The Wanderers of the Water-Realm (60 page)

The travellers were forced to descend one of the flights of steps and were made to enter the pit by the guards who prodded them menacingly with the points of their spears. The iron grill was then lowered, thus blocking off any possible escape route, but only after one of the guards had quickly cut their bonds with a sharp dagger.

The two prisoners had only a few moments to become accustomed to their surroundings before the senators entourage entered the chamber and occupied the rows of seats closest to the lip of the pit. Darryl looked up and noticed that his sister was seated close to Creon and she now wore a light iron collar around her neck and secured to a short length of chain, which the nobleman held in the palm of his hand.

Creon leaned forward and addressed the two prisoners.

“You are now guests inside my death pit and you are expected to die with style for the pleasure of myself and my retainers. You will be given back your own weapons and you will shortly face your first opponents, namely three Hixian’ captives who are armed with their traditional spears.” He laughed.

“You had best fight well, for they are hungry and have been promised your flesh to eat if they succeed in killing you both. If you manage to kill the Hix, then you will face Maximus of Deva and Iron Club who are my resident gladiators.”

The senator smiled broadly.

“If you succeed in killing both of my gladiators, then you will be allowed to take their places as my pet fighters and you may live awhile longer!”

Creon turned to his guards who stood nearby.

“Enough.” He shouted. “Give them back their weapons and let the match commence.”

The sword ‘Kingslayer’ and the target-shield ‘Gutripper’ were flung down to the former boatmaster, whilst George caught his long handled axe in mid-air and then picked up his cleaver of Sheffield steel and clipped it to his belt.

“Bastards sunk my boat!” Darryl muttered as the pair prepared for the inevitable combat. “Sunk it in the middle of that bloody river the bastards have!”

George turned and grasped his companion by the shoulder and looked him straight in the eye.

“Fuck your bloody boat!” He cursed. “Any second now we’ll be fighting for our lives and we’ll be dead in a flash, if all that you can think about is yon tub of yours!”

Darryl bit his lip and nodded in reply and both men concentrated their attention upon the opposite end of the pit where three shambling Hixians’where being goaded down the steps by the spears of the guards.

George carefully eyed their opponents and he noticed that one of the Hix was much larger than his companions and seemed to be their leader.

“Yon big Hixian seems to be the boss.” He said. “If we can get rid of him quick, then the other two might not present much of a problem.”

Darryl inclined his head in agreement.

“I don’t doubt that you’re right. The best thing we can do is to charge the devil’s before they can line up with their spears levelled, aye and cut yon big sod down before his two mates can aid him.”

“Right!” The boat hand replied. “Get ready…NOW!”

The pair covered the length of the death pit in a matter of seconds and closed upon the leading Hix. Unfortunately, the huge creature reacted instantaneously and lunged at Darryl with his spear, but the ex-boatmaster dropped upon his knees and half parried the spear-thrust with his upraised target. Gutripper saved his life, but the spear-point drove onwards tearing a deep gash in Darryl’s left shoulder. A split second later, George’s axe bit into the huge Hixians’ skull and the creature’s brains were spattered along the wall of the pit as it fell.

The two remaining Hix quickly suffered the fate of their leader for Darryl sprang to his feet and buried ‘Kingslayer’ in the chest of his second adversary, whilst the giant boat hand smashed the head of the remaining creature with a mighty sweep of his axe, but only after receiving a deep spear-thrust in his hip.

Myra observed the blood trickling from the wounds suffered by her fellow wanderer’s and she addressed the nobleman who was chewing idly upon the leg of a roast do-fowl.

“I beg you, return my bag of remedies and allow me to tend my wounded friends.”

She said quietly. “It would present a poor spectacle if the men facing your resident gladiators are too weak to defend themselves through loss of blood!”

Creon cleared his mouth by spitting a mass of half chewed do-fowl into the witch’s face.

“Very well!” He replied. “Tend their wounds, but be swift or I’ll have the guards put a whip to your back for delaying our pleasure!”

A guard took hold of the wisewoman’s chain and led her into the death pit, where she quickly staunched the flow of blood from the men’s wounds with two padded dressings taken from her bag of remedies. She also gave the two men draughts of a restorative cordial and recited the words of a strengthening spell in their ears.

“Good luck!” She whispered as she refastened the men’s battle garb. “Fight well and try your best to survive, for our situation may not be hopeless. Did you notice that Wilakins head was not amongst those of our poor crewmen? Perhaps he escaped the guards and may somehow bring us succour. I must go now, for this accursed audience is becoming restless and baying for more blood.”

Myra had hardly resumed her place at the senator’s side when a loud cheer erupted from the audience as Creon’s resident gladiators descended to the floor of the death pit and stepped over the bodies of the unfortunate Hix.

One of the men wore the traditional helmet and body armour of a Roman soldier of the Caesarean period. Upon his left arm he bore a large rectangular body shield that was ornately decorated with strips of burnished copper and in his right hand he carried a gladius, a type of short stabbing sword often used by the professional fighters in ancient Roman.

His name, ‘Maximus of Deva,’was chanted over and over again by the blood-thirsty audience who stared eagerly into the pit of death.

The swordsman’s companion was squat and extremely broad shouldered and wore only the minimum of body armour over his powerfully muscled body. He carried an iron shod club upon his shoulder that was only a little shorter in length than George’s long handled axe.

The boat hand spat upon his hands meaningfully as the Earth-born pair strode towards their latest opponents.

“Best if you take yon swordsman,” he hissed to his companion. “And I’ll see if I can chop yonder club-swinger down to size!”

The combatants rapidly closed together and the two ex-boatmen commenced what proved to be the most dangerous close quarter’s combat of their lives.

Darryl and the Devan gladiator clashed in a blur of rapid sword play in which the swift footwork of the Earthman, alone, saved him from the darting gladius of his heavily armoured opponent. Meanwhile, George and the squat club-wielding fighter circled each other for a full minute before club and axe clashed together in mid air.

The men sweated and grunted with effort as they fought for their lives and a good five minutes elapsed before the Devan swordsman slipped upon the blood of a dead Hixian, a mishap causing him to momentarily lose his balance. Darryl instantly seized his opportunity and stepped inside the man’s guard and dashed the spiked boss of his target into the gladiators face before drawing Kingslayer’s sharp edge across the man’s throat.

George, meanwhile, experienced the greatest difficulty in countering the lightening club-work of his squat opponent and he almost lost his life when the shaft of his axe suddenly shivered in his hands. Fortunately, he escaped the inevitable coup-de-grace by ripping the steel cleaver from his belt and hurling the weapon at the man’s chest with tremendous force. The club-man reacted swiftly and deflected the flying cleaver with the butt end of his club, but the sharp edge of the weapon severed the gladiator’s left hand before burying itself in the wall of the death pit.The giant boat hand grasped the crippled club-wielder by his neck and left thigh and bent the unfortunate man’s spine across his knee until it snapped with a sickening crack.

Apregnant hush fell over the audience lasting for the space of several heartbeats.

And the entire chamber rang to the cry of acclamation at the white-skinned Earthmen’s amazing feat of arms.

Creon turned to the young wisewoman who was seated at his side with tears of relief running down her face.

“Woman!” He said. “You may attend to your friend’s injuries. Care well for them, for they will provide a deal of profit and amusement for myself and my household.”

He paused and gave Myra a cold stare causing the witch’s stomach to twist with fear.

“Remember this!” He said. “You will live and remain unmolested for as long as that pair of fighters survive, but you will die when the last of them perishes in the pit of death. Now woman, go quickly and do your duty!”

Myra lay back upon her sleeping couch and watched the first red rays of the Water-Realm dawn creeping into the chamber she occupied in Lady Livia’s personal apartment. She was tired and craved sleep; for she had spent the whole of the previous night tending her mistress, who was currently enduring one of her frequent bouts of ill health. Yet sleep evaded her for she was constantly worried by the situation existing in the household of Senator Creon and the dangerous way it was impacting upon herself and her companions from Earth.

A full cycle had elapsed since George and her twin brother had managed to survive that terrible gladiatorial contest in the senator’s death pit. Since that day, Darryl and the giant boat hand had been regularly matched against the very best professional fighters to be found in the Empire of the Kaa-Rom. So far Darryl had killed six men in single combat, whilst George had slaughtered nine in the same number of contests, for it had often been Creon’s whim to pit him against two opponents at the same time.

Fortunately, the two Earthmen had escaped serious injury and the hurts, which they had received, had been easily treated during the witch’s daily medical visits the senator’s gladiatorial school, an establishment lying in a secluded wing of the villa and not far from the barracks housing the estate’s force of agricultural slaves.

Myra recalled the feeling of disgust that she had experienced when she first encountered the sickening stench emanating from that miserable barrack block where the unfortunate creatures dwelt, when they were not tilling the farmlands for the benefit of their master and his extravagant household.

By contrast, the quarters occupied by the gladiators were comfortable and clean. The food was also plentiful and of excellent quality for Creon required his playthings to be at the peak of fighting fitness at all times. The gladiators, however, were afforded little freedom and a dozen picked guards patrolled the high wall enclosing their training compound, in case any of the doomed fighters should try to escape.

Darryl and George were the only combatants to be regularly housed within the compound, a few other gladiators had arrived after being purchased from other masters, but none had survived longer than a single brutal contest within the senator’s death pit and the Earthmen had watched their bodies being dragged away for burial. Only the two luckless wanderers could be seen undertaking the daily combat exercises beneath the watchful eye of Yam-Yy-Beel the senator’s chief master-at-arms.

Myra turned restlessly upon the couch as she gave thought to her mistress condition. The wisewoman had immediately diagnosed that Lady Livia was suffering from one of the chronic post natal problems often suffered by human females in the Water-Realm. Unfortunately, her condition was almost incurable and likely to prove fatal within a cycle or so. Myra had spent a great deal of time with the woman and had gradually gained her confidence and she had learned that Lady Livia was desperately unhappy and quite untroubled by the prospect of her imminent demise.