Again, the sword came down on the shield, bending it in at the center. He hoped the gladiator would not notice his fingers and lop them off. The sword struck again. A central blow that drove Xander backward, onto his butt. His legs were unprotected now, and one more blow would pitch him onto his back. The tip of the sword scraped the shield as the man lifted it out of the crease he had made.
Xander released one hand from the shield. He put all his strength into swinging it around, aiming at the gladiator’s knees.
The gladiator was no fool.
Obviously accustomed to last-ditch efforts at survival, he reeled back. The shield missed its mark. Xander lost his grip and it sailed away.
Even before the gladiator had started moving away from it, Xander had grabbed his sword and slipped a foot under himself. By the time the shield left his hand, he was already leaping forward. The tip of the blade trailed the shield’s trajectory by no more than a second. It was extended farther than the shield, thanks to Xander’s forward momentum. It clipped the gladiator’s left shin and then his right. Little bleeding mouths opened up under both knees.
The man howled and staggered back. He did not fall. He bowed to examine his wounds. Probably, Xander thought, if the man lost a leg, he would pick it up and beat his opponent with it.
Xander saw his strike had caused little damage. He pushed himself up and again ran. There was no shame in it. He was there to survive, not honor Caesar or this barbarian game or even himself. Since he was learning about combat and weapons literally on the run, hightailing it was a strategy, not an act of cowardice.
He pulled up to catch his breath. Before he could turn, he heard the gladiator’s footsteps, like the crunching of cereal between molars. He spun, swinging his sword in time to deflect his opponent’s blade. Sparks snapped between them. The man leaned in, howling in rage. Rancid breath filled Xander’s nostrils. The man’s eyes were black, hateful.
Xander caught movement beneath him. The gladiator was reaching beneath their sword arms. His hand grabbed at Xander’s torso, much the way David’s had done not so long ago, but so very far away. This time, however, Xander’s skin was slick with sweat. The man’s fingers could not get a grip. Xander pulled his sword back. It came off the gladiator’s weapon and dropped onto the top of his forearm. It sliced a deep groove into the man’s flesh. Xander continued the movement of his hand until his sword was positioned over his head, ready to bring it down.
Xander knew the gladiator’s entire life had been about surviving in battle. He would not be defeated so easily. Xander caught a flash of the man’s sword as it swung up. If nothing changed, it would catch Xander below the ribcage and angle diagonally through his chest to his heart. Abandoning the possibility of victory, as close as the lashing down of his hand, Xander pitched himself sideways. He somersaulted, was up, scurrying away again.
That image of his heart impaled on the gladiator’s blade made him sick and dizzy. It did not stoke the fire of determination. Rather, an overwhelming sense of defeat washed over him. It occurred to him this was how battles were won and lost. They were not always the result of superior skill and stamina. Close calls, images of impending death, and the lack of opportunities were just as instrumental in putting combatants in the ground. Xander suspected that with experience, a fighter became accustomed to these little defeats; so he would reach the point of giving up much later than Xander would.
Giving up? No, he was not there yet. He did, however, doubt his chances of getting out of this alive. After all, he was a fifteen-year-old boy, living a relatively cushy life by most standards. His opponent had lived a brutal life in a brutal world—he was a shark: Xander nothing but a minnow.
But even minnows wanted to live.
The gladiator huffed toward him. If the nicks Xander had inflicted to the man’s shins had enraged him, the slice to his arm and perhaps Xander’s escape had sent him into a stratosphere of maniacal hatred. Despite his wounds, the man moved faster. His sword sliced the air before him, this way and that.
In seventh grade, Xander had fought a kid who was smaller than he was. Xander hadn’t wanted a showdown, couldn’t even remember what had ticked the kid off. He’d easily parried some blows. Finally, to end it, he gave the boy a hard knock on the side of his head. Instead of admitting defeat, the kid had come at him with wild disregard for anything except pummeling Xander. Xander had discovered that pin-wheeling arms were nearly impossible to stop. They just kept coming like a lumber mill’s saw, and you were the tree.
The gladiator was coming at him like that. With swords, though, instead of scrawny seventh-grader fists.
The blades moved so fast they left gleaming arcs in the air that appeared solid to Xander. He could hear them now, hissing through the air like the mace never had. Rage may have pushed the gladiator into this mulcher mentality, but he had not lost any dexterity in reaching it. The blades whirled in perfect opposition to each other. One coming up as the other came down. They crossed in front of the man and never so much as grazed each other.
Xander backed away. He made feeble slashes at the approaching Pinwheel of Death. Xander wondered how, at a time like this, he could name the instrument of his own demise like that. Definitely too many movies. Too many movie posters and trailers, with their catchphrases and taglines.
“Stop!” he yelled. “This isn’t fair.” He continued moving backward, keeping ten feet between him and the whirling blades. He stepped on something, twisted his ankle, almost fell. He steadied himself, lifted his leg higher, and stepped back. He had almost tripped over another body. He didn’t want to see it; he’d join its former owner soon enough.
The gladiator continued after him. That nasty sneer never left his face. He could have moved in for the kill at any time. Xander thought this drawn-out prelude to his dissection was orchestrated. The gladiator was as much a performer as warrior. Xander hoped his body parts would not teleport back to the house. It was bad enough to die this way. Torturing his family with evidence of it was cosmically cruel. If his parts did make it home, would it be David who discovered them? Would they splash down at his feet back in the little room? True, it would keep his kid brother from making Xander’s mistake, but could you ever recover from seeing something like that?
Xander was backing toward a wall. Soon, the only thing left for the gladiator to do was end this performance. Xander swung his sword again and again. If nothing else, he would go out fighting.
When he could reverse no farther, he screamed, another unintelligible representation of his anguish. Then, the sound formed into words—defiant, angry last words: “Come on, you fat pig! Do it!”
The blades whirled. His own weapon clashed against them. Chang! Chang! His wrist snapped one way, then the other as the blades battered his sword. For a moment, he wondered if he should pull his arm in so that the first hot cut would be the last he knew. Otherwise, he would watch his hand go first, then his arm, fed slowly into the ancient Roman version of a blender.
Something rumbled. The sounds of the crowd were returning to him. Their feet stomped in anticipation. As his right hand swung the sword, his left counterbalanced the weight. Held out from his side and back just a little, his fingers pressed the hewn stone of the arena wall.
The spinning blades ripped his sword from his grip. It flipped away. Something clamped around his left wrist. He was yanked into the wall, then through the threshold of one of the big wooden doors. He plunged into shadow, as the door rumbled closed. A latch snapped shut. From the other side, swords thunked against the wood.
Hands grabbed his shoulders, breath—not rancid, but smelling of toothpaste—blew over him.
“Are you all right?” someone screamed.
His legs felt weak. Emotion, like adrenaline, hit his heart, rushed into his face. He said, “Dad?”
“It’s okay, Son. Hold on.”