This particular Manticore was of a more common variety. At full height, on all fours, its front shoulder would be taller than Gavin, who was taller than most ungifted men. Its lion-like main body was covered in glossy jet-black fur, with a bristling burgundy mane. A long thick tail, black like the creature's fur, but glistening with scales sprouted from its hindquarters. This brutal appendage, wagging side to side in agitation, was capped with a heavy bone ball covered in long spikes. Its front and hind legs, thickly corded with muscle, ended in sharp, scythe-like claws each longer than a man's hand. The claws, tail, and leonine appearance combined with the beast’s size made it look fearsome and dangerous indeed, but the most disturbing feature of the beast was its man-like head and face. Aside from the size and the vicious teeth it looked very much like the face of a human man. Instead of roaring at the crowd it spat a constant stream of vicious, vitriolic nonsense from its fang-filled mouth; the language was unknown to most of the spectators but the meaning behind its hate-filled babbling was clear enough. The bloodshot eyes of the beast were the worst part of this face; they were clearly intelligent and man-like and yet gleamed with a desperate madness that unnerved most of the crowd.
Sadira could make out the scars on its face, ceremonial claw-marks that showed the creature's tribe; she had learned enough in her research to identify the creature as an outcast of a Manticore pride from the vast jungles to the south of the desert Domains, but could not read anything beyond that. The beast was only of average size for its kind, but was impressive nonetheless and she burned with desire to test herself against it.
Gavin, to his shock, found he could sense the Manticore's emotions and thoughts without even using a spell. The creature did not try to resist this, either. Even an ungifted child can learn to shield her thoughts from casual mind reading spells, almost instinctively, yet the Manticore made no such effort; in fact it seemed to draw Gavin in, enveloping him with its thoughts. Images of violence cascaded past his mind's eye, scenes of torture and slaughter repugnant even to a man raised and trained to fight in the bloody arena battles of the Domains. With growing horror, he realized that some of the mangled corpses and violated victims he saw in the beast's thoughts were familiar to him...
He shook his head and looked away, breaking his mental contact with the Manticore. He looked to Sadira and the others, reassuring himself that the images were false. He felt nauseated. The Creature was absolutely insane by any standard, overcome with mind-numbing hate for every living thing. What unsettled him most was the unnatural, almost tainted undercurrent to the creature's desires, as if it were an infection of some sort. He leaned against the wall for support. The beast's madness was no doubt the work of tainted magic.
Gavin was so taken aback that he did not notice that the Manticore had stopped pulling against its chains and was now focusing its baleful gaze on the entrance way from where the Gladiators watched it in the shadows. It was looking directly at him, face twisted with mad curiosity. Sadira followed its gaze, frowning.
"Are you unwell, Gavin?" asked Omodo from behind. "You look pale."
"It’s nothing," said Gavin, straightening up. He did not want to appear weak before his friends. His focus returned.
"Gavin, something is wrong," began Sadira. "It's looking right at you..."
"Ready yourselves Gladiators; you are about to be called." One of the attendants, an older looking man with an ugly scar over a missing eye motioned them toward the entrance. Gavin shrugged at his companions and moved to take his place.
"I agree that there's something odd about this creature," he said. "I can't explain, right now, but I can feel the wrongness of its thoughts. Guard your minds well."
Vintia and Sadira nodded.
Omodo heaved himself up from the bench he was sitting on, suddenly towering over his three team-mates. He looked at Gavin, then shrugged his massive, armoured shoulders and moved to take his place. They had insisted he enter first, partly because he was so impressively large and partly because their giant friend was often nervous about crowds; he would not be slow in making his entrance if the rest of the team came behind him. Ravius had once confided in Gavin his suspicions that racism made their large friend nervous about crowds. There was still a lingering stigma to being part of a race that had been created through sorcery during the Reckoning. It was particularly acute in the case of beast-races like Minotaurs and Armodons, who were not particularly attractive by conventional standards; they were often ignorantly compared to the rabid, feral beastmen that plagued the borders of Domains and acted as fodder in the arenas. It was unfair, and the rights of all races were now protected by law, but prejudice prevailed nonetheless, and an arena audience could sometimes contain a few vocal members who chose to be hostile to Omodo just because he was an Armodon. His friends hoped to cure him of this fear.
The massive Rhino-man wore heavy armour, bright steel-coloured adamantine alloy which covered as much of his body as was allowed by conventions of the arena, over his thick grey hide. His armour was devoid of decoration, plain and functional, but still quite impressive. He carried a massive war-sledge with a seven foot ironwood haft; its blunt head was the size of Gavin's chest and the sharp back-spike on the head was nearly eighteen inches long. It was a formidable weapon, but slow even for someone of Omodo's size and titanic strength.
Vintia was trained as a heavy fighter as well. For Gladiators the light, medium, and heavy weight classifications refer to the coverage and weight of their armour compared to the weight of the Gladiator wearing it. Thus Gladiatrix Vintia, who came only to Gavin's chin in height and Omodo who towered over him would both be classified as "heavy" fighters, because of their armour. Vintia's armour consisted of a cunningly wrought set of form fitting chainmail augmented with plates made from a blue-white mithril alloy and decorated with entwined white and red roses, embossed onto the plates. It covered as much of her body as was allowed by the rules of the arena, leaving her midriff, parts of her limbs, and her back exposed. She carried an oval tower shield that was only slightly shorter than herself and a long straight bladed knight's longsword. Her brilliant blue eyes sparkled like sunlit sapphires as she smiled up at Sadira, who was standing next to her.
Sadira was sporting a new hairstyle for this fight; her glossy black hair was drawn up into long bristling spikes held in place by glamour. She'd been trying to emulate the mane from a picture she'd seen of a Manticore tribe-matron, in hopes of gaining some psychological advantage over her foe. She was not sure it would work, but she was so impressed with the look she had already decided to keep it for her next fight. She caught Vintia's look and smiled back.
"Facing this terrible beast are four of our newest recruits!" The gates to the arena opened, and Omodo jogged forward followed by Gavin, Sadira, then Vintia in single file.
"Omodo the Armodon, Gavin the Defender, Sadira the Charger, and Vintia Shield-Maiden!" the announcer's voice boomed. Is it too soon for proper Gladiator names? thought Sadira. The crowd cheered as they filed into the arena, weapons in hand, armour glinting in the sun.
The Manticore continued to stare at Gavin, mad-eyes unblinking. Sadira disliked this, partly because she hated any threats to her friends, but also because she wanted to be foremost in the minds of her enemies.
"I think it likes you," Vintia whispered to Gavin as they raised their weapons in salute to the spectators filling the stands.
"I'm already taken," Gavin murmured in response, still concentrating on keeping the beast's thoughts from invading his own. "Maybe I can persuade him to swing your way...!"
Vintia tittered in response, a sound like silver bells in a calm wind, strangely out of place from an armoured Gladiatrix. Sadira smiled. As a young fighter in training she had spent countless hours making her friend laugh just to hear that sound; it now reminded her of simpler days when life was pure. Tickling was the easiest way to get serious Vintia to laugh; she and Gavin were similar in that respect. She idly wondered if it was a characteristic common to defender
s?
The trumpets sounded. The chains fell from the Manticore. It did not move, merely tilted its head to the side, staring at Gavin with fevered eyes. Omodo and Sadira trotted around it quietly, looking to flank it. The audience fell silent, puzzled by the creature's behaviour. The beast's lips moved.
"You can see," its voice was horrible, guttural, rasping, and grating. The crowd shuddered at the sound, understanding the words and yet unsettled by the grating voice. Its eyes bored into Gavin "You can see... what I see..."
Gavin felt a sudden, unbidden pressure in his head. Images began tumbling into his mind, breaking through his mental barriers. He could not resist: Omodo's broken and dismembered corpse; Ravius's severed head, maggots dripping out its eyes; a laughing, daemonic version of Gavin himself, swollen with power, holding a brutalized Sadira by the throat. He staggered, assaulted by the pure vileness of the scenes unfolding in his mind. He felt bile rising in his throat.
Vintia could sense magic at work and moved in front of him, raising her shield. She too began to see images, fleeting and terrible, but with less intensity. They struggled against the mad images. He saw himself standing atop a pile of familiar-faced corpses; laughing manically.
"YOU CAN SEE WHAT I SEE!" The unnatural sound of the Manticore's voice washed over the arena. Sadira and Omodo started sprinting at it from opposite sides, sensing something wrong. Sadira's war-scream sounded faint in the aftermath of the creature's terrible voice.
Gavin could taste blood in his mouth and feel liquid pouring out of his eyes. He felt the cold, tainted soul-violating touch of whatever lurked behind the Manticore's madness, clawing at his mind. It was indescribably alien and terribly, terribly wrong. Part of him wanted to collapse and seek the sweet release of madness. He shuddered. The beast moved toward him.
"YOU CA..." Massive Omodo slammed into the beast from the side, his metal-armoured horn sinking into its flank, nearly toppling the heavy creature, interrupting it.
The Manticore’s roaring answering shriek of pain and rage was so horrible, so wrong, that everyone in the arena was frozen into place, their senses rebelling against the sound. The audience, the Gladiators, and every towns-person who heard the sound was overcome with a profound sense of horror. Only the Grey-Robes and a Warbound in the audience seemed unphased. A handful of veteran soldiers watching the fight withstood the sound with grim faces, for they had heard such hideous howling before. The stalwart Gladiators, unprotected by wards, were numbed by the Manticore's nerve-torturing bellow. Sadira was the first of the fighters to recover and she stalked toward the beast wilfully, as if running into a hurricane wind.
The Manticore thrashed, twisting its sinuous body and smashing the stunned Omodo with its tail. The massive Armodon staggered backwards from the force of the blow and the beast reared up, slamming him down to the ground with its front paws. The Armodon was forced to fend off the drooling jaws of the beast with his maul while claws raked across his abdomen, drawing blood. Vintia left Gavin's side and sprang forward with a shout.
Sadira's war-shriek rent the air, pure and strong now, as she ducked under the Manticore's body thrusting her twin obsidian sabres at its groin and belly; The beast sprang backwards, quick and catlike, as her blades sank in. Blood dripped from its wounds. It snarled at Sadira as Omodo gained his feet behind Sadira, raising his massive weapon defiantly despite his brutal wounds.
"Have I got your attention now?" Sadira snarled at the Manticore, staring unflinchingly into the creatures crazed eyes.
Behind her Gavin shuddered, staggering toward the fight, forcing the tainted images from his mind. He moved as if drunk, unfocused and dizzy. He gathered his will, trying to shake off his affliction.
Sadira readied her blades and the Manticore eyed her. The books had warned that the beasts were swift and graceful, but actually seeing one in action was quite different. When it moved she barely had time to react, rolling to the side, as it gathered itself and sprang at her, closing the distance with terrifying speed. It swiped at her with a paw as she stood up, forcing her to fall backwards ungracefully as the scything claws rent the air in front of her; she could feel the wind of their passing as they swept through the air inches from her face.
Stalwart Vintia planted herself over Sadira, placing her shield in front of another vicious claw swipe. The Manticore's talons threatened to tear it from her grasp, but Vintia was well-versed in the ways of fighting larger, stronger opponents. She moved with the blow, deflecting the force of the attack rather than trying to counter it purely with strength. Her bright blade snaked out, thrusting at the beast's eyes to force it back.
Omodo took this chance to swing his maul at the distracted creature, hammering the spike into its shoulder with a crushing blow and a powerful shout. The beast howled again, sending shivers through the crowd before raking Omodo with both its front paws, leaving bloody gashes where his armour failed him. The Armodon toppled backwards, pushed to the ground as the beast bore down on him. Sadira darted around Vintia, slashing the Manticore's flank, her twin blades cutting deep, then ducking under its crushing tail.
Gavin shook off the last of its mental assault and charged into the fray, leaping over the fallen Omodo, thrusting his spear at the creature's face. The Manticore turned to face him as he lunged. It met his gaze and did not move. The barbed blade of his war-spear sank easily into its mad-eye, which burst. The other eye continued to stare at him, unblinking. The beast still did not move. Something foul and rotten leaked out of the socket as the spear point sank deeper into the beast's head. Gavin felt nauseous.
Vintia and Sadira both stabbed the creature in the side as it regarded Gavin, before a twitch of the tail forced them back.
"I CAN STILL SEE!" It reared back, foul grey sludge dripping off Gavin's spear-point, and the pressure in Gavin's head suddenly increased again. "YOU CAN SEE WHAT I SEE..."
This time Sadira, Vintia, and wounded Omodo all felt the mental onslaught of the creature's foul images full force: their minds drowned in images of slaughter, rape, decay, seas of filth. Horrible scenes of everything they loved being destroyed and violated washed over their minds. The beast readied itself to strike. The audience shuddered, mostly protected against the mental onslaught by the arena wards, but still disturbed by the tainted magic. Only Gavin was able to shake off the assault in time to move against Manticore as it attacked again.
"I DON'T WANT TO SEE!" He shouted, magic surging through him. His power felt pure and clean, like a cold northern wind. He pushed the awful thoughts from his head. He revelled in this as he locked wills with the mad creature, holding himself strong against the awful taint of the magic infecting it. He channelled all the power he could muster, weaving a strong pattern. Even the ungifted in the crowd could sense the magic flowing between the Gladiator and the Mad Manticore without aid, like a sudden increase in air pressure.
Gavin blasted the creature's tainted mind. It reared back, blood spraying from its mouth and ears. The flood of images eased, allowing Sadira and Vintia to stagger to their feet. Sadira's magic flowed into Omodo and Gavin, healing their wounds. Vintia gritted her teeth, fighting to regain her full consciousness. She staggered forward sank her sword into the creature. Sadira joined her, twin blades hacking at the beast's flank.
Omodo fought his way to his feet. He could sense, rather than see, that Sadira and Vintia were being hampered by the mental assault. Their weapons required a degree of finesse that was difficult to gain while dizzy and half-blind. His did not. Slowly, he lifted his massive hammer, hoarsely shouting a word of power as he slammed it down. The beast, held in place by Gavin's will, did not even move. The hundred pound steel hammer-head came down on the Manticore's head, crushing it to a pulp. The images ceased. The audience leapt to their feet. The Manticore shuddered and died.
The shouts of the Gladiators mingled with the joyful sounds of the crowd.
-----o
Gavin could not even bring himself to kiss his beloved before he slept, so awful were the images
the creature left him. He had violent, unnatural nightmares and was physically ill several times. Sadira curled around him, soothing him in his sleep, watching him until dawn.
-----o
Packages arrived for them the next day. Their grading results from the Deliberative arrived in sealed parchment scrolls bearing a tamper-proof warded wax seal. All of them received a pass from their fight against the Manticore. Gavin also got a package from an anonymous patron, a heavy brass bound leather covered book entitled "The Legacies of the Reckoning: Essays on the Corrupt and Tainted Magic.
Chapter Eleven: Beautiful Monsters
1141/09/12, Camp Valorous
"How much blood is spilled in the arenas across the Domains, every day? Do these games bring us any closer to solving the dangers of the Gifted?" Pamphlet nailed to the door of an arena.
"I don't like this kind of fight, Sadira." Gavin frowned, struggling to express his views while remaining calm. "Slaughter matches are too violent for my tastes. There is no technique to winning in them, beyond vicious butchery."
"You didn't seem to mind the match against the spiders," Sadira said in an even tone, trying to be reasonable. She was somewhat hurt at Gavin's vehement displeasure over something that she considered a trivial matter. "That fight was pretty much a wholesale slaughter..."
"That was a survival match, though." He rolled his eyes, immediately regretting this act as he saw Sadira's wickedly arched brows begin to knit in anger. "In a survival match the whole point is to survive any way you can. Slaughter matches are all about killing."
"That seems pretty semantic to me," she responded.
"Not to me," he said. "I chose to be a Gladiator so I would keep my magic and win my freedom. I am not a murderer. This type of fight demeans us."
Bloodlust: A Gladiator's Tale Page 17
