Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3!

Part 3!

The woman who dressed it was around my age, if not a bit younger, and to my amazement she seemed to be part of the main household, probably the daughter of the main man I figured. She was something like out of a myth, long golden hair, much longer than mine that reached my shoulders, just a bit longer than what I wear now, but her gleamed like sunlight even in the dim light of the hut we were supposed to be housed in. But no matter how beautiful she seemed, I couldn’t get past the hate I felt towards all of them. But a day ago I was a free man, practising my trade with a family and a future, but now here I was being treated as a slave, nothing more than cattle to the woman and everyone who would ever see me.

She was quite careful with the cleaning, dressing it in a strong cloth soaked in oils, holding the different herbs to the wound. I couldn’t understand a word she spoke, connecting only a few as she talked like ‘clean’ and ‘water’. After it was dressed properly, she led me out into the fields, followed by one of the slaves with the sword, and the temptation to take his sword and fight my way out was almost overwhelming, if not for the fact I was injured and many more slaves like him stood on guard around the field. I was handed a hoe and pointed in the direction of where the others were digging, so I did. By early afternoon the wound on my shoulder had reopened but I was too preoccupied with my thoughts to notice, so when the call for rest and food was sounded I simply dropped the tool and followed the others to the courtyard between the field and the back of the house where bowls of water were handed out with some bread. We washed ourselves in the water from the well and to my surprise I found how close the people there really were. As I was washing myself down another man around my age walked towards me with a cloth and some water before indicating that he was going to help me wash the rest of the blood off.

We became something of friends from that day on, he helped me learn the language and I helped him in his work, his name was Idas, brought to the house a few months before me. He introduced me to the rest of the slaves and we worked together, all of us pitching in to do what our Master told us to, and within a year I was fully healed and able to speak the very basic Greek, just in time to make, what was at the time, one of the biggest mistakes I had done.

The Master, Deo had 2 sons, Thais and Galen as well as the daughter who dressed my shoulder on the first day, Stacia, he went out for the next couple of days and Thais, the more headstrong of the two got it into his head that he wanted to practise sword fighting with the slaves, not many of which had ever held a sword before, the catch was, whoever beat him could be freed, something quite insane. I think about 20 men tried, but no matter what they did they could never hit him, let alone get him down onto the floor, he moved quicker than anyone I had ever seen. Idas tried as well, but there was an unfortunate accident. As he was parrying, Thais’ sword slid down his own at an angle and hit the upper arm with such force that it cut straight through, even managing to lodge itself in his chest.

Idas died that day from blood loss and pain as they tied searing his arm closed with burning iron, cauterization its called. When Deo came back he was angry, but not as angry as to punish his son, so I did what I could. For weeks I trained in solitude until one of the other slaves found me at the river, then everyone helped. All the men and women he owned helped me, using sticks and ropes, whatever we could find to help me train until the day finally came, around a year later when Deo left again. We all approached him and his brother as they lay in the lounges in the garden, reading scrolls and eating the food served by the house slaves.

I called out to him, telling him I wanted to fight him as he had fought the slaves a year before. They laughed at me before handing me a sword as the slaves around me moved out of the way. He swung his sword with ease, stepping in different directions and for the first few blows he did manage to cut and push me back. Thinking back, that was probably the hardest fight I ever got into, I couldn’t match his speed so I used whatever methods I could. My strength from blacksmithing the years before as well as the training helped me block most of attacks, or at least deflect them onto the side. Whenever he was close enough I struck at him with the hilt of the sword, and I can’t tell you the pleasure I felt to watch his head snap back in surprise more than anything else, to watch the thin trail of blood flow from his nose and brow stain his expensive robes.

The fight went on for some time, until no longer being able to contain himself under Galen’s goading he revealed his true self, it was as if he was no longer human. His eyes changed colour to a blood red, one set of his teeth sharpened like that of an animal and his movements became much quicker and forceful, throwing me back with ease. The slaves all scattered, shouting for the Gods, whereas Galen tried to restrain his brother, Stacia nowhere to be found. Galen was quickly thrown back, landing in the lit embers that quickly set his clothes alight, followed by his skin, though as far as I could tell he hadn’t died, just lying there in a smouldering heap.

It was a good moment before I managed to get back up on my feet, by which time it was already too late to save many of the screaming slaves. Like a hungry animal I could see him throwing himself on his prey and covering himself even more in the blood that shot out of the torn flesh as he clawed at the screaming victims.

I somehow managed to rip off a piece of a broken decoration, a sharp metal spike, resembling a dagger but small enough to hide. I had to do something, driven by pure adrenaline I finally managed to stalk him into the lower fields where he was gauging out on one of the women that served in the house. Walking as quietly as possible I walked closer and closer, sword still in hand until close enough to hear the tearing of the flesh, unfortunately as he was now not only faster but also had better  hearing I didn’t get close enough to kill him, as he turned around and lounged himself at me with animal ferocity.

He kept screaming the word ‘slave’, digging his nails into me, tearing more and more of my flesh open. Unfortunately for me I had lost my grip on the sword when he fell on me, so I could only rely on the metal I had hidden, the one good thing about that was it dug into the earth beneath me rather than into my back, so it was easier to fish out. As he sank his fangs into my left arm once more I swung the metal at him… again…. And again, hitting him deep in the neck and shoulder, causing him to roll off me with a screech. Holding his wounds he managed to get on his feet and start stumbling back towards the house without a second thought to me.

I didn’t have long to live, he had torn me up pretty good but what I could do was look down at the beautiful view in my last moments, the late afternoon sun highlighting the little green wood that surrounded the clear stream, it wasn’t the worst picture to die to, perhaps I would get to meet my wife and child finally.

But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.