“It was a fair fight,” he tried. “You all saw it.”
The centurions continued their steady approach, wariness curling their spines. They had Geoxus’s blessing to use lethal force, but Madoc made them nervous. Any fighter who could take down Fentus was to be approached with caution.
“Leave him alone!” shouted a woman from the edge. A rock slapped against the nearest solder’s breastplate with a ping. “You want to arrest someone, arrest that crook Petros!”
The soldier spun toward the edge of the crowd, but the woman was nowhere to be seen.
From the opposite side came another rock, then another. Soon shouts were rising into the night. Some came to Madoc’s defense, others to Fentus’s. Guilt panged through Madoc. Half these people were counting on tonight’s winnings to feed their families or cover their debts. The bookmaker’s shrill call for order was brushed aside as a fight broke out to Madoc’s left.
That was his cue to run.
He sprinted into the crowd, gravel flying behind him. More fights broke out, shouts ringing into the night, as Madoc bounced off bodies blocking his way.
“There he is!”
“Get him!”
“Run!” called a man nearby as a flash of silver and black whipped behind them. Soon, people were shoving in all different directions, and the shouts turned to screams as the crowd stampeded back to the safety of the buildings.
Madoc charged on, keeping his head low and his shoulders slumped to hide the fact that he was taller than most full-grown men. The urge to turn back pulled at every step. He’d weathered half a night’s beating for that purse. He didn’t want to leave without it.
“Bull!”
Madoc flinched at the sound of the name he used in fights. He ignored it, pressing on, but a fist grabbed the back of his tunic and dragged him beneath a stairway. Madoc spun, braced to fight, but as soon as they were hidden by shadows the other man immediately released his hold. Madoc assessed him in a single breath.
He’d seen that scarred jaw and silver-streaked hair somewhere before.
“Lucius wants to talk to you.”
Realization struck Madoc like a fist to the gut. This man was a trainer for Lucius Pompino, one of the premier gladiator sponsors in Deimos. Lucius was an esteemed member of the senate—and a grandson of Geoxus himself. Elias and Madoc had watched people like him in the parades before a war. Sponsors would ride in elaborate chariots, wearing the finest clothing, tossing gems—worthless to the Divine, who could pull them from the earth with a flick of the wrist. Even more worthless to the Undivine, who couldn’t even sell the stones for a loaf of bread. There was little value to a rock that even a Divine child could make.
“Stop gaping like a fish,” Lucius’s trainer said. “You know the man I speak of?”
Madoc closed his mouth. “Yes. Dominus.” He added the title of respect, though it pained him to do so. The Divine in this city cared little for anyone who didn’t have the Father God’s gifts. Not even Petros bothered to attend the fights he ran in South Gate. The upper class normally didn’t dirty their hands in the Undivine districts.
The trainer pulled his hood over his head. “Good. Then you know where to go.”
The villa on Headless Hill, a plateau in Crixion’s wealthy Glykeria District, so named by those who looked up at it. Everyone knew where Lucius lived and trained his fighters. You could see the stone walls and the glimmer of his turquoise-studded insignia all the way from the quarries.
Though Madoc wanted no part of the risks involved in fighting real gladiators, he couldn’t help the smirk pulling at his lips. Lucius’s top trainer had been at this fight. The man thought he was good enough to see the biggest sponsor in the city, to fight on his god’s behalf in official arena matches against their enemies during wars. At Headless Hill, he’d be given all the food he could eat, and go to parties that went late into the night, with wine and games and girls.
While others like him—pigstock—continued to suffer.
His grin faded.
“Thanks for the offer, but Lucius will have to find someone else.” The words were as dry as dust in Madoc’s throat. The trainer’s mouth twisted with impatience, but before he could berate Madoc for declining this rare opportunity, a shrill whistle filled the night.
Madoc blinked, and the trainer was gone.
Panic raced through his blood. Outside the stairway, more silver and black glinted from the edge of the crowd—centurions flooding the streets to stop the riot. If Madoc waited around much longer, he was going to find himself locked up in a legion cell.
His feet hit the stone, one sandal clapping against the street while the other bare, callused foot absorbed every bump and rock.
From the front of the alley came a shout of surprise, and Madoc lifted his eyes to find a centurion on horseback blocking the path. The crowd before him shifted, turning back the way they’d come. Spinning, Madoc tried to go with them, but soldiers pressed from the other side. The hard, metallic clang of their gladius knives against their shields streaked a warning through him moments before the ground quaked, then lifted to block the nearest escape.
Fear raced down Madoc’s spine. The centurions were using geoeia to corral the crowd.
Cutting sideways, Madoc dived beneath the damaged wheel of a broken cart shoved against the side of a stone building to the right. Tucking his broad frame against the splintering wood of the axle, he watched the other runners disperse, escaping or caught by the legion. Soon, Madoc could hear the clap of hooves against the street. A centurion on horseback was coming closer. Even in the low light, it was impossible that Madoc would remain undetected. His right shoulder stuck out from the back of the cart and his legs were too long to tuck beneath him.
The darkness was his only ally.
Keep going, he willed the soldier. Keep going. He knew of people the legion had taken. They never returned. If he was caught, and the centurions learned he had been one of the fighters, what would they do? He knew, better than most, that prisoners were often shoved into training arenas as fodder for real gladiators.
Instead of being sponsored by Lucius, he’d be ground to dust by the fighters Lucius chose.
Keep going. Madoc willed it so hard his vision wavered.
The soldier passed, his black and silver regalia muted by the starlit sky.
A hard exhale raked Madoc’s throat. He waited until the horse and rider were out of earshot and the centurions no longer beat a warning against their shields. Until the street went quiet.
An alley across the road caught his eye, and he slipped out from beneath the cart and sprinted toward it. As he ran, his feet sloshed through puddles of stagnant water and the waste of emptied chamber pots from the apartments above. Keeping to the twisting alleys, he carved a path through South Gate toward the Temple of Geoxus, where he was supposed to meet Elias.
As in the other four Undivine districts, the houses and shops here weren’t soaring visions of marble, gleaming with gold leafing and wrapped in gems. Simple brown brick apartments lined the streets. Beggars slept on corners. Even this late at night, children dug through rotting garbage for bits of food to calm their twisting bellies.
They had Petros and his impossible taxes to blame. It didn’t matter that being born with the gods’ power was a chance of fate—that geoeia was often, but not necessarily, inherited from one or both parents. When the Divine held the power, the Undivine paid the price.