Alessia Angelo - Gladiatrix I

NORTHERN ROMAN REPUBLIC. MEDITERRANEAN COAST. CIRCA 80 BC.

No-one had warned her about the dust. Though a welcome breeze rolled off the sea down in the harbour in fits and starts, here up on the hill, in the dry sand of the fighting rings, every step kicked up a choking plume of sand and grit and dirt.

Still, she was one of the lucky ones. She’d accepted the work willingly, if not exactly happily, and so her wrists weren’t bound by the harsh leather strips that cut into the skin. At least she could take a drink when she needed to. Most of the others she marched here with had been forced to kneel, if they hadn’t had their throats cut or fled.

Looking back now, she wasn’t even sure why they’d tried to rebel. A loose mix of Gauls, Celts and Romans, rubbing shoulders in a nothing-special frontier town in the shadow of the Alps, getting drunk and getting ideas. And after far too many ales, her best friend, Ava, a wild Celt from Britannia with a woad-painted face and loose morals, was the first one to suggest they could throw off the Republic’s yoke. Their rulers had sacked and occupied the town only a generation ago. Patrols were small. Was it loyalty? Pride in their town? Anger? Drunkenness? A confused mix of all four, most likely. And the loose self control led to loose tongues, and sooner rather than later, the magistrates had kicked the door of their favourite inn down, and the soldiers came pouring in.

Some fifty conspirators there had been by then - in the loosest definition. Some were just there to drink and enjoy the talk, some weren’t old enough to know better. Only a few were true believers. But that didn’t matter, in the end. A few of them tried to stand up and fight, and got spears in their bellies for their trouble. Ava had fared a little better, knocking one soldier clean on his back, but the last Alessia saw of her was her being forced to the ground under three more.

Others, like Alessia, were picked to be scapegoated as ringleaders, and marched off. Most were executed over the next few days, on the gleaming marble of the town square. Others were pulled out of line by a gladiator-trainer, Lucius (greasy, with eyes like a pig’s and a voice to match), and forced to march with him. But when it was her turn, before they took her to the scaffold, Lucius had glanced at her muscles, and the fire in her eyes. And he’d laughed - a high-pitched, squealing thing, something she’d become familiar with by now, and commented that a woman like herself would make unusual entertainment. Gaulish, but with Roman ancestry, and good with a blade. Unlike the others, he let her choose. Die here and now, choking on the garrotte while her friends watched? Or march off to die in front of a screaming crowd of strangers, miles away and years later?

Wasn’t much of a choice, was it? But at least in theory, it meant she was free. Until her ‘debt to the Republic’ was paid - as judged by that same republic, of course.

Which is how they marched down here, thirteen of them, Lucius’ school of fighters, under the watch and whip of his six hired guards. Her old life was dead, they told her. She was a gladiatrix now.

Several days of travel had led them here, to a port town on the northern Mediterranean coast. She couldn’t remember its name. It wasn’t large, but a decent enough fleet of fishing ships and the occasional trading vessel bobbed in the harbour, and what shops and inns there were seemed to be respectable and honest, at least. Not that she’d done more than seen them from the temporary palisade on top of a nearby hill, where Lucius’ fighters were held.

From what she gathered listening in on the guards’ conversations, they were here to fight in the funerary games of some local rich boy, looking to honour his dead father. A respectable way to conduct the funeral, and a nice way to improve his reputation - and make everyone forget he’d been caught with a fishmonger’s wife last summer. She would’ve spat on the ground in disgust, if her mouth wasn’t so godsdamned dry.

MY FIGHTERS!

A familiar screeching voice cuts through her thoughts, bringing her back to the present where she squats in the shade of the wooden wall. She looks up, squinting through the heat-haze of the midday sun, to see Lucius marching into the middle ring - followed by a blonde young man, a woman she presumed was his sister, and two burly bodyguards.

ON YOUR FEET! ASSEMBLE!

Reluctantly, she drags herself up, to form up in a half-circle outside the ring.

May I introduce you all to our generous and kind employer here, Tulius Martial.

The blonde boy - barely nineteen, she thinks - steps forwards. A few of the other gladiators reflexively bow, and the crack of a whip behind them makes Alessia and the rest join in. Tulius has a wide smirk on his face. Alessia, for a half-second, wonders what his fine clothes would look like with his belly cut open.

Lucius tells me you’ve been training for a week now.

That was true - plus every night on the march down. And some had been with him longer. He took pride in his 'merchandise', he said.

Good. My dear late father was a great man, and deserved honouring. The games will be in the town square tomorrow, when the sun is at its height, once the funerary rituals are complete.

Great. She’d be sweating through her armour even before she got fighting.

Lucius cut back in. Now, Tulius here has been sadly impoverished by the cost of said rituals, and could not afford the fee for any of you dying. So the fights will be six of you, two pairs of three, each to first blood. Equipped as you have trained. The rest will be attendants. Clear?

A few of the others sigh with relief. Alessia just keeps her stare on Tulius, and wonders if the sister is ever going to say anything. She seems to mostly be there to weep on her brother’s behalf, and make them both look like they’re mourning properly, and not thinking about the inheritance coming their way. She smirks for half a second, which is perhaps why he picks her out of the crowd.

I want to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth. So you! His finger points squarely at her. Here. Now.

Her eyes flick to Lucius, but he just nods, so she steps forward into the ring. He turns to Tulius.

Ah, excellent choice. This here is Alessia. One of my newest. Most promising with any blade, she can-

Tulius holds out a hand, Lucius obediently shuts up. His finger beckons, and before Alessia knows it, one of the bodyguards whips out a knife and rushes her.

Time slows. Instincts kick in. Size difference - he’s taller, heavier, brawnier. Armed, of course, and she isn’t - they practice with simply-carved wooden weapons, the real things are kept under careful watch in a locked chest. Scars on the shoulders show he isn’t just for show, either. So as he closes, three steps away, two, she just holds her ground and watches.

One step… and he commits. His arm pulls down and back, and he’s going for a strike up into her ribs. Too late to change now, so his eyes just widen in surprise as Alessia reads the movement and drops below it, the knife whistling through empty air. Then her front leg connects with his back one, overbalancing, putting far too much force in the thrust, and the wind is forced out of him as he’s slammed backwards to the floor.

Alessia rolls through the drop back to her feet, with a gasp from the sister and a small nod of approval from Lucius. No time to stop, though, and as the big man gulps for breath she stamps down hard on his wrist. Hobnailed sandal meets flesh and bone with a crunch and a yelp of pain, and his fingers fly open, the knife skittering away across the dusty floor.

Bad luck, it’s towards Tulius’ feet, good luck, Alessia reacts first, and before the boy can kick it away she runs, dives and her fingers tighten around it. The familiar weight of a blade in her hand makes everything feel a little better. She’s back on her feet just as the bodyguard is, and turns to face his lumbering charge - just in time to see him leave his feet. Anger clouds his eyes - he’s going for a flying tackle, knock her off her feet, pin her to the floor. Stupid, she thinks. It’s the work of a second to step to the side and let him go flying by. As he hits the ground for the second time today - nearly flattening his master - she’s on him, one arm grabbing a handful of hair and yanking his head up, the other putting the blade to his throat.

She holds it there for a moment to make her point… then tosses it aside, lets him go and stands up, turning back to her place in the line.

Are you satisfied with your purchase, then?

Most… Most satisfied, indeed. I trust she’ll be fighting tomorrow?

Indeed. I have her in mind to open your entertainments, against another talent - her over there.

Alessia follows his point to a small but strong blonde, on the end of the row. Their eyes lock, and her heart sinks a little. Khloe. She’d been signed up with Lucius since far before he’d taken Alessia, and as she understood it won a tournament in the last town they were in.

Khloe nods back at Alessia, with a smile. At least it was first blood. They’d had some pleasant conversations on the roads - when the guards weren’t listening, and they could get words in in secret. Alessia didn’t want to kill her, not really.

No chance to speak this time, though, as Tulius nods his approval. The Romans retire to talk business and drink wine back outside the camp, and Alessia and the rest of the fighters are whipped back to their makeshift tents under the walls. Night sets quickly, and alone in her tiny canvas, barely big enough to lie in, she has plenty of time to think. Blood and shouts and jeers and sweat tomorrow, but tonight, only the sounds of the turtle-doves in the olive trees.

Khloe Cox.

Really, I’m glad you answered the challenge. You’re a veteran of this company. Even if you don’t always get given the respect you deserve, you’re strong, tenacious. You keep showing up. And finally, your efforts have been recognised, with a shining new title around your waist.

Who better to begin my rise against?

I’m sure you’ll have plenty to prove. You’ll want to show Xavier Lux your win was no accident. You’ll want to show why you deserve to have that belt around your waist, why you’re just as good as Hernandez and O’Donnell and Warthog were - are. You’ll be fighting with a fire at your back.

But Khloe, my friend… it’ll be nothing compared to mine.

I know how talented you are. I know you’re a clever fighter. And I wouldn’t want anyone else for the first step of my redemption. Nothing easy, no simple matches. So like I say… I’m glad it’s you.

After all, next month, it’ll be a year since my first match on Fury. In that time, with my partner by my side, we’ve toppled legends. The Malvados. Peter Vaughn and JMont. Certified veterans of this company. But everyone still says, I’m just being carried along.

When I stepped into the ring alone, against 999, against Jeremy the Wicked… I lost.

I can’t say there isn’t a small part of me that’s started to believe it.

You know the feeling, don’t you? For so long you were always second place. Always good, but not quite good enough. But while you’re fighting just to make your reign look legitimate… I’m fighting for my soul.

I’m fighting to prove that I’m just as good as I know deep in my heart I am. That Ava knows I am.

I’ve been training. Non-stop. I’m carrying Ava’s name on my shoulders while she’s out, so I’ve been working as hard as both of us combined. And if you measure that motivation, that drive, that fire, against yours… if you ask yourself honestly, Khloe, in the depths of pain, when both of our knuckles are cracked and bleeding, who’s going to give in first?

You know just as well as I do that it’ll be you.

I’m sorry to have to spoil your victory celebrations. I hope you know I wish nothing but success for you. But I’ve got something bigger at stake here, and there’s no room for good feelings.

I hope it’s a good match. I want you to test me, properly. I want everything you’ve got. It’s just that I can tell you now, for sure… it isn’t going to be enough.