Call to Arms (The Girl In The Arena Book 1)

by Lara Lee Hunter

The huge doors that led inside the building opened and a draft of cool air came out, causing Reena to shiver. She was dragged along her feet and toes scraping the cold stone floor. Inside there were more columns, all of them carved with fantastical figures; statues of the gods and goddesses peered out from a tiny niche carved into the walls and smaller doors – most of them closed – sat in small recesses between the statues.

  At the end of a hallway they turned right. They entered into a large and mostly open chamber with a huge altar at one end. There was a woman in front of that altar, and Reena gaped at her as she was led to where the woman stood. She was taller than any woman Reena had ever seen and her skin was almost as white as the stone around her. Her red hair hung unbound, festooned with small stones and glittering threads all the way to her waist. She wore a simple red toga bound with a gold girdle. On her wrists and upper arms were beaten gold bracelets and armlets, all of them bearing the same shape: that of a snake.

  “Why do you bring me this girl?”

  One of the soldiers shuffled his feet and looked at the other soldiers. “She is to go to the training fields.”

  “So I heard.” A long finger came out and touched Reena’s cheek. Reena shuddered; that finger was as cold as the grave. “Perhaps you misheard your ruler. I do not believe that this was the training field that he had in mind, not if what I heard happened at the arena earlier is to be believed.” The smile on the woman’s face was predatory, almost unpleasant. One of the soldiers took a step forward and said, “You heard correctly Orleanians.”

  Orleanians said, “I repeat, then why is she here?”

  “You know that the men in the training field must conserve their strength and energy.”

  “And what has that to do with me? They don’t come here, that is for sure. That is until they already win a few fights and are allowed to ask for something that they enjoy.”

  “She must be housed.”

  “Then take her where you were told to take her.” Orleanians waved her hand at the soldiers. “Do not bring me your problems, because that is all you are doing. You are attempting to bring me your problem rather than solve it yourselves, gentlemen. Let us be honest; if you leave her here I could be killed for your insubordination. I refuse to allow her entry here. I bid you to take her where you were ordered to take her. Now leave this place.”

  Reena was stunned: this woman, she had power! Reena did not understand it, or how it was possible, yet she did. In a city where women had no authority, this woman was giving orders to soldiers! And they were listening to her!

  The soldiers turned around and Reena was shoved and spun until she was also turned around. They began to march her out again, and she could feel their discontent in anger. They wanted to lash out but they were afraid to. How was that possible, who was this woman? She was determined to find out.

  The soldiers walked her down the bustling crowded streets. People stared and Reena was glad that she was in the center of the soldiers because they hid her somewhat from those wide – eyed gazes and hard scrutiny.

  Murmurs rose up and she knew that people were talking about her. By the time they breached the gladiator’s training fields Reena was exhausted, her limbs trembling from a combination of leftover adrenaline and fear. All she wanted to do was to find a place to sit down, maybe get a drink of water and close her eyes for a few minutes.

  Instead she was shoved through the gates of the high gray stone structure and then into a tiny room with a barred window and a barred door. The door clanged shut behind the soldier who would shelter within the room and Reena stared about.

  There was not much to see. The bed was a meager pallet laid on the floor. There was a wooden hook hanging from the wall probably to dangle clothes from, not that she had any to dangle. There was a small shelf; presumably it would hold someone’s prayer relics and small personal items. She had none of those things, so she ignored the shelf and seated herself on her pallet.

  Reena drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around it resting her chin on her knee. Tears came to her eyes, filling them. Where was her father? Would he be forced to go back into the arena again tomorrow, or even sometime later on today? How could she have been named as a gladiator? What did that even mean for her? The Governor had known that she was going to kill him; he had seen a knife even if he’d not been able to catch her with it. He had named her as a gladiator for a reason, and that reason was probably incredibly simple: he wanted to watch her die.

  He was not inclined to be merciful about it either.

  Her tears flowed, wetting her knees, but she made no sound as they spilled from her eyes. The room was chilled, almost dank and she was starved and tired but eventually her natural and young spirit revived itself. She stood and placed her hands on the bars that would prevent her from escaping through the window and stared out at Aretula below her. She could place her hands outside the bars and did, allowing the sun to warm her skin. She rested her head on the bars and closed her eyes, concentrating hard.

  She could imagine it, the woods – her home. Deep shadows, the songs of birds, the smell of moss and wild mushroom. The feel of the uneven ground below her feet, and the sound of water running in a small babbling brook. She could even taste that water if she wanted to; she could kneel beside that brook and slide her hand into the cool clear blue waters, cup her palm and bring it to her mouth.

  The water touched her lips, slid between, then ran down her tongue, and her parched throat opened to receive that gift.

  “You. Girl.”

  The words sent her spinning around, her fantasy forgotten. The man standing on the other side of the door was huge, scarred, and wearing nothing more than a simple cloth belted around his waist and sandals that extended halfway up his legs.

  “My name is Reena.”

  “I do not care what your name is. Here you are nobody, you are nothing. Do you understand me?”

  Rebellion surfaced and refused to be tamped down. She took a few steps closer to the door. Her voice shook as she replied, “My name is Reena and I do not have to prove anything.”

  For a fleeting second she was almost certain that she saw approval on his scarred face. “As I said until you prove yourself you are nothing and nobody. Your training will begin in the morning. I suggest you get a good night sleep.”

  Reena laughed, a jagged little thing that left her already aching throat feeling rawer than ever. “Get a good night sleep? Are you out of your mind? I have been dragged out of my home and into this city; I’ve been forced to go into an arena and I killed a tiger.

  “My father has been ripped away from me and I do not know where he is or if he is safe and yet you come here and stand outside that door and tell me to get a good night’s sleep. Are you insane? Have the gods robbed you of your senses as revenge for something?”

  “I know it seems impossible. I know all of these things seem impossible to you. You seem impossible to me, a girl! I am supposed to train a girl to be a gladiator! If you fail, if you die I will be the laughing stock of all who have ever trained to gladiator.”

  “I am sorry to put you in such a bad position.” Reena did not even bother trying to disguise the sarcasm in her words.

  “You should have used the knife you know. Either way, you’re going to die. If you had simply killed the Governor and allowed yourself to be punished for that treason, life would’ve been so much easier for so many people.”

  “As I said I am sorry to inconvenience you so.” Reena refused to look away, this man wore all his scars proudly. That he was a veteran of many battles was visible and she knew that if anybody could help her survive it would be him. She also knew that to back away right now or to back down would be to guarantee that he would not help her.

  She had no idea how she knew that, she only knew that she did.

  “I will have a meal brought to you. Make sure you eat it all, and drink well. If you need to relieve yourself there is a bowl in the corner.” Reena refused to follow his finger towa
rd the corner at which he pointed but she was secretly glad to have that knowledge.

  “My name is Reena.”

  His eyes met hers in a steady gaze. “If you are lucky, one day that will mean something. If you are unlucky, or unable to fight then your name will be forever lost. You will simply be the girl who foolishly pulled a knife on the Governor and died in her first battle as a gladiator.”

  “What is your name?”

  “I am Hector. I am head gladiator here on the training fields.”

  “Were you a gladiator in the arena?”

  Hector’s teeth showed between his lips and what may have been a smile, “of course, there are ways for gladiators to survive the arena.”

  “What ways? Tell me!” Reena demanded, her hands gripping the bars to the door. As she drew even closer she pressed her face against the bars almost pulling the skin from her cheeks as she said, “what do you mean by that? Tell me!”

  “I will have your meal sent to you.” Hector turned and walked away without another word.

  Frustrated by his silence Reena paced the small cell. Where was her father? Could she possibly get out of here? How could she use the bowl without anybody seeing into the cell and seeing her do so? She had a feeling that she had been tucked into the cell for a reason. The wall opposite her door was blank, but there was no telling if anyone would walk by. Finally her need to relieve herself outweighed her concern for modesty and she ran to the bowl used it then tossed the contents out the window.

  She had just replaced the bowl when footsteps sounded in the corridor leading to her cell. A thin towheaded boy appeared, holding a tray. He set the tray before the door but did not open the door, “Here is the meal I was ordered to bring you.”

  “How am I supposed to get it?”

  “Reach through the bars.”

  Everything in Reena rebelled at that. She would have to get on her knees, reach through the bars and pull the small container of water and the accompanying cup through the bars. Then she would have to remove the bread, white soft cheese, and fruit from the tray piece by piece and pull it into the room with her. The thought of being on her knees, practically in a beggar’s position in order to eat upset her, but she had no choice, and she was starving.

  When she had removed all of her items from the tray the boy picked the tray back up and turned away but then he turned back. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” Reena looked up at him from her seat on the floor. The water in the pitcher beckoned her and she was so thirsty she could barely get a word out of her mouth.

  He fiddled with the plain rope belt he wore around his homespun robe, “Were you really going to kill the Governor?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “They say he killed his father you know. The whole city has been in an uproar ever since the old Governor died and the new one took over.” He left without another word.

  Reena drank straight from the pitcher, too thirsty to care about manners. She gathered the bread, fruit, cheese and the pitcher all up in her arms and went to her pallet. Her first instinct was to wolf the food down. Tear into it and eat every morsel of the bread and every delectable little nibble of the cheese.

  Experience kept her from doing so. She knew that food could be scarce, that bounty was never guaranteed to last and so she split the foodstuffs in half and hid the rest for later. As she ate she considered what the boy who had brought her tray had told her. No wonder the Governor was so young; he was the son of the Governor.

  Had he really killed his own father? Could he honestly be that bloodthirsty?

  Of course he was. She had seen it in his eyes there in the arena. He was not a kind person at all. He enjoyed blood, and seeing it spilled and she was just lucky that hers had not been spilled there that day.

  It would be spilled soon enough though.

  The thought was enough to make her lose her appetite. Reena wanted to cry all over again but there were no tears left inside of her, at least not at the moment. She stood back up and went back to the window. Looking down, looking out into the world gave her a sense of purpose. She could see the city, she could see the people on the streets, and that gave her hope.

  If she craned her neck she could see right beyond the walls of the city. She could see the beginning of the long green fields that stretched away from the city and toward the woods that she called home. Oh, to be home!

  Yes, there she was hunted. There she was an Outlaw and death waited around every corner. But there she could run, she could fight, and she had hope. Here she was trapped in this forsaken little stone room, robbed of her ability to conceal herself, to run and to hide.

  They had robbed her of her very identity; she was Reena. She was the daughter of Liam…

  She was the daughter of Liam. That gave her courage. She was the first female gladiator, so be it. Hatred towards the crowd surged up in her and a determination to survive. They wanted to see her die, they wanted to see her lying in a pool of her own blood out there in the dust and sand under a faultless sky while they sat in the stands cheering and drinking their wine and eating.

  She was not going to give them the satisfaction. If she died, if she had to die, she would do it her way. They could keep her prisoner here in the cell, they could entrap her body, but they could never imprison her mind. They could never force her to do and be something she was not.

  She was going to have to kill people if she was going to survive. That was what they were telling her. They were making the rules by which she would live, and she had never in her entire life lived by the rules that the Governor of this city had set out… And she was not about to start now.

  The door rattled. Reena turned to see the Governor standing there with a nasty smirk on his face. “How do you like the accommodations?”

  “I should have killed you out there on the field.”

  “I knew you had a blade. Tell me, whatever did you do with it? I had my soldiers search every member of the party that went to the arena with you but it was not to be found. Now why is that?”

  “Maybe the gods concealed it from you.”

  He tapped a finger on the bar, a thoughtful look on his face. “I think you are going to amuse me very much before it is all over.”

  “I could say the same about you.”

  “You are tough aren’t you? Well we shall see how fast you lose that toughness. Tomorrow, you begin training.”

  Reena lifted her chin, “you cannot force me to do anything. Just because you want me to be the first female gladiator does not mean that I will be. Perhaps I will kill myself long before I ever go into the arena and rob you of the satisfaction of being able to tell me what to do.” Had she really just said that? The fact that she was being so rude to him frightened her. She needed to be smarter if she was going to live but that question of what did she have to live for and why live according to their rules kept racing around in her head; it would not let her be silent

  “You could do that, yes. Of course, then you could not save your father’s life.” His smile grew nastier than ever.

  “What did you say?” She took a step closer, her own hands reaching around the bars. The soldier standing next to the Governor rapped her knuckles smartly with the hilt of his sword. Pain lanced through her hands and she shrieked but she did not let go of the bars. She reached through them and grabbed the Governor by his robe pulling him closer to her.

  “Release the Governor!” The soldier flicked his sword so that the blade edge was under her chin, the sharp point tickled her throat and she saw the Governor’s smile widening, growing even hungrier.

  “Your father can live if you will battle for him.”

  Reena’s hands fell away from his robe and she took a step back. She had to take a long breath to keep control of her voice as she asked, “What do you mean?”

  “For every battle that you win in the arena I will release one of the people that you fought with today. Your father will be the last to be released.”

>   He had to be joking! There had been almost a dozen of them in that arena today! How could she win twelve battles? How could she not?

  The Governor backed away. “Enjoy your evening, gladiator.” The sneer on his mouth when he said the last word left no doubt in her mind that he did not think she could do it, that this was all set up. He had known how hard she would take it if she had to battle for her father’s life, and what it would do to her to know that she could not survive long enough to free him.

  Or at least, he did not think she could.

  Finally, something on which they agreed.

  Chapter 3

  Reena was sure that she would never be able to sleep, but eventually she did. When she awoke, gray and rose colored streaks colored the plain walls of her cell. She lay there on her pallet, looking up at the ceiling and wondering what today would hold.

  Her belly rumbled and she took out the bread and cheese from the night before, eating it slowly and drinking what water was left. She left the fruit for later, wondering bleakly if there would even be a later for her.

  She heard Hector’s footsteps in the hall and when he stepped in front of her door, she stood to face him.

  “These are for you.”

  Reena looked at the garments dangling from Hector’s skewed hands. He had to be joking! “No thank you. I will wear my own clothes.”

  “Every gladiator wears the same uniform while training. There is no room for argument here.”

  “Do I look like the other gladiators?”

  “No, you don’t. The Governor himself sent word that you would be clothed as the other gladiators. You have to learn how to pick your battles girl, is this really the one over which you want to die?”

  Reena glared at Hector, “I cannot wear that! I would be practically naked!”

  Hector scratched his bare belly with one large hand, “I agree with you. I think this is a distraction for the other gladiators; I think you are going to have an unfair advantage over your partners in training today.”

  She stepped closer to the bars, her eyes intense, “Now tell me Hector, why would the Governor want me to have an unfair advantage?”