Chapter 1: Lavender

"What are we doing here, Demeter?" Nilsen asked as he looked around at the dark, dank and dismal walls of the slave pens. "You know I really don't like what goes on here and I really don't like who does it. I thought we were going out to look for a gift for your sister?"

"We are," the small, dark haired man replied, brushing off his friend's concern. "I just forgot to tell you the present was going to be a new servant for her upstairs rooms."

"Well, have fun," Nilsen huffed. "I'm going back. My father wiped this shit off Jeevel's ass years ago. Just because it plopped down here doesn't mean I have to look at it."

"I can see why you were chosen to lead a diplomatic mission," Demeter grinned. "I suppose I should take offense; after all it is my father's policies you're maligning."

Nilsen shrugged. "You know as well as I that I'm not in charge of any diplomatic mission; Makro would be if we were really here for diplomacy, which we aren't. I'm here to study at my father's old school; Makro's here to talk about trade with some of your merchant houses and Jarrah's here to study with your healers. As for the twins," he just shrugged, "who knows why they do anything? I find everything works out much better if I don't look into their business too closely."

"Right. The heir apparent to Jeevel and four of his sisters just happen to be visiting and you say it isn't a diplomatic mission." Demeter gave a theatrical sigh. "However it happens that I agree with you about slavery for all the good that does. Being the Putram's son does have some privilege; but being the sixth son out of ten ensures it's a very small privilege. Besides, Pru needs someone to help her and isn't it better that I rescue someone from this hellhole than not?"

"For her, yes," Nilsen answered, peering into the dark gloom. "But you just reward the slavers and perpetuate their practice. Better for one person, worse for untold others. Where in the hell are we anyway?"

"Ah, I think we're next to the gladiator pens," Demeter answered. "Domestic staff is just over there, I think. This is a shortcut."

"Why is it your shortcuts always seem to take us twice as long as the long way would?" Nilsen quipped. "Let's just get your business done and get out of here."

"Yes, I'm sure it's just through here," Demeter said cheerfully.

"Here" turned out to be a long passageway somewhat better lighted then the rest of the slave pens. Cells separated only by stout iron bars were visible on either side of the corridor. As they walked they could see their human occupants staring at them, most cowering back in the rear of their cages.

"Gods, this makes me sick," Nilsen muttered as he tightly gripped the hilt of the short sword still sheathed at his side. His eye caught something remarkably different and he stopped, openly staring at the sight in the last cell. "What the hell is this?" he asked in wonder. What caught his eye was a woman, but a woman unlike any he had ever seen before. To begin with, sitting on the floor, her head came up to nearly mid-chest level on him. She would have to be at least a head taller than he was, and at six feet two he wasn't considered short by any means.

He could only guess at her height since she was sitting down on the ground with her back against the far panel of bars. He figured that's pretty much where she would be staying since both her arms were shackled to the bars outstretched away from her body. There wasn't much else he could tell about her other than she was big and a woman. The woman part was easy since remarkably large breasts — even given the overall size of their owner, they were large — could be seen through the rips in a dirty leather vest. He felt somewhat juvenile for how difficult it was to tear his eyes away from the sight. It wasn't like he'd never seen large breasts before; after all two of his mothers were very well endowed and body modesty wasn't of much concern in his household. So it wasn't that he had never seen the like before, but he swore he'd never seen any that big, or, from what he could see of them, that perfectly shaped.

He placated himself musing that his father always told him that it was all right for a man to look ― most women expected and wanted to be looked at ― but there was a difference between looking and gawking. Hoping he wasn't sliding into the "gawking" side, he finally tore his eyes away from those magnificent orbs and guided his eyes firmly up to look at her face.

She was absolutely filthy. Hair was unkempt and greasy as it hung down her back; it was in such a state it was almost impossible to determine its natural color other than it wasn't extremely dark. The face was just as dirty, with abundant mud and grime, and it would appear she had been hand fed, and not particularly carefully at that since bits of food and gruel stuck to her chin and had dripped down onto her vest and ... Again he had to forcibly tear himself away and bring his eyes back up to meet hers.

As soon as their eyes met he immediately knew two things: first, this was a soul that could be beaten but never broken; second, that he had never seen anyone hate with as much intensity as he saw in those eyes. Aside from the animosity that blazed out of those eyes, they were remarkably lovely. Pale lavender rather that the ice blue Nilsen himself sported, they were large, wide and remarkably clear. Tired, yes. He could see the exhaustion trying to settle in, and the enormous willpower being expended trying to force it away.

"Hello there," he said without thinking, "Who are you?" If he really expected an answer he was disappointed. The owner of those amazing violet eyes merely worked her mouth for a moment and then spit at him. Fortunately for him she was dehydrated enough she couldn't work up enough saliva to make the distance, the little token of her esteem falling short and landing in front of his feet rather than in his face.

"Hey! No need for that!" Demeter admonished, taking a step backward.

"Oh, come now, Demeter," Nilsen said, nodding his head in salute to the bound woman. "I hope we would do the same if found in the same situation. At least I hope I would still have the guts to do it." The eyes just glared at him.

"What do you two think you're doing in here?" someone shouted from behind them. Nilsen and Demeter both turned to be confronted by a squat fat man flanked by two burly guards.

"I asked what you two shitheads are doing here?" he asked again. "Nobody is allowed down here before the fight. You want to see the meat; you see them at roll call with all the rest of your gambling buddies."

"Gambling?" Nilsen asked with a puzzled look on his face.

Demeter looked somewhat pale when he answered. "Ah, yes, well, there are some people that like to place a wager or two on the outcome of the contests. I guess they think they can get a better idea of who might win if they were able to see the contestants before the match."

"Let me get this straight," Nilsen continued, oblivious to the rising temper of the slaver. "These aren't prisoners, these are slaves you force to fight each other, and others bet on that?"

"That's exactly what happens," the slaver replied. "And it's more than a few coins, let me tell you. This is one of the biggest shows in town."

"That's..." Nilsen paused for a moment trying to come up with the precise word he was looking for, "Sick." It was the best he could do to express the utter contempt and disgust he felt.

"Well, lucky for me nobody gives a shit what the fuck you think," the slaver grinned. "Not only are the games legal, but fully supported and sanctioned by our enlightened and benevolent government. I don't care if you're one of the bettors or not, get the hell out of here!"

Not particularly concerned with the slaver or his escort, Nilsen turned back to the woman in the cell. For the first time he actually looked somewhere other than her eyes or her chest and he was amazed at what he saw. Quickly he turned back to the slaver.

"You actually force women to fight?" he asked, incredulously.

"Not normally," the slaver admitted. "But when this one was taken last week she ended up killing two of our guards with her bare hands. I thought it would be an interesting way to get rid of the bitch and recoup some of my investment, but the stupid skag has lasted through four fights now! This afternoon's will be her last."

"How do you know that?" Nilsen asked. "If she lasted four, why not five? Or even six?"

"You obviously don't know how the games are played here, do you? The first fight is one-on-one. Whoever wins has to go against two in the next bout. Win that one and it's against three, then four. No one has ever won against five; never will."

"Well, one against five is pretty steep odds I will admit," Nilsen nodded. "But certainly doable. But regardless, I have no desire to see a woman fight to the death. I'm willing to pay you thirty gold for her, right now." Nilsen patted the large leather purse tucked into his belt. He could see the slaver lick his lips while considering the offer. Ten gold would buy one a high-priced pleasure slave; one, an ordinary worker like a gardener or maid. For this unique woman, Nilsen doubted there was another around that could match her in height; he probably paid three, at the most. He was looking at a ten-fold profit just for the taking.

After a minute of thought the slaver sighed and shook his head. "I can't. There is already too much bet on this match. As much as I'd like to, I can't sell her before the fight."

"Fine," Nilsen said. "Then agree to sell her to me after she wins."

"I already told you, nobody wins against five; never have and never will."

"All right, then I'll make a bet with you," Nilsen said. "She loses, I give you the thirty gold; she wins, you give her to me."

"That's a sucker's bet," the slaver laughed. "I tell you, nobody wins against five."

"Let me talk to her," Nilsen said with a thoughtful look. "I think she can do it, but I want to hear it from her."

"Sure," the slaver grinned, he could almost count the thirty gold coins already. "But I can't be held responsible for you if you go in that cage. I'm telling you she's dangerous."

"You have her arms chained to the bars," Nilsen said with a grunt. "I think I can handle her that way."

"On your head be it." With a wave of his hand one of his companions walked over and unlocked the cage door. "Ah, no swords in the cage."

With a shrug Nilsen took off his sword and accompanying sword breaker handing them to his friend. As he passed through and into the cell the door was closed and locked behind him. Unconcerned, he made his way over to the chained woman. Crouching down he was nearly level with her head. If anything the hate within her eyes was even more intense. He was amazed at the courage and determination this warrior demonstrated. That she was a warrior wasn't even a question as far a Nilsen was concerned. Even if he hadn't known she had defeated at least ten other opponents, he could tell she had the heart of a warrior just sitting next to her.

"If you wanted to spit on me, now would be a good time. I don't think you could miss," he said casually.

This seemed to take her by surprise and she swallowed what was in her mouth. "Do you want to get out of here?" he continued.

"You are a fool," she said in a low rasping voice.

"You must have been talking to my sisters," he answered. "I don't think my being a fool is in much doubt, but that wasn't what I asked. Do you want to get out of here?"

"I will never get out of here," she answered. "They will never let me win against five. I heard them talk: they're going to drug me before the match. Not enough so I can't move, but enough so I can't fight well. He say he can't afford to have me fight six, or maybe seven. Too many slaves in pit at same time; too many dead at same time. You see, you fool to bet on me."

"I thought it might be something like that," Nilsen said softly. "That bastard was just too sure of your losing. Do you have your hands free anytime before the match?" She nodded slowly. "Good. Take this," his hand produced a small hunk of what looked like mashed together rabbit pellets. Using his body as a shield he leaned over and tucked the pellet into one of the rents in her vest. It nestled there next to her breast, visible only as a small lump, and then only if one was looking for it.

"Take that and start chewing it just before you go in for the match," he told her. "I don't care how much of any drug they give you; this will wake you up for a little while anyway. After that you may have to sleep for a week, but while you're awake, you will be wide awake."

She had been looking down at his hand as he placed the pellet next to her tit. Normally any man reaching anywhere near to her breasts would at least lose the hand, if not his life, but since both her arms were bound, there wasn't much she could do about it yet. She was surprised when he didn't grab and fondle her like so many of the guards had done. She in no way trusted him, but what else did she have going for her at the moment?

She looked back up and him and asked, "Why?"

"Just helping a fellow warrior," he said lightly. When she continued to stare at him he finally relented and said, "Fine. I can't stand to see a woman locked up like this, especially one who is a warrior. That make you happy?"

"Fool," she said with a grin. "Get you killed someday."

"I've always said women will be the death of me yet," he straightened up and slapped the dirt from his trousers. "Fight and win; we can decide what happens after that." With a nod he turned and walked back to the cell door and out into the passageway.

"She'll win," he said to the slaver. "I just know it. Do we have a deal? Thirty gold to you if she doesn't win; she's mine if she does."

"Fine, I'll take that bet," the slaver growled. "But there ain't no fucking way she's coming out of there alive.

Nilsen turned to walk away, but briefly turned back to say, "I hope there won't be any cheating. I really don't like it when someone tries to cheat." With that he turned and walked quickly away with Demeter trailing behind him.

Lavender Mist Bwejeri: warrior; daughter of Xolan Bwejeri, he who is Chief of the Zagwci Clan and First Speaker for the Havila nation of the Kushitic people, sat in her dirty, stinking cell pondering the events of the past few minutes. She knew exactly what was going to happen in the next hour or so, or at least what was supposed to happen. Digmar, or Dagmer, or some other stupid name for the short fat slaver ― the name wasn't important since either she was going to die very shortly or she would kill him ― had told her what was going to happen. About half an hour before the scheduled match he was going to have his guards force a potion containing the extract of poppies down her throat. This would, as he delighted in telling her, slow down her reaction times and speed to just barely above functional, after which it would be almost certainly guaranteed that one of the five of her opponents would kill her.

Lav ― she hated being called Lavender, almost as much as she hated being called Misty ― wasn't afraid of dying. After all, it was the fate of warriors. Well, it was everybody's fate, but it had a tendency to come a little bit earlier for warriors. Having chosen the path of the warrior at eight summers, she had been trained to show no fear of death, in fact to embrace it when it finally came to claim her soul. Of course her training also paradoxically taught her to fight death with her last breath. Warriors are a strange lot.

While she hadn't thought much about her own fate over the past one and a half ten-days she had spent in captivity, she did wonder how Cerberus was doing. True, the couple who had rented her the rooms had been kind enough to help with his feeding while she had been away before; this time she had not had any warning and therefore hadn't told them about her absence. Sighing, she tried to push all thoughts of Cerberus from her mind and concentrate on the puzzle handed her today in the form of a well-muscled shorty with light, almost white, hair and eyes as pale blue as winter ice.

What was his game? she wondered. Maybe he was the fool she had named him. Who bet thirty gold on a battle between one warrior and five men? Even if that one warrior was one of the Kushitic and the five, untrained shorty men, the odds were with a lucky strike by one of the five. He didn't act like he had seen any of her earlier bouts, so how could he judge her prowess? The instincts of a warrior? That he was also a warrior there was no doubt. One look into his eyes confirmed that. But how good was he? He was young, younger than she for sure, although not by more than four or five summers. So, what did he want? Her body? She grunted at that. Long ago she had promised herself that no man would ever come to know her as a woman; besides, she had been told for most of her life that she was quite undesirable.

"Your face is too sharp, Lav, too narrow," her brothers would tell her. "Of course you're too skinny and short. Who would want you? Even if we could bribe someone with a dowry, you're going to be culled anyway. Too ugly and too short."

Her father wasn't any more help than they were. "You have much more to offer than just physical beauty, Misty girl," grinding her ugliness in with just a dash of her most hated nickname. "Not all pass the cull you know, and if you do, remember, you are the daughter of a chief and a skilled warrior in your own right. There will be plenty of men who will mate with you; don't you worry."

But she knew what was going to happen. She was going to be culled; it was a foregone conclusion. As much as it hurt, her brothers were right: she was ugly, and although beauty may be a judgment call, height wasn't. At seven feet three inches she was four to six inches shorter than the average Kushitic woman. In a culture where height is beauty, the only place she could be beautiful would be in a land of midgets! Maybe that was what really motivated her to run away or as she like to try to convince herself, taking an unauthorized wandering.

The funny thing was, here in the land of the short she still wasn't beautiful! True, most of the women, the ones considered to be fair by the shorties, had the narrow, angular face like hers, so opposite to the broad, flat, faces with large hooked noses so much favored by her tribe. For the most part the shorty women also had the narrow waist fanning out to broad hips, just like hers, quite unlike the average Kushitic woman whose body held to the more perfect cylindrical shape. Of course having these huge tits didn't help either! Not only did they add to the unsightly curves, but they got in the way while fighting and practicing! Although shorty men did seem to find them fascinating for some reason; even the blue-eyed one could barely keep his eyes off them!

Her tits were not the question here; the real question was what had the blue-eyed shorty stuck in her vest, and did she have the courage to take it as he told her? Did she have a choice? The guards had been very explicit about what she could expect, no doubt taking pleasure at telling her of her fate. She would be fed the drug in plenty of time for it to work and then sent out to die. She was well aware of the effect the poppy extract would have on her since it had been used a number of times already to subdue her prior to moving her around. She was sure they would take no chances and give her an extra dose. It is unlikely she would be able to fight off a young tot with a butter knife let alone five full-grown men with swords. Unhappily she came to the conclusion she didn't have much choice. If blue-eyes gave her a poison, then what was the difference? If it wasn't poison and worked ... They would just have to see then, wouldn't they?

The Kushitic chief's daughter sat sprawled in her cage for the next few minutes mulling over this puzzle. Awhile later three guards walked up to her cage. One went around the back and confirmed that her wrists were still shackled to the bars. After nodding to his companions they entered the cage and walked over to her grinning.

"Your turn in a little while, bitch," he said. "We're here to give you your medicine, so you'll be at your best for the match." Laughing he took out a small metal funnel with a long spout and forced it past her teeth and partly down her throat. Pulling the stopper out of a small brown bottle, he poured the milky-white contents into the funnel. Seconds later Lav could feel the substance as it dripped down her throat. Then it was either swallow it or breathe it. Swallow she did. She kept swallowing until it finally stopped.

"That's quite a lot," the other guard mused. "Aren't you afraid of her falling asleep before she even gets out there?"

"Naw," the first replied. "They measured it against her weight pretty carefully. Besides, if she stumbles or something like that we can just say she's tired from the other bouts."

"They better hope anybody betting on her doesn't catch on to what we're doing. They're liable to be not too pleased."

"Ain't nobody going to be betting on her," the first said with a shake of his head. "Everybody knows nobody wins against five; it's really just an exhibition match. Hell, they have her five opponents already scheduled for matches afterwards."

"That's not what I heard," the second said. "I heard there were a number of pretty heavy bets on her winning being laid with a number of the bookies."

"Suckers," the first said with a shrug. "Let that work for a while. She should be good and ready in a half-hour or so." With that they left, taking their funnel and empty bottle.

"Where do we go to see this?" Nilsen asked his friend. "One way or another I suppose I have to watch it."

"Not really," Demeter said hopefully. "They don't know who you are. You could just take your gold and head back to the palace. No one would be the wiser." He continued in a whisper, "It's said they drug them if they don't want them to win. I don't think she has a chance."

"I'm sure you're right ― about the drugging anyway," Nilsen replied in his normal voice. "Let's just say, even if they do drug her, I think she still has a pretty good chance of living through this."

"You'd better, Demeter muttered. "You've got thirty gold riding on it. You really that sure?" Nilsen just shrugged and patted the pouch on his belt holding his gold.

"Isn't that the gold you picked up from the ship this morning?" Demeter asked. "Won't your sisters be pissed at you if you lose it?"

"I don't know why," Nilsen answered. "It's mine; I had it sent to me. I was going to use it for a new set of weapons and armor, and I still think I'll be doing that."