The thundering of her heart was deafening, blending with and blocking out the roar of the crowd of nobles leering over the railings high above her head. She didn't know how many were watching, stuffing their faces with delicacies and intoxicants even as they gaped over blood and entrails being spilled on the ground below, bellowing their encouragement or disapproval to their chosen fighter. It wasn't important. What was important was her rival, the warrior before her across the gore-soaked sand. She didn't know his name, or the world he came from. He wasn't from Enkidu, but beyond that the only thing she cared about was the fact that either she or he would have to die.
Both had fought hard to get to this point, bloodied from the wounds they'd already taken in the frantic swirl of melee, chests heaving as they dragged great lungfuls of air to fuel their leaden muscles for their final push. The male had started with a pair of twin swords that he'd wielded with expert and lethal grace, putting down several opponents in short measure. But a lucky strike from the last combatant he'd faced had laid his right arm open from elbow to wrist and left it hanging loose at his side. It had missed the major blood vessels, but he was still bleeding freely and the damage to his limb had been sufficient to lose his grip on his sword, leaving it half-buried somewhere in the mass of corpses and sand.
Her hands gripped tightly around the shaft of her warhammer, raw from the repeated concussion of the weapon on armoured bodies and the flesh and bone beneath. Her arms, shoulders and back ached from hefting and swinging the heavy weapon around and she'd taken a bad shot to the side at some dimly-remembered point that had left her limping. A multitude of shallow wounds washed her already-scarred and tattooed skin with crimson and her legs wanted to shake but she wouldn't let them, couldn't let them. She had to focus, had to stand strong. She couldn't hope to move as swiftly as the sword-wielder before her, so she would have to stand and let him come to her, let him break on her guard before she put him down. There would only be one chance. Subtly she dug her toes into one of the few dry patches of sand left in the arena, letting the material sift over the top of her foot.
The attack was startling when it came, the male breaking from his guard stance with a sudden burst of speed, darting to one side to try and come in at her from her flank. She wheeled on the foot still part-buried in the sand and swung her hammer to bring it up just in time, leaving his sword blade ringing off the shaft. He'd come in too quick and she knew that even if she kicked the sand up now, she wouldn't be able to kick up high enough to spray up into his eyes and still keep her balance. Instead she pressed forward, dragging her foot in the sand to make it look like the gouges and cuts on her thighs were worse than they were, slowing her down as she wheeled her hammer in great arcs to fend him off and press him into retreating. He fell back and it became a slow dance of his feints and lunges toward her as he tested her range and her guard before trying again from a slightly different angle, trying to wear her down. When some experimental slashes broke through her guard, she realised that he was achieving his goal, she was tiring and her movements were becoming slower and easier to avoid. Her arms were shaking as she tried to keep her hammer high and she could feel the grip slipping in her sweaty palms. It was now or never.
Gathering herself she gave a hoarse scream through gritted teeth, swinging another series of tight hammer arcs at him. She aimed to bring the weapon down across his arms, trying to make him think she wanted to disarm him first and causing him to hop back much as she'd hoped he would. As she saw his gaze drop down to her feet, trying to gauge where she was going to move next, she snapped her foot and the gathered pile of sand up in as rapid an arc as she was able. He yelped in surprise and turned his head away, bringing his limp hand up to try and fend the sand away from his face and to avoid it fouling his sight. Which was exactly what she hoped he'd do. Dropping her foot forward in a semi-lunge, she stabilised herself in a wide stance and swung the hammer wide from her hips, coming in low at his side as his hand was up and he was still partially turned away. Her grunt of exertion came just a fraction too late for him, and his head snapped up with his eyes widening in recognition as the pick-end of her hammerhead went crashing into his side with as much of her weight as she could muster behind it.
The effect was immediate and brutal. The jeering and cheers from above were choked into shocked silence as the crunch of his ribcage collapsing rang around the arena. Her hammer tore through bone, flesh and organs beneath, fully ripping out a chunk of his side in a welter of gore from the impact. She let the momentum of the weapon carry it around, letting it fly from her hands rather than trying to arrest its motion. It was her last-gasp attempt, and either she'd killed him in this moment or it would be her turn to die. She collapsed to her knees, awaiting the retaliatory attack.
There was a moment of silent tension before she raised her head at the sound of a choking, gasping gurgle from somewhere at her side. Her opponent lay shattered, blood, bone and organ-pulp leaking from the horrible collapsed cavity in what was once his ribcage. Air wheezed through the hole as he struggled to breathe, strangling on his own blood. She realised then as she looked at him that she felt nothing. No pride in beating him. No fierce joy at managing to survive against all odds. No sorrow at the death and destruction.
Nothing.
Above and behind her somewhere, she heard something shouted in the harsh Imperial tongue before cheering rose once more. It didn't make sense to her. Nothing made sense any more.
From the corner of her eye she could see the hulking forms of the machine-beasts she'd been told were called servitors making their way across the sand, some trundling on fat treads and others lumbering on clumsy legs. Some paused to pick up the bodies and pieces, trundling the remnants off to wherever it was they disposed of them. She'd long suspected it was somewhere that involved the rough gruel they were given as sustenance, as she'd found a shard of bone in it more than once. Knowing what was coming next, she put her head down and closed her eyes again, waiting for the rasp of the noose around her neck, the rough jolt dragging her to her aching feet.
As she struggled to stand in time enough to stop her windpipe being constricted so that she wouldn't be choked out, another rattling gurgle came from the shattered remnants of the man on the sand. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the eyes of her opponent, seething hatred and fire in his gaze. He wheezed through the hole in his chest cavity and another gurgle choked from his mouth.
"Sil, daughter of Nav…" The words that burbled through his bloody mouth were spoken in perfect Korkat, the native tongue of her homeworld. A language this man should not rightfully have known. This stopped her in place, making her realise that the servitor that had her by the neck wasn't pulling with its customary urgency. In fact, she further realised that everything around her had seemed to stop; the other servitors had paused in their collection duties, the nobles above had stopped roaring and cheering. All she could hear was her own struggling breaths and the death-rattle of the man in front of her and it made a chill run down her spine.
"Who speaks to me?" Sil replied, steeling herself and trying to answer her opponent - or whatever it was speaking to her - with more confidence than she really felt.
The laughter that issued from the ruined man-thing in the bloody sand made her think of fire and death, the collapse of worlds and the ruin of an Empire. It felt ancient "Who I am is not important. What am I, perhaps that's the question you should be asking…"
The voice made her fingers itch for the weight of her hammer again, she longed to lunge against the rope that held her, to finish the work she'd started and smash the warrior into a thousand thousand pieces beneath her. This world of so-called "civilised" men held horrors beyond those she could have ever dreamed back amongst the trees of Enkidu, and now more than ever she would have given everything she had to see the whole place turned to ashes.
The mirthless laugh bubbled wetly once more "I can help you Sil. With me, you could rise to the top of this stinking pit. You could climb your way to freedom, make them pay. Take from them what they took from you - their homes, their families… their lives. Every one that took pleasure in your struggle to survive… you could take your blood price from them all… With my help."
As the creature spoke, Sil could hear the screams rising and echoing dimly behind her. She could feel the flames on her face, smell the hot blood and feel the glory in their destruction. Revenge, in its purest, most violent form.
She gritted her teeth and snarled, turning away as best she could in her restricted state "No! There is no honour in the slaughter you offer! I will not listen to this!"
"Do you think the civilised men cared for honour when they stole you from your home and tribe, Sil? Deny me, if you will. But every death at your hand will feed me, make me stronger. And I will make my offer again. Perhaps with some time to think it over, you'll see the wisdom in my ways…" The laughter again, blood and chunks of tissue spilling onto the sand as everything seemed to shudder back to life around her. As she struggled to shout another denial, she was dragged by her neck from the arena, back to the holding pens to wait for the next event.