Freedom Fighter

Fiction Short Story – Freedom Fighter
Photo credit: GuilaneNachez from morguefile.com

Once upon a time, there was a country where slaves still existed. Slaves were bounded to work for a life time and controlled by others, unless there was a change. Winning the golden ring was a way to earn freedom.

The golden ring was a symbol of victory. It was the utmost glory for us slaves. Any slave would covet it, for it not only shone in its precious value, but the owner of it and his family could gain freedom from the king.

But it didn’t come easy without fights.

I meant real fighting.

Every year the king held gladiator tournaments in one of his old palaces.

The old palace was where I worked. It was shabby, to be honest, compared with the king’s other majestic new palaces, but of course still very much grand to me. It had a certain history. It survived wars from foreign invaders, and the external walls still contained those historic marks. It was big, but due to some abandoned use, some places were filled with dust and left unattended. It was our job to clean up the place and maintained it salubrious, but the place was just so big and it took a lot of time for clean-up and daily maintenance, and we had other work to do as well. The old palace was a place that was quite acceptable to me. I loved its architectural style, which was full of antiquity but fine craftwork and special, intricate design could still be observed.

Compared with my counterparts, I had quite a luxury to work in a palace. But my life was sweat and toil, and was partake of agony.   Countless visitors would come for entertainments. Those who visited were mostly nobles and rich merchants. Every year we would compete for the prize, which was the golden ring. But the winner was only for one person. And the competition was cruel. The winner could live and advance in competitions, while the loser might die, but there was a chance that the king would spare his life, though it was a slim one.

As a slave, I have longed for this competition. It was untold toil and torture of how hard I worked, treated like a dog, or worse, and trained. I wished to win. I really did.

I was lucky that I survived after several rounds of battles. And that day came, that was my last battle.

I found myself in the centre of a stage. The blazing sun shone on me fiercely and I was blinded temporarily. The heat, which was so massive, engulfed me like I was in an oven. I tried to open my eyes. I saw spectators, throngs of them in large number, sitting on shaded seats with multiple lifted levels, which surrounded me. In an unusually high mood, they shouted raucously. Some chanting, some brandishing their arms emotionally and yelled. Some sat with fixated eyes, which imparted a sense of eagerness, heralding that something unusual might happen at any moment. I felt unease in such a deafening surrounding. And at the same time, with uncanny discomposure, I looked ahead and saw a gate. Then it lifted, and out came a brawny man with full armour. Wielding a spear and a shield, he roared and his eyes were full of anger and rage. His blusterous acts had surprised me.

I recognized that man. That man was the second-runner up in last year’s tournaments. He fought really well, as I had heard.

I looked again at the man. His eyes were so intimidating that I felt a sense of merciless hostility instantly. Suddenly, I heard a bell rang. The man became full of vigor, spreading his arms wildly and taunted. I soon realized that an unavoidable battle had befallen me.

Without a choice and more thoughts, I quickly prepared myself. The man gave a loud yell and charged at me with spear pointing at me. I immediately sidestepped to the left and just be able to dodge the attack. I returned with a slash aimed at his arm but he seemed to be so agile that he parried with his shield and moving back to the right. And it dawned to me that my opponent was no easy foe.

He charged again, and he swiped with his spear and hit my legs. I fell with a stumble. He followed by a frenzy of stabs. Nonetheless, I warded off his attacks except a stab and made him backed away.

I got up as fast as I could. There might have a fracture in my right leg, as there was excruciating pain, and my left leg got a wound and it was bleeding seriously. In other words, I was crippled and quite badly wounded.

I was really afraid. I had been injured before but not as badly as this time. I had a foreboding premonition of death. Death seemed to be so close that just a thought about that gave shivering down my spine. But I could not afford fear. I couldn’t be afeard.

“I must carry on and win.” I said to myself.

Flashbacks seemed to surround me suddenly. I remembered how good my life was with my wife before I was forcibly made as slaves. I remembered how tough life was as a slave, being tortured, mocked and maltreated. The pain I had suffered by whipping was far too much to bear.

“In the past I have suffered a lot but I scraped through, and now it is so close to victory. I couldn’t fail.”

With that thought, energy seemed to burst, zapping and invigorated me. Power seemed to recover slowly, and pain seemed to fade away a bit. And I felt strong. Powerful was my spirit, which was indomitable and unyielding. My heart had ignited furiously. I had to win! Strangely I felt frightened, but my strong courage had overcome my fear.

We circled round and our eyes fixed at each other. After a short lull, I administered a diagonal slash proactively, trying to avoid being passive and gain the upper-hand. This led to my opponent blocking, and I, cunningly and skillfully, retrieved back my sword to my chest and changed into a horizontal thrust. This took my opponent off guard and it was a successful hit. I left no time and chance for him to recover from this stun and I drew back my sword and turned round to give a second diagonal slash which dealt the coup-de-grace.

The king seemed appreciated. And I was declared as the champion.

The ring, shiny as ever, was bestowed on me. I put on the ring. Feeling glory and respect, I gave a loud roar. It was a roar of triumph, the release of angst, hatred, and pressure, and of hope and freedom, for I have earned my freedom besides the ring.

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