“You are probably all going to die.”

It was drow, but they all had translators, or they wouldn’t be here. Heads rose, locked on me as I spoke coldly, clearly.

“You are fighting swarms and hordes, which move with one purpose, one mind. You are fighting units of soldiers of multiple races, who know that they can trust the person next to them, and units of cyborgs linked and operating as teams. And in return, you are all individuals who cannot trust those next to you not to kill you as you fight another.”

The dread and unease of the Song wound at the nerves. Everyone grimaced who could, and the emotionless sorts looked thoughtful and wary.

“You are not good enough to make it to the end. If you make it to the top one thousand, it will be a miracle.

“When merely ten thousand are left alive, the gladiators of the Heart of Blood, the greatest masters of the drow arenas, the post-Ten slaughterers who have killed a dozen or thousands more of your kind more talented and skilled than you, will enter the arena, because only then will there be any challenge to them at all.

“They are better than you are, and they do not fear death. They know how you all fight, they know where you are weak, and they are Geared to kill you. If you kill them, they download into a Vat-clone prepared for them, perhaps laughing at their bad luck.

“Everyone you see around you is not your enemy.” Grunts and various other sounds of surprise. “Your goal is the top thousand, because that is the only way you are leaving alive. If you want to die, then feel free to kill everyone and anyone.

“But if you want to survive to there, you have to kill the master gladiators of the Heart of Blood.

“Over one million killing machines, sentients, beasts, and swarm-kind are going to be entering the arena. Killing off 99% of them is just so those thousand drow might have a few moments of excitement before they butcher all of you, and then tussle with one another... the only real contestants.

“You are all merely sacrifices and momentary entertainment, nothing more. The prizes you seek, the glory you will gain... there is none of that. To get to the top thousand, members of those top gladiators must be killed. If you fear being stabbed in the back, none of you are going to make it there. None.

“We will make this one concession to all of you. We will not initiate an attack on any of you. If we are at your back, you have nothing to fear from us. If we are at your front, nothing is going to get past us, but watch your sides. If we are at your sides, hold your own and pray you hold long enough.

“You are not our targets, because when the masters come, everyone else is a victim. They are the ones who must die, if any of us wish to enter the thousand.

“You are not going out into a gladiatorial duel. You are going out into carnage and massacre, nothing more, nothing less. And when the weak have been winnowed out and the strong are tired from doing so, the masters will come to reap you all.

“I will not wish you luck, because there is no luck out there, the Warp has eaten it all. There is only strength and skill and speed and endurance. Kill the swarms, kill the hordes, kill the beasts, and kill any who seek to kill you... but save your best for the masters, because they are definitely going to kill you all otherwise.”

I fell silent, and the smells of fear of a score of races began to wind through the air. Quiet words were spoken, eyes met, heads nodded, and if there could be no understanding, positions began to shift subtly, as those who could trust one another that far moved closer, and had buffers in between them.

“You think you will survive to the top thousand?” the drow mercenary captain spoke up with a sneer.

“Every master who comes in late is a Coven Mistress or Bloodsister or better, a Sect Elder, Champion, or Master, or the Champion or most elite members of a noble house. You are not the equal of any of them, and you dared walk into this arena, thinking you would survive?” I shot back, and his mouth clamped shut, glaring at me. “We are the only ones in this room who have a chance of beating them, and for each one we do, one person in this room might live to join the thousand. Pray we live to kill as many as we can, coinblade!”

His narrow features twisted, but he didn’t dispute the fact. If he could beat any one of them, he would be a Warlock or Noble Champion or a Noble himself, not a mercenary captain.

Our four Swords hummed a grim melody, resting and wary, gathering strength, and despite themselves, the attitude of those in the room settled into poised readiness, throwing away the tension and stress and contemplating what had to be done to survive.

And so, we waited, not moving, breathing silently, and letting the stress flow out through our Swords, ready for the time to come.

-----------

There was thunderous applause, amplified bloodthirsty cheers, grandiose music designed to get the heart racing, laden down with pheromones and psychic waves of bloodthirstiness.

Our Swords Sang, and everyone behind us was literally preternaturally calm.

The drow were watching us from cameras, without a doubt, and had doubtless expected there to be more than a few fights and killings before the games even started. Perhaps we unnerved them a little? It didn’t really matter; the slaughterfest was coming, and it was all moot.

The great double doors opened to the bright (for Gloom) yet wan lighting outside, and the roar of the crowd was like alien thunder.

Without hesitation, we started forwards.

The goblins and drow snarled at one another, and then ended up walking out side by side, or they’d fall behind us. The rest strode, stalked, slithered, trundled, crept, crawled, lumbered, marched, and rattled out behind us, and if the watching crowd was somewhat intrigued by the remarkably disciplined order being shown by mere outlander gladiators, it was only worth eyebrows raised in amusement.

After all, we were all going to die, anyways.

All four Swords – Chalice, Chill, Hawk, and Flair – were Singing in low, constant harmony, the wash of them spreading across nigh unto a thousand gladiators behind us, staving off the psychic wash and even acting against the psychochemicals in the air. The killers behind us were not calm, per se, but they were level-headed, aware, and alert, dancing on the edge of a knife... and not immersed in bloodthirst as they were supposed to be.

“Slaughter the weak, avoid the strong. Get the counts down to ten thousand, and leave as many strong for the Masters coming down as you can. The more strong there are to kill them, the more of you will live to the end,” my voice drifted back to all of them.

There were naturally other forces being disgorged onto the circles, valleys, hills, and rifts made out of this arena. There were a couple gorges spanned only by rope-webs or narrow beams, shallow ponds and lakes, open area killzones, plenty of places to work with terrain, including blocks and stones placed here and there to fight around, impromptu walls, arches and columns... just all sorts of terrain.

We couldn’t see everything; the local area was too broken-up to allow long distance sight. Still, we could see umbvar and drow in their own areas, the glitter of some race using cybertech at ten o’clock, and that play of colors looked like goblins organized by hobgoblins...

“We’ll be heading to the right for the goblins,” my low voice carried to everyone, and the urgobs behind us didn’t even flinch. The weak were the weak here. “Mind the drow from the left flank if you tarry behind. The games will start when they unleash the hordes.”

The announcer was talking about grand glory and spectacle and great rewards and honor in the greatest arena in the galaxy, and you had to know the language well to catch the mockery underlying all of it. Everyone was just a sacrifice and victim, puppets dancing for their entertainment, they just didn’t know it...

Vibrations began to rumble through the ground. Here and there, pits began to open in the ground, and the true cages were opened. Deep, deep roars and growls from incredibly angry and very powerful creatures began to sound out, and underneath them was the scuttling, chittering, and calling, of many, many creatures moving with one purpose, one mind.

Bells rang in terrible brazen clangor, and as the first cellulocust raced out of the underpits on thorn-claws and tendril legs from a ramp a hundred paces away, the killing time began.

------

Every single force on the field had at least one swarm, horde, or pack of powerful creatures come streaming out of the ground near them. If they couldn’t win against such simple creatures, how could they possibly endure to the thousand?

Cellulocusts were plant-based hive-minds, and didn’t give a fig about rules of the arena. So, they had thorn-launchers shooting poisoned ammunition, poison on just about all of their claws and hides, poison spore clouds being launched, poisonous ichor spraying when they died, and just to top it all off, more than a little bit of acid use, too.

If you had skin exposed and unfiltered breathing, you were going to die. If their claws broke your flesh and armor, you better have anti-poison somethings, or you were going to die.

They had tendril lashers and winged things that exploded like grenades among us, and everything had spikes and thorns. These creatures were totally living weapons, and they headed right for us, looking for some fertilizer to plant seeds at psychically-accelerated rates and obey their prime directives, while looming tree-like carnovines with lots of limbs loomed up and studied the situation all around, directing their minions out into combat, while we eyed the explosive acid-grenades growing on their limbs suspiciously.

That being said, the four of us didn’t consider them much of a threat. Only the strongest of them were using psionic armor-breaking attacks, so they literally couldn’t hurt us as we drove into them and executed Cleave Trains.

Keva had won herself a Title as The Cyclone for her ceaseless pursuit of advanced Whirlwind Attack techniques, which naturally involved being able to spin around as fast as possible while cutting through everything as fast as possible while you did. It required great predictive ability, incredible balance, and an ability to not get disoriented and still move quickly while cutting and killing through everything.

It also looked a lot nicer than the wildly violent juking back and forth of Cleave Trains chasing whatever cluster was nearest, in favor of just moving ahead and chewing through everything in range as you did.

We blew a swathe of sap and poison spray through the leaf-mantids, cone beetles, thorn-locusts, and spore-flies. Crackling electrical fields of variant Phoenix Cloaks dealt with the smallest twig-wasps and petal-bees trying to swarm in on us, while Swarmbane ripped great swathes through the thick clouds of them. Banefire to Plants blazed on the dead, Blooding made sure they didn’t mend up, and Shadowfire fed on their phrenic energies and sucked in their lives greedily.

The people behind us didn’t have it so good, being attacked in ways and means they hadn’t expected. Dozens fell as the bees and wasps swarmed over them, biting and stinging, as they had no local AoE swarm defenses. Idiots without breath filters choked and died as fungi, moss, and grasses erupted inside their lungs and expanded out their orifices. Those without armor were poisoned by some truly exotic stuff, and started bleeding out their pores, were paralyzed to the point of being unable to breathe, started melting from the inside, or perhaps got implanted and got to watch new cellulocusts sprout and devour them from within, growing madly as they did so...