One day Damian's master Marcell said to him, "Tomorrow I shall enter you in single combat with Viper. The woman is insolent to excess. Someone should teach her a lesson or two."
Damian laughed. "Yes, insolent indeed was of her to refuse your bed!"
The master was very vexed. "Let's see how she would fare in your bed, Sogdian! Defeat her in combat, and I will give her to you to use as you please for the whole night."
It should be said that Damian already took fancy in Ashurran. He couldn't say what would please him more, battle of swords with her at day or battle of love at night.
They came into the arena to fight each other. Damian was astonished how skilled the girl was with a sword, and how heavy her hand was in battle. They fought for a long time, striking countless blows on each other, so that their shields were all splintered. There was no way of telling who would win. The spectators grew so excited, they started to make bets, and some of those bets reached a thousand gold coins.
At last Ashurran seemed to grow weary, and not without a reason, as a longsword was too heavy for her hand used to a light and narrow steppe sword. Moreover, Damian was stronger and broader through the shoulders, although they were of the same height. So Damian managed to knock her sword out of her hand and cut her on the forearm.
The same night, as promised, the master took Sogdian to Ashurran's cell. Wounded and unarmed, she was no serious danger. After a short wrestle Damian forced himself on her. But she proved as ardent in bed as he was, and they waged a fierce battle of love through the whole night.
In the morning Damian came out covered in bloody scratches all over, with bite marks on his arms and shoulders.
The gladiators cheered, "You have spent the night with a tigress, it seems!"
"Not a tigress, a viper!" he laughed.
Every week since the master would arrange a single combat between Viper and the Sogdian, and spectators nearly fought with each other for the right to watch the fight. The arena owners even started to sell standing tickets at half-price. Every fight was won by Damian, but spectators made bets nevertheless: how much time the fight would take, in what manner the winner would end it, whether Viper's shield would splinter and so on.
Every night after his victory Damian spent with Ashurran. There was one time she managed to win the fight. She smirked and said to the master,
"I want the same reward my adversary has been getting."
There was nothing else for the master to do than to bring Ashurran to Damian's room. Unabashed, she enticed Damian into bed, and they spent the night in sweet delights of the flesh till the very dawn. Indeed Ashurran was like a tigress in bed, her stamina inexhaustible, her passion insatiable, her embrace fierce.
Meanwhile the big New Year games came, and the arena sand was painted crimson with blood. Gladiators fought to the death, and there were more splintered shields, broken swords and wasted lives than one could possibly count. Warriors died on the arena by the hundreds, cursing in many a tongue the King himself and the bloodthirsty crowd. Beasts roared or howled or died in silence, and their dead eyes kept looking accusingly at humans who turned death into shameless amusement.
Damian the Sogdian fought like an enraged bull, possessed by his dream of regaining freedom. His eyes were mad and bloodshot, his long hair were flying like a cloak soaked in blood. The sword in his hand flashed like a scythe reaping a harvest of death, and his adversaries fell, cut down like ears of wheat.
At the end of the seventh day he went to battle with Ashurran, and they hurtled together like two stags, or two lions, or two crushing tidal waves. Damian fought fiercely without holding back. He saw before him not a woman who granted him the friendship of her thighs, but another warrior who stood in his path to freedom.
He was sure of his victory from the start, for he had already bested Ashurran in battle many times over. With frantic zeal he knocked her down on the ground and raised his sword for the deadly blow. Suddenly Ashurran stroke right from the ground, swift as a serpent, and slashed through his inner thigh.
Blood gushed from the wound, and Damian fell to his knees, feeling the cold touch of death.
"Fool," Ashurran said, getting back on her feet. "I was nursed with milk of wild Arrian mares. In my cradle I played with blades and arrows. While you were fighting merchants and fishermen, I was fighting leopards and bears. Did you really think you could best me in battle? All this time you had no notion I was holding back on you."
After saying that she cut Damian's head off. Thus the life of Damian the Sogdian had ended.
"Viper!" the audience yelled as one man. "Freedom to Viper!"
The master didn't like the turn of events at all. He hated Ashurran's guts and wanted to see those guts spilled onto the bloody sand of the arena. He gave the sign, and fresh combatants stepped out: the first with a sword, the second with a spear and the third with a morning star. They attacked her together and fell together.
Then the master entered five new fighters into the arena. Again Ashurran was victorious, yet she paid dearly for that victory. She reeled from fatigue and blood loss, her wounds being numerous, although shallow and not life-threatening.
When two chariots with archers appeared, the warrior princess knew she was not to leave the arena alive. She took her helmet off, raised her bloody sword up and yelled at the top of her lungs,
"Watch, you Lankmarian cowards, watch Ashurran daughter of Argamaida die!"
Suddenly the sword in her hand was ablaze as a red-hot iron in a forging furnace. It looked like her palm emitted glowing flames that didn't burn her.
The famous wizard Ruatta happened to accompany the High King to the arena on that fateful day. He was sitting next to him, dressed in a luxurious robe of purple samite embroidered with mysterious symbols. He fanned himself with a beautiful fan made of painted silk and watched the fights with disinterest. Yet, as Ashurran took her helmet off and stated her name, the fan in his hands broke down.
For the first time in his life Ruatta had laid eyes upon Ashurran, yet he knew her instantly.
His excitement concealed, he asked the King with pretended indifference,
"Do you remember, Your Majesty, how you pledged to give me anything I want as a reward for the splendid fireworks at your palace? That girl will do."
The King smiled amiably and said,
"All those wile accusations that you prefer taking boys into your bed should have been false indeed. But that girl is lean and strong like a boy. Only one as skilled in sorcery as you would want a wild tigress as a bed-slave. Well, if you want her, she is yours."
The King ordered to stop the fight. Ashurran, weak and weary from her wounds, was taken to wizard Ruatta's castle on Kumano Island.
YOU ARE READING
Gates to Glory: Epic Fantasy Adventure Tale (Ashurran #1)
Abenteuer[FINISHED]She was born in a tribe of fierce female warriors. Swords and spears have been her toys from the cradle. She has the only path before her, to become the tribe chief after her mother. Yet Ashurran dreams of strange lands, of bigger battles...
