Looking around with a dazed expression she found me in the sea of faces. She lifted a hand and slightly waved it at me, before she was jerked onwards by the attendant towards what was the field slave pen. Everyone deserves the chance to meet their end in the best way possible and I was sure she would prefer the fate of an overworked field hand, than a longer life of being used as a cheap vessel in the gratification of other people's desires in a brothel.
The moment of connection with the girl helped to assure me that I had done the right thing after all. I glanced around and was surprised by what I saw. The hostile stares of the men around me were gone, and in its place was respect. All of them seemed to comprehend what I had done for the girl. The hostility had been easier to bear than the respectful deference they were now showing me. It made me feel like I had to do something or be something special now to be worthy of their respect.
I may have only been fourteen at the time, but I'd already had the large bone structure and the beginning great strength of my father budding within me. It was apparent to the buyers, what I would be most useful for. The arena wars.
Gladiatorial entertainment was the favorite pastime of many Zoarinians throughout the empire. The mortal combat of men against animals and other men was big business and it was closely monitored as such by the ruling elite of the day, who got fabulously wealthy off betting on the games fought out by slave warriors.
I was bought by one of Carsea's prominent fighting school owners. He was a big bellied man that looked at me as if I were but a piece of meat or a chew bone fit only to be thrown to the dogs. After the sale was over I was hustled to a wagon by armed guards and tied to a shackle bolt on the floor of the wagon along with several other men.
The wagon started to move out of the marketplace at a slow pace as my life as a slave had begun. Other slave wagons had passed by ours headed towards their perspective destinations within the empire. In the last wagon that passed us I saw the girl from the marketplace that I had hit at almost the same time as she saw me. We stared after each other, until we lost sight of each other. My wagon going towards the southern cities and hers headed out toward the open plain