Chapter 17 – Horus Gladiator Troupe (10)
Chapter 17 – Horus Gladiator Troupe (10)
“This is ‘sword’, and this is ‘spear’. How do you write ‘axe’?”
Urich’s questions were endless. His eyes were sparkling from the joy of learning.
“‘Axe’ is…”
When Horus taught him, Urich copied it down immediately. Urich had phenomenal concentration.
As the night got longer, the guards started to yawn more. Unless they were actual lunatics, there was no one that would attack a gladiator troupe at night.
Fffft.
However, an arrow split the night air, striking and toppling over a patrolling guard that was carrying a torch.
“Huh?”
Arrows continuously rained in from the darkness. The gladiators and guards, who were lazily lying down in the camp, quickly stood up.
“There are enemies! It’s an ambush!”
“Raise your shields!”
“Wake up!”
They were yelling and preparing for battle.
“What idiots are ambushing a gladiator troupe? Damn it.”
The gladiators murmured.
A gladiator troupe was different from a group of merchants. The ‘product’ were the gladiators who were all experienced warriors. Even bandits, who ambushed merchants like it was nothing, wouldn’t lay their hands on a gladiator troupe.
“A-Ambush?”
Horus moved quickly as well. He was the troupe’s manager, not a warrior.
Ffft!
An arrow landed right next to him.
“First, hide your body,” said Urich as he ran while grabbing Horus. He was practically dragging their troupe leader around.
‘I can’t find their locations. They’re attacking well in the dark.’
They weren’t able to discern their attackers with their eyes still used to the light. Urich closed one of his eyes. He planned on getting his eyes used to the darkness—one eye at a time.
‘I have to first hide Horus in a safe spot before I enter the battle.’
Urich also knew how important Horus was. Without him, the gladiator troupe was finished. It was Horus’s responsibility to set up the matches with his connections. Even if the gladiators could be replaced freely, he couldn’t.
“Horus, hide here for—Damn it.”
Urich scowled as he was about to hop over a rock.
“K-Keook.”
Horus was holding onto his neck. An arrow was lodged in it. His top soon turned scarlet from the blood.
“Hey, let me see it!”
Urich inspected Horus’s wound.
‘It’s in deep. There’s nothing I can do about it.’
Horus’s throat was filling up with blood. He couldn’t talk properly. The only thing he could do was gasp for air.
“Listen to me well, Horus. Focus and listen to what I’m saying.”
Urich tapped on Horus’s cheeks. Horus was trembling as he looked at him.
On the other side, the area was filled with screams and shouts. The troupe was fighting their ambushers.
“You’re going to die soon. You don’t have much time left. Pray to your god. Stop shaking so much and get ready to die!”
As Urich yelled, Horus’s eyes wavered. He was dying. He had to accept it. Even if there wasn’t a lot of time left.
Grasp.
Urich pulled out the Sol emblem on Horus’s chest. He handed it over for Horus to hold.
“The people who believe in that god reincarnate after they die. Then I’ll see you again in this world someday, Horus. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Horus’s trembling stopped. He nodded with difficulty.
Urich used Horus’s blood as paint to draw a line on his face. Red lines traced from underneath his eyes to his chin.
“Horus, I came from over the mountain range. Yeah, the Sky Mountain Range. There are people like me who live there. I, Urich of the Stone Axe Tribe, vow on my name and to the sky that the people who attacked us tonight won’t return alive. So don’t worry about revenge, and die at peace.”
Horus grabbed Urich’s hands with his own blood-covered ones. His eyes lost focus while gazing at Urich.
“Hm.”
Urich’s voice came out quietly. He extended his hand to close Horus’s eyelids.
Horus was dead.
“I have to keep my vow.”
Urich pulled out his axes and raised them. He vowed to get revenge.
His eyes were finally used to the darkness.
Now, he could see the enemies.
* * *
* * *
“What crazy bastards… Ptoo.”
“Damn it. Raise your shield.”
Ambushing at night was the most effective way to initiate combat. If it was successful, a small group could take on a larger group.
The Horus Gladiator Troupe fell victim to it—hard. There were already over ten people who had fallen to the arrows.
“You guys with the shields should go up more!”
Because there was no one in command, they just yelled at each other.
“Lalo, Paul, Vajorn! Take two more and go up the right! Giggs, Nelsie. You guys follow me.”
Donovan, who armed himself, commanded. He was the only gladiator that served in the military, and the gladiators responded to the situation by following his orders.
‘That dark grass hill. They’re shooting us from there.’
There was also the option to retreat. They didn’t know how many enemies there were. It was a disadvantageous position.
‘But we can’t run away after getting one-sidedly hurt like this. There probably aren’t a lot of them. If they had more people than us, they would have already grabbed their swords, surrounded us, and started close combat.’
Donovan made a calm judgment. He grabbed a shield and climbed up the hill. He saw his opponents through the bushes’ shadows.
“Throw it!”
Donovan threw his spear at the bushes and heard a scream.
“Lalo! Attack!”
The gladiators who went right jumped into the shrubs. Donovan and the other gladiators also charged in, screaming.
“Keok!”
Close combat ensued. The gladiators that joined late threw in their torches to light up the surroundings.
‘Bandits? Mercenaries? It’s pointless to try to classify them.’
It was common for mercenaries to turn into bandits. A reputed mercenary group could be considered an official army, but for smaller mercenary groups, the boundary between mercenary and bandit was vague.
“Argh! Kill them! I said, kill them! I’ll give you twice the amount!”
Someone was yelling amongst the enemies. It was a young man wearing clean clothing—something that didn’t fit the scenario.
“Trios?”
Someone recognized the young man. It was Trios, the noble that was humiliated at the lord’s banquet hall.
“That bastard is ambushing us? Why?”
The gladiators thought it was absurd, even in the middle of combat.
“Does he think that him getting humiliated is our fault? Stupid bitch.”
Trios hired around thirty mercenaries to ambush the Horus Gladiator Troupe.
There were around twenty combatants in the gladiator troupe. Even at a glance, they had fewer people. The night ambush took a big toll.
‘If it goes wrong, we’ll get pushed back. We have too many injured people on our side.’
Donovan thought to himself while swatting away the opponent’s shield in front of him. His eyes were reading the battlefield.
“Die! You gladiator bastards!”
Trios’ mercenaries were yelling. They had quite the high morale. It looked like they got paid pretty well.
‘It would be nice if we could grab Trios as a hostage, but he’s hiding in the back and not coming out.’
There were a lot of enemies surrounding Donovan now.
A few guards and gladiators also started to recognize that it was an unfavorable battle and ran. In fact, most of the slave gladiators that were released to fight ran away. The only slave gladiator fighting bravely was Sven.
‘I can’t really hate them for running away. It was obvious since they were slave gladiators. Tch, should I have run away as well?’
Donovan was also slowly starting to calculate.
“UWOOOOOOOOH!”
Then, a beast’s roar could be heard between the shrubbery. A man charged into battle.
“Urich!”
The gladiators yelled after recognizing him.
“I thought you ran away, you bastard!”
“Me? Run away? Don’t make me laugh!”
Urich smirked and ran into the enemies. He was literally surrounded on all sides.
SWOOOSH!
With a hurricane of blood, human heads started rolling on the floor. The two handaxes in his hands swayed as if they were dancing.
“Urich! Grab him! It’s Trios, we saw him at the banquet hall!” yelled Donovan.
He saw Urich’s combat power clearly.
‘If it’s him, he’ll be able to get through them all and grab Trios.’
The mercenaries were scared and stepped away from Urich.
“What? Donovan, how dare you order me around?”
Urich glared at Donovan. They had a bad relationship. If you considered the animosity between them, it wouldn’t have been strange if they killed each other on the battlefield.
Whirl.
Urich’s arm moved. His axe quickly spun towards Donovan.
THUCK!
Donovan looked behind him. Urich’s axe was implanted on an enemy’s head. He came up behind Donovan while hiding his presence and planned to stab him.
“Watch your back before you do things like giving orders, retard.”
Urich spoke while unsheathing his sword with his free hand. A sword in one hand and an axe in the other. He charged into the enemies with a weapon in each hand, fending off the incoming attacks and ferociously cutting down his opponents.
“Wh-What is that guy?”
Urich was an anomaly. Not only here, but also in his motherland. He always was a surreal existence.
In the enemies’ eyes, he didn’t look human.
“Hieeek!”
The frightened Trios shrieked. Urich was running towards him in a straight line, cutting down any mercenary in his way.
“Well, look who it is. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
SLAM!
Urich headbutted Trios, and the noble fell over.
“M-My nose!” Trios mumbled as he protected his broken nose. Urich put his blade on the back of Trios’s neck.
“Your employer is in our hands! Surrender!” Donovan yelled loudly. The mercenaries flinched, then dropped their weapons one by one.
“You bastards!”
The gladiators kicked on the surrendered mercenaries and spat on their faces.
“S-Save me. I-I’ll pay for my ransom. I’m a noble. I’m a noble, so I have a right to pay for my well being.”
Trios shook as he spoke. Urich and the gladiators cleaned up the battlefield and gathered their breaths.
There were about ten captured mercenaries. They closed their eyes while waiting for their fate.
“Let’s just take the money. Since he’s someone that spent a lot to kill us, he’ll probably pay a lot more to keep his life.”
Donovan spoke while wiping blood off his face. The other gladiators nodded in agreement.
“Even if it’s for self-defense, if it gets out that we killed a noble, people will hold grudges. It won’t be good for the gladiator troupe either.”
Bakman also agreed with Donovan.
Urich didn’t respond right away. He retrieved the axe that he threw earlier and walked closer to Trios.
“The gladiator troupe is over. Horus is dead.”
“He’s dead? Damn it.”
The gladiators whispered amongst themselves after hearing that. Urich wiped the blood off his blade and stood in front of the noble.
“And I vowed to get his revenge.”
Stab.
There was no time to stop it. Urich stabbed Trios’s stomach.
“Kaak. D-Do you know who I-I am? I-I’m—”
Chhhk.
Urich twisted the blade. Trios’s head lost its strength.
“Damn it! How could you kill him?!”
Donovan glared at Urich. He then looked at the captured mercenaries. If it had become like this, they had to kill all of the witnesses.
“W-We’ll keep our mouths closed! No, we’ll work under you guys. Just, please, let us do anything—K-Kuaargh!”
Donovan cut the mercenary’s neck. The other gladiators sighed and started killing the other mercenaries as well.
“I’m sorry, but we should nip this in the bud. And we were enemies, right? Don’t hate us too much,” said Bakman as he stabbed a mercenary in the chest.
There were no witnesses and survivors left.
“Gather up the corpses and burn them.”
The Horus Gladiator Troupe lined up the corpses side by side and took their valuables.
“Is there anyone here who memorized the funeral prayer?”
“Ah, I know it.”
“Say it in a bit then.”
Their preparations were completed by the time it became dawn. The survivors proceeded with the funeral with tired eyes.
They gathered dried lumber, laid it around the corpses, and poured oil.
“Ru, your sons are returning to you, so please welcome them with open arms…”
The corpses started to burn, and a few started to follow along with the prayer.
‘Sun God Ru…’
Urich watched the scene before him.
‘The people here believe that when they die, their souls go all the way up to the sun to be purified. And after that, they are reborn into a new life.’
A few moments later, the solemn prayer was finished.
‘Is Horus also going to be reborn somewhere?’
Everyone was afraid of death. Urich also grew up watching his brothers die.
‘I told my dying brothers that we’d meet someday in the world of souls beyond the mountain range. But our souls aren’t here. They aren’t anywhere.’
The afterlife that Urich believed in crumbled away.
‘Sun God’s rebirth, the Northerners’ Hill of Swords…’
They all had a place to go after they died.
There wasn’t anything like that for Urich.
“Alright. What do we do now?”
The survivors finished the funeral ceremony and huddled together.
“We can’t be gladiators anymore. Horus had all of the connections, but he died.”
“Let’s just take the money and go our separate ways.”
“There are a lot of us who haven’t earned enough to go back home yet. Also, what are we going to do about the injured?”
Opinions were exchanged. Urich silently watched the men.
He thought for a long time. The early morning air was melted away by the sunlight. Then, he slowly parted his lips.
“Mercenary.”
—————
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