Authors: Deborah Chester
Nux
lifted his hands and took a step back as though agreeing.
Caelan
relaxed and straightened.
At
that moment Nux attacked with a roar, driving him back against the wall with a
thud. Nux’s fists were like battering rams, pummeling him. Caelan drew in his
elbows and blocked the blows as best he could, then struck back, catching Nux
in the jaw and sending him staggering.
Nux
crashed into the table, breaking it like kindling, and lay sprawled there, shaking
his head and blinking.
Someone
helped him up, but the fight was over. Blowing on his aching knuckles, Caelan
slowly eased away from the wall and kept a sharp watch on the others.
Nux
kept touching his jaw and wagging it back and forth. He glared at Caelan, and
the hostility in the room was thick enough to cut. Caelan steeled himself, but
Nux finally swung away and pounded on the door.
When
a guard opened it, he said, “Take me to the haggai.”
He
returned just before dawn, bleary-eyed and smug, looking well satisfied with
himself. Then he and five others went out to fight. That night, however, Nux
did not come back.
None
of them could believe it.
‘The
guards said he lost an arm,” Bulot said. “You know what happens to a man
without his arm.”
“Bleeding
like a stuck pig,” another contributed. “Great gouts of it shooting across the
tunnel. He died before he got to the surgeon.”
“Nux
dead?” Bulot kept saying over and over. He was a short, wiry man, quick and
agile. “I can’t believe Nux is dead. He was too good. The best in the arena. He
can’t be dead.”
“If
he lost his arm, like the guards said, then he’s a dead man.”
Another
man spat on the floor. “It’s the giant’s curse what’s to blame.” He pointed at
Caelan. “He hit Nux, hurt him somehow.”
Caelan
wanted to tell them it was probably Nux’s visit to the haggai that had sapped
his strength, but he held his tongue. They were all like rats in a cage that
seemed to shrink daily. Caelan was feeling crazy from being cooped up in the
gloom all the time. He needed exercise and sunlight, not just halfhearted
drills in a stinking, half-lit tunnel where the guards took them twice a day.
That
night when the lots were drawn, Caelan was missed again. No one spoke a word as
the guards noted names and numbers, but the fighters’ eyes lingered on him with
clear hostility.
He
sweated through the night, afraid to sleep, certain they meant to throttle him
in his bunk. But no one moved against him. In the morning, they huddled
together in a conference that he pretended to ignore, but he could not relax.
Not this time, not when they blamed him irrationally for Nux’s death.
The
lock turned with a noisy rattle, and the door was slammed open. “On your feet!”
bawled a guard with a list. “Bulot, Mingin, Hortn, Rethe, Chul. Move it, now!”
The
named men shuffled for the door, yawning and stretching and scratching. But the
others were up as well. They closed in on Caelan and shoved him forward. “He
goes too!”
“What?”
The guards frowned. “Not unless he’s on the list”
“He’s
on today’s list,” someone insisted. “Let him take Chul’s place. He ain’t fought
once this—”
“Neither
have you, Lum,” the guard retorted. The spokesman turned red but he didn’t back
down. “Let the giant take Chul’s place. He don’t belong in here with us. He
ought to have been fighting with the other trainees, days ago.”
The
guard’s frown deepened. He peered at Caelan. “I don’t know you. Name?”
“Caelan.”
“You’re
no veteran.”
“No.”
“Never
fought!” someone yelled gleefully. “Never even held a sword in his pinkies!”
They
roared with laughter.
The
guard was looking very stern indeed. “What in hell’s name are you doing in
here?”
Caelan
shrugged. “I was put here.”
“Don’t
get cute.” The guard glanced over his shoulder at his companion. “You heard of
any special orders about this one?”
“No.”
“Let
him fight!” the gladiators cried. “Let him fight!”
The
guard hesitated, then shoved Chul back, into the room. He jerked his head at
Caelan. “Come on, then, if you’re so eager. Move!”
Suddenly
it was happening. Caelan’s ears roared, and his head seemed to be floating
above his body.
He
found himself pushed down a tunnel lit by torches. He felt hungry, but he knew
it was nervousness that gnawed in his belly. Sweat broke out across his body.
His clothes felt too tight. His eyes were burning, and he couldn’t see well.
His hearing was even worse.
Somewhere,
they were stopped in a gloomy chamber with the rest. Twelve men who might have
practiced and eaten together the day before, but who now avoided each other’s
eyes, conscious of what was to come.
In
silence, they stripped off their clothes and put on minimal loincloths. Little
flasks of oil stood rowed on shelves. The men smeared the greasy stuff over
every inch of themselves, and Caelan followed suit, aware that the oil would
make him harder to hold and therefore harder to kill in a clinch.
The
door banged open, and Caelan jumped about a foot, his heart hammering
foolishly. One of the fighters noticed his reaction. He nudged someone else,
and they chuckled softly together.
The
sound had an evil, hostile quality that made Caelan swallow hard.
Orlo
came in, flanked by four other trainers. Bald and burly, he stood with the
cattail club in one hand, his feet braced wide and his other fist on his hip.
He glared at each of them in turn.
When
he saw Caelan, he blinked and dropped his jaw. In that instant, explanation was
revealed in his face. He had clearly forgotten about putting Caelan in with the
veterans. It was as simple as that.
Then
he recovered his composure and cleared his
throat. “We have a good crowd today,” he
said sternly. “You will give them their money’s worth in entertainment. Any man
shirking or trying to save himself will be speared by the guards. Am I clear?”
As
he spoke, he glared straight at Caelan.
“You’ll
fight your unworthy guts out today. You’re a miserable lot, this pick. But you’ll
fight like champions, each and every one of you! The emperor is here today.
Aye, here to see your blood spilled.”
The
fighters exchanged looks. Caelan felt both confused and excited. Outside he
could hear the crowd roaring thunderously. Something elemental and primitive in
the sound made his blood charge. He wiped his sweating palms on his thighs and
wished his heart would not beat so fast.
Orlo
gestured, and the other trainers passed out leather fighting harnesses. Caelan’s
fingers fumbled with the unfamiliar buckles; then his hands were pushed aside.
Orlo
stood beside him, stripping off the harness and fetching another one. It looked
old. One strap had been mended. But the leather was well oiled and cared for.
Caelan noticed the straps were dyed blue, even as Orlo let it out a notch, then
another, then another in order to buckle it across his chest.
“Breathe,”
he commanded.
Caelan
obeyed.
“Too
tight?”
Caelan
felt the restriction and nodded.
With
a grunt Orlo used the point of his dagger to make an additional hole and
loosened the harness. “Aye, that fits right. Were you worth it, you’d wear a
custom-made one.”
Caelan
fingered the leather, remembering his disrobing so long ago when the masters
had forbidden him to wear blue. Then, blue had represented life. Now it stood
for the taking of it.
He
swallowed. “Does blue show who owns me?”
“Aye.”
Orlo stepped back and looked him over critically. “Although you’ll be a
humiliation for the prince quick enough.” He showed his teeth in a mirthless
grin. “Perhaps it’ll be worth it, just to see his face. Hah!”
The
fighters filed out and marched double-time up a ramp. The cheering was louder
now, deafening as it echoed through the stone. With every step, Caelan felt his
blood stirring. He opened his mouth to suck in lungfuls of fresh air. He could
smell sun-baked earth as well as roasted goat and sweetmeats.
They
stopped, half-hidden in the shadows. Beyond an archway flanked by soldiers in
full armor, dazzling sunlight streamed down. A breeze blew in, bringing heat to
the dank coolness.
Orlo
walked ahead, pacing back and forth in the archway as though he were about to
enter the ring himself. Another trainer passed down the row of twelve men with
lots for them to draw.
Muscles
tight, Caelan drew his bronze tag. His thumb traced over the number. He would
go in ring six. Handlers moved among them, pushing and shoving them into the
correct pairs. Caelan eyed his opponent, a grizzled heavyset man he had never
practiced with before. He was relieved it was none of the men he’d been
quartered with lately. His opponent refused to look at him at all and kept his
gaze stubbornly on the floor.
Irrational
hope rose in Caelan as he noticed the gray in the man’s hair and the slight
flabbiness of his muscles. Perhaps he would have a chance after all. Youth and
quickness must count for some advantage. But to temper his growing optimism he
reminded himself that experience outweighed almost everything else.
The
first pair was pushed forward to a spot at the top of the ramp just short of
the archway. The armored soldiers there hastily crossed their spears across the
archway, but the gladiators ignored them.
Caelan
heard a creaking noise, and the pair for ring one disappeared into the floor.
He stared, mouth open, and could not believe it.
A
few seconds later, the second pair were positioned on the same spot, and they
also sank from sight.
As
the line moved forward, Caelan saw that a section of the floor was really a
platform that was lowered into the bowels of the catacombs beneath the ramp. He
relaxed, ashamed of his own amazement. No sorcery was at work here, just simple
mechanical devices.
When
it came his own turn to descend through the floor, he watched with curiosity
and saw sweating slaves hard at work on the pulley ropes that lowered and
raised the platform. Down here beneath the ramp, he could see the framework of
heavy beams and timbers supporting it.
“Move
along,” a guard shouted, and Caelan had to jog along a curving passageway with
his opponent at his shoulder.
Halfway
around, the man started puffing, and he ran as though his knees hurt him.
Caelan filed the information away. He was determined not to go down in the
first round.
The
inside wall of the passageway was built of thick boards with bolted doors set
into it periodically. At the sixth door, the arena guards stopped Caelan and
his opponent. The door was opened, and they stepped through into total
darkness. A piece of cloth was flung over Caelan’s head. Instinctively he
started to fight it, then held himself still as a weapon was pressed into his
hand.
It
fell heavy and thick. The haft of it was wood. When he ran his other hand along
its length, he discovered it was only a club. Disappointment crashed through
him. Was this to be his fate, bludgeoned to a pulp like a dumb animal?
“Go,”
said the guard and pushed him up a ramp.
At
the top he stumbled through a doorway, guided by another guard who yanked off
the cloth as he passed. Caelan found himself stumbling outside in dazzling
sunlight. Squinting, his eyes watering, he staggered around in deep sand. His
opponent came jogging out after him and lifted his arms to the crowd, which was
already roaring in excitement.
It
was impossible not to gawk at the stone bleachers of spectators rising up on
every side, impossible not to be stunned by the enormity of the sound,
impossible not to be distracted by the burning sand under his bare feet and the
heat itself that radiated up furnace-hot in the bottom of the arena.
His
opponent might be old and out of shape, but he was arena-seasoned, and in those
first few critical seconds he reached Caelan and swung his own club into Caelan’s
kidney.