Tomorrow I face Tarsus, a tiger savage from the depths of the Lefirian jungle. They say he paints his face with purple juices of the
berries of the Yaya bush before battle, a plant sacred to his tribe, and that the curves and swathes and whorls combine with his
stripes to loan him a mask both fearsome and hypnotic.
I don't have much of a ritual myself. I light a candle, tell my murdered wife I love her, then prick my paw and let the blood put out the
flame.
My father told me long ago that cowardice is a disease of the blood, that fear is like sepsis. Acceptance that finishing a day alive
is something to be proud of and that tomorrow you might not is the only cure.
My station among the slave fighters is very high now, they've given me a grand suite high within the Emperor's palace. A cool sea breeze
slips through diaphonous silken curtains with a whisper. I sit on a bed of velvet and goosedown fit for a lord and pant, stare down at the
dark glint of my sword, the blade sharp, silent and lethal across my lap.
Am I going to die?
I eye the wine on the nightstand, reach for it, catch a glimpse of myself in full length mirror framed by gold flecked ivory. Without my
armor I look thin, almost gaunt.
"Water," I whisper, my lip half curling into a snarl. The match is grossly unfair. I'm a fox, he's four times my weight and his reach is at
least that. The tiger favors a spear. If I have any hope of surviving I have to have a clear mind.
It's cool and soothing, tastes slightly metallic from the silver decanter. I soak a cloth, wipe myself down. Then I say goodbye to my wife
and pick up my dagger.
Sizzle. Smoke. Darkness and the salt of the sea. I think I won't be able to sleep yet as soon as my head hits the silken pillow-
-
The jackal god on the throne of gilt bones sits as he always does, imperious and wrapped in a burgundy robe of crushed velvet the color of
old blood, claws aglitter with platinum rings, gaze a glowing green like the ruined, radioactive cities that fell in the Fall.
I know his true name is Death, yet in my dreams he calls himself Shadow.
I get on my knees, press my forehead to the floor with ears flat back in abject submission. The hall we're in has no dimension, it's a
voluminous darkness endless.
"Are you ready?" he asks.
I rise slowly. "No, of course not. Never."
It's the answer I give him every time, and every time, just like now, he merely shrugs. "Do your best."
Sometimes...very seldom, of course, he has something else to say. I wait.
This time though, when I thought I might need it most...there's nothing. Nothing at all.
-
I step into the sweltering center of the colisseum and into a thunderous roar of shouts and screams. It's high noon, as it always is in a
champion's match, and the air is a surreal shimmer over shallow white sands that here and there, though raked well, reveal old blood stains
that have faded to the color of rust.
Confetti swirls down through the blistering heat in multicolored, spiraling sparkles. Forty thousand people are in the stands and vendors
move among them, flag poles strapped to their backs as they hawk buttered popcorn, fried sausages, cold drinks.
And there, before me, the Emperor's pavilion, a silken palace, wreathed in cool artificial mist, a legion of servants fanning a crush of
the rich and Old World nobles with brightly colored fans and palm fronds.
"Today, my friends," the announcer's voice booming from a megaphone that seems to shake the ancient stones, "We witness a battle between
legends. At the Eastern Gate we have disgraced Centurion Fyrian Wesros, a swift fox of dark reknown who surrendered the fortress of Cypress
to a barbarian horde."
A withering storm of boos, true, yet there were some cheers too. I had done that to save my troops, the situation was hopeless, I-
It doesn't matter. Almost no one in the stands would ever understand. The high command had needed a scape goat. How to hold a fort with
a garrison of five hundred against twenty thousand?
"And at the Western Gate..."
The announcer paused for dramatic effect. He was an enormously fat badger, his face thick with make up and glitter, and his tent like robe
of many colors fluttered in the breeze like the sail of a ship at sea. As the crowd grew silent he raised his paws up slowly, as if
beseeching the gods themselves, and then all that could be heard was the grim grind of chains biting the teeth of ancient cogs as the
porticullus opposite me began to rise.
An eternity later, from the shadows of that marbled maw, stepped Tarsus.
"Tiger Emperor," the badger boomed, "Jungle God, Native Lord of the Last Frontier!"
The applause shook the earth, I felt it through my sandals, felt the sonic crash shiver through my hackles, felt the psychic electricity
as tens of thousands cheered for his victory and...
Lusted for my death.
The great cat's eyes locked with mine, shined golden and determined. His war paint was indeed everything it had been rumoroured to be,
a crush of curves and mazed striations that were awe inspiring and dizzying. Despite that my gaze didn't miss what was more disturbing
still.
The tiger was covered in scars.
-
I don't think that many realize how precious a single moment can be, how when a vixen gives a dog fox a flower a life can change, how
much one knows what one had until it's lost forever. You read it over and over in writings like these, veterans come back from war missing
a paw, an eye, both legs and speak it from their hearts, yet...
Life is a strange creature, part angel that promises bliss in the warmth of summer, part crocodile all scales and teeth, thirsting for
blood and the break of bone its brain a lizard and its heart colder than winter.
-
Tarsus approaches warily, which to those watching seems ridiculous. He towers over me, he could impale me on his spear with a flick of one
massive wrist, or so it seems, yet if he misses he and I both know my long sword will open his throat.
Gladiators call that Stand Strategy. Often we suffer distractions when we don't do what the crowd likes, they hurl food and insults and
excrement. Many have placed bets, and emotions run high. Some idiots even bet everything.
So it happened to him. He was so much larger than I, and his caution was read by the audience as cowardice. A chant began as a rotten
tomato exploded against his buckler in a wet, red welter.
"Kill the fox! Kill the fox! Kill the fox!"
He leapt with a roar, his spear scything in a slash that swept in a blur through the air with a sinister swish meant to sever my head.
It's haft was steel, and without thinking I met it with the dagger in my left paw. The blade was torn from grasp, spun away.
He spins on his heel with a snarl, the point of his spear stabbing forward with the speed of a serpent's tongue. It slips past my desperate
riposte, sinks into my shoulder. Suddenly my chest is soaked in my blood.
The blade is barbed, when he rips it out and jumps back with feline grace I almost faint.
The crowd goes crazy. The badger announcer orders the cannons to fire, and of a sudden the two of us once again stand in a blizzard of
glittering confetti. I'm vaguely aware of the emperor on his feet, clapping wildly, the nobles all raising toasts. Tarsus was heavily
favored and they've all made fortunes.
Tarsus looks sad as he raises his spear for the kill. "I'm sorry, fox. I have a wife, a son. I have to win the Gladius of Gold. I have to
get home. You were an honorable foe."
Throwing a sword isn't like throwing a knife, not at all.
Epic applause. Tarsus tried to pull it out of his throat yet he failed in the end, collapsed onto the sand. I heard his heart stop
and I howled my hatred for them all, yet no one heard. He drowned in his own blood and a part of me died with him.