Consors Imperiatrix: Sanguis et Arena

Ch. 1 Regina et Captivi

The clash of steel upon steel rang across the Coliseum, rising in clamorous peals like the shrieking of iron-throated raptors. Chimes and echoes of the dancing, flickering blades deafened those grizzled warriors whose desperate hands held them, muffled by the heavy, ring-grilled, animal stylized helmets they wore over desperate, frenzied faces. Fish battled with Wolf in a furious brawl that expressed no romantic sentiments such as honor, tactics, or strategy. This was a fight for one purpose: survival, or more specifically, to kill.

Roars and screams of the crowd rang down from the high-seated bleachers of the arena, at least fifty feet up from the blood-soaked sand floor the two men competed upon. Chains ran from their wrists, ankles, and throats, attached to heavy iron collars and manacles, which tore up the ground behind them as they closed and retreated again and again. Wolf was not faring well, trident and short sword flagging in weary, injured arms. Like hungry vultures circling, the audience's eager attention only grew by the second as they awaited the climax of this recent round.

Any second now, Fish would go in for the kill. Yet, even as hooked-axe raised for the final blow, having kicked Wolf's guard open wide, a sudden jerk of the chain attached to him caused the gladiator to stumble back and nearly fall. He gagged and choked as he tried to get his balance back, desperately shielding himself with his buckler from possible retaliation from the recovering Wolf. Thankfully for his sake, his opponent was just barely getting to his feet as well. The chains holding Fish went slack and he darted forward again, unable to spare a thought as to the cruelty of such an unfair battle, drawn out and lengthened all for the grim, sadistic amusement of the one man truly there to gleefully spectate men like he and his companion do battle, and die for the enjoyment of others.

All of this was observed by the dull, impassionate eyes of the one who orchestrated the entire affair. Emperor Nero Julius Dominius lounged back in his gaudy marble throne, draped across its fur-padded arms without a care in the world, toga and robes spread out along his tanned-skinned limbs. Hungry light shone in those dispassionate orbs from behind his rakishly long head of dark hair, held back from his face only by a golden laurel crown. His eyes were black and void of anything close to humanly compassion as he watched the worms below struggle and writhe at his behest. This round was not the most exciting and was beginning to drag on. Even so. Best to make one's own entertainment.

Signaling with a heavily bejeweled hand, Nero flashed a single look at one of the arena coordinator nearby. The heavy-robed man, newly come to his position and eager to keep it, needed but that one glance before he called out in a foreign tongue to the men down in the pit. Not the fighters, but the servants standing in readiness with cloth-wrapped hands holding onto the chains as they had before. They hauled hard on the iron links, jerking Wolf who had just knocked Fish's axe to the ground and was rearing back for the final stroke with his trident.

This time it was the wolf-helmed brawler to go down, dragged entirely off his feet and landing sprawled on his sweat-soaked back in the sand. The crowd howled in joy as he frantically tried to get back up to his feet just as his opponent had done before. He had no say in anything else but how long he would suffer. Neither did Fish.

Yawning, Nero glanced down at the servant woman kneeling before his throne. She had her head buried in his lap, attending to his carnal needs which were rapidly diminishing due to his ever rising boredom. Even if he could feel her sodden cheeks and less than enthusiastic attitude, graced as she should have felt at being able to personally attend him, she hadn't been doing that badly. Still, her technique was lackluster and he was not one to allow for anything less than perfection. It wasn't his fault he'd lost the mood after all. He was Emperor, and thus he was Godlike. Grabbing a handhold of the woman's dark hair, the man jerked her mouth off of his bare flesh, then idly kicked her away.