Luyện nghe bài hát Blood Slakes The Sand At The Circus Maximus

THOUGHTS OF AN GLADIATOR,
AWAITING THE OF THE ARENA PORTCULLIS:

MEMORIES OF (CARNAGE AT CAMULODUNUM):

ICENI
Hearken! The Ninth Legion has put to the sword!
The of Queen Boudicca: Onwards to Camulodunum...
wet your swords! Redden the with Roman blood!

I the carnage at Camulodunum...
The glorious clash of Celtic sword Roman gladius,
The in the eyes of our war-queen
As we hacked down the Eagle,
And the heads of centurions gaping atop our spears.

AND BATTLE: 61 AD (C.E.)

???

We certainly taught the invading dogs a lesson, at any rate.
The and portents spoke of vast bloodshed and great carnage,
and after our victories at Camulodunum (the Temple
of Claudius burned wonderfully!), and Verulanium,
the cursed Romans finally dared to meet us honourably upon the
of war at Mandeussedum. sent fifteen thousand legionaires,
their armour gleaming like gold in the sun... but it would still to our
swords and spears, no how it sparkled.

The scoundrel, Governor Suetonius Paullinus,
from his campaigns against the Druids,
was able to choose the upon which to make his stand,
and so it was that he as the battlefield a narrow valley,
fronted by a flat plain, with woodland at its rear. Aye...
Mandeussedum, "the place of the chariots"... I it vividly.

???

We were by our victories,
empowered by our cause,
with the battle frenzy;
thirsting to take as many Roman
as our bright could sever!
And yet we were perhaps somewhat overconfident day...

ABDUCTED THE ICENI:

In the of our defeat at Mandeussedum,
I was captured by with a veiled intent...
(though three of died at my hands in the attempt!)

Nero was growing with the gladiators,
and lion-fodder at his great Circus,
and so had Suetonius Paullinus
to provide the citizens of with new entertainment...

The Emperor had heard much of the wildness and spirit
of these Britons who had brought such woe to his far-famed legions;
these painted, pagan tribesmen who had the Empire's iron fist
where the phalanxes of the East had not.

"Agents of the Imperium... to my words", Nero had demanded.
"Bring to Rome some of these for the Games. Let us pit them
against our most beasts and our greatest gladitorial champions."

And so I was taken in fetters a Roman trireme,
the blood of legionaires still crusted upon my thews,
I was taken far from the of my beloved homeland,
to the sun baked sand of the Circus Maximus...
to fight for my in the Imperial Arena.

AT THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS:

The Circus Maximus was certainly a sight, I'll admit.
A vast with great stone columns and tiers,
huge arches and mighty statues of grey marble.
Countless people filled the seats surrounding the sandy of the Arena...
and in his opulent royal enclosure, flanked by gleaming
and grovelling lackeys, sat the Emperor himself...

NERO:
Fight, outlander!
us, and mayhap Mars will smile on thee this day!

ICENI
Bah! I do not to your Roman gods, and you are not my emperor!
By Cernunnos, the blood of my enemies stain the sand
of cursed arena red this day!

THE COMMENCES:

They unleashed the first. Hunger maddened beasts,
into a frenzy by the cruel point of many a pilum...
And yet my own hunger, the for revenge, was greater,
and my honed steel was than bestial fang and claw.

And so they their finest warriors against me.
more iron gates around the arena yawned open,
and they strode the colosseum tunnels amidst
a cacophony of cheering from the Roman spectators,
urged on and showered with mar tial adulation from the
arena crowd, who their bloodlust without cessation.

???

Far above, upon his dias,
the Emperor gave the signal for the to begin,
and the battle-lust engulfing me,
with the red swirling before my eyes,
I vowed to my northern that I would show these leering
Romans the fighting spirit and battle of my people...
I would the arena littered with the bloody corpses of my opponents...

I would cast off the imperial and return to the fens!
Aye, I would escape, and make all fear my name,
and compel Nero to rue the day Julius had first ordered
his legions across the grim grey sea to my island...

Blood For Boudicca... For Cernunnos!!

To be continued...