letting him get more and more winded. He’d gone past the point he should have broken away. I gave him a short break, and started again. But he knew now. Was convinced. And he was sure he had me any minute.
My time came. Tired, losing accuracy, one of his swings came in just a little wobbly, not quite as much strength behind as there should be. I took my chance, and slid my right foot back behind me, presenting my left side and shield arm toward the weak swing, then slamming, hard, forward out and down in a backhanded chop at his hand. The slam connected, loudly, I could hear the clang and feel the muted impact of the sword hitting, and then bouncing wildly away from my shield. My opponent had the weapon beaten out of his hands, his grip suddenly weakened by the punishing rap to his knuckles. Not wanting to lose momentum I stepped forward immediately to try to put my lead foot on top of his sword. He made a desperate swipe from his left side, exactly as I expected, and my Iklwa came up almost without me even realizing it, bash-parrying the swing and knocking his left hand out away from his body. His torso opened, I snapped my shield back up in front of me and shoved hard forward.
My shield almost connected, but my opponent managed to dance backward quickly and open up some breathing room between him and me. He tossed the sica in his left hand across to his right, took hold of it in both, swinging it back and forth in a couple of quick, testing arcs. Then charged me again. I was honestly startled. I hadn’t thought past the point when I shield slammed him. Hadn’t planned for this. I was briefly overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity of his attacks, but managed to hold my ground. I did not let him get his other sica. He broke off again, and I knew then that I would be all right. He was beaten. He couldn’t get past my shield now, couldn’t overwhelm me again. I felt another surge of adrenaline, and the beginnings of a rictus grin came across my face. It was purely a physical reaction. But it infuriated my opponent.
He hurled himself at me again, swinging wildly. A couple swipes were a close thing, my spear barely managing to deflect the second. A backhanded slashing riposte off a glancing blow to my shield almost crashed through my defenses, but I managed to twist my torso and shove forward with my shield arm, slamming the shield-edge into the sword and deflecting the blade harmlessly across my shield. I lunged forward impacting my opponent’s chest hard with the round-shield I was carrying. There was a meaty THUNK, and he stumbled backward, left arm losing its grip on his weapon. He tried to regain his footing, but I pressed, alternately stabbing and slashing at him with my spear, and backhanding my shield at him, hoping to catch him with any of those attacks.
Now it was his turn to be on the defensive. But he only had one weapon, one tool to deflect the multiple blows I was raining down on him. He managed to deflect every attack I leveled at him with my spear, but my shield finally landed again batting his weapon aside hard and pulling his right arm out wide away from his body. I shoved my spear forward and down across my body and managed to land a slicing blow across his exposed chest. He lost his footing and stumbled, causing the attack I’d just made against him to only scratch him, but not do any serious damage. As he went down he managed to roll with the fall, but couldn’t get himself back to his feet. I was on him now, savaging him like a beast that sees blood. He crab walked away in a mad scramble, then flipped over and bear-crawl scrambled away from me as fast as he could. I let him. He couldn’t get away. I was too much faster on my feet.
I closed the distance between myself and him and he made a mad swipe at me, pulling me up short, and giving himself just enough time to start to regain his feet. I rallied though, and made an underhanded upward swipe at him my Iklwa clashing noisily against his sica and overbalancing him again. He went down into the sand and I casually bat the sword aside on the return backhand of my spear. I was straddling him now, and my spear was inside his guard. My hand came up instinctively, as if some primitive, cave-man part of my hind-brain still knew what was supposed to happen next, and I was no longer in complete control of my actions. I was just another animal, acting out the eternal ritual between two rival males. I reversed the grip, so the bottom of the spear was up and the point facing down toward my opponent's chest, then stepped slightly forward and brought my foot down hard on his right wrist, pinning it and eliciting a wail of pain from him. The wail is what stopped me in my tracks.
The crowd had gone quiet in my area, there was stillness, relative to the constant rumbling noise of the massive arena. The fans eyes were on me. I had unwittingly captivated them. They just as surely saw what was coming as I did, more they demanded it. I could feel their blood-frenzied expectance like an immense pressure, as if I were in the deepest water I’d ever been in. My breath started coming faster and faster, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t do this! I was standing over a helpless human being spear-raised and everyone around me demanded I plunge it into his heart, and I couldn’t.
There are no words that can properly justify the moment when you realize you’ve decided to end another man’s life. Nothing a person can say to make you realize how utterly momentous and final that decision is. It was agony, it was ecstasy. Damn me, it was exciting too. I hated myself, for a moment, more than I ever had. I saw myself plunge the spear into his heart, his guts; saw him die dozens of times in my mind in the blink of an eye. Still, my hand didn’t move. And then my eyes wandered to the crowd, seeking anything to distract me from the sight of him on the ground. The spell was broken, the crowd asserted its will brutally on me without a word. My hand fell.
I will never forget that first kill, the way the Iklwa felt as the blade pierced the flesh, punched through the bone and cartilage that made up his chest, and the jarring sensation as it scraped past his spine. I will forever hear the wheezing “Eehw” that issued from his mouth as it went in, and was stopped when the tip hit the relatively unyielding sand. The sickening sound of it coming out, immediately afterward. I now understand why the ancient civilization had named it as they had. And I was immediately disgusted beyond the ability to even wretch. I reversed the grip on my spear, then turned immediately to the lifter and walked toward it mechanically. Unable to think, to even fully comprehend what had just happened, I was dimly aware of the cheering. The crowd exulted in the suffering of the expiring man behind me. My feet touched the lifter, and nothing happened. I tried to just stand there, but turned, resigning myself to the reality that I would have to allow the crowd their moment to gloat over my accomplishment. I was sick; I wanted to leave this field, to crawl away somewhere dark and never come out.
Just as I turned and the crowd’s applause washed over me like the emotional equivalent of so many fists, the lifter started to lower. I was permitted one last, horrifying, look at the man I had just killed; lying in the sand on his back, gasping and twitching as if he were drowning, then blank metal walls, and comforting darkness. I began to shake. First little tremors, then increasingly more violent ones; until, as I reached the bottom of the shaft, I had dropped both shield and spear and fell to my knees. The medical staff checked me over; determined that the scratch to my arm was minor, and then placed a small gun to my neck. My body was flooded with a mix of pain-killers and very mild muscle relaxors, as well as a concoction of anti-septic solutions that would keep any infection from taking hold. My muscles relaxed, and my mind was wrapped in a warm fuzzy blanket of intoxication. I was herded over to a waiting area where I sat for the remainder of the day, then was walked back to my quarters.
One of my roommates was still there. A bulky, heavily muscled, man with blunt features. He was doped up like me, and simply smiled when I entered. “Looks like we won!” he said, just the barest hint of a slur to his voice.
“Sure,” I said,”looks like we did...” I trailed off. I was sure he hadn’t caught the tone of my statement. We hadn’t won. We’d survived. The promoters had won, the fans, maybe. But this was not a victory. I had had to kill another human being. There was nothing to be proud of in that! He didn’t seem to care, which just made me hate him more. He was vile, a criminal, he enjoyed the killing. And even though I was a monster in my own eyes, he was worse. He did it willingly. I hadn’t. I had been forced. Sure, that’s right, it wasn’t my fault. My thoughts continued in this vein until the exhaustion of the fight and the adrenaline dump, combined with the drugs they’d given us, suddenly swept up and I fell immediately asleep. Almost too fast to make it to the rude little pallet that now served as my bed...
