Who I Am, Ox's Tale

     The behemoth sat upon the rough, pitted stone bench meticulously wrapping a worn rawhide strap around one thick wrist and then the other in the hope of preventing a sprain or injury in the upcoming events. With a grunt the gladiator bent his heavily muscled frame in half and began to lace up his thick-soled sandals. A smile tugged at the corner of thin lips as Oxuberoth Saktasorath recalled his earliest memory...

    They were a gift from his mother on his fifth birthday, sandals special made to mimic the ones his father wore as a Knight-Reaver of the Shadow Talons. The excited boy had rushed out with open arms to greet his father as he returned from a year long patrol of the northern trade routes of the Mol' Tan desert, eager to show off his present.

     Ox watched in awe as his father slipped gracefully from the riding harness of the fierce scorpion and fearlessly walked past the beast's pincers that could easily snap a man in half. His tiny chest swelled with pride as his father, still road-dust covered, strode stiffly through the entrance to the familycompound towards his waiting son.

    Reaching his arms around his father's thick waist, Ox was suddenly surprised to find himself sprawled face-first on the ground, his left eye beginning to swell shut and a thin stream of blood leaving his shattered nose to pool below him on the hard-packed clay.

    "The coddling and love your mother shows you has planted a seed of weakness that I will destroy. A warrior of Nabuk does not seek affection and there are only two emotions you need to concern yourself with boy, fear and respect."

      His father used the tip of his sandal to lift Ox's broken face till the boy's pain-filled eyes could look into his own gray orbs.

       "Do you understand this, Oxuberoth?"

       "Yes...father." Ox responded through bloodied and torn lips...

     The smile slid from the adult Ox's face and was replaced with a scowl that frightened even the family of rats hiding in the corner of his cell. Anger and resentment at the lesson his father had taught him that day subconsciously caused his ham-sized fists to clench till his knuckles stood out like four ivory dice against his ebon skin. Taking in a deep breath through a wide and oft broken nose, the gladiator slowly released the breath through clenched teeth to gain control of his emotions.

     With a grunt and a shake of boulder like shoulders, Ox shoved the memory aside and stalked across his cell with the grace of a great cat. As he moved from the weak sunlight that filtered in through the two, tiny barred windows of his cell to the shadowy area between them, the gladiator seemed to disappear except for the clear, intense whites of his eyes and the flash of teeth that showed through the partial scowl he now wore.

     Reaching his goal of a row of pegs from which hung a varied assortment of thick leather harnesses with motley pieces of steel armor attached to them, Ox was reminded of the first time he had received his own set of armor. At the time it had been the proudest moment of his young life...

     One hundred young nabukian soldiers stood at attention in the shadeless square, the ruthless Mol' Tan sun beating down on them, but they endured in silence and motionless. It was the Day of Acceptance, the day that they left their trainers and were claimed by the various military units of Alnowet. Their instructors had lauded them with praises saying that this was the best group of recruits to come out of the academy in generations, and Ox was head and shoulders above the rest. For weeks the nobles and merchants had been placing bets on who would get the heavily muscled giant. Most believed that the young man would join the Shadow Talons like his father, but joked that they would have a hard time finding a scorpion he could ride.

     Just as the leader of the Shadow Talons, followed closely by Ox's father, had stepped forward to lay the scorpion cavalry's claim on the young man, Satrap Mo' Tok arrived with his entourage of bodyguards and courtiers to verify the rumors of Ox's prowess of battle and massive girth for himself.