Amazonia - Battle of the Champions

Asena roars as she hurls herself at Titan, smashing blows at his head, one after another, like a whirlwind.

Titan stands like a grandfather oak weathering a storm. His tower shield is absorbing most of the violence, using his blade to block occasional blows, then cocking it back again as Asena looks for an opening. Baffled, she feints a swing at his head and steps back.

The Greatsword Titan wields one-handed strikes like a serpent towards her leg. The blade smashes into the side of her knee, and Asena roars in pain, stumbling backwards. Titan follows, relentless as death, his Greatsword lashing out again and again as he continues keeping her off balance until she's only a few feet from the edge of the platform. Asena shakes off the pain and charges...

Into Titan, who's charging as well, his tower shield like a battering ram smashing into her and lifting Asena off her feet. The tower shield cracks as she bounces off it and flies backwards off the platform.

Asena's back hits the paving stones hard. She bounces once, holding onto her weapons with her arms and legs splayed out as Argat, Prince Timur's Bloodguard, puts his face in his hand. I laugh. "Never bet against Titan," I say with a grin as Argat's gaze meets mine. "I've fought with him over the last couple years, and I've never seen him lose once."

Prince Timur grabs my arm. "Don't count the wolf-bitch out yet," his other hand pointing down at the platform. I turn my head towards the center and my eyes widen.

Asena's getting to her feet. "That's impossible," I say as she shakes her head and lumbers for the stairs. "At the very least the impact should've stunned her."

"The old ones tell stories, handed down for generations, about the war against the Daemo princes," Gur, the other Bloodguard, says as Prince Timur lets go of my arm. "They say when the battle-fury comes upon the wolf-mother, she can't be stopped."

Prince Timur shakes his head as Asena reaches the stairs. "She's a different person than the one who drank and told stories the night I met you, Az."

"Bells of Hades, it's the mana," I exclaim as Asena roars and charges up to the platform. "Greywolf and Wysper restored her mana back to what it used to be."

Prince Timur strokes his beard. "Indeed." I go from sitting to kneeling forward at the same time Argat does, Timur chuckling as Argat begins cheering for Asena while I yell encouragement to Titan. The Ogri goes back to his firm stance with the tower shield out, raising it to catch a head blow... no, it's a feint. Instead, Asena slams the blunted blade of her axe against the split in his shield. Wood cracks, the split growing wider, and Asena raises her axe and attacks the shield again.

Titan strikes back, his sword going back towards her knee, but she blocks with her own blade and keeps chopping away with her axe at the shield. Titan steps back before rushing forward and shield bashing her again.

The tower shield slams against her and splits in half. Asena goes into a frenzy, her sword and axe striking like a smith's hammer on steel as Titan desperately unsnarls his arm from the shield straps. He staggers backwards, throwing the useless shield at her face. As she stops to brush it aside, he wraps both hands on the hilt of the Greatsword, and charges.

Titan goes into a frenzy matching Asena's, the two trading blows without any thought of blocking, and my mouth hangs open before I realize it and close my jaws with a click. "Cerberus' rancid breath, I've never seen him fight like this."

"Titan's realized he might not win," Timur says as the two continue their relentless attack. Both helms are dented, as are Titan's chest plates, their chainmail ripped away in places or dangling, with the leather underneath stained with flowing blood. Yet both keep fighting like berserkers, neither giving up an inch.

Then Titan smashes his steel blade down on her elbow, driving the metal cup protecting it into the joint. Asena roars, dropping the sword, but as Titan raises his Greatsword over his head to finish her, Asena hurls the fighting axe straight at his face.

The blunted axe blade strikes between the metal bars protecting his face and probably breaks his nose, because he bellows in pain and staggers backwards, one hand on the sword hilt as the other flails helplessly. Titan trips over his own feet and falls flat on his back.

Asena picks up her sword with her good hand, cradling the other to her chest as she presses the rounded tip to Titan's throat. "Yield," Asena roars down at him. Titan's tensing; he's about to try something, but she's onto him because she's increasing pressure on his neck. "Yield, or I swear by my bastard enemy Wotan that I'll crush your windpipe."

Sometime during the fight, Timur grasped my hand, or maybe I grabbed his without thinking, I'm not sure. But right now I'm hanging onto him something fierce as Titan's fist clenches the sword hilt. "I'm trying to save your son," he yells.

"Wysper saved my son when she saved my soul," Asena snarls back. "She stood up to me with open arms like the druid priestesses did, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, and like them, made me see what I had become."

Asena pants for breath as she sways on her feet. "It's over, Titan. You want to train Greywolf to fight the same war you've been fighting since we destroyed the Daemo princes. Oh yes, you do," she replies to something he says too faint for me to hear. "You want Greywolf to take over fighting the injustices you and the other Ancient Ones of the Ogri were bred to stand up against, but it isn't our war anymore."

With her free hand, Asena motions towards the crowd around them. "It's the humans and the other races war to fight, or not, as they wish, and the sooner we get out of their way the better."

She sighs. "We're relics, Titan. Relics of a different age, who used the people on Earth like bad parents use their children for their own selfish desires. Yes, like I did," she replies to him, "and like you want to do as well. The sooner we get out of their way and let them lead their own lives, the better."

"What about the Brittani people?" Titan rumbles, loud enough to hear. "At the very least, I need to teach Wysper strategy, both on the battlefield and off, in case she becomes their queen."

"Wysper's my daughter now," Asena growls, "and if they make her queen, I will go with you and teach their warriors every terrible secret I know about how to destroy an enemy trying to occupy your land."

Asena pulls off her helm and throws it down onto the platform with a loud crash. "But if they don't, then we'll stay with the White Horde over the winter, and in the spring, travel east to the Xian empire."

"Xian?"

"Don't look so surprised. I want to show Greywolf the place where the last Daemo Prince died, then take both my children to the mist shrouded temples of Indus, to dream haunted Aegyptus and let them ask wisdom of the Sphinx, and after that onto whatever lands the road takes us."

Asena sighs. "Once upon a time, I wanted to die with my teeth in Wotan's throat for turning the Germanic tribes against me for bearing Greywolf. But now, I want to die in bed with both my children, and Greywolf's father, beside me, though I know that's too much to ask." Titan says something to her and she nods. "Yes, I'd very much like to have the last old friend I've got to be with me as well. I'd like that more than you'll ever know."

Asena bares her fangs at him. "Now, will you please fukin yield so I don't have to kill you?" Titan raises the sword he's holding in his fist.

Then reverses it, holding his sword by the blade with the hilt facing Asena. She throws aside her own sword and takes it, a held breath rushing out of everyone as she throws the Greatsword aside as well and kneels down beside him with her head bent over him. I exhale sharply as Timur squeezes my hand. "Now that was a fight people will talk about for the rest of their lives."

"Agreed." Realizing that I'm still holding onto Timur, I quickly release his hand. "Apologies, my prince. If it hadn't been Asena fighting him-"

"I understand completely, and no apology is needed." Prince Timur smiles and looks towards his left. "Now, if Argat tries holding my hand instead, there may be words." Argat makes an exaggerated expression of horror, and the four of us laugh as Titan sits up, takes off his own helm, then helps Asena get to her feet as he stands up with her.

They leave their gear, clinging to each other like a pair of old people heading for the stairs as the crowd cheers. Gur clears his throat. "Amazonia, if the Wolf-mother had killed Titan, would you have avenged her death by slaying Asena?"

What's he talking about? "Why would I do that?" I ask, giving Gur a puzzled look. "It was a fair fight."

"Fair or not, Titan's your brother, and blood calls for vengeance."

"That wasn't the way it was back in Konstanopolis," I tell him as Titan and Asena hobble down the stairs and leave the plaza together. "Titan and I fought for the amusement of the crowd, which Little Paulus' father often called a horde of easily bored children, who craved novelty the way a drunkard craves wine. In the arena, today's brother-in-arms could be tomorrow's foe."

Prince Timur raises his eyebrows. "Even Titan?"

I shake my head. "Titan made it clear in the beginning that he'd never fight me for any reason, and Lord Paulus backed him to the hilt, refusing several lucrative contracts to do just that. But everyone else in the Ludus knew they could be matched with anyone at any time."

The prince gives me a sympathetic look. "That must have been hard at times."

I shrug. "As a slave, you don't make many friends anyway, at least close ones. That way you never get hurt."

"Like wearing armor against the world." I nod, and Prince Timur strokes his beard. "Except that Titan found his way through all the layers to the heart underneath. You're going to be torn when he finally leaves."

I sigh, unable to meet his gaze. "My prince, I'll get over it. In a way, it'll be good to have him gone, so I can concentrate on the mission without distraction."

Timur raises his eyebrows. "When I was a boy about Little Paulus' age, my grandfather told me a story about a little boy whose nose grew every time he told a lie, and only shrunk when he admitted the truth." He holds his hand out about a finger-length from my nose and pinches the empty air. "Honk, honk."

I snort in wry laughter, and he gives me a knowing smile as Gur frowns. "I don't understand."

"That's alright," Timur says, reaching back to pat Gur's shoulder. "Just keep watching for enemies, and-"

"My prince," Argat says urgently, "there may be a problem in the Warghorse pens. Look."

Our gazes follow his outstretched hand. In the wooden pens across the plaza, all of the Warghorses around Khan Khingla's old, silver muzzled, Warghorse, have backed away from the beast as far as their pens will allow. It's running around its pen in a circle, snarling at the assembled khans in riding leathers, and those helping with the animals, as its claws tear at the paving stones.

Khingla's the only one not getting snarled at. He's sitting on the fence, motioning for the Warghorse to calm down, and it seems to be listening because it slows down and stops beside the old man.

Khingla hops off the fence onto the beast's back, positioning himself on the simple leather saddle and slipping his hand through the loop meant to keep the reins in his hand. I peer forward. "Is that froth starting to come from the Warghorse's mouth?"

"What's that old fool doing?" Prince Timur gets to his feet, and the three of us scramble up as well while Timur shouts, "Something is wrong. Get off his back."

Either the old man's ignoring him, or more likely can't hear Timur over the noise of the crowd, because he's yelling at someone while motioning at the gate with his free hand. A man in a white slave's tunic lifts the latch and begins opening the gate.

The Warghorse takes off like Cerberus released from the Underworld. Khans and commoners scramble to get out of the way as Khingla fights to stay on the saddle, the Warghorse snapping at people before bucking like a stallion in rut. The old man tumbles off its back and the beast takes off.

With the old man's arm trapped in the reins. The Warghorse drags him around the pens towards the platform where Titan and Asena just fought, the old man slamming into fencepost, then scraping along the paving stones as screams and shouts erupt from the crowd. Khingla's desperately clawing for the knife at his belt to cut himself loose, and gets it out just as the Warghorse reaches the stairs and starts up them. His hand hits a step hard and the knife glints in the sunlight as it flies away.

The Warghorse reaches the top of the platform and races across it, sniffing the air as it seems to search for something, or someone. It stops in the platform's center, red flecked foam frothing at its mouth as its gaze seems to pass us by, its eyes searching... Its head whips back and locks onto us, the beast snarling in our direction as Khingla feebly tries to pull away, the Warghorse ignoring him as it stares straight at the prince.

Then it races straight towards us.