Daughters of Empire

 

by

 

Tacitus

 

 

 

Battle mad she was there, leading the charge

Carrying her crescent shield, in the midst of thousands she blazed

Showing her breasts uncovered, with a gold girdle clasped below

A warrior maid daring the shock of combat as a man

The Aeneid

 

 

 

I

It was a great day to be a citizen of the Empire and a large crowd was heading for the circus.  Owners of neighboring houses that overlooked the arena had rented out their rooftops to unlucky citizens, plebian and patrician alike, who had failed to secure tickets when the “Sold Out” sign was posted at six gates leading to the amphitheater seats.  The acrobats, trained animals and trick riders from the east were performing as advertised, but the enthusiasm evident by those who had tickets, as well as scalpers eagerly hawking counterfeits to dozens loitering outside, was for the long-heralded fight between two women that was the headliner today.

 

Below the crowds filing eagerly into the stands enclosed by the largest building in town, behind the porta libitinensis, the small gate leading to the gladiator holding pens and fitting out rooms and saunas, wind-driven dust from a small, open window hung heavy in the air, punctuated by the acrid smell of animals and equally unwashed human bodies, being driven or hastening down narrow, garbage-choked streets, all headed for the arena.

 

She eased herself back down, naked, on the massage table and sighed: “Antioch……shit!”

 

She was Xena, in earlier years known by the sobriquet “Warrior Princess,” and now something over thirty years old, hair dark, thick and glossy, though shot through with lighter streaks reflecting months recently spent in the burning sands of Central Asia.  She was tall and beautifully made, the long bones of her body sleek with muscle, elegant with strength in the classic manner of a Greek Olympiad athlete.  Her olive-complexioned skin, offsetting a pair of close set, deep blue eyes, shone with the sheen of well-administered olive oil. Her breasts were rich and full, nipples dark as red wine.  Her entire body, now fully stretched out, smelled sweetly of cinnamon and balsa.

 

Lying there, relaxed yet seemingly tense with power, there was something of the lion about her.  Well-built, with strong limbs and long fingered, mobile hands, her entire body, including a face once handsome in a leonine way, but now exhibiting numerous scars, betrayed years spent in physical contests in arenas and wrestling pits throughout the Empire…and beyond.  She had changed over the years, particularly after spending months in physical combat along the Silk Road all the way to Khandahar.  Even with pronounced Thracian bloodlines reflecting her hometown of Amphipolis and her blended Greek and Macedonian lineage, her skin had darkened under the relentless desert sun, burned to a dull bronze on face, arms and throat, lightning to a copper tint where clothing had offered limited protection from the sun’s rays, only turning to a paler olive hue, tinged with deep blue veins, in the hollow of her thighs.  But the change was subtle, as though the oven-like heat of the Central Asian deserts had baked her to a hard finish.  She looked as though both muscle and skin had drawn in just a bit from her younger years, grown closer to the bone.

 

The masseuse approached her silently, gliding over the well-polished sauna floor.  Xena sensed rather than heard her presence, and sat upright.  Both women smiled… of acknowledgement…familiarity…and perhaps…friendship.  “You should have waited for me,” the new arrival murmured, “You know how I like to get you naked.”

 

“I was hot…and tired of the stench and dust of this sauna,” Xena explained.  “And don’t worry…I oiled myself.  None of these gladiators have touched me…in your special way.”

 

Her smile was a knowing one as she continued.  “Now join me,” she cooed, and reaching up, unfastened the thin chemise wrapped around an equally slender body.  The raven-haired Thracian ran her hands inside and across the blonde masseuse’s shoulders, palms slowly drawing down across the chest, feeling the firm small breasts and engorged nipples of her supplicant partner.  The slight woman stood rock still, hardly breathing, as the Warrior Princess knelt before her, running callused hands the length of the blonde’s thighs, hard and lean as a man’s.  She wanted the blonde, and very badly…and hoped it showed.

 

It did.  The masseuse responded by bending her head to kiss the Greek woman full on the lips.  Her hands roamed downward, circling the dark red nipples of her powerful lover that grew firm and extended to the touch.  Circling the ends of the olive dark breasts with both hands, the blonde suddenly took both shoulders of the Thracian woman and crushed them against her belly.  Drawing back slightly she cupped both breasts and began massaging them in a circular motion.  Xena moaned in response, sweat appearing on brow and upper lip.  “Oh my good little Greek girl…so strong…yet so willing!”  The masseuse’s voice was a bare whisper, scarcely discernible above the noise of the street and assembling crowds outside.

 

Xena stood and the blonde drew close, sensitive breasts entwined and swaying to the heat of two throbbing hearts.  Hot and slippery skins, sheathed in the brightness of scented olive oil, twisted and heaved as one.  As Xena’ hands traced the slight swell of her partner’s hips, the masseuse’s hands floated down Xena’s back, cupping her firm buttocks and lifting her.  “Tell me if I’m too rough,” the blonde murmured as she eased the Warrior Princess back down on the table slab, “or tell me to stop if you wish.  I want you strong and ready for combat today.  We must earn our passage to Rome in the arena.”

 

In response, Xena put her hands around her lover’s neck and pulled the reed-thin blonde down on top of her, guiding one hand to the slippery cleft between her thighs.  “Shhhhh!” she whispered, nibbling on the proffered ear lobe.

 

“Oh, the Gods,” the blonde muttered as she lowered lips to caress the firm, erect breasts of her Warrior Princess.

 

“Don’t stop there…or now,” Xena likewise muttered in excited agreement, both hands buried deep in the tresses of her lover.  “It is a great day to be alive!”

 

 

II

In an adjoining room, Xena’s opponent was bending and stretching, flexing her arms and raising them high overhead.  In the heat and sweat of the sauna, biceps and triceps were clearly defined, deltoids pronounced and swelling in their thick muscularity, sloping into the high curve of her pectorals.  Tensing and relaxing her abdominals, her obliques were strident and rigid, the area below her well-defined rib cage sloping into a deep concavity.  The long columnar muscles of her back gleamed wet in sweat, tapering to a remarkably narrow waist.  The woman warrior’s name was Najara, and her height and straight-bodied carriage gave evidence of her Scythian heritage. Thick red-gold hair was brushed to a smooth gleam that swept over broad, masculine shoulders.  Very large in proportion and striking of feature, she hailed from Tanais, on the northern shores of the great Euxine Sea, a major cosmopolitan town at the outer reaches of the Empire, where Asiatic and European nomads traded with Greek and Roman merchants, exchanging slaves and hides for the civilized refinements of clothing and wine.  And it was from steppes receding as far north as anyone in the Empire had ever traveled that Najara, one of a seemingly endless supply of gladiators and wrestlers offered up for entertainment of refined Roman citizens throughout the Empire, had come.

 

Najara’s magnificent body represented a final testimonial to centuries of careful breeding by warring Scythian tribes that had famously defeated the Persian hordes of Darius I centuries earlier.  Indeed, it was said by civilized, and perhaps jealous, Greeks and Romans when comparing their own women, that the only things Scythian warriors were ever really good at were breeding swift steppe ponies…and fucking woman capable of birthing strong daughters capable of besting any man in one-on-one combat.  Indeed, legend passed down over the years had it that no Scythian woman could marry until she had killed an enemy in open combat.   Even arrogant Romans agreed that such discipline certainly tended to refine surviving bloodlines. But now the Scythian empire was long vanished into grasslands and deserts to the east, to be remembered only by historians like Herodotus.

 

Were but the famous Greek historian here in Antioch today, for Najara was the last of her breed, a fine representative of a lost people, emblematic of what had made Scythians feared and envied over the centuries far to the north.  And that selective breeding was apparent to the citizens of Antioch who had adopted her almost as one of their own, having had the pleasure of watching Najara triumph over several less well endowed opponents.  Beautifully made, with long graceful bones and pronounced muscles that flowed smoothly from the curves of her large breasts and heavy shoulders to the starkly pronounced concavities of muscled belly and thick thighs, she represented the best of blending and breeding of Scythian and Aryan bloodlines, and the unrealized wet dreams of Romans, Greeks, Jews and whatever other nationalities frequented the Empire’s third great city, unrivaled except for Alexandria and Rome itself.

 

But Najara loved only for physical release, another means of exercising and staying in top physical condition.  For she had but one purpose in life, and giving birth to a child, or having some flaccid Roman senator or dowager feel her strong body entwined in theirs, was not it.  She was a killing machine and nothing more, trained and groomed by her Antioch owner, for eventual, and no doubt very profitable, final service in the splendor of the coliseum in Rome.  She expected victory in the arena…her owner demanded it…and that was all there was to her life.

 

 

III

 

The porta libitinensis slammed shut, both competitors, fully armed and fitted out, having been escorted to the arena gate.  They eyed one another carefully, for other than rumors and talk amongst other gladiators, they had never set eyes on one another before.

 

Clothed in a simple, shapeless golden linen shift, Najara was armed with her Scythian national weapon, the akinakai, a short double-edged sword slung around her narrow waist, and a heavy spear and oblong shield. Her opponent, wearing a comely, tight-fitting black bodice, was outfitted with a short Roman stabbing sword, the gladius, encased in a leather and bronze scabbard slung over her back, and a smaller circular shield used by mounted Roman cavalry on campaign.  Brandishing spears, their only armor being a simple bronze greave fitted to the non-sword arm, and bearing their awkward, heavy shields, the two opposing woman first tentatively lumbered, then aggressively thundered, toward each other.  Two great bodies of metal, flesh and fury collided. Iron spear points struck home through oak and bronze, wood splintering as shield ground against shield.

 

The two women separated, and then drove into each other again, stumbling and falling in the fury of armed combat.  They were careful to remain on the ground as little as possible, understanding they stood little chance if immobilized in a prostrate position where they could be rendered helpless by a well placed foot and the sheer weight of their opponent, or dispatched by a murderous downward thrust with the butt of the spear shaft capped with a spike for this deadly purpose.

 

At first the combatants were so evenly matched that there was none of the usual shouting and cheering from the stands.  The crowd held its collective breath, intently watching every move.  There was little sound in the amphitheater except grinding of shields, the clash of impacting spear points.  Xena had counted on being quicker than the giant Scythian, but the larger woman displayed an amazing and unexpected agility.  Twice she beat the Warrior Princess down, and only quick rollouts from a descending spear thrust saved the experienced Thracian.  When for a third time the Greek warrior was knocked to her haunches, she leaped back to avoid another deadly strike, but slipped in the increasingly moist arena dirt.  As Xena went down on her back, her spear useless in such a position, Najara straddled her prostrate body, spear upraised for the death stroke.

 

A gasp went up from the crowd, certain that the contest would be over much too soon.  But the disappointment of the bet takers and wagerers alike, still exchanging sesterces on the outcome of the struggle, were assuaged when Xena suddenly brought her small shield up hard between the Scythian’s thick legs.  As the large woman doubled up in agony, the Greek woman rolled away and bounded to her feet.  Disposing of the cumbersome spear, she unsheathed her sword, and batting away her stunned adversary’s own long weapon, quickly had her opponent on the defensive.  Two quick forward plunges cut away Najara’s minimal armor, and a third which barely missed a vulnerable shoulder, sliced the upper clasp of her garment in two.

 

Najara was left with nothing save the remnants of her linen shift, crumpled and bloodstained around her waist, along with her still sheathed sword.  Hair unbound and tangled about her shoulders, she looked all the world like her ancestral Aryan huntresses from the steppes of Central Asia.  Yet, save the blood from a forehead cut and a gash on her right arm she was solid and alive, reddish-blonde hair curling gold against bare white skin.  And clearly she was not intimidated by her opponent.

 

Spinning away she quickly drew her akinakai, all the while ducking, dodging, leaning back and bending her body low and forward to avoid the deadly gladius swings of her opponent.  With weapon finally free of its discarded scabbard, Najara quickly showed herself to be the equal of the aggressive Warrior Princess, parrying repeated blows with a skill borne of months spent training with her male gladiatorial peers.

 

Counterattacking, the large Scythian succeeded twice in driving Xena clear across the arena floor.  Her superior strength was evident as she cut through the Greek woman’s defenses on several occasions, with only the latter’s increasingly dented bronze armor saving her right arm from severe damage.  Still one particularly hard blow, taken high up on the shoulder dislocated Xena’s joint, an injury she only succeeded in disguising by shouting a belligerent Thracian war cry, shifting the gladius to her left hand, and levying a furious, frenetic assault on her opponent, who was forced to adopt a defensive posture. 

 

Fortunate to be able to fight equally well with sword in either hand, the Greek woman even succeeded in disarming the Scythian warrior with a skillful uppercut she had learned fighting Pics for her life in the animal pits of Britannia.  But Najara was not intimidated and repositioning quickly, picked up her akinakai from the arena floor and advanced on the Warrior Princess.

 

But a certain dull wariness, compounded by the fatigue of handling heavy weapons, was apparent in both women’s faces as they circled one other, looking for an opening.  The crowd stirred in impatience.  They had paid to see fighting contestants, not exhausted near-naked woman dancing with each other.

 

Perhaps sensing the crowd’s disquiet, and in better condition with her sword arm undamaged, Najara seized the initiative, swinging her weapon in a broad swipe aimed at Xena’s ribs.  The Thracian woman whirled away and feinted with her left, forcing the Scythian back towards the arena wall.  But Najara quickly regained the initiative, parrying the thrust and responding with a murderous blow downward that would have spilt Xena’s skull had it landed on target.  She missed as Xena rolled away, quickly regaining her feet and tearing the torn remains of her black chemise away from her body.  Najara smiled and answered by ripping her own linen shift away from her waist, throwing it up into the crowd, always an action appreciated by those lucky enough to be in front row seats.  “The Gods, it was great to be alive…Roman…and watching female gladiators in action!”

 

Impatient at the apparent impasse and angry that crowd sentiment seemed to reside with the “hometown” reddish-blonde woman warrior, Xena smashed her sword against the arena wall as if daring her stronger opponent to attack her while she was distracted.  Both contestants were perspiring profusely now, the air in the arena stifling.  The crowd had again grown quiet, the calm before the storm, as only the sounds of gasping breath from two women and occasional bruising clangs of steel on steel rendered the silence.

 

Soon it became apparent that Xena was tiring, the continued favoring of her right arm limiting her moves so that they were countered with little difficulty by the Scythian giantess.  The crowd sensed that the fight with swords could not last much longer, and if Xena was to have a chance at all she would have to move soon.  In acknowledgement of this reality, Xena advanced on her opponent again, with short, hard jabs aimed at seizing the initiative without engaging in a contest of strength, sword-on-sword.  The Thracian warrior backed her opponent against the arena wall, where the power of her answering parries would be restricted in the more limited maneuvering area.

 

Suddenly realizing Xena’s ploy by warrior instinct, Najara lunged forward with a vicious horizontal swing, expecting to force the Warrior Princess back.  But instead of stepping back, Xena stepped forward into the swing, took the full brunt of it with her sword upright, then stepping aside, brought the base of its handle down on her opponent’s temple, as she scudded past, off-balance.  The force of the blow drove Najara face first into the dirt, sword skidding out from her grasp.  The victorious Greek smiled and stepped away, kicking her opponent’s sword across the arena floor.

 

Xena leaned against the wall, her magnificent chest rising and falling with each deep breath, holding her sword gingerly in her left hand, right elbow pressed hard into her side.  “What to do…what to do?”  First, to attend to her dislocated shoulder.  Dropping her own sword, she stepped back, tore the damaged and heavily dented greave off her right arm and then rammed her damaged shoulder into the ungiving wall.  A ‘pop’ followed by a piercing pain elicited a mangled cry of both hurt and relief from the Warrior Princess.

 

As if in response, Najara groaned and rolled over on her back, her eyes wide and blank with shock.  As Xena slowly flexed her right arm, raising it tentatively above her head to see if there were lasting effects from the dislocation, the Scythian slowly rose to her hands and knees…and then stood erect.  She turned to search for the sword, but spying it well behind the Warrior Princess, she stretched her arms out away from her body in a classic wrestling stance.

 

The crowd went wild with delight.  A prolonged struggle was what all had come to see.  The fact that the contest would not be decided quickly with sword or spear, but rather after a prolonged struggle between two women wrestlers armed only with their own bare hands and feet, was all the fight promoters and arena owners could have hoped for.  Speculators again floated up through the stands, seeking to milk the last sesterce of profit from citizens enamored with the sight of two naked women struggling to the death for their enjoyment and entertainment.  For hundreds in the stands above, this was the spectacle that made Rome the mighty Empire, never to be forgotten, that she was.

 

Below the avid spectators, Najara, seeking to equal the armament, began to verbally assault her smaller opponent in barely concealed words of contempt and disdain.  “C’mon you Greek whore, would you kill an unarmed opponent?  Why not settle this contest in an honorable fashion.  Just you and me, fist and feet, teeth and nails…until one of us cannot rise.  The winner goes to Rome…the looser to the fleshpots of the Empire and the highest bidder.  C’mon Warrior Princess…isn’t that what they call you in the streets?  Isn’t that what your little blonde whore calls you in bed?  Where is your fabled sense of fair play?  Why not a contest between two equally armed contestants as in the Olympiad?  Or is that only so much talk, like all that crap about the ‘glory that was Greece!’”

 

Xena refused to reply, still nursing her right arm, intent on assessing any permanent damage before deciding on a future course of action.  Sensing her hesitation, Najara seized the moment, and calling out, "I'm coming for you, Xena!" strode boldly across the arena floor, arms outstretched.

 

"Thanks for the warning, you cunt!" Xena muttered, and kicking her sword away and shaking both arms loose, stretched them out from her sides, waiting in readiness, back pressed against the wall.  Whatever the damage to her right shoulder, it would have to wait the ministrations of her masseuse after this struggle was over.  As if unwilling to ascertain if its full strength had returned, Xena abruptly pivoted right and lashed out with her left leg in a high kick that caught the advancing Najara clean in the forehead.  The Scythian snapped back, fell to her knees, and the Greek wrestler quickly reversed position on the prostrate body and kicked the big woman in the back, knocking her over, face down.

 

"Now maybe we’ll be on equal terms" Xena muttered, as she drove a left foot hard against the blonde’s outstretched right arm, high up where it joined the shoulder.  The Scythian’s shriek of pain  gave pause to the citizens of Antioch as they engaged in last minute placing of bets.  In the beginning, everyone had placed their sesterces on Najara, even more so now that the contest had evolved to hand –to-hand combat, long thought to be the exclusive realm of the undefeated Scythian giantess.  And watching her this afternoon in action in the arena, particularly with both women completely nude, it was clear that she was taller, with broader, huskier shoulders, and a leaner workout-hardened waist than her Thracian opponent. Her long legs overflowing with hard, sinewy muscle only served to accentuate the feeling of dominant power emanating from her body.

 

Still, there was something about the Warrior Princess that gave these citizens of the eastern region of Empire pause.  She was almost as tall as Najara, but the lack of strident muscularity made her deceptively seem softer and weaker.  Although she did not look like she had been specifically groomed for the arena like her opponent, rumor on the streets and amongst the gladiators was that her recent life spent in a succession of arenas, animal pits and bordellos in central Asia had made her a more dangerous fighter than ever, willing to resort to any tactic to win.  Now, having watched her in action, it was clear to the crowd that she was a lot stronger and virile than first impressions might convey.

 

It was also becoming increasingly apparent that while perhaps lacking in stridently defined muscularity, she had a cunning meanness about her.  No one in Antioch really knew what her won-loss record was, but word on the Silk Road coming from the east indicated she had been in several closely fought bouts, and while not victorious in all of them, had clearly picked up new knowledge of different holds and ways to grievously hurt an opponent.  How that experience would fare in an arena in the eastern Mediterranean, against an opponent considerably larger and stronger than herself, and trained for combat since an early age, was anyone’s guess.  And beyond Antioch…Rome…and challengers hailing from the northern island of Britannia to the banks of the Indus River.

 

And now, as the fight proceeded, spectators, Roman citizens and senators, troops on leave and interested traders and speculators, crowded against the railed balcony overlooking the pounded dirt of the arena to better catch the action of two equally naked women warriors.  Although initially shouting encouragement and barely concealed lust for the local favorite, some in the crowd began switching allegiance to the Thracian warrior as she gained an upper hand over the gorgeous, reddish-blonde warrior.  Romans always liked a winner, and could not tolerate a loser.

 

As if sensing a shift in crowd sentiment, Najara quickly rolled over and came to her feet, flexing her large supple body and testing her damaged right shoulder.  “Badly bruised…but not dislocated.  Good!” she thought.  She shook her thick mane of golden hair burnished bright in the afternoon sun and barred her teeth.  Clearly she was furious at the turn of events.

                              

"You fuckin’ Greek bitch! I don't need swords or spears to kick your ass!" Najara snapped. Heavy thighs quivered and shook as she stomped and pawed her feet in the dirt, breasts heaving angrily, punched out in an exciting display of both beauty and bestiality.  Roman Senators and magistrates doubled down their already heavy bets, concluding they were right the first time. The Greek whore didn’t have a chance!

 

Xena didn't bother to reply, but half-smiling, stepped in close and sent a fist crashing into the blonde’s jaw. Caught off guard, Najara staggered back. Xena's other fist struck her cheek, putting her down heavily on her ass. Again, her new partisans noted that the Greek wrestler didn't hit like a vengeful whore, but drove hardened fists from a semi-crouched stance with her full body weight behind them, like a man.  This woman was clearly more than just slick hair and a body to die for!

 

As if in confirmation, Xena rocked back, flashing a powerful sinewy leg extended to full length.  It caught Najara flush on the forehead, catapulting her over on her back.

 

“You're not so tough, you Scythian bitch!" Xena laughed. She leaned over her foe and tore at Najara's breasts and extended nipples, both erect in the sensuality of closely fought combat.  “So you like wrestling and fucking women!” she taunted.  “Is that all you can get in this shit-hole of a town?”

 

In response, Najara rolled away toward safety, unwilling to contest the Warrior Princess on her back. But as she rose to her hands and knees, Xena was right behind her. Najara's ass provided a tempting target, one Xena was loath to resist. She drove a hard right foot between Najara's firmly rounded buttocks, knocking her flat on her face.  To add humiliation to pain, Xena moved forward and ground her large toe deep into the Scythian’s anal cavity, eliciting a shocking cry of pain and embarrassment, the victim’s hands pounding in anguish and embarrassment in the arena dirt.

 

Shocked by her tactics, the crowd stirred in newly-won admiration for the smaller woman warrior.  “The Gods, the Silk Road merchants were right. This she-bitch really knows how to fight.”

 

And a singular thin blonde, seated alone in close proximity to the arena railing, clad in the armament and trappings of a Roman decurio, smiled warmly as her hand stole beneath black leather uppers and between undulating thighs.  “Yes Xena…yes…Pour it on…you’re a champion…pour it on…More…more…more,” she muttered in a barely audible tone, her uniform now soaked in perspiration, upper lip beaded in sweat and twitching with barely concealed sexual arousal.

 

Xena now grabbed the blonde’s arms and yanked them up and straight out behind her. Najara let out a screech as Xena leaned back, pulling her victim backwards with her, previously entrapped breasts caked in dirt now free for all to see.  A callused right heel drove into the Scythian woman’s kidneys several times and as sweat soaked arms began to slip from her grasp, Xena let go and with a stinging blow to the back of the head drove her victim back down into the dirt.

 

Xena was pleased with the struggle so far. Before admiring local spectators she had stripped away the reputation of the Scythian woman, and in the process hurt her in a manner and location that she would not soon forget.  Beyond the dislocated right shoulder, now apparently sufficiently restored to contribute to the fight, the blonde giantess had not really hurt her in the ensuing wrestling match.

 

“Well there would be time enough for victorious reflection when she and her lover were on the boat to Rome.  Now, let’s put this bitch away,” Xena thought.  She kicked the Scythian in the hip, then the side. The kick rolled Najara over, but she kept on rolling and jumped, swaying unsteadily, to her feet before Xena could reach her. 

 

Off balance, Najara was still trying to shake off the effects of the double arm pull and ridding her eyes of sweat-caked dirt, when Xena, with calm deliberation, grabbed hold of her long, auburn hair. The raven-haired tormentress jerked the Scythian’s head down into an upcoming knee. Najara felt and saw blood spurt from her nose. As she pulled away, seeking to blow her nasal passages clear, Xena caught and twisted her damaged right arm behind her back, leveraging it high between her shoulder blades.  Najara cried out as pain lanced through her upper back, right arm and shoulder.

 

She struggled violently, but in vain. She could not free herself as Xena punished and tormented her entrapped arm. The raven-haired woman held on to the blonde warrior's pinioned right arm with her left hand while she reached over Najara’s shoulder with her right hand, long fingers and nails clawing and tearing at Najara's chest and high right breast.  As Xena twisted and tore the reddish-blonde warrior shrieked in terror at the searing pain.

 

“Well Scythian whore, how do you like this?” Xena taunted.  Letting go the tortured breast she clawed her way down Najara's firmly muscled belly and abdomen, working a tearing hand into the blonde’s pubic region.  Searching fingers grasped the white flesh directly above Najara's crotch, sinking fingers and sharpened nails deeper and deeper, clawing into the Scythian woman’s vitals.

 

The arena crowd shifted uneasily, shocked again by the tactics being employed.  “Was this the Greek way of competing in the arena?”  “Where had this strange exotic woman learned to fight like this?”  “Was there no end to the terror this Greek Warrior Princess would visit on our champion?”  “Truly, this dark-complexioned bitch must be related to the tyrant Alexander who had so bloodily conquered our land, sacked nearby Tyre, and killed thousands of innocent people centuries earlier.”

 

Najara gagged and moaned as Xena tore into her womanhood. She doubled over from the excruciating pain of nails stabbing up into her.  Her left hand tugged fruitlessly at Xena's wrist, her thick muscular legs stomping and thrashing in pain-wracked, impotent fear.  “What is this Greek bitch going to do…gut me like a hog?”

 

As Najara bent nearly double at the waist, Xena followed, her arms wrapping around the blonde warrior's broad back. Cheek to cheek, her long raven hair fell past Najara's sweat-tangled and dirt-matted locks.  The crowd was clearly shocked, perhaps only one amongst hundreds actually enjoying the play of events ongoing on the arena floor.

 

Still, the Scythian woman had not wasted years in training and learning the way of the female gladiator.  Despite the wrenching, body-splitting pain in her groin, suddenly Najara saw her chance. Her left hand quit flailing away in frustration, and twisted together a full handful of Xena's proffered dark hair and jerked down hard.  Half-twisting and driving a shoulder between the Warrior Princess’s breasts, she abruptly stood upright still holding Xena by the hair.  With her right hand she gained a purchase between the Greek woman’s thighs, and flexing the muscles in her torso, arms and shoulders, she tossed the Thracian head over heels. Xena landed on her back with a dull thud accompanied by a ‘whoosh’ as the air was forced from her lungs.

 

The Warrior Princess grabbed her lower spine in gasping pain, curling in a ball to minimize an accompanying blow her chest.  As the Greek woman attempted to roll clear of her suddenly ascendant nemesis, Najara brought her thick-muscled forearm down to smash into the Xena’s lower back and kidneys.  She half rolled away… curled back over her head…scrambled quickly to her right…and avoiding a sidekick from the Scythian giantess, gained her feet.

 

But Najara, seeking revenge as much as victory now, was not to be deterred and stride forward manfully, determined to grapple and engulf her smaller foe in her longer, thick arms.  The intense pain already inflicted on her body, particularly her womanhood, by the Greek woman only heightened her sexual arousal and thirst for retribution as she closed with Xena.  Noticing the way the lithe Warrior Princess was seemingly already recovered and bouncing on the balls of her feet, the jaunty composure combined with the enticing jiggle of her firm, dark-complexioned thighs, only served to taunt the larger woman.

 

The Thracian warrior’s heavy breasts also bounced and swayed to-and-fro as the agile Greek avoided several side kicks aimed at her head and chest.  But Najara, having missed thrice, suddenly shifted from right to left leg, and with a sweeping high kick clipped Xena’s damaged right shoulder, turning a vulnerable side open to the attacking Scythian.

 

Najara had suspected her opponent might be shaming, attempting to cover up damage to her body not readily evident, and the pained expression on the Greek wrestler’s face as she reacted to the impact of the shoulder kick told the Scythian all she needed to know about Xena’s real physical condition.  Two clubbing fists into the Thracian’s rib cage had the raven-haired beauty gasping for breath.  Another spinning side kick, this one much lower than before, struck the side of the Greek’s right knee and collapsed her into the dirt.  Xena quickly rolled away and stood up, but was clearly hurt as she clutched her pain-wracked rib cage with both hands.  But Najara was unwilling to give her opponent any respite and quickly going down into a half crouch, launched herself at the Greek wrestler.

 

The force of the impact toppled the raven-haired woman over on her back. Najara's body followed immediately, crashing down on top of Xena, expelling the breath out of the crushed lungs of the Warrior Princess. But desperately sucking air, Xena struggled with the furious strength of a madwoman. Sharpened nails raked Najara's bare arms and back until they were crisscrossed with deep, bloody furrows.  Rolling out from under the Scythian’s large frame, the Greek wrestler reversed the position and thumped her knees relentlessly into Najara's abdominals. The Scythian woman sought to counter the assault, maneuvering to draw her knees up towards her chest, but sensing her intent, Xena wrapped her long, sinewy legs around Najara's slim waist and applied acute pressure.

                                                 

The Greek wrestler sank in the hold, her legs maintaining their tight grip on the auburn-haired warrior's slim middle. As she maneuvered atop Najara, she twisted her legs around the reddish-blonde warrior's brawny thighs in a tangle of muscular, sweat drenched limbs that many in the intent crowd watching from above found particularly sensual. “Surely either one of these warriors would well represent Antioch in the Empire’s capital,” more than one town magistrate thought.

 

But what lay far ahead was not what either contestant was focused on at the moment.  Xena leveraged herself half up by contracting her stomach muscles, while holding Najara down with a right hand thrust in the chasm between the Scythian’s enormous breasts. Her free left fist began smacking Najara's face repeatedly, battering and whipping her head back and forth, the impact of skin-on-skin audible to those leering at the contestants from above.

 

The Scythian tried to fight back, but laying on her back, stung by repeated fists to the head, she simply lacked sufficient strength to dislodge her tormentress. Her powerful arms thrashed harmlessly in the dirt, helpless to parry the telling blows raining down on her.

 

Xena battered Najara's face until her own knuckles were bruised and bleeding. Pausing to look down at the pinioned Scythian warrior, Xena noted with satisfaction that Najara's nose was streaming blood and her left eye, rapidly discoloring, was nearly swollen shut.

 

The Greek woman loosened her legs from about her victim’s thighs and stood up. Nearly unconscious from Xena's pulverizing fists, Najara's arms lay listlessly by her sides.  Legs splayed out, thick limbs alternately spasming and trembling, the magnificent body of the local wrestling champion lay helplessly spread-eagled, vulnerably displayed to Xena's, and a suddenly less-than-worshipful crowd’s, scornful inspection.

 

Najara sensed the exhibitionist nature of her position, hated Xena for putting her in such embarrassment, and heaved herself over on one side to face her enemy from a less revealing posture.  But Xena having long since left propriety in the arena at Byzantium, grunted in contempt and reacting more out of spite and a desire to humiliate her opponent than victory, drove her right heel with devastating force into Najara's left breast. With a scream of pain, the blonde wrestler flopped back down on her back, large breasts and pubic region again available for prurient viewing by an increasingly hostile crowd.

 

Regaining focus and recognizing a trip to Rome was in the offing, and certainly worth more than the continual sexual degradation of her vanquished opponent, Xena decided to bring an end to this contest.   Her right hand curled into a hammering fist as she stepped over the Scythian’s prostrate body, intending to deliver a numbing, and hopefully game ending, strike to the side of the Scythian’s head.  But as her right arm shot down, the intended target’s own right hand surprisingly flashed up in a move so quick that most arena spectators never saw it.  Catching Xena’s right wrist, the Scythian wrestler, still on her back, grasped the wrist firmly and wrenched the Thracian’s arm outward, while raising herself to a sitting position.  The clearly surprised Warrior Princess was spun around so that her back now faced a suddenly rejuvenated opponent.

 

Her bruised and bloody face splitting in a vicious grin, Najara rolled to her right, stood upright, and threw her left arm around her smaller opponent’s neck.  Sensing an advantage that had eluded her so far, the Scythian’s sweat-sheathed body tingled at the prospect of crushing the Greek’s lithe, taut body against her own.  But Xena refused to surrender supinely to the renewed strength of her opponent and struggled to rid herself of the encircling arm, recalling the Scythian’s reputation for surprising an opponent when all seemed lost, with dire consequences for the victim.

 

As the Scythian’s grip tightened, the Greek woman attempted with only partial success to spin to her right, flinging out a sharp elbow as she felt herself slowly losing consciousness.  But the elbow found its mark in the cleft of the larger woman’s breasts, its impact accentuated by the weight of the whirling Thracian.  Najara gasped and fell to her knees, not fully recovered from her brutal treatment thus far in the fight.  With Xena momentarily pausing to regain her breath, the Scythian began to move, intent on scurrying away from the dark-complexioned Greek woman, but a quick glance at her winded, deep-breathing opponent, told her that vulnerability was there to be exploited. 

 

Rising to her feet, Najara sidled across and drove two brutal kicks in to Xena’s kidneys, knocking her down on her belly.  As the Greek wrestler attempted to regain her feet, Najara half turned, lowered her upper torso, and snapped a high kick into her victim’s neck with the full weight and power of her body behind it.

 

The Warrior Princess’s hands flew to her throat and gagging and spitting blood, she staggered back, heavy, arching olive-hued breasts presenting a tempting target as she collapsed against the arena wall, desperately clawing for air and trying to remain upright.

 

Acknowledging a sudden stirring in the crowd and now a few calls of encouragement, Najara smiled, shouted to herself in delight, and leaped forward, raining kick after kick into the Greek woman’s chest and breasts.  Sensing both her sensual  pleasure and Xena’s unbearable pain at the assault, she stepped back to survey the results of her handiwork, grinning wolfishly as the Warrior Princess’s pendulous breasts fell forward away from her body as the injured woman warrior fell to hands and knees.  Even as pain coursed through every muscle and fiber of her body, Xena’s wide, dark red nipples, erect from several callused blows, were apparent to those close enough to observe the Greek woman’s obvious sexual arousal.  “The Gods this was a woman every Roman should have at least once in his or her life!”

 

But sating sexual desire from far from Xena’s thoughts at the moment, and as the Scythian woman strode towards her downed foe, the Thracian rolled hurriedly across the arena floor to place time and distance between herself and her suddenly overpowering opponent.  But Najara, desperately eager to tear at her nemesis in the same manner in which she had been torn, battered and humiliated before her hometown crowd, was not to be denied and quickly closed the Greek woman.

 

Najara now smashed a prone Xena with her fists, knocking aside her ineffective counters, and battering away at her face, chest and womanhood. The Scythian’s blows, borne of unrequited fury and humiliation, struck Xena deep and hard, the ground giving her no chance to shift away from the relentless pounding.  Momentarily blacking out, Xena was painfully brought back to full consciousness by several resounding slaps to both cheeks.

 

But it was clear to all that Najara was now seeking revenge even more than victory.  She dropped her knee full on to Xena's forehead, but as the Thracian vainly attempted to dodge another such blow, Najara grabbed her by the hair and pulled her closer.  As Najara reared back, left arm upraised, for what she hoped was a contest-ending strike, Xena spied the striated abdominals pronounced and full before her and sank sharp teeth deep into the ivory-hued flesh of Najara's rippling belly.  Najara’s blow was stillborn as the Warrior Princess clamped her arms around her opponent's waist, teeth sunk deep into flesh and muscle, blood coursing from the wound into her mouth and down her victim’s belly.  Shrieking in pain, Najara’s arms and legs thrashed wildly, but she could not dislodge the raven-haired fury that clung to her mid-section like a leech.

 

When the Greek wrestler had regained her breath, she opened her mouth and swiftly rose to one foot, bracing herself. Using all her available strength, she straightened up and tried to lift the much heavier auburn-haired warrior off her feet.  But despite her desire, the body was not willing and simply could not muster the required energy to overcome the weight advantage enjoyed by the Scythian giantess.   Failing after two attempts, she paused in exhaustion and resignment, allowing her opponent, now that the fire in her belly had somewhat subsided, to shift her weight and bowl both bodies over backward into the dirt.  Xena's head smashed into the arena floor, with the heavy weight of the Scythian adding more stunning energy to the impact.  The Thracian warrior grunted in pain, stunned, lips twisted in anguish at the dead weight crushing her ribs and belly.  Najara, sensing her opportunity, repositioned her large frame, and reared up, straddling the Greek wrestler’s waist.

 

Only slowly regaining focus and breath, Xena looked up to see the Scythian’s triumphantly leering face above her. At that same instant, Najara's pointed finger stabbed into her right breast. In response, Xena threw a wild punch that the now confidently dominating blonde easily dodged.  A look of smoldering hatred and revenge was now evident in the Scythian’s eyes. The crowd could not see it, but its intended victim could, and for the first time in this contest, Xena considered she might actually lose this fight…and perhaps her life.

 

As if reading her mind, Najara emitted a shout of vengeful triumph and callused palms and thick fingers found purchase in the Thracian’s ample breasts.  She cried out in pain as Najara straddled her, then raising her own torso on massive thighs, dead-lifted the prostrate Greek woman up by her breasts to a standing position.  Xena stumbled up and forward in response to the savage tearing and twisting of her breasts.  Quickly Najara shifted from one acutely painful hold to another as she wrapped her giant arms clear around Xena’s chest, shoulders and back, locked fists and wrists, and cinched up the Greek woman at mid-chest.  Bodies crushed together, heaving bellies and rib cages undulating in labored breathing, the heavily muscular Scythian heaved Xena off her feet, squeezing the air from her tortured lungs.

 

“Now, let’s see you escape from these arms, you Greek whore!” Najara shouted in expectant triumph, loud enough for the newly adoring crowd to hear, as she crushed the squirming, kicking Warrior Princess against her broad chest.  Grunting again in exertion, she momentarily relaxed her grip, then sank the hold in lower, entwined fists driving into Xena’s lower back as the helpless victim was lifted higher than before.

 

Najara’s thick upper arm muscles stood out in bold relief, pinning her Greek opponent’s arms in close to her sides as she squeezed…and squeezed again.  Eyes mere slits of agony, Xena’s head lulled forward to rest on her opponent’s right shoulder, her full-length body, lifted clear of the ground, being shaken mercilessly in the death grip of the Scythian giantess.

 

Najara gleefully listened to the muffled, strangled gasps, as the dark-complexioned warrior's torture became all but unbearable. Najara's laugh was nearly hysterical at the success of her own dominating cruelty. She joyfully released, then re-clinched, and drove her fists repeatedly into the Greek woman’s lower back.  Each resetting of the hold elicited a grunt of pain and exhaustion from its victim, a thin stream and blood and spittle now trickling from her mouth and flowing down her dominatrix’s broad back.  Finally, like a lion reluctant to finish its victim and end her suffering, Najara smiled and languidly released the hold, raised her thick arms above her head, stretching in sensuous pleasure, accepting the acclaim of wrestling prowess from an appreciative audience.  Below her the Greek wrestler sprawled, disoriented and badly hurt, on a dirt floor grown moist with her own sweat, spittle and blood.

 

Finally, Xena rolled over on her side, convulsively drawing her legs up to her abdomen. She hugged her injured lower body with both hands in a vain effort to ease the excruciating pain. “If she was lucky,” she thought, “only one or two ribs were broken.”  With breath driven from her tortured body, her sobbing air intakes were but harsh stabs of pure agony on her sides as lungs expanded against fractured bones.

 

Unmoved by her foe's suffering, Najara returned to the fight, intent on crippling, if not killing her opponent.  She drove her right heel into Xena's lower back several more times, eliciting separate wretched cries of agony with each blow. Still wretchedly huddled in a ball, the Greek wrestler rolled over on her back in a vain attempt to escape the blows. Her breasts and womanhood were now visible for the crowd to see, and an effort to draw her knees up was squashed by a forearm smash from the dominant Scythian woman towering over her.  

 

Najara now stooped and heaved the inert body of her victim up, the muscles of her forearms rigid in exertion.  She half-dragged, half-carried the helpless Thracian woman to the center of the arena.  Hands buried deep in the once glossy black mane, now matted with sweat, dirt and blood, the Scythian yanked her opponent’s head back, shaking her as if she were a drowned animal.  Xena’s eyes were but dull slits as she sagged to her knees.

 

Sensing the deadliness of her plight, Xena tried to roll away but her downward movement was painfully augmented by Najara's fist smashing into the back of her neck, knocking her down to hands and knees.  Xena’s face was now little more than a mask of agony as she clawed at her enemy’s forearm and legs when they were close, vainly trying to gain enough room to rise.  But Najara was relentless, circling her prey, then closing and attacking at will.  The crowd sensed the race was nearly run.  The Greek wrestler, while putting up a surprisingly good fight initially, particularly with the surprisingly dirty tactics she had employed, had finally succumbed, as Najara’s partisans had long maintained she would, to the superior brute strength of the Scythian giantess.  For most of the audience, Xena was but a trapped animal waiting for the release from pain of the hunter’s kill.

  

Najara too sensed the end was near.  She slammed fists and feet hard into the supine body desperately trying to crawl away.  Finally she decided it was time to kill and large hands quickly sought the throat of her opponent.  Xena’s body thrashed, half-bent legs pounding the arena floor, thigh meat quivering under the deadly assault of the Scythian warrior.  Xena’s cries of pain were half strangled as Najara’s hands closed around her larynx, thumbs pressing hard against the Thracian’s windpipe.

 

Pressed firmly against the writhing woman, Najara strove to crush the life from her stunned opponent.  Bruised lips smiled viciously as her foe’s fists and arms battered her forearms and helplessly pried at her fingers.  Bodies locked tight together in a sweating, dirty tangle of muscular thighs, bloody, sweat soaked snatches, and quivering torsos.  Suddenly breaking free of the Greek’s flailing defenses, Najara drove first one fist and then the other smashing into the raven-haired woman’s face.

 

Pain exploded in the Warrior Princess’s brain as her opponent’s fist crushed her nose, breaking it again.  Blood sprayed from torn nostrils over her lower face.  Stunned, Xena barely felt another clubbing fist into her breasts, followed up by a low blow to the groin.  Nearly done, she sank weakly to her hands and knees.  Blood coursed down her face, between her breasts, across a scarred and brutalized belly, and disappeared into the dark moist area between her thighs.

 

Almost drunkenly, and going on only sheer instinct, she wobbled uncertainly to her feet, trying to stand upright on legs that seemed suddenly unable to answer the call for action and power.  But hardly in a forgiving or fair-minded mood regardless of the deteriorating condition of her opponent, Najara launched herself across the distance separating them, driving her shoulder low into the defenseless Thracian’s stomach, slamming her nearly inert body against the hot arena wall.  Xena keeled weakly over the shoulders and upper back of her opponent, left hand weakly trying to strike her opponent’s side, the right draped uselessly across the Scythian’s broad back.

 

Now for her signature move, more often than not resulting in final expiration of an opponent.  The crowd had seen the set up before, and knew what to expect.  An expectant hush fell over the arena.  Najara dropped low into a crouch, and circled giant hands around the Greek woman’s knees.  Xena realized her peril and tried to maneuver her sweaty torso to lower her upper body profile, but with a mighty heave, Najara pushed forward on the Greek woman’s knees, flexed her own thunderous thighs and then stood erect, carrying the Warrior Princess high above her shoulders.  She momentarily turned in a full circle of display for all to see the final moments of her prey, then half twisting, she released Xena’s left knee, drove her now free hand between the muscular Greek woman’s buttocks, and finding the necessary finger purchase in the anal cavity, dropped her right shoulder, pivoted both fully extended arms, and drove Xena, inverted, nearly head first into the arena floor.

 

The gasp of shock from the arena crowd was loud enough for even Najara, in the heat and passion of mortal combat, to hear.  Only a faintly whispered, “Oh Xena!” emanated from the black-clad blonde decurio, to be followed by the tinkling of hundreds of sesterces changing hands.  But from the prostrate Warrior Princess, not a sound.  At least the Greek wrestler was still breathing, for only a last minute tuck into her shoulder had prevented the Xena’s neck from being broken.

 

Regardless, all knew…conscious or otherwise…that the battle was over.

 

But Najara, in true Scythian warrior fashion, was not to be denied her moment’s triumph.  Arm muscles bulging, the victorious warrior dropped to her knees and caught up Xena’s left leg, twisting it sharply to flip the unconscious Warrior Princess over on her stomach.  Now standing, Najara dragged her opponent’s body across the arena floor with legs upraised, inner thighs spread and exposed, the Greek’s heavy breasts leaving twin furrows of blood and sweat to mark her passage.  Xena’s eyes momentarily fluttered open as she regained consciousness, then closed again in pain as her bruised, damage body was now paraded again around the arena perimeter much as Achilles had dragged Hector’s lifeless corpse around Troy’s fabled walls.

 

Once the circuit was completed, Najara again approached the arena center.  Dropping both legs, she knelt and rolled the helpless body of her victim over on its back, exposing vulnerable breasts, stomach, crotch and thighs to renewed attacks.  Najara’s clubbing foot and fists shot out again and again, driving down hard into seemingly lifeless flesh, muscle and bone, slamming into the forehead, breasts, and tortured torso and legs of the helpless Greek warrior, her body heaving and writhing in near-silent agony.

 

Kneeling down, the Scythian warrior extended her right thigh and dead-lifted Xena’s inert body off the arena floor and draped it over the meaty limb.  All knew what was coming, and some turned away in disgust.  Overhead double-fisted blows began raining down on Xena’s abdomen, breasts and pubic bone.  A particularly brutal blow into her womanhood, complemented by a tearing of nails and fingers, at last admitted a strangled cry of despair and hopeless pain from its semi-conscious victim.

 

But suddenly, in a movement that several in the arena crowd had wished to occur well before the final bloody climax of this fight, the tall, thin, blonde Roman decurio was astride Najara.

 

“Enough!” she commanded.  “Scythian woman, you are our champion.  You will represent Antioch in the games in Rome.”

 

Najara snorted in disgust and flipped the defeated Greek’s body over in the dirt.  “Fucking Roman…this must be the cunt she travels with.  Well, I’m going to Rome, not them!”  Najara silently responded, and raising both hands above her head, turned in a victory pose and walked off to a bath, massage, and the nightlong intentions of a bevy of admiring male gladiators who would accompany her on their westward journey to the Coliseum.

 

Back at the sight of victory, her destroyed opponent had regained consciousness, agonized body shuddering in pain-wracked tremors.  Xena knew she had lost due to her own over confidence…knew she was lucky to be alive…and knew that her owner would not be pleased at this unexpected turn of events.

 

She was right.  Gazing down at the broken, bruised, filthy body of her slave, Callisto, masseuse and lover, but a Citizen of Rome first, spat out, “And you…bitch.  You could have made a lot of money for both of us.  But no…again…you have failed me.” 

 

Placing a booted foot atop Xena’s pain-wracked, sweat-sheathed chest, she added, more quietly in a tone mixing the menace of a disappointed owner with that of an unsatisfied lover, “The slaver leaves for Alexandria within the day.  Even if you can’t walk, my men will see you are on it.  And don’t be late. All roads may lead to Rome, but we will have to take a slight detour.  You see, my pretty, we now have business in the land of the Pharaohs.”

 

Gazing down at the spasming, sob-wracked body splayed out below her she added, “And Xena…never forget…Daughters of Empire do not weep.”

 

With that she spun on her heel…and was gone.