Arena + Intro to The Great Escape

Chapter 1

FIGHT FOR LIFE

I felt the sweat drip down my back. That was one of the many problems of being a slave; you never knew what was going to happen to you next. Rolf decided that I was ready to progress a level. He said that at my current level, I wasn’t trying hard enough, and the nobles knew it. I knew that he was making me suffer. He had hated me ever since I arrived. He saw that I had only just made it out of the Arena alive. My opponent had been nearly twice my height. He fought dirty too.

My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I didn’t know how Rolf expected me to fight. Slaves could only put up with so much. I decided that when this match finished, I would corner him and ask him how he’d feel if he was made to fight for your life, day after day. I didn’t care if he fired me and cared only slightly if he killed me. I had no-one to return to or anywhere to go. I was sick of the Arena anyway. The fights got a bit repetitive after the first couple of years. The commentator’s voice rebounded off the stone walls as he announced the start of the match. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves as the gates crashed open. I ran out into the Arena with a bloodcurdling scream. The crowd roared in delight. I didn’t acknowledge them as I was too busy giving my opponent my full and undivided attention. I had heard the older slaves talking about him while they were bathing. Apparently, he was notorious for playing dirty tricks on you when you least expected it. His name was Quintus. He was roughly my height and was just about pure muscle. I knew that I would have the advantage of speed. Just so long I remained out of his reach, I would avoid getting my neck snapped.

I dragged my long knife from its sheath. I would have to remind myself to oil it later. A sticky sheath would do nothing to help me survive a bashing. I waved the knife in front of Quintus’s nose. He gave me an icy stare. I made a mental note to not get in his way. He didn’t look particularly happy. Maybe he had been dismissed by his owners or something. Every so often I wished that I had paid even the slightest bit of attention to Rolf’s ramblings. Now was one of those times. If I had listened to him, I might have been able to avoid a mistake. Rolf had said, “Never let anything distract you.”
I did just the opposite. I saw something out the side of my eye and, naturally, turned to look at it. That was stupid, even for me. I felt Quintus’s sword pierce my skin. Mars must have been with me because I had managed to twist as he stabbed me, so instead of stabbing me through the heart, as he surely intended, he only punctured my lung. I decided that if I wanted to give Rolf his tongue lashing, I would have to win this fight so I’d still be alive to do it.

During my career, I never experienced many serious injuries. The most dramatic probably would have had to of been when I broke my wrist as I was tackling my opponent. It wasn’t much fun having to fight with a punctured lung. I could barely breathe and I had tripped over my own feet about five times. Quintus lunged at me. I started to block his attack but I saw him move his wrist fractionally and I swung the knife above my head. Quintus shook his long, black hair out of his eyes. I always tied my hair back because you could lose a fight if your opponent stabbed you while you were getting your hair out of the way. He gave me a filthy look. I matched it with equal intensity. We started circling each other, lunging every so often. I took a step to the left and over balanced a bit. My flailing arm clipped Quintus under the chin. He yelled in fury and tried to lop off my head. The crowd started screaming my name. That was one of the advantages of fighting in the same Arena day after day. You were guaranteed to build up a legion of fans.

One of the spectators threw something wrapped in a cloth down onto the ground. I started sprinting towards the cloth. Quintus proved faster than me though. He grabbed me from behind and put his arm around my head. He started tightening his grip. I don’t where he learned the technique, but I made a mental note to make use of it in the future. I started seeing stars as he constricted my windpipe. I pounded on his chest and stomach frantically, hoping to break free. He took no notice and punched me in the head. I had my bright idea of the day. I slammed my foot into his ankle. He screamed in pain as it broke. He released me so he could grasp his ankle. He fell to the ground. I didn’t waste any time feeling sorry for him. I turned to start running to the object at the edge of the Arena. Quintus, the sneaky brat, sprang up from the ground and tackled me. Pain didn’t seem to bother the guy one bit! We rolled around on the ground for a while, trying to grind each others faces into pulp. Quintus must have loved choking people to death or something because he lunged for my throat again. And missed. I had fallen back and flicked my heels up. I kicked Quintus in the jaw. He howled in genuine pain as his jaw dislocated. I didn’t actually intend to hit him that hard, but that is just too bad for him.

I jogged over to my knife. When I reached it, I doubled over. I could barely draw a single breath. I would have to take it easy from now on. I must have dropped the knife when Quintus was having fun suffocating me. I grabbed the knife and started swinging it in circles. I only just noticed that the commentator had kept up a stream of chatter throughout the entire fight. He yelled that Quintus could appeal to the Emperor to save his life. Quintus raised one finger on his left hand. The Emperor spotted him and roared for silence. He looked at the audience. Quintus’s fate was in their hands. If they gave the thumbs up and waved their handkerchiefs, he would live. If they gave him thumbs down, he would die. I looked at them appealingly. I didn’t want Quintus to die. He was not a bad man. Sure, he nearly killed me, but that was my own stupid fault. He just had a couple of choking issues to sort out. One person noticed me. He nudged the next person. It spread like wildfire. In a matter of seconds, the audience had their thumbs up and they were waving their handkerchiefs. I felt a rush of gratitude towards them.

I walked over to Quintus, who was lying on the ground covered in dust, looking rather dazed. I gestured at the guards to give me a hand. I held out my hand to Quintus. He looked directly into my eyes and grasped my hand hesitantly. I gently pulled him to his feet and put his arm around my shoulders. Rolf and another guard came round to his other side. I could barely stand by that time. They half-carried Quintus over to the bench at the side of the Arena. I grabbed a damp cloth from the guard and wiped Quintus’s brow. Rolf yelled for the doctor to treat Quintus. The medic raced over with his bag. He told Quintus that they would have to relocate his jaw. The rest of the colour drained from his face. I smiled gently and went back to my quarters to have a rest and have my lung looked at.

The next morning, I bathed and darted up to the Arena’s hospital to check on Quintus. It sounded crazy, but I was actually concerned about the guy. After all, I hit him kind of hard. The medics obviously expected me as they weren’t the least bit surprised when I came charging through the door. One of them held up a hand to stem the flow of questions. He pointed in the direction of the door. I walked briskly inside the room. I saw Quintus lying on the bed, resting on pillows. He smiled when he saw me. He told me in stilted Latin that he was grateful that I did not kill him. I told him that he had given me the best fight of my life and it would have been a shame to end his life. I asked him how the relocation of his jaw went. He grinned maliciously and launched into an extremely descriptive recount of the relocation. My stomach was turning by the end of it. I admired his courage. I was about to tell him so, but he stopped me by saying that he’d fainted a third of the way through. I scowled at him and he laughed at my discomfort.

Over the next few weeks, I dropped in at regular intervals to see how Quintus was going. We became really good friends. We both agreed that the life of fighting in the Arena to entertain pompous children wasn’t for us. When we could get the privacy, we discussed what we could do if we weren’t at the Arena. After a few of our meetings, we decided that we would break out. It was Quintus who suggested it. For the past couple of years, I had wanted to escape; I had just never gotten around to it. We had to do a lot of planning. Most of the plan relied on sheer dumb luck. If the guards caught us, we were doomed. If it rained, we were doomed. If we ran out of food, you guessed it, we were doomed. We wanted to break out as soon as possible. I recommended that we left when Quintus could travel. My lung had healed the last week.

I secretly started gathering supplies. Rolf had given me the month off so I could be completely recovered. He didn’t have even the slightest inkling that I was perfectly capable of fighting off a couple of armies if I had to. I hoped it would remain that way. Two days later, Quintus was up and walking around the Arena. We planned to set off the following night as it was a new moon and we would be harder to see. Another good thing about being a slave is that we never had bright uniforms for fighting. We got dumped with black uniforms. Finally, they were going to come into handy for something. If we stuck to the shadows, this would be almost easy to pull off. Most of the guards would be in the hall stuffing their faces and Rolf would probably be doped up to the eyeballs by the time we were ready to go. He was ever so slightly obsessed about his wine and unlike every other normal person, he drank it straight. It would be the end of him one day.

By the time the sun had set, Quintus and I were ready to go. We crept along the Arena wall. I darted to the corner to check if the coast was clear. There was a solitary guard leaning lazily on the wall with a bottle of beer in his hand. Something didn’t look right. I slithered forward on my stomach to get a closer look. My suspicions proved correct. The twit had fallen asleep on the job. I doubt he would have a job much longer if he got caught. I gestured to Quintus to follow me. We walked from shadow to shadow until we reached the wall. Quintus was slightly taller than me so I gave him a boost so he could reach the top of the wall. He swung his leg over the top and reached down to grab my hand. His hand was really sweaty. As he was pulling me up the wall disaster struck. The sleeping guard snorted and woke up. He looked straight up at the wall, where I was hanging tediously. He yelled to raise the alarm. I moaned at Quintus to hurry up. With a grunt, he dragged me over the wall and then jumped down.

We ran for our lives. We sprinted over the bridge and leapt off the road so we would be harder to track. We kept running until we reached a cliff. We skidded to a halt at the edge. I looked around to find a way down. While Quintus looked on the other side, some wild men crept up on us. If they were a bit more careful where they put their feet, we never would have heard them. Luckily, the leader stepped on a branch, snapping it. Quintus and I drew our swords and spun to face them. Quintus wasn’t quite up to form and we were really outnumbered. We didn’t stand a chance. We held out for a surprisingly long time, but they got the better of us. I heard Quintus yell as he was hit over the head. The last thing I remembered was a fist coming towards my face.




Chapter 2

The Great Escape

I felt a gentle breeze tickle my nose. I groaned in annoyance. Why couldn’t they just let me sleep? It was really warm here. I opened one eye and immediately closed it again. A shaggy head was bending over me, grinning menacingly and breathing on me. That explained the breeze. I was shaken roughly. I opened both eyes reluctantly. A short man dragged me to my feet. I howled in pain as he yanked my shoulder. It must have been dislocated when I was captured. I’ll pay them back for that. He grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me over to a group of other people. Most of them were tightly bound. One was gagged and looked like he was drugged. His head was drooping onto his chest and he was very white.