Many Outlaws chose to travel in larger groups. It was something Liam was not willing to do; he said the safety found in numbers was not worth the greater risks. Bigger numbers of people meant more in-fighting, more potential betrayals and intrigues. It meant not being able to be as unobtrusive, and that heightened the risk of being seen by the soldiers.
It was one of the larger groups that they were facing down now. Spring had arrived and with it small hard green apples, not yet ripe but they were being plucked from the trees in a tiny grove and devoured anyway.
Liam said, “If you leave them a little longer they will be sweeter.”
The leader of the Outlaw band facing them drew his spear, a shabbily whittled thing and aimed it at Liam, “These are our trees. We will eat from them as we like.”
Liam said, calmly, “Here nobody owns anything. Here we all share, it’s part of the pact we made when we entered these woods.”
“These are ours!”
Liam put his hand on Reena’s head. Her belly was roaring and whining, her mouth already twisting and filling with spit. It had been two days since they had eaten and the apples, though green, would have been good. She knew what that touch meant though; it meant to stay silent and to follow him.
“You are too in the open here in the grove. There are soldiers around.”
Liam was giving them fair warning. Earlier they had seen the soldiers riding hard across the desiccated lands of the meadows that stretched out on one side of the woods, bound for the Old Post Road; here in the groves there was little shelter and nowhere to hide.
“What of it?”
“You would be better off telling your people to gather what they need and to leave here.”
The leader sneered at him again. “You just want us to go so you can take the fruit!” His teeth were black with rot, his face almost gray. Desperation had turned him from man to something else entirely, something almost animal-like and Reena stepped closer to her father.
“May the gods be with you,” Liam had said softly before leading Reena away.
They had gotten about a mile away when Liam spotted a thin but healthy rabbit and ran it down, returning triumphantly to her side with their dinner dangling from his belt. Reena asked, “Why wouldn’t they leave even after you told them there were soldiers, Father?”
“They think they need those apples, that those apples are important in their lives and maybe they are. They could take some with them and live but they are too afraid to notice that fact. They think by clinging to those trees they will survive.”
“Will they?”
“Wait and see.”
The next afternoon they had heard screams from the distance. Reena knew those sounds were coming from the groves. She huddled closer to her father, squeezing her eyes shut tight as he snuffed out the small cooking fire he had been building inside the cave and then rolled the heavy stone over the tiny opening that served as a door.
The stone cut off the sounds of the slaughter but later that night they went out to the groves and buried the bodies. Liam had looked her in her eyes and said, “Never let your own fear and your wish to hang onto something—or someone—get you killed Reena. Do you understand me? There is always another way, a way out without death if you are smart and fast and ready to run. Tell me you understand me.”
She had said that she did but she hadn’t, not then, but she understood it now. Liam was telling her that she should run away.
She had always been obedient to her father if not the Law, but this was one time when she could not, would not, obey him.
He was far more important to her than anything else in the world.
**
The day dawned clear and bright. Clive brought her breakfast as he always did. She knew that he was risking his own life for hers, just by tasting her food, but she could not bring herself to like him the way she had liked River.
After she had eaten, she stood at her window looking down at the city. Her clothing had begun to itch and she wished she had something else to wear. She longed for the soft supple leather of the deer hide that had been worked by her father’s hands. Or her own.
The sound of the soldiers’ footsteps in the hallway was loud. She squeezed her eyes shut trying to pretend that she was somewhere else and that they were not coming for her. That today would not be the day when she had to step once more into the bloody battlefield and try to save someone else’s life as well as her own.
Why was she doing this? It seemed so futile. It was obvious that there was no way the Governor was going to spare her or her father and she was tired… So tired of the blood in the battle and the crowd.
It was as if all her emotions had been placed inside a bottle with a hard stopper to prevent them from coming out. She felt cold and empty. It was as if she was standing to one side watching herself walk inside the phalanx of soldiers and trying to figure out how she was no longer actually present within her own body.
The night before she had left a small amount of water in her pitcher. Into that water she had poured half of the packet of werebane. She had no fire with which to boil the poisonous plant leaves, but she could and did leave her knife soaking in it overnight. It was not as potent as using the boiled down concoction but it was still strong, and still lethal.
When she entered the arena, the crowd was on their feet clapping and cheering and screaming her name. Reena looked up at them and then she did the only thing she knew to deal. She raised her middle finger in a rebellious salute and a statement of exactly what she thought of them. To her utter astonishment they screamed and clapped louder! It was as if the insolent gesture had not angered them at all, but rather amused them.
Jewels and favors began to fly into the arena. She sought diamonds winking in the dust and she stared upward at them, wondering if they were all insane here. Even those people dressed in the poorest of garb threw things at her.
She felt some small emotion beginning somewhere deep down inside her, but she ruthlessly clapped that stopper back down on the bottle that housed her emotions and refused to allow it to surface.
The gates opened and one of the women who would have been on the cart with her was brought out into the sunlight, blinking and shivering. Reena walked over to her and said in a tight and very controlled voice, “I’m going to do my best to save your life. Do us both a favor, pick up whatever you think we can use after this battle — that is if we live through it. Even if I do not, perhaps you can bargain your way free with whatever you find on this forsaken earth.”
The woman stopped shivering and her tears dried. She looked at Reena standing in front of her so calm and still and it was as if that calmness and stillness transferred itself upon her own person. She lifted her head and looked Reena directly in the eye as she said, “Yes Mistress.”
Mistress? She was nobody’s mistress! She was not even in control of herself. It seemed to calm the woman though the she did not correct her. The woman was scampering about, gathering up stuff. The crowd was growing restless, so Reena decided to give them a little more entertainment. She walked towards the box where the Governor sat and when she got a few feet from it she lifted her hands above her head high in the air and shouted, “if you really want me killed, why not bring your swords and come down here yourself? Do you fear me so?”
Uh-oh. She might’ve gone too far with that one. The crowd fell silent and the hush was so thick she could hear the sound of the other woman’s footsteps as she shuffled across the sand to pick up another bauble.
From somewhere in the crowd a woman’s voice cried, “All men fear women deep down inside if they have any sense at all!”
The roars of laughter that rang out broke the tension and the crowd began to clap and cheer again. Reena was looking upward and the Governor was standing, his hands braced on the outside railing of his box and his face wore an expression that was anything but amused. She had just pissed him off worse than she had ever angered him before.
The gates opened as her oppo
nent came out and the crowd fell silent once more. The nails erupted in cheers and shouts.
This couldn’t be real! There was no way they could honestly expect her to fight… It was two gladiators, riding in a chariot. They were both heavily armored, even the horse was armored! The battle horn had not sounded yet and the two spun around the arena raising their arms and their spears and swords while the crowd went crazy.
Reena stood silent and still, watching the woman gathering up her own favors run to the side and stand near one wall. Her face was a white smudge with too dark circles where her eyes should’ve been. She was utterly completely terrified; Reena could see the wet spot on her skirt that attested to that. She didn’t blame her, there was no way she could fight two men — two gladiators! — armed with such an array of weapons and in a chariot!
Reena said a quick prayer. If she ever needed help from the gods, now was the time. The battle horn sounded and the two gladiators in a chariot made mocking little bows in her direction before slapping the reins down hard on the horse’s rump and aiming the chariot directly at her.
There was not much she could do, running was about her only option, so she did. She could feel the ground shaking below her feet, feel the heat of the horse’s breath on her back and she managed to slide to the right, going down on the ground and onto her back flying across the rough sand. A sword cut through the air where her head had been, another second and she would’ve been decapitated. The close call shook her more than she cared to admit and she rolled to one side, wedging her body down below a small outcropping made by the lowest of the seats in the stands.
That was how she avoided the next blow. The crowd began to boo her and she could see how fast their favor was switching. Anger at their very fickleness filled her as she rolled out from underneath the outcropping while the chariot rode its way around the arena, its occupants waving and laughing and cheering on the crowd.
She had to think; she had to figure out a way out of this. She only had her blade and no other weapon. Looking around she spotted a man’s walking staff nearby. She ran along the lower section of the arena, and grabbed it away from him. He cried out in protest but she yelled back at him, “May the gods pay you for your favor!”
Her father had told her a story once, a long time ago. About a man who had held off a veritable army on horseback with nothing but spears. She didn’t have a spear; she had a walking staff, but then again they didn’t have an army either.
The chariot started to come back around and she took off running again, this time in the opposite direction from it. She had to time this just right if she was going to make this work.
She was sure she couldn’t make it work, but she was going to try anyway when the chariot was almost opposite her on the other side of the arena, she took off running across the arena dead at it. She held the staff up in front of her and took a deep breath.
She knew how to throw a spear; she often hunted with them in the woods and while her targets then were usually far bigger than the small space that she was aiming at now and the staff was not sharp; she was pretty sure that it would work if her aim was good and true.
The staff hurtled through the air, flying low. The two in the chariot had not yet noticed her coming towards them; they were too busy playing to the crowd. Either that or they thought she posed no threat.
The staff went into the wheel, right between two spokes just as she had planned it. Even Reena could not believe the luck of that shot. The staff jammed the wheel of the chariot, which was going far too fast at that moment. The staff caused the wheel on one side to snap completely off and the chariot tumbled into the dust. The horse screamed in fear as its passengers and its burden suddenly vanished.
The horse began to scream and buck wildly, foam flying from its mouth. One of the gladiators, stumbling out from under the wreckage of the chariot, was not watching where he was going and the horse’s hooves struck him dead in the face, knocking him to the ground. The horse began to paw and stomp him. Blood went everywhere and Reena shuddered all over, horror at what she had done finally breaking through that impenetrable bottle.
The other gladiator was already dead; it appeared as if his neck had been broken in the fall. The crowd was on its feet, proclaiming her to be the victor. Reena could not believe the carnage that had ensued from something as simple as an old man’s staff. She hadn’t even planned it that way; she had merely thought to get them out of the chariot so that she could maybe have a fighting chance.
The horse shied and ran and she let it. The woman’s life she just saved pressed herself closer to the wall, her arms shielding her face as the horse ran in wild circles around the arena. Reena went to the chariot and removed the staff that she had taken from the stands and with it still in her hands, she approached the man who it belonged to. When she drew abreast of him, she held it up over her head so that he could reach it, and looking up at his face as he looked down at her she said, “thank you Sir, and the gods.”
The roar that went up at that was even louder. The horse had stopped running, and was standing in the middle of the arena with its head down and its sides heaving, covered with foam. Reena had never ridden a horse before and she had no intention of approaching the beast.
She looked up and saw murderous fury on the Governor’s face. He had planned for her to die today; he’d actually planned for her to die several days before and she was confounding his plans, something that was not making him very happy at all.
Reena gave him a low mocking little bow and then she extended both her middle fingers up high in the air and brought them towards him. There was no doubt that she was giving him and solely him that salute. That time the crowd’s laughter was so loud it hammered at her ears and she knew she had done it: she had won the approval of the crowd.
But at what cost?
Chapter 7
“The gods have taken revenge on you by making your mind as weak as goat milk!”
Reena looked at Hector. They were still in the dim passageways below the arena, awaiting the escort that would take her back to herself. “Have you ever tasted goat milk Hector? It’s very strong.”
Hector’s chagrin was written all over his face. “Do not let your mouth run away with you Missy. I will kill you right here and suffer the consequences!”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Back! You are worth it!”
Hector stomped off into a corner and drew his fist back as if he was going to punch the hard stone wall, but thought better about it and dropped his hand to his side. He spun around to face her, “what were you thinking? Do you not know what you did out there? Do you not know what this all means?”
“Yes, to all of that. I did it on purpose and I would do it again. As far as I’m concerned the Governor can go…”
Hector hushed her by slapping his broad hand right across her mouth and pinching her nostrils shut. For a moment Reena was afraid that he actually was attempting to murder her but then she realized that he was merely trying to make her be quiet. When he removed his hand from her mouth she said, “you told me to win the crowd.”
“So I did. I didn’t mean to do it this way.”
“I saw no other way. Most of those people out there don’t really care if I live or die Hector, and you know it.”
“That is true of all gladiators Reena, why should you be different? Why do you feel that you are special?”
“I’m just a girl! This isn’t fair Hector and you know it! And I’m a girl. I’m not supposed to be fighting in the arena, I’m not supposed to be…”
“You’re not supposed to be doing what?” Hector drew closer to her and for a moment she thought that there might be actual pity in his face. “We don’t design our fates,, the gods do that for us. You are here because you are meant to be here, it’s your destiny.”
“What about the people that I’ve killed Hector? Was it their destiny to die? And if so, why?”
“You ask too many questions.”
Her sh
oulders drooped and she stared at her feet. “I want my father.”
“I know you do. You will see him again, but not today.”
“Why can’t I just see him?”
“You know the answer to that Reena. Look here comes the guards. It’s time to go back to your cell.”
The soldiers were not alone. The woman whose life she had saved that day was with them and Reena looked at her, uncomprehending. “Why are you still here?”
The woman drew herself to her full height, which was not very high. She was maybe five foot four. “You saved my life and so you are now my Mistress. I will serve you from here on out.”
“I have no need of a servant. I live in a cell, I don’t have anything to give you, I have one change of clothes and I’m wearing it. There’s nothing that you can take care of for me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong Reena,” Hector said. She will have the freedom that you do not, she can come and go as she pleases. Many of the richer people who been imprisoned have made use of their servants even while they were kept in cells. It’s her wish to serve you, and it’s her duty. Except it gracefully and do not anger the gods by spurning her gift.”
“Hector, I can’t…” She halted, seeing the warning look on his face. She turned to the woman and asked, “what’s your name?”
The woman’s brown hair was streaked with gray but her face was remarkably unlined and Reena wondered just how old she was. Her blue eyes were keen and unclouded and when she smiled she had all of her teeth. “I’m Octavia.”
Reena might still have protested except at that moment she looked over at Hector and saw a look on his face that she had never seen before. He was looking at Octavia with a soft warm smile on his face and he was actually straightening his shirt as Reena watched. Why, he was trying to make a good impression on Octavia!
There was precious little amusing about her situation but that was funny. Reena bit back a smile and said, “Well I guess if you can’t help me, maybe you can help out Hector once in a while. Maybe you can get him to dress a little better. It seems he has suddenly and remarkably developed an interest in doing so.”
Call to Arms (The Girl In The Arena Book 1) Page 11