Chapter 10
The first day of the gladiatorial tournament came to an end, and the free gladiators lined up to receive their share of the winnings.
Tinkle, tinkle.
Horus counted the coins one by one. It was Urich’s winnings from the earlier match.
“Here’s two hundred thousand cils, after deducting the advance I gave you earlier.”
Urich, who still reeked of blood, frowned in disappointment.
“Are you kidding me right now? I can get more than this from just robbing a random person on the street.”
“Hey, watch it. I take pride in my integrity when I’m doing my math for you. You took six hundred thousand cils from me as an advance. You won eight hundred thousand,” Horus glared and said to Urich.
“I need a million, no, two million more, just to be safe,” Urich pleaded to Horus as he counted with his fingers.
‘I need at least a million to pay the blacksmith and find a nice woman—not some random whore that everyone and their dogs bang.’
Horus leaned back and locked his fingers. “I’m going to start taking interest from now on, Urich. Consider your first advance as a simple favor.”
“Interest?”
“Yes. If you take two million cils from me right now, you’ll have to pay me back with an extra two hundred thousand on top of the original two million.”
“Book me a lot of matches. I’ll pay you back in no time,” Urich proclaimed with confidence.
Horus smirked. ‘I thought he was smart, but he’s just a simple barbarian like the rest of them. He’s a fool who only cares about what’s right in front of his eyes. He’ll be easy to manipulate.’
By now, it was no secret that Urich was a barbarian. Even though they can be difficult to tell apart just by looking at them, it quickly became obvious when living under the same roof. Their behavior and mannerism was not like those who were from the Empire.
‘I’ll use you as much as I can, then I’ll let you die a razzled death.’
Horus took out a few gold coins from his pocket. Urich’s face brightened up.
“I knew you’d come through, Horus,” Urich said as he took the gold coins from Horus’ hands.
“Your interest is ten percent, Urich.”
“Book me about three matches in a row. You’ll have your money back before you know it.”
The other gladiators snickered at Urich’s cocky words.
“He’s basically a monkey who has no idea what he’s doing. He won’t live long,” Donovan said as he watched Urich walk away into the distance.
Urich wasn’t lasting long because his senseless, barbaric childishness was going to get him killed. This was the consensus around Horus’ gladiator squad.
* * *
Urich went through the tribal coming-of-age ceremony at fourteen. In the tribe, a healthy boy becoming a man meant that he was becoming a warrior. Warriors were the shield and sword of the tribe, protecting them and attacking their enemies. To become a warrior, a boy had to prove that he had what it took.
There were no set rituals or tests that had to be completed. Anything that would be considered worthy of the warrior title did the job. This included surviving alone in the woods and plains for half a month or killing a lion by oneself. Even if what the boy accomplished wasn’t necessarily as brave as the examples above, they weren’t stopped from becoming a man and a warrior.
However, the fourteen-year-old Urich shocked the entire Stone Axe Tribe with his ceremony. He went out into the plains alone and infiltrated another tribe’s territory. He then proceeded to behead three of their warriors who had come out on a hunting trip. A boy, not even fully physically matured yet, returned to the village with three adult heads swinging by his belt. At that moment, the tribesmen all knew.
‘Urich is going to become a mighty warrior.’
Urich did not disappoint their big expectations. It took him less than two years as a brand-new warrior to accumulate a pile of achievements of things that other average warriors couldn’t even dream of. Whenever an enemy tribe heard that Urich of the Stone Axe was going to be fighting against them, they would often retreat.
‘The 30-man slaughter fest was pretty fun.’
Urich reminisced about the past. About a year ago, a tribeswoman whom Urich frequently got intimate with was kidnapped by another tribe, gang-raped, and killed in the process. It wasn’t like Urich was in love with the woman. They had only slept together every now and then because they were compatible, and she had liked the idea of receiving the seeds of such a strong warrior.
Regardless, he was enraged. He infiltrated the territory of the tribe that murdered his woman by himself and ambushed their men for three straight days. He beheaded thirty of their warriors and hung their heads on the nearby trees as a sign to the rest of the tribes in the area. Since that day, no tribe has attempted to kidnap a woman from the Stone Axe Tribe.
What Urich did was insane to any normal human being—even to his own tribespeople—but no one pointed their fingers at him. In the world of warriors, the more insane you are, the more respect you earn—as long as you survive.
Crack, crunch.
Urich twisted his neck from side to side as he reminisced about his time back home. He wiped the blood left on the corner of his mouth with his forearm.
“Woahhhhh! Urich! Urich!”
He heard the crowd roar his name as he looked down at the corpses of his opponents on the ground.
“Let’s see, five hundred thousand cils per head. One, two, three, four, that’s two million. That’s the debt covered, then.”
The matches were already over. Urich had come out on top from two consecutive two-on-one battles.
“Is he crazy? He’s not even one of the slave gladiators. He voluntarily takes on two-on-one fights. Is he trying to get himself killed?”
Even the opposing gladiator squad had plenty to say about Urich’s seemingly insane approach to the tournament. Only the spectators were amused at the situation. Urich mercilessly trampled on every gladiator he faced with his unparalleled force. His skills were so superior that the spectators could barely make out what was happening as he defeated his opponents one by one.
“Urich! Urich!” The crowd continued to chant his name. His popularity was through the roof because of his acrobatic win on the first day and the consecutive two-on-one victories on the second.
‘How could he not be popular after all that? The crowd yearns for reckless gladiators, anyway.’
Horus clenched his fist. He had received five million cils for the arrangement of Urich’s fights. Even if Urich had lost his matches today, he wouldn’t have lost any money.
‘He’s a gem… A gem,’ Horus muttered under his breath as he watched Urich. Urich had exceeded every single bit of his expectations. Even for someone with no experience wielding a sword like Horus, Urich’s greatness was as plain as day.
“You’re not an average barbarian, impressive!” Even the gladiators who gave Urich the cold shoulder earlier were expressing their amazement.
“We thought you were going to die, but you came back in style.”
When Urich returned to the preparation room, the other gladiators approached him for the first time to talk to him and pat his back.
“It’s been a while since I got to move like that. I thought I was getting rusty. Ah, this is delicious!” Urich said as he sat himself down in a chair. He chugged a pint of lemon water that was on the table in front of him. He came across as a bit cocky, but the gladiators liked that about Urich. Anything was acceptable and forgivable if one had the skills to back it up.
“Where did you learn your swordsmanship?”
“Who said anything about learning? I taught myself through slaying men. I heard some idiots train by beating on scarecrows; what a waste of time! You master the art of slaying men by literally slaying men,” Urich boastfully said to the gladiators as he spun his sword before sliding it neatly into its sheath.
“Exactly that, I like it. My name is Bachman. I used to be a sailor from an eastern port city.”
“A sailor? I’ve never seen the sea before.”
Urich’s words lit up Bachman’s eyes. He became excited and began to describe what the sea looked like.
“Just picture a lake as big as the sky, with no end in sight.”
Urich opened his eyes wide and shook his head in disbelief as he listened to Bachman describing the sea.
“No way, you’re pulling my leg. There’s no such thing as an endless lake. You’re just making it up, aren’t you? Just because I’ve never seen the sea doesn’t mean I’m an idiot! I’ve crushed a lot of people’s heads for lying to my face,” Urich scowled with a stern look on his face. Bachman and the other gladiators broke out in laughter.
“Wow, you really are a hillbilly. If you’re ever in the east, you have to check out the sea and see for yourself if I was lying or telling the truth.”
Bachman and several other gladiators introduced themselves to Urich. Most of them didn’t care about what Donovan thought of them or had already gotten on his bad side.
* * *
During their stay in the city, the Horus Gladiators rented an entire tavern to use as their quarters. The tavernkeeper had a difficult time containing his joy because the gladiators devoured every last bit of meat and liquor he had to sell.
“Sven? He’s an odd fellow. I’m sure Horus would let him become a free gladiator if he would just ask, but I’ve never seen him try to escape his slavery,” Bachman answered Urich’s question. The two gladiators downed their meat with beer, surrounded by the loud chatter of their fellow gladiators.
“I would rather die than be a slave.”
Urich was familiar with the life of a slave. They were not treated as human beings, on either side of the Sky Mountains.
“I heard that Horus was the one who saved Sven’s life when he was about to die from being stranded in the sea. He helped Sven recover and even gave him a job, so it’s no wonder he sees Horus as a man worth his loyalty, as a northerner.”
Urich tilted his head in curiosity.
“As a northerner?”
“Have you heard of the ‘Field of Swords’? It's where the northern warriors believe they go after they die. They can only get in by dying in battle. It’s a place where their great ancestors and warriors await, where they can drink and eat all they want while testing their skills against each other day and night. It’s basically their heaven. What the northerners fear the most is dying of diseases or accidents because they believe that dying from anything other than a battle doesn’t get their spirits into their heaven. Instead, their spirits have to wander the world of the living.”
The Field of Swords. A little different, but not too far off from the legends of Urich’s home. In his homeland, a warrior must live faithfully as a warrior to reach the world of spirits when they die. To achieve peace in the afterlife, a warrior must carry his weapon until his body is no longer able to.
‘The oldies told us that the world of spirits was on the other side of the Sky Mountains.’
But that was a lie. Beyond the mountains were people, just like Urich and his tribespeople.
‘So, when we die, where do our spirits go?’
Urich chugged his beer in frustration. He was deeply troubled by the thoughts about the afterlife.
‘What’s going to happen to me after I die?’
Urich stared at Bachman as if he was asking him for the answer.
“So, when you die, where do you go? You’re a civilized man, not a northerner.”
The people living within the Empire borders called themselves civilized to differentiate themselves from the barbarians of the north and south. Those people were barbarians, and they themselves were civilized men.
Cling.
Bachman pulled a necklace from under his shirt and gently shook it in front of Urich.
“The sun?”
The sun ornament on the necklace rattled. Urich had seen the same symbol a few times.
“My spirit will go into the warm embrace of Lou, the god of the sun. then, I’ll be reborn. You should convert to Solarism.”
Solarism. It was the most widespread religion among the civilized men. The Empire and the kingdoms under its jurisdiction all had Solarism as their state religion.
“I believe in the sky. The sun is just one part of the sky, isn’t it? My religion is bigger than yours!” Urich remarked as he clicked his tongue. Bachman chuckled.
“Well, you believe in whatever you want to. Just be careful not to say that kind of stuff in front of the extremely devout believers. If they heard what you said, they’ll tremble in rage.”
Bachman didn’t seem to be a very devout believer. He tucked his sun necklace back under his shirt.
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