At first glance they seemed too large to be men, though they had two legs and two arms like men. Their elongated heads held bloodshot eyes, but there were no noses, only slits in the skin where a man’s nostrils would be. On each side of their bald heads lay elongated ears that ended in ragged points of skin. A white fang protruded down from each corner of their mouths. Lathered drool ran from their mouths to their chins and slithered down their hairy chests in long white strings. Their only clothing was fringed leather warriors’ skirts, which did little to hide the misshapen male genitals beneath them. Dried excrement clung to the backs of their legs, and each of their elongated fingers and toes ended in a sharp talon. Each stalker wore a collection of dried eyeballs hung around its neck on a leather string-Shashidan war trophies, Persephone assumed.

Each Blood Stalker was armed with a terrible battle-axe the like of which the empress had never seen. The long black helves were randomly patterned with dried blood, and each was crowned with a human skull. From each of the skull’s temples a shiny silver axe blade extended outward at right angles. The sunlight filtering through the coliseum’s red canopies glinted off the axes’ highly polished edges.

Besides their battle axes, two of the stalkers carried the familiar standards of the Twenty-third Legion. The standards were sumptuous red flags, hung vertically from golden crossbars secured at the tops of long golden staffs. Atop each staff sat a magnificent golden eagle, its wings outstretched in triumph. The flag itself bore the gold-embroidered image of a great bear, the mascot of the mighty Twenty-third. Beneath the bear appeared the number XXIII, also embroidered in gold. At a signal from one of the stalkers, the monsters formed ranks, and the two standard-bearers among them plunged the golden staffs into the sand, allowing the red flags to wave in the breeze for all to see.