by T. C. Edge
“Ah, don’t be such a spoilsport. I’m sorry for calling you Dumb Dom. I know you’re sensitive to the nickname.”
Dom’s artificial smile couldn’t keep up. It faltered to the point where he gave up on it, letting his lips fall flat across his face.
“And you, Lucius?” he asked, trying to stay magnanimous. “When did you return?”
“Ah, a few days ago now. My new gladiators are creating quite the stir, getting lots of attention already. You should come by and take a look. I’ll certainly be interested in seeing yours. Heard you have a giant over eight feet tall. That’s good going, Dom.”
The sarcasm in his voice wasn’t missed. It was a regular feature when he spoke, and a large part of the reason Dom doubted his maturity.
“He’s rather large, yes,” said Dom flatly. “I wouldn’t say he’s my favourite, though. I have one particular acquisition, Lucius, who’ll trouble your best. I’m sure of that.”
Dom was referring to Shadow. He knew enough of the Stalkers of Haven to know that they were more or less the most highly trained and formidable fighters he’d encountered beyond his own lands. And this one had appeared more powerful than most, Dom sensing his power signature from quite a long way off. And, well, capturing him hadn’t exactly been easy either…
“Well, I’d love to see him,” said Lucius. “Over scouting in the west, were you?”
“Indeed. And you?”
“Ah, here and there. You know my radar, Dom. Takes me far and wide.” He looked to his father, who was watching the exchange with only mild interest. “I can sense power signatures from much further away than Domitian, father.”
Pontius offered a bored smile and nodded, then looked up to the entrance to the palace.
“Well, it’s all very fascinating listening to your games of one-upmanship, but we have an appointment to keep. Come now, Lucius, let’s not keep Empress Vesper waiting.” He finished with a nod to Dom and gave him his official title – “Prince Domitian” – before moving off.
Lucius bowed his head, looking almost abashed. Dom rather enjoyed seeing the expression, even if it only lasted a split second.
He also realised just why his mother had been in the throne room. Clearly, she’d been expecting Pontius, no doubt on official business. Given that the man was Master of Commerce, there was probably plenty to discuss with the games coming up.
Dom watched as the middle-aged man began climbing the steps, his crimson robe flowing behind him and unable to hide the excess weight he was carrying on his flanks. For some men like him, weight was a measure of wealth and excess. At least, that was the excuse they used when they began to lose their figures. As far as Dom could remember, he was much slimmer as a younger man.
Lucius, meanwhile, stayed right by his rival. He fixed him with a cold glare, and issued a whisper only the two men could hear.
“So, how is your mother?” he asked. “Still as mad as a bucket of frogs?”
Dom wished, at that moment, that the guards at the top of the stairs had heard. Perhaps then he’d have the pleasure of wandering past one day and seeing Lucius’ head adorning the parapets.
“Judge for yourself,” he growled, his brown eyes creeping a little closer to black. Despite the difficulties he’d been having with his mother, she was still his mother.
“I will indeed,” said Lucius, smirking. “Enjoy your first evening back on dry land, Dom. I’ll be coming round to see your cattle real soon.”
He winked, and leapt away up the stairs, just as his father reached the doors.
And as they went inside, Claud uprooted his feet and stepped back into position at Dom’s side.
“Charming to the last, aren’t they Master Domitian?” he said.
Dom nodded.
“Charming indeed.”
14
The communal cell that now held Kira and her fellow contenders was an oppressive place. Not in its general layout and décor, particularly, but in the feeling that resided within.
There were ghosts there, the walls holding such memory. Kira could only imagine how many people like her had been taken from their homes and brought to this place. How many had been forced to fight and die for the pleasure of the baying crowd.
Looking upon her companions, she knew that they’d all follow. And, most likely, so would she. Her life as a soldier had instilled that sort of military no-nonsense mentality within her. She spent most of her life wondering when she’d meet her match in battle, and really, this was no different.
It was just more organised, more individual, killing and dying for entertainment rather than a larger political agenda. But while the format of her life had changed so suddenly, the details would be familiar at least. She’d be set against warriors of great strength, and had no choice but to kill to come out on top.
That had been her life for years. She was well used to it by now.
Others appeared to be of a similar disposition. She sat against one wall, glaring carefully at her fellow prisoners, wondering just who she might meet in combat. Oom, the giant, looked a formidable warrior, though speed might be an issue for him, she thought. Not so for her. Speed was one of her keenest allies.
The man named Malvo, bald-headed, squat, and military in his manner, looked like a mercenary of sorts. His combat gear gave her the impression that he’d fought in many battles, and had probably encountered all manner of weird and wonderful people in his advancing years. He might well be a threat.
The girl called Gwyn looked weak. That was Kira’s first impression. She had scuttled off to the shadows and hadn’t returned, and her demeanor wasn’t that of a killer at all. Kira considered her the sort to crumble under pressure, too fragile for the sands.
There were others too, scattered about, who gave off a whiff of fear that she picked up on. Their eyes were wide, their digits prone to twitching. Some hid themselves away, or found themselves unable to stay still, wandering about, searching for some way out.
One even tried to scale the sheer stone wall, feeling desperately for cracks to reach up to one of the windows. To Kira’s surprise, he even managed it, though she knew that the window was both too small, and barred, to be escaped through. He gripped the iron, though, and tried frantically to squeeze himself through, before eventually giving in and clattering to the floor.
Oom looked on with a wry grin, sitting right up next to the fountain. It seemed he’d taken it for his own territory, perhaps as a means of weakening the rest. Kira didn’t take him for the smart or strategic type. Perhaps she was underestimating him.
It was Shadow, however, who Kira spent most of her time watching. Though, in truth, there was little to see. He merely stood to one side, wrapped in his cloak, the light from the windows seeming to choose not to approach, as if afraid of getting too near. Kira didn’t know much about these men and where they came from. She didn’t know much about anything, really, except her war back home. But she did know one thing – Shadow was the warrior here she feared the most. And the warrior she most wanted to face.
Mostly, the prisoners of that place kept to themselves for those early hours. Few spoke, or exchanged any words at all, perhaps thinking along the same lines as Kira – if they were going to have to fight these men, and women, then it would be better if they didn’t know them.
The exception on Kira’s part was Finn. He hovered nearby to her, glancing in her direction every so often. Having helped sooth her growing rage, she felt as if she owed him something, and couldn’t help but feel some pull towards him due to their time together in the bowels of the ship.
Sitting nearby, she looked over to him, and saw his blue eyes flash away.
“I wanted to thank you,” she whispered. Her voice was just about quiet enough to avoid echoing around the chamber. Still, she shuffled a little closer to him to make sure. “For calming me earlier,” she finished.
He shrugged lightly.
“No point aggravating people here,” he said. “Just a waste of energy.”
Kira wished she could maintain such calm. He seemed to have managed to compose his emotions by now, quickly growing used to his predicament. It suggested a maturity beyond his years, something she hadn’t expected.
“You don’t seem to belong here, Finn,” she said. “You’re just a fisherman’s son, right?”
He nodded.
“By trade.”
“What does that mean? You, what, fight on the side or something?”
He stared out into the silent chamber, and nodded slowly.
“When I’m forced to. My village is peaceful, but you know the world, Kira. It’s dangerous. I protect my people. At least…I did.”
His eyes shaded darker. Kira knew just how he felt, protecting people, keeping them safe. That was her world. It seemed that it might be Finn’s too.
“Is there anyone else?” she asked.
His eyes glanced over to her questioningly.
“Anyone else, I mean, who can protect your village?”
He shook his head.
“No one like me.”
Kira felt a stab of pity for the boy. She’d been one of many among a large rebel cause. Her loss wouldn’t alter the fate of the war, or so she hoped. Yet for Finn it was different. For a small village to lose its protector could be fatal. By taking him, Domitian might just have sentenced his entire people to death.
“I’m so…sorry,” she whispered. “Maybe…maybe there’s a chance to escape?”
She didn’t quite know why she said it. She was far too measured and reasonable to believe such a thing was possible. The city was sprawling, and she’d already seen hundreds of guards. And clearly, this was a highly organised affair, a regular ritual that the residents of Neorome would have down to a fine art by now. They’d be well aware that just about every prisoner would harbour ambitions to escape, and would have people and plans in place to make sure that didn’t happen. Ever.
But, she said it anyway, perhaps to give him some hope. Or, maybe, to feel its warmth herself.
But Finn just shook his head, eyes hard.
“There’s no escape,” he said. “Not from this place.”
She suspected he was right.
As the sun began to shift lower in the sky, crafting its pattern of light through the barred windows at continually changing angles, the iron gate into the cell creaked open.
The prisoners swung their eyes up from their various perches to find a tall, dark-skinned man enter, flanked by a couple of guards. He was dressed in sparse and rugged armour, his body carrying no fat at all and built from sinewy muscle and veins. Sharp black eyes glared from thin slits, and his bright teeth stood out starkly against his dark brown skin as his mouth grew into a smile.
“So, this is what Master Domitian rustled up this year, is it?” he mused, swaying his eyes across the prisoners. He clapped his hands loudly. “Come now, gather before me, right in the middle there.”
It took a moment for the order to settle. Kira was used to following them back home so gravitated to the assigned spot on instinct. Finn followed closely. Oom lumbered away from his perch next to the fountain, and Shadow coolly took a step away from the wall. Others came from the various nooks and crannies within the chamber, creeping like spiders from their lairs. Only one man seemed to disobey, sitting to the side with his head between his legs.
The dark-skinned man surveyed the troop of prisoners and saw him. “I told you to gather in the middle,” he said firmly.
The man on the ground didn’t budge. Kira noticed him as the one who’d tried to climb through the window, the skin on one of his forearms shredded by the fall.
For a brief moment, the dark-skinned man just stared at him. Then, losing his patience, he reached to his belt and drew a black whip, slashing it right across him, quick as lightning. The leather met his skin, leaving a thin slice of red as it cut right through. The seated man yelped and quickly launched himself to his feet, staggering to join the rest.
“When I give an order,” growled the man with the whip, “I expect immediate obedience. Do you understand me?”
He got little verbal reaction, though a few heads nodded. It seemed enough for him, and his white smile returned.
“Good. Now, my name is Rufus, and I am your instructor here at the ludus. It is my job to educate you about the Imperial Games, the format of your bouts, and to take you through the available weapons at your disposal. Up above, in the training yard, you will be assessed, and your place in the games will be determined by various factors. Master Domitian has already been evaluating your personalities, and now it’s down to me to judge your physical prowess. Any questions so far?”
He rattled the words off quickly, before turning his eyes from one to the next.
No one had a chance to form a query.
“Good. Now, as you’ll all have worked out, your specific enhancements have been suppressed. Naturally, that doesn’t make for particularly good viewing for the public and Empress Vesper. Were you to fight right now, I’d wager that Oom here would crush you all without too much trouble.”
The giant nodded his approval.
“But,” Rufus continued, “with your various powers returned, we should be in for some fascinating contests. If you have some skill with the blade, then you’ll start at an advantage. I have little time to train you, as the games begin in just under a week, so don’t expect much hand-holding. You’ve been brought here because you’re mostly seasoned fighters, and don’t require much instruction.”
“Won’t there be firearms?” came a question.
Kira looked to her right to see that it was Malvo. His eyes appeared eager for a positive answer. He didn’t get it, and his countenance darkened.
Rufus shook his head.
“Mostly, no,” he said. “Firearms have been used over the years, but they mostly lead to short bouts. The people prefer battles that are up close and personal. However, occasionally they might be included, depending on the match up or if it’s a multi-gladiator contest.”
“Multi-gladiator contest?” asked Malvo.
“Yes. The games last a month, and single, one on one fights grow quickly stale. On occasion, larger battles are staged, particularly early on. So, you might well find yourselves fighting alongside each other, particularly at first. It’s usually the latter stages where single combat is reached, and the champions are crowned.”
Rufus began meandering side to side as he spoke, the guards behind him blocking the gate outside. It spoke volumes to Kira that no one even seemed to consider making a move for the exit. Clearly, they’d all concluded that any escape attempt would be futile.
Rufus stopped, and fixed his feet back to the stone floor. His eyes opened up a little, and he began to nod, ever so subtly.
“You all wish to go home,” he said. “Of course you do. You’ve been taken, snatched, kidnapped, whatever you want to call it. I understand just how you feel, believe me. But know this – there are only two ways out of here. Either you perish on the sand, or you walk out a champion. Either way, great glory awaits you.”
He concluded with a smile, and drew a canister from his back.
“You’ll have seen something like this before on your journey here,” he said. “The gas had a double purpose – to put you to sleep, and to suppress your genetic enhancements. This one, however, is quite the opposite. Yes, it will set your bodies to rest. But when you wake, your powers will have returned.”
A flutter of excitement spread through the chamber. Enhanced people felt incomplete without the special gifts they’d always lived with, like part of a whole, unable to function properly.
“However, know this,” continued Rufus. “If you attempt to escape at all, you will be gunned down. If you use your powers on another of Master Domitian’s contenders without good cause, and outside of the proper setting, you will be severely punished. If you assault a guard, or raise a finger to your Master, you will be executed immediately. Do not do anything foolish. Wait for the arena. You’ll all get your chance
.”
Kira looked at the canister like it was a most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She could barely hear the words spouted from the instructor’s mouth. She watched every twitch of his fingers as he fiddled with it, waiting for him to disperse the gas. And when he finally did, a smile drew up her face.
The canister hit the floor, and Rufus swept away, moving back up the stairs with the guards. The door was locked, and Kira quickly moved back towards the wall, got as comfortable as she could, and sucked in a long breath.
And with her eyes stuck on Shadow, she drifted away to a dreamless sleep.
15
Despite her predicament, Kira had never been quite as happy as when she woke. Like a kid on the morning of their birthday, her eyes snapped open as soon as the drug left her system. They didn’t open slowly as she gradually escaped her reverie. They widened like a ventriloquist dummy, the mist in her head swiftly discarded. She really was that happy.
Her first reaction was to test her heightened vision to see that it had returned.
She looked to the farthest corner of the chamber and attempted to draw all possible detail from the stone. A smile erupted on her face as the wall appeared in such clarity, every tiny little feature, every crack and blemish, once more available to her eyes.
What was once a blank wall from this far across the cell was now a mosaic of colours and details. Zooming in, her eyes like binoculars, she saw an ant scurry from a crack, every bristle on its tiny body sticking out, every twitch of its legs and antennae now caught by her telescopic sight.
She shut her eyes and nodded to herself. Her super-vision had returned.
Then she sat back and her nostrils flared, and she drew in a long, slow breath. A hundred scents entered her nose and seeped into her mind. She could pick out the aroma of perfume a hundred metres away, swirling around the neck of a woman wandering down the street beyond the compound. She could make out the musty stench of an unwashed cat, creeping around on a nearby roof. She could identify each individual fragrance of her cellmates, their days without washing giving each an aura of fetid filth that was very much their own.