Ch 19

The rising of the gate was accompanied by the rhythmic pounding of drums as I stood waiting for my first experience fighting in the slave arena. I gripped the teka firmly in my fist, its handle slick from my sweat as anxiety about the coming fight filled me. All too soon the gate was up and as if somebody else was piloting my body I felt my legs begin to move, drawing me into the arena.

My first thought was that it was bright as the sun was almost at its zenith now. As my eyes adjusted to the glare, I saw my opponent running towards me, trying to take advantage of my momentary blindness. He almost gets close enough to strike at me with his own teka, but my eyes came into focus in time and I ran to the side, making some space in between us. He paused for a moment after I moved away, at the time I thought it was because he had lost the element of surprise, later I realized it was because I who had been training with weights moved much faster. In that moment of hesitation, I was finally able to get a good look at him.

The opponent in front of me was a malnourished male and like myself a human dressed in what was little more than a rough sack with some holes cut in it. Dirty brown hair and blue eyes that glared back at me, angry and afraid in this sudden life or death fight that we were thrust into. My moment to look him over was past and he was rushing towards me again, teka held in his hand with hard gripping knuckles turning white from the extreme pressure he was exerting in his adrenaline. As he came rushing towards me I couldn’t help but to think that Beetle moved much faster than him and so when his dagger thrust towards my center I moved aside a bit and then swung my own and stabbed the hand that held the weapon that he intended to thrust into me.

The teka fell from his hand and landed on the ground near our feet while blood spurted from the hand that he had jerked free from my blade upon feeling the sharp puncture of my counterattack. His reaction had both further damaged his hand, splitting it down the middle from halfway up the palm and managed to snap the blade off of my weapon. Looking down at the now broken weapon in my hand I dropped it and reached to pick up the one that my opponent had dropped. My fellow gladiator may have been hurt and scared, but he was not about to let me pick up his weapon and finish him off with it so when I reached down, he kicked me in the face as hard as he could. It stung and I stumbled back a step, more from the shock from the unexpected attack than from the force of the blow. My assailant seemed to be facing a dilemma now because as he stood over the teka, if he reached his good hand down to pick it up, his injured hand would flap open and start gushing blood and so all he could really do was stand over it and look frustrated.

As soon as I had recovered from his kick and seen him unable to pick up the dagger I charged him, plowing my shoulder into his chest with my full force, surprisingly he was bowled over and rolled a couple of times before coming to a stop, coughing and gasping for breath in the dust while still clutching his damaged hand and trying to keep from bleeding out. I was then able to pick up his lost teka with ease and walked over to where he was just starting to try to get up again. I hesitated, looking from the dagger to him back and forth, thinking about how this match was already clearly won but they would not let it end without a death. Jeers and boos were coming from the spectators as they saw me hesitating, not wanting to take a life, some openly laughed at the would-be gladiator who hesitated to kill another slave. As I stood trying to work up the nerve to finish the match, my opponent had finally risen to his feet and stood facing me, hyperventilating slightly but still facing what he must have known to be his death with some measure of dignity. Oh, what the Hell! I punched my teka forward towards his chest as fast as I could and shut my eyes tight. I felt a slight resistance and heard a gasp from the man in front of me. Opening my eyes, I was just in time to see the light leave his eyes as he died, falling back off of the dagger that had impaled his heart more precisely than I could have managed had I aimed it.

I don’t remember much of what happened next. There was some mild cheering from the crowd and a few yells of “Finally!” as if this man’s death had not come fast enough for them. A third gate opened on one side of the arena, perpendicular to the ones that we had entered through which were across from one another. I wandered through it in a daze.

Afterwards somebody congratulated me for surviving my first fight in the arena and another person clapped me on the back while laughing callously as if death were an everyday occurrence. Of course, to these men who fought for their lives in the arena it was. I was given bread and water and even a little bit of cheese before finding my way to a row of cots that were lined up on one side of the room, I had found myself in. I noticed that on the far side of the room was some exercise equipment including dummies to strike at and weights to lift, not many people were exercising or practicing their moves. Either they lacked the energy or didn’t want the others to know what their abilities were before they had to fight as there was no way of knowing who your opponent would be the next morning.

As I lay there staring at the ceiling and going over the events of today in my mind over and over again, I knew one thing with certainty. Today I had crossed a line I could never uncross. Today I had decided to take another sentient life in order to preserve my own. I could justify it by saying that I didn’t have a choice or that It was him or me but in the end I had only to look down at my hands, still stained red with his blood quite literally to know that no excuses mattered. A life had ended, and nothing would bring it back.