More cursing. A clatter. Hektor didn’t turn back to make good on his threat.
Lucan, a spy? He seemed too innocent, all golden hair and eyes, a gladiator who lacked a mean streak, the hardened killer’s instinct Hektor had seen in so many men.
Lucan Vulpinius had never killed a man. That Hektor could tell without even checking the odds-makers’ records. No. Lucan was as innocent as they came in Arena.
Leander was innocent too.
Hektor steeled his heart. As long as Lucan was Stratos’s man, Hektor could never fully trust him. Stratos was acquisitive, a man of dark lusts and darker agendas. To this day, Hektor still never knew why he’d been chosen for the Ebon, why Stratos had set him on the man he loved.
Leander.
Every time Hektor closed his eyes, he saw Leander’s face, his golden eyes dazed, his golden beauty ruined by blood and bruises.
The day had nearly broken him. The Grand Melee. He had walked into the Empress’s Theatre so certain of his victory, so certain it would be him to walk out those bronze gates a free man. Free to pursue his life. With Leander.
And then the final bout. Leander shoved, stumbling, onto the hot sands.
Three years ago, and now the Grand Melee was once more upon them.
He came out of the darkened stairwell and into the bright sunlight. Above, the crimson and purple awnings snapped and waved, the white bulls of House Zaerus emblazoned upon them dancing in the breeze. Far below, the theatre was a bloodred speck, the Bronze Gates glinting like lethal blades in the sunlight.
The Empress ordered them kept pristine—a shining beacon of hope for every man who stepped one sandal into her deadly theatre.
Still, Hektor could see the blood and lives heaped at the foot of those doors. A Grand Melee every three years; hundreds of gladiators dead. Legal murder for the glory of the Empress.
Once, Hektor had fought hard to be one of the fifty chosen, to win and walk out of the theatre a free man. Now…
He let his gaze rise to the tops of the pillars, where two of the seven gods of Old stood tall—Lady Luck Viltheleon, with her dawn-bolts shining in both hands, her childlike countenance serene and severe; and the Doomsayer, Master of Souls, the power of life and death swirling like a vortex around him.
Let the gods decide if I am worthy of being free. Or worthy of being dead.
Chapter Four
FIRST BOUT
In times long past, the Spectacles
Were once per month, on the full moon
Until the Empress rose to power
And set all of Arena at her whim
—Nefertari Amon Actaeon, House Actaeon, the Warriors
Being below the Empress’s Theatre, deep within the narrow halls of the
vomitoria
, made Lucan dizzy. The space was too close, too tight for so many novices. The long passages captured the heat of the day, and they sweltered. The stones above sweated, dripping down on their heads, a hot stickiness that sank into Lucan’s skin like poison.
He jostled for position among his brothers-in-arms, ten Vulpinius novices about to experience their first group Spectacle. He wondered who their opponents would be, but that was for the odds-makers to decide, along with any handicaps for either side. In these last few moments, as they stood before the Gates of Death, before the barriers peeled back and the gates themselves rattled up to reveal the burning brightness of the Empress’s Theatre, Lucan tried his best to breathe deep and find his center.
All he could think was how sore he was.
Days upon days of training with Hektor Actaeon had taken their toll on his body. His arms and shoulders throbbed in agony. Hundreds of casts with his net, hundreds of thrusts with his trident, and then the parrying—oh, Doomsayer in the Abyss—the parrying! Hektor Actaeon hit harder than a mule could kick. Lucan had the bruises to prove it. All he wanted was a warm-oil bath and a rubdown, but now was not the time to be thinking of luxuries.
A long, hard fight stretched out before him.
The sun slatted through the barrier, and, above, the stands rumbled as with far-off thunder. The faint blat of trumpets and iron horns sounded, muffled by all the stone and timber.
A few of the boys around Lucan trembled. He was so close he could feel the quivering of their flesh. Some had seen minor arena exposure, some no exposure at all.
As the moments passed, the heat grew more oppressive, and bloated black flies worried at the tender skin of their necks and shoulders. Lucan slapped one, and his hand came away smeared in black and crimson.
The sight turned his empty stomach. He’d not been able to eat this morn. Despite Hektor’s orders. Despite the spread laid out before them. Despite Hektor himself gorging. Completely unconcerned, the man had dug in heartily, leaning his forearms on the table and looking down from the safety of House Vulpinius’s balcony.
Lucan had stolen one glance—the Empress’s Theatre seated in the bowl of the Grand Palestra, in the very center of all the houses, its stands empty, its glittering sands ominously clean—and he had run for the slop bucket.
Now, he regretted emptying his stomach.
I’ll bet Hektor Actaeon was calm as a dove his first time.
Someone in the back jostled hard, and outbursts broke out amid the ten. Tucked into their chute beneath the theatre, the novices fought their fraying nerves. Some more successfully than others.
Lucan was glad when the struggles and shouts tapered off. They were novices, true, but they were all smart enough not to waste their energies, energies they would need in the arena. Sweat streaked their bare torsos. They wore only caligae and loincloths, and the rare arm guard or grandguard for the retiarii. Heavier armor was for more experienced men. It would only slow down a novice, cause him to overheat and bake in the sun under all that metal.
Lucan could not help be a bit resentful. He was a retiarius. He should have a grandguard to cover his net-throwing arm. Yet, Hektor had denied him one.
Damn him to the flowering Abyss.
He leaned against the barrier and pressed his face against the slatted wood in the hopes of a single clean breath.
Movement on the other side of the Gates of Death drew his attention. Lucan pressed in close, peering through a chink in the wooden barrier. Beneath flying banners, ten novices jogged out onto the sands. Each of them carried a rectangle shield and a gladius. They lined up, falling into ranks as though they’d trained together for months.
A sinking feeling stole Lucan’s spirit. For the first time, he glanced back at his group, their weapons as ragtag as they were.
Dark Doomsayer, the odds have gone against us!
The crowd began to roar, and the rumble of the stands above shook the vomitoria. Lucan could feel the Gates of Death vibrating. Any moment, they would rattle up, and the fight would be on.
“Listen,” he said and then raised his voice to be heard over the growing din. “Listen! The other novices have trained together. They have shields. Many of us don’t.”
Lucan watched closely as each novice digested that information, as they wrestled with the fear and anxiety. The first thing Hektor had taught him was that arena fighting was never fair.
“Our side lost the odds! We must win against the odds.”
Or we will die.
“We have to stick together. Make the most of our tridents. Back to back, a circle. Don’t let them in.”
The novices looked at him, their eyes glittering in the hazy, filtered dimness. For a breath, Lucan was transfixed by the dust motes flying between them in the shafts of light.
The barrier opened, and sunlight flooded them, bright and blinding.
Lucan took a deep breath. He was the student of Hektor Actaeon, primus palus of Arena, and he would not show his fear.
The Gates of Death rattled up.
“For glory!” Lucan ran out into the scorching heat of the day.
The sun blinded them for precious seconds. All he could see was the shapelessness of sand, the curves of the Empress’s Theatre, edged in blades broken and shining, and then, from the other side, a dark blotch.
It began to spread.
He forced himself to breathe deep, willing his vision to clear.
The other group of novices. Priassin, by their colors—blue and silver. Headstrong and reckless, excited over having won the favor of the odds-makers, they raced toward their opponents, their shields glinting in the hot sun. The crowd urged them on with jeers and insults.
Shields and swords, where we have only
… Lucan looked over his group. A pike, a shortspear, a gladius or two among them. The rest only had daggers. And now, Lucan’s group spied their opponents. Faced with that gleaming line of shields, some of them startled.
A few began to break and run.
Lucan grabbed one of the runners, yanking him back “Circle up!” he shouted, his voice ringing throughout the amphitheatre. “Back to back!” And when a few blank stares met his gaze, he racked his brain for a way to explain. An image leaped into his mind. “Like a hedgehog!”
For a moment, his command hung there as the Priassin closed in.
At a loss, Lucan could only watch as defeat crashed down upon them. And then, one of the older novices, a strapping lad with olive skin and a jackal’s smile, raised his shortspear and took up the cry. “Hedgehog!” He stepped up to Lucan’s side, brandishing his spear outward like the spines of the rodent.
Quickly, the other novices fell in line, circling up as the opposing team bore down on them. Shields and swords—the Priassin would have reach. Lucan’s dagger-fighters would have little chance.
“Daggers behind!” he shouted.
Jackal Smile shoved the first boy back, and the dagger-wielders stepped into the inner circle. The rest tightened up—six polearms on the outside, four daggers inside.
A circle of bodies, brandishing their weapons outward.
The leader of the other team, a novice with a bull neck and shrewd eyes, stopped his group. He eyed their hedgehog formation, his eyes glinting as he looked for a weakness to exploit. His team spread out, swords eager, ready to spring at Bull Neck’s first command.
The crowd hissed and booed and stomped in their seats. They railed at the novices, demanding action. Lucan glanced up to the seven gods atop the pillars, to the water clock held by the Goddess of Sea and Storms. They could not stay stalemated forever, and they all knew it.
Arena fighting was not only about skill at arms. It was about showmanship—win the crowd, excite the crowd, keep them on their feet, and knock them off-balance, all at the same time.
“You are part warrior and part showman,”
Hektor had said.
Still, Lucan thought. It did not pay to be hasty.
We will not be the first to break.
Bull Neck paced around at a safe distance. He made passes with his sword and took threatening half steps toward each novice, testing their resolve. The rest of the Priassin did the same, jabbing in, then dancing back, testing, threatening, looking for a weakness.
They found it.
“Stay strong!” Lucan shouted, but it was too late.
One of his novices, a boy as thin as a lancet hound, broke the line and began to run. His back was exposed. Bull Neck’s group shouted, and like a pack of wolves, took off after him.
Some of Lucan’s group jerked toward their lost member. “No, let him go!”
Disconcerted looks met his gaze, but he kept them still with his sternness. In the arena, exposing your back, running off alone before a superior force, was death. At least the Empress had ordered that there would be no deaths this day. The worst Lancet Hound would suffer was a beating.
The hoot and hollers from Bull Neck’s group went high as they dispatched the smaller novice. Lucan looked to where Lancet Hound rolled in the sand, holding his sides. A small splash of blood colored the sand.
The crowd’s cheers were smattered, bored, and mostly an excuse to switch from all the hissing and booing. Someone in the front row threw something, and the praetorian guard fell upon him. A few surrounding spectators threw their lots in, and for a moment, the scuffle in the stands rivaled the one in the arena.
Despite the heat, Lucan felt a blush scalding his face. Hektor was watching, and he, Lucan, was making a poor showing. He narrowed his eyes as Bull Neck and his group trotted back.
“Did that make you feel big?” Lucan called. “Ten fighters on one. You are the most boring
champion
ever.”
Bull Neck’s face turned purple and his hand tightened on his sword hilt.
Lucan’s heart pounded against his ribs.
Yes, that’s it. Get angry. Get careless.
The masses booed again, a rising tide of disdain and disapproval. They came to their feet now, shaking fists and clay tickets and threatening with insults.
Bull Neck saw it too. It would take a real spectacle to get the crowd back on their side. “You,” Bull Neck said, pointing at Lucan with his sword. “Step out here.”
Lucan shook his head. “I’m fine. You come here.”
“I’ll fight you.” Bull Neck flexed his shoulders, muscles rippling, his voice oozing confidence. “Just you and me. If you win, my side will surrender.”
Lucan studied him—he was taller, broader, more heavily muscled in the chest and shoulders, where Lucan was stronger in the legs. Stronger, perhaps faster. But there were no guarantees in the Empress’s Theatre. Lucan had seen older, slower men take out the swift younglings faster than a sword flash. He’d seen fighters unfavored strike fatal blows on champions.
And accords could be made and broken with the swiftness of a blade thrust.
Still, Lucan looked back at his fallen man. The other novices had trusted him. Now they were in this stalemate, the crowd against them. If the Empress stepped to her balcony and ordered the bout dissolved, they would all lose favor. They would all lose their chance to become Named.
The choice was simple. He stepped out of the line.
Jackal Smile grabbed his arm—“Don’t.”—but Lucan shook him off.
“It’s all right. It’ll be all right.”
“You are crazy, my friend.” But Jackal Smile only smiled and filled the gap, pulling the circle in tighter as Lucan stepped out fully.