Antierra Manifesto – blog post #108

I must sleep now.  Tomorrow I will be empowered, one last time, to use every technique, every trick with weapons I’ve ever learned and used or can remember.  I will be free to grab an opponents weapons if I so choose and use it against him, or them.  There are no rules tomorrow.  I plan to use Tomia as a bulwark against the attacking males to protect the two young trainees for as long as we can, if the girls will let us.  At least that will give us a common purpose, apart from just tearing men apart and being torn apart by them in turn.
Tomorrow is our future.   

End blog post #107
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Start blog post #108

Epilogue

A report from researcher and chronicler for the Supremacy,  Michele Dellman

From the reams of committee reports, council decisions, legal proceedings, including almost endless lists of supply requests, legal gambling wins and losses subject to the King’s tax and other documents found after the sack of Hyrete and which I scanned through for many days looking to satisfy my curiosity about this place I became excited when I saw the name of Antierra surface again in a set of memcards used in the antique datacoms of the period.  Most of the story has already been published but for some reason the last days, or day, of that particular female fighter had not been recovered.  After some painstaking efforts to translate this digital document, I have this to add to what I have boldly called ‘The Antierra Manifesto’ in my private collection.

 Sometime after the defeat of Heitchef Warmo in the arena, Antierra was eventually condemned to die by execution.  Through the efforts of her [lover? friend?] called Doctor Balomo Echinoza, a doctor of medicine and anthropologist from the world of Koron on assignment to Elbre, the sentence was commuted to Antierra being condemned to a fight to the death in a killing orgy in the arena of Hyrete.  Here are the reports made by one of Doctor Echinosa’s Cydroids of that fateful day.  Be warned that the following is not for the queasy.

Report by Cydroid number XBA3 for archiving

“My name, as given to me by Antierra, is Xoba Three, normally known as Cydroid XBA3.  I am one of the male Cydroids of doctor Echinoza’s family.  I was one of the handlers who took Antierra to the arena the day of the killing orgy and thus observed the proceedings.  This is a verbal report of what took place.

First the fighters are escorted to the edge of the arena and made to stand, unarmed and naked for the crowd to curse and lust after.  Personal items are thrown at the women to fall harmlessly on the freshly raked sands and have to be collected and taken away by male eunuch slaves.  23 female fighters, mostly dikfols, including Antierra, are lined up along the wall, then another twenty females are also brought in.  The total number of females in the arena when the gates are officially closed and manned by armed guards and specially cleared fighters is exactly 43.  These must all be killed regardless of performance or how many men they kill attempting to survive.  If men stop entering the arena to fight the remaining fighters because of fear, the fighters will be decimated with lasers.  This is an execution, not a fight.  The fighting is for entertainment value and blood-letting only.  There is no official betting as on a normal fight though it is common for challengers and spectators to bet between each other as to numbers of kills.  Most of the audience is made up of street males who cannot usually afford to attend fights and the unofficial sums that pass through their hands in this unofficial betting are negligible.

In the annals, this “interactive” event is marked as an official holiday.

Each female is given a weapon at random.  Antierra gets a long double-handed  sword, undoubtedly a subtle gift from the judge for she is deadliest with this weapon.  A trumpet blows and a gate opens at the opposite end of the arena floor.  Naked men troop in.  I count exactly fifty in the first group.  They all hold various types of weapons which according to the rules of this day, must be official.  How this is determined is by lottery draw.  Each man, as he enters the arena to file in the stands is given a ticket with a number on it.  While the men of Elbre cannot read letters, much less words, they can all read numbers and work with them.  Statistics and money are very important here.  When the stands have filled, or the entrance gates are officially closed, whichever comes first, numbers are called.  Each man with a ticket number that matches the called number takes it to the judges’ tables and receives a weapon in exchange for his ticket.  He then strips and joins the group that will be let into the arena to fight the females.

Thus it appears that for the rag-tag group of dikfols who can barely defend themselves due to problems with their heads, the half dozen or so truly trained fighters and the twenty sacrificial victims of worker and sex slave categories added to the roster for additional numbers, the judges choose to allow fifty men in at one time as challengers.  I will do the human thing here and colour my report with the use of sarcasm: fair is fair after all.  Honour and bravery must always be displayed by the male heroes.

Another trumpet sounds and the fight is on.  The men rush upon the women.  Antierra has organized her group in a tight square and boxed in the less trained and most vulnerable members, the two child-women dikfols and the worker females.  Two of the workers insist on joining in the first rush and do a passable job of defending themselves.  Antierra’s fighters decimate over twenty of the rushing louts before they even realize what has happened.  The fighters grab the men’s weapons as back up and pass them behind to their charges for quick access.  The male rush ends with the score: fifty men killed.  One woman dead and three wounded, one seriously.

With just enough time for Antierra to rearrange her quadrangle, another fifty “challengers” are let in.  The bodies have been piled to the side by the eunuchs and the challengers are somewhat intimidated by the sight of their male buddies lying dead and bleeding still.  Nevertheless, loaded with brew and chakr mix they rush the defensive ring of women.  The remaining active fighters dispatch these as fast as they can, Antierra’s long sword never missing a throat, arm or torso.  She decapitates two rushers while throwing two daggers at a man who had jumped the cordon and attacked a frightened worker female.  Before the dagger got him he had killed the female.  Score on second rush: 50 males dead, five females, of which three of Antierra’s trained force.  That leaves Antierra still unscathed and three trained and clear-minded fighters, of whom one has several cuts and is bleeding profusely.

Antierra looks at her hopeless situation and forces five more dikfol trained fighters to take the point, and uses three of the worker females as partners.  The one she has named “Tomia” is still active and taking another point of the square when the third rush trumpet sounds.  The men do not run into the women’s weapons this time.  They take time to organize themselves somewhat and become more wary and dangerous.  The fighters are better armed but less sure now that except for two, the best are dead or disabled.  Antierra holds two daggers in one hand and is still using her long sword.  Tomia is armed with two of the deadly staffs fully extended.  There is no finesse here, just killing speed.  Dispatch as many men as you can as fast as you can.

The men attack viciously.  They are pushed back even more viciously.  Dikfols now smell blood and scream their hate, throwing themselves at the men, taking several down permanently before they are speared from behind.  The fighting continues until all the men are dead or dying.  Women’s bodies lie all over now.  Antierra is cut and bleeding across the forehead.  Her worker partners are all dead.  Tomia is dying.  Only one of the real fighters remains standing and eleven other women, including the small girl women who now must take their place in the defense position.  It is hard to imagine that so few women could have dispatched one hundred and fifty men and no one calls for mercy.  No, let me correct this statement.  It is not hard to imagine, it is impossible to.

A fourth trumpet sounds and another fifty men are ready to attack the remaining group of defenders.  They come, fresh and eager to maim and kill.  They want body parts.  They are the ones who will mostly survive this day, this they can see; the ones who will be royally treated for giving their friends in the stands the coveted female body parts.  They are the ones who will rape and torture the remaining living females.

What is Antierra thinking as she stands there?  She looks up into the stands, makes the “mercy” gesture and points at the two young girls beside her.  Her gesture is greeted by spitting and cursing.  She turns to the two children and while they are looking at the approaching men wide eyed and shaking, she puts her sword through their hearts.  Then she turns to the men and utters the loudest blood-curdling shriek that place has ever heard.  I had never heard anything like it and it made me shudder.  It seems to come from some awakened beast, not of human voice. Long it echoes along the high walls and through the compounds; so loud it is, it intimidates that wild and unruly crowd to utter and cowed silence.

End blog post #108