As the trumpets blared I steeled myself. This year they had promised a challenge, a
worthy candidate. They had said it before, but either way I would give it my all as I
always did. As they placed the familiar blindfold on me I licked my teeth behind closed
lips. This year I hope they are right.
The sun hit my body as they lead me from the tent. As is tradition we fight naked- on
full view, it prevents cheating. I am proud of myself. To reach this moment is an
achievement on its own. Win or lose the honour of fighting here is mine. To fight to be
Queens Champion.
The sun hits me hard, as it always does. The roar of the crowd is for me, but I ignore it
as always. They lead me to the arena, the hot sands beneath my feet tell me I am there. I
ready myself.
I do not know my opponent. Little news reaches our isolated Warrior House. His duty
to the Queen keeps him by her side, and she prefers the cool walls inside her castle. He
cannot be in best shape. I concentrate on that, I will be in better condition than him. I
will be better. On the sands I ready myself.
My sword is placed in my hand, a comfortable and very familiar weight. We have been
though a lot together. I hope today will be the last day I use it as Champion.
My sword slaps into my hand. An old and comfortable weight. My weapon choice, I do
fight better with my hands, but I am too large to be as fast as I feel I need to be.
The blindfold comes off. For fractions, fractions of a moment I see a tall, proud
Warrior, steeled for battle. Then it passes, as ever, the slight slump of the shoulders,
visible only to another Warrior, the defeat in the eyes. It's over before it began. Again.
I am ready. I feel the knots untie, I blink.
He is a certainly a Warrior, very tall with reach, large with big, strong muscles, but not
the bulk of some. The sunlight gives him sharp hard edges, with his sword he looks
dangerous. For all that I still look down on him.
I now know why he is Champion, and why he has been for so many, many, years. I am
big, the biggest of my clan, nearly the biggest in my Warrior House. I have trained with
people of enormous size,....but the Champion dwarfed them.... and me. His skin was
dark brown, in the sharp sunlight every muscle stood out, every line as sharp as granite.
He could have been stone, carved from the rocks of the desert. He had the look of an
Easterner; a wide, sharp nose with heavy jaw and brows, deep set but very distinctive
oval grey eyes and long brown flowing hair cascading down his back in the way that is
common in the East, but no Easterner was so large. I am tall, but I barely reached the
height of his cobblestoned stomach. I have lost.
It is too late now. To get this far is to commit totally. I can read his thoughts from here,
he would love to give in, plead the Queen for a fairer match. I know she would never
grant him that, she has never before, and never will. As the ceremony dictates, we turn
to face my love, straight into the sun, he squints against the light, I lower an eyelid
turning the arena the colour of blood. A prophecy and a reminder.
I do not like these odds, his reach alone is almost my height, without his sword. I cannot
but hope he will throw the match, rumour has it that he is disenchanted with his position
and wishes to retire. I wish I could count on that but I cannot. The Queen rises, we
bow, the Champion is briefly my full height. The Queen waves her hands for silence
and begins her speech. Looking at her up on the stand I am reminded again of how tall,
strong, and commanding she is.
I have heard this speech so many times, but from her I could hear it many more.
When the Queen finishes her officials shout the call and we assume fighting stances. I
will try. I did not train, fight, and bleed to get this far and give in. We will fight, I will
lose, but I will fight!
I could end this very quickly with a few blows to his head, I could crack his head like an
egg, but I cannot -the rules, laws and, traditions of the contest say I must give him a
fighting chance. As he moves towards me I see him thinking tactics, looking for a hole.
His body is ready- his eyes search for weaknesses, but his soul is still defeated.
He is a showman and the crowd love him. We dance around awhile. I know what he
could do to me, so do the crowd, that is what they want. He nicks me with a blow that
could have taken my arm off if he had not twisted the blade. He knows the rules. I want
him to finish it quick so I can kill myself with dignity.
I play with him and as always I see him becoming infuriated. The crowd love it as they
always do. He is getting madder, he tries a swing that I could parry at six years old. All
his anger is impotent against me. I let him strike me a good blow; I roar as the crowd
expect and turn to them, arms in the air, mock injury on my face. I am telling him two
things, one is that I am not afraid to turn my back on him -a deliberate insult, and
secondly, my origins.
Now I know. Now I know why my blow merely glanced off, now I know why I saw
fangs when he roared, now I know why I will lose, the Champion is not normal, not the
same as me. The expanse of back he presents to me reveals all, everything he is there.
Not obvious normally but his presentation makes them unmistakable; from his
backbone pokes a ridge of spines like a lizards fin, running from his neck onto the short
stump of a tail that sits over his buttocks; the long puckered lines of flesh that run from
the loose sacks over his shoulder blades to his waist hide his wings. In this light now, I
can see it all clearly, I can see the criss cross lines of scale all over his body, so
impossible to see normally. There are few of his kind, few indeed, he is only the second
I have seen in many, many, years. I stand there shocked to my core. I now see why he is
still Champion. Now I see a Monster.
No attack.. Some have gone mad when they finally know, some take the opportunity I
present, only the skilled few do not attack. To right my earlier insult and to
acknowledge his skills I turn slowly round instead of whipping about as I would for an
attack. He is poised ready. We nod at each other. I flick a glance at my Queen, she
knows what I am to do. We are close confidants.
He lunges, sword angled to cut me in half, I could step back, instead I dive forward
between his legs, using the huge dangling genitalia to swing myself upwards. The crowd roars.
I stagger forward, miss a step, and throw my wings open to right myself. It is not
something I do often. It hurts.
Spinning round as I right myself I saw the most beautiful thing ever. The sacs on the
Monsters back split, those lines running down pulsed and opened, and out come the
wings, wet and shimmering in the sun, I could see every colour reflected in them, every
shade. They were enormous, like the Champion himself, anything else would not have
been right. I could of easily hidden myself several times over in their folds. They just
seemed to keep unfolding, the crowd went silent, the whole arena was still. The
Champion righted himself and turned towards me.
I hurt. None has tried that variant in so long I overreached my lunge, forcing me to open
my wings or lose the fight as first to fall to the floor. I smart, but not as much as he
would have if my blow had connected, dodging or not. He is standing there agape, the
arena is silent. I slowly unfold them as far as they will go, swell up my chest and give
out the war cry of my people, not heard here for centuries. It is the first time I
remember sounding it for far too many years, I suddenly remember home.
The cry. It shatters me. A long dronefull sound like a huge hunting horn, or a lonely
animal might make. It shatters the silence, the crowd erupts, the Champion is cheered
on louder than before. Slowly he folds his wings against his back. He smiles at me
showing me his fangs. Suddenly he is a Monster again. We again assume the stance.
We are back to circling, jabbing to test defences, I find a hole and cut him badly on the
leg, he circles back to clip a wing, then we are back to circling. He is good. This may be
the day.
We circle the Monster and I, he is clumsy because of his wings. I get a side shot-
swinging for a rib he turns and grabs my sword, blade cutting deeply into his palm. I do
not even see his other arm swing round and bury his blade deep into my leg.
I slash down and into the leg, stopping when I reach bone, I leave my sword there. He
did not scream or faint. Impressive. This one defiantly has skill, but now I hold him up,
his leg is shattered. I hold up upright through the sword I hold in my hand. He is
defeated if I let him go, he knows it. The crowd roars. If he can hang on, and I raise my
arm a little higher, then he can still win, he knows it, the crowd know it, they fall silent.
The pain is unbearable, I stare into the Champions ugly face so I can burn the image of
the Monster I hate so much into my mind forever. I will be forever scared, my leg may
be useless and I want him to know.
He will never forgive me, but he has done what I need.
I can hear the hush of the crowd, the pressure. I can barely see my hatred now, red-
blood, fills my vision. My legs are dead, I cannot feel them. All I can feel is my grip
slipping. It can not end like this, if I hold on I can win.
The endurance rules state that if an obviously defeated opponent can remain standing
and alive for a length of time equal to the Queens pleasure then they have won. I am
helping by holding him up when I could just let go. He knows it but it does not look like
that to the crowd, to them his sword is stuck and even with my crippling blow he will
not let it go. Determination is a key thing in a Champion. How long we stand like this
will depend on the Queen.
It is a lifetime before the roar of the crowd signals the Queen has stood and signalled
the end. The roar fills my ears like birdsong. My hands slip away and I sink towards the
floor.
I grab him as he lets go. He must make it to the edge of the arena and be presented to
the Queen before it is all over, otherwise I will be back here next year.
An impossibly strong grip is holding me up, I can barley see, but I know who it is. He is
an honourable Monster, he knows I must make the edge of the field.
I walk him off. He has the strength to move his legs, and apart from a dragging motion
the crowd will never know I am carrying him or how far gone he really is. My Queen
awaits us. In her hand is a branding iron, the patterns on its red hot tip dance in the
sunlight. I know what she will do, the faded pattern burned into my chest matches the
iron's head. I lift the new Champion a little higher as if he is proud.
The pain increases with each step the Monster forces me to take. I almost scream as we
step from the sands. I know the Queen will be there. I know what she will do. All
Warriors of the House, all the slaves in the pits dream of this moment. All the pain, all
the training was for this moment. The branding.
All I saw on his face when the Queen pressed the flat head of the brand to his flesh was
a thin, drawn look of victory. Good, for I am finally free!
I heal slowly. My leg requires time. The Monster- T’rviz- knew exactly where to hit to
leave nothing but a long scar and slight limp I will, hopefully, train out off.
My hand heals fast, as my wounds always do. My Queen, my lovely Queen, removes
the Champion name and rank from me. I am free of it finally. I no longer curse the
ancient laws that lay down the codes and rules of the Queen’s Champion. That time is
past. I am free to ask her the one thing I have ever wanted to ask her; for her hand. She
knew it was coming, and accepts. Slaves can become Kings.
Some things are impossible to hide. The Great Temple, the waterfalls of Bacfsj,
T’rviz’s bulk. The seamstresses did what they could, but in the end he still looked
stuffed into the billowing silk thing they made for him. As is my duty I lead the Queen
to him and gave him her hand. I know now what was going through his mind as we
fought, he has told me. As Champion I will protect them both. I am as victorious as he.
We are friends now. We met as enemies, contestants, but we are friends. Murgon is a
magnificent Champion, better I feel than I. We spar often and he teaches war to our
children. He is their uncle. The Queen loves him as I her. When the children come of
age and gain their wings they will have him to thank for their survival.
Do I feel lucky? I am the greatest Warrior of this great land. I have put the arena and
the fight with T’rviz behind me, that is the past. I am at peace, I am forfilled.