Dragon's Tale 44 (Patreon)

Despite the significance of all of the slaves except me escaping, I didn’t felt much pressure as I watched Theodora disappear in the darkness of the night. After all, for better or worse, I was the only merchandise in their hands, the only hope to turn any kind of profit during the trip, so even if they overstretched and decided to blame me, they couldn’t take it on me. 

Not with all of their money and slaves gone. The money they would get for me was the only hope for them. 

Still, I wanted to keep my involvement secret, more to prevent them from alerting my new so-called owners if not for anything else. Luckily, I had the perfect scapegoat, and an excellent way to display that. So, after carefully casting  I went to my cage and dragged the idiot that I killed earlier with me, and broke his neck before dropping it to a location where I could theoretically reach to break his neck using my legs. Since he already made that particular tale very convincing by drugging the whole camp, I didn’t see any problems convincing the rest of the slavers about the real responsible. 

I spent the rest of the night creating a small magical hole to hide the rest of my riches in the cart —to be buried once I was closer to Rome— and reshaping the spearhead into some kind of bracelet. I had to sacrifice some of the explosive power of the spearhead, but the ability to carry that with me as a gladiator was more than compensated for it. After all, who would take an extremely ugly iron bracelet, even from a slave. 

The commotion that I expected to happen finally exploded after the first lights of the morning. “What’s going on,” shouted many people as they groggily woke up from their drugged sleep, realizing that their riches had disappeared while they had been betrayed. From there, it didn’t take long for them to discover they still had one slave. “What happened here,” asked the leader in shock, looking like he was about to have an aneurysm.

“I don’t know,” I answered with a shrug. “That waste of space tried to kill me at midnight while whispering about making everyone pay, so I broke his neck,” I answered with a shrug.

“He must be responsible,” said one of the guards, desperate to find someone to lash out, raising his spear, only to receive a slap from the leader. 

“Are you a moron or what?” said the leader. “Why would he be here if he was the one to free the other slaves, rather than escaping with them,” he called. “And he’s the only merchandise we have, do you really want the whole trip to be wasted.” 

“No, sir,” said the first one, properly chastised. 

“Good. Now, we’re going to split into four groups. Three people will accompany me to Rome so we can deliver him to Ludus Dacicus, and get our money. He’s worth almost as much as the rest of the stock combined, so we don’t have a great deficit. The second group will stay here, defending the carts and other heavy equipment. Group three and four will do their best to track the escaped slaves,” he ordered, unaware that their cursed brand had been already sabotaged by me, leaving them helplessly locked in place. 

They didn’t ask my opinion before mounting me onto a horse, but they weren’t complete idiots, so they kept my hands tied. Still, they were lucky that I wanted to follow their plan —if one calls losing all of their stock and money at the same time lucky in the first place. 

The ride passed in silence. Who knew that losing all of their money and prisoners would make slavers such unreasonable travel companions.

So, rather than focusing on them, I watched the surrounding countryside. As the afternoon sun hit, we finally left the mountainous area completely, descending onto the plains of the Italian countryside. A vast expanse of farmland sprawled out before us, filled with endless fields, hordes of slaves working on them. It reminded me of Britanium, only with a nicer climate and denser farms. 

The only real difference was the density of the estates sprawled around, which had two big differences compared to back home. First, the country villas were much bigger and fancier than what we had back on the island, rivaling many nobles. The second surprise was the surprising sparseness of the estates, suggesting that, unlike the colonies, these huge fertile farmlands belonged to rich landowners rather than the peasants. 

The pattern continued as we got closer to Rome for a long while, villas getting both bigger and more distant from each other, only for the trend to reverse once we were a couple of hours away from Rome on horseback. The villas continued to get bigger and fancier, surpassing even the governor’s house back in the island —not that I had an opportunity to see the inside of that place, only a distant glimpse— though the distance between them got smaller, the area leveraged as orchards and carefully-maintained gardens rather than grain farmland. 

Then, Rome appeared on the horizon, its walls creating an intimidating view. However, even more, impressive were the wards that were attached to those walls, radiating a domineering magical presence constantly. No wonder the city had never been invaded by a foreign presence, even when Hannibal had ravaged the countryside for two decades, evaporating Rome armies one after another, until my distant ancestor finally reversed and invaded his homeland. The city only fell against Julius Caesar —my accidental benefactor— and even then, it was deserted by the defenders rather than being sieged properly. 

I needed to be careful inside, because I wasn’t exactly willing to test myself against the walls directly. Being a sorcerer might be an amazing achievement out in the colonies and provinces, but in Rome, at the heart of the Republic, it was certainly not so. 

Luckily, they were still rare enough that no one sane would suspect a slave of being one, not when even an ordinary mage with proper experience could save himself from the slavers. My disguise as a Thracian warrior made the situation even better. 

The guards at the walls didn’t create many problems, requiring only the slavers to show their credentials —as well as flashing me flashing my mark in my hand, magically created to replicate their stamp, but consisting of illusion instead— before they let us inside. It wasn’t entirely surprising. Rome was a big city, too busy to give a detailed assessment of every single entrant. 

“Quite a sight, ain’t it, boy?” said the slaver, finally feeling cheerful as we moved toward the center of the city, almost toward the Pomerium itself. I could feel the legendary magic-blocking wards of Pomerium, trying to suppress the elements surrounding me even from a distance. I could push through it, but not without a great effort, but luckily, my assumption about the ward was correct. It had limited effect on non-violent contained effect, and almost none on internal spells. 

“A bit crowded,” I said gruffly, still playing the proud warrior. 

He chuckled. “You’ll grow used to it. Ludus might be a hard place to live, but also you’ll eat better than you ever did, and fuck more beautiful women than you could ever imagine in your dinky little tribe.” I scoffed, which earned a laugh as we finally arrived at a large series of buildings surrounding a courtyard, very close to the famous Colosseum. I had never seen it before, but it didn’t take a genius to identify its impressive marble walls filled with statues and posters of famous gladiators. 

Meaning, the estate we were riding toward was likely the Ludus Dacicus, the Dacian Gladiator School, my new home for the foreseeable future… 

“Who are you?” barked the guard at the door, a large, intimidatingly muscular man with a spear. 

“I came to bring a promised Thracian slave to great Ludus Dacicus,” said the leader of the slavers, which didn’t make the guard as impressed as the leader had assumed. 

“Show your documents,” he said, and after examining, he pointed at a corner of the courtyard, where eight other slaves were standing there under the sun. “You there, your first test is going there and standing without collapsing for three days, and if you fail, we’re going to send you to mines. You’re not allowed to talk as well.” 

“That’s not what we were promised. The great Dacicus himself-” said the slaver, only to receive a loud slap from the guard. 

“Did I ask your opinion, you idiot?” said the guard, before stamping the papers. “You’re just a fucking slaver. Normally, I wouldn’t even bother talking with a worm-like you, but feel lucky that we’re looking for new warriors after the disaster. Go the first building, they’ll pay you, and you then you can disappear before dirtying these hallowed grounds.” 

“Take care,” I said mockingly even as I walked toward the area guard mentioned, which only earned a stiff laugh from the guard. It was clear that even a prospective gladiator was much more precious than a disposable slaver with a mistaken idea about his importance. 

I walked toward the area the guard had pointed to without saying anything. As I walked, I extended my senses, trying to get a feeling of the place, which was only limited help. There were far too many people around, both in Ludus itself, and the area surrounding it, and my techniques, perfected in the chaotic magic fields of the sparse mountain proved too sensitive to actually yield any useful results. 

The only advantage was that the school was actually not located in the Pomerium itself, unlike the Colosseum, receiving only a limited effect of the wards. So, if needed, I could use magic in relative ease, though that didn’t mean I had a carte-blanche. Doing so might still reveal my position. 

So, I stood in the area that was pointed. It seemed like no one was paying attention to me as I stood there other than a passerby that threw insults, but after spending a year as a fugitive, my danger senses were developed enough to know there were several very dangerous people currently watching me, probably from one of the nearby windows, behind a curtain. I pushed the temptation to look up, not wanting to reveal the extent of my sixth sense. I wanted to impress them, but no need to impress them too much. 

As I stood there, among a bunch of other slaves in various states of exhaustion and delirium, I said nothing, not even when the men that passed around me cursed and insulted, occasionally throwing rotten vegetables. I didn’t even feel anger, because their actions were clearly staged. They were testing us, not only in terms of endurance, but also in temperament. As I waited, one of the other slaves finally felt helpless enough to dash forward, attacking one of the gladiators, only to be slain with a stab of the sword, teaching the cost of disobedience to the rest of them. 

Too bad for the school that I was magically aware enough to notice the illusion on the slave’s face. Not to mention the attack was too tame to contain true anger, but choreographed to look so, or the fact that the gladiator’s attack was delivered at the perfect angle to create a lot of blood, but actually make it extremely easy for a competent healer to handle. 

Still, I liked their approach. It was vicious enough to know the threat of violence never worked as well as the display of violence, but smart enough not to waste a new slave just for that purpose. It suggested a dry competency I didn’t expect from a Ludus, but maybe I should have. After all, they were in the business of making death look good for centuries. It wasn’t surprising that they had figured out a few tricks to minimize their loss. 

Standing there without food or water wasn’t a struggle for me, not even before my ascension, mostly thanks to the horrible training I had gone through as a child. This test was nothing compared to some of his tricks. Instead, I looked around, examining my surroundings. 

A fifty-foot-high stone wall surrounded the inner courtyard. At the first glance, it looked like it was designed to keep people inside, and without a doubt, it was one of the aims, but a careful examination of the placements of the pens and smaller buildings inside suggested that it would work exceedingly well against the external attackers as well. 

Considering their history, definitely a sensible precaution. 

Inside the courtyard, there were a number of buildings, pens and training areas. Training areas were filled with blunted weapons, dummies, and many different types of weights, some suspiciously similar to stuff I had trained as a child, used by gladiators using them in familiar ways. 

My childhood pain suddenly got a lot more understandable if my grandfather had leveraged the same training method as a bunch of slave-warriors fighting for show and survival…