The Lost Colony

Chapter 5

Next, several children were led to the front of the platform and auctioned one at a time. Sparr gritted his teeth in disgust as the assistant extolled their virtues. The bidding this time around was less intense. Traders from the second row checked their ledgers and called out bids in flat tones. Rarely did they compete with each other. Instead they dutifully collected a boy here, a girl there, until satisfied. Each pressed a few tokens into the auctioneer's hands before departing with their new charges. If anyone besides Sparr was troubled by the scene they kept it to themselves.

At midday it was at last their turn. Tawn spoke with the auctioneer, gesturing toward the bound prisoners. The man nodded, consulted with his assistant, then called forth the first of the Olm women.

All of the captives, Sparr included, had been dressed in plain shifts. The first woman, a friend of Kess's, was prodded forward. She took in the crowd with a fearful expression as the assistant began his description of her abilities. Sparr's implant picked up "wood ... eat... nice" before the bidding began. Bidding was slow. None of the elites in the front row showed interest, nor did the remaining traders behind them. Finally a man in the final row raised his voice. The bidding ended and the woman was hustled away. She gave a final, desperate call to her friends then was gone. Sparr felt a knot growing in his gut.

Next came Kess. As before, the assistant worked the crowd. Sparr's implant reported "eat, nice, and fuck."

"What?" Sparr cried out. Efreem shot him a questioning look.

As with her friend, bidding started out slowly. One of the third-row merchants called out a number which the auctioneer seemingly found offensive. Again, the assistant offered details such as strong, meal, and yes.

A murmur passed through the crowd. One of the assistants to the blue-robed woman stood and issued a sharp command. Immediately, the assistant approached Kess. Without hesitation, the man rended her shift in half. Kess's slim, sweet body was on display for the crowd.

The blue-robed woman stood, her movement silencing those around her. For a moment which seemed to stretch on forever she regarded Kess, eyes sweeping up and down the Olm woman's exposed body. Finally she uttered a single word. Sparr never learned whether she had bid high or low, only that at her word the process ended. The woman's assistant tossed the auctioneer a few tokens. Kess was theirs.

Sparr closed his eyes, trying to block out the scene around him. He was sick to his stomach, revolted at the parade of human flesh, the buyers, the tearing apart of friends, siblings, and children. His heart sank at the loss of Kess, a woman whom he had known for a single night, but whose sweet touch and sighs lingered on.

A rough shove broke his inner retreat. Sparr and Efreem together were prodded to the platform, seemingly to be sold together. The assistant offered just a few words of inducement. Sparr made out strong and blade, although the second word may have been applied solely to Efreem.

"Vwa!"

Before the bidding even could begin, one of the gaunt man's assistants called out his instruction. As he had done with Kess, the assistant ripped open the top of Sparr's shift, then Efreem's. Both men stood bare chested in the midday sun, Efreem's skin so smooth and brown as to look burnished.

The gaunt man called out a bid, looking curiously toward his blue-robed neighbor. The woman's eyes flickered toward Sparr and Efreem in what surely was a look of interest. Sparr was certain that she would offer a counter-bid. Instead, she dropped her eyes.

"Howw dou anteek," she said dismissively. So old.

Gret cursed softly. The lack of competitive bidding had almost certainly been a disappointment. For Sparr, the slaver's misfortune was bittersweet. His captors hadn't profited from his sale, but for how little had his freedom been traded? How cheap was life on Kaybe? The auctioneer slipped Gret a small bag of tokens as he and Efreem were led away.

***

"Awake, morning!" Every day, Sparr's implant became more and more proficient with the local language. When he found the time, he would practice along with it, sounding out new words and simple phrases until the device chirped in approval.

Not that he needed the translator to know his day had begun. As it had for the past week, Sparr's morning began with a raucous wake-up call, a simple meal of beans and bread, and weapons practice. Groaning with bruises taken the previous day, he rolled from his pallet. Sparr resigned himself to another day of abuse. His fellow trainees joined him, uttering a score of different curses.

Whether they were being trained as an army, or as guards, Sparr had no idea. The company gathered daily for instruction in an unadorned hall, practicing with staves, blunted spears, and padded swords. The weapons master, a muscled but greying man, observed quietly from an elevated catwalk. Upon seeing something which displeased him, the man would call out to one of his lieutenants to issue a correction. There was little emphasis on discipline, no drills, or chain of command. If they were to form an army, it would be a wild and bloody one.

Once per day they were visited by the man who had purchased Sparr at the auction. His implant had no satisfactory translation for the gaunt man's title. Sparr simply referred to him as the Governor. Usually showing up in the late morning, the man would watch a few matches with keen interest, sometimes gnawing on a drumstick or sipping wine. The man gave no indication that he recognized Sparr, or for that matter, any of the trainees. He went nowhere without guards, and spoke only with the weapons master.

Sparr was thrust into a company with a strongly established order. The more experienced warriors were obvious, veterans of conflicts unknown to Sparr, or simply those with greater tenure. None had Sparr's height or reach, but many were younger and faster. He watched them carefully in matches, assessing their strengths, who among them was swift and sure, who was cunning and precise. One day, when the spears no longer were blunted, he might face them. Accordingly, Sparr concealed the limits of his own abilities. In matches he purposefully hesitated, blocked clumsily, or struck with restraint. As a new member of the company he would be watched by the others as intently as he studied them.

On the day they called him up, Sparr almost felt ready.

The weapons master himself selected Sparr and two others, pulling them from the hall as soon as breakfast was finished. Accompanied by a cluster of guards, the three were hustled to an open topped wagon. Each was stripped to the waist and given a red sash which they wore from shoulder to hip. Thus attired, the three were paraded through town.

The trip bore scant resemblance to Sparr's last such journey. Then, an anonymous captive in a town which had more than its share, he had drawn scant notice. It was he who had peered with curiosity through the bars at the novel scene. Now it was Sparr and his companions that drew notice. Townspeople stared, some putting aside their work to wave. A few cheered. A gaggle of children followed, laughing and shrieking, shoving each other aside for the privilege of being closest to the wagon.

"Always one good, one bad, one new!" This declaration came from one of Sparr's fellow companions, a skilled warrior named Ast. Sparr couldn't remember the man previously speaking a single word. Now he was grinning broadly, waving back at the observers, especially young women. "Always!" he repeated, thumping his chest.

In a searing moment of clarity Sparr realized that he had become a gladiator. He cursed himself for not having seen it earlier. The lack of discipline, uniforms, unit bonding, or any other hallmark of military organization should have given it away immediately. They hadn't been taught team tactics, only how to fight one on one. And now Sparr's first match couldn't be more than an hour away.

"Death?" he asked.

Ast looked at him quizzically. "Death, no death," he said. "Death good." The limits of Sparr's translator couldn't have surfaced at a worse time.

Sparr found himself back at a familiar place. The square where he had been sold less than one week prior had been converted into an arena of sorts. One side was open, but the other three had been fitted with rows of seats. Where there had been a platform, the packed dirt of the square was roped off to form a circle.

"Fight place," said Ast, still grinning.

The third of their party, the 'bad one', if Sparr understood correctly, stared at the scene with wild, nervous eyes. Jinn was tall, and lanky, with a fresh, angry scar on his chest and shoulder. The injury left him with limited use of his left arm, something that had been evident during training. Sparr wondered if he might flee rather than fight again.

The mood in the square was considerably more boisterous than it had been at the auction. While the center section was reserved for the Vonde elites, the sides were packed with common folk. Boys walked the perimeter, selling cups of ale or wine, lifting them to the upper rows with purpose-made sticks. Bet takers followed close behind, yelling out odds, collecting tokens, and handing back hastily marked tickets. A man at the entrance tapped out a tune on animal skulls of various sizes, calling out to passersby to show their appreciation. Had he not known the trial that awaited him, Sparr might have found the scene pleasing.

Ast leapt from the wagon almost before it had come to a stop. Around them, other competitors stretched, hefted weapons, or eyed one another warily. The guards which had accompanied them set up a simple red banner, laid out weapons, and a small bag for each of the contestants. Sparr opened his cautiously. In it were two chunks of a soft, colored stone which resembled chalk. Could this planet be any stranger, he wondered?

"See." Jinn showed him the use of the stones. Pressing a black stone against his temple, the nervous gladiator pulled it down across his cheek, leaving a thick, dark streak. He repeated the motion twice more, then once on the other cheek with a yellow rock. It was warpaint.

Ast conducted a similar ritual using black and orange chalk. The gladiator's approach was simpler than Jinn's. Ast rubbed one cheek with the black chalk, creating an uneven circle, before doing the same with orange on the other cheek. It seemed the men had some liberty with their design.

Sparr had a black chalk and a somewhat crumbly gold one. He hesitated. It would be easy to follow Ast's example, making a quick mark with each chalk and be done with it. On the other hand, he had no idea how many battles he would fight. If gladiator matches on Kaybe at all resembled Earth sports, having a memorable style could carry advantages. Looking at the gold and black chalks, Sparr thought of the Earth tiger. Impulsively, he applied a black stripe starting from the corner of his eye downward across his cheek, chin, and neck. Taking up the gold chalk he repeated the process, then again with black, and so on. When finished, Sparr had a full set of tiger stripes. Jinn and Ast nodded their appreciation.

The first matches were beginning. Sparr watched from the edge as two men entered from different sides of the arena, one with a red banner and one with blue. They planted their standards in the packed dirt, glared briefly at each other, then began to strut around the arena. The first man was an Urst, as compact and muscled as those Sparr already had encountered, but shirtless and loud. He bellowed at the crowd, swung his sword carelessly, and flexed. The other contestant, a youth of a race yet unknown to Sparr stood stoically, the tip of his sword resting against the ground. Judging from their tepid reception, neither man was a crowd favorite.

A judge announced the start of the match by waving a white flag with two diagonal stripes. This seemed to elicit greater interest on the part of the crowd, which watched with new intensity as the men began to circle each other. A bet taker made another hasty circuit, collecting more tokens and handing out another bundle of slips.