Desire of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 3) (14 page)

Conall nodded. “You’re an adult lady. I assumed you knew your business.”

“I wish that I could have been there.” She slipped one hand over another. “I’ve been very cold to you and I wanted to apologize for it.”

“It’s all right. What I do scares you.”

“No. What you do
terrifies
me, and it terrifies me even more that it terrifies me at all. I care about you in enormous, frightful levels. That...hasn’t happened to me before. It makes me uneasy.”

He nodded, understanding.

“It’s like...my sister. Once she almost fell down the stairs. I only just managed to catch her, you see? She was tumbling, perhaps would have broken a bone. Perhaps nothing would have happened. Perhaps she would have broken her neck. There’s no way to say, because I grabbed her wrist and pulled her in safe. The way my heart pounded, then—all that heavy rush of feeling. That’s how I feel every time I look at you and think of you in that arena. Only there’s no way to grab your wrist. All I can do is hope you’ll land safe.”

Conall took her by the shoulders. “I will.”

“So you say.” Her eyes cast down. “But there’s no way to really know, is there?”

“I suppose not. The skies could open and lightning could strike me down. A wolf could break free and rollick through the arena, canceling the match.”

“Or you could be cut down.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not that one.”

He was talking big and seemed to know it, but there was no way to be sure. She knew that he had to say that he would be fine—because if he didn’t, it would give weight to any lack of confidence he felt. And it would shake
her
confidence in him, which he would see, and that would shake his confidence in turn.

Relationships were strange machines of centripetal force with all its rotating weight threatening to buck it to splinters at any given point.

She huffed. “You’re impossible.”

“Insane,” he reminded her. “And a beast. But not impossible.”

“I suppose I’ve made my point clear that I don’t want you to do this.”

He smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

“But if you must do it...” she took his hands. They were so strong and warm. “If you must, then you must also win. I won’t allow a slave of my favor to lose.”

From her hair, she retrieved a cloth that had been holding it in a long ponytail. Nimble fingers working fast, she tied the cloth about his arm. The muscle there hard, like iron. The cloth was gentle blue, and complimented the deep tan of his sunbaked muscles well.

They wanted to kiss. She could see it in his eyes, and he no doubt could see it in hers. But the call came for Pertinax to stand at the gates—his fight was incumbent. Lost as ever in the thrall of conversation with the chiseled fighter, she had not paid any attention as the crowd cheered its approval for the ending of the fight above them.

She had to return—and she had to pray to whoever was listening for the safe passage of this amazing man.

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T
he three gladiators stood in the sands in a triangle, waiting for the introductions to run their course and for their fight to begin. Set was to Conall’s right and Felix to the left. The day was characteristically warm as the afternoon carried close to the evening. In the horizon, the sun sank down, leaving a hot red bath beyond the clouds. Conall could feel small trickles of sweat landing from his skull down his back.

Governor Trio stood with a grin on his face. So far, the crowd had been awed by the displays of the day—so it had been a good event for him. His voice boomed across the sands and the crowd, carrying with the full strength of his large lungs.

“He comes to us from the African continent, where in Egypt they knew him as a god of combat. He fights in our continent now to prove himself the best the world over. He . . . is . . . Set!”

The Egyptian slowly raised a hand, not taking his eyes from Felix and Conall. His armor looked heavy on his lean frame, but not burdensome. In a way, his leanness was an advantage because the armor could cover more surface area with less weight added.

“The next gladiator is from House Varinius. He fights with his whole heart and does not know the meaning of the word “quit” or “mercy.” He . . . is . . . Pertinax!”

Conall raised both his swords and turned to the crowd, soaking in their cheers. There were boos, too, and that was fine. That was all part of it. So long as they saw him—so long as they knew he was there in the primus.

“And our final gladiator is a name well known to you all.” The governor paused, letting the crowd soak in his voice. “He is the Champion of Puteoli. The prize of House Malleola. He is a fighter beyond compare. He . . . is . . . Hector!”

Felix stepped back and raised his arms, turning left and right to the crowd. He roared out his readiness for the fray, but his eyes stayed on his opponents. The start was just before them, and it wasn’t unlike a gladiator to jump ahead of an editor’s word to begin.

The word came down from Trio and Conall felt it more than he heard it. The crowd erupted with readiness, and all was motion.

Set attacked immediately, closing on Felix. Taking his cue, Conall attacked with him. Felix blocked both with sword and shield. It was madness to stay defensive in a fight such as this, and Felix knew it. He countered immediately with a long roll to Set’s side. A smart move. It brought the fight to Set now, placing him between Conall and Felix.

Now Conall unleashed on Set, landing with overhead strikes on the shield of the thraex fighter. Bits of heavy wood chopped away to the sand. Set crouched low behind his shield, backing up to bring his attackers closer together. Felix closed in and thrust again and again, but Set continued to parry.

Knocking one blow of Felix’s wide, Set rolled as Felix had, and now Conall was in the middle of the two.

He was the most vulnerable in this position, not having a shield. He parried one blow and then another, fighting on two sides at once. With every parry he tried to follow up with an attack to give himself time—a kick here, an elbow there. Nothing landed, but it bought him precious seconds. To the observant crowd, he looked like a whirlwind of blades.

At the end of one barrage he dived toward Felix and swiped at his legs. Felix leapt over the blow easily, but as he came down Conall scraped his torso with a long slash from his sword. A narrow cut, but a cut all the same, and first blood was his. Felix bashed him away with his shield—but was in the middle again as Set advanced, drawn by the blood.

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L
eda struggled not to scream with fervent praise as Conall struck first blood. From her spot standing next to Publius in the editor's box, she could see everything.

Publius sat in a row of other lanistas in ornate wooden chairs inlaid with gold and silver. They were, all three, behind another row of honored senators who themselves were behind the editor’s seat at the front of the box. The area was arranged on a decline toward the arena, so that everyone had a good view.

The worst thing about being in the box seats during the gladiator fight, Leda was discovering, was that there was hardly anything sharp available to throw down at the men trying to kill Conall.

It must have been the worst thing in the world, she decided, being a gladiator’s lover. Much worse than the lover of a soldier, certainly. At the wives and mistresses of soldiers did not have to watch as their men marched into the lines of bloodthirsty enemies, wielding weapons made to rend their loves limb from limb.

And was that what Conall was to her? Was he her love?

She pushed the thought aside. There was too much conflict for the moment to focus on repudiating something so insane as her being in love with a gladiator.

The three seemed to fall into a sort of pattern on the ground—they would team up together on one fighter, who would then roll or re-position somehow, and then the fight would begin on whoever was at a disadvantage.

“Your Pertinax fights well,” said the lanista from House Malleola. “Even if he is tiny. Why did you choose to field such a small looking fellow?”

Publius remained silent, eyes tight on the match. It had not been an exceptional day for House Varinius. Of the four matches they’d had so far, two had been losses, with one gladiator killed. Diocles had survived his match, and won, but it had been a close affair. Good for the crowds, but bad for the stomach of a lanista trying to improve his school’s prestige.

The pattern in the arena—breaking defense to switch the offense on another man—began to break.

With some unspoken agreement, both Felix and Set consolidated their attacks on Conall. They seemed to identify him—perhaps like much of the crowd kept shouting—as the weak link in the three. When Conall dodged out of the way of their dual attacks, the attacking did not shift as it had before but instead re-focused again on him.

Caught off guard, Conall was swept off his feet by Felix’s sword. The blade clanged against Conall’s leg-armor, no doubt bruising the flesh underneath. He rolled up, only to face another blow coming in from Set.

Conall dodged, barely. Leda gasped, practically hearing the whoosh as it slid over his head. Set followed up and knocked him to the ground. Then both fighters were on top of him, thrusting and stabbing. Leda thought it was the end. Some phantom wrench entered her guts and jerked hard to the side.

A great clatter of swords and metal filled the arena and the two attackers were fought off. Conall drove at their legs, leaving a long ugly gash in Set’s thigh. He rolled back up and yelled at them to come at him.

They obliged. In concert, the two attacked and drove Conall back, pushing him toward the wall. He fought valiantly, parrying sword strikes left and right. But finally they had him too close to the wall for him to back up any further. Steel spikes were mere inches away from his vulnerable flesh. He had to roll away—but Felix was ready, swiping down as he did.

The blow glanced hard off Conall’s manica, and he let out a yell.

He had lost a sword in the sand. Only one weapon remained for him.

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T
his was a bad situation. Of the three, he remained un-bloodied, but he was by far in the worst position. Adrenaline pumped through his system, keeping the pain in his limbs at bay. Tomorrow—if he had a tomorrow—his arm would ache and he would not be able to walk without a limp.

That would be a best-of-all-possible-worlds situation. The fight was far from over.

Felix, sensing his weakness, advanced hard on Conall’s position. But he moved too fast.

Even though Conall was the weaker target, there was no target better to a gladiator than an exposed back. Set fell upon the over-eager Felix with a horrendous thrust. Felix recognized his mistake just in time to turn the blade aside, and it saved his life.

It did not save his ribs from catching the blow, though. The white of bone was visible as a chunk of his side showered out on the sands. The wound remaining was vicious and jagged. Much of the crowd roared at the sight, and yet Felix’s fans groaned. They begged him to take the mercy of the other fighters, but he counter-attacked on Set instead, driving the Egyptian backward until he landed on his back.

There was no time for mercy in the fight. Conall rushed after Felix, landing a heavy blow on his shield. Felix countered with another thrust, and Conall, seeing an opening, kicked him in the stomach.

His toe landed directly in Felix’s solar plexus. Wind swept from him in a big grunt.

In another fight, the blow would have been penultimate to the final blow, but as it was Conall had to turn immediately and defend. Set was on the offensive, rushing at him now. Off-balance from the kick, Conall lost his footing and fell to the ground on a knee. The crowd gasped, sensing the end.

Again and again the thraex hammered down on Conall, sword clanging away, knowing the advantage was his. Conall held his remaining sword with both hands, parrying when he could and blocking where he couldn’t. Heavy nicks in the metal of the blade developed from the force of Set’s blows.

Set thrust again and misstepped just for a moment. The sand had betrayed him, and Set overreached. In another fight, he might have gotten away with such an error.

But Conall leapt forward immediately, powering Set’s arm upward and stabbing him brutally in the side.

He made the blow clean, as he had been taught. Easy in, easy out. A soldier would have twisted the blade to ensure the death of the man, but Conall had little interest in killing so long as he won.

Set fell to the ground, barely hitting the sand before putting the two fingers at his helm for mercy. Referees rushed forward to move him to the side of the arena—his fate would be decided at the end of the fight by the editor in the crowd.

It was just him and Felix now. Conall, bruised and down a sword. Felix, bloody but ready.

If he wanted, Conall could simply outlast the man until he collapsed from blood loss. The wound in his side was not closing any time soon. He could make the bout look good, though. Parry and duel with him a while.

But that was not the victory Conall wanted. It was not the victory Conall deserved.

He flanked to one side, attacking hard on Felix’s shield. Again and again he drove his sword into the heavy wood, alternating kicks and overhead blows with his gladius. Felix slashed out, trying to attack Conall’s leg—and that was the end.

That counter-blow, along with Conall’s barrage, put him off balance. Conall had an easy shot at the shoulder of his sword-bearing arm. It sliced open in a heavy spray, and the shield dropped to Felix’s side. In another three blows, Conall had Felix’s sword flung out to the sands.

The fight ended with Felix on his knees, huffing and bleeding heavily, holding Conall’s leg.

This was the tradition—it made it easier for a gladiator to drive a sword down into the mortal space between his neck and shoulder.

Conall waited, looking up at Trio in his editor’s seat. The big man waited, holding up his hands to silence the crowd. Only now was the slow pull of adrenaline leaving Conall—they had been chanting his name, he realized.