Gladiator of Rome (#1 in Gladiator Series)

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

In Ludus Magnus gladiators were separated according to their fighting styles to prevent any possible opponents from meeting each other before the games.

The Retiarii were kept away from the Dimachaeri and the Thracians were kept away from the Secutores and so on.

But, as Krista walked back to her room battered and bruised from her second training lesson with Leonidas, she observed that the same rule was not applied to the women.

Maybe, because they were all known as 'Gladiatrix' and without specific fighting styles, it would be impossible to separate them. Or maybe, it was because they thought women were less impulsive to murder before the games.

Either way, thousands of rooms had been created to host the gladiators, and gladiatrixes, that had arrived from every corner of the world for the inaugural games.

No expense, nor life, had been spared for the upcoming games, which set the stage for Titus to become a much loved Emperor of Rome, just like his father.

But the only love Krista held for any emperor of Rome was the one that was offering the winner their freedom, other than that they were all the same.

Groaning as she walked, the cool night air stinging her abrasions, Krista looked around at the various women that had been ripped from their homes and placed here for their deaths.

Everybody that came through Ludus Magnus's gates had to be tested in order to judge their talent and their rank in the arena.

It seemed the masters thought Krista held some fighting skill, as she had been placed in one of the rooms refrained only for Gladiators.

The novices, who had little to no combat experience, were left to sleep on the floor in rows, down a long corridor at the front of her room.

Krista could not believe the number of women which had been recruited but despite a dozen of reserved rooms, only four were occupied.

With three women to a room, that made twelve gladiatrixes and nearly thirty novices. Compared to the hundreds of men that occupied two thirds of the gladiator school, they were nothing but a minority.

Happy that her skill had been noticed, Krista walked past the dozens of bodies that lay crowded on the floor and walked into her own room where two other women lay asleep in their beds; Rheia and Lydia.

Ludus Magnus had provided them with blankets, food and every affordable extravagent they thought would create an unbeatable gladiator, and reward them with the most money.

All they had to do was practice the majority of the day and risk their lives in the arena when the time came.

Their room, nearly ten feet by twelve, held a single bed against each wall, leaving a small section in the centre bare.

There were no windows in their room as the open doorway allowed in all the light they needed but the air was stale, causing Krista's skin to grow uncomfortably warm, as she walked to her bed positioned along the left wall.

Blankets and pillows had been supplied but as Krista sat down, wincing from the aches that flared up across the back of her thigh, she was immediately lost in the softness of the mattress beneath her.

All she had known her entire life was the cold hardness of a floor and a thin blanket which had been owned by two slaves before her.

She had never known such luxuries as this but as she lay down, her curiosity getting the better of her, it felt like what she imagined floating on a cloud would be like.