This night there was no plates of food nor any ale. They pair of slaves were tossed without ceremony into the pens with the others. Calliope was woozy from the blow to her head, though probing with her fingers indicated that nothing was broken. Bahdir looked none the worse for wear beyond a corpse like coating of gray dust adhered to the sweat he had kicked up in the arena. The other slaves gave them a wide berth, some even went so far as to shoot them hateful looks. Calliope didn't doubt the fact that they had been wined and dined last night had made its way down to the slave pens, possibly even deliberately.

"So," Badhir asked as he handed her a bowel of the gruel that had been slopped out as the evening meal, "Do you... have plan for escape?" The pitfighter's Riekspiel was bad, but it was a more secure tongue than Arabyian down here. Calliope nodded, not in agreement but as a place holder as she slurped the gruel down. Landlubbers might find the stuff atrocious, but they had never been at sea for fifty days with nothing but tack so hard you had to soak it in rancid beer before you could eat it. She had expended tremendous energy in the fight and she was hungry even for such poor fare.

"I'm working on it," Calliope admitted. She flexed her fingers and leaned back against the cool stone. "I think... if we can survive to they make us fight each other, there might be a way."

"What way?" Badhir demanded. Calliope smiled a lopsided piratical grin.

"Bad luck to be telling, savvy?"

The next day dawned with an unusual chill. Notionally it dawned, there was no sun in the slave pens. Calliope didn't notice it but Bahdir looked uneasy, muttering prayers to his god and touching the stone with the palm of his hand.

"You don't like the cold?" Calliope asked. It was cool technically, cold was when a gale blew in from the Sea of Claws and you had to stand into the wind till it blew itself out and the Daemons take you if the winds changed faster than you could set your sails. Bahadir looked at her as though trying to decide if the stone which had brained her had driven her senses from her body.

"This is summer in Araby, it cannot be cold," he informed her. Further discussion was interrupted by the arrival of the armed stewards. They shouted for slaves and kicked and beat them into lines for the tunnels that lead up to the arena. They were divided into two relatively equal lines. Calliope was somewhat surprised and gratified to see that many slaves tried to get into Bahadir's line most of which were brutally shoved or clubbed back into place by the overseers. They were marched to the point where the tunnels diverged to lead both teams up to the arena. At the point where the tunnels separated two old slaves sat beside buckets of foul smelling paint. Each slave was splashed with paint as he entered the mouth of his tunnel, blue for left, red for right. Calliope squeezed her eyes shut and suffered a splash of the paint across face and left side, spitting the blue muck at one of the overseers on general principles. The guard bared his teeth and kicked Calliope in the hip but Bahadir shoved past to prevent any further retaliation. The mouths of the tunnels were colder yet, worse they ran with rivulets of water. Calliope frowned but said nothing shuffling up the tunnel and following the curve towards the light and the roar of the crowd. They reached the armory room and took their weapons, Calliope selecting a heavier sword than she had used the previous day and a long fighting dagger with a broad hand guard.

When they finally reached the mouth of the tunnel Calliope slitted her eyes against the sun and stepped out onto an unfamiliar wooden platform and peered out in amazement. The entirety of the arena had been filled with water. It still chattered down through wooden sluices at four points combatting evaporation and whatever leaked into the sublevels. Each entrance to the arena had a platform to which two twenty foot rafts had been lashed. Single masts stood in the center of their decks and cloth hung from them in imitation of sails. The sides were built up in imitation of real ships though it was all a gawdy show. It was an incredible achievement and a statement about the wealth and power of the Sultan that would last a century. The crowd were already cheering themselves hoarse and trash and confetti, flung in their exuberance floated atop the imitation sea.

"There are ships," Bahadir blurted in wonder.

"Boats," Calliope corrected absently, "Ships have three masts." There was no possibility of 'sailing' the ships, but long poles stacked on the decks would easily sink the six feet or so to the arena floor to propel the floating abortions.

".... the pirates of Abukar Bay!" an announcer was shouting through a brass speaking trumpet. The crowd leaped to their feet and howled for blood. Calliope could see the other team of slaves coming out onto their own 'dock' looking equally shocked by the spectacle before them.

"And to drive this filth to Allah, the brave Sailors of Sultan Kayem!" There was another roar, somewhat throatier at this. Calliope presumed this was some reference to an ancient battle she neither knew nor cared about. She smirked to think how far back the would have to have gone to find a naval battle the Araybian's had actually won.

"And just like on that great day the seas will run red... with blood!" There was a boom as one of the Sultan's guards fired a jezzail. The Slave two places down from Calliope sighed and tumbled forward into the water with a splash. The other slaves cringed back, though Calliope stood her ground, determined not to give these camel fucking sons of third rate whores any satisfaction. The body floated in the water for a moment and then there was an explosion of froth and fury as something dark struck from beneath the wave. Calliope had only a split second, but the fins and teeth were unmistakable to a sailor.

"Well I will be damned," she muttered, "They have sharks and everything."

Bahadir had seen some amazing things in his time as a slave-fighter. He had even been a part of a team set to fight one of the deadly chimera's of the far north, just barely coming out of that alive. He had seen men eat their own arms rather than starve. But this was something he had not seen. It was a marvel of engineering and logistics, something Bahadir had heard about but had never been witness to. Briefly, he had a weird sense of loss. If he escaped, he might never be witness to such things again. Perhaps his life was not so bad...

He knew that was a falsehood, however. How much sweeter would his life be if he was in the crowds right now, eating pork and sitting with a lover? Or perhaps even plundering the real seas himself? His sudden hesitation was curtailed and then redirected to a longing to be free, and a wonderful sense of thankfulness that he could do it with a bang such as this! That is, if he and Calliope survived.

"Yataharak!" A Mamluk called, indicating the slaves to move. Calliope needn't be told. She stepped onto the boat as if it was made by her commission, hard boots clacking across the roughly hewed timber. Bahadir was unsure of how steady it would be, but evidently she was not. He would trust her practiced instinct, and leaped onboard as well. The boat lightly bucked, swaying from the new weight and the small ripples in the water. There was a moderate wind today, dilapidating the surface of what should have been pristine, calm water with no current. Bahadir was used to sand or stone, or the timber structures of men. He was not used to floating on water.

"I must tell you..." Bahadir said in his strange accent, Calliope turning to look at him. "I..." He tried to find the right words."-cannot swim."

She snorted, bewildered she had not thought of it. "If we live, I'll give ye some proper lessons, but as for now, if you fall in, just find the arena floor and kick off it. Plus, the sharks might keep ye a bit busy."

More and more slaves piled off, until there was roughly a dozen, along with the two would-be partners. Across the expanse of water, the other slaves had gotten onto their boat at the insistence of moon-bladed halberds. A few of them looked not unsure of what to do, and Bahadir wondered if there were other corsairs or sailors on their side. He didn't know. The sun peeked through the clouds above, basking his scarred chest with merciful heat, and a keening trumpet sounded, before others followed.

"Take the handle and do exactly what I say," Calliope commanded Bahadir. He looked at the fastened pole, and gripped it with a big hand as Calliope drew her saber. Above, the Sultan stepped forward, raising his hands to the heavens, and the people cried out in joyous celebration as the games began.

Intellectually Calliope knew there was a real chance of of her dying today. Many people were literally betting on it afterall but inspite of that the emotion which reigned supreme in her head was anger. Did the camel buggering ragheads really thing these things were boats. It offended her at a level so deep it made her eyelids twitch. These barges would tip over in any swell beyond that of a millpond, and god help them if they ever got a sail on, not that it would even be possible with the mockery of rigging. If any wind at all came up they would probably be smothered by the bloody shroud.

"Push off!" she roared, it wasn't till Bahadir yelled the same thing in Araybian that she realised that in her anger she had spoken in Reikspiel.

"Stroke together you bastards!" she shouted to the would be rowers as they wavered into action.

"Who died and made you the leader," a scarred slave demanded looming up and flexing his knuckles on the haft of polearm. Calliope hacked into his neck with her saber, sending spray of blood fountaing up to stain the ersatz sail with gore. The slave opened and closed his mouth for a moment before Calliope kicked him over the side. He plunged into the water without a sound.

"Anyone else?!" Calliope demanded. No one did anything other than work their oars and avoid her gaze.

"Good, Stroke! Stroke!" she yelled. They were picking up speed in marked contrast to the other barges which were wallowing in disorder. She stepped back over to Bahadir, jumping up onto a bulwark and gripping one of the ropes to judge speeds and angles.

"Are we going to board pirate?" Bahdir asked.

"Not unless we have to she replied tersley. One of the enemy barges was looming up quickly, slaves clustered at the bow brandishing weapons.

"On my word, throw that tiller hard over," she instructed.

"Do what?" Bahadir asked. Calliope resisted the urge to snap.

"Turn hard to the right," She explained, counting down the seconds.

"Now!" she screamed. Bahadir did as he was instructed and the barge slewed infront of the onrushing enemy, so violently it generated a literal wave. The two bages struck with a splintering impact of colliding timbers. As Calliope had hoped the enemy barge hit them broadside. A dozen enemy tumbled into the barge, some jumping, most simply knocked off their feet to crash to the deck. The two clumsy water craft bounced appart as the crew grappeled and stabbed at each other but all was not well with the enemy barge. Calliope watched with satisfaction as the enemy barge came appart in a handful of loose timbers dumping half its crew splashing into the shark haunted waters. The barges were simply logs lashed together and disguised to look vauglely like real boats. They were strong enough on the beam, but a blow to the prow knocked half a dozen timbers back through the knots which held them, shattering the hull into a handful of logs and tangled ropes. Half the crew had gone into the drink, few knew the trick of swimming, but those who did struck out towards Calliope's barge to be greeted with skull crushing blows from paddles and polearms.

"One down," she grinned as the crew hacked and stabbed at those few survivors who had found their feet.