6 Chapter 6

Three days had passed since her warning from Vulpes, but her plan to lie low decimated when two Praetorians came to retrieve her.

"I don't understand!" she said, kicking at her escorts as they pulled her along. "What's going on?"

"You're being summoned to the arena. You've been challenged for a fight."

She was hauled to the arena, fashioned much like for the ancient Roman, gladiatorial fights. They tossed her inside, and she rolled through the dust. Another slave, a man, came barreling after her, wielding a machete. She scrambled to her feet, picking up her own machete they had thrown in after her. She managed to lift the blade in time to fend off his first strike.

She stumbled backward, and he staggered toward her.

"What are you doing?"

"They told me that if I killed you, I could win my freedom," he explained, panting. He screamed, hurtling toward her again. She narrowly dodged out of the way, her head buzzing with fatigue. She certainly felt like she had been giving up half her rations.

She looked around at the spectators, all manner of Legion and officer alike. Caesar even watched from near his tent, looking down on the arena. Among the officers, she saw Vulpes Inculta, and something in her chest twitched. She drilled her attention to her attacker, who began charging for her again.

"Stop!" she tried pleading to him. "I don't want to hurt you!"

The man scoffed, a guttural sound that rumbled through his teeth like spittle. "As if a woman could hurt me."

She dodged some more attacks before trying to appeal to his logic. "They're not going to free you, even if you do kill me."

"There's only one way to find out."

He charged her again, this time nicking her arm. She gritted her teeth against the pain, and turned to meet him again. She didn't want to kill him, especially since he had been enslaved like her. But it was becoming increasingly apparent that he left her little choice.

She ducked at his next swing, turning to slice his Achilles heel. The man howled in pain and crashed to the ground, still flailing his weapon about. His blade caught her calf, and she joined him on the ground.

He began to drag himself across the dirt toward her, wildly waving his machete. She raised hers in time to meet his before it could rake her face. But he pushed with all his might against her.

She reached up and tore into his fingers with her teeth. Her mouth filled with blood, and he fell back, howling. She realized rather belatedly that she had managed to sever one of his fingers.

Before he could reach for his fallen weapon, she shoved hers into his throat, quieting his screams and stilling his movements.

There was a pregnant pause.

She spit up the blood in her mouth and saw how it pooled on the ground and swirled with the dust. She was panting, her hands shaking. The cut on her arm was nothing. The wound on her calf hurt like nothing else.

She realized there was silence, because no one was cheering for a woman victor. They all stared at her, aghast. She climbed to her feet, looking Caesar in the eye. "Where is my freedom?" she demanded.

He looked down at her smoothly. "The offer was made to him, not you." Then Caesar turned and left, offering no further attention to her victory, along with the rest of the spectators.

Vulpes Inculta lingered, and there was something like a smirk glinting in his eyes. They were still staring at each other when the Praetorian guard came to collect the weapons. As soon as she looked away and back again, Vulpes was gone.

She was alone with the corpse of her challenger, who had thought his freedom would be easily won by conquering a mere woman. She looked at the blood on her hands, feeling her leg throb. The blood trailed down her face, coating her neck and slave rags. When she limped away, she headed straight for the river to wash herself.

Her movements were shaky, not from exhaustion although that certainly contributed, but she was suddenly nervous. Her fight in the arena would not be ignored, perhaps considered as an affront to the male sex. After trying all this time to be unnoticed, she had done a lot to draw attention to herself. It wouldn't be long before prowling men came looking for her, and her heart hammered at the thought.

She kept her hair loose as she made her way back through the camp. But perhaps that was a mistake itself. Long hair seemed to be a rare commodity among the slave women. She slept beside Carla that night, hoping Baby Craig's cries would be a deterrent to any potential rapists. None came. Even so, she couldn't sleep, and spent most of the night picking at the dried blood on her fingernails and thinking of Vulpes Inculta's face as it sent shivers down her spine.

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