Bookworm Gladiator

Kill! Kill! Kill! The crowd chanted.

Never have I been so disgusted by the common people. From cheering on Baba Haza to now calling for his death as he rolled around the dirt trying get up with some dignity. Hurek, now deflated, stared between the bloodthirsty people and the man he'd disfigured on the ground. He was somber, eyes downcast as if he'd done something to be ashamed of. But he had won, and Atia would be happy, wouldn't she?

I couldn't see anything from the peephole except for the field before me. But the crowd grew angrier the longer Hurek stood motionless, a crescendo of incensed voices calling for someone to die, for someone breath their last as they watched with glee and fascination. Fuck the hoi poloi, I thought. There was no humanity in crowds. Get enough of us close together and we quickly lose our ability to think as a single person. Outside this arena, these people were husbands and wives, daily workers and farmers and business folk, earning bread for their children. Did they not carry a rational mind? A heart that knew empathy? And yet, faced with a spectacle they'd been promised, they'd happily see a man get butchered for their entertainment.

But Hurek did not budge. Instead, he threw down his brass knuckles and untied his book-fashioned shield. The people immediately began yelling obscenities at him, wishing that he'd been the one on the ground. Hurek took a step forward and the people lowered their tone, a shiver of fear in their collective voices. Some still sang Kill! Kill Kill!

This had to end in a death, I couldn't see it any other way. And just as I'd expected, I heard marching footsteps and soon enough a line of spearmen came into view, circling Hurek and Baba Haza. After them appeared Atia, in fine robes of blue silk and golden; the colors of the temple.

She said something to Hurek that I couldn't hear, and the large man firmly shook his head. Atia stood in front of him, her head barely reaching his chest, and with hands on her hips, judged the warrior for a moment as the crowd waited. Finally, she turned, a bright smile on her face as she raised her hand, "My dear worshippers! Honest people of Palmyra!"

Besides some annoyed murmurs, the people let Atia continue, "we have our champion, but judgement is not yet over. Someone must pay for their transgression with their life!" This had the crowd excited again as some stomped their feet with anticipation.

Atia paused, her mouth twitching in a knowing smile as she studied the people in front of her. With a flick of her hand, she sent the spearmen rushing onto the royal platform above me. There was a commotion, feet scraping, a woman screaming, and in the next moment, the men dragged a Priestess out onto the field.

"Layla," I whispered to myself, "By Jupiter... what is she doing?"

Baba Haza was conscious enough to hear Layla's struggling voice and dragged himself to a seated position, his mouth bloody and missing all his teeth. "No," he blubbered, "No, Layla, no!"

Spearmen held him down, and even in his sorry state, it took at least three men to secure him. "Let her go," he spat at Atia who pretended not to hear him.

"This woman has defiled the temple with her tongue!" Atia cried, pointing to Layla who was sobbing and pleading, her words a jumble of desperate denials. "She has slandered our Lord Gaius Julius, by spreading false rumors of his loyal servant Master Cicero!"

Layla continued to plead, "Please, Atia, don't do thi-"

Atia slid a dagger across her neck, quicker than I could ever imagine her moving. A flash of steel and Layla's neck burst with a spray of blood that only pumped faster as the poor woman panicked, grasping at her wound and trying to stop the bleeding. Within moments her eyes fluttered, hands going limp and head lolling. Baba Haza's cries were quickly drowned out by the crowd's maniacal cheers. A chorus of chants, praising Atia and her justice, shook the grounds.

Hurek had slipped away and out of sight, and I finally peeled my eyes from the hole, the horrid sight still imprinted in my mind as I stared into the darkness. The coldness that enveloped my body was like a vice, and my tiredness threatened to crush my old bones into powder. I wrapped myself in my dirty robes and curled up beneath the platform. Like a rat... a guilty, shameful rat that hated itself. For if there was one feeling I'd felt seeing Baba Haza near death and Layla executed... it was relief that it wasn't Hurek or me.

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