Ch 33

Bah-Bah-Buhm-Bah-Bah-Bum-Bah-Bah-Buhm-Bah-Bah-Bum-Bah-Bah-Buhm-Bah-Bah-Bum

The sounds of the drums beating rhythmically filled my ears as the gate grated open once again. After spending the previous day training with Lilly, I had rested and then it was time to fight once more.

            This time I strolled casually into the arena, Lilly had told me that exuding confidence upon entry could unnerve my opponent and cause them to make mistakes that they wouldn’t otherwise make. I gaze across the hard-packed dirt towards my opponent. There was a lizard-person coming towards me with a crested head and red eyes with ridged moss green scales. They were wearing a loose leather shirt and cloth pants and carrying a long spear that would give them quite the advantage of reach over me. There were three fingers and a thumb on the hands and three large toes on the feet. Beyond all this, something about them, maybe the way they moved or held themselves, but I was getting the feeling that this opponent was a woman. Great.

            I was still not too happy about having to fight people in the arena but being a slave, I had no choice. Having to fight a woman however, that was something I was not prepared for. I am no chauvinist, but some things are ingrained rather deeply. As we approached the center of the arena, she lowered her spear towards me and began to circle. I kept my daggers in front of me in a cross shape so that I could push the spear thrust where I wanted it as she attacked.

            Circling clockwise we faced each other. I tried to look into her eyes and communicate but she either did not want to make eye contact or perhaps her eyes had simply gone dead from the trauma that she had experienced as a slave. Her body moved with mechanical motion, thrusting the spear forward towards my chest. Pushing my daggers up and to the right I brought the point of her spear over my shoulder to prevent it from piercing me. No sooner had the attack been deflected before she twisted the spear in her grip and pulled it back again.

            She began stabbing it forward again and again in rapid succession, never giving me a moment to recover or to move closer to her so that I could make a counterattack. This chick is seriously going to be a pain in the neck, not only do I not want to hurt her, but she is also fighting with the practice of someone who had no other reason to live. She did not fight to stay alive; she was merely alive because the fights had not killed her yet.

            After several thrusts she suddenly changed tactics, whipping the spear through the air and then bringing it back at a slanted angle, trying to sweep my ankles with the bladed head. Seeing it coming but not reacting in time I had to jump back in order to avoid taking any damage. This was a bad move because I missed the landing and had to use some of the tumbling that Lilly had taught me to get back to my feet before the spear head was again thrust towards me.

            After this she began repeating the maneuver, alternating between targeting my ankles and my chest, forcing me to jump and dance around the arena trying to avoid the spear that seemed never to get tired. Minutes passed and I was dripping sweat. The crowd was jeering openly now, wanting bloodshed and being very upset that the match was taking so long without anyone getting injured. Sweat stings my eyes but I can’t take a moment to wipe my brow because if I do, she will take advantage of the momentary opening and run me through with that damned spear.

            My movements are starting to slow down, if I don’t change tactics soon then this fight is as good as lost. I have been jumping around and rolling and tumbling all to avoid her attacks while she merely circled and advanced and thrust and swept the spear again and again. I had a feeling that my stamina was wearing down much faster than hers, but it was hard to tell. Whether because she had reptilian features which were hard for me to read but unless she started panting or something obvious, I had no way to know if she was feeling the exertion. I was not going to be able to win this one on stamina in any event.

            Lost in my thoughts I was a half-step slow in moving to the side and her spear pierced through my leg, right into my upper thigh. Screaming in pain I dropped the dagger from my left hand and grabbed the haft, pinning it in place. She jerked it and struggled but couldn’t get it free. My vision was showing a red haze and I could barely think for all the pain going through me, but I had hold of her weapon and now she couldn’t attack me anymore. I see her glance at the dagger I dropped a couple of times and then she lets go of the spear and falls to her knees by me, trying to reach the dagger.

            My arm starts moving. My right arm primed to strike from the moment the spear entered my leg was moving on its own. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t think. All I knew was that the cause of the pain I was feeling was coming towards me. She reached the dagger just as my dagger fell into her. It struck her in the shoulder from the top going directly into the joint. Her fingers which had started closing on the handle of the dagger went slack as her other arm punched forward striking my face with the palm. By the time my head cleared she was several paces back and holding the dagger that I had left in her shoulder when she had struck me.

            With a grunt of pain and a rather copious squirting of blood I pulled the spear from my thing and dropped it, allowing myself to fall to my knees. I knew it looked as if I was falling because I was weak from blood loss but in truth, I was just exhausted. I had been fighting for several minutes straight and was too exhausted to stand. It wouldn’t matter, my reptilian opponent would soon be closing the distance between us. I had no doubt that she would not stop until the fight was over. As she started picking up speed moving towards me I silently cursed God once again for putting me in a situation where I had to do things that in my previous life would have been altogether unthinkable… and then I raised the spear just in time for her running form to push itself onto the blade of it.

            At last, she finally had some emotion in her eyes, some expression on her face. There in her last moments she looked surprised as if she could not believe someone had finally killed her, then she smiled just for a moment and fell limp. I retrieved my daggers and limped out of the arena to look for some bandages. I felt sick to my stomach over what I had done and more than ever I hated Silvan and the God that had landed me in this fucked up world that allowed people to be owned like animals.

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