Page 15 of Ironhold, Trial Four

His voice rings out around the arena.

“Stop! Step away from Lyra, Callus!”

Callus doesn't do it. He keeps standing there keeps trying to drain the essence from me.

“Step away or the arch magistrate will destroy you where you stand!” Lord Darius bellows.

For a moment I think that Callus might keep going anyway. I can see Selene rising, the power flowing around her.

She sends out a blast of power that hits both me and Callus, sending us both flying away from one another, the impact enough to send us both sprawling to the sands.

Lord Darius speaks once more, his voice demanding respect.

“This bout is at an end.”

CHAPTER TEN

Around me the crowd are going wild, I'm not in a good way. As far as they're concerned they've just been cheatedof my death, and many of them are unhappy about it. Some of them are throwing things down onto the sand. A piece of fruit hits me, and a stone lands near me.

A flare of magicbursts in the air, a reminder of just how powerfulthe arch magistrate is. She stands there, her white hair seeming to float around her, displaying her power for all to see.

It is enough to bring silence, if only for a few moments. In that silence I try to gather my strength. I feel exhausted, as if all the strength has been sapped from me. It is an effort just to stay standing, and I recover my spear, leaning on it, trying to get my breath back. My heart is beating as if I've just run a hundred times around one of the practice grounds, and there are pains in all of my joints, as if age has crept up on me in a matter of minutes.

Lady Selene starts to speak. “This gladiator, Callus, entered the gamesclaiming to be a null. The bouts he was assignedwere based on this. To lie about one's abilitiesis a form of cheating, which seeks to defraudthose of you who have bet against him, and which seeks an easier route through the games.”

Her tone is officious, but I can see the crowd starting to listen to her words. They do not like the thought that they have been cheated, that if they have put money on me, Callus’s lies have led to them getting worse odds on the match than they otherwise would. After all, no one thought that a null would be a challenge for me. If they had known that he could suck the life from someone with a touch, the bout would have been judged to be much more even. I can even see a few people starting to run for the bookmakers’ stalls, trying to get their money back.

I am lightheaded enough that it’s easier to focus on such considerationsthen on what has just happened to me. If I think too hard about what Callus has just done then I know that the terror of it will probably send me right back to my knees.

Guards are in the arena now, herding Callus away from me at the ends of their spears. After what they've just seen him do to me they clearly don't want to get close to him, and I don't blame them. I make sure that I’m as far from him as I can be, not wanting to risk him touching me again.

No one seems certain what's going to happen next. The penalties for interfering in the games are harsh. They are seen as a holy thing, so to try to suborn themcan carry the threat of execution. Not that it stops nobles and others from interfering in their own ways whenever they think they can get away with it. It has become a kind of game between them, trying to exert their influencewithin the gamesas a way of demonstrating their power, or attacking their rivals.

The arch magistrate stands there in the imperial box, looking as though she is ready to pronounce sentence on Callus. Then, though, another figure moves into place behind her. A murmur goes through the crowd. The emperor has returned.

Emperor Tiberius stands there, conferring with the arch magistrate, obviously learning what has happened. He looks down at me, then across to where Callus is being herded back towards the space beneath the colosseum. He nods, then whispers something to Lady Selene.

The arch magistrate looks puzzledas she glances over at him. She asks a question and he snaps something back, his expression severe. Lady Selene nods, then returns her attention to the crowd.

“The emperor is gracious,” she says. “The law requiresat the very least thata gladiator who has cheated like thisshould be cast out the games. Perhaps that he should be executed for it.Instead, our most merciful emperorhas declared that he is to be given another chance!”

The crowd seems to react uneasily to this move, cheering but without any enthusiasm, as if knowing it is their duty to do so when the emperor gives commands.

“The gladiator Lyra is hereby declared the winner of this bout,” Lady Selene says. That placates many of them, because far more will have bet on me than on Callus. “And now that we knowwhat the gladiator Callus can do. He will be assigned appropriate opponentsin the remainder of the games.”

There's a threat in her voice as she says that. It's clear that she doesn't plan togive him an easy route through the games, after what he's done, and I can see that Lord Darius agrees.

I remember that I'm supposed to raise my spear in salute to the crowd, and I just about manage it although I'm still unsteady on my feet. I have to use the spear as a crutch to limp off the sand, back into the cool and darkness of the space beneath the colosseum. Should I make my way to the healers’slabs.I don't have any wounds, but maybe they will be able to do something to undo what Callus has done.

Even as I think about it though, imperial guards come to collect me. That means only one thing.

“The emperor wishes to see you,” one says.

I nod, leaving behind my weapons and walking between them up through the arena. I feel so tired that one of them relents and lends me his arm to lean onas we go. They take me to the emperor's private box, where Emperor Tiberius VI is waiting for me, seated on his throne. I don't so much fall to my knees as collapse to them before him.

“A dangerous and difficult fight,” the emperor says. “How do you feel?”

I think it's the first time he's asked me how I'm feeling, although I know it's not out of normal human concern. It's morethe way that a trainer would make sure that a prized chariot horsewas up to the next race.

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