In His Arena 1: Slave Eternal Read Online Free PDF

fortunate. Every movement depleted a little more of his strength, each step on the sands leeching his energies. But the heat was the least of his worries. If he did not procure a weapon… He gave his shortspear a cursory glance. The warrior nearest it—a secutor whose visored helm gleamed with the wetness of red oxide—put a foot on it. For all his bulk, he was lithe and quick. A gladius glinted behind his rectangular shield. He would use his speed.
    From over the top of his tower shield, Hektor returned the smile, but it was more a baring of teeth than a grin. He had fought hard to become the primus palus. He would not fall so easily.
    He feinted forward as though to charge in for his weapon.
    His sudden movement broke the secutor’s balance. The man misjudged, thrusting too soon. Neatly, Hektor stepped in, daring his opponent’s blows. The gladius rang once, twice off the bronze of Hektor’s shield. Another step in. The secutor’s retreat was not hasty enough. Hektor thrust down with the shield, crushing his opponent’s bare foot, and then smashed the rim into his face.
    The shattering of bones and teeth was loud—the amphitheatre specifically designed so every moan, every scream, ever crunch of bone and snap of sinew reverberated. The masses shrieked approval as the secutor fell into the dust, his face a scarlet ruin as he choked to death on his own blood.
    Hektor spared a glance high to the ruling House of Zaerus, to the balcony where the Empress sat amid billowing white curtains, a dozen servants and sycophants crowded about to do her bidding. At this distance he could not make out her features, only her coloring—the glint of sun on her pale, perfect skin, the deep chestnut-brown of her hair, and a flash of jade-green eyes.
    In ten years, she has not aged a day. In all her beauty, how he loathed her. Sorcerous witch. Men murdered each other for her amusement. As show of her power.
    The four other gladiators circled, the death throes of their fifth stealing some of their bravado and setting their postures in grim lines. Hektor was thankful for the great crested helms that hid their faces. These men were his comrades, his brothers-in-arms. They all knew when they entered the arena that their lives were forfeit. They came here to die, and death connected them.
    Hektor would honor the bravery of these men as he did all others who opposed him. By sending them to the Doomsayer’s Abyss.
    His gaze flicked from his fallen shortspear to each of the men who sought his death.
    After nearly six years in the Empress’s Theatre, he knew it only took one wrong move—a wrong step or wrong twist—and it would be his life pumping out in the sand.
    Such was the fate of a slave born to the gladiator pits of Arena, the Land of the Desert Kings.
    A flash of steel on his left stole his attention. He jerked toward it, raising his shield. Too late, he realized the ploy, saw the feint, and felt the real attack winging in from the right. A glimpse of the retiarius gladiator, and then the impact of the net staggered Hektor, the weights slapping around the sides of his shield, wrapping up his left arm and shoulder.
    Pinned, his shield was useless, a block of wood and bronze he could no longer maneuver. The retiarius leaped, jabbing forward with the trident. Hektor danced back, heaving up with the fouled shield, desperate for any kind of protection at all—the difference between survival and a bloody death.
    The trident caught the rim, and the retiarius twisted. The weapon shrieked off Hektor’s shield and stabbed over it. Pain pierced his shoulder, the prongs digging in. He cried out as the retiarius dragged back on him, using prongs and net to pull him off-balance.
    From either side came the three others—myrmidons all, muscles sleek and bulging, their crests garish atop their graven helms. Their weapons, exotic and unique to each of them, seemed to carve the sunlight into dazzling rays. They specialized in leaving a man alive as