Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [102]
“What’s the problem, Traulander?” he demanded. “Your religion getting in the way?”
“No, master,” Caelan said quietly. He kept his gaze on the ground to hide his shame and frustration.
“Why won’t Traulanders fight?” Orlo asked.
Caelan clenched his fists. “I want to fight,” he said.
“You don’t act like it. I could whip you bloody and it wouldn’t help.”
“No, master,” Caelan agreed miserably. His plan was dying in his heart.
“Perhaps you’re trying too hard. Relax, you fool, and let it come naturally. The weapon is caressed, not throttled. Settle the hilt in your palm the way you would your woman’s breast. Eh? Make sense to you?”
Caelan’s face flamed, and he shifted his feet. Orlo knew how few women entered the life of a slave, if any. Hut whether advice or a taunt, what he said did make sense.
Orlo sighed and slid the club into his belt. “Assume stance.”
Astonishment filling him, Caelan obeyed quickly. He couldn’t believe his luck at this special attention, but he knew better than to spoil it with hesitation.
“Flex your knees more,” Orlo instructed. “Keep your back straight but loose. Pay attention! Feel how tense you are. You must be a reed, swaying always, never still, never locked up. Lunge!”
Caelan sprang forward, and Orlo skipped out of the way just in time.
“Not too bad,” he said, “for a lumbering ox. Imagine you are standing on a pane of glass. Do you know what glass is, Traulander?”
“Yes, master.”
“Well, well, perhaps you’re more civilized than I thought. Don’t pound your feet. You’re dancing on glass, livery footstep must be light. You are a reed, swaying, always moving. Lunge!”
And on it went, for the rest of the afternoon. By the time he finished, Caelan was dragging with exhaustion but heartened. The next morning, however, when he was assigned a veteran partner for practice bouts, the moment he drew a work sword from the rack he dropped it.
“Hail the loser!” jeered his opponent.
Face aflame, Caelan bent and picked up the narrow strip of blunt metal. The balance was clumsy. Try as he might, he couldn’t even imagine it as a real sword. They were forbidden actual weapons until they entered the arena. Sometimes he felt that if he could practice with the real thing, he might do better. But he might as well wish to walk the surface of the moon.
Many years before, in the previous century, it was said gladiators practiced with real weapons and as many died from sparring as in the ring. But there had been an uprising, with the trainers and guards all massacred. Gladiators had escaped the compound and run amok in the city, raping and pillaging until the army was called out to stop them. Even then, some of them had escaped into the countryside, never to be found. The others were rounded up and executed. Their heads had rotted on the walls of the city for weeks.
Thereafter had come the arena reforms. Haggai—whatever they were—had been brought to live in the catacombs beneath the arena. Weapons were taken away altogether and not put into the hand of a fighter until he was actually secured in the ring. Guards were retrained to a new standard of vigilance. Any sign of rebellion or unrest was punished swiftly with death. The veterans were kept separated from the new trainees, except during supervised practice bouts. And even the veterans were rotated among the barracks on a frequent basis, to keep friendships from forming.
Not that many men grew close, especially knowing everyone was a potential opponent during season. With all fights to the death, it was smarter to keep comradeship to a minimum. Trainees who didn’t heed that piece of advice died quickly in the ring, eyes wide and astonishment frozen on their faces as the sword thrust through their guts.
Like the trainers who expected Caelan to fail, all the other fighters believed it too. They taunted him at every opportunity. Brawling was forbidden, so Caelan had to grit his teeth and take it. Hut every day he worked harder and harder, driving himself more than the trainers did. At night, he lay on his