Prologue

Sparks danced from the grating and clashing of blades, jumping away across the sand in the centre. The two duellists dancing and spinning in a display of pure prowess, the crowd cheering and bellowing with each slip of blades.

A kick flew out of nowhere and was ducked, a roar of excitement rippled through the crowd as the metal heel of the boot clipped and bent the flamboyant crest atop the helmet of the female warrior.

The recipient of the vicious kick swept her leg around towards her opponent’s legs at a speed the crowd could hardly see, jumping and tucking into a flip over her vicious kick. He landed and swung his sword in a wild arc at her head, the silver blade whistling through the air before it was parried with the loud, jarring sound of metal grinding down on metal.

Spinning away and lowering himself towards the ground before she could riposte, the crowd roared its displeasure hurling disdainful abuse at her for missing her strike. He grinned underneath his helmet when the look of disdain crossed his opponent’s face. He sprung forward and leapt again, dodging her high kick and landing behind her with a second dramatic flip much to the approval of the thousands of faces bellowing down to the arena.

His sword was levelled dramatically to the back of her neck, wavering a little in his rigid grip as he prepared to lunge forwards and impale her throat with the sharp point at the end of the straightsword.

Before he had a chance to react, she had scrambled forwards and bared her teeth at him. Sharp white flashed in the afternoon sun and he answered her challenge in kind, a brutal and animalistic snarl rose from his throat.

He bit his snarl back and surged at her again like a deadly current preparing to swallow its victim, the warrior viciously slashed at her again. The untarnished blade sliced through the breeze perfectly as he had miscalculated her tact.

She had jumped high, just as he had earlier to plant one foot heavily on his shoulder and to drive the metal heel of the other into the middle of his back.

He didn’t go down but received a nasty gash in his side as her sword bit through his light armour and associated its bloodlust. He spun and hissed at her just as the crowd shrieked and clamoured for more. She smiled and spat a wad of crimson out onto the sand, gently levelling her quivering blade to his neck. He assumed a more defensive stance, his sword held at a downward angle by his injured side.

The crowd returned to their seats and she spun forward and slashed at his neck in a movement almost too fast to see, but he managed to parry the blow with his free hand, grasping her wrist and twisting hard enough she was forced to drop her blade. She gasped as she felt a line of cold metal press against her throat, coupled by a chorus of barking and snarling from the crowd.

He wasn’t exactly one to displease an audience and drew the sword across her throat in a precise and practised motion.

A gargled gasp escaped her throat, and she dropped like a bird shot from the air in a hunt, curling into a tiny ball on the ground and trying to protect her grave injury.

He looked up to the gallery. All the faces were showing smiles filled with needle-like teeth and eyes baying for blood.

She didn’t resist as he kicked her onto her back, she barely had the strength to keep her hands to her throat now, she knew that she was already dead and had made peace with it.

He pressed the tip of his sword to her lips, blood beading around the blade like calm, crimson pearls. He leant his head back to gaze up to the crowd as the pearls blossomed around the sharp edge of the blade. All of them were screaming for blood, begging for death to be dealt out on the sandy arena.

He gave them what they wanted and sprayed blood across the sand with a single quick motion of his blade being forced past her teeth and through the back of her precious neck.

The victor stood up off his victim and raised his dripping sword to the air, where he ran a gloved hand down it to clean the gore from its pristine surface. He paused for a moment, savouring the sudden eerie hush that had befallen the great arena before announcing his deserved victory to the world with his mighty shout.

Almighty cheering rose up from the crowd like thick smoke above a raging fire, fists pumping in the air, perfectly in unison with the lone gladiator on the ground.

Courting Gods
Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Godhood