CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There’s tension in the air as I make my way into the stands of the colosseum, the crowd on edge, the excitement building as their numbers grow. I wonder if they know what they’re going to see today, but no, there has been no public announcement, no proclamation to say people are going to die today.
I wonder, if there had been, whether the stands would be empty or even fuller. Do people really want blood and death above all else, or are those things just what the rulers of Aetheria give them to placate them, not caring whether it’s what most of the people truly want?
The trouble is, the people who want that blood and violence are exactly the ones who need to be placated most, the ones who might bring that violence to the streets if not appeased.
The sounds and sights of the arena are building around me.
Runners working for the bookmakers are shouting odds on the bouts to come.
People are pushing and shoving to find their accustomed places on the stands.
I know Alaric and a couple of other members of the resistance are here somewhere, but I can’t make them out.
This isn’t a place we can hope to target Selene successfully.
Or is it? There are plenty of tricks people have tried in the colosseum’s long history to deal with gladiators they dislike, or who simply have the misfortune of being linked to the wrong patron.
There was a point where hurting or killing a gladiator was seen as an easy way of sending a message to their patron.
Gladiators have found themselves poisoned, given substandard equipment, attacked before bouts, and more.
The colosseum is hardly a safe place for them, as I know better than most, given some of the ways people hurt me during my time in the colosseum.
I push that thought to one side as the traditional procession of gladiators makes its way out onto the sands.
I can see the condemned prisoners with them, held in chains, surrounded by guards.
There are half a dozen of them, both men and women.
Selene is there, of course, smiling and waving as people start to chant her name.
“Selene! Selene!”
There are other gladiators too. I’m surprised to see Cesca’s there. I’d have thought she would have quit after her last bout.
Marcus waits for the crowd to fall silent before he takes his place at the front of the senate box.
“Citizens of Aetheria, we have another great day of games for you today. We will see contests of skill and bravery, see blood spilled on these sands, see the finest magic this city has to offer. Are you ready to begin?”
The crowd roars in response, and Marcus beams out. He seems to be alone in the box. Is this what Selene's offered him? A position of power within her new order?
The gladiators are making their way into the preparation areas beneath the colosseum.
The members of the crowd are leaning forward, eagerly awaiting the first bout.
Cesca is the first to come out onto the sands, standing there in her all too brief armor while a gate on the far side of the colosseum opens.
“In this corner, we have the fan favorite, Cesca!” Marcus calls out. “And on the far side of the sands, we have a creature worthy of her powers. I give you, the storm leopard!”
The storm leopard from the emperor's menagerie comes stalking out onto the sands, and I see Cesca pale.
I know why. Electricity crackles from the leopard's coat in a way that makes it clear it won't be brought down by her power to summon lightning along her blade.
It charges her, and she's barely fast enough to wheel out of the way.
When the second charge comes, she isn’t fast enough. Claws rake across her torso, spraying blood over the sands. Lightning crackles between them, but neither of them is affected by it. This is a simple contest of strength and skill, and it’s a contest where Cesca has a clear disadvantage.
The leopard stalks her now around the sands, while Cesca looks around frantically, trying to find a way to survive this. Her blade is sharp, but mostly, it’s designed to conduct lightning into her foes. With this one, it won’t do any good.
“Kill, kill, kill!” a portion of the crowd chants. Will Marcus allow that? Will he stop the contest before Cesca can be hurt more? It’s obvious the games are slowly taking away every safety precaution, building towards the grand tournament to come.
The storm leopard pounces, and Cesca raises her blade, but the thrust misses its mark and the creature lands on her, clawing her again.
It rears up, ready to bite, and while I might not like Cesca much, I know I can’t just let her die.
I reach out with my powers, making it hesitate, holding it back just for a moment or two.
I realize my mistake as Cesca sees that opening and thrusts her blade deep into the leopard’s heart.
The creature howls and then collapses, lightning crackling out around it as it dies.
I feel grief at the creature’s death and guilt for my part in it, but I also can’t regret coming to Cesca’s aid.
She stands unsteadily, bleeding from several wounds, before staggering from the sands into the arms of the healers.
Around me, the crowd roars its approval for the violence. Trainers run onto drag the carcass of the storm leopard from the sand, while a silent tear touches my cheek in commemoration of the death of this great beast.
Silence falls as soon as the creature is gone from the sands, expectation filling the air.
“For our next bout, we will be seeing a return to an old tradition,” Marcus says.
“Those who have been condemned will have the chance to fight for their lives here upon the sands. Today, you will see half a dozen people who stand accused of heinous murders, of serving gangs against the interests of the city, of pushing the people into the worst vices! Send out the prisoners!”
The gates to the preparation areas open, and guards push the half dozen prisoners out onto the sands, tossing short swords and knives out after them. They grab for those weapons, standing there unarmored, in only dirty rags.
“Facing them will be a woman who needs no introduction. Who better to administer justice than the former arch-magistrate of Aetheria herself? I give you Selene Ravenscroft!”
I feel the stirring of anger as Selene steps out, elegant in her brief scraps of armor and holding a single curved blade.
She waves with her left hand, displaying the leather dampener around her wrist. The fact that she’s tampered with that dampener isn’t obvious to the watching crowd.
As far as they’re concerned, she’s a hero, working with only a fraction of her power.
She moves out into the center of the sands, taking her stance and waiting.
“Begin!” Marcus says.
The prisoners look nervous, hanging back. At least one of them is looking around as if he might find a way out of the colosseum. But there is no way out. There’s only the implacable figure of Selene Ravenscroft standing there, waiting for them.
“All you have to do to live is kill me,” Selene calls out to the prisoners. “You were quick enough to kill people out in the slums, weren’t you?”
She’s painting herself as the hero here, rather than someone condemned to fight to the death on the sands for her own crimes.
It’s one more way she’s building her popularity, and it’s enough to bring the prisoners towards her.
They fan out, moving together, seeming to realize their only chance is to fight as a unit.
They spread out around Selene, surrounding her. She still doesn’t move from her ready position, just turns smoothly in place and waits. Finally, one of the prisoners rushes at her back, braver than the rest.
It means he’s the first to die.
Selene spins back towards him, ducking under his slashing sword and lashing out with her own blade. It moves across the prisoner’s throat so fast it’s almost impossible to follow the arc of her blade, but the spray of blood that follows is easy to see as the condemned man collapses.
The others charge at Selene at once, hoping to take advantage of their friend’s death to finish her.
Selene parries the sweep of an axe, leaps over a low swinging sword, and then fires a dart of purple power that pierces the skull of a woman coming at her like an arrow.
The woman takes another step and then collapses onto the sands, legs twitching.
Another man roars, swinging at Selene again and again with his sword.
Selene parries the blows almost contemptuously, then flings the axe man from her with power as he comes in from the side.
He lands and comes up to his feet, dazed, but Selene is already running at him, thrusting her blade through his heart and dragging it clear, just in time to parry another sword blow.
Selene moves through the convicts with deadly grace, none of their attacks coming close to touching her thanks to both her powers and the skills she’s built up in her training as a gladiator.
I feel sick watching it, because this isn’t a genuine contest, just an execution.
These prisoners never really had a chance.
Selene slips aside from another sword blow, slicing her blade across a man’s stomach, then launches a spear of power that pierces another through the heart.
That leaves just one woman, who backs away, holding a dagger.
“Please,” she begs. “Please.”
If she’s hoping for mercy, she isn’t going to get it from Selene.
The former arch-magistrate sends out a dart of power, hitting her foe in the leg.
When she tries to limp away, Selene takes out her other leg with another blast of energy.
The woman collapses, dropping her knife and crawling away now.
Selene stands over her.
“Kill! Kill!” one section of the crowd chants, even as I can feel another part of it holding its breath, waiting for what must come next.
Selene looks up at the senate box, as if waiting for the bout to be stopped, but I know it’s just for show. The terms of this combat have already been set. She waits a moment longer, standing over her foe with her blade ready.
The killing blow comes without warning, her blade sweeping around to take the woman’s head from her shoulders and send it rolling across the sands. Selene stands there in the wake of her blow, lifting her sword in a salute to the crowd.
For a moment, everything is silent in the colosseum, and I wonder if perhaps Selene has misjudged the people of Aetheria. Maybe they're horrified by this. Maybe they hate this return to the way things were under the empire.
Then a cheer goes up that almost deafens me. It’s not all the people in the crowd, but it’s more than enough. The crowd feels charged with excitement, even as I feel sick. I don’t want to watch this anymore, and I start to push through the crowd, but I’m not heading for the exit.
Instead, I head for the spaces beneath the colosseum, using my knowledge of this space to slip in unseen.
Selene has brought death back to the colosseum, but she and Marcus have also done something else today.
They’ve hurt someone who was previously close to them, someone who I suspect is lying in the healers’ chambers even now.
Someone who might be looking for a way out of her life in the colosseum.
Moving on silent feet, I go to see Cesca.