Gladiators vs Zombies by Sean-Michael Argo

domination and power, his own attempt at owning her soul in addition to her flesh. No longer, she thought to herself, for now I belong to myself, and to my god. Her thoughts fell upon the plan as it unfolded while she took up her butcher’s blade, stolen from the kitchens, and drank another mouthful of sacred wine.
    Once Hesta had healed from the lanista’s assault, she had begun to execute her scheme. Most of the slaves in the household knew of the golem primus, and how Lanista Laeca would use it to create golems for the arena. She also knew that Atticus often kept a handful of the creatures in the old noxii cages down in the bowels of the ludus. Her first task was to seduce one of the guards, which proved easy enough. Hesta had wondered if she would be nervous coupling with another man, as Atticus had been the only man she’d ever known, though discovered quickly how powerful she could be as a woman. The guard was like clay in her hands, easily molded to suit her needs, and happy to lay with her. Unlike Atticus the guard was not cruel, and his desires were simple and over quickly. The guard never noticed that in their passion Hesta had stolen his key to the cells beneath the ludus.
    She knew that the guard would not report the keys missing, for in doing so would lose his position. Likely he would assume that he’d lost it while coupling with the golem-marked slave girl, and would certainly not report that, given that Hesta was the lanista’s favorite. Over the next several weeks Hest carefully assembled the mixture of herbs and spices that were to be mixed into the sacred wine of the maenad. Without observing the proper rites this sacrifice would have no significance, and so it had to be done with reverence.
    Once the sacred wine was prepared, Hesta had taken a hearty jar of it with her into the pens beneath the ludus during the dead of night. She padded silently to the cell in which Drust, the blue painted man whose gaze had always followed her when she attended the lanista during his tours of the ludus during training. In the past Drust had frightened Hesta, his scars and tattoos making him seem monstrous, though now she knew that monsters more often looked like respectable men until the doors were closed. Hesta opened the pict’s cell, and found him crouched in the corner, fully awake and ready to pounce.
    She had come to him then, boldly striding towards him and taking his body in hers. He resisted but for a moment, his dismay at her unannounced appearance giving way to his lust for the lithe body under his hands. In the darkness of the cell they coupled, sharing the sacred wine, and coupling again. As they thrust against one another Hesta whispered her plans into Drust’s ear, telling him of the sacred wine of Dionysus, of her seduction of the guard and the key, of her plans to unleash the golems upon the city. She told him that on the following night she would bring the gladiators a chance at freedom, though they would have to fight for it. Their sacrament of lust spent, she took the empty wine jar and left the cell.
    The sacred wine granted strength, and speed, and visions. That is what the ancient faith had taught, and Hesta felt as if the world of spirit and the world of flesh were about to tear each other apart. She could not tell where one began and the other ended, and that was how she knew it was time for the final act. Her blade was keen, a larger flat knife of the butcher’s trade, designed to hack through joints and bone. The incense smoke curled upwards, spiraling in the candlelight as Hesta whispered her prayer and stood. Using lard she had rolled her hair into locks, anointing them with incense. Her skin was covered in the names of her honored dead, and her veins burned with the fire of sacred wine, while her loins thrummed with lust.
    She slid from her chamber, keeping silent and watchful, not wanting any guards or slaves to see her until the moment was right. She crept through the sleeping villa,