A bit of backstory for Kolya the Splendid, a bugbear Oath of Glory paladin who... may not be aware she’s a paladin, actually. But does want the world to know that she’s a Big Damn Hero.
---
Kolya wasn't looking forward to this execution. That had been the one perk of being a heel, up until the last season finale: heels never had to execute anyone. Anyone thrown into the arena was an enemy of the state, so that duty was reserved for the school's heroes, publicly striking down those whose crimes represented disorder and deserved the harshest of punishments.
Those who offended the gods, as the announcer always shouted. And now Kolya wasn't just a face, she was a face with the gods' favor, so it was only right that she be given the honor of the season's first execution.
No one called it that, of course. It was the right of traitors who argued their innocence, and refused to accept the judgements of the Upper House, to defend themselves in a trial of combat. If the gods were truly on their side, if they truly had not done treason in their hearts, then they would win the match. Not that traitors ever actually won.
The woman across from Kolya was armed and armored, though she was clearly uncomfortable in the ill-fitting chainmail they'd put on her, and she held the shield as if she had no idea what to do with it. Her grip on the axe in her other hand was, at least, more comfortable. She would have been allowed to choose her weapon, though she wouldn't have been offered a sword. Only members of the Houses, and their retainers, were permitted that privilege.
And Kolya, now that she was so acclaimed in the arena. The Speaker of the House had handed it to her, the huge two-handed weapon she now held, after he'd put the golden icon of the ancient gods around her neck. He had barely been able to lift it, but she held it easily. She'd spent the whole off-season training with it, so that it was as almost as familiar to her now as the whip and the pike she'd used as a heel.
It would have been nice to test that against a real opponent, and not this grey-faced, middle-aged human with terror and hopeless determination in her eyes. But the horn blew, far overhead, and Kolya leapt forward with a grin regardless as a cheer roared through the arena's stands.
Not as loud a cheer as she'd been hoping for. There was something tremulous and uncertain about it. The strongest voices, though, were chanting: "Kolya! Kolya! Kolya!" Some people were just here for the spectacle, and it was her job to give them a show.
So she pulled her blows as they clashed, the greatsword coming down lightly enough that the woman's shield, however awkwardly wielded, could throw them aside. Kolya put a few rents in her armor, to make it look like she was actually trying, but none that lead to spraying blood, not quite yet. She'd give her fans at least a couple of rounds of entertainment before she went in for the kill.
Her opponent was spirited, too, for all her age and lack of spryness. She seemed to take heart from those glancing blows, as if she thought she'd truly deflected them. Darting forward, she swung at Kolya's sword like she was trying to knock it from her hand, though she couldn't get into the circle of the greatsword's defense to make any moves against Kolya herself. It was pitiful enough that Kolya moved in herself and let her get one chop in just above Kolya's gauntlets, on her bare upper arm. Most of the force was lost penetrating her fur, but it went deep enough for blood to start running, bright red against her golden coat. The crowd rumbled in reaction, and Kolya grinned.
"Good strike, traitor!" she shouted, pitching her voice to carry easily up to the stands. "But that is all the gods will allow! I am their champion, and they will judge you today."
Now, with enough blood spilled that it wouldn't look like the same kind of humiliating overkill that she had sometimes had to perform on new trainees as a heel to give the big names motivation to take her out, Kolya actually went on the offensive.
She split the woman's shield, first, the two sides spinning away to land in the sand, then put a couple more holes in her armor. The axe came last, to make it look like she was still a threat, but finally Kolya hooked it with her blade and split the head from the haft. The wood had been rotten, of course, which made it easier. Traitors were only ever offered flawed weapons.
At that the woman went grey again, all the color she'd regained when she hadn't realized she was being toyed with once more draining away. She stumbled back, her hands up. Kolya frowned. That was usually a sign to make it look like she was knocking someone down hard, without actually leaving more than bruises and superficial cuts. It didn't feel right to close for the kill on someone trying to surrender.
But she was a traitor, Kolya reminded herself, and the gods wanted her dead. Besides, the crowd overhead had gotten over its reservations. She could hear the audience baying for blood. In the midst of it, her fans were still chanting her name, over and over again.
Kolya raised the greatsword high. As she did, she focused her mind on the holy icon around her neck, calling out to the gods to empower her strike and light up her blade. She waited, sword up, for the star to glow, and the blade to be limned in the same holy light. Waited, but didn't see it come.
Instead, in the back of her head where she usually heard something like a far-away singing while her muscles blazed with power, she heard something softer. Still musical, still just distant enough that she couldn't make out notes, or words, but much more subdued. It was very nearly a voice. And if she could have heard it, Kolya was suddenly certain, that not-quite-voice would have said, "No."
"No," Kolya echoed aloud, her voice booming, and brought the greatsword down harmlessly onto the sand. "The gods release you, little traitor."
The cheering crowd fell silent--not all at once, but in little ripples of confusion, quieter and quieter until there was only the hushed hum of spectators exchanging hushed questions with each other. Kolya waited for that to speak again, and now she turned and looked up at the Speaker's box, addressing the man himself.
"The gods say she should not die."
Another ripple of confusion through the crowd, as those who had not heard her words the first time heard them clearly now. Inside the box, the Speaker looked equally astonished. He was too far away to see clearly, but he turned back to speak to someone behind him, quiet and frantic, then vanished out of the back of the box.
Kolya stood there, tip of her greatsword planted in the sand in one of the poses she'd been taught, and waited for him to return. In the meantime, she looked over her shoulder at her frightened near-victim and grinned. "A lucky break for you."
"It's not," the woman said, shaking her head. "He won't let me live, he won't. Not after- I led a rebellion. They can't permit me to live, because that would mean, if the gods didn't think me a traitor, that all I said about the Upper House was right. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but they'll just declare you a traitor for it, too, or say you were paid off, or something."
"No, they can't do that," Kolya said. She tapped the golden star. "I am chosen by the gods. They told me to spare you. The Speaker himself gave me this star. He can't say I am wrong."
She looked up at Kolya, her terrified expression giving way to disbelief. "You really think that's real? That they'll take you at all seriously, the moment you don't go along with the party line?"
"Of course it is real," Kolya growled. "When the gods wish me to strike true, they give me the power. They did not, and so they want me to stay my hand."
Her fur was starting to bristle. She hadn't been projecting her voice, but she spoke even more quietly now, glad that the woman didn't seem to have the trick of it at all. This wasn't the image she wanted to project to the audience, someone who could be doubted, or had to defend her holiness. If someone challenged that this season, the directors had already assured her that it would be someone she would defeat, to prove her righteousness.
The woman still looked doubtful. Before she could open her mouth to argue, though, the door to the right, the one that staff used to enter the arena, swung wide. Kolya turned to see the Speaker rushing through it. One of the black-robed priests who served all gods together was at his heel, as one of their kind always was.
An armed and armored figure followed them both, and a low growl rumbled in Kolya's throat. Itherai had been a gladiator once, and Kolya's least favorite classmate at her school. They'd been pitted against each other the last two seasons, trading on their natural enmity, and Kolya still resented how the storyline had gone--that Itherai had been credited with 'redeeming' her, when they fought together against a pride of lions during the High Week, in the series of games dedicated to the gods. Kolya had been required to go down under the lion, pretending to be overwhelmed, and let Itherai pretend to save her. It had led to her new role, and that only rankled the more.
They had been rewarded together, with these stars that some expedition had pulled out of the ruins of an ancient temple to gods long-lost: the silver for Itherai, to match her pale skin and dark hair, the gold for Kolya, to match her tawny fur. And then they had glowed for both of them. Itherai, though, her story finished, had declared that she was called to more direct service, with a distinct sneer for Kolya when Kolya shrugged and demurred that she'd rather stay in the arena and win glory.
So now Itherai was some kind of warrior for the priests, and, it seemed, a guardian for this one. Or for the Speaker himself; it didn't really matter to Kolya. What mattered was the way she was looking down her nose at Kolya, an impressive feat for any elf, even one as tall among her kind as Itherai. She clearly thought her new position meant that she was better than her old opponent.
"Listen," the Speaker said, trotting right up to Kolya. "You cannot shout such things in the arena! What were you thinking? Did some rebel sympathizer slip you a script?"
"There was no script. Was I supposed to get a script?"
"No, Kolya," Itherai drawled, glaring over the priest's shoulder at her. "They thought that even you would be able to handle something this simple without needing to be coached."
"But I did," Kolya said, bristling again. "I called upon the gods to help me strike this woman down, and they would not give me the light on my blade or the power in my arms. So they do not want her to die."
"Don't be a fool," the priest said, glaring with as much disdain as Itherai, and even more irritation. "Inquisitor Itherai captured this woman herself, with the gods' aid. Clearly they want her to die for her treason. Perhaps we should have had her carry out the execution herself."
"I was trying to do you a favor," Itherai said, and tossed her head the same way she always had before a fight. Her long black hair was shorter now, though, and pulled back into a braid, so it didn't have the same stunning effect. "But maybe the gods have abandoned you, since you weren't willing to give up cheering crowds in order to serve them."
"No, that is not true. It always worked in training." Kolya glared back at her, baring her teeth just a little. She wasn't supposed to do it as much now, since a face should not look too bestial, the directors said, but in the face of Itherai's rudeness, she couldn't help it. "Why would it fail now, when I am supposed to do something the gods want, except that they don't want it at all?"
"The gods support the Upper House!" the Speaker said, his voice going high with indignation. She thought he was trying to project it, except that he couldn't control his pitch enough to keep from going squeakier the louder he got. "They would never spare one who rebelled against it, and against the good order of the state! I made a mistake in giving you that token, gladiator. Some evil god has corrupted it!"
"They have not," Kolya said, insulted.
Light gleamed in the corner of her eye, and she glanced down to see the gold star at her breast glowing, and the edge of her sword with it. They grew brighter and brighter, a warm golden light. The priest took a step back, his eyes widening, and Itherai scowled and stepped in front of him. In the stands above, the crowd was beginning to murmur more loudly, voices rising in excitement and dismay.
"I will take it back, before it poisons you further," the Speaker declared loudly, finally getting the squeak under control. He took another step closer and reached for the star as if to snatch it from her chest.
In the back of her head, Kolya could sense the soft, musical, not-quite voice from before. And she knew, down to her bones, that if she could actually have made it out, she would have heard it command, "Him."
She brought her greatsword up and swung. The Speaker's eyes went wide, but he didn't dodge, didn't try to defend himself, didn't even raise his hands like the woman had. Without armor or the solid bone of a limb in the way, her sword slid, strangely smooth, through his neck, stuttering only briefly as the edge forced two vertebrae apart. His head tumbled to the sand.
For a moment she could only stare, astonished and a little disturbed. Then his body followed his head, toppling unceremoniously. The golden glow faded from the edge of the bloodstained sword.
With a shriek of rage, Itherai drew her own sword and charged forward. The crowd overhead was roaring, and not one of them was triumphantly chanting Kolya's name.
If it had just been Itherai, Kolya wouldn't have hesitated to stay and fight. But the priest was hissing something she couldn't understand, something arcane, and there was purple energy crackling between his hands. Kolya threw herself sideways as he shot it at her, then scrambled to her feet, the instinct to stand and fight her hated rival giving way to the grim knowledge that she didn't know nearly enough of magic to counter it herself.
"Run!" the traitor woman shouted. "Don't try to fight a priest, or they will tell everyone you were taken by a demon!"
Kolya had, in all the fuss over her refusal, forgotten the woman was there. But she was, standing behind Kolya, and while that had been a smart place to be while Kolya was arguing with the Speaker, it wasn't now that the man was dead. She dropped the greatsword, which was too heavy and unwieldy to haul about without a scabbard, and snatched the woman up under her arm. Then she turned and sprinted for the edge of the arena.
In theory, the stone here was sheer white marble, but anyone who'd actually been in the arena knew that most of it was just regular brick, whitewashed and then painted with a gloss that wouldn't absorb blood. The actual marble was saved for the boxes for the various Houses, and some of the more expensive bits of the stands. Kolya hefted the woman over her shoulder and began to climb, her claws catching easily in the hidden mortar.
"Hang on tight!"
The woman was squirming awkwardly, but she at least followed the instruction, grabbing some of the spikier bits of Kolya's armor and hanging on for dear life. She'd gotten a handful of fur, too. Kolya ignored the tug and only hoped that she wouldn't yank so much out as to leave a visible bald patch.
Up over the side of the arena, another burst of purple energy splattering on the stones so close to her foot that Kolya could feel it buzz. Then she was amid the crowd. People scattered out of her way, screaming, as she bounded up the stands towards the edge. The arena was sunken, and while the walls stood up above the ground, they weren't as high on this side as they were the side with all the boxes.
Guards came rushing from either side of the aisles, but they were having more trouble getting through the crowd than Kolya was. Probably they weren't as splendidly frightening, since none of them were bleeding, or snarling, or brandishing claws. Though out of the corner of her eye, Kolya could see one man outright tackle a guard, both of them going down in a tangle as the guard's halberd got caught under a seat. "Go!" someone shouted, and it seemed to be directed at Kolya. "Go, go, go!"
Kolya was going. She plowed through the last of the spectators and all the way up to the wall, scrambling the mere four feet onto its broad top. It was wide enough for guards to patrol, which they did, sometimes, when they expected riots over a match, and the priests even walked up here at times during the High Week games. There was only another, smaller three-foot wall around the broad pathway to keep anyone from tumbling over the edge.
"Halt!" a voice called, right beside her, and Kolya turned about.
There was a guard right beside her, panting, her halberd shaking in her grip. Not so much so that she couldn't jab Kolya with the end of it, though, even if she got her in the gauntlet instead of the arm.
"Why should I?" Kolya couldn't resist asking.
"You are in defiance of the Upper House, and the High Temple," the guard said between ragged breaths. "I am placing you under arrest. Come peacefully, or you will be charged with any harm that comes to bystanders."
Out of the corner of the eye, Kolya could see Itherai coming up the stands, only struggling a little with the crowd. More than Kolya had, but much less than the rest of the guards. Probably it was the sword in her hand, glowing silver. Strange that the gods would want Kolya to kill the Speaker, then want Itherai to strike her down for it, but maybe the gods had different factions. The stars were different colors, after all.
"You are very brave," Kolya told the young woman approvingly, ignoring the way the woman on her shoulder squawked when she said it. "But you are not strong enough to stop me. I do like your weapon. I used to use a pike, you know, until the end of last season. I think a halberd will not be too difficult."
She reached out and grasped the halberd's haft, just below the blade. The guard gasped and tried to yank it away, but, as Kolya had judged, she didn't have the strength for it. Kolya turned, twisting the halberd most of the way out of her hands, and then dragged the end free from the guard's grip as she leapt over the little three-foot wall and into the open air below.
The woman on her back screamed in terror. Kolya decided not to hold that against her. She'd been as brave as she could be in the ring against a superior opponent, and even Kolya, looking down at the swiftly-approaching road below, wasn't entirely sure that she was going to land without injury. With her free hand, she grasped the star around her neck.
As soon as she touched it, it blazed up, warm and bright in her hand. Kolya felt fresh power flow through her, strengthening her body, helping her twist in the air so that she would land and roll. She felt an odd certainty that the woman on her shoulder might be hurt in such a roll, and, though she didn't see how it would help, she shouted to her.
"Be brave!"
Though the wind whipped the words away, and she couldn't be sure the woman heard, a golden glow surrounded the woman as she spoke. Kolya gripped her tighter, digging her elbow into the small of her back and putting her hand over the fragile human skull. Then the ground hit, and they rolled.
Even with the golden warmth suffusing her body, it hurt. Kolya could feel larger bones crack, smaller ones snap, and she would have bruises for days from the impact. But she was able to take the brunt of the force herself, protecting the fragile human in her grasp. When she scrambled to her feet and set her down, the woman swayed and gave a little gasp of pain, but she remained standing.
The gold star pulsed again in Kolya's hand, urgent. She clapped both hands on the woman's shoulders, and warmth ran through her, from her chest into her arms and out of her fingers into the woman's battered body. She took a deep breath and looked a little steadier.
"You really are god-blessed," she said, soft-voiced and astonished.
Kolya couldn't decide if she was more annoyed or more smug, at having to prove herself or at having been so clearly proven. "I told you."
"You did." The woman shook her head, then glanced along the street at the startled passersby all around them. "We have to move quickly. Come. I know people in the city who they didn't manage to make me betray, and who will hide us. You'll be hard to hide, but we can at least get you out of the city, and you'll have plenty of friends in the countryside."
"I will let you lead," Kolya told her. "I had not been sure what I would do beyond this."
"You really didn't, did you," the woman said, throwing her an unreadable glance. Then she smiled and started off down the road, beckoning Kolya after. "Maybe that's what the gods wanted in a hero."
Warmth pulsed from the gold star again, though there was no urge this time to do anything with it. Trotting along at the woman's heels, Kolya grinned broadly at that affirmation. She'd miss the arena, but surely she'd be happier in the company of people who didn't hesitate to recognize her as a hero.
