Fresh sand on the arena floor may have hidden the sight of blood, but it did nothing for the stench. The copper tang flooded Steve’s nose as he and nineteen other slaves were marched out of a dark passageway and into the sun.

Cheers and boos erupted from the crowd that had gathered to be entertained by slaughter. An announcer was crowing something about ‘the barbarian Andal horde’, but Steve ignored him, gaze sweeping the audience as he searched for a suitable target. He found one, a richly dressed overweight man being fed olives by a pair of girls who were far too young. He clenched the poorly made javelin he held, wood creaking. For the last months, he had held his fists in the face of evils he hadn’t seen since the War, but no more. Today it came to an end.

“Remember the plan,” Steve said to those who stood with him. Like him, they wore a mockery of plate armour and carried a single wooden javelin each.

Across the arena, another gate opened, and more fighters spilled forth, but these were different. Slaves they might be in name, but they were a willing cog in the entire sick spectacle of the fighting pits, and wore fine armour that the so called ‘Great Masters’ bestowed upon them for it. Each of the ten men wore a bronze cuirass styled with musculature, a banded leather skirt, and a fine spear. They stepped in formation, faces hidden by their barbute helms.

“...the lockstep legion of Ghis, I present to you!” the announcer boomed.

“We remember,” the pale man to Steve’s right said. They were all pale, most foreign to this land, but some just local and unlucky. “So long as your show the other day was no fluke.” His name was Arthor, and he claimed to come from a far away land called ‘The North’.

“This is the easy part,” Steve said. The ten men across from them gave a great shout, leveling their spears at them. They looked like fluffed up pigeons, in Steve’s opinion. “The hard part comes after.”

A horn blew, rising above the cheers of the crowd. Before it faded, two men were dead. They dropped like stones, javelins piercing their throats. Steve held his hand out, and a third javelin was placed in it. He threw, and men died.

The so called lockstep legion of Ghis were felled in a handful of heartbeats, their blood added to the sands. The last to fall had made it halfway across the arena towards Steve before collapsing, trying in vain to support himself with his spear. A hush had fallen over the crowd, and they watched as Steve approached the other slave as the man choked on the length of wood through his throat. At Steve’s back, his allies slowly crept towards the gate.

For a long moment, Steve and the slave stared at each other. Then the light faded from his eyes and his grip loosened on the spear propping him up. Steve took it, allowing the corpse to fall. He hefted it, eyeing the leaf shaped head. It had a good weight to it.

Movement from the crowd caught his eye; it was the fat man that had caught his eye before, standing and pointing at him. Richly embroidered cloth swept dramatically.

“Ten thousand honors for that slave! He will feast like a king in my pyramid tonight!”

The crowd found its voice, ecstatic at the spectacle that would no doubt be spoken of for years to come.

Steve took a breath. He would give them something to cheer about. He drew the spear back, took two steps forward, and threw.

For another man, it would have been the throw of a lifetime. For Steve, it was acceptable. The weapon thrummed through the air to pierce the heart of its target some one hundred feet away. The fat noble was lifted from his feet and hurled back, colliding with a wall. The spear pinned him there, feet dangling, and he clutched at it weakly before going limp.

A small eternity passed as those present absorbed what had just happened. It was broken by the roar of the man who had just slain a Great Master.

“LIBERTY OR DEATH!”

Jeers rang out, those in the crowd used to doomed displays of defiance by unruly slaves. All eyes were on him, as another of the doors set into the arena walls were drawn open. It was not slaves that emerged this time though, but thirty or so bully boys, out to kill a rebellious slave. The guards who enforced the will of the masters over the slaves wore no stylised armour, but plain and workmanlike steel, and they carried spears, cudgels, and nets. As they reached Steve, they began to fan out around him, intent on breaking him for daring to raise a hand against the Great Masters. The men with the nets attacked first - it seemed they meant to take him alive to make an example of.

Alone, unarmed, and in terrible armour, it took Steve the better part of a minute to kill them all. He broke their bodies with crushing blows, ignoring the steel of their armour to deliver punishment that ruptured organs and shattered bones. One of the men he recognised, and he saved him for last. The man, once so arrogant in his authority and the rights it granted him, soiled himself as Steve used his spear to pull him into reach.

“In a just world you’d stand trial for your crimes,” Steve said, snarling as the rage he had buried and gripped tight ever since arriving in this hellhole started to slip free. “But you’ll have to settle for me.” He seized the man by the head and neck, twisted, and pulled.

The crowd, which had gone from jeering, to hurling abuse, to shouting for more guards, fell silent once more. Steve tore off the sorry excuse for armour he had been forced into, leaving him in only a pair of tattered pants, and raised the severed head he held.

“LIBERTY!” he bellowed again. “OR DEATH!”

The arena held its breath, staring down at the man alone on the sand.

“Liberty!” came the cry, but this time from amongst the stands. A young woman, nude from the waist up, stood with a jug in her shaking hands. Her face was pale and her eyes were wild with fervor. “Death!” She turned on the man she had been serving, and broke the jug over his head, beating him with an unhinged frenzy.

Chaos descended, as the same fervor that had gripped the woman swept through near every slave in the stands. Great Masters who had been so enthused to watch blood be spilt panicked and ran as they found themselves on the other side of the equation. Some attempted to fight back, and some had loyal guards, cutting down the slaves that rushed them, but soon they were buried in bodies and torn apart. Some managed to escape, vanishing from the stands and running for the exits, but that was part of the plan too.

Steve took up the spears of his fallen foes, throwing them to take and save lives where he could. He watched as groups of armed and armoured slaves emerged from the greater arena structure, following his orders and capturing those that hadn’t already been killed. In some cases they saved the lives of bloodied masters, giving them a moment of false hope that everything was under control, before dashing it as they ignored orders to cut down slaves or escort them away. Soon, the orgy of violence stopped as suddenly as it had started.

“America!”

Steve turned to the door that his nineteen companions had snuck out of while he provided a distraction, to see Arthor. His cheek was split open, and blood stained his brown hair, but he was grinning savagely.

“It’s done,” Arthor called. “Our people are securing the exits now.”

“Good job,” Steve called back. “Stick to the plan.”

Arthor nodded, ducking out of sight, and Steve took in the stands. Corpses lay everywhere, blood pooling on the stone and dripping down the tiers. Many of those who had been swept up in the moment now stared about listlessly, all too aware of the punishment for their crimes. Some though, watched the squads of armed fighters herding the surviving nobles down into the arena floor, forcing them along at spear point with no regard for their silken threads or delicately wrapped feet. The way a portion of them stumbled made it look like they hardly ever deigned to walk anywhere themselves.

“Keep them in the centre of the arena,” Steve ordered as they drew near. “I want a guard on them at all times, no less than twenty strong.”

Fists were clashed to chests in answer, and the once-slaves began to organise themselves, as some took up positions around the eighty or so surviving nobles. There had been hundreds of spectators in the stands before...before. The rest returned to the stands, checking for survivors and speaking with the shellshocked slaves. Ex slaves, now.

One captive in particular caught Steve’s eye, and he beckoned forward a young man he recognised, painfully earnest in his admiration of Steve after he had stepped between him and an overseer with a taste for the whip.

“Ser Rogers,” the boy said. He had learnt the term from Arthor, and refused to address him by anything else.

“You see that woman and her child, Miklaz?” Steve asked. Miklaz nodded. “I want you to keep an eye on them, make sure nothing untoward happens to them.”

Miklaz scowled, but nodded, and began to move back to his post.

Steve grasped him by the shoulder. “Remember - we’re better than they are. What does that mean?”

“It means rising above what makes an animal from a man,” Miklaz recited.

“Good lad,” Steve said. He released the kid, and turned to approach his next problem.

A crowd of bloody and bloodied ex slaves was growing to the side of the arena in the shade, led there by Steve’s men. Unlike his men, strong and fit and ready to fight, this group were of all types, young and old, man and woman, muscled and thin. Some were shaking, others weeping silently, but there were those who stared at Steve with fire in their eyes, silently demanding something of him. He spied the young woman who had taken up his cry. She had found clothing beyond the sarong she had been permitted, and her hands bore wounds from the jug she had shattered over her once master’s head.

“What is your name?” Steve asked her. His words seemed to startle the crowd, having expected something else.

The woman, barely more than a girl, looked down instinctively. “This one is Pretty Zi--” she cut herself off, looking up and meeting his eyes once more. “I am Zendezza.”

“Zendezza,” Steve said. “I am Steve Rogers. Today, we are free.”

Like a breeze, the words rippled through the crowd. Some let out sighs, as if a burden had been taken from them. Others continued to stare, demanding, seeking something beyond words from him. An old woman closed her eyes, face full of sorrow.

“I’m going to ask something of you, something that might seem impossible,” Steve said. “You might think we’re all doomed, that the slavers are going to break down the gates to this arena and drag us all out to be punished in unspeakable ways, but I’m going to ask this of you still.” He took a breath, feeling the weight of their gazes. “I am going to ask you,” he said, “to trust me.”

Steve met their gazes as much as he could, looking from face to face. Wrinkled grandfather to hollow faced child, all stared at him with the same doubt warring with hope.

“I ask you to trust me to lead us through this. I ask you to trust me to value your lives. I ask you to trust me when I say that there is life at the end of these troubles. I ask you to trust me,” Steve said, “because I swear that I will give my all for our cause, and I will not stop until every slave in this city knows freedom.”

There was a moment of quiet, as they absorbed his words. Beyond the crowd facing him, his own men were listening, remembering the nights that Steve had come and spoken to them, giving them hope and stirring their spirits. Even the captives were quiet, listening as best they could.

“Will you trust me?”

The quiet stretched on, and then a young man, perfumed and manicured and with bloody teeth spoke up. “Liberty,” he said, glancing at Zendezza. “Liberty or death.”

“Liberty or death.” A young woman with soft skin and a bloody line carved over one eye.

“Liberty or death.” A young man with scars around his lips, like they had once been sewn shut.

“Liberty or death.” A pair of children, a boy and a girl, clutching at one another.

The words spread through the crowd, some whispering them quietly, others challenging the world with them. Soon every last person had spoken them, and they stared at Steve in expectation. He stood tall, even under the burden.

The easy part was over. Now came the hard part.