Revenge
The door slammed shut behind Thyestes as he entered his quarters. Sweat poured off of him, cascading down his brow in rivulets. His padded leather armor had been handed to the arena steward for yet another cleaning, but his mighty vultite battle axe he maintained himself.
He leaned his weapon in the corner, and flopped onto his cot. His eyes roamed the posters on the wall, all of them dealing with the Gladiatorial Games, the tournaments, and the great battles of the past. Some mentioned him, others mentioned friends, very few mentioned his enemies. But sadly, many of them, far too many of them mentioned warriors now dead. Unbidden, the tears sprang to his eyes, his throat and chest congested with pent up emotion.
Why did Gahlin have to kill her? Had she done something to him or his brother Baalor? Of all the adventurers in Icemule, he had to kill the only woman Thyestes had ever loved.
Thyestes opened his eyes and turned his head to stare at his battle axe in the corner. Some of the blood had begun to dry on its blade, turning the edges a darker red with scattered cracks forming along it. A small tuft of hair was mixed in with the blood near the worn hardwood handle.
He slowly swung his legs off the bed, removing his troll hide boots and dumping sand onto the floor with the motion. It always amazed him how the little granulets of sand got in there during his fights. He smiled a bitter smile when he remembered Kelynn's laughter at his preparations to keep the sand out, to no avail.
The tide of memories washed over him now; images of a woman laughing at him in the gladiator's entrance. Kelynn had constantly kidded him about his petty worries. She always told him to concentrate on his fighting and the little things would take care of themselves. He remembered seeing her happy in the comraderie of the "Garden" and in the melancholy she wore so rarely.
Thyestes had kept his cool at first. When the arenamaster had begun the fight Thyestes had every intention of merely wearing Gahlin down and giving him a good knock on the head to send him realing to the arena sand. That was before Gahlin started raining the blows down upon him. He was like a devil, causing pain and drawing blood with every swing. After a minute, all rational thought was pushed aside, and the instinctive actions of a well trained elven warrior took over in Thyestes. He no longer felt pain and began to swing his mighty great axe like a grain thresher, striking home with the first swing. Gahlin had started screaming in pain and backing up. Thyestes however, pressed forward, his warrior's intuition telling him to press the attack, to finish it here. The final blow struck in what seemed like slow motion. The blow buried itself in Gahlin's head up to the haft, looking for all the world like a melon cleaved in half. Gahlin swung a final feeble blow before his body realized his brain was dead. Then he slumped to the ground like a mannequin with its strings cut, blood spilling out onto the arena floor.
Thyestes spat on his blade and wiped off the remaining blood. Walking back to the cot with his weapon he softly muttered, "I got 'im for ye, Kelynn. He won't be killin anyone....anymore."
He drew his sharpening stone from under the bed and began to run it across the gigantic vultite blade of his battle axe with slow methodical strokes. After a few passes of the stone weariness finally overtook his aching body. Thyestes put the axe and the stone down on the floor and fell back into his cot. With a soft sigh and a smile he allowed sleep to take him away.......at least for now.
-- A story by the Lady Arlenna DeArturno