Originally Written in February 2019
Uploaded on April 7th 2022
Light crawls between the boughs of the thick-trunked trees like the meandering crawl of an ant drunk on the sweet nectar of a sickening fruit, the high noontime sun that in any other environment would be sweltering, but when under the shade of the forest is naught but a slight warmth. The snaggly yellow teeth of the wooly camel reach up and bite at the ripe flesh of the sickening red fruit, as the warrior woman who rides it gazes ahead, the reins of the beast in her hand. The tittering of fat forest birds surrounds the pair as the warrior woman, that looming survivor of the murderous citadel far to the east, kicks the stirrups on her wooly camel mount, pushing it on deeper into the forest as the sun continues its slow crawl west, as the drunken ant takes another bite of the sickening fruit.
Kazza, the warrior of Killopolis, astride her wooly camel, ponders what she has heard. The peasant villages which she travelled through just prior were full of cultic objects, great wooden idols that loomed over the squat huts and short towers like the looming visages of gods and demons. She saw the villagers gather round the poles and chant Iä, Iä, and she ate at their tables and bought of their goods. She thinks about what she heard in conversation with these herding villagers when they were corralling their goats and eating their flesh. They spoke of a Forest of No Return, where their children disappear with no trace, where their goats leave nothing but fur and scratching marks on the trees of the forest fringes. They cling to their god-poles, a common feature in the towns of these regions, and dare not go near to the dark, unkempt forest of trees and tittering birds. Kazza laughed them off, called them fools and cowards, and departed for the forest. She is a great warrior! No beast of the forest nor bandit gang could fell her, she feels no fear in her heart for the spirits and demons that dwell within the spaces between the logs!
Her eyes gaze forward, and see light pouring in like a bright libation poured out for a grand being. It is a clearing in the trees, an area of tall grasses that lay still, no wind reaching them. Her wooly camel mount edges forward, its tall gangly limbs knocking about in the tall grasses. Kazza scans the surroundings. Nothing. There are no grasses moving, there are no shadows among the trees. Feeling safe, she urges the beast forward. One of its great furry feet sinks into the loose dirt, and suddenly, the two of them fall into a great massive pit of sinking sand.
Kazza cannot act quickly enough as her and her wooly beast sink into the pit-trap, the snapping mandible-jaws of a gargantuan ant-lion in hiding reaching for their delicious flesh, another victim of its tricksy trap. As grainy dirt falls down all around them, the wooly camel frantically attempts to push away, kicking at the side of the hole and at the head of the insectile predator deep within. With a loud bellowing scream, the furry foot of the beast is bitten, drawing a torrent of camel blood that sinks into the dirt, staining it a scarlet hue. Her eyes wide with surprise and with sudden fear, Kazza acts to extricate herself from the mount, quickly sliding her metal-clad feet out of the small stirrups, working at the tight straps and ropes which keep her and her arms on the beast’s body, all the while sinking ever deeper into the deadly trap into which they have fallen.
The long neck of the wooly camel flails about, its eyes wide with pain and the bellows of the thing the only sound in the placid wood. The ant-lion below bites deeper and harder into the leg of the camel, gradually draining the thing of blood as it sinks further and further, only seconds remaining the creature’s life. Kazza, her belts and chains and arms and armor removed from the sinking camel, climbs clumsily onto the hairy hump, her fingers digging into the crumbling dirt around her, as she jumps from the camel’s back, pushing the beast down deeper into the hole. Scrambling up the sloping wall, she dares not look back as she hears more beastly bellowing and the crunching of camel bones. Her long pointed metal boots digging into the sandy dirt, she crawls up as fast as she can, energized by the fear which crawls within her from the death she avoided.
Her hand reaches the edge of the deadly trap as a loud bellow races from between the camel’s yellowing teeth. She pulls herself up and out of the ant-lion’s hole, panting and sweating in her armor on the forest floor. She leans forward and braces herself on the earth with her arm.
After some time of sitting there on the forest floor, Kazza stands up, and gazes down into the hole. The bloody mangled corpse of the camel is being slowly chewed upon by the great gnashing mandibles of the ant-lion. A bead of sweat oozes down her face and into the hole. She turns away from the grotesque scene. Patting herself over, Kazza realizes that she has lost her sword, the very same sword which she had paid for to be made naught but weeks before! How could she have lost such a valuable piece of weaponry! Making a realization, Kazza gazes down at the gory scene once again. Embedded in the side of the camel is her blade, having been pushed deep into it by its own thrashing. There is no retrieving it.
Kazza of Killopolis, after gathering herself, moves onward, deeper into the forest. Sweat streams down her forehead, half from heat, half from pure exhaustion and tiredness. Her head feels light and uncertain, and she is half defenseless, lacking the weapon which she had been depending on for the time since she had acquired it. Her eyes half-lidded, her arms half-heavy, her legs half-bumbling, she crawls on through the darkening forest. Then she makes a misstep.
A loud snap. Legs giving way. Head facing forward, head upside down. Netting. Kazza wriggles but is ultimately too tired to move effectively, the ropes too thick for her to break with her muscular arms. The sun crawls onward above, as the sky turns to that darkening transitional form of twilight.
Some time passes. Kazza is too delirious to know for certain how long it has been since the trap was sprung on her, in her weakened state unable to truly act against it. It is in the dead of night when the giddy giggle of some goon is heard and Kazza is hoisted onto the back of a great lumbering man.
Kazza awakens in a blackened iron cage, hanging on a chain from a cracked stone ceiling of some yellowish stone. Across from her are two cages, and as she rubs her eyes, crusty with sleeping-dust, she sees the figures within them both. Within one is the visage of death, a skeletal form of sagging eye socket and taught skin, browned and dessicated. Within the other is a fat man wearing a metal helmet, his great big brown beard billowing out from under it. She rushes over to the wall of her hanging cage and calls over to the helmet-clad bearded man.
“You, prisoner as I am, you!”
The bearded man, his face hidden behind the grill of his helmet, responds, “Ah, you have awoken! Good, good!”
Kazza cocks her head confusedly, her eyes half-closed from sleep and confoundment. The bearded man responds, his voice echoing from within the metal helm on his head.
“Yes yes, you must be very very confused! Rightfully so, of course of course! Just waking up after some time traveling in a place you have never seen before, and in a cage at that! Why, if I were in the same position, I would be confused as well! And well, I would know, for I have been in the same position as you now are! Ohoho, I apologize, my friend, sincerely.”
“Quit babbling as you are, you feeble-minded old man and coward, and tell me where we are!” Kazza angrily retorts.
Taken aback, the bearded man responds, “Oh… I am quite sorry… We, uh, we are in the bowels of the great Pit of Peril, Arena of Arduousness, Bloody Bearer of the Skulls of Those Who Lose… Oh wait a moment, my angry friend, for a guard approaches.”
A great tall man, broad of shoulder and of body, with a great paunch of a belly hanging down in front of him, strides into the chamber. He is wearing a mask made of black leather upon his face, and on this mask there is a most monstrous face of some beast, with a wide toothy smile and gaping eyes. Giggling softly under his breath, the massive man comes in and looks at the two prisoners in their cages, hitting Kazza’s cage with his fat fist and giggling some more before departing.
After but a few moments of waiting, the helmet-clad man continues, “...As I was saying, you and I both are within the depths of a grand battle-pit, in what city I do not know. I have been entrapped here for many months, maybe even a year. It is so hellish to have to fight in the cold of winter, and with those jeering apes of an audience…” he trails off, prompting Kazza to exclaim to get his attention.
“Ah yes yes, I apologize, my friend! Well that is just it, oh warrior. This is an arena, of arduous battle and feats of great might. They have captured in it myriad warriors and horrid beasts, which they release into the arena for the pleasure of the city-folk. Say, how exactly did you end up ensnared? You look like a capable young woman, very strong and well-built, how did one such as you end up caught in the netting of this perilous pit?”
Kazza responds tersely, “I was traveling by camel through the forest, and I lost my mount and my sword. Tired from walking, the net wrapped around me and I was powerless to resist it, in my beleaguered state.”
Laughing almost jovially, the helmeted man speaks, “Ohohoho, a fellow adventurer! Why, I used to be one such as you before, well.” Punctuating this trailing statement, the bushy-bearded man lifts the grill on his helmet, revealing a grotesque and rough hole where his left eye should be, red and gaping into shadowy emptiness within. Kazza’s eyes widen just slightly as he leaves her to linger on it for a moment, before closing the grill once again. “May I ask, oh my adventuresome friend, what your name is?”
“I am Kazza, of that far-off and shadowy city Killopolis.”
“Ah, you hail from the city from where no child returns? Well, I guess that maxim must be changed, ohoho! I am Ratavin of Rorke, mercenary warrior. I would very much love to hear of your story when in better circumstances, my friend.”
Smiling slightly, Kazza happily responds, “And I would gladly hear yours as well, oh mercenary of Rorke.”
After speaking together for some time longer, a lanky and spindly grey-skinned servant strides into the chamber, wearing a long flowing black robe and a white hat, in each hand a pewter platter with some unknown flesh and starch jiggling atop it.
The pallid chef places the two plates in front of the two warriors and speaks loudly to the both of them, saying “Eat well, my fighters, for there are many battles to be had in the next day! And be sure to get enough sleep, you great warriors!” With much shallow breathing, the pale cook strides out of the chamber and into the hallway, joining the giggling goon to take the next meal to the next room of warriors and beasts.
The slowly moving sun descends down outside as Kazza and her friend Ratavin eat their meaty meal, curling up inside of their small metal cages to sleep for the night, the moon rising and casting pale crawling shapes of pernicious intent upon the floor.
The sun crawls above the horizon in the morning, a long ray of bright light breaking through the bars in the window and awakening the two warriors. The pallid chef enters again with a meal only mildly different, some sort of sugary molasses piled atop the meat and paste, before departing again to some other room in some other part of the arena. The midday sun, casting the shadows of the bars on the stark stone floor, pierces through the window, and the giggling goon enters again, with a long staff tipped with an iron hook. Kazza eyes the behemoth as he approaches, but is powerless to do anything as he hooks the staff upon the top of the cage and lifts it up, carrying her out of the chamber, slung across his wide arched back. Looking behind her, Ratavin leans up against the bars of his cage to wish her luck, as the goon turns the corner and she can no longer see him.
Giggling giddily as he plods through the halls, the gargantuan goon passes locked doors and large cages, other sinister servants carrying cages, some empty and some with dejected warriors curled up in them, and eventually reaches a staircase of dark stone, slick and shining with the soft light of tarry torches. He places Kazza’s cage down at the top of this staircase, moving to put his hook-tipped staff into a strangely shaped slot in the ground. Pushing this makeshift lever, the great granite gate is dragged open gradually, light and sound pouring in. Whooping, cheering, chatting, crying. The sounds of a great crowd of those who shout in pleasure at the sight of blood. Those who can never fight themselves, those who are too weak or too precious to perish, but which delight in the death of those they care not for. It is like a great pack of baboons, all screeching in delight at the opening of the gates of the underworld. Kazza’s cage is opened, and she is leaned forward and falls onto the dry dusty dirt outside.
Kazza gets up and looks around. She is surrounded. On all sides there are the jeering crowds, shouting at her in incomprehensible phrases, but she sees, just ahead of her, a strange being. It is a tall figure, clad in black robes, wearing a black crown atop his head, with two ruby eyes staring out from the darkness of the hood which hides all else. She remembers him from somewhere. Staggering, half delirious, she sees a rack of weaponry off to the side. It is rife with all manner of tools of carnage and destruction, halberds, obsidian-bladed maces, hammers, knives. She strides over to it, her eyes half-lidded as she examines the implements. She grabs one, a blackened iron morning star, and turns back again to the mysterious shadowy figure. She has seen him before, at least she thinks so. She has seen him before.
The shadowy figure stands up. The crowd of jeering baboons quiets down. He strides forward to the front of his box, to the wrought bronze fence that separates his box from the arena below. Kazza notices two wrinkled curled figures next to the mysterious lord. Her eyes squint at them. Their skin is tight. Their skin is a pallid brown. Movement draws her eyes back to the shadowy figure, as he reaches out his black claws, and the whole arena becomes more silent than ever. The sun passes overhead, and reaches the point beyond the midday peak. The door beneath the shadowy figure opens, a dragging movement just like that of the granite gate which Kazza emerged from.
From the shadowy depths within emerges a long hooked beak. Then emerges the wide yellow eyes of the horrid thing. Then the long, wrinkly neck, ending at the torso with a disgusting ruff of disheveled feathers, grey and green and brown and diseased. Slowly the whole beast emerges into the afternoon sun, a giant feline form, emaciated and thin. The skin is pocked with the occasional sore and the occasional lone hair, the legs gangly. The feet are covered with shining golden scales, tipped with hook-like black claws. Its tail sways to and fro absentmindedly, ending with the head of a snake. This beast has been imprisoned for so long, half-fed and half-watered, brought out for this fight.
The shadowy figure sits back down upon his obsidian throne, Kazza’s eyes lingering on him for just a moment too long. The emaciated thing rushes forward the fastest that it can with what little food remains in its gullet, gnashing its black beak wildly. Kazza notices just fast enough, dodging away from the sharp beak, the beast only breaking through the chainmail on her arm and naught more. Her feet sliding against the ground and creating a great cloud of dust, the wrinkled bird-thing collides with the opposing wall and, in the delirious cloud, staggers in its pain and confusion. The crowd goes wild, screaming and shouting things both kind and horrid at the action before them, Kazza readying her morningstar mace as the beast steadies itself.
The dust settles back onto the ground as the creature slinks around, facing Kazza. She sees a painful kink in the long neck of the thing, the spine within bent and broken in an unnatural contortion. She steps back, thinking as the creature steps forward, her morningstar at the ready. It pounces for her, its shining eagle claws glistening in the light of the sun, but she just jumps out of the way again, jumping up and onto the creature’s back. The crowd rejoices at this, glad that a kill is coming. She clings to the fat on the back of the beast, but it begins to thrash about and snap its beak wildly, throwing her off and onto the dusty ground below. The crowd is displeased. The shadowy figure watches uncaringly.
Fearing for her life under the razor claws of the bird-beast, Kazza rolls along the dirt floor and gets to her feet quickly, hearing the loud caw of the thing as it rushes for her again. Readying herself, she jumps again, wrapping both of her hands around the neck of the wrinkled beast, clinging to it as it thrashes around and circles the arena floor. Kazza crawls forward just slightly, grabbing hold of some of the feathers which encircle the creature’s long vulture neck and pulling them off, bringing forth a loud bird scream which reverberates around the walls of the arena and bring forth a great cheering from the crowd. In her movements, her morningstar falls to the wayside, tumbling and bouncing upon the ground, leaving her with only her gauntlet-clad and naked hand to fell the thing.
Kazza reaches up, her face contorted into a visage of rage and intent, her hands at the ready. She wraps both of them around the naked neck of the foul thing, squeezing them tight. She lets go of the long buzzard neck, wrapping her arms around it in a vice-like grip, bending her body and twisting the neck of the beast until a great loud snap is heard, reverberating through the air and through the dust cloud thrown up by the writhing thing. It crumples to the ground, and Kazza slowly gets to her feet, the dust settling until she is revealed, standing alone above the unmoving corpse of the vulture-thing.
The jeering apelike crowd screeches and applauds the victory of the scarred warrior, a raucous and vicious applause, quieted by the sudden standing of the shadowy figure from his throne. Breathing heavily, Kazza gazes up at the dark figure, looming and lanky, her shoulders rising and falling, her chest rising and falling in tandem with her breaths. Her brows furrow, and her hand clenches on the morningstar in her hand. Her eyes scan the booth, looking over the two dessicated and mummified things that flank the imposing figure’s side. She knows who it is. Pouncing with rapid speed, Kazza dashes forward and clambers up the short stone wall of the arena, clinging to the smallest of nooks and crannies and sending a sound of surprised shock through the whole of the crowd. The shadowy figure, their robes flapping in the cold wind, moves not at all.
Feeling a shivering pain crawl, like a venomous asp, down her arms and into her torso, Kazza begins to shake violently, seeing an unnatural blue glow engulf her while a terrible white light blinds her eyes. The crowd rejoices once again, as the warrior woman hits the dusty ground. When her eyes open again, she sees the glints of the jeweled eyes of the shadowy figure. Pushing through the pain, she attempts to clamber up the wall, but only manages to pull herself about an inch before collapsing to the dusty ground below, writhing about as she is engulfed by the horrid blue lightning that shoots from the empty eye sockets of the wizened things flanking the looming shadowy figure. She goes unconscious, her eyes staring straight up as two goons pick her up and carry her back to her cage.
“So, looks like the electro-wizards really did ya a number, huh?” the bearded old man says through the bars of his cage as Kazza wakes up. “You’ve been out for about a day and a half now, just look down there,” he points to the floor beneath Kazza’s iron cage, where a short pile of uneaten plates of food belies the time she spent completely unconscious.
“Yes, truly. You said they are electro-wizards?”
“Yup, they sure are! They’re the main reason why nobody has ever succeeded in escaping; none of us can handle the blue lightning they spew! Almost as paralyzing as some of the slop they serve around here, hah!”
Her eyes look down to the floor for a moment and then back to the door. “I think I’ve seen that dark looming figure before.”
Though his eyes are hidden behind the metal grate of his helmet, Ratavin’s reaction is revealed through the tone of his voice, “Oh, is that the truth?”
“Yes, yes it is. They are the foul villain which stole me in my youth and kept me in the terrible black walls of that far-off city, forcing me to do… to do such things,” her eyes stare off into the distance for a moment, lost in thought and recollection, but Ratavin snaps his fingers together to get her attention.
“My good friend, my fellow adventurer, my sincere apologies but I find it very unlikely that the master of this arena is the very same foul warlord that lords over the evil city of Killopolis. Why would they be so far west from that city? Why are they without their terrible mount or their gauntlet?”
Kazza retorts, “I know not, truly I know not. But I just… I have this feeling, surely you know and understand.”
“Ahh, yes… a feeling.”
“Mock me not, fool and coward! If you will not agree, then I shall take action into mine own hands,” Kazza yells, her eyes watering just slightly.
“No no, I did not intend to mock thee! Well, do tell what your exact plan is, good friend Kazza of the horrid city.”
“I’m… I’m not entirely certain. I’ve no clue how to resist those dessicated electro-wizards and their lightning sorceries, though I am sure that there is some way to do so.”
“I too hope very intently… Well, seeing as the sun is low in the sky, my friend, I bid you good night’s sleep. I have a fight tomorrow, and I hope to have the strength to survive in my growing age.”
Kazza’s eyes look through Ratavin’s metal grating, and a small smile lights upon her face, “I give you all of my good wishes and hope in the upcoming fight, beloved Ratavin of Rorke.”
The two warriors turn over in their cages, slipping into a slow and slumbering sleep as the moon rises high overhead, its light pouring in like a thick syrupy mass. Kazza’s muscular form writhes to and fro in the uncomfortable cage, trying to find a more acceptable position to sleep in, before her ears catch something said in the hall outside.
“Do you have the main ingredient, Yar? I said the main ingredient, you know, the frogs the frogs! Oh, thank the ruby-eyed overlord that you did have it, I was worried for a second, good thing.”
Her furrowed eyebrows scrunch together above her confused eyes, uncertain as to what the chef in the hall meant by ‘main ingredient’. Surely, it was a chef, she thinks to herself, her mind wandering back over the past days she has spent in this place. But she does not dwell on it too much, her thoughts slowly becoming clouded by tiredness, as she curls up in the cold bottom of her cage.
When she awakes the next morning, Ratavin is gone. She can hear the sounds of pitched battle above, but has no image to pair it with. Sliding and thrashing, stomping and screeching, and the horrid simian hooting and howling of the crowd can be heard, albeit muffled by the dirt and stone. She feels something… worry? She can’t be certain. A creaking croak is heard in the echoing hall beyond the room, as a small blue frog hops down the corridor, chased by a pallid grey goon.
Hours later, Ratavin is dragged into the chamber, leaving a trail of thick crimson blood on the dusty ground behind him. Kazza leans forward, clutching at the iron bars of her hanging cage, her eyes wide in fear, her long reddish hair hanging down long and low in front of her round face. The giggling grey goon that brought him in locks the cage and departs, leaving Ratavin’s mangled body behind in the swinging cage. His left arm is gone, and as is his right leg. His beard is caked with blood and phlegm, sticking to the bars on his mask-grate as the shallow breathing of his heavy lungs echo hollow out his helmet.
“By the chthonic gods, what happened to you, Ratavin?” Kazza shouts out, leaning in to get closer to her companion.
“It was a… a big worm. A big worm with a small rider, and only one great big eye. I guess they were trying to mock me, what with my one eye and all…” a wet cough cuts him off, before he continues, Kazza’s attention wholly on him, “I had to cut it to bits, really to bits. Every little section would just keep on wriggling, just keep on wriggling and wiggling and writhing about. Its blood, oh by the stars its blood was horrible. Its sheen and shine… it was just like the old piles of gold… the piles of gold that I once held so dear, before it was all taken away from me… The horrible worm’s teeth bit off my leg, but it was the thing’s blood that took my arm. Look at how the stump, oh foul demon, the stump, the stump, look at how it is cauterized. Oh by the chthonic evil gods… I can live no longer, no without my arm and my leg… I already lost my eye, oh foul things! I already lost my eye… What more can I lose, honest and true?”
Kazza reaches out a strong and comforting hand to gingerly touch Ratavin, her eyes gazing deep past his grating and at his hidden face. “It will be okay, oh glorious Ratavin. You have done so much… so much with your life. You are a great warrior, who has bested the most heinous of things! You will make it through this, and you will see your great piles of gold and silver, of dirhams and drachmae once again!”
“Truly? Honest and truly?”
“Yes, truly. Yes, honest and truly.” A soft smile lights upon Kazza’s scarred face.
“Thank you… Oh thank you so greatly, Kazza of the evil city. Your home does not reflect upon you… Have you made progress in your plans against the ruby-eyed overlord?”
She blushes softly and somewhat embarrassedly, answering “Y-yes… I think there’s something in the food. I’ve been seeing frogs with the chefs, and I heard one of those grey pallid things talking about a ‘main ingredient’ that was being brought in.”
“The blue frogs?” Ratavin asks, clutching at the stump of his leg.
“Yes, the blue frogs. You have seen them too?”
“Yes, I have seen them. Never thought we were eating them though… Those chefs must really be good, if they got it to taste like chicken so much.”
“Wait, you thought the meat tasted like chicken?”
“Well yes, of course! What else could it taste like?”
Kazza’s eyebrow raises in slight confusion, “Why, of course it tasted like crocodile.”
“Huh… perhaps crocodile and chicken taste very similar. I guess there must be more crocodiles in the fens and moors around Killopolis than there are chickens.”
“Yes… Well, I believe that those little frogs have some modicum of poison in them, which is weakening us. I have never encountered a dead sorcerer with such power as those dessicated fiends out there… Additionally, have you ever noticed that the ruby-eyed shadowy thing never uses any sort of enchantment or sorcery on us? I doubt that they even know any magic.”
Ratavin sounds impressed, but inquires further, “Wow, incredible! In my months of being here, I never made any such connection. Are you sure you got caught in that forest weeks ago? You seem so much cleverer than you were then. Well, needless to say, what is the significance of this discovery?”
Kazza beams, proud of this declaration, “I haven’t eaten anything in three days!”
Ratavin’s helmeted head turns down to see the pile of plates laden with disgusting mash and fried flesh, looking back up at Kazza and asking, with concern in his face, “Uh… Impressive, but uhm… Surely you are weak after such a long period without any food?”
“Oh yes, yes! But, no need to worry. I only need to win one more bout.”
“I see, I see. Well, what remains of my strength is with you in your next fight… If you don’t win this one, I’m sure to become tiger food before long!” He trails off into nervous laughter, leaving Kazza to dwell on her plans for the upcoming confrontation.
The very next day, Kazza of the far-off demoniacal city of Killopolis is dragged forth from her room with Ratavin of Rorke, laid before the great granite gate, and pushed forward onto the dusty arena before her, the sun almost at its zenith. She picks up a morningstar with a long handle, readying herself for the confrontation before her, her ears blocking out the baboon screeching of the crowds which surround her. Out of the gate before her emerges three figures, each clad in black iron armor that shines in the noontime sun, their helmets carved and sculpted into the most grotesque and goblinesque of forms, two of them astride the backs of tall camels and wielding long halberds, while the third wields two swords. Holding her morningstar in both hands, Kazza waits for the signal to begin, commenced by the striding forward of the ruby-eyed shadowy figure toward the front of his booth, holding his black claw out as the sun passes its greatest height, leaving the then-silent crowd to burst into loud chatter and cheer as the warrior woman of Killopolis charges for the three rival warriors.
Metal clashes against metal, leaving dents on the shimmering black armor of the camel-riders, the slicing slashes of the halberdiers drawing thin lines of blood from the wide scarred shoulders of the warrior woman Kazza. She reaches up and clutches at her sliced shoulder, swinging her morningstar around as the camels encircle closer. She knocks one off of its feet, throwing its heavily armored rider onto the ground. Rushing over there, she stomps on the warrior’s head, and slams on it with her morningstar mace, smashing his head into a red pulp, to the cheers of the crowd. The camel attempts to get to its feet, but struggles, its legs half-broken from the heavy hit of the morningstar.
The other two warriors, one with a long wrought iron nose that juts out from his face like a ragged carrot, the other with a face seemingly modeled off of that of a lizard or a crocodile, rush for Kazza, holding their blades out between them in an attempt to slice her down, but she jumps up and over them, quickly turning around to see them turn around, the long-nosed camel-rider holding out their halberd low to the ground to slash her ankles and leave her unable to move. Shouting over to them, Kazza invokes their fear and need for liberation, “Stop this, stop fighting me, I have something that will help the both of us!” She readies her morningstar, sliding out of the way of the long halberd and smashing it in twain with a single swipe of the bludgeon.
She rushes over to the sword-wielding lizard-masked warrior, ignoring the loud laughter of the mocking crowds as they chuckle at her invocation of peace, engaging in direct melee, blocking swipe after swipe of the twin swords, while trying to get the point across to the person behind the long reptilian snout. “Please, just stop, help me do this. We can kill the ruby-eyed overlord, and we can do it with ease. Just listen to me.”
The lizard-warrior pushes Kazza away with their blades, before coming back in to block an attempted blow by the Killopolitan’s morningstar. “What makes me think that I should listen to you, eh? You’re my enemy in this arena.”
“I might be your enemy now, but won’t it help us both to kill that shadowy overlord now? Won’t it free us both?”
“I suppose… but nobody has ever been able to do - Watch out!”
The camel-riding halberdier, their long metal nose bouncing with the heavy steps of their mount, rushes toward the two, their ragged shattered stick at the ready before them, but is only hit by the flat end of it, falling to the ground and flailing out, grabbing at the halberdier’s humped mount and pulling it down to the ground. The warrior falls off of the camel, and Kazza feebly attempts to clamber onto it, coughing as the beast gets to its feet, being beaten at by the long-nosed halberdier, as the lizard-masked swordsman tries to hold them back. Kazza pushes the camel onward, forcing it to make laps around the arena, getting her ever closer each time to the box of the ruby-eyed overlord. The halberdier throws their ragged stick at her from a distance, knocking the wind out of her and prompting a skirmish between the two warriors, punching and brawling one another in the dust of the center of the pit.
Reaching the short stone wall beneath the shadowy figure’s personal box, Kazza stands atop the hump of the camel and pounces onto the bronze fence, feeling the tingling of the dessicated electro-wizards’ sorcery as she powers through, clambering over the fence and falling to the ebony floor of the overlord’s personal box. She gets to her feet, shivering and quaking from the electricity coursing through her flesh, and lifts up her morningstar, slamming it down on the mummified skulls of the wrinkly electro-wizards, first the one on the left, then the one on the right. She turns to the ruby-eyed overlord, who has gotten to their feet and is cowering behind their throne, as the ancient corpses of the electro-wizards crumple into the ring below and the two warriors remaining just stare up into the booth, leaving the crowd a moment to really parse what is happening.
Striding behind the black throne, the warrior woman Kazza grasps the shadowy hood of the ruby-eyed figure, dragging them out before their throne and pulling off the shroud to reveal the scarred grey face of a shivering weakling, and Kazza’s rising and falling shoulders slump. She whispers, “Oh… It isn’t him…” Turning around, she sees the terrified faces of the crowd for the first time, a collective sea of anxiety and fear, and looking down she sees the hopeful eyes of the warriors in the ring. She lifts up her morningstar and brings it down, crumpling the skull of the former overlord beneath its metallic weight and splattering the ebony flooring, the red and black silks, and her own round face with the blood of the foul arena-owner. She leans down and pockets the rubies that had once been the figure’s eyes, and tears the keyring off of the overlord’s cloak, coming over to the bronze railing and tossing it down to the swordsman and the halberdier. “Do what you will, for you are now free.” The crowd panics and rushes for the gates to the arena, as the two warriors giddily run to the great granite gates and force them open, pushing their way through the goons and chefs to unlock the cages of their fellow warriors and the beasts held even deeper within.
Ratavin of Rorke, holding his heavy body up with a long walking stick that is serving as a crutch, turns around and sees the city and the foul dark arena burning, the screeching of the once entertained rich, and the calls of the terrible birds and beasts and serpents and worms that had now been released. It is now late in the night, but there are no stars in the sky, and even the light of the moon is nothing in comparison to the light of the city’s flames. He turns back toward the path ahead of him, striding forward on one foot, hoping to begin anew what he had lost before.
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