Free Gladiators vs Zombies by Sean-Michael Argo Page B

face she looked upon was beautiful and terrible, eyes afire and a wicked smile slyly hiding on the edges of her lips. It had been a long journey to this day, rich with lust and courage, the meat and drink of her chosen god. Dionysus, the outsider god, the wanderer of the way, a harbinger god who brings careful wisdom and wild passion in equal measure.
    I am a maenad now mother, she thought, I walk in your footsteps. I worship with wine and blood and lust. In this madness I shall offer up the whole of Rome to Dionysus, though my flesh be forfeit I shall not die a slave.
    Her course was set, and her plans already in motion. She thought on the events of the past months as she grasped a small piece of coal and used it to draw symbols upon her smooth skin. She wrote the names of her family long forgotten, and she wrote the names of fellow slaves, most dead and gone, others lost to the vastness of the empire.
Dionysus had long been the patron god of her family, and though the life of a slave had been rigid, she had kept her covenants in secret. As the Lanista Laeca slipped deeper into his own darkness, so had Hesta’s spirit held closer the flame of her ancient faith. When the lanista had unveiled his golems in the arena, it was as if the coin and glory had doubled his desire for her, and his cruelty. Swollen with his newfound wealth and power, he had become a monster. Hesta and the other slave girls were abused and humiliated, though Atticus chose to slake himself upon Hesta more than any other, and it was she that he marked.
    It was the mark that pushed her over the edge, the spark that ignited the fire of the maenad in her. Lanista Laeca had returned from the Coliseum after the glorious victory of Cassius Rex, flushed with pride and desire. He’d forced her to drink cup after cup of wine, until she was intoxicated and unable to defend herself. It was then that he attacked her, hurling her to the floor and climbing atop her as he ripped away her clothing. He savaged her as he took her, moaning and grasping as if he had become one of the golem creatures upon which he had built his new fortune. His nails dug furrows into her back as he thrust against her, and at the moment of his end, he bit her on the shoulder.
    It was not the bite of a lover, but the mauling of a beast. Atticus worked his teeth into her soft flesh and Hesta screamed. The lanista bit deeper and deeper, moving his jaws to tear her skin and sink into the meat of her shoulder. Even with a head full of wine Hesta screamed in pain and thrashed against the lanista. Her resistance seemed to only inflame his passion and re-double his strength. He moaned like his golems as he chewed, her blood smearing across his face and all over the floor. She fought as best she could while on her stomach, to no avail.
    It was in that moment that a still small voice spoke within her spirit. Through it all she found a retreat, a sanctuary in the euphoria of pain mixed with the numbing intoxication of the wine. She let herself go to that place, leaving her body behind and soaring with the god. She saw Rome burning, the scrabbling hands of golems tearing apart slave and dominus alike, and at the center of it all she saw herself.
    Hesta stood before the statues of the empire, facing them down, and holding before her the tattooed head of the golem primus. She had known of the golem primus, the severed and undying head that the centurion had sold to the lanista. Slaves of the house whispered of hearing it moan, and some had accidentally overheard Lanista Laeca speaking to it as if it were a man. There she stood, holding the golem primus up to the statues, as if she herself was Perseus using the severed head of Medusa to do battle against the Kraken.
    To you I shall offer up this sacrifice, Hesta spoke silently to herself, as she ran her hand across the wicked scar left behind by the lanista’s assault. She was marked now, as if she was one of the lanista’s golems. A cruel jape of