Page 3 of Ironhold, Trial Two

He's at close range now, tripping me to the floor, landing on top of me in the dirt. He's just inches away from me, the feel of his muscles pressed against me hard to ignore. He lingers there, the moment seeming to extend between us.

“How is it that every bout you have ends like this?” Zara demands from the side. “Get a room you two.”

That's enough to make Rowan get up. The truth is that we've been so cautious with one another in the time since the end of the first season at the Colosseum. We have kissed, we have been close, but that is it. I have been told that any entanglement might be used against me, and it is obvious that Rowan has scars fromhis time as the plaything of a noble woman that run much deeper than the silvery one on his face. And Rowan hasn’t pushed. He’s waited for me to be ready and… and I get the feeling he’s hanging back for other reasons, too.

I get up, disappointed both at my loss and that itdidn’tgo further. “Rowan is just a better fighter than I am.”

“That's only true because you aren't willing to hurt me,” Rowan says. “And because your powers aren't good for practice bouts. You can't exactly summon a shadow cat here.”

In my last fight in the Colosseum, I called such a beast to my side, a great predator from one of the jungles on the fringes of the Aetherian Empire, brought to the arena to fight and die. They have the ability to step from one shadow to another without crossing the intervening space, as easily as slinking along forest paths. It mortally wounded one of my foes and seriously injured another. Just the memory of it makes me wince.

“Maybe that's just as well,” Zara says. “Although it does leave you vulnerable.”

There is a pitcher of water near the side of the pit for us to cool off. She makes some of that water jump up out of it, splashing over me and Rowan, both as a reminder that we should be practicing rather than getting close to one another and as a way of showing off her own abilities. The water glistens from Rowan’s muscles as it falls, a little too neatly, suggesting that Zara is making it happen, just to taunt me a little. I have seen her drown someone in the middle of the dry sands of the Colosseum, wrapping a bubble of water around his head until he collapsed.

This is a brutal world that we are forced to be a part of.

We have no choice. We are contained within the fortress of Ironhold, its walls ringed by soldiers, the whole place designed to keep us in rather than the world out. If we refuse to train, refuse to hurt others, we are punished. There are iron spikes onthe walls to threaten the ultimate price of rebellion. At least one skeleton hangs on them, long since picked clean by crows.

I am still staring that way when Naia comes running up to us.

“Have you heard the news?” She calls. She is shorter than me and dark-haired, her hair shaved on one side and long on the other. As with the rest of us she was brought here against her will and has survived her first season in the Colosseum. She has spent much of her time between the games working in the infirmary of Ironhold. Where I was taught how to stitch wounds and heal them with poultices, her talent lets her heal them with a touch. Aetheria prizes such talents, but not enough to let her avoid battle. In the arena, she heals her own wounds, able to charge through anything that does not kill her outright.

“What news?” I ask. Worry instantly thrums through me, fear that Lord Darius might have come up with some brutal new training regime or might have decided to throw us all into additional bouts. He is relentless in pushing us. He seems to feel that if he forces us into the fire, we will come out hardened and ready for battle like a fresh blade. He doesn't seem to care how many break or are killed in the process. He seems to truly believe in the Colosseum as a holy place, where gladiators shed their blood for the glory of Aetheria. Along with Lady Selene, he picks out the bouts that will be most entertaining.

“There's a new intake of gladiators,” Naia says. “Well… hopefuls still, I guess. Come on, they’re just arriving. You won't want to miss it.”

I can’t share her excitement at the prospect, even if it is the first thing to truly change in Ironhold for several months now. I can still remember my own first day in Ironhold, being put through brutal exercises. Do I want to watch that happening to others? But Rowan, Zara and Naia are already moving off in the direction of the main area in front of the gates. I decide to follow them. I am as curious as they are in my own way. We are cutoff from much of the world here in the fortress, getting news secondhand at best. Some of the free gladiators seem to know more because they have contacts in Aetheria. A few even seem to be able to step beyond Ironhold, although I do not understand how.

Any change, any connection to the outside world, is something we cannot miss. So I go with the others, walking along the twists and turns of the fortress, passing by the baths and the rooms for training, the punishment rooms and the places devoted to the great gladiators of the past. It is a warren made from granite and filled with flickering torches, the threat of violence always there.

We come out into the stands of one of the main practice areas, a vast, sandy arena complete with obstacles and rocks to lift. There are wooden posts on which to practice striking with weapons, and there are racks of training gear.

There are also almost twenty men and women standing in chains, with Lord Darius Blackthorn assessing them the way a farmer might judge the strength and quality of cattle. He is a middle-aged man, his dark hair starting to grey, his body still powerful, reflecting the strength that he built as a gladiator. There is steel in his gaze as it falls on each of them.

In the stands, many of the existing gladiators are gathered, staring at the newcomers, trying to guess which will make it, and which will be rejected, sent to the slave blocks of the city to be sold on. I do not know whether to hope that these people will make it into Ironhold, because that represents their best chance of freedom, or to hope that they do not, because I know how deadly the Colosseum can be, how likely they are to lose their lives in its confines.

Chapter Two

I watch the would-be gladiators try, and I watch them fail. Some fall at the first test, the running designed to sap their endurance beneath the harsh sun. I know they will have walked here from wherever they were taken. They will have spent days being urged on with the lash, given only water and bread. They will already be exhausted. This is not about how fit they are or how strong, but simply about their determination.

Some of them collapse on the sand. Those are dragged to the side by soldiers. They are the ones who will be taken from Ironhold when this is done. The soldiers look on almost mockingly. It makes me hate them even more. I know what it is like to be where the prisoners are, to be made to run and work.

They are forced to do exercises now, lifting stones, striking the posts with wooden weapons, climbing over obstacles again and again. The same things we do in training each morning to make us tougher, but these prisoners do not have our months of practice behind them. I can see some of the other gladiators there around them, some urging them on, others telling them that they are certain to fail. I see Vex, blonde haired and arrogant, noble robes over the top of his training gear, telling the recruits that they have no chance, pushing them, bullying them.

I can see one dark-haired young woman who looks too small and weak to be there, struggling with the rocks. I go to her.

“Keep going,” I say. “I know this is hard, but this is a test of determination, not of strength or skill. The only way you fail is if you give in.”

“And if I succeed I get to die in the colosseum,” she says, but she does not stop.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Cesca.”

“Well, Cesca, if you survive for five seasons, you are free,” I point out. “But if you fail here, you will be dragged off and sold. You mightneverbe free, and your fate… it could be a lot worse than even a quick death on the sands. You must keep going.”

I see her nod, her face set in fresh determination. I hope I have done the right thing by talking to her. She keeps moving, keeps working. I can see some of the others dropping out. This is going to be a long day, filled with the desperate disappointment of failure, and the realization that succeeding leads only to more work and pain.

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