Chapter 3: Chapter 3

I woke up to the rhythmic creaking of wagon wheels and the smell of hay, sweat, and old leather. My arms were tied behind my back with rough rope, and I was lying in the back of a wooden cart, bouncing over uneven ground. The sun shone bright and white through the canopy of leaves above, but I was freezing. Damn, had I been drugged again? This was getting old, and then everything hit me all at once — where I was, what was happening, and how helpless I was to do anything.

I tried to sit up, gritting my teeth against the pain in my ribs and spine. The world tilted. Something warm and sticky clung to my leg—dried blood. My mouth was crusted over. My stomach howled for sustenance. “Water,” I croaked, not expecting anyone to answer.

To my surprise, a voice responded. “Not yet.” It was the man from the village. The one with the cloak and the bronze plate over his eye. He sat at the front of the cart, guiding the two horses, and spoke without turning to look at me.

“Why am I tied up?” I asked.

“Because you are not trusted,” he replied flatly.

“Where are we going?” I asked as civilly as I could. My thigh stung from where it had bled, and I realized I had been branded like cattle. What the actual fuck.

He glanced back this time, his face unreadable. “To my ludus.”

“Ludus?” I asked meekly.

He studied me. “Gladiator school.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?” He said nothing more. No matter how many more questions I asked him, he continued to ignore me. If he spoke English, then why wouldn’t he talk with me?

The cart rolled through thick forest trails. The woman with the crimson sash rode beside us on horseback, a whip coiled at her hip, and her eyes always watching. She hadn’t spoken a word since we left the village. The others, three men and one a boy who couldn’t have been older than fifteen, wore simple leather armor and carried spears. None of them spoke to me. But they talked to each other. And something about it was a strange language.

The more I listened, the more I heard fragments of English words, distorted slightly. Their accents were odd, like old-world Shakespearean with hints of something else, but I could swear I heard phrases like “take the left ridge” or “watch the bend.” Was something wrong with my head?

The woman glanced my way once and said something to the cloaked man. I didn’t catch the words, but his answer was curt. She nodded, looking frustrated, then rode ahead. I tried to shift my position to get a better look at the woman. Every jolt of the cart sent shocks up my spine.

I could tell the woman was no stranger to violence. That much was clear. She looked to be in her forties, with a lean, muscular frame that moved with controlled precision. Her skin was tanned and weathered, and old scars laced her arms and neck like faded maps. She wore soft leather armor dyed a reddish brown, reinforced with metal rivets across her shoulders and bracers. Her hair was black, streaked with gray, and tied back in a tight braid, and she kept her whip curled on her hip with the same familiarity a soldier might treat a sword. When she glanced at me, her eyes were steel—cold, observant, and unforgiving.

“You said I had to fight or die,” I said aloud.

The man finally replied. “Yes,” he answered indifferently. Just the hope of conversation was enough to boost my spirits.

“And you’re just collecting people? Forcing them to fight for you?” I spat. I regretted staying at the sorority party now.

“I purchase those who are unwanted," he said while looking straight ahead. “Some are thieves. Some are murderers. Some are just—inconvenient.”

He looked back again. “You were found. You are a foreigner. That is enough.”

If my hands were not bound behind my back, I would strangle him. I gave him a hard stare. “I’m not a fighter.”

He gave a humorless smile. “You will be. Or you will be dead. Learn and live. Don’t and die.”

The cart crested a hill, and the forest broke. Fields stretched below, golden and windswept, dotted with grazing herds—some were familiar, cows and goats, but others moved wrong. One group of cows was too massive in scale, even from a distance. Shepherds and dogs moved among them, undaunted by the giant bovines.

Our journey continued for days. The man chose when to talk with me and then decided he was done with me. The woman released my wrists so I could eat. If I didn't present my hands to be retied, she beat me through the bars. I had to shit and piss through a hole in the cart as we went. Even at night, I was left in the cart.

One evening after we set camp, rain began to fall. A thin drizzle that soaked through the canvas stretched over my tunic. At least I called it a tunic, as it would have been called a dress on Earth. I shivered, trying to curl into myself as best I could. The others took shelter beneath a nearby tree, eating and laughing. The woman stood alone, face upturned, letting the rain wash over her like a baptism. I guess you bathed when you could. I smelled like shit, and so did everyone else who came close to me.

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That night, someone cried in the dark. A desperate and broken voice. One of the other prisoners, probably the boy. I didn’t see who, but I knew the sound of despair. I’d made it myself not long ago. Grunts and muted cries of pain came from the boy. I didn’t want to picture what was happening to him, so I covered my ears as best I could.

On the fourth day, we passed through a town large enough to merit paved roads and guards in actual uniforms. As we trundled through the gates, we turned toward the square where men were lined up in shackles.

“Who are they?” I asked the cloaked man as our wagon approached.

“Fodder, like you. I hope they are as cheap as you were,” the man replied, without looking at me.

Our wagon stopped in front of the men, and the cloaked man got out of the cart to inspect the six chained men. One man in white robes seemed to be talking to the chained men as the cloaked man examined them. Then they started haggling over the price. Finally, all six men were forced into the caged wagon with me. They all reeked, but I guess I smelled just as bad as them. The only good news was that I was no longer bound. As I looked at my new cellmates, I saw that their body types and ages varied greatly.

I made eye contact with one of the other captives. A gaunt, sunburned man with cracked lips. He mouthed something softly, but I didn’t understand. Later that night, while we camped under a rocky overhang, the woman with the whip tossed chunks of bread and a waterskin into the cart. She was amused as we struggled to fight for the scraps and water. I had moved past shame and was now focused on survival. I kicked an old man to get my share of bread and a long pull on the waterskin.

When we travelled, I tried to remain at the front of the cage since the cloaked man was the only one I could speak to. Some of the new prisoners looked broken, while others had a feral aura to them. I am not going to lie, I was scared. The cloaked man still refused to talk to me, but sometimes he would bite on a question. “What’s her name?” I asked of the woman with the whip riding alongside us.

She appeared to understand my question and turned to stare at me. Then, in a low voice, the cloaked man answered me. “Varka.”

“She is a gladiator, too?” I asked, thinking it a possibility. Even though she only carried a whip, she looked dangerous.

“Was,” he said. “Now she trains others.”

My eyes locked with Varka. There was a hardness to her brown eyes. A sense of superiority. Then she turned slowly to face down the road.

The fifth day was the longest due to the heat. We passed through fields of strange crops and past men carrying weapons I didn’t recognize—long, thin spears with looped tips, axes with carved stone heads. In one village, women painted with ochre spat at the cart as we passed. In another, a one-eyed priest held up a bell and rang it three times.

“What does it mean?” I asked, but the cloaked man didn’t respond.

By midday, the forest cleared into low hills. The sun was heavy, casting long shadows across the land. Sweat soaked my tunic, and my wrists were raw from the rope. At least we were given constant water and didn’t have to fight over it.

In the distant horizon, rising above a low ridge, was a structure unlike anything I’d seen—stone walls, tall towers, and rows of vertical poles resembling giant spears along its spine. The entire thing looked like a fortress, some kind of castle.

The cloaked man followed my gaze. “The Ludus Venalis,” he said.

“Is that Latin?” I asked.

“Latin?” He said, sounding out the unfamiliar word. “Not that I am aware,” he replied unhelpfully. He offered nothing else.

We passed smaller villages later in the day, similar to the one that captured me. Each time we approached, the locals stared. Some spit. Some made signs with their hands. A child threw a rock at the cart and shouted something I didn’t understand. I cursed as one bounced and struck my knee.

“They hate you,” the cloaked man said.

“Why?” I said, dodging another small rock that bounced off my cage.

“I typically only take murderers in my ludus. The worst of the worst. I was returning empty-handed from a long loop, and Fortuna put you in my path.” He gave his first genuine smile, showing yellow teeth. That didn’t feel like fortune to me. That felt like fate laughing at my expense.

The path narrowed, then widened into a road of cracked, ancient, weather-worn stone. We entered the large medieval city that sat below the ludus on the hill. Market stalls lined the streets, offering a variety of strange fruits, cured meats, and bundles of dried herbs. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, spices, and smoke. People here walked with purpose, all of them armed or armored.

We passed other travelers—merchants with wagons, cloaked riders on long-limbed horses, even a group of children chasing a ball that seemed to move unnaturally. No one looked twice at me anymore. A bell tolled in the distance. Once. Twice. A low, resonant sound that seemed to ripple through the city. Everyone paused for a moment. Heads bowed. Then they carried on. I had no idea what it meant, but my gut twisted. It felt like an omen.

The final road to the Ludus was steep. We climbed past homes carved into the cliffside, past old stone statues worn smooth by time and weather. One was of a warrior with three eyes, his sword buried in the chest of a horse-sized dragon. At another point, we passed an old man who was dying on the road. The others didn’t stop. I looked back and caught the blank, resigned stare of the dying man as he faded behind us. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novelFirｅ.net

Finally, we arrived at the base of the fortress. The Ludus Venalis, he called it. Tall walls of black-lichen covered stone. Guards in worn, metal-plated armor waited, armed with polearms and wearing sea-green plumed helmets.

As the cart rolled to a stop, I stared up at the looming gates. A chill passed through me. I hadn't woken from this nightmare during this trip. The cloaked man stepped down from his seat and turned to our cage.

“You enter here as nothing,” he said. “But if you live, you may become something more.” The others seemed to understand him, even though he was clearly speaking English to me. I was trying to puzzle it out as my road companions climbed out of the cage and stretched. Sounds of combat echoed on the other side of the gate, and I guessed there were already gladiators in training. Varka was already uncoiling her whip as my fellow new recruits looked around confused.

The man said a few more words before leaving us in Varka's care. “Welcome to my gladiator school.” And just like that, the gates opened, and my new life was forced upon me.

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