Arena Shifters (A Paranormal Romance Novel) (5 page)

The man who grabbed the older
Gladiatrix sword arm had help almost instantly. Someone had taken a thick scarf
and wrapped in around the warriors neck and a man and a woman were pulling it
back over the retaining wall. Her face was turning red, then purple as she
struggled to breathe and break free from her captors. She’d almost gotten her
sword arm free when she felt the bite of a dagger on the inside of her arm.
Blood fountained out bathing her and her captors in the hot liquid. Petronia
almost laughed. She could probably walk away right there and do nothing and the
delirious crowd would do everything for her. But gladiator tenant would not let
her to that so she lunged forward with her dagger, and slid it between the
second and third rib on her left side. Her heart inside her chest literally
exploded inside her chest wall. The woman’s eyes went wide with shock, then the
light went out and she was dead. The crowd, arriving at the same conclusion,
let the dead warrior fall to the sand and began celebrate with wild abandoned.
With a flourish, Petronia, using her leg swept the woman’s legs out from under
her limp frame and spilling the woman on the sandy floor. Just then, and
enterprising young man took the opportunity to relieve himself on the fallen
Gladiatrix.

Petronia surprised herself by
turning away in disgust; what did she care, the woman was dead now. Still, she
had this picture of the same thing happening to her one day when someone got
the drop on her. No, the woman should still die with dignity. Angrily she
shooed the man away, along with the others, who inspired by the young man, were
preparing to do the same thing. Petronia bent over, retrieved her gladius and
waived it dangerously close to several of the most raucous of the crowd; that
did the trick.

About that time the Lanista’s
personal guards came out to bring her back to the Ludis. The agony of her
shattered wrist was just coming home to roost. She had survived one more day
and the best that the arena could throw at her.

* * * * *

CHAPTER FIVE:

The Fox and The Hound

* * * * *

“Hush child!” Petronia hissed
as loudly as she dared. It was almost a certainty that there were more slaves
around searching for them.

“I’m not a child!” He hissed
back, petulantly. “I’m nearly an adult. If I was but a little older I could
have you and-“

Petronia pressed her hand
over his mouth as hard as she dared, knowing full well that any liberties taken
with the boy out here would have to be reckoned with later back in the safety
of the Villa. But the nerve of the boy, thinking about sex and asserting his
authority over her when their very lives were at stake. The very thought of
intimacy with him made her stomach crawl.

“If you keep that up,” she
began, “they’ll hear you.” By the look on his face, he clearly didn’t believe
her.

“They’re long gone! I don’t
care where you go, but I’m going this way,” he said, pointing to a random
direction which just happened to be the direction they’d last heard their
pursuers. “I’m hungry, I’m thirsty and I hate this place!”

At the present time they were
crouched under a small outcropping of rock in a forest that Petronia had never
been in before. His direction may be the right one, but she had no idea. All
she wanted to do was get out of there in one piece and with a talkative kid who
breathed as loud as an elephant, it didn’t seem too likely. Unfortunately for
the time of the year, there was no foliage on the ground to speak of, and the
surrounding trees were bare. It wasn’t much better than trying to hide in
desert. If someone just happened to look in the right direction they would see
the boy’s bright robes from a mile away.

When Dominus had given her
this assignment she was happy at first. Here was her chance to see the country
around her and get familiar with where they were should she ever be able to
escape. Her happiness quickly turned sour when she was informed that she would
not be one of the gladiators in the guard detail, but she would be staying in
the coach with Dominus’ 12 year old son, Lucius. The other gladiators had
amused themselves by referring to her as his wet nurse. She was going to go all
the way to Rome an back playing nursemaid to the boy and the thought of it was
almost more than she could bear.

Trouble began on the second
day of the trip when they had apparently happened upon a group of Roman
citizens who had had a run into with some escaped slaves. They had of course
stopped to render aid to the wounded. Turns out, there were no wounded, and the
people they had actually encountered were the escaped slaves. Petronia
remembered how her nightmare all began.

* * *

Two Days Earlier…

* * *

One of the Dominus’ personal
body guards stuck his head in through the window flap of the carriage. “We’ll
be stopped here for a few minutes while we tend to the wounded and set up a
detail to take them back to town.”

He was of course speaking to
the boy Lucius and not a lowly female slave.

A few minutes later Petronia
thought she heard the unmistakable sound of metal on metal, but she couldn’t be
sure. Perhaps the slaves had returned to finish what they had started. She was
just about to do the unthinkable and leave the carriage to see what was going
on when the flap opened again and in popped the head of the guard who’d spoken
to them not 5 minutes ago. Trouble was, it was only his head.

Lucius screamed so loudly her
ears vibrated painfully. So much for keeping a low profile. All hell broke
loose.

The carriage door burst
asunder and a burly dark skinned Moor reached in for the boy. That was a
mistake he’d not soon repeat. The moment Petronia had heard the strange sounds
she’d unsheathed her dagger that she kept strapped to her thigh. The instant
the Moor reached out to the boy she lashed out, catching the man’s arm just
beneath the elbow, severing the muscles and tendons along the inside of his
arm. He would likely never wield a weapon with that hand again; assuming he survived
the encounter. The man yanked back his arm like he’d just been stung by a bee;
a very large bee. As he moved to grab a dagger with his good hand Petronia
slashed the man across his neck, opening him up from ear to ear. The fountain
of blood carved a red swath across Petronia’s face. She could taste the coppery
salty taste of the fluid in her mouth. One day she would learn to keep her
mouth closed. She turned to see how the boy was faring. He was staring at the
dead guard, eyes large as saucers. He was shaking his head back and forth,
making no attempt to wipe the soldier’s blood from his own face.

Petronia grabbed a pillow
case from a nearby pillow and used it to get a majority of the blood wiped off
both the boy’s face and hers. Dominus’ guards must have been giving a good
account of themselves because no one else came to investigate the carriage; yet
anyway. Once the battle was over, the carriage and whatever, whoever was in it
would be of prime interest. It was time to leave.

She looked around for
anything useful to take with them. There were two leather flasks, one wine and
the other probably water for the boy. She took them. There was also a small
pack that was packed with rations for the road should they not be somewhere
where it was safe to cook. She took those as well. As for weapons, she took her
own dagger (she was permitted to carry it only when on guard detail) and the
shorter of the two swords the escaped slave was carrying. It was another
gladius.

“What are you doing?” Asked
the terrified boy.

“Leaving…and so are you.”

The sounds of battle were
getting closer and closer and the occasional whoop of victory was sprinkled in
with sounds of men dying. Time to leave now! She grabbed the boy’s wrist and
yanked him to his feet as she leaned forward and peaked out around the side of
their carriage. There were groups of men, two to three at a time, surrounding
the last of Dominus’ personal guards that were still alive and had not run off
to safety. No one was looking she looked at the boy and mouthed the word, run.
Without waiting for a response she just took off sprinting for the tree line,
the boy in tow. Fortunately he wasn’t resisting. At 12 years of age he was
nearly as tall as her and strong for his age. The escape wasn’t going to work
unless he was a willing participant. She didn’t think anyone saw them leave the
carriage, but it wouldn’t take long before a search party was sent out after
them. The quieter the sounds of battle behind them were, the more hope she
permitted herself. Maybe they were going to get out this after all. Of course,
she had no way of knowing where they were and just how many marauding slaves
there were in the forest that would be searching for her and the boy. Petronia
knew what the smart thing to do was, but she couldn’t bring herself to even
think about killing the boy and making a run for freedom on her own. No, thanks
to twisted sense of loyalty to the House of Tiberius, and a soft spot in her
heart, she would not permit herself to do anything other than try to bring the
boy back home to his father.

For the tenth time he started
to get up, but she was able to grab the bottom of his tunic and pull him back
down beside her, and only just in time. Two of the slaves that had attacked
their caravan two days ago had just come up over a rise and were heading right
towards their position. From the brief flash that she had been able to see as
she pulled the boy down to safety told her several things. They were tired,
probably lost, by the way they were looking around bewildered. They probably
had given the search and were just trying to find their comrades. Problem was,
they were going right straight towards them and in about 60 seconds they’d be
upon her.

On sudden inspiration she
grabbed a rock and hurled it through the trees and away from where they were
lying. Unfortunately it hit a branch not 5 feet in front of them and fell down
just a few feet from her. She couldn’t see them but she could hear their
approaching footsteps. She didn’t dare rise up and look to see how far away
they were. They’d spot her for sure. Instead she gripped her sword in one hand,
while the other still clutched the boy’s tunic. She looked over at him. He was
staring at her, terrified. She tried to give her a comforting look but it
didn’t work. It also didn’t help that at that very instant one of the slaves
jumped down from the ledge they were hiding under. The fight was on!

Letting go of the boy’s tunic
she lunged forward, slashing at the man’s unprotected knees. Had the man
actually thought she would crawl out of their burrow first and maybe announce
herself before attacking? She was like a trapped scorpion in a cage. Get too
close and her tail was going to lash out and sting you. The stung slave buckled
at the knees, both hands going to the ground to break his fall. That garnered
him a second sting, this time to both arms. Her blade glanced off his protected
sword arm and sliced into his unprotected left arm. That’ll teach him to wear
greaves on only one arm. The man’s face hit the mud just as Petronia was
bounding out of their lair. The surprise was lost; the other man would be
prepared. No way was she going to sit there while he figured a way to smoke her
out of the fox hole. She dove out and rolled in a summersault coming up on both
feet, right in front of the other slave. Almost before she could bring her
sword up, he was slashing at her neck. The deflected blade nearly scalped her.
She wasn’t quite fast enough for his back slash and she received a nasty cut
across her right shoulder. She didn’t even feel the pain of it at first. She
just felt her warm sticky blood sluicing down her arm. That was going to make
holding onto her blade tricky.

The man began to press his
advantage. He was strong and her sword arm was taking a beating as she blocked
each strike with the thick blade of the other slave’s short sword. A lesser
weapon would have shattered by now. She may have youth on her side, but the man
was strong and persistent. There was only one way this fight was going to go.
She was going to get too tired and make a mistake that would cost her, her life
and that of the boy’s unless she thought of something quick.

The slave’s next slash just
about knocked the weapon from her hand, so she ducked under the next strike to
give her time to switch the sword to her left hand. As she narrowly sidestepped
a kick aimed at her chest to knock her down she realized she was afraid. An odd
feeling for an experienced gladiatrix; but it was there, the feeling of fear.

Suddenly an object struck the
slave in the face, bouncing off and rolling between Petronia’s outstretched
feet. Someone…no, the boy, had thrown a rock at the slave. It took him maybe
too seconds to recover from the unexpected blow, and it was one second too
long. Petronia immediately thrust her blade straight into the man’s chest,
right where the ribs connect to the bottom of the sternum. A straight thrust
right there would sever the aorta and death would be nearly instantaneous. The
man looked down at Petronia for a second, not seeming to understood what had
just happened. He was dead from internal bleeding before he had been able to
put two and two together.

Petronia collapsed on the
ground exhausted. She was so tired she almost forgot to make sure the other
slave was dead; he was, having bled out from his severed left arm. She looked
up at the boy who was standing there looking at the dead slaves. He wasn’t
saying a word; just looking.