“I won’t run,” she said, considering that was probably why he was there. She slid her tail around one of his legs, ready to yank it from underneath him. “You new here?”
“Don’t speak, slave, or I’ll run you through for the hell of it. Back away from the gate. Move your disgusting tail too.”
“Yeah, you’re new here,” she commented calmly. She yanked softly with her tail, a warning. It made him stagger just a little, probably not expecting just how strong the Andinna tail could be. The tip of his blade scratched her back. That didn’t upset her. The scratch would heal in less than a day. “Killing the Empress’s Champion won’t win you any favors. Take your blade off me before I take your blade.”
I can, too. Try me. Please. I’ll take the punishment. I’m in a mood.
“You…”
“You must be stupid. Or just that new. Start this morning? I’m the only female Andinna in the pits - therefore, the Champion.” She hated having to deal with new guys. She wasn’t going to make a mad dash for the gates. She had tried ages ago and was lucky her wings hadn’t been ripped off for it. The Empress had stopped at the last minute before executing that particularly unpleasant punishment.
The sword’s sharp tip left and she heard it go back in its sheath. Good little soldier. She removed her tail, a sign of peace. He learned quickly. She tried not to kill any of the guards, but she wasn’t afraid to threaten them and prove she was better. Most had never seen combat before being stationed in the pits, which she probably thought was a trial by fire for them.
They would see combat by the time they were stationed elsewhere. There was no stopping it, not in the pits. Combat, to the gladiators in the pits - and all Andinna, from her understanding - was like breathing, or a daily meal. They needed it like they needed any other biological function.
Mave kept her eyes on the unfolding drama before her, putting the guard out of her mind. The new males were thrown in through the wall of guards, most hitting the dirt, some staggering, and just two standing tall as they were shoved. Those two were the important ones, she decided. Standing tall in the face of a hell designed to break their people said something about their character.
Look at this, Mave. Got some standouts this time.
One was a standard, tall Andinna. His black hair was long and tied back, but she could tell it was wavy, not the most common Andinna feature. He had piercing green orbs set in their standard black eyes, with impressive ink on his face, neck, bare chest, upper arms, and down his abdomen. She had a feeling he had more than she could see. His shoulders were broad and his wings looked strong, trying to press against the bonds that held them tight. His black tail slashed around with irritation. He even had impressive horns. They curled like hers, but were thicker, a bit longer.
To be thrown in the pits and be annoyed with it, not scared, said something for his courage. She was impressed, but wondered at the same time if it was overconfidence. He wouldn’t be the first thrown in with the thought that he would climb to the top and become the best.
He'll prove himself or die trying. I wish him the best trying to unseat me, if that’s his goal.
The other was just surprising. His black hair was short, a more normal cut, but nothing else about him was. He was leaner than most Andinna, and his coloring was off. His eyes were white like the other races, with sapphire blue irises. The iris color was normal Andinna, but not the white. His horns, tail, and wings were a dark, deep blue color that she had never seen before on an Andinna. He was a mutt, that much was obvious, but she didn’t know with what. Even his ink was the wrong color - not black, but instead the same color as his horns. His leaner form and youthful face didn’t appeal to her, even though it was interesting, in a way. He also wasn’t scared, but seemed stupidly excited.
A randy young mutt had been thrown in with them. That one was just going to get himself killed, she decided. She felt bad for the immediate assumption, but mutts normally had shorter lifespans, slower healing, and the culture issues. Andinna weren’t obsessed with purebreds, or distrustful of mutts, that she knew, but they would tease him relentlessly. Teasing in the pits oftentimes turned dangerous. A lot of times, it turned deadly.
Coming in strong like this has probably been the best move he could make. He probably has no idea. I wonder if he’ll keep it up. Others will notice that he’s not a pushover.
The others, being helped up by the older fighters, weren’t ones she found interesting. Standard fare: strong males with their black features and rugged, angry faces. Some held dark tans, meaning they had been in the fields before this. Two had tattered wings, probably destroyed by the grit, dust, and mold of the mines. To those two, the pits were a step up. Dying on the sand of the Colosseum was better than suffocating or being crushed in the mines.
The mutt looked at her and his eyebrows went up. She only stared back at him until he looked to the green-eyed one and elbowed him. Then they both stared at her.
Mave sighed and turned away. Two interesting faces in twenty. Better than most times, but still a bad haul. She didn’t see any of them as potential allies, either. Not with the way those two had just stared at her.
That didn’t bother her so much. She had never had an ally. She didn’t need one now.
Though an ally might be interesting. Different.
She repeated that to herself through a small ache of loneliness, which she quickly crushed. She shouldn’t have even come out here.
She went to leave the training area as quietly as she came, ignoring the stares of the newbies as they noticed her. Whispers broke out, as some inquired as to who she was. No one was brave enough to say her actual name.
“The Empress’ Champion. She’s undefeated. Stay away from the whore. She’s been in bed with the Elvasi since she was a babe.”
She turned back to whoever said that. She kept her face schooled through the lance of hurt and rage, and just met the dark eyes of the male, radiating the same calm she always did. She never gave them anything more. They didn’t deserve anything else from her.
Stand down. We all know who the most dominant Andinna in the pits is. Stand down, asshole, or I’ll find a way to gut you for that comment. Every one of her thoughts was a growl in her head. She wanted to bare her canines and snap at him, but in the end, she also knew she didn’t need to.
He lowered his eyes first.
“Thought so,” she said softly, before turning back to leave. She didn’t stop when the whispers kicked back up.
She went through the chow hall, then the dark halls back to her room. She got to her task without sparing a moment to rest or stop. She cleaned her weapons first, to combat rust. She hoped letting them sit for the night wouldn’t lead to any lasting damage. Next, she took her armor to the bathing pool and scrubbed off the caked-on blood, sweat, and sand.
It only took her until lunch to finish that. She wasn’t hungry enough to leave to eat anything, thanks to the lack of her normal level of exercise during the day.
She lay on her cot and stared at the ceiling instead. She didn’t sleep; she didn’t even think. She just stared at the ceiling as if it was the most interesting thing she had ever seen. In the nearly seven hundred years she had the room, she had seen it change a lot. Erosion changed the texture of her ceiling and walls at a rate she was familiar with now. She memorized this new ceiling above her. In a few months, it would be slightly different.
She didn’t move from that spot until dinner was called. Even then, she went slowly.
When she entered the chow hall, dinner was half over. She hated the hush that fell over them all as she walked in. She got her slop in silence and saw that her table was smartly empty. The newer fighters must have been warned off. That was good. No fights in the chow hall meant they would all get back to three-a-days soon enough and not continue with the four-a-days.
She sat down and began to eat quietly. Her eyes fell on the two new interesting ones for a second, seeing them deep in quiet conversation with fucking Seventy-Two.
Damn. That ended any tiny hope in her that the one with green eyes would want to give her a moment of satisfaction.
Another day gone by. Another set of newbies here to die to each other, to the guards, to her. Another set of people here to hate her too and get it all wrong.
Or maybe I’m wrong, hoping there’s anyone who would accept someone like me.
She snorted. This is why you don’t go there, Mave. It’s always a disappointment.
3
Rainev
Rainev was shoved forward and walked to Matesh’s side before the damn Elvasi could shove him again. Fucking pointy-eared, wingless pieces of shit. He hated the damn Elvasi. How the fuck did he end up a slave to them?
He’d gotten Matesh and himself captured, that’s right. He needed to remember this was his damn fault. Fuck. I’m never going to live this down.
Skies, I probably won’t even live through it.
He stayed next to Matesh’s side as other males were helped up and the soldiers retreated behind the gate. In only minutes, he was locked in to the ‘pits’, as they called them, with dozens of other Andinna males, ones he didn’t know.
He looked over the crowd and saw her. He couldn’t stop the oh shit that ran through his mind. A fucking female in here? Was this the rumored Champion? He had always chalked her up as a myth.
Her eyes were cold, a silver-blue that looked like cold steel. Cold-steel was a great word for them, he decided, like a frosted blade. Her black hair was tied back from her face, one that was typical Andinna female: not too angular like the Elvasi, but still tougher, more defined than the females of short-lived races. She had one thin scar he could see, running over her right cheek horizontally, like someone had gone for the eye and missed. She wore simple cloth breeches and something to cover her tits. Not a real Andinna shirt, but something.
If he liked women, she would be one he enjoyed. He could appreciate how she looked even if it didn’t do anything for him. She had a dangerous air to her, a power. She looked like she took males, not the other way around.
“Matesh,” he whispered, trying to keep his lips from moving. He elbowed the Andinna next to him to get his attention.
Matesh only turned his head to follow Rainev’s stare. Rainev was curious what his adopted uncle would think of her being in the pits of all places.
“Who’s the female?” another male whispered a couple feet away. “She here to keep us satisfied or something? A whore to play with? With tits like those, I fucking hope so.”
“If she is, we need more. Been a century since I had a female,” a gruffer new guy said. Rainev thought they were both wrong for that assumption as the female turned away from his gaze.
“Seriously, who is the female?”
Soon, the question was being asked by several of them. He and Matesh didn’t say it out loud, but he knew that he, at least, was desperate to know.
“The Empress’ Champion. She’s undefeated. Stay away from the whore. She’s been in bed with the Elvasi since she was a babe,” one of the males spoke up. Rainev didn’t like the hateful acid in the statement, but he wasn’t sure if he had enough information to make an accurate judgement. He learned only one thing from it. The cold, hard truth.
The Empress’ Champion was real. Outside of the Empire, she was only a myth, a scary story to tell children to keep them in line. The female Andinna who played a vital role in their downfall, raised by their conquerors and now set loose to slaughter her own kind in the name of their enemy.
By the Skies, she’s fucking real, and even in fucking casual clothing, she looks dangerous. Nope. I’m never going to live this down, and the likelihood I’ll live through it is shrinking.
The Champion stopped walking away and turned slowly. Her eyes fell on the man who told everyone who she was. Rainev had a feeling she was furious, but her face and body posture, even her tail, didn’t give away anything of the sort. Instead, she was like a statue. Calm. Almost too blank. Wiped clean, she gave them nothing to judge her mood or temper in any way.
That’s unnatural. Andinna can’t cover their temper like that. We don’t have it in us.
“Thought so,” she whispered out onto the crowd. Rainev swallowed a lump that was growing in his throat. That was cold confidence, cold dominance. Rainev had never seen a plain-face female able to make a warrior stand down. The other male must have dropped his eyes, since she seemed appeased. She left then, leaving whispers behind her.
Skies, he’d wanted to drop his gaze and she hadn’t even been looking at him.
“What the fucking Skies?” he mumbled to himself.
“We just met the Champion of the Colosseum,” Matesh whispered. “I wonder what other surprises the pits will have for us. Also, don’t believe what a lot of these guys probably have to say about her. You weren’t there when the war ended. You have no idea.”
“I’m not sure there can be one bigger than that,” Rainev replied. “Alchan thinks she’s not real, not really. Says that she probably died ages ago. This can’t be the same girl, right?”
“Well, there she was,” his adopted uncle answered. “Speaking of…Alchan. Let’s not talk about him, or the others. Their best chance is our silence.”
“They know who we are,” Rainev reminded him. There was no way to keep who they were a secret. “Don’t fool yourself.”
“The Elvasi do, yes, but these males don’t, and we don’t need them getting rowdy because of who we are. It would only cause more trouble. Keep it quiet for as long as you can.”
“Good point,” Rainev agreed, seeing where Matesh was coming from. “So, what do you think is next?”
“We survive and keep our secrets. Nothing else we can do, Rainev.”
“Mutt!” someone yelled out at that moment. Rainev turned slowly to see who might have said it. It didn’t bother him, but he didn’t like it either.
“Yes?” he asked, smiling at the old male glaring at him. The old male’s face was completely covered with the tatua, their people’s ritual ink.
“What are you mixed with? I need to know how fucking fragile you are before I pair you up with someone.”
“Shifter, Clan Wychen,” he answered. Wychen was the clan of shifter misfits. It was fitting, really, considering what Rainev could shift into as a Andinna/Clan hybrid. “Mother’s side.”
“Father was full-blooded Andinna, then?” the old male looked him over. Rainev waited. He’d expected people to call him out, be curious. There was no shame in having multiple heritages, but it brought some curiosity out of others.
“Is. He’s in the Free Cities,” Rainev explained. He fucking hoped his old man was still alive. He was too damn young to die.
“His name?” The old male now just sounded curious.
“Zayden. His father’s name is Zayden,” Matesh answered instead. “He fought in the War. So did I. I’m going to be his partner. I trained him.”
“I don’t remember him, but I didn’t know every soldier. The mutt should know a thing or two. Good to know. Welcome to the pits, you two. Keep your swords sharp…and in your pants.” With that crude warning, the old male walked away from them. Rainev raised both his eyebrows and looked back at Matesh.
“Was he fucking serious?”
“I think so.” Matesh looked as confused as Rainev felt. “Makes me wonder, really. Are they all fucking each other, or is the Champion that much bad news? And is it not allowed to get in a quick fuck? We need to learn the rules, and quickly.”
“We also need to dig into who the Champion actually is.” Rainev really doubted she was the girl from the history. Of course, he was the only member of his family, the Andinna side at least, that wasn’t alive for the war. He really had no idea if it was her or not.
“I’m not so sure of that. I think we should leave that alone.”
“New slaves! Line up for identification tags!”
They walked together to the line forming near a handful of guards. Rainev knew what this was. The damned slave ear piercings marking
their number and owner for identification at a glance.
The line moved quickly and Rainev didn’t wince at the sharp pain of the needle puncturing through his earlobe. He was Number Twenty-Two. Matesh was Number Twenty-Three. The symbol on their ear tag with a sun and moon. Rainev didn’t understand what house would use that symbol, since it was the Empire’s herald. They were given bad leather armor, wooden swords, and other nonsense. Even a scratchy blanket for each of them.
“Great,” Matesh mumbled in Andena. Another male grabbed him roughly and Matesh growled viciously at the other Andinna.
“Common or Elvasi only here or they will beat the fuck out of you and try to ruin your wings. Anything, really, except fucking Andena.” The male nearly snarled it out, looking furious at what Mat had said. “You go by numbers now. Memorize them. Names are only for those you trust most. Do you understand?”
“Don’t fucking touch me like that,” Mat snarled viciously.
“It’s fine, Mat. Everyone’s just wound up,” he said quickly, hoping to deescalate before this became a fight. Matesh had a typical Andinna temper and didn’t like being roughed up. “We understand. Won’t happen again.”
“Listen to your mutt,” the other male advised, growling back. Rainev looked at his number. Sixty-Four. “Also, you two have unlucky numbers. The last Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three died yesterday in the Colosseum. Made the mistake of becoming long-term lovers. That’s not allowed.”
“So, we can fuck but we can’t have relationships,” Matesh said, calming.
Rainev resisted a chuckle at his expense. Typical Andinna male. Always thinking with his cock, my uncle.
“You can have sex if you like cock at all, or tolerate it. Just don’t touch the slut. You’ll find yourself alone, with no friends, for that. Plus, everyone she’s ever fucked has died. Poor sods. It’s what they fucking deserved.” The other male chuckled darkly, walking away at that.
“Well, I can at least get some while we’re here then,” Rainev said casually.
“Fuck me.” Mat seemed more plainly frustrated now.
The Gladiator's Downfall Page 3
