Title: Spartacus: Dawn Of The Godling
Fandom: Pre- Spartacus: GOTA
Summary: A deeper delve into the past of a Champion - but which one? ;)
...
Pah! Water!? Woman's work!
The youngster's yet uncoordinated feet stomped begrudgingly one after the other with frustrated obedience along the well-worn path to the river, goatskin pail dredging up crumbling lumps of hard trodden soil, snaring repeatedly against the plentiful stones nestled within it and jerking along in his wake on the end of a tattered rope as if it bore the same reluctant mind. Soon enough the snakelike remnant of what had been until very recently a roaring torrent hove into view.
He stopped suddenly in temper, kicked at a larger rocklet, stubbed his toe on it as he did so and spat out the worst profanity he could think of in retaliation. That done, toe still stinging from the blow he sighed heavily, yanked up the battered bucket and trudged down to the clouded stream. Once committed to his cause and despite careful step the freshly exposed riverbed's fetid cloying mud sucked, slavered at the child's recently acquired deer hide shoes; a gift for reaching his sixth year. He imagined his father's words of derision and consequence if he returned barefoot. Again.
Once a raging force, now much better described as piddling, the swirling silver gray ribbons of water wound around themselves as they entered the barely submerged pail, the boy carefully picking out stray particles of undesirable ingredients gathering passively within its confines.
"Am I a girl that I am sent to do such a chore?" He shook the rope irritably, a dark scowl aimed at the offending object. "Fill... by the gods, fill!" The guttural growl carrying his weak childlike curse broke into a squeak as a sharp, airborne rumble punctuated his command.
Thunder in the distance?
Though there had been no inkling of such weather before he set out, the notion roused him anew to his task. This trickling stream could well become again a broiling maelstrom if a storm upstream should empty its violence upon it. The rope jerked once more as he slurped and sloshed a breathless exit from his potentially watery grave, tugging sharply on the bucket's mud clotted leash. As he hauled it in a cold damp chill brushed across his face and made him gasp; eyes skyward showed him the angry grey clouds lowering across the so recent brightness. He shivered, a suffocating dread squeezing his young heart.
The pail, only half full, found his small hand closed tightly around its carrying strap, tether abandoned as the boy ran towards home, an unknown fear spurring him on. The thunder grew louder as he neared home and besting the hill path climbing the rugged outcrop which provided panorama on the village of his ancestors he stopped, frozen in time. Though he did not heed it, the pail and contents fell from his fingers in slow motion, ricocheting down the rock strewn incline, rainbow droplets riding crowns of pure crystal as it finally contacted earth...
Fires and flashing forms. Smoke, screeching wails from womenfolk, the booming howl of fighting men, animals vocalizing surprise, fear and pain. And blood, lots of blood-
Spears.
What light the strange day afforded catching, reflecting the frenzied dance of their metalled tips...
Spears?
A gasp.
Averni...
Mouth open, yelling mute warning, voice absent with fearfulness, lungs fit to burst his small body hurtled downhill at breakneck speed towards the family's dwelling. Eyes wide, wider seeing the carnage escalate even as he approached.
His father's hound flew out of nowhere, bleeding from a dozen wounds but ever the warrior his father declared the beast to be, lunged at the hyperventilating child and knocked him down pinning him to the ground beneath its huge hairy body, whining plaintively until eventually the child's struggles ceased. Exhausted, his noiseless yells became equally voiceless sobs. In sorrowful apology the dog's soft tongue left a damp trail across his cheek.
Struck by thought in a bizarre moment of resigned calm the boy wondered if it had been sent for purpose. If so, undaunted by spear pricks, the blood streaking its sleek lines revealed the loyal beast's steely determination to complete its mission, even to the point of death.
Well fertilised by the village's midden-tip, thick and hardy weeds provided adequate cover for the pair whilst they bore witness to the horrors they were helpless to prevent. One by one, he saw his brothers find their fate on the end of Averni spears, inexperience in battle taking out the two younger siblings and carelessness in revenge for the slaughter of the hapless pair resulted in the defeat of their closest brother, spitted like a roasting hog on a broken shaft.
The watching boy stared on wide-eyed with disbelief, fists clenched, fingers locked into the pelt of the rough-coated hound, its breath laboring, slowing as it lay increasingly heavy across his lap. His mind retreated from the destruction, reliving the peace and normality of the previous evening...
Menfolk sitting around the fire sharing tales of fierce battles, ancient or otherwise. He had taken up his usual position at the feet of his father and favored above all his siblings, Daeros as they added rich recounts of their own victories. Such stirring words had quickened his heart, made him long for the day when he would join them, blade in hand... in glory!
His giddy enthusiasm had provoked raucous cheers and a gale of good natured merriment from the gathering, roused anew when his beloved sire suggested that his time would come, but only when he stood taller than the old hound whose name he should honorably bear-
The name, suggestion of his birth-worn mother and uttered with a weary smile as her trembling fingers combed softly through the mewling newborn's thatch of sticky dark curls, noted as comparable to the coat of the worried hound looking on in consternation. A weak jest with her husband, an attempt to lighten the situation as she struggled against complications of childbirth. But when, very soon after, her eyes flickered closed, remaining closed ever after, the name stuck...
A blood-curdling screech tore through the smoke-filled air, wrenching him from his reminiscence.
One of the marauders stumbled backwards from the hut's doorway, the hilt of a blade rudely protruding from his bare belly, a surprised expression on his crimson-flushed face. As he crumpled and hit the dirt a second man flew out, twisting in mid-air. His head flopped grotesquely to the side, blood spraying from the gaping gash in his throat. Hardly had he settled in the dust beside the first when a third appeared.
It was Daeros himself, eldest brother of the hidden spectator, effecting the appearance, an Averni jiggling on the point of his weapon. A high pitched squeal emanated from the burly man as Daeros, words full of foul revenge spewing from his mouth, screwed the blade around in his opponent's spilling guts.
The blurry eyed watcher almost cried out, smile wide when his father appeared next, brandishing his twin blades with a lifetime's expertise, then very nearly bit off his own tongue as the rival tribe's reinforcements no doubt drawn by the agonized cries of Daeros's plaything launched a multi-handed attack from behind. Finishing his toy with a final flick of the wrist Daeros showed his considerable combat ability when he turned on his tormenters, taking out four more before a cowardly pack attempt to disable his sire had him bellowing in renewed fury, adjusting his concentration to their advantage as the older man went down, hamstrung with a further shallow but crippling thrust to the spine.
The hold on the wiry curls of the now motionless hound changed, the boy pushing at the beast, wordlessly urging it to assist its master but to no avail.
That lax moment of rational thought, uncalculated response motivated by emotion rather than the discipline of set form as Daeros moved in to defend his wounded parent laid him open to the devious skill of the spearmen. Dumbstruck, the hound-hobbled boy looked on stunned silence...
Averni murderers comparing gruesome trophies collected from their victims, roaring with laughter over fleshy trinkets hacked from warm corpses-
As the hours rolled interminably on the traumatized boy saw the once busy village transformed into a ravaged wasteland, what life remained with breath left in beaten bodies were draped in chains, awaiting unimaginable fate at the hands of their captors; a handful of children, some sobbing hopelessly, others quiet as the grave; a few women, a couple of them older, bearing blood-soaked thighs. One on her knees rocking, keening quietly, the other leant against her tether pole with an expressionless face.
He heard the call to move out into the gathering gloom of night, saw the captives lurch into a disorganized line as the unaccustomed chains bit, slavers whips cracking through the air, aimed at quivering flesh as encouragement. Looking on through red eyes, ironically dry from overuse of tears and the constant snubbing of filthy knuckles across puffy eyelids, a group of male villagers he hadn't noticed with the others and who wore heavy metal collars around their necks toiled clumsily beneath the burden of spoil-laden litters slung between them.
He sighed at long last as the raiding party's dancing torches disappeared over the break of the horizon, distance fading out the miserable weeping of the unfortunate survivors, although the ringing echo of emptiness left in its place was almost as unbearable...
"WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?!"
A brutal paw dropped onto his shoulder, bony fingered but a grip strong as a bear's. A loud guffaw beside his ear made his head ring. He gasped, cried out; a small child's cry of shock, of abject terror. Then he remembered who he was.
WHAT he was...
His rheumy eyes narrowed, the cry stifled, his jaw set.
"Doesn't look much, does he? No matter, I know a Roman who likes the smaller ones..."
The boy cranked his head around, terrified but trying hard not to show his fear. Body trembling, he swallowed hard, fists clenching against his ribs as his new companions bellowed with lewd mirth. He found his dark gaze matched and held by the largest member of the group, not party to the joke. A man unlike any other he had ever seen, a powerful being in more than mere body. Someone his father would have declared a true warrior. The big man oozed greatness. The boy's eyes flickered over the sinuous curl of an old scar on this giant's right forearm as he spat out his orders,
"Enough! We need to move out. Bring the little shit along-"
The grasp on his shoulder adjusted, another added and he was pulled upright, the lifeless canine form on his lap slithering into an ungainly bundle at his feet.
"Huh!" A grunt of grim amusement from a lesser mortal, scrawny and rancid of body, wielder of the claw fingers digging into his tender young flesh, "Useless cur! Let it be a lesson to you, boy. Think! Obey me, learn your place or perish like your pet... "
The boy listened. Thought. His father's luckless hound HAD taught him a valuable lesson.
Be true to your calling - achieve your goal or die trying...
As the scratchy hank of rope noosed up snugly around his neck he held his head high, ignoring the tremors wracking his skinny frame. Eyes bright, lit from within he resolved to endure the calloused palms brushing against sensitized skin as he wavered from side to side.
A snigger, an unfeeling tug on the horsehair shank, "Old man Cossutius will find a niche for this one... or else find one in him!
The giant stepped in front of him, pushed the cackling scarecrow out of his way and claimed the rope for himself, brow active, voice lowered, contemplative. "Not this one. Something about this one-" he paused to take a breath, continuing on the very end of it. "Reminds me of myself." He handed over a water skin, adding motioned encouragement to drink then asked, not unkindly, "I'm curious boy, tell me... how are you called?"
Meeting the searching gaze with tremulous pride the boy felt his chest swell, chin jutting of its own accord. His throat raw and raspy he accepted the proffered flask, swallowed with a wince, twice more then handed it back with a nod of gratitude. Voice still gravel rough, he answered with feeling,
"My name... is Crixus-"