The Minotaur

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Author's Note:

I'm not sure what this story really is. It winds up being more romance and adventure than the naughty titillation I generally produce, but the story took on a life of its own. I feel like it is good work, just not what I expected. I hope you enjoy it and I welcome feedback, good bad or indifferent.

Thanks to Bikoukumori for editing this beast. Your help was invaluable.

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Only a scrap of light from the smoky, flickering torch entered the barred cell, but in that tiny patch glittered a shiny piece of copper. Nothing shined in this hellhole, this warren of underground cells holding gladiator slaves for the great games above. No garnet or topaz would ever reflect the feeble light down here in the dungeons, no silver or gold would find its way here. Yet there it was, polished and gleaming in the red glow of the fire. The guard couldn't believe his luck as he reached between the bars and into the cell to retrieve the coin, stamped with the likeness if His Holiness the Emperor.

He made almost no sound as he died. Arator, survivor of nearly ten weeks of daily combat, darted out of the dark to claim the prize his bait had lured. He grabbed the guard's wrist and pulled him tight against the bars, then wrapped his meaty fist around the smaller man's throat and squeezed. Face to face, he watched the guard's eyes in the flickering light; watched them go wide, then wider, then die. He wondered if that peasant in the stands had any idea what his tiny coin, tossed into the bloody sand of the arena floor after a victory, would buy down here in the dark.

He reached out for the keys and quickly unlocked his cell, then pulled the dead man inside. He had perhaps an hour, if he were fortunate, before the guard would be missed. He stripped the man quickly, but as he suspected it would do him no good. The guard was skinny and small, neither of which could be said for Arator. None of the guard's clothing would fit him in any way, except the sword.

He stepped out into the hallway boldly, knowing there were no other guards about but reluctant to rouse his neighbors. None had stirred as he crushed the life out of his jailor but he didn't care to chance it. The powerful man stole quietly down the gently curved hallway, following the path he knew to the intersection.

He crept up to the room where he had always been forced to go up the ramp, up to the higher levels, the rooms full of weapons and armor, the training rooms where they taught him to fight for their Lord's amusement, the entertainment cells where he had tasted the sweet fruits of his victories in the company of one of the female slaves. He could not go up that ramp, but he knew they kept the women to the left where he had never been allowed. He hoped Kasuma was ready because he wouldn't be able to find her in the cells if she wasn't. Though he was no coward, he very much hoped to have her with him when he braved the other exit in the room – the heavily barred gate with the rough hewn steps beyond it going steeply down into the blackness.

No one stood guard at the intersection of passages and he stepped quickly into the other wing. This area was much like his own, only much smaller. The men's cells were a maze of twisting passages and iron barred doors, and it was only through weeks of study he could navigate it at all. But there were far fewer women in this hole and it was easy to sneak down the narrow hall.

He paused at every cage and peered in, seeing only darkness. Occasionally he would see a woman's foot near the door in the dim light, but most had learned to stay in the back, in the dark where the guards couldn't get at them so easily. That lesson only needed to be taught once, Kasuma had told him.

Deeper in and further back he went, starting to lose hope as he searched. He dared not call out or tarry too long. Being caught by a guard would be better than waking up a flock of screaming slaves. They would summon all the guards. As he started to think of turning back without her, she found him. Her hand shot out of the dark through the bars, waving wildly. Arator smiled. Whether as companion, decoy, sacrifice or entertainment, the girl would come in handy. He unlocked her cell quietly and let her out.

Truly she was the prize of the sex slaves. She was tall for a woman, strong through the hips and full across her chest, with a head of thick, dark hair; she looked wild and free already. She looked especially fierce in the dancing torchlight, he thought. She wore what passed for queenly garments in the pens; a short vest, sleeveless and cinched in the middle with a cord, held her round breasts. Arator enjoyed tearing that off her after killing a few lesser men in the arena. The scraps of cloth covering her lower half was a ragged dirty skirt that left her long legs bare. Again, the garment allowed easy access. Arator himself wore a simple rag that scarcely kept his manhood from flopping about. She had been his favorite from the moment she arrived, and as long as he kept winning he kept getting first pick.

He motioned for her to follow and ran quickly down the passage. She followed closely, quietly, desperately. As they approached the crossroads, Arator pulled a few torches out of the barrel and handed them to the girl, then took one for himself and lit it from the one on the wall. The pitch-soaked wood flared up and he handed that to the girl, then started working on the lock to the barred door. It was old and corroded, but the stout key turned with a heavy thunk as the mechanism let free its grasp on the portal.

"Are you sure we can escape that way? They say the beast lives down there!" Kasuma was terrified, of being found, of being eaten, but most of all of staying in that cell one more night. But if her fate was to die in a dark pit she'd prefer to at least have a chance to fight back.

"There is no beast. This door hasn't been opened in years. As to escape...well, I have to try. We both know our fate if we stay. Come on! We go together." He shooed her across the threshold, then joined her and pulled the door shut. He didn't bother locking it as they all had keys and could get in easily enough, and he didn't want to waste time or risk someone hearing the loud mechanism again. He just hoped they would be too afraid to follow.

He believed in the beast. Most people believed, in the city and in the dungeons. The stories of the great roaring half-man were legendary. His mother had told him the tales when he was little. Of course he believed, but he also had a plan. He held the sword, he had light, and he had a sacrifice to offer the creature if he should need it. But she didn't need to know that.

Down and down in a tight circle the steps descended. The rock above became more and more oppressive, the air thick and stale. Gritty dust grew thick on the unused steps. He couldn't become complacent, though. Even if this route were unused, he had seen men dropped into the great pit in the arena, the pit which was said to lead to the maze, and the beast. Some assumed the fall would kill any unlucky enough to be pushed or thrown in, but Arator had seen the truth of it. When th shaggy northern barbarian Wozan the Bear had nearly defeated him, he had seen it. Wozan had pushed him to the edge of the pit and he had watched his helmet fall into the darkness, but not straight down. The pit fell at an angle after the first thirty feet and became an immense slide. Depending on the bottom, a man could easily survive that. Well, perhaps not easily. Not as easily as Arator had twisted out of the great oaf's grasp and split his belly open with his knife.

He did his best to throw his opponents into the pit, hoping to sate the beasts hunger before he traversed its lair. And because the crowd loved it. He didn't mind he crowd cheering for him. When you fight for your life every day you learn to take what small joys you can in life, and the roar of the people was sweet indeed. He would soon find out if his offerings to the beast had done any good.

Round and round they went, deeper and deeper into the earth. They had lost track of how many times around they had turned and how long they had travelled. When the stair finally ended it was a shock to them both.

Arator slammed right into the heavy bars of the gate, and Kasuma slammed into him, dropping the torch. It was nearly out of fire but it held on long enough for her to light a new one from its dying embers while he worked on the ancient lock. The key would not turn, but the iron was so corroded and rusted that Arator thought his foot might work better.

"Stand back." He landed a mighty blow on the barred door and with a terribly loud CLANG it burst open. They held their breath as the sound echoed through the caverns, bouncing and rebounding off unseen terrain, until finally the silence returned.

They moved forward into a sand floor, searching in the small island of torchlight for walls or ceiling. Walls they found easily enough, but there was no sign of anything above them save darkness. The walls were rough hewn stone, carved by unknown hands in the darkness. Legend said the maze was crafted by slaves, dwellers of the deep conquered and captured by the ancient emperors. The escapees didn't care who made them, they just needed to find a way out.

"Which way?"

"No way to know. We must do the best we can and pray to the gods to see daylight again. Here, draw an arrow in the sand. We need to mark our path so we don't turn in circles." She did as he said, and then they were off.

The passages were wide, too wide to see both sides in the torchlight. They kept the left wall in sight as they moved, stopping when emptiness yawned beside them and a new passage began. At each intersection they placed a mark in the sand. They moved quickly, and for a time they felt as if they were making good time but, much as the endless stair steps they had endured, the maze seemed to go on forever.

One torch died. Then another. Then a third. On and on they went, becoming desperate as they searched for an exit, a chamber, a well, anything. But the passages stretched on and on, stone walls and sand floors without end.

When the last torch began to flutter and fail, they were exhausted. Hours had passed and their escape had certainly been noticed. The guards would know the keys were missing and they would have found the door to the stairway unlocked. Would they pursue? Hell, if they did they'd find nothing but dead bodies, if they found anything at all. They would fare no better in the maze. No, they would not pursue. They'd be just as lost.

Arator was no coward, but as the last flickering tongues of flame died on the last torch he did know despair. He sat down in the sand, exhausted and defeated. He took a deep breath and let it out, letting his hope go with it. It had been a very long shot to begin with.

"What do we do?" Kasuma was scared. He could hear it in her voice. He had long ago lost his fear of death. Every day they strapped rusted scraps of armor on him, pushed some strange weapon into his hand, and sent him through the doors of that enormous arena to kill or die. Every day he said goodbye to his life. This was nothing new.

Still, he was an active man. At least, when not shut in that cell. Sitting there in the dark, in the sand, waiting to starve, die of thirst or be eaten by a monster just did not sit well with him. If death drew near then he had better get what little comfort he could out of the situation.

She did not fight him as his rough hands pulled at the small vest that covered her. He didn't bother trying to undo the scant laces that held it in place, he just pushed it up to release her heavy breasts. He crawled on top of her and pressed her into the sand, mauling her with his hands and mouth as he always did. He enjoyed her softness and the feel of her skin, though when he became excited he often got a bit rough.

Soon he was hard and he split her legs apart, then entered her aggressively. She grunted at the rude intrusion she had felt so many, many times before. The darkness gave her no other input, nothing to look at while the man took what he wanted, no way to dream the moment away. She just lay there, pinned to the ground, defenseless and helpless. She was used to it, but to say she felt noting would be untrue. She had learned to swallow her anger, but not how to eliminate it completely.

He took his time and made it last longer than normal before he finally reached his climax. He grunted and groaned and thrust into her wildly like he was stabbing a foe. When he was done he rolled off her and stayed where he landed in the sand. Within minutes she heard him snoring.

He slept. When he woke he had no idea how long he had slumbered. He was hungry, and thirsty, but there was nothing to be done about those things. Unless he was willing to kill and eat the girl, of course. He considered it, then decided against. He wasn't worth much as a man but he was no monster. Besides, he might still have a use for her. When she roused him he was slow to rise, but then he listened.

"I can see! There is light! Wake up!"

Light? Guards! He was up in a flash, his sword held ready. But the light was no torchlight. It was a subtle glow, and dim luminescence all around them. With his eyes closed for a few hours, they had adjusted to the darkness and he could see his way now better than with the torch! Elated, he nearly shouted his newfound hope out loud, only...something was wrong. Something new assailed him...but what? He reached out with his senses and quickly placed it – the smell.

It was dirty, musty, the smell of animal flesh and man sweat. It could only be one thing. Kasuma confirmed his fear when she screamed. He whirled around and faced it – the beast had found them.

Even in the glowing light of that haunted place, they could see only his outline. A huge, hulking man shape stood in the middle of the passage, but where a man's head should be was...something else. They could see the horns, wide as the shoulders and sharp. Its breath was low and deep, a cavernous rumbling through its terrible maw.

The gladiator held his sword at the ready but stood next to the slave girl, ready to fight, flee or hack at her leg in order to leave her behind. But this beast was nowhere near the monster of all the stories. It was big, but no giant. Arator was a large man and this beast stood a full head taller and was broader across the shoulders. Still, this foe was not insurmountable. Wozan the Bear had been almost as large. His weeks in the arena had honed his skills and he felt ready to take on this creature. He stepped forward and shouted his defiance.

"I see you, beast, and I do not fear you! I am Arator the Mighty and I have sent dozens of men down that hole. I have fed you well already. You will not feast on me."

The beast stepped closer, cautiously it seemed. As it neared they could see its features more clearly. The monstrous head seemed that of a bull, but more manlike. The eyes were not the dull brown orbs of an animal, nor the savage yellwoe shemight have expected from a blood thirsty monster, but cold blue even in this queer half light of the catacombs. Kasuma was terrified, but as the eyes met hers she felt something different. The beast seemed somehow more alert and human than savage and bestial. It regarded them both, looking them up and down and lingering on the half naked woman. For a moment her fear receded.

The rest of its body was that of a man, large, stout, powerful and hirsute. It wore a loose, tattered tunic across one shoulder and belted at the waist with a length of frayed rope. It wore no sandals or shoes, just bare human feet in the sand.

"Back, foul demon! I'll split your hideous skull if you come closer!" That was a lie. Arator would lunge for the unprotected belly instead, not the head armored by those massive horns. If the creature could even understand him then his ruse would make the kill that much easier. He was ready, primed for the attack.

When the monster moved, Arator lashed out. The beast reached for him with some weapon or strange device in its huge, filthy hand, slow enough to make the counter attack simple. He ducked under the beast and slashed across its belly with the stolen guard's sword.

The creature roared in pain, its voice thundering through the caverns. Kasuma dropped to her knees and held her ears, once again fearing for her life. Arator pressed the attack and poised for a killing blow up into the ribcage, feeling invincible as he was about to slay the famed Minotaur of myth and legend.

Arator died with that thought in his mind, having no time even to realize he was dying. The mighty beast raised a fist high and brought it down on the gladiator's head, crushing it like ripe fruit. The body fell in the sand, never again to move.

Kasuma could not even scream. Her protector, cruel and deceitful as he was, had just been slain. And she was next. She knew it. Down here in the deepest pit of despair that evil monster was going to crush the life out of her. The shaking, wracking fear consumed her, transformed her, turned the knots in her stomach to lurching knots in the muscles of her arms and legs. She stood, fists clenched. She would not die on her knees. She would not die a craven little girl, cowering in the dark. She would die like Arator, in combat, fighting for her freedom.

The Minotaur had staggered to the wall, leaning heavily and groaning from its wound. She could see the sword lying by Arator's body. Adrenaline flowed through her, anger and desperation drove her forward to pick up the blade, and with a warriors cry she charged the filthy animal.

She could not speak. She could not breathe. A powerful hand wrapped around her neck, fingers like iron bands. The other held her forearm and pulled, stretching her painfully. Up and up she went as the Minotaur stood and raised her face to face with it. Fury boiled in its icy blue eyes and she could feel him crushing the life out of her. It roared in her face, bellowing out its rage and pain. Her arm felt moments away from tearing out of its socket and flecks of light began to crowd the edges of her vision. She was dying and she knew it. With her last bit of strength she spat out her dying words.

"I...do...not...fear...you."

Her eyes closed and all was blackness and silence.

Pain. Pain and sand woke her. She took a deep breath and coughed harshly as sand entered her nose and mouth. She was face down on the ground. She pushed herself over to lie on her back, her arm throbbing but still there. She spat and coughed and tried to brush the sand away from her face. What happened? Had the beast let her live? Had it gone away?

"Grrrrawph!"

Her head spun at the sound. No, it had not gone away. She stayed on her back, waiting. It could have killed her easily. But it hadn't. Why? She stayed still, looking up at the towering form in the dim light. It pressed an arm across its belly and she could see drops of thick blood falling to the ground. Arator had damaged the creature, obviously.

It shuffled over to the heap of dead flesh that had been the warrior. It knelt in the sand for a moment, then rose and came back to her. One deadly fist rose above her and for a moment fear stabbed at her, but she let it pass. She had been through enough and she would not easily let fear into her heart again.

The water skin landed on her belly with a cool, wet splat, sloshing and spilling from its narrow tip.

"Oh merciful heaven!" she exclaimed, sitting up quickly to drink. The water was cold and clean and she could feel it fall down her throat and into her parched belly. They had been so focused on escape that she had not realized how thirsty she was. She drank deeply of the pure water and felt it course through her, nourishing and energizing her tired limbs.