"Blood Slakes The Sand At The Circus Maximus" by Bal-sagoth

[Thoughts of an Iceni gladiator, awaiting the opening of the
arena portcullis:]

[Memories of rebellion (Carnage at Camulodunum):]

[Iceni Messenger:]</i> Hearken! The Ninth Legion has
been put to the sword! The
war-Chief of Queen Boudicca: Onwards to Camulodunum... wet
your swords!
Redden the earth with Roman blood!

I remember the carnage at Camulodunum...
The glorious clash of Celtic sword against Roman gladius,
The pride in the eyes of our war-queen
As we hacked down the Imperial Eagle,
And the severed heads of centurions gaping atop our spears.

[Bloodshed and Battle: 61 AD (C.E.)]

They had gone too far, these invaders from the east, with
their imperial eagle
which they dared to drive into our sacred soil... pompously
claiming our
island as their own. They who marched across the world
expanding their empire
all for the greater glory of their succession of debauched
emperors, reclining
upon their ivory thrones in the heart of sweltering Rome.
Aye, they had gone
too far... After their brutal annexation of our sovereign
Iceni lands and the
vile rape of our Queen Boudicca's royal daughters, the
Romans had the sown the
fields of carnage and they would reap a grim harvest of
slaughter, without
doubt! They had enraged the Red Queen, and by the gods, they
would pay!
We certainly taught the arrogant invading dogs a lesson, at
any rate. The
omens and portents spoke of vast bloodshed and great
carnage, and after our
slaughterous victories at Camulodunum (the Temple of
Claudius burned
wonderfully!), Londinium and Verulanium, the cursed Romans
finally dared to
meet us honourably upon the field of war at Mandeussedum.
They sent fifteen
thousand legionaires, their armour gleaming like gold in the
sun... but it
would still yield to our swords and spears, no matter how it
sparkled.
The Roman scoundrel, Governor Suetonius Paullinus,
battle-scarred from his
campaigns against the Druids, was able to choose the ground
upon which to make
his stand, and so it was that he selected as the battlefield
a narrow valley,
fronted by a flat plain, with dense woodland at its rear.
Aye... Mandeussedum,
"the place of the chariots"... I remember it
vividly.
The Governor's army looked unnerved as wee took the field.
I'll never forget
that, iron Roman fortitude or not! We were one hundred
thousand strong,
infantry and cavalry, both men and women warriors, as is our
Celtic custom, in
the ranks together, all annointed with woad, all roaring
oaths and vows to our
ancient gods, who were surely grimly watching the epic
confrontation from
their great thrones and vast halls. Our war-chariots
thundered up and down the
Roman front, the charioteers screaming abuse at the grim
legionaires,
decurions and centurions, and hurling spears and other
missiles which
clattered against the Imperial shield wall. And not one
Roman javelin or pilum
was hurled in response, not one arrow was loosed in
retaliation. They were
disciplined, I'll give them that. We were swelled by our
victories, empowered
by our noble cause, enraged with the battle frenzy;
thirsting to take as many
Roman heads as our bright blades could sever!
And yet we were perhaps somewhat overconfident that day...

[Abducted from the Iceni:]

In the aftermath of our defeat at Mandeussedum, I was
captured by Romans with
a veiled intent... (though three of them died at my hands in
the attempt!)
Nero was growing bored with the gladiators, slaves and
lion-fodder at his
great Circus, and so had requested Suetonius Paullinus to
provide the citizens
of Rome with new entertainment... The Emperor had heard much
of the wildness
and fighting spirit of these barbaric Britons who had
brought such woe to his
far-famed legions; these painted, pagan tribesmen who had
resisted the
Empire's iron fist where the glorious phalanxes of the East
had not.
"Agents of the Imperium... hearken to my words",
Nero had demanded. "Bring to
Rome some of these tribesman for the Games. Let us pit them
against our most
ravenous beasts and our greatest gladitorial
champions."
And so I was taken in fetters aboard a Roman trireme, the
blood of slain
legionaires still crusted upon my thews, I was taken far
from the fens of my
beloved homeland, to tread the sun baked sand of the Circus
Maximus... to
fight for my life in the Imperial Arena.

[Arrival at the Circus Maximus:]

The Circus Maximus was certainly a splendid sight, I'll
admit. A vast
colosseum with great stone columns and tiers, huge ornate
arches and mighty
statues of grey marble. Countless people filled the seats
surrounding the
sandy floor of the Arena... and in his opulent royal
enclosure, flanked by
gleaming guards and grovelling lackeys, sat the great
Emperor himself...

[Emperor Nero:]</i> Fight, barbarian outlander! Please
us, and mayhap Mars will
smile on thee this day!

[Iceni warrior:]</i> Bah! I do not hail to your Roman
gods, and you are not my
emperor! By Cernunnos, the blood of my enemies shall stain
the sand of this
cursed arena red this day!

[The Combat Commences:]

They unleashed the lions first. Hunger maddened beasts,
goaded into a frenzy
by the cruel point of many a pilum... And yet my own hunger,
the hunger for
revenge, was greater, and my honed steel was sharper than
bestial fang and
claw. And so they ranged their finest warriors against me.
Three more iron
gates around the arena yawned open, and they strode from the
colosseum tunnels
amidst a cacophony of cheering from the assembled Roman
spectators, urged on
and showered with martial adulation from the massed arena
crowd, who howled
their bloodlust without cessation.
I studied my opponents... there were two trained gladiators,
champions I was
told, who had never met defeat in the Games... and then
there was another like
me, a captured warrior forced to fight for his life. This
one was a towering
reaver from the Northlands with a bright yellow beard,
hefting a crude axe
with a single iron head. I lifted my iron bladed Celtic
shortsword with its
bronze hilt (the same sword which, mere days before, had
been slaked with
Roman blood... and its blade would soon be red once more
with the blood of my
captors, by all the gods!) and nodded to the reaver. An
understanding passed
between us... we knew we were here simply as sword-fodder,
and we knew we
would both fight these Roman dogs to the death!
The first gladiator moved towards me; he was a giant of a
man, standing nearly
seven feet tall and clad in dark leather and bronze armour
from head to toe.
His full-face visored helmet was set with ornate metal
fittings and encrusted
with jewels of various hues, and a vast black horse hair
plume rose from the
metal crown. Strapped on to his forearms were two black
vambraces, to each of
which had been secured twelwe inch serrated blades, and they
gleamed brightly
in the hot afternoon sunlight. He began to circle me slowly,
his eyes hidden
beneath his great helmet. To his left, I saw the second
gladiator begin to
close on the Northman. The yellow-bearded axeman's opponent
was a huge
steel-helmeted Nubian, wielding a wickedly pointed trident
and carrying an
embossed iron buckler with a great spike jutting from its
polished centre.
Far above, upon his great dias, the Emperor gave the signal
for the combat to
begin, and with the battle-lust engulfing me, with the red
mist swirling
before my eyes, I vowed to my northern gods that I would
show these leering
Romans the fighting spirit and battle prowess of my
people... I would leave
the arena littered with the bloody corpses of my
opponents...
I would cast off the imperial fetters and return to the
fens! Aye, I would
escape, and make all Romans fear my name, and compel Nero to
rue the day
Julius Caesar had first ordered his legions across the grim
grey sea to my
ancient island... BLOOD FOR BOUDICCA... CARNAGE FOR
CERNUNNOS!!

To be continued...