Gladiator Clash (Time Hunters, Book 1) (4 page)

Rufus showed Tom how he was meant to capture his enemy between the blades.

He practised using the scissors on a straw dummy shaped like a man. Cut, cut, cut!” Tom shouted gleefully to the other prisoners.

They looked at him with sour faces.

“Oh, come on, guys!” Tom said. “This is fun!”

After only ten minutes though, he found his arms had started to tremble under the weight of the clumsy blades. The blistering heat was tiring him.

Wondering how Isis was getting on, he looked over to her group. As one of the
sagittariuses
, she was shooting arrows with a bow from the saddle of a chestnut-coloured horse. Tom wondered if she was struggling like him.

“Yoohoo, Tom!” Isis shouted over to him. “Look at me!” She pinged off her practice arrows one after another, and hit the target every time. Each time she shot an arrow, she flashed Tom a triumphant look.

During a rest break, Tom and Isis sat together briefly.

“Any more ideas about the riddle, then?” Isis asked, gobbling down some dried apricots.

Tom swigged from a jug full of horrible warm water. “Yes,” he said. “
Triumphant in thirteen fights
means we're looking for a really experienced gladiator. If he's won that many battles he must be a kind of hero.”

Before they could discuss the riddle further, Rufus put the trainees into new groups. Tom and Isis were in the
retiarius
group, where they fought with nets and tridents. Whenever they could fight each other, they did. It was their only chance to talk – and make sure they didn't get hurt.

“It's obvious the amulet is the
treasure
in his shield,” Tom said, whizzing a net around his head.

“But who is this hero?” Isis asked, dodging out of the way.

“And what's there to be cheerful about?” Tom asked.

At lunchtime, most of the prisoners rested. Tom would have liked to take a nap, but Isis was worried about Cleo.

“My little fluffpot will be missing me,” she said. “I need to give her a cuddle.” So Isis and Tom slipped away to find Josephus.

The musty smell of animals led them down to the gloomy basement beneath the barracks. There they found Josephus filling troughs with water.

“So this is where the roaring was coming from!” Tom said.

From inside the cages came growling and snapping.

Josephus chuckled. “Come and meet Cleo's new neighbours,” he said.

Tom gulped as he saw enormous, shaggy-maned lions prowling around one cage. Their teeth were like daggers. Directly opposite, a tail swished in the gloom. Tom peered to get a closer look, then yelped as he made out the wide, muscular body of an alligator crawling out of a small pond within the cage. It snapped its jaws full of razor-sharp teeth.

“The Roman Army brings back all sorts of exotic animals from their foreign campaigns,” Josephus explained. “They use them to fight against each other and against the gladiators.”

“Cleo! Cleopatra!” Isis shouted. “What have these horrible animals done to you?”

Mewing and the padding of small paws echoed off the walls as Cleo scampered over to Isis.

“My fluffy love!” Isis scooped up her cat into her arms. “I thought you'd been eaten!” She stroked Cleo's stripy fur. Cleo purred happily.

“Mind out!” Josephus shouted, pushing past Tom. He was carrying a large bucket full of smelly, slippery meat. As he pulled out what looked like the leg of a cow, the lions started to fling their heavy bodies against the bars, snarling and clawing at the meat. The alligator snapped its jaws and thrashed its tail against the pen.

“They're hungry, all right!” Josephus said.

Cleo jumped down from Isis's arms.

“Cleo, no!” Isis shouted.

Tom almost couldn't bear to look as Cleo walked over to the cages and started to hiss at the dangerous beasts. She swiped at the lions and alligator with her own sharp little claws. But instead of tearing the cat to pieces, the wild animals backed into the shadowy corners of their cages, whimpering and shaking.

“Why! That's the strangest thing I've ever seen,” Josephus said, scratching his head. “How can a little cat like that scare wild beasts? Those creatures would normally snap her up!”

“They're frightened of you, Cleo! They must know you're royal!” Isis beamed. “That's my girl! Top cat!”

“I don't think they know she's royal,” Tom whispered to Isis. “They must know she's undead.”

Cleo haughtily stuck her tail in the air and started hungrily scoffing a chunk of meat.

Isis breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh well, I certainly don't need to worry about you down here,” she said, stroking Cleo under her chin.

Josephus turned to Isis with a raised eyebrow. There was something about his expression that made Isis gulp.

“Cleo's all right,” he said. “But how will the two of you fare when it's time to fight in the arena?”

“Ow! My legs are killing me!” Tom said, as they shuffled back into the prisoner quarters.

Isis stretched her back and groaned. “I don't think I was this stiff after five thousand years of being trapped in a statue.” She straightened out, holding her nose. “And it stinks like a camel's bed in here.”

“Are you sure it's not you?” Tom asked. “You
are
quite old.”

“Ha ha, very funny!”

The door clanged open, flooding the prisoners' room with a sudden blinding shaft of light that made Tom squint.

Rufus burst in.“Greetings, gladiators!” he cried. “I have exciting news for you.”

Nobody seemed excited. At all. Tom looked around at the tired, dirty faces of the other prisoners. Everyone was covered in cuts and bright purple bruises.

Rufus pointed his coiled-up whip at the prisoners. “Atillius has just announced that there will be a grand show in two days' time. Which means you will get your first fight.”

The prisoners all started to grumble.

Rufus cracked the whip. “Hey! Stop whinging, you ungrateful donkeys! Atillius is spending a fortune to make this show bigger and better than ever.” He folded his meaty arms and glared at the prisoners. “Guess who has agreed to fight? None other than Hilarus! You lot will be the warm-up acts before his fight!”

Each and every prisoner started to groan in despair. Some even broke into great sobs.

Isis elbowed the man next to her in the ribs. “Who's Hilary?” she asked him.

The man moved away from her, rubbing his side. “How can you not have heard of Hilarus?” he asked. “He's the most famous gladiator in the Roman Empire. He's won thirteen fights in a row. Huge crowds will be coming to see him.”

“So why's everyone moaning?” Isis sniffed.

The man chuckled bitterly and shook his head at her. “In the arena, they fight to the death.”

Tom and Isis exchanged nervous glances. Gladiator training was tough, but at least nobody had been trying to kill them!

“We've got to find the amulet soon,” Isis whispered to Tom in alarm. “Or else we'll end up in the arena.”

Rufus cracked his whip until the grim chatter stopped.

“You should be thankful! This is the most excitement you mangy lot will ever see!” he shouted. “There's going to be parades, musicians, spectacles… animals too.”

The door clanged as Josephus walked in. Everybody turned around as he strode to the front.

“Er, perhaps not the animals,” he said to Rufus, wringing his hands.

Rufus's tanned face wrinkled into an almighty frown. “But Atillius definitely wants to include them in a fight.”

Josephus shook his head. “Sorry. There's something wrong with them. They're acting all timid like mice; it's as though they've seen a ghost. I've tried stoking them up. I even threatened to turn the alligator into a pair of sandals. But they've lost their bite!” He shrugged. “They would make a truly poor show, I'm afraid.”

“Well, Atillius will just have to leave them out,” Rufus said.

Meanwhile, the prisoners had started to panic.

“I'm going to grab the heavy, shiny armour!” one yelled. “A sword won't get through that.”

“Are you mad?” cried another. “Swords cut through everything. The only hope of escape is dodging the blows with fancy footwork.”

Tom, who had been listening carefully to all Rufus said, couldn't wait to pull Isis to one side. He felt like his heart would burst if he didn't get the words out.

“Hey, remember the riddle said
cheerful is the one you need to find
?” he whispered. “Well, I've worked it out. Guess what the Latin for cheerful is!”

Isis shook her head.

“Hilarus!”

“The other prisoners say he's undefeated in thirteen fights,” Isis said.

“Exactly!” Tom beamed at Isis and gave her the thumbs up. “He's our man.”

“So if the amulet is in his shield, we've got to get close to him in the arena,” Isis said. “Which means—”

“We'll have to fight the most fearsome gladiator in the whole of the Roman Empire,” Tom finished. He swallowed hard and felt his spine tingle with dread. If they could get their hands on the amulet, they'd be whisked back to the safety of Tom's bedroom. But how on earth were they going to get close enough to Hilarus's shield without getting hurt?

Suddenly, the ground started to rumble beneath them.

Isis gasped. “What's happening?”

“I think it's an earthquake,” Tom said, feeling tremors under his feet. “Quick – take cover!”

As the two of them scrambled into a corner, the stone floor cracked, then opened up. Anubis's jackal head burst out of the ground. It was almost the full height of the room. His fierce eyes glared at them in an alarming shade of red.

The other prisoners continued to talk about the gladiatorial show, unaware of the terrifying Egyptian god in the room.

Anubis sneered at Tom and Isis as they huddled together.

“You're not having
fun
, are you?” He blasted them with his foul doggy breath.