Crimson and Gold

She woke up to a suffocating stench of sweat and blood.

Her vision was blurry. The sounds seemed distant and incoherent.

She didn’t know where she was or who she was.

The thoughts in her head felt muddled, the memory completely blank.

She raised her hand to check the numb pain at the back of her skull, only to realize that she was shackled.

Something above her moved. The blurry silhouette leaned over and said something.

“—awake! …hit… —pressive…” The fragmented words started slowly reaching her ears. “I was sure you were a goner.”

She blinked twice and squinted.

The figure above her got clearer. She saw a lean, brown-haired man dressed in tattered rags. On his wrists, there was a pair of shackles, just like hers. He had kind, light brown eyes.

With that came a realization that she was lying on the floor of a caged wagon. People were sitting in rows on benches on both sides of her.

The man who had spoken before waved a hand before her eyes.

“Hey, are you alright?”

“I… don’t know,” she answered while sitting up. The moment she did, a splitting headache knocked the wind out of her. “Where am I?”

“Eee…” the man looked around awkwardly, “in a wagon?”

“I know that much,” she groaned, “but where is it taking us?”

“To the Arena in Aervelis.”

“Where?”

“The Daethri Arena? In Aervelis? In Aelius Empire?”

She muttered a curse under her breath.

While the names sounded like something she once knew, there was no recollection of anything related to them in her mind. It’s like all of her memories had been wiped clean.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you?” the man asked. “Can’t say I’m that surprised, considering the condition you were in when they dragged you in.”

“They. Who’s ‘they’?”

The man looked at her curiously. “The people who sold you to the Handler. Dressed in all black, nasty looking. They dragged you in when you were unconscious and sold you for a handful of coins.”

Wonderful.

Sold for a handful of coins. No memory. No idea what was going on, and the only piece of information was to look for people wearing black.

That narrowed it down to literally every other person on the streets.

She got up from the floor and sat on the bench.

With her senses returning to a decent state, she tried to examine herself.

Her clothes seemed to be in a similarly terrible state as her companion’s and looked bland enough not to betray anything about her. Just a simple linen shirt and trousers. Even her shoes were missing.

The only thing that stood out was a pendant around her neck.

It was a round, iridescent moonstone framed by a silver silhouette of a fox and a wolf.

“Pretty. Is it valuable?” her newly met companion asked, eying the necklace.

“I don’t know.”

“If they didn’t even bother taking it off you, then it must be really worthless. Pity. If it were, you could try using it to buy yourself out.”

“Buy myself out?”

The man looked at her, confused. “Well… you’re a slave now. We belong to the Handler, but if we do well in the fights, someone may be willing to buy us. And if you have enough money, you could try buying yourself out.”

Everything felt flipped on its head. The chaos in her scrambled mind only got worse the more she was told.

Why had she been sold into slavery? Who had sold her? Why did she have this necklace, and what did it mean?

As if in response, the headache throbbed in her skull.

“The Arena. Tell me about it,” she asked, rubbing her temples.

“I don’t have to. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.” He pointed at something behind her.

She turned around just in time to see the sun disappear behind a colossal structure. Round in shape, it towered above every building in the area, making the people look like ants in comparison.

The massive gate opened with an ominous screech, allowing the caravan to enter a small courtyard behind it.

“End of the road,” the man shrugged as the armed guards approached and started rounding them up.

“I never asked your name.”

“It’s Tally. I would have asked yours, but I’m guessing you don’t remember that either.”

The woman nodded.

Everything about her was a mystery to her, including her name. She couldn’t even remember what her face looked like.

The guards led them to the underground of the Arena.

As they were lining them up in the corridor, a man introduced as ‘the Handler’ by Tally came over to look at the newest transport.

The plain linen toga, covered by a washed-out green pallium, did next to nothing to mask his bloated belly.

The beads of sweat slid off his balding forehead and disappeared into the unkempt curly gray beard as he walked along the line of his new ‘possessions’.

“Not bad,” he noted, “not perfect, but some of them have potential.” He stopped next to the woman and scanned her from head to toe.

Her long black hair was messy, her face covered in dirt, but even with this miserable appearance, it was clear that there was beauty underneath. Especially her clear eyes with piercing crimson irises.

Even if she’s not a good fighter, she would sell well as a toy for the rich, the Handler thought with a smirk.

From the way his sleazy eyes lingered on her body, she could immediately tell what he was thinking about.

A violent urge to run a dagger through his skull boiled deep inside her, taking every ounce of strength not to.

“Do you know what my name is?” she asked instead. If he was the one who bought her, there was a chance he might know something.

The Handler scoffed and waved at someone.

Two guards holding branding irons showed up a short moment later. Fire ignited from their bare hands, heating the brands, then pressed them to her arm.

She clenched her teeth, feeling searing pain explode from her forearm. The skin flushed red, the edges charred around the spot where the brand met the flesh. The smell of burning skin filled the air.

The guard lifted the heated iron, revealing a fresh burn mark.

‘XIII’.

“Thirteen,” the Handler said, looking at the mark, “This is your name now.”

They led them to the entrance of the arena. Separated them into smaller groups, each in a different gate.

When ‘Thirteen’ asked if they were going to remove the shackles, the guard only snorted at her.

The low growl of a warhorn thundered through the battlefield, and the gates flung open.

Thirteen raised her hands to shield her eyes from the blinding Aelian sun and looked around.

It was an oval stadium with a combat zone at the center and audience stands along its sandstone walls.

Eight gates led to the battlefield. One per each cardinal direction and one for each ordinal. Thirteen quickly assessed that she was at the southeast entrance.

The arena was filled with coarse sand, and with the exception of a couple of weapon racks filled with swords, halberds, spears, and a variety of blunt weapons, the place was completely empty.

At first, nobody moved.

The fear that the first step could be their last rooted them to the ground.

They swept around with anxious gazes. Their bodies readied instinctively in response to the arising tension.

It was quiet. Unsettling. Like the calm before the storm.

Even the air stood still in anticipation.

Then, someone on the opposite side of the arena started moving.

First steps slow, hesitant. Then faster, until they threw themselves into a sprint.

There was no more time for stalling, no more time to think. The fight to the death had begun.

The moment the first person picked up a weapon, the chaos ensued.

Clash of metal.

Screams of the fallen.

Blood painting the burning sand at their feet red.

Nobody wanted to die. Everyone wanted to prove they were worth something, just so they could live to see another day.

Thirteen stayed behind, watching the massacre from a distance.

The chaos in her head was not much better than the one before her eyes.

She didn’t know exactly how it happened.

With a corner of her eye, she saw a shine.

Her body moved on its own, driven by the memories she no longer had.

She dodged to the left, swung her arm over the attacker’s head, bent him backward, and snapped his neck in one elegantly fluid motion.

The crowd watching the fight roared in excitement as the lifeless body hit the ground at her feet.

Thirteen didn’t have the time to think about what she just did.

Two more fighters came running her way.

She picked up the sword from the dead man, and just like before, the muscle memory did the rest.

She swiftly parried the incoming blows and sliced through the enemy, just in time to deal with the other one.

Cut through his knee, send a powerful blow to his gut with the handle, and cut off his head in a clean strike.

The adrenaline was coursing through her veins. Her heart was racing, but this was the first time since she had woken up that she felt a sense of familiarity.

She gripped the handle tightly.

Three more came at her.

She threw her sword at one of them, lodging it perfectly between his eyes.

Kicking the spear off the ground right into her hands, she pierced through another woman’s heart, killing her in an instant.

Swing. Deflection.

The last of the three fell as she impaled him through his throat.

The blood in her veins stirred in satisfaction. Finally, something that felt familiar.

Something that felt right.

It didn’t matter if it was a sword, a spear, or a heavy axe. Her body found the rhythm to every weapon she picked. It was as if she had been born to do this.

Thirteen cut through the enemies one by one.

Soon, there were only five out of the twenty that had entered the arena left standing. She was one of them.

At the center of the carnage, she found herself at home.