Gottfried’s arrival at the White Stag was unheralded as ever, which was just as he liked it. Hooded and cloaked, he had Xagen enter first and waited outside in the dark until his bodyguard’s return.

“It’s open.” The orc said, pointing to the door of the ornate building with the high marble arch at the front and the black wooden facade. It screamed ‘expensive’ and invited anything less than the richest of men to simply keep walking.

Gottfried crossed the street with them both, entered the door, and made his way up to the second floor without a word to anyone. “Xagen, guard the door. Xagin, order food and wine for two.” He said and took his place in a seat close to the edge. ‘Iris was behind the bar today, and what she was wearing… radiant. She has moved up.’

The chair on which he sat had a wide arched back and a soft velvet cushion stuffed with something profoundly soft, but it thrust into the back at an arc that kept his posture straight. ‘I’m here a little early, but that’s fine.’ He reflected and watched the next clash with interest.

He didn’t have to wait through many fights before he got to the one he wanted to see. Vocaxin and Yoxi were slated to fight as a pair. They wore leather armor that showed off their muscled bodies. Less protection, but showing flesh excited the crowds. Yoxi’s hourglass figure was toned, fit, and tight as the ropes of a ship’s sails in a high wind. Her breasts were concealed by thick brown leather, but the cross pattern exposed more of her belly than it concealed. The scar on her face only added to the mystique of the gladiatrix, her thick, powerful arms were bare and her legs protected by strips of leather that hung down around her waist and allowed her the freedom to move.

Her unbound hair blew behind her in the breeze and she held up a short sword and small shield high overhead and let out an enthusiastic cry to the crowd. A rough bellow of the sort that came from long survivors in the arena’s bloody sands.

Vocaxin was clad in a similar fashion, with his crotch and thighs protected, but the rest of his legs exposed. He wore only a small breastplate that was secured at a cross pattern over his chest but exposed his powerful abdomen. His broad shoulders and powerful arms were at the peak of his youthful vigor, a wide smile on his face as he did what he loved and made that passion known to the crowd. His wild red hair added to his allure, another victory, and he’d have his pick of bedmates eager to sleep with a victor.

‘Gladiators…’ Gottfried chuckled as he watched them show off.

The mystical eyes drew close to give clearer views of the bodies of the combatants, and from where he sat, Gottfried could hear a few people chattering down below.

‘Who are they fighting anyway?’ It was a popular question, and the very mystery of it had people watching in high numbers.

The question was answered when the elven champion entered the sands. “No…” Gottfried thought, then whispered the same word. The elven champion, Fa’Alenshi, stood on the sands and held his swords up, crossing overhead. He was bare chested, revealing his golden skin that matched his close cropped short hair. Big, for an elf, he had a sharp nose, narrow eyes of violet that marked his royal heritage. His legs were protected by thin plate metal in segments that made his upper body a tempting target.

Gottfried clenched his jaw while the mystical eyes swarmed around the foreigner in turn. As he heard the commentators remark on the smooth, hairless torso only one question came to mind. ‘Why is he fighting today? I beat him already…?’

The memory of feeling the godsheir elf’s limp body in his hand caused Gottfried’s fingers to twitch where he sat.

The answer wasn’t long in coming from the speakers on site. “...So to make ‘amends’ for the delay and the attempt at tainting the fight, he offers an exhibition against two of the finest… a gesture of friendship and good will between the elves and the Jabari Empire… what a sportsman…”

The words brought relief to the Prince. He felt a weight lifting from his shoulders, ‘Grateful for my mercy. Good to know.’ Gottfried thought and watched with his mind at ease.

The fight began, the elf was taller than either of the two humans, and stronger to boot. However, to the crowd it appeared to be a close fight. Yoxi and Vocaxin’s swords only narrowly missed with a thrust at the elf champion’s face. He ducked and weaved and avoided everything without giving an inch of ground.

Gottfried’s twitching fingers became a fist, his jaw clenched. He saw on Fa’Alenshi’s face what others did not. Killing intent. ‘I showed you mercy… I let you live!’ He hissed the words he thought, but they came out only as a hiss, to the crowd it looked close, to the familiar Gottfried, it was showmanship. The elf champion was avoiding it with ease, he was taunting the pair, playing with them.

To the crowd it appeared he could do nothing, but from where Gottfried sat, it was Vocaxin and Yoxi who were helpless.

Finally the inevitable took place. The two humans began to tire.

As soon as they slowed down by a hair, Gottfried saw it coming.

Fa’Alenshi dropped his blades as if from nerveless fingers, they fell back and stuck upright in the sands, and his fist came out in a wide blow that caught Yoxi across the scar on her face and spun her backwards to fall down.

Vocaxin let out a warcry, raised his sword seemingly to take advantage of the moment, his shield was out of the way, his sword over head, he jumped to get a better shot at the elf champion’s neck, only for Fa’Alenshi to avoid it, yank the sword previously held by his left hand, up by his right hand, and then drive the blade into the unprotected side of the human gladiator.

Vocaxin fell without a scream, his lungs pierced through and through.

Yoxi had already begun to rise, and seeing her companion’s fate, she cried out. A half wailed “No!” Of one veteran seeing the loss of another, she charged in rage at the elf champion, she began wild, uncoordinated attacks that seemed to force the elf champion back on his heel, but again, though the crowd couldn’t see it, Gottfried could.

He was leading her. “Come on Yoxi… come on…” Gottfried urged as he leaned forward, the elf champion continued to evade, backstep, and gradually turn back, stepping toward the corpse again, her seeing the fallen Vocaxin seemed to make her even more wild. She howled with bloody intent, it was as if the dark goddess of battle was with her, her sword flashed like the light of the sun.

By the time she understood he was leading her, by the time her reason had begun to return, it was too late. Fa’Alenshi kept himself in the way of the other sword that had buried itself upright in the sands, and when she thrust out toward his body, he avoided it. She overextended from the momentum, he took the sword that had been in his right hand, up in his left, and then buried it in her chest.

She had a moment of standing there, held up by the sword of the champion, blood began to drip from her mouth. The mystical eyes came close, showing the brutal wound and then guiding their gaze up to her dying face.

The light went out of her once brilliant eyes, and the eyes drew back to watch as the elf champion released his blade and stepped away. Her body was allowed to fall down with a thud into the arena sands, and the crowd’s applause and cheers for the wonderful show began in earnest.

Gottfried heard the shouts down below, some of them clearly happy, others disappointed. But in that moment, he felt completely and totally hollow. Empty.

And with cheers in the arena and cheers below, the overwhelming sense of being completely and totally alone was the only feeling Gottfried had.

‘I let him live. He put up a good fight, so I let him live. He didn’t have to kill them. He could have put on a good show, wounded them some and…’ Gottfried’s train of thought trailed off when he saw the elf retrieve his swords, wipe the blades down on Vocaxin’s long red hair, and sheath them again. The elf champion reached up and touched his own throat where Gottfried had once held and squeezed.

“Revenge? Is that what that was… revenge?” Gottfried asked himself, he tried to doubt, he tried to find some kernel of doubt to cultivate… but the little smile on the elf’s face would not allow it. ‘Somehow… somehow he knew, maybe not to kill them specifically, but he ‘knew’ how to punish me for either winning, or not killing him when I had him at my mercy.’

Gottfried closed his eyes when he saw the slaves run out, remove the sandals off the feet of the pair, then slap sharp meathooks into their heels and drag them away like slaughtered meat. That, he didn’t need to see.

The viewing vanished and the lights down below began to dim except for those in a semicircle on what he realized was a newly installed stage. A stage that he saw Iris walk onto a moment later.

A snap of her fingers and the music began.

Gottfried watched as her dervish spins and long legged twirls turned her bright silks into a blue blur. She raised one leg up as she moved, until it was completely vertical against her body, it would have exposed more of her sex, but the rapidity of her motion made it entirely a mere tease. A tease that inflamed a hooting and cheering audience until the very moment the music died and she left the stage.

Gottfried should have felt unquenchable lust, he knew that. ‘By god she can move…’ He thought with fascination, and yet he felt not even the ashes of desire.

He stood up from where he sat when he heard the footfalls on the steps outside, everything about him still was as numb as death.

She entered, radiant, beautiful, her back straight and body clad in flowing muslin cloth that almost begged to be revealed, he wanted to speak. His mouth moved.

His lips formed words.

But he couldn’t say them as the deaths he witnessed began to strike home. ‘It wasn’t a fight, it was a murder… they never had a real chance… never… not against him.’ That made it a thousand times worse, to lose them in an honest fight was one thing. But that was no honest fight, just a disguised slaughter.

He felt their deaths as if the swords that took their lives had been thrust into his own guts and twisted.

He tried to speak again as Iris came closer. ‘Who can you say anything to, who can you talk to… nobody… nobody…’

Then the words she’d used before came back to mind. ‘You can say anything to me, and who would I tell, nobody would believe me anyway.’

“My L-?” Iris started to say when she saw the ashen face of the Prince, “Gottfried? Is… what’s wrong?” She asked.

That was all it took before he collapsed to his knees in front of her.