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Toros
‘The Black’
The Plains of Dor O’ Cofol
Part II
-I dreamed of freedom Habba-
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Sylia turned those slightly slanted, sunlit hazel-colored eyes on him, a nervous expression on her heart-shaped Lorian face. There was some Cofol in her along a bit of the North but it wasn’t as prevalent anywhere else but in her eyes and reddish-blond hair. Toros had a lot more Lorian in him than her in comparison and his skin was the color of coal.
As Lord Phon always said, ‘Breeding slaves is like the gems market on week's seventh day, you never know what the flavor of the day might turn out to be.’
While the leader of the Sopat family had no clue about gladiators, he knew how to mix and match the better slaves. Toros had been gifted with strength, Sylia with grace and in Master Sopat’s eyes this could produce a more expensive flavor.
So ‘Black Toros’ got the better part of the deal pairing with her since they were kids.
Then Phon’s brother Don decided Sylia should grace with her presence the arena and Toros had followed in her footsteps to keep her safe. From the gold sands of Lai Zel-Ka to the lush green oasis of Ani Ta-Ne and the grim pits of Fu De Gar he had killed men and women having her back.
A score of them.
Before they got their chance at a title and freedom which was what Sylia wished for, Mista Savar had appeared and gave the Lords of the Peninsula another more interesting sport to wage their coin on. Similar to the old one but even more dangerous for those participating. The reward perhaps the same but equally elusive.
“Let me head in there,” Audax, the tall muscular Cofol, told his brother Asper. “I’ll clean out the buildings so we can anchor ourselves properly.”
Asper stared at Tibost, a half-breed as pale as Toros was black they called ‘Ash’. “Lord Baryal has two large plantations here.”
“That what Rustam said?” Asper asked. Rustam was Lord Baryal’s man running the village of Palar in his absence. “You think the Lord of Dates is here?”
“Probably hides in Que Ki-La,” Tibost rustled. “Mouth either full of fruit or cock.”
Asper nodded. He’d served in Baryal’s Ludus for years before moving to Fu De Gar to be near his brother.
“Toros I need you to check those palms for freshly cut paths. Audax will rush the guards in there.”
“What if we find them paths?”
“We’ll sneak up to Que Ki-La. Might even reach as far as the Sopat, or Simun roads,” Asper replied. “If that’s where they’re are going, which I’m sure they are.”
“It’s half a month to Simun Gates,” Sylia argued. “That’s not what Mista Savar asked.”
“I prefer to sneak up on them and cut them off from Esugen’s men at Nasar,” Asper retorted with a glance at Toros. “The Pale Jackal won’t object to it. He’s working for the Sopat right?”
“Not the last time I checked,” Toros said.
“Enough talk,” Audax cut in with a grunt. “We move. We are Garites Black Toros not perfumed cunts. Save that for the baths in Lai Zel-Ka.”
Toros eyed the large gladiator soberly. Audax wasn’t taller than him, but he wasn’t much shorter either. Now skill was how one measured himself in the arena and Audax was a worse fighter than his much shorter brother and Toros.
“I never use perfume,” Sylia intervened in her sweet manner breaking the tension sort of. “Had I known you hated it Audax I’d have slathered myself in it to overcome your stench.”
“Hah-hah,” Tibost guffawed crumpling his nose. “She’s not wrong Audax. You reek brother.”
“Alright that was borderline funny,” Asper added with a shrug and glared at his brother. “Get moving Audax. Save the talk of cocks and cunts for later.”
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Janot, a purebred Issir in their platoon, took Adric and Deryk to scout further inside the lush forest starting after the date trees. The fence separating the inner edge of the plantation was covered in vines and invincible to the naked eye unless you stumbled on it.
Toros marched the rest of the platoon there, opened a path through it and found a spot covered in grass under the shade for them to wait. The men gathered in groups, checking on their gear and talking about the prospects of the campaign. Everyone in better spirits after the gruelling march through the Dry Sea but also nervous.
“I’ve dreamed of freedom habba,” Toros told the sitting on his lap Sylia, using the archaic Cofol name for love, his hands resting on her fit thighs while she braided his dark brown hair. The Lorian part of him. “Saw us resting by a peaceful lake with clear waters. The trees had many trunks each, bark all grey but for touches of green moss.”
“Fig trees,” Sylia murmured, looking in her satchel for coloured beads to use on his hair. “What made you think we were free?”
“You had your manicae and armour removed,” Toros replied. She wore mail armbands with her sculpted into a female torso tight-fitting half-plate. A lighter variant of the armor Toros had on and she used a spear instead of the scimitar and shield he wielded. Seeing as they had always fought as a pair it worked nicely for them. “You never do that.”
“I do it to bed your clumsy arse,” Sylia chuckled throatily. “Yer fingers ruin me binds.”
“It wasn’t that kind of dream habba.”
“Mmm,” she purred. “Were we back in Lai Zel-Ka? Mistress Sen-Iv had fig trees at her estate by the Amethyst Lake.”
“Different waters,” Toros replied reminiscing their younger years. “Different lake.”
Janot had come out of the woods. They had entered on foot, leaving their horses back with the platoon to graze on the grass. Adric and Deryk missing.
“I left them near the road,” Janot explained when he approached and had some water by the shade.
“What road?” Sylia asked getting up.
“They’ve widened a path about three hundred meters from the edge of the date trees,” Janot explained. “Cut a lot of palms down.”
“How long you think?” Toros asked.
“Might lead straight to Lord Elur Sol’s palace.”
“Army?”
“Not near where we exited, but signs of many footprints on the ground. Voices at the near, probably patrols.”
“Horses?” Sylia probed with a frown.
“Beasts of burden mostly,” Janot replied. “I’ve left Adric and Deryk back, so we’ll know more soon.”
“We should tell Asper about them. We need all the men,” Sylia decided.
“Let’s go,” Toros agreed. “Janot ready the men, but don’t engage. We’ll bring everyone here first.”
“What is Asper doing?” Janot asked rubbing at his shorn white hair.
“Looking out for Audax probably,” Toros replied and headed for their horses, Sylia hurrying after him. “The sun is fully up. It won’t be easy to surprise anyone,” he told her after climbing on the saddle.
“Well, they tried to sneak up on us,” Sylia murmured. “Lord Sol knows we’re here.”
“Aye,” Toros agreed crooking his mouth. “He does.”
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The screaming alerted them as they approached. One of the warehouses burning and thick smoke billowing over the date trees. The sweet smell of the fruits and earth mixed with that of charred wood.
And flesh.
“Stay near!” Toros yelled at the woman following after him and rode near the first of the many buildings resembling a small settlement. They stopped when he spotted the first corpses lying by the side of the dirt road. Few heavily armed in the typical scaled armour of Khanate’s professional soldiers, the Ram sign of Que Ki-La and Elur Sol’s nowhere to be seen though.
Toros grimaced after checking on a slain soldier lying next to a beheaded slave, the severed bloody head three meters away. The crest on the soldier’s armour was that of a four-horsed chariot.
The Khan’s own.
“Jang-Lu,” he told the still on the saddle Sylia and she set her eyes on the buildings. “A young one though. Not a veteran.”
The soldier wasn’t over twenty.
“I thought the Khan took them with him out of Rin An-Pur,” she said.
“Might be recruits,” Toros replied and looked for the soldier’s sword. “Body is looted. Take the horses behind that building.”
“Someone’s coming,” Sylia informed him and Toros grunted. “Barsabe,” his lover added.
One of Asper’s fighters. A half-breed like them.
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“Audax group got ambushed,” Barsabe reported when he reached them. “We had to intervene.”
“How many?” Toros asked staring at the slave’s head.
The dead man’s eyes looking through him.
“The whole fucking settlement jumped on him,” the Gladiator replied. “He got injured. Bad.”
Eh, Toros thought and pressed his lips tightly. “There’s a force lurking in the woods. Army guys.”
“We’re finished here,” Barsabe replied hoarsely and added with a grimace of distaste. “Got a bit out of hand.”
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“Goddess’ mercy,” Sylia gasped seeing the bodies hanging from the meat hooks in front of the ravaged estate’s entrance. The blood dripping down the stairs, the porch and the walls. Even more slain bodies were thrown in the front yard, the gravel caked in still fresh gore. The stench of death and smoke suffocating.
A scowling Toros walked up to Asper, the latter was standing near his bandaged brother, thoroughly shocked at what he was witnessing. One of the bled out corpses on the meat hooks that of a young woman thoroughly mutilated and missing her eyes, breasts and fingers. Asper noticed them approaching and turned to meet them halfway.
“Audax got a nasty wound,” he told him worried.
“I can still fight!” A pale Audax growled hoarsely from his spot, the wound on his thigh sipping blood through the bandages.
“What in allhells happened here?” Toros asked crooking his mouth.
“That bitch knifed him, nicked an artery,” Asper replied, his armour covered in gore and the steel custom-made long blade of his Scythe painted in it.
“Did you have to kill everyone? These were slaves Asper!” Toros grunted seeing more corpses by the corner of the large building.
“They turned against us,” Asper replied gravely. “So I turned them into fodder.”
“We are not in the plaguing arena!” Toros snapped and Tibost turned to eye him warningly.
“Sol has an army inside the palms forest,” Sylia intervened her voice strained. “We need help Asper.”
The Cofol gladiator looked at her for a moment, then nodded once. “I’ll get both platoons moving.”
“I’m coming along,” the injured Audax insisted and Asper grimaced, stared once more at the seething Toros and walked away. Tibost followed after him brushing against the taller Toros. With a grunt Toros turned around and walked towards their horses, the half-breed Barsabe still waiting there, watching the gladiators gathering to march out of the settlement.
“Toros,” Sylia cautioned him. “Asper fought both in Fu De Gar and in Que Ki La. They don’t value the slaves like the Sopat.”
Toros wasn’t as fond of their masters as she was, nor did he fear Asper, but Sylia had a point there.
That didn’t mean he liked it.
“We are slaves as well, just like they are,” Toros hissed a counter through his teeth and then eyed Barsabe. “The fuck happened back there?”
Barsabe smacked his dark lips, his skin a shade lighter than Toros’ but with a pair of strange green-gray eyes, before answering.
“It was a small group. Their officer surrendered seeing our numbers, but Audax cut him down,” seeing his glare he added. “Them are the rules of the sands Black Toros.”
Fuck’s sake!
“Who was the girl?” Sylia queried.
“Lord Baryal’s daughter. Mirsine-Ba. This was her plantation.”
“Why did she attack Audax?”
“She had a thing for the officer,” Barsabe replied. “Roused her guards and slaves. Asper had to intervene,” the latter he addressed to Toros. “It’s kill or be killed Black Toros. The rules haven’t changed just because we’re riding under a new banner.”
“Get on that horse gladiator,” Toros rustled from the saddle soberly. “We have an army to stop.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
An hour later
Battle of the Screaming Palms
West flank
The Jang-Lu blocking the forest road locked their small shields and started marching again. Halberds for the two front rows, curved swords for every third standing two meters apart that were to deal with anything spilling out. The Cofol rectangular formation was twenty men wide, the steel fully masked helmets gleaming in the light coming through the thin canopy and the expression sculpted on them a gnarly smile. A garish variant of the Cataphract less pronounced grin.
The Jang-Lu were men rejected from the prestigious Khan’s mounted force, either the Cataphracts or his Scythed Chariots, but skilled enough to serve in this elite unit. The recruits while fresh, were very well drilled and fought well in a group, the narrow terrain favoring them.
Toros’ smaller force had to slowly retreat until he ran out of road, not wanting to charge on the bladed polearms as the Jang-Lu commander wanted him. Asper’s arrival changed the dynamics of the engagement, as he assumed command, but it was the injured Audax wanting more blood that had forced his brother’s hand again.
“We need to draw them out in the open!” Toros yelled at Asper seeing the Jang-Lu stopping again and letting out a thunderous roar to taunt them. Audax’s wild eyes ogled their way whilst frothing at the mouth.
“They won’t follow!” Asper retorted. “Send Sylia to the horses.”
“I’m staying Asper!” Sylia barked irate.
“We might need to push them off the road,” Asper countered not liking her tone. “Yer not heavy enough lass.”
“I’m as heavy as you!”
“Eh, curse ye,” Asper grunted in frustration. Audax stepped forward huge war hammer in one arm, and a straight-bladed sword in the other.
“Follow me,” he yelled to his platoon. “Let’s get these smiling bitches thrown back on their arses!” The men roared. “Crack their skulls and step on their brains!” Audax growled and started advancing down the road towards the Jang-Lu that had stopped ten meters away.
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Audax and his gladiators rushed the distance, but hesitated at the protruding halberds looking for openings, as the second row of Cofols were brandishing their long weapons high like long shafted cleavers.
“Ye stupid cunts,” Audax snarled and swung his war hammer in an arc parallel to the ground shoving three halberds aside and breaking a fourth on the return. He stepped forward closing the distance, hacked viciously at the gap left by the small square shield splitting the mask of his opponent and goring the face underneath it.
The Jang-Lu went sprawling down, Audax parried the hacking halberd away and swung again with his huge war hammer catching the Cofol soldier standing next to the dead one. He snapped his caved in helmed head violently sideways, breaking the neck and banged it on the soldier standing a spot further to his right bringing both of them down.
Then his gladiators charged in the opening.
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“After me Toros!” Asper barked and charged his own men after his brother. Toros grunted, jaw clenched maniacally and waved their platoon after the other two.
“Stay behind me!” He urged Sylia and slotted his shield on his back en route. She didn’t carry one, but this wasn’t a shield type of engagement. They needed to break the Jang-Lu, but while Toros thought it possible, the terrain wasn’t favoring them and they appeared to have the numbers. The gaps were plugged faster than they could kill them and their opponents’ skill varied in personal combat. Mista Savar had drilled into his skull that you don’t attack a larger force unless the terrain favors you. Toros had no idea if that was the case, but the Pale Jackal was a proven champion of the Pits and his words carried a lot of weight in his mind.
The first two rows of the Jang-Lu had disintegrated and the sword carrying third followed soon after. Thirty men killed in less than five minutes was fast even by arena standards, but then another row of halberds appeared in its place using the same configuration of long and short weapons. Only instead of standing still they advanced under the barks of their officers.
Audax parried a thrust aside, narrowly dodged a vicious cleave from the second row, smashed a swinging halberd in many pieces along the right arm of his opponent, but then he got pierced in the sides and pushed back.
The Jang-Lu pressed forward, lowered halberds thrusting, the raised ones hacking at the gaps. Audax swung his war hammer and shattered a blade, the hacking halberd butchering the soldier shoved in its path by mistake and he stepped forward again. He got pierced again on the right shoulder, the nasty hook opening his arm down to the elbow and slashed red muscles held by bloody tendons spilling out. Audax growled losing the handle on his big weapon and severed a hand at the wrist from a soldier that rushed him. Then he got pierced again below the left chest, the plate wrapping there and a downing halberd cleaved him on the right shoulder splitting the clavicle bone.
“ARRGGH!” Asper growled still trying to get near the front and took advantage of Barsabe’s axe decapitating a soldier from the second row to free himself. He rushed near his fallen brother, Toros approaching five meters behind him and many bodies, but when the men left an opening in their lines again, he flinched in horror. Audax had been butchered viciously by the Jang-Lu that kept on hacking at him with the longer weapons, the curved steel hooks ripping the flesh from his ravaged body and tearing at his armour.
If this was the gods’ justice, Asper didn’t see it that way and swung his scythe not a foot from the ground in a sweeping arc at the approaching Jang-Lu. The sharpened blade cut through greaves, flesh and bone alike chopping fresh twigs. Four soldiers lost both their feet, two only the left and the whole line collapsed in groans of terrified agony, when Tibost jumped between them with his scimitar and small axe attacking from the sides. Barsabe followed with his axe along the rest of the platoon and the Cofol soldiers’ line melted in seconds. The butchered bodies piled on the bloody road making walking difficult.
A tensed Toros reached a grieving Asper a moment later and grabbed his shoulder to pull him away from the unrecognizable bloody mess that had been Audax. Asper turned with a bloody snarl and growled like an animal, but Toros held his ground and pointed at another row of Jang-Lu coming at them in step.
“That’s how they fight! Allgods darn it!” He barked in his face, Asper’s eyes gawking with madness. “Rows upon rows of bladed polearms to buy their cavalry time! There’s no cavalry at the near, but the spot favors them!”
Asper’s eyes cleared some and tried to wipe the grime off of his face with a bloody hand making it worse.
“We can’t break them piece by piece. Their back rows don’t see what’s happening. Whoever planned this knows his men,” Toros insisted. “Order a retreat Asper.”
“Retreat where?” Asper grunted, the rest of the gladiators looking at them and the Jang-Lu approaching. With their identical masks and gnarly smiles, it was like they were fighting the same men again and again.
But they weren’t men really. Most soldiers under the masks were young. These were recruits.
“The ground opens up towards the plantation,” Toros rustled, a worried eye at the nearing Cofols. “The trees stand further apart. This is a free-for-all all Asper, but we are boxed in here. Either we stand behind our shields as well or we fall back!”
“I can’t leave him like this,” Asper murmured hoarsely looking at Audax’s mutilated body.
Toros stooped and grabbed the war hammer. He offered it to Asper. “Here’s Audax. You take him wit you,” Toros urged the grieving gladiator. “In your hand and in your heart. He’ll live there forever brother.”
Asper nodded his eyes clouded and gestured for Barsabe to pull the platoons back. Tibost was to lead Audax’s unit. They retreated out of the thicker part of the forest and the corpse covered road towards the date trees fields. The Jang-Lu marched after them, their front doubling once to forty and then once more to eighty right when they exited the woods.
The numbers were worse than Toros had thought in the beginning, concealed in the long narrow palms forest road by a thoughtful leader that wanted to win as much as they.
> Arik Sartak won the engagement in the palms forest and pushed Asper’s men back towards the burning buildings of the plantation. The gladiators retreated there, but the widening front didn’t favor them and had to fall back again in a grueling long-lasting fight. Always pushed towards the plains and outside the date trees fields where the Cofol commander expected his numbers would overwhelm them. While this was true, the men of the Chiliad were unbreakable. This would come up again and again in this brutal campaign.
>
> A gladiator can’t give up or stop fighting. He will retreat but keep at it. Asper’s men were also extremely well-conditioned and unfazed by small or graver injuries. As time dragged on in this relatively distant from the center of the main battle engagement the Horse Archers of Samir of Ani Ta-Ne took advantage of the heavy Cofol cavalry redeployed elsewhere to stabilize a more vital part of the front, routed a Cofol archer detachment anchoring the west flank of Elur Sol’s battle line with his center and reached the hard-pressed cut off Asper’s men.
>
> Samir’s flanking attack rattled the exposed flanks of the Jang-Lu recruits, but Sartak charged with his small medium cavalry force following his infantry and blunted their attack. The Horse Archers pulled back despite having the numbers, always uncomfortable fighting a close contact scrap or even equipped for one and fired volley after volley at the heavier lancers Sartak had with him. Little by little the casualties mounted on both sides, the cavalry fight dragging on tiring for the horses but favoring the lighter men Samir was leading.
>
> In the nearby melee, the winning since the start of the engagement Jang-Lu started wavering due to exhaustion and the atrocious casualties they were suffering. (The killed to injured ratio nonexistent as the gladiators finished off the injured instinctively.) With Arik Sartak absent leading his cavalry, the worried officers left in charge tried to split the almost surrounded in the open field gladiators charging their reserve on them. Their intention was to overwhelm the surely tired gladiators with sheer numbers. The sword wielding units of the Jang-Lu kept in reserve were fresher, well-trained and nibbler, but in a free for all on the flat terrain the gladiators of the Chiliad were back into their familiar element.
>
> A fight to the death with no time for thoughtful strategy or fancy maneuvers and Asper’s men reverted to it in the blink of an eye.
>
> It was a bloodbath.
Toros jumped over a gored Cofol, his boots sinking in a bloody exposed gutted torso right next to it and hacked away a knee cap from a Jang-Lu wielding a halberd. The Cofol went down, his leg buckling and blood soaking the ground even more. A vicious slash and he stopped screaming, Toros ears ringing from the savage clamor of the heavy melee all about him.
He turned his scimitar sideways and parried a snarling Jang-Lu’s sword lunge aside, Sylia’s spear thrust carving the mask, metal wrapping and skull bones breaking. Janot stepped into the gap and hacked a Cofol down, but got stabbed through the leg savagely and went down. Adric’s hurled axe smacking the Jang-Lu who had sneaked up on him on the chest caving it in and thrusting him back.
Toros swung his blade wide to deter a sword wielding soldier from assaulting Sylia and she speared him through the gut using both her arms. The Cofol grabbed at her spear to keep her immobilized and another rushed the determined to get her weapon back female from the sides. Deryk yelled a warning spotting him, but got cleaved on the chest by a halberd, the plate wrapping there and he was shoved back in turn.
Toros had burst towards Sylia in the meantime, the woman saw him coming with a manic snarl marring his dark face and ducked instinctively under the blade. The sword whistled over her head, the released spear shaft smacking her in the face as she had to let go of it and Toros' heavy muddy boot stepped on her hunched back to jump over. They had the move practised as the crowds loved it, but this wasn’t one of those times. A surprised Sylia went down face first with an indignant yelp, Toros flew over her and the collapsing speared Jang-Lu, his bulk crashing on the soldier that had cried to cut her down.
He felt the snapping of bones, his head banging on the snarling mask and they landed on the ground, the heavier Toros on top. The gladiator raised his sword to hack at the Cofol under him, but the man had a foot of gory shaft coming out of his chest, the tip grazing Toros’ half plate. With a frustrated grunt, he jumped up and stabbed with his boot at the exposed neck just to make sure his opponent was dead. Toros then turned around and grabbed Sylia by the shoulder, the moaning female’s grimace easing his worry.
“Damn it habba,” Sylia gasped her face covered in mud. “Yer heavy as fuck!”
Toros yanked her spear out of the still-shuddering Jang-Lu and returned it to her. He then turned to Adric who was finishing off another Cofol with a borrowed sword. Sylia did the same with the one she had already speared. This time she aimed for the neck to ensure she would get her weapon back.
“Deryk?”
“Breathing,” Adric yelled back. “Janot might need a new leg.”
“Don’t need to!” A limping Janot barked irate. “I’ll use me cock as cane!”
Toros shook his head and then looked to gather as many of the gladiators near him to press towards another cluster in the fight. Apparently, they had run out of opponents there.
“Bloody sun today,” Adric commented casually and looked about for his missing axe.
“Aye,” Toros replied glancing at Sylia probing with her spear the fallen Jang-Lu to spot any breathing ones and spat down. “But nothing we haven’t seen afore.”
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“Cavalry!” Asper barked a warning when he spotted their group arrive. Toros let go of the breathing with difficulty Deryk and the gladiator stumbled trying to find his footing. He twisted about trying to locate the riders, but there was chaos in the field as the battle had spread out into many smaller scraps or duels and there was a lot of cavalry mixed in it.
Some of theirs and some that weren’t.
“Where?” Toros growled and reached for the shield he had on his back, the thundering of many hooves confusing. The raised dust and blinding sun made it difficult to discern friend from foe. But for the gleaming scaled armour the Khan’s riders sported of course. Toros saw a horse archer firing an arrow in the haze and then getting speared off of the saddle with a timely lance through the kidneys. He rushed there, slapping Sylia on the shoulder to come along and they reached the lancer just as he’d retrieved his long shafted weapon out of the dead archer.
The Cofol rider turned his horse to gallop away and Sylia screamed obscenities after him. Toros wasn’t going to run after a horse and he stopped breathing heavy using his shield to support himself.
“Leave him,” he yelled at Sylia and glanced at the distance where gladiators were pursuing the fleeing Jang-Lu back into the forest. Asper was trying to get them to stop, but he had to send Barsabe after Tibost’s men as they were too far apart to hear him.
“We need to get back on our horses,” Toros said turning to the groaning Deryk, not a meter from him. “You can’t walk on a collapsed lung and we don’t know what’s happening to the rest of the front.”
“A horse sounds just about right,” Deryk said raspingly over the sound of hooves approaching and then a Cataphract came out of the dust cloud, the long lance skewering the gladiator through the neck in an explosion of gore. The heavily armoured horse trampled over his broken body a moment later, just before the jumping aside Toros’ shocked eyes.
No.
The smirking silver mask turned towards him pulling at the reins, whilst letting go of the long lance. Another Cataphract appeared twenty meters away on an even more impressive and fully covered in gleaming armour warhorse.
Heavy Cavalry.
Toros reached for his shield, five meters to his left Adric who carried a limping Janot letting go of the Issir and turned towards him eyes gawking in horror. His warning was not directed at Toros.
“MOVE LASS!” Adric roared to be heard, the first Cataphract reaching for a long sabre and the other calmly arming a crossbow despite the arrows falling near or on him.
Toros twisted to his right and saw Sylia frozen in the middle of the field, spear in her arms and the third Cataphract of the small group charging towards the small-bodied woman. Toros made to move towards her but the first rider cut him off with his horse and swung his sabre looking to cut him across the face. Toros raised his shield and the blade clanged on the iron rim at its top with sparks flying. Sylia moved at last out of the lance’s way, as she’d stalled to use her spear on the onrushing Cataphract. She missed, her blade grazing the thicker, scaled armour the Cofol Knight had on, but the warhorse’s chest smacked her hip and sent her crashing on the ground with a hair-raising scream.
Gods keep her!
Toros growled his stomach tied in a knot, but he had to block another hack from the first Cataphract with his shield. He clenched his teeth and moved on him, an eye on the third Horselord stopping his warhorse, slotting his long lance on the saddle with the sureness of a skilled professional, disregarding the arrows now directed at him from the horse archers riding around them and then unsheathing a heavy sabre. Toros grunted desperately seeing a shaking Sylia limping to her feet six meters away from the Cataphract and not even ten from where he was standing.
The gladiator swung at the towering over him opponent, but the Cofol parried his blade away. Toros growled and raised his shield, a bolt ripping through it and lodging in his chest plate after piercing armour there. Toros was pushed back with a curse, glanced at the crossbow wielding Cataphract still standing well out of reach and went to attack his own opponent letting go of the shield.
A hurled axe smacking the warhorse at the side of its plate encased head and snapping it aside in a gory splash stopping him.
“GO!” Adric yelled at Toros rushing his way whilst the missing its right eye injured warhorse dropped to its knees with a desperate neigh. The cursing Cataphract jumped off of it in time but landed badly restricted by his cumbersome armour and turned an ankle.
A horrified Toros was already moving. He sprinted desperately after the trotting warhorse, but two strides in realized he couldn’t make it in time. The Cataphract led his horse straight towards the faltering Sylia being as he was much closer to her and moving much faster. He reached her in half a breath, Sylia’s face strangely serene despite seeing death galloping towards her and then flicked that nasty blade in a wide parallel to the ground textbook arc, taking Toros’ longtime mate's head clean off her shoulders.
> ‘There’s only one way to win your freedom,’ a much younger Sylia had told him back in the Sopat palace of distant Lai Zel-Ka. ‘Is to find a kind-hearted master and suck his cock like your life depends on it, or you take your chances in the arena. Since I’m in love wit your clumsy arse and I don’t want to put you through that, I guess I’ll take my chances in the sands. All the way to the blasted pits habba. Once there, when the games end whether we win or lose, I’ll be free.’
>
> And now she was.
“Black Toros!” Asper growled in his face, a dirty heavy hand grasping at his hurting shoulder. “Can you walk?”
Toros stared at him numbly, sweet Sylia’s lifeless gore-covered head still in his arms. Asper’s slanted eyes haunted but determined. Toros stared down and saw the bolt sticking out of his chest. His arms and legs were covered in blood.
Was it all hers?
“Toros… damnit man, we need to move against their center,” Asper said in a sympathetic voice. “Samir needs help there.”
“What’s the blasted point?” Toros croaked, no strength left in his body and Asper backhanded him once, snapping his head aside.
“I left me poor little brother in them woods,” Asper hissed returning his glare. “You want to keep that,” he added pointing at the macabre memento Toros had in his arms. “We need to win the field today. She would have wanted that Toros.”
“You don’t know what she wanted!” Toros growled and got up, standing well over a head over the shorter Cofol gladiator.
“Aye,” Asper agreed sounding saddened. “And perhaps I should have taken the time to ask her, but I’ll stand by me words just the same. We won this scrap, but the games ain’t over yet brother.”
A deeply traumatized Toros stared at him intently for a long moment. After it was over he accepted the torn mail armband the warhorse had ripped off of Sylia’s arm, deposited her bloody head carefully on her chest after kissing the top of it once and followed after Asper towards their regrouped platoons. Adric tossed him Sylia’s spear and the still limping badly Janot nodded once with his sweaty head afore putting his steel helm on.
They recovered their horses and followed after Samir’s riders towards the great battle raging before the ruined buildings of Palar.
Until the games end, a miserable Toros vowed going through the motions. Then I’ll meet ye there Habba.
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read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
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The chapters are re-edited and re-posted regularly at both places