Chapter 21

The smoke rising from Krista's village blocked out all the stars in the sky. Sat at the edge of the cliff, Krista stared out at what remained of her home in a daze as quiet tears rolled down her cheeks. She could see licks of red flames all through the streets and spreading to the crop fields beyond it. 
In her mind's eye Krista could see the dead bodies slowly burning in their huts just as she could see her mother's body wrapped protectively around her brother just before the fire engulfed them both, melting their flesh and charring their bones. Krista's stomach churned as she thought she could smell their burning flesh on the wind. 

The men and women around her cried as their lives came tumbling down around them in a matter of hours. Their family had been murdered and torn apart. Children had been ripped from their mothers arms, husbands forced to watch as their wives were raped and then if somehow they survived they were then given the torture of watching them home burn before being sold into slavery. 

Krista had cried uncontrollably at first. Nothing could stop the tears from spilling out of her eyes or the anguished screams leaving her lips, not even the threats from the guards that they would kill her if she didn't stop. She was still not fully able to comprehend what had happened but as she stared into the darkness, with only a small flicker of fire in the distance that signified her village, Krista only felt numb. 

She had stopped feeling the cold hours ago but what was worse than the cold was the uncertainty. Krista did not know what was to become of her. Her entire family had been killed in a single night and now she was alone. She did not know why these Roman soldiers, soldiers that were meant to protect it's citizens, had attacked and killed them. There was too much she did not know and she began to feel like a small baby, frightened and alone with no one to care for her with only one possible outcome for her - death. She could not survive on her own. 

An overwhelming  and unbearable fear began to settle on her shoulders as she looked out past her village and into the distance. She had never been out of her village except to go to market and even then she was with her father. How was she supposed to navigate this without him beside her? 

"Krista?" 

The young girls frowned as she thought she heard her voice being called but surely she was mistaken, everyone who knew her name was dead. Her memories were playing tricks on her as she began to hear her name being called louder and louder. Pressing her hands to her ears, Krista willed the voices in her memories to be quiet when she felt something touch her shoulder. 

Flinching in surprise, Krista turned around and saw Lazarus. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in shock as she gazed up at him in disbelief.

"Krista," He collapsed to his knees in front of her but before he could utter the last syllable she had thrown herself at him, her arms clambering  around his neck as she held him tightly. She thought he had died and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world to realise she was wrong. She began to cry into his shoulder, "They killed mama and papa!" 

"I know," Lazarus murmured quietly before he pulled back and raised his shackled hands that had been resting between them to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, "It's going to be okay, Krista. I'm going to look after you."

She stared into his eyes, shining from tears, and saw that he shared the same pain as she did. They had both lost their families and their home but at least neither of them were alone anymore. But as she remained in his protective embrace, her cheek resting on his shoulder, Krista's young mind was startled by an horrific thought.

How were their families, and the hundreds of others, going to pay the ferryman, Charon?They had not been buried with a coin as her mother had taught her.
Krista's breathing started to come in small gasps as she leaned back and looked at Lazarus in fear, "Lazarus, how are they going to pay Charon? They need to be able to pay Charon to get across the river to the Elysian Fields!"

Lazarus tried to calm her but flashes of rivers bursting with fire and filled with lost souls ran through her mind and then she could see her family stranded, unable to board a boat to the place of eternal and peaceful rest that awaited them. 

"Tiberius can't swim!" Krista shouted, "He never learnt! He can't swim and he can't pay Charon," everybody was looking at her but she couldn't seem to stop the panic from flooding through her body and suddenly it seemed the most important thing in the world to her.

"How are they going to get across the river!?" Krista cried, the first few tears starting to pool in her eyes as she thought of her family stranded in the afterlife. They had already been murdered, they did not deserve to be kept from their rightful resting place. 

"Sssh, Krista," Lazarus cupped her face, forcing her to look at him, "They'll get across the river, Krista, I promise."

"But how?" Krista begged, "They don't have any coins!" 

"Charon will understand," Lazarus reassured her, "He knows who's been good and who's been bad and the good get to go across the river even if they don't have any coins."

"Really?" Krista sniffed.

"Really," Lazarus nodded his head as he pulled her down into his lap, cradling her against his warm chest, "You'll see. Our families will soon be in Elysium and they shall wait for us there."

"They won't forget me will they?" Krista whispered, afraid that she would be forever alone in this world.

"They will never forget you, just like I shall never leave you" Lazarus held her tighter, his voice growing fierce with protection and the fear of being alone lifted from her shoulders and the bleak future she had imagined started to look a little brighter. 

* * *

Blood covered every inch of Krista's body as she hacked away at a man's leg, trying to sever it from his body even though he had gone silent moments ago. Rage blinded her mind and drove her body. The finesse of swinging her sword in an artistic manner to excite the crowd was gone. She now used of her hands to swing her sword down from over her head and into her opponents body with as much force as possible to cause the most damage. Blood squirted onto her face as she delivered blow after blow to his leg but she barely blinked, the liquid warming her cold body as she heard the crunch of her blade against his bone. It was cracking under the pressure. 

The man's blood emptied into the arena, red meeting gold, and the glorious flood of red reflecting in the sun enriched the crowds as they screamed in delight and chanted for more. Krista despised them. The people that encouraged her now were the same people that had cheered on the men that killed Lazarus. 

Her eyes did not move from the white bone splintering beneath her blade as she struck it again and again, her vision blurred at the edges. The vibration from hitting strong bone traveled up her arms with every strike when the shouting in the crowd suddenly dipped for a second, as if everyone had gasped at the same time, and something hard struck Krista in the back of her shoulder. Off balance, she was thrown forward over the man's body whose leg was half-hacked off, and rolled a short distance through the sand. 

Planting the tip of her blade against the floor Krista used it to stand and face what had hit her. It was a Thracian with a rectangular shield. She could see his face and it was the same as his neck, thick and wide. His hair was slick with sweat and there was a vessel bulging beneath the thin skin on his forehead. He flipped his curved blade in his hand and she looked at it, thoughts of Lazarus holding something similar popping into her mind. Shaking her head to dispel the painful images, Krista started to march towards him holding only her short sword and blood that wasn't hers dripping from her fingertips. 

The man, a Gaul if she remembered the auditor correctly, smiled as she headed straight towards him in a full frontal brute attack. Gripping her sword with both hands she let out a repressed scream as she swung her blade over the top of his shield and towards his neck but at the last moment he raised his shield and deflected her blow. 

It jolted her a little, her boots sliding back in the sand, but she managed to stay standing as the Gaul responded with a swing of his own sword at her mid-section. Jumping back Krista gasped as the tip of his blade sliced the material of her corset but that was all. Emboldened by how close he had come he gave Krista no chance of a rebuttal as he brought his sword back, this time aiming for her neck. 

Ducking beneath the strike, Krista spun around until she was behind him and went to run him through the back with her blade when he raised his leg and kicked out at her. His boot connected with her soft abdomen and knocked her to the ground, her stomach clenching in pain. The crowds had risen to their feet in angst as they saw her on the floor. It was not often that she came to be there and it shocked her. Looking up the sun blinded her for a moment until it was blocked out by the head of the Gaul as he dived towards her with his blade. 

Jolted out of her stupor Krista rolled to the side just as his sword struck the sand where her head had been. Rolling back quickly she reached out and grabbed the Gaul's arm. Holding him there, Krista raised her sword and stabbed him through his exposed neck until she saw the tip of her blade come out the other side. The Gaul's eyes widened in surprise as blood spilled out from his lips. Yanking her sword back out, Krista released his arm and when his body started to teeter forward, threatening to fall on top of her, she planted her boot against his shield and kicked him away from her. 

Breathing heavy, the wind knocked out of her from the blow to her abdomen, Krista got to her feet and looked up at the crowd. She was confused to feel waves of relief coming from them as women touched their chests in joy and men nodded their heads to each other, as if her death would have caused them sadness. She was foolish enough to believe them, momentarily.

The familiar clunking sound of the wooden gate staring to be raised across the arena was her signal to start heading in and she did, like a well trained animal. She even let her sword slip from her fingertips to be collected later. Her path back to the school led her past the stabbed Gaul and as she drew close she became aware of a soft gurgling noise. Looking down she was surprised to see the man still alive, his eyes moving in his skull to look at her. Blood covered his chin as it bubbled up from inside his mouth. He was choking on his own blood. Krista looked into his brown eyes and saw the question hanging there as he raised his hand towards her, palm facing upwards, pleading with her. 

Krista slowly looked behind her to where she had dropped her sword and thought about it. Did she give this man peace when they wouldn't have given it to Lazarus? Her heart was just one large aching mess and she wanted everyone to feel what she felt so she left her sword behind her and started to walk away. But as she took a step she found herself looking into the face of Lazarus as if he was stood directly in front of her and hadn't been gone a day. 

Her entire body felt weightless as she reached out her hand to touch him but he vanished as soon as her fingertips touched his cheek and was replaced with the loud choking sounds of the Gaul. 

Spinning around, Krista swiped her sword up from the ground and walked back to the Gaul. She felt something brush her ankle as she placed the tip over his heart and drove it down into his chest, breaking through his rib cage as she did so. The gargling noise ceased instantly as his heart stopped and the muscles in his body released letting his head fall to the side. His hand slipped from her ankle and after a moment she turned and walked away, leaving the sword sticking out of his chest. 

* * *

Krista was falling into a dark pit of despair, she could feel it, but she couldn't stop it. She had let a gladiator suffer today and she didn't care. She would have walked away and left him if it wasn't for Lazarus. She did not care about her opponent's pain. All she cared about was that final prize that would allow her to avenge her family. Without Lazarus she knew she would become the one thing that this place wanted her to be; a ruthless killer. But if that was what she needed to become to gain her freedom and avenge her family then it was a small price to pay. Resigned to the fact that she would already be spending her afterlife in Tartarus she might as well make her journey there worth it. 

She dreamed every night of a different more painful way to kill Pompeia but none of them seemed painful enough. She thought about which tortures she would enact upon her body before she killed her. Perhaps Krista could somehow draw her into the arena that she was stood in front of now and kill her there, it would be fitting after everything she had done to Lazarus but Krista could not quite think of how to get her there. Pompeia was surely staying within her palace walls and it would be filled with guards. 

Her every waking moment was dedicated towards Pompeia downfall and her every dream at night was of Pompeia's excruciating death. Her body was burning with rage and hatred that as the sun began to set and the gate to the arena was raised Krista was nearly bouncing on the tips of her toes to expend some of it. She wanted to see Pompeia in the royal box and show her just what she was going to do to her. 

The air was cool as Krista's match was the last of the day and the crowds were weary and tired from a full day of cheering for death but they rallied and the shouting started as three other gladiators were brought out from other gates and they all started their approach to the royal box to greet the emperor to thank him for the privilege of fighting for him. Krista remained silent and defiant throughout, instead looking at her opponents for the night. Two women were of a similar height to herself whilst the third was tall and thin holding a shield. Her eyes were devoted to the emperor. 

The emperor announced the game and the auditor set the scene of an Amazon skirmish in the jungle. Krista barely heard the story but it was always the same. Women gladiators did not have many options other than to be portrayed as the treacherous and scheming Amazons. Krista didn't care; she doubted she cared about anything anymore as she deftly killed the first of her three opponents with a slice to their throat as she ran towards her with her sword held out to the side of her head. Krista stepped to the side as her body fell forward and she landed face-first in the sand. A pool of blood soon gathered around her head.  

The second woman must have been close with the first gladiatrix as she screamed out in anguish when she saw her body. She stopped fighting with the tall woman and ran towards Krista. Raising a sword above her head she went to strike Krista when she raised her own blade and knocked it back. Spinning around, Krista roundhouse kicked the lady in the throat, crushing her windpipe and making it difficult for her to breath.
The crowds thundered above her as Krista sent the tip of her blade through the small dip at the base of the woman's already crushed neck. The woman dropped her sword and grappled at her neck, blood pouring through her fingertips, before she crumpled to the ground in front of Krista.

Looking out behind the woman Krista tried to locate the final gladiatrix but she couldn't see her when she heard the soft crunch of boot upon sand directly behind her. A sudden gush of wind hit Krista's back telling her that the woman was going to take a swing for her neck. Dropping down Krista looked up and saw the gladiatrix's blade cut through the air above her where her neck had been. 

Resting her hands flat on the ground, Krista kicked both her feet up off the ground and booted the woman in the chest, knocking her back in surprise. The woman stumbled back enough to allow Krista to get back to her feet and turn to face her. Despite the few inches in height difference the woman's appearance was similar to Krista's with her dark hair and slender form but that did not stop Krista from sending her blade across the front of her thigh.

But the woman surprised Krista when she swiped her short sword towards Krista's chest causing her to lean back too far to narrowly escape being sliced open. To stop herself from falling, Krista spun to her right but the woman saw what she was doing and sprung forward before Krista could gather herself completely and ran her blade across the back of her arm. 

Hissing at the sharp pain, Krista stared down at the gash which stretched a few inches down her right forearm and felt a mixture of rage and exhilaration course through her blood. However rage won out and Krista began to hit out at her with more ferocity. Battering the woman down with strike after strike Krista and the gladiatrix danced across the arena, their boots spraying sand out behind them as the clangs from their swords echoed out into the night air. 

Lazarus had trained Krista for this. Sweat poured down her face and covered her back but still Krista kept going. She did not feel tired one bit but as she caught snippets of her opponents face she could see that they were. The tall woman's mouth was open, gasping for air as the strength behind her strikes began to waiver. Soon the Gladiatrix was overcome with the force of Krista's attack and she let faltered, letting Krista's blade slip in through her defense.

The tip of Krista's blade nicked the woman's neck but it wasn't fatal and the woman recovered from her slip. Hitting Krista's sword away with her own the woman raised her left hand and punched Krista in the face, knocking her head back from the desperate blow. 

Krista's eyes watered from the strike but it wasn't strong enough to break her nose. Lifting her head back up Krista blocked a feeble swipe at her head with her sword. With their swords locked together Krista raised her boot and kicked the woman in front of her knee. The woman let out a loud agonising scream as her knee seemed to pop out on the opposite side and her leg crumpled beneath her. Half-knelt and half-led in the sand the woman swung her sword wildly out in front of her in a wide arc as she tried to keep Krista at bay. 

Standing to the side Krista stared down at the woman who looked so much like her that for a moment Krista realised that she could have been her. She could be the one on the floor with a broken kneecap knowing that she would be killed shortly. She had thought it before but now she could see it and it frightened her how close she was to death and how much she still had left to do. Not wishing to see it anymore and knowing that the woman would never be able to walk again Krista walked behind the woman, who tried to turn and poke her sword towards Krista to stop her but couldn't reach, and quickly decapitated her.

Her head rolled in the sand for a few feet before it stopped by her feet, her face staring up at Krista accusingly. The noise in the arena grew unbelievable as Krista knelt and sunk her fingers into the woman's dark hair, still warm with sweat and lobbed it into the crowd, trying to get as far away from it as she could. 

Turning away she walked back to the gates leaving the crowd to gather up the head like a prized trophy to be mounted upon their wall but Krista couldn't think about that so she thought instead of Pompeia and how the ends would justify the means. As Pompeia came into her head she looked back at Pompeia sat atop her throne and saw that she was looking at Krista with a smile on her face as if she was winning at their little game and that she had successfully put Krista back in her place. 

Unable to let it pass Krista sent her a wide smile back, letting her know that this wasn't over.

* * *

Soon the faces of her opponents all merged together and before long Krista could not remember the amount of people she had killed, but they all brought her one step closer to the Empress and the Commander and for that she knew that their deaths had not been entirely in vain.
They may not have been aware of her ultimate goal but even if she had not killed them they would have killed her.  It was the way of the arena and she needed to survive. 

She is required to kill them so she shall kill them. For her freedom, and for what she planned to do with her freedom, none of them shall hate her for it. She shall honour them in the best way. By not letting their deaths be in vain.

But as she returned from another day in the arena, the blood of another woman staining her skin, Krista was slowly learning that the arena asked for a lot more than simply killing. It asked for part of your soul because you could not kill without permanently staining a part of your soul. Krista was sure that by now her entire soul must be as charred as her parents bones had been after the fire, if she even had one left. 

Standing over the basin, Krista removed her armour until she was clad only in the barest of fabrics and started to wash the blood from her skin. She tried her best to make her mind go silent as she focused on nothing but the trickles of water than ran down her arms.
The water felt cold against her raging skin and soon the water in the basin was stained red from all the blood that she had washed off her body and her thoughts turned once again to to arena. Even the simplest of actions gave her no peace. 

Once she had cleaned and bathed, Krista left the baths and stepped down into the temple of the gods. The darkness was kept at bay by a few torches burning low in their metal cradles along the walls, dousing the area in an orange hue. Seating herself upon a stone pew near the front where a statue of Jupiter rested with smaller statues of the other deities around him, Krista allowed herself a moment to breath with no fear or restraint. 

Krista was afraid that if she stopped she would crumble. Her thoughts would inevitably lead her to Lazarus and the memories they shared and she was faced with an overwhelming fear of not knowing what to do. Lazarus had been her rock, the one thing that kept her calm and tied down but without him she could feel herself slipping. He had been her anchor. 

The memory of seeing Lazarus lying dead in the sand burned her eyes as it flashed before them.  They could no longer converse and joke together, he would no longer train her and keep her on the right path for he had gone to a place too far for her to follow. 

She knew she shouldn't hate him for it but she was resentful. He was all the family she had and he left her. She knew how well he could fight, those men in the arena that day should not have been able to land a finger on him let alone a blade. Krista had tried many times herself to conquer Lazarus in a fight but she had failed, constantly. But yet those men in the arena had bested him in their first fight. It seemed impossible, especially seeing how it did not take her long to kill them herself.  After Lazarus she should have been easy to kill, and they were not holding back, but yet they did not kill her. 

Her eyes travelled left past Jupiter and Minerva all the way to Pluto at the back and her thoughts turned to how Lazarus was now with his own family. She wished he was here still though because now, as she sat in the darkness, Krista realised that she no longer knew what to do. She was moving but she wasn't going anywhere. She fought everyday and she thought that it was taking her closer to Pompeia but she wasn't so sure. The games seemed to be never ending. 

Her eyes started to sting as she felt tears begin to build up but this was not a place to cry. This was not a place for the weak. Krista begged herself not to cry as she looked to the ceiling and tried to breathe deeply but her body was betraying her as it continued to conjure up more water which spilled over and down her cheeks even as the rest of her body remained unaffected.

She was looking into the darkness at the corner of the room when Artorius, who had been stood outside since she had entered, walked up and sat beside her. He left over a foot of space between them, almost sitting on the edge of the pew, as he waited with her. He did not speak, he just sat there, reminding her he was there. 

Krista was thankful he did not speak because she feared she would hurt him if he tried to tell her anything about Lazarus or how she should be feeling. Because no matter how much she tried to ignore it and how much she knew it was wrong, she could not stop the thoughts that he had killed Lazarus from entering her mind. If he had just kept out of her business then they would not be here. 

But a lot of things would be different if one person had or had not done something. After her family had been killed and her village attacked, if the man had not decided to let Lazarus go to her then she would not be here now and Lazarus may have died years ago from working in the mines which his original fate had been that day. But one man had changed that when Lazarus persuaded him to let him go with her instead. There were too many if's to dwell on them then. 

"I should be used to losing things by now," Krista spoke softly against her dry throat, breaking the silence between them, but keeping her eyes fixed in the distance. She was not sure if she could look at him with tears in her eyes, but she could feel his gaze upon her.

"I lost my father, my mother and my brother Tiberius." Krista's swallowed painfully, "And now Lazarus." Krista took a shaky deep breath, trying to settle her emotions, "But I'm not. I'm not used to losing things."

"Krista-" Artorius whispered, shuffling his body closer to hers but Krista leaned away. She could not have his hands touching her.

"Every day I spend in that arena, I'm losing a little bit more of myself," Krista closed her eyes, "When I hold that sword in my hand I no longer know who I am. I am willing to let other gladiators suffer . . . why?" She pleaded to Jupiter's statue in front of her but she didn't know what she was asking him. Was she asking him why she could let people suffer, why she had been dealt this life or something else entirely? She didn't know. 

"I know who you are," Artorius told her with a degree of certainty that made Krista turn and look at him for the first time since she had discovered him with Pompeia. It felt like she hadn't seen him in over a year and she realised that since she had not spoken with him something had been missing from her life. How could she forget the way those ebony eyes sparkled and the way his lips curved slightly upwards at the ends? 

As he looked at her she began to feel as if her soul was no longer completely black. It felt as if someone had just ignited a small flame of hope in a dark room; it was small, barely flickering, but it was there. 

"You're the woman that defended a tiger when anyone else would have just as soon see it killed," Artorius smiled sadly, "You're the woman that saved a girl from being raped."

Krista swallowed around the lump in her throat but she could not look away in fear that that light would go out inside of her. 

"No matter how much you deny it," Artorius sighed as he reached up to brush the hair from her face but decided against it, "You're the woman that would fight against all odds. You're good, Krista, you're a good person."

Krista stared into his eyes that looked back at her with such warmth and love that Krista could not understand how he didn't see the blood that tainted her hands or thoughts that ran through her mind, "I don't feel like a good person." 

Artorius sighed softly, "That's what all the true heroes say."