GLADIATRIX

The ground shook as their bodies collided in the middle of the pit. The sounds of straining bone and sinew were audible. There eyes were locked on one another but there was question whether they actually saw anything beyond the sweat and blood. They certainly paid no attention to the roar of the throngs of people around them and a roar it was. A deep resonant "HARRUU" rang through the small space. Spittle and ale showered the combatants.

This was why Yrgri didn't like coming to clashes on days when the bulls were not at work. They spit and bellowed and clashed their horns together, becoming one with the warriors in the pit below. It raised the most base inclinations in them. They were too worked up, too engrossed in the brutality to see the beauty. This was why Yrgri came. She reveled in the fighter's grace and power. Their massive muscles swung mammoth arms in lurid arches of flesh.

She came for him, Dryo. He was the one with the long braid. Her gaze traveled over his body. His legs rippled and his feet shifted as he sought purchase in the cold packed earth. His back muscles danced and jumped under the strain of a Kord much larger than him. They were arm in arm like some twisted waltz where the dancers held savage weapons bent on tearing flesh and muscle. She could not help to focus on the other one. This Kord was from the wastelands to the east. He was unkempt and unwashed save being bathed in the tell-tale ochre dye the eastern nomads baptize their criminals in. She actually worried for Dryo for she new that dye held powerful medicines that reacted to violence and if it's enchantments still held fast her champion could find himself flung across the theater floor.

She could see a similar thought come across Dryo's face. He looked down to see the wild Kord's sweat bead into the dyed flesh and soak into it. The wild Kord's eyes ran red as if filling with blood. His tusked jaw clamped down splitting his own lip and Dryo could feel a surge of warms crawl across both their forms still locked in mortal struggle.

Yrgri stood up, as did others paying attention to the two giants intently. A slight look of dread was evident on her bovine features. Her eyes opened even wider and her nostrils flared. Her furred hands gripped the bar before her tightly. A wave of silence wafted through the crowd.

Dryo's expression fell from rage to a deeper tranquility that none would expect of the giant. He dropped the bladed chain and relaxed his arm while keeping a firm grip on his opponent's own weapon arm. The wild Kord took the opportunity and dropped under Dryo's bulk. As Dryo's chest heaved forward the wild Kord shouldered the smaller combatant, lifting him and launching Dryo across the pit. Dryo's form slammed into stout wooden beams. Dust ad grit spewed from it's exposed seams and the Minoi at the railing above stepped back for fear of being spilled into the pit below and trampled by giants. Dryo's form hit the ground with a wet thud. He shook his head and tried to get up. The wild Kord bared down on him with his weapon, a club the height of most Minoi, adorned with iron ties bristling with rusty edges. Dryos spun from his prone position to put his back to the pit wall, narrowly avoiding a swing that would have surely caved his ribs. Tucking his legs under him, Dryos launched himself high in the air grabbing the lip of the wall above. Dryos waited into the wild Kord's eyes found him once again and lunged from his perch onto the giant below. The two scrambled to their feet.

The wild Kord looked around for his club. He found it in the grasp of his opponent and he spit his indignance onto the damp soil. They circled for a bit and the wild one fidgeted with impatience. Dryos was letting him calm down, depleting the giant's strength. Then Dryos swung wild and this long braid flailed through the air, a bright red ribbon trailing behind. The wild Kord's eyes fell upon the ribbon and braid and a cunning sneer danced across his gnarled and pitted lips. He reached out to grab the braid.

Yrgri grinned, her eyes dropped and she gave out a sigh of relief. The crowd, once silent, exploded in a cacophonous cheer. "HARRUU!" they trumpeted. Yrgri nodded at those she walked by. A slight blind bull draped in the blue tunic of a slave walked behind her and collected her winnings from grumbling losers.

Several hours later the slender bull brought the matrician her evening meal. Yrgri thanked him and asked how much he'd collected at the Counting Ring.

"Hogod, please don't take that stance. Do you think me such a monster for my vice?"

"No, matrician. Not a monster. Just common."

Hogod could see that the words dug deep and he winced a little when he said it.

"Matrician, forgive me. I forget my tongue when you ask my opinion."

Yrgri grinned, "Well, my old friend, you will be disappointed that I will have you bring Dyro here."

"Here, Matrician?" He just nodded and when he was well into the kitchen and beyond her scent he gave out a deep sigh. He gathered up his things and headed back to the Counting Ring.

It was dark when Hogod returned. Yrgri heard the bell at the servant's door and her heart leapt in anticipation. When Hogod appeared he could see she had been waiting and gave her a disapproving nod, "your champion has arrive, Matrician."

"Gods be praised, Hogod. I will take him my antechamber." After he left with stooped shoulders she hurried through her halls, her hooves clapping against earthen tile. She first went to her bed chamber and changed to a drape and waited to hear that the doors have been closed in the next room.

She opened the door into her antechamber which she used to relax. There was a hookah in the center like some exotic fountain. Dryo was eyeing it when she slipped in.

"Do you like it? Have you smoked before?"

He stood bolt up, "No, Matrician." His eyes shifted about not knowing where they should land.

"Oh, Dryo, you look so uncomfortable. This does not suit you. I have seen you stride so confidently into the Ring yet here you are an overgrown mouse in my chambers."

His voice resounded moving some of the nearby draperies as he spoke, "This is a wholly different arena, benefactor.

She grinned at this and walked around him letting her fingers run lazily over his muscled form. She is rarely so close to a Kord. He stood two heads taller than her, and she was considered tall for a woman. Her eyes and nostrils widened as she circled behind him and couldn't help but study his furless body, scarred and pocked as it was.

Dryo stiffened at her lingering behind him. He glanced down to see her with her hand at the small of his back and her eyes closed.

"Matrician!" Hogod ran in and guided her through the room. Normally the cow could have bowled him over easily but he caught her by surprise.

"Dryo," she called over her shoulder. "I will be there to see you fight again tomorrow."

Dryo was being shooed out with a confused look on his face. When he was outside they placed a purse in his hand and closed the door. He stood there for a moment uncertain what to do. He stood up straight now that the ceiling did not harry the top of his head. He took in the night air in a deep draw of breath.

"As you do every fight, boss. As you do every night." Dryo met up with his handler up the road. The Minoi cow jangled his chains as he approached. Dryo grinned and bowed to allow her to throw the loose collar over his head. He sifted through the purse to find a few bits of bone, someone's teeth, no doubt. He handed the purse to his handler and they talked of training for the exhibition the next day.

Back in the servants quarters of the matrician's home a young draugr hands Hogod folded laundry she just finished washing.

"what was that all about, old one?" the draugr asked.

Hogod gave out an audible sigh. "You should never speak of such things, girl."

The one large eye that dominated her forhead blinked and she recoiled just a little. She recovered though and retorted "Are you certain you are blind, old man?"

"How else do you think I could see you?" he waited a short bit and continued, "I will take your silence as confusion. What you have yet to understand is that your kind are invisible to my kind. You see, we cannot smell you and what we do not smell is not alive. Some joke of the gods, no doubt, but it's true. That is where your name comes from. It is an ancient term our forefathers forefathers used. It means ghost. The dead that walk the earth."

Her expression changed from confusion to horror and then to a squinty eyed leer. "But if you are blind and you cannot smell me then how do you know who you are talking to?"

"Ah, that is a secret for another time."

"Another time?! So that's two secrets you have tonight?"

Hogod again sighed, something he seems to be doing a lot of recently. He cleared his nostrils.

"Well, you might as well know." He paused, turned and sat on the edge of a sturdy shelf. "Haga." She was surprised when he said her real name and thought she might not ever hear it again. "I think our mistress has some strange attraction to the large hairless one you saw this evening."

Again the girl's confusion was evident on her face but it soon twisted into a look of disgust as the realization of Hogod's words sunk in. "ATRACTED? To a Kord?"

He took a deep breath in relief, "oh, I was afraid I would have to explain that to you as well. yes, haga, attracted to the Kord."

"But can they... well, you know..?"

"No, Haga, they cannot. But you will learn that finding love in this world doesn't always have to deal with that."

"Love?! Did you just say she loved him?" she said a little too loud, unable to hide her surprise.

"No child. Shush. I can not go as far as to say she loved him but I was using general terms. What I mean... well... oh, forget it you impertinent child. You win! It's two secrets tonight! Now go collect water for the evening and get yourself to your bed!" Hogod stomped off leaving Haga holding a handful of underclothes.

The next morning there was a small congregation of slave merchants. Overnight they appeared in trains of misery trailing wailing mothers and slave blood freezing in the northern night wind. These slaves are too new to have known the ugliest leg of their difficult journey. They have been coping with the baking sun and the dry desert sand. Now they face a new kind of hell. Now they feel the clime coursing through their very marrow. Now they see their breath and it haunts them. The north is no place for a slave.