Redemption of the Conquered

They were cruel men, these soldiers waiting in the hall. They reveled in war and found death and gore to be compelling. How she could do this night after night was a question that often went through her mind. Waiting behind that red curtain was like waiting for hell to consume her, it's flames ready to feed on her flesh and blood. She dreaded the waiting, because every night she knew what she would have to do on the other side.

" Send in the girl!" a booming voice shouted.

And there it was, her call to march into a room of vipers, all waiting to see who will survive this night. She had been in this bastion for nearly four years and was to stay until her death, whether by accident or of old age. She was a slave from the south, captured because of her rare appearance. In this land they called Britain, women like her were much sought after by the Roman men of high authority. Her skin was much darker than that of the women here because of her days in the deserts of her country. Her hair was a deep mahogany, like that of the ancient cedars in the east. The soldiers often spoke of the mystery held within her eyes, a swirling darkness that could claim them to the devil himself, for she was his servant, his means to poisoning the lives of the innocent with sin and lust. That is what they believed, these Roman soldiers.

She was of Arabian descent, a nomad of the Bedouin tribe Hamdânis. Her people traveled for twelve moons, going from one oasis to another, one village to another. As a traveling tribe, they would learn skills from the villages they stayed near. This was their way; they thrived on learning and perfecting different crafts from all over Arabia.

She was not a normal slave, far from that. When they had taken her away from her people, she had fought with all that she possessed. She was very skilled with the twin sabers, deadly almost. She had slit the throats of seven men before they were able to restrain her. As the commander walked among the bodies of his dead soldiers while she was forced into chains, he determined her sentence.

" On this day, you have slain my men and by your tainted hand sent them to a world of torment, a hellish place. You too then, shall spend your days in hell, spilling the blood of others to keep your own".

And so she served her sentence. She would stay in that stone fortress, locked up deep in the bowels of the earth, and wait for the time when she would be summoned each night. She would be adorned with cloths of velvet and silk and her skin would be laced with black Latin markings. She never knew what they meant, but she suspected they were yet another way of branding her as a slave. Once she was called forth from the behind the curtains, she would be faced with the many faces of traveling roman soldiers, legionnaires and commanders who would come to rest and regroup. And always, in the center of the grand stone hall, there would be another slave, dressed in more or less the same garb as she.

Then the inevitable would come, when that damned drum would sound and they would engage in combat. The one who lives goes back to the dungeons and the one who dies escapes into the arms of death. She had often thought of allowing herself to be slain, more so these days.

There is only so much blood a person can spill, only so much life a person can take without wanting to end their reign of death and submit to the darkness. But she had made a promise to herself, that for her people, for those who had been tortured and those who had their breath ripped from their bodies, she would fight for her own life, her own freedom.

These days, hope for her freedom was scarce.

"Send in the Girl!"

The girl. That's what they called her. Honestly, she preferred it that way. She could take on the identity of "the girl" and do what she must to survive, without staining her true name, or at least it helped a little. When she was fighting, she was "the girl", not Ranya.

At the sound of Gallus's call, she stepped through the curtain. She was greeted with jeers and crude remarks, the shifty eyes of the men roaming over her body.

"You know what to do, so get to it. And make it interesting eh!" Gallus said, handing her the knives.

Interesting. That's what this was to these people. They wanted blood and gore; they craved it, as if they didn't get enough of it every other day.

She turned to the center of the hall, and her eyes locked with those of a young girl holding a spear. By Manât, she couldn't be more than seventeen! She had dark hair, but her skin was light. 'She must be of the shoreline tribes. Sulaym maybe'. The girl was frightened, that much was obvious. But there was something else there. Her eyes were set, determined and although her hands were shaking, she tried to hold her composure.

Ranya could see it; this girl did not want to die. Well, neither did she, but what choice did she have. The guilt would have to wait till later, when as every other night, it would conquer her, as her adversary could not. Then she would cry and beg the dead for forgiveness, but not now, not this moment.

The drums sounded and the young girl charged towards Ranya. She attacked with the spear raised above her head and as she lowered her arm to strike, Ranya rolled to her right and planted her long knife firmly into the girl's stomach. Blood seeped onto the silver handle, flowing down Ranya's arm. She pulled her knife out and the girl fell to her knees, her eyes slowly glazing over, waiting for the final surge of death to claim her body.

The young girl had never fought another person before. The injustice of it all made Ranya livid, but then again had the girl been a good fighter, Ranya's chance of survival would have diminished. How she hated her way of thinking now, so simple, so blunt, as if another human's life was a mere spec of dust that had fallen into her eye. This was something else she had to fight. She could not allow herself to dehumanize her adversaries, so after the duals she would replay what she had done, remember the sounds and the smell of the room as she killed the other. If this voluntary torture would serve her mind and soul any purpose, she did not know, but perhaps it was a start to her eventual absolve.

Ranya stood and went towards the stone steps where Aelius Gallus was seated. She dropped the weapons at his feet and fell to her knees. Her hands were shaking and she felt she could not breathe, as if the ghost of the fallen girl was trying to take Ranya to the chasm of death with her.

"Well, again you survive. I must say this is becoming a little predictable. I will have to find a more skilled opponent. Romus, Gaius, take her down now" Gallus said.

The two guards chained her wrists again and led her to the staircase. They descended towards the dungeons and shoved her into her cell.

"Bloody savage, you won't last much longer. You count your days girl, for Gallus will find a deadly opponent for you, and when he does it'll be your blood on those stones!" one of them said, looking at her as if she were leprous.

She was left alone in her anguish. This agony was always present after the duels. She was summoned four or five times a month to entertain the various men who passed through the fort. Sometimes it was more; depending on how many saves Gallus's men would come across. Most slaves went to Rome to serve the empire, but when Gallus saw her arrive to his fort four years ago, he wanted her as his own. A temptress, he called her. She was sixteen then.

She stared at the dancing shadows splayed on the stone wall of her cell, the candles in the drafty corridor casting a glow on her barely discernable markings. Out of habit, she touched the brand that was on the back of her right shoulder. She could still remember that night vividly, she smell of hot iron and burning flesh. Gods she suffered that night, not only because of the pain, but also because she was claimed now. She was to wait for the slaughter, her demise as the conquered surrendered to the conqueror.