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Civitatis Ar, Plus!
Places
Stadium of Blades
In the past months I had spent my
time variously. During the season of the races I had often attended them,
and, on several occasions, had met the small Tarn Keeper Mip afterwards,
with whom I had occasionally sat table. Several times we had taken racing
tarns from the cot. He had even showed me, at night in the empty Stadium
of Tarns, certain tricks of racing, about which he seemed to know a great
deal, doubtless because of his connection with the Greens. I learned such
things as the pacing of the bird, the model trajectories from negotiating
the rings, techniques of avoiding birds and blocking others, sometimes
forcing them to hit or miss the rings; racing could be, and often was, as
dangerous and cruel as the games in the Stadium of Blades, where men met
men and beasts, and often fought to the death. Sometimes in the races, in
pressing through the rings, fighting for position, riders used goads on
one another, or tried to cut the safety or girth straps of others; more
than one man had been stabbed as the birds, jammed at the corner rings,
had fought for passage and position. Also, I had sometimes called at the
Capacian Baths, even after the races were finished, seeing if Nela was
available at that hour. I had come to be fond of the sturdy little
swimmer, and I think she of me. Also, the girl seemed to know everything
transpired in Ar. The games in the Stadium of Blades finished their season
at the end of Se'Kara, a month following the season of races. I attended
the games only once, and found that I did not much care for them. To the
credit of the men of Ar I point out that the races were more closely
followed.
I do not choose to describe the nature of the games, except in certain
general detail. There seems to me little of beauty in them and much of
blood. Matches are arranged between single armed fighters, or teams of
such. Generally Warriors do not participate in these matches, but men of
low caste, slaves, condemned criminals and such. Some of them, however,
are quite skillful with the weapons of their choice, surely the equal of
many Warriors. The crowd is fond of seeing various types of weapons used
against others, and styles of fighting. Buckler and short sword are
perhaps most popular, but there are few weapons on Gor which are not seen
over a period of three or four days of the games. Another popular set of
weapons, as in the ancient ludi of Rome, is the net and trident. Usually
those most skilled with this set of weapons are from the shore and islands
of distant, gleaming Thassa, the sea, where they doubtless originally
developed among fisherman. Sometimes men fight licked in iron hoods,
unable to see their opponents. Sometimes men wrestle to the death or use
the spiked gauntlets. Sometimes slave girls were forced to fight slave
girls, perhaps with steel claws fastened on their fingers, or several
girls, variously armed, will be forced to fight a single man, or a small
number of men. Surviving girls, of course, become the property of those
whom they have fought; men who lose are, of course, slain. Beasts are also
popular in the Stadium of Blades, and fights between various animals, half
starved and goaded into fury by hot irons and whips, are common; sometimes
the beasts fight beasts of the same species, and other times not;
sometimes the beasts fight men, variously armed, or armed slave girls;
sometimes, for the sport of the crowd, slaves or criminals are fed to the
beasts. The training of slaves and criminals for these fights, and the
acquisition and training of the beasts is a large business in Ar, there
being training schools for men, and compounds where the beasts, captured
on expeditions to various parts of Gor and shipped to Ar, may be kept and
taught to kill under the unnatural conditions of the stadium spectacle.
Upon occasion, and it had happened early in Se'Kara this year, the arena
is flooded and a sea fight is staged, the waters for the occasion being
filled with a variety of unpleasant sea life, water tharlarion, Vosk
turtles, and the nine-gilled Gorean shark, the latter brought in tanks on
river barges up the Vosk, to be then transported in tanks on wagons across
the margin of desolation to Ar for the event.
Both the games and the races are popular in Ar, but, as I have indicated,
the average man of Ar follows the races much more closely. There are no
factions, it might be mentioned, at the games. Further, as might be
expected, those who favor the games do not much go to the races, and those
who favor the races do not often appear at the games. The adherents of
each entertainment, though perhaps equaling one another in their
fanaticism, tend not to be the same men. The one time I did attend the
games I suppose I was fortunate in seeing Murmillius fight. He was an
extremely large man and a truly unusual and superb swordsman. Murmillius
always fought alone, never in teams, and in more than one hundred and
fifteen fights, sometimes fighting three and four times in one afternoon,
he had never lost a contest. It was not known if he had been originally
slave or not, but had he been he surely would have won his freedom ten
times over and more; again and again, even after he would have won his
freedom had he first been slave, he returned to the sand of the arena,
steel in hand; I supposed it might be the gold of victory, or the plaudits
of the screaming crowd that brought Murmillius ever again striding
helmeted in the sunlight onto the white sand. Yet Murmillius was an enigma
in Ar, and little seemed to be known of him. He was strange to the minds
of those who watched the games. For one thing he never slew an opponent,
though the man often could never fight again; the afternoon I had seen him
the crowd cried for the death of his defeated opponent, lying bloodied in
the sand, pleading for mercy between his legs, and Murmillius had lifted
his sword as though to slay the man, and the crowd screamed, and then
Murmillius threw back his head and laughed, and slammed the sword into its
sheath and strode from the arena; the crowd had been stunned and then
furious, but by the time Murmillius had turned before the iron gate to
face them they were on their feet crying his name, cheering him wildly,
for he had spurned them; the will of the vast multitude in that huge
stadium had been nothing to him, and the crowd, their will rejected,
roared his praises, adoring him; and he turned and strode into the
darkness of the pits beneath the stadium; even the face of Murmillius was
unknown for never, even when the crowd cried out the loudest, would he
remove the great helmet with its curving steel crest that concealed his
features; Murmillius, at least until he himself should lie red in the
white sand, held the adherents of the games in Ar, and perhaps the city
itself, in the gauntleted palm of his right hand, his sword hand.
ASSASSIN OF GOR-, (5) Pages 188-191
Equaling and perhaps exceeding the
fame of Gladius of Cos was that of the swordsman Murmillius, of the cruel
games observed in the Stadium of Blades. Since the beginning of En'Kara he
had fought more than one hundred and twenty times, and one hundred and
twenty foes had fallen before him, which, following his unusual custom, he
had never slain, regardless of the will of the crowd. Some of the best
swordsman of Ar, even Warriors of High Caste, eager to be the one to best
the mysterious Murmillius, had dared to enter the arena against him, but
each of these bold gentlemen he seemed to treat with more scorn than his
common foes, playing with them and then, it seemed when he wished,
disabling their sword arm, so cruelly that perhaps they might never be
able to lift the steel. Condemned criminals and men of low caste, fighting
for gold or freedom in the arena, he treated with the harsh courtesies
obtaining among sword brothers. The crowd, each time he fought, went mad
with pleasure, thrilling to each ringing stroke of steel, and I suspected
that that man most adored in Ar was the huge, mysterious Murmillius,
superb and gallant, a man whose very city was unknown. ASSASSIN OF GOR-, (5) Page 231
The women, of course, had been
ordered to report. Indeed, they had been ordered to report yesterday
afternoon to the great theater, from whence, to their surprise, they had
been transported in cage wagons, actually locked, to the Stadium of Blades
more than a pasang away. Beneath the stands of the Stadium of Blades were
numerous holding areas, suitable for wild beasts, dangerous men,
criminals, and such. In such areas, the women, having been checked,
arranged and counted, were incarcerated for the night. They had also, at
that time, been given the robes of penitents, that they might spend the
night in them. They had then, this morning, been transported to a location
on Gate Street, in the vicinity of the Plaza of Tarns. Some women who had
failed to report to the great theater were brought later that evening to
the Stadium of Tarns by guardsmen, both regulars and auxiliaries. I
myself, with some other auxiliaries, had brought in two of these women.
One we had had to tie and leash, almost like a rebellious slave girl, save
that slave girls are seldom rebellious more than once. MAGICIANS OF
GOR-, (25) Page 142
Kudos to you, Mr. Norman for writing the Gorean series!
A rich, yet utterly simple saga; a world, a time, a people;
those of the Counter-Earth .. the planet .. Gor.
Thank you!
The material presented herein was researched and compiled by me,
naia{Saul}.
The material referenced comes from John Norman's Gor Series, The
Counter-Earth Saga.
This is a work in process.
Please, do not take, copy, duplicate, or use this work as your own.
If you find it valuable enough to share, please .. share the link to this
page.
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