Ch 23

The rhythmic drums were playing, my opponent walking towards me across the arena. He was moving smoothly on padded feline feet as his charcoal colored tail swished lightly behind him. He was wearing a leather tunic and cloth pants while holding a steel dagger in his velvety right hand. His face was obscured by a full mask made of hardened leather and metal plates sewn together with bits of wire. My opponent stopped about fifteen feet away from me and waited for a signal. A few moments later a brass gong rang out.

He sprang forward as soon as the gong was sounded, if I hadn’t been watching him so intently trying to learn anything I could from his appearance about how he would fight I might have missed it when he started to move. He was fast, I had to use every bit of my speed to keep up with him. His dagger was held low in a diagonal arc until he was almost on top of me before he spun and brought in down in an overhead slash that was disguised by his body until the last moment. I barely was able to bring my own dagger up in time. If I had been using the weighted daggers I practiced with at my master’s house I would not have made it in time and if I had been using a teka as I had in previous fights it would surely have broken upon impact.

My hand and wrist were jarred slightly from absorbing the shock of the impact through my weapon. It wasn’t that he was particularly strong but with how he had struck using a full arc he had maximized the amount of force placed in his swing. Thinking now that I would have a chance to counterattack with the fist of my free left hand I began reaching forward to strike him but immediately had to jump back to avoid his own left hand which had swung out rapidly for my face, with sharp claws reaching out of it. Shit! This is totally unfair; this guy has natural weapons. Considering he is not wearing shoes I decided to assume that his feet were similarly clawed and if I went down to the ground, he might try to claw me with all four limbs like a large predatory cat in my home world.

I don’t have too much time to think as he is already coming towards me again, This time he attacked me with a series of rapid thrusts that I had to parry while rapidly retreating in order to keep his dagger out of my stomach and chest. I might be wearing a leather tunic but it was thin and I was not under the impression that it would stop any serious blows. As he continued to attack me, I was pressed back while he alternated between thrusts and slashes while throwing in the occasional swipe of his claws. Before long my back struck the metal bars that I had so often ducked under during my days in this arena. When I felt the cold metal on my back I realized my mistake. I had failed to keep my position in mind while trying to avoid his blade and had allowed myself to be backed against the wall.

My opponent made a sound that sounded somewhat like a snarl and then thrust his dagger at me again. I tried to parry it but was unable to completely send it aside and it ended up piercing me through the side, several inches to the side of my belly button, it hurt like Hell but likely wouldn’t prove to be fatal. Immediately after his claws swung up and cut across my face. I saw red and couldn’t see very well out of my left eye. At that moment I realized that if I did not change the course of this fight, I was going to die.

I grabbed his hand where it was still holding his dagger in my side and gripped it to keep it from moving around. “Got you now you bastard!” I yelled at the blank face of his mask and began stabbing my dagger into his chest and throat over and over again until after a couple of long moments he managed to pry my hand off of his by letting go of his dagger while simultaneously scratching the arm that held him. He sprang backwards, keeping his eyes on me while holding his hands to his throat where he was bleeding heavily. We stood staring at each other for a few moments and there was a momentary silence from the crowds, then after what seemed an eternity but was realistically only a few seconds I saw him drop, first to one knee and then on to his side before falling fully onto his back.

I looked around, somebody was waving and screaming dramatically from the stands, but I couldn’t hear nor care what they wanted. They looked like they might be important, but I didn’t care. The blood loss was beginning to make me woozy and I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to remain standing. After a few more moments I began staggering over to the cat-man who had been my opponent, ready to finish him off. Before I could reach him two of the guards for the arena were rushing towards me from a side gate. They caught hold of my arms and began dragging me out of the arena. “Stupid human,” one of them grunted at me, “other slave’s owner said give up, you supposed ta stop try to kill other slave. Fight over.”

His words fell on deaf ears as I was pulled away from the fight. I could hardly stay conscious now from the loss of blood from my bleeding face, side, and arm but I could see that someone had rushed to the middle of the arena and was rapidly wrapping bandages around my former opponent and trying to staunch the blood flow. It seemed that some masters would actually try to keep some of their slaves alive, my master had predictably not shown for my final match and so I would need to wait for him to come collect me in the following days. As I felt myself being drawn into the shade within the building everything went dark and I passed out.