Thanos and Ceres entered the arena next, and Ceres squinted, the sun blinding her. Once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she glanced up into the audience, seeing only roughly half the seats filled.
She gazed up at the podium and saw the king sitting up on his throne, smiling glumly. How she despised him. If what Thanos said was true, he was eviler than Ceres had imagined.
“Remember, stay close,” Thanos said, touching her elbow.
She nodded and then spotted the two combatlords on the other side of the arena, wearing heavy armor, each holding a sword.
When the trumpets blared, at once, a beast sprung out from one of the trap doors in the ground. It charged toward Ceres and Thanos, its grizzled black fur glistening in the sunlight, its roar echoing against the stadium walls. The dog-like creature was unfamiliar to Ceres – large body, stalky legs – and moved at a slower pace compared to an omnicat, although she didn’t doubt it was just as strong.
“A wolver!” someone from the crowd yelled, and then a wave of clamors moved through the audience.
Adrenaline coursed through her, and for a moment, she didn’t know where to go. But when she saw the weapons lined up against the wall, she headed toward them and waited for Thanos’s command.
First, Thanos called for the trident, and she flung it to him. Good choice, she thought as she watched him catch it mid-air. She wanted to jump in and help him, but she remembered the rule forbidding a weapon-keeper to intervene.
Thanos screamed at the wolver as he jabbed the trident toward the beast, his feet moving with swiftness, his reflexes lightning quick.
From the corner of her eye, Ceres noticed one of the combatlords making his way toward Thanos. If he were smart, the combatlord would wait to strike until after Thanos had slain the wolver or the beast might attack him, too.
All of a sudden, the wolver charged toward Thanos, and Thanos jabbed it in the shoulder. The onlookers cheered in approval at the fight’s first attack.
However, the wolver didn’t seem to be injured in the least, only growling louder from what Thanos had done, licking its teeth, red eyes glaring at Thanos.
“Longsword!” Thanos yelled.
Right as she threw it to him, he dropped the trident to the ground and caught the longsword mid-air. But then suddenly, Ceres sensed he needed protection from fire – quick – and she yelled at him and also threw him a shield. Just as he caught the shield, the wolver inhaled, and then it spewed fire from its mouth. The onlookers gasped, and Thanos ducked behind the shield, the flames blasting against the metal surface.
Once the wolver had run out of breath, Thanos dropped his shield, picked up the trident, and hurled it at the beast’s head, piercing its eye.
The animal violently shook its head as it snarled and growled, sending the trident flying halfway across the arena, Ceres saw.
Without hesitating, Thanos tore toward the wolver, leapt into the air, and lifted his sword. On his way down, he stabbed the beast in the head, and it fell lifeless onto the red sand.
But even though the audience cheered, there was no rest. The combatlord that had been lying in wait charged, his spear and sword pointed straight at Thanos.
Thanos pulled and pulled, trying to dislodge the blade from the wolver’s skull, Ceres saw. But it wouldn’t budge. And he already had three weapons on the field; the trident on the other side of the arena, his shield too far to reach, and the blade wedged into the wolver’s skull. Ceres knew it was against the rules to throw him another one.
She held her breath. The combatlord was close. Too close. She stepped forward.
Still pulling on the blade, Thanos looked at Ceres, his eyes wide with fear, his face twisted in desperation.
He was going to die.
And there was nothing Ceres could do to prevent it.
CHAPTER TEN
Screaming, Thanos desperately tugged at the blade lodged in the wolver’s skull, but even as fiercely as he tried, the sword would not budge in the least. Hearing the combatlord’s footsteps approaching, he glanced back to see his enemy a mere ten feet away. His life depended on retrieving his sword, for he knew a weaponless warrior was a dead warrior.
Fraught, he looked to Ceres, but he knew three weapons were on the field and if she threw him another one, she would be punished.
She raised a palm toward him, and just as he heard the swooshing sound of his opponent’s blade descending, Thanos’s sword jutted into his hand as if by some mystical force.
Shocked at what happened but with no time to linger on it, Thanos spun and rolled on the ground, the combatlord’s sword just missing him by a fraction of an inch, the crowd’s roar peaking into a frenzy before retreating into a static hum.
Thanos was quick to hop to his feet, and just then, he heard Lucious calling for help. Seeing his opponent several feet away, Thanos afforded a quick glance and discovered Lucious stripped of a weapon, his weapon-keeper lying facedown in the red sand.
“Throw me something! Anything!” Lucious yelled to Ceres, his voice filled with rage. “Do it now or I’ll have you skinned alive!”
As Thanos snapped his attention back towards his foe, he vaguely registered that Ceres tossed Lucious two daggers. But his irritation was replaced with alarm when he saw the combatlord hurling a spear at him.
Just as the spear approached, Thanos clenched a fist around it, stopping it from penetrating his heart, and then he whirled the spear around and flung it back at the combatlord, piercing his thigh exactly where he had meant to.
“Thanos! Thanos! Thanos!” the audience shouted, fists pumping into the air.
The combatlord fell to his feet, moaning in pain, holding his leg, the spear protruding from it.
Recognizing his opportunity, Thanos ran behind the combatlord and hit him on the head with the hilt of his sword, knocking him unconscious.
However, even before he could look to the king for acceptance of his victory, Lucious encircled him – and suddenly Lucious’s combatlord attacked Thanos, forcing Thanos to continue fighting.
The scoundrel pawned his combatlord onto me, Thanos thought.
It was as he had always suspected: Lucious had absolutely no honor.
While he was battling a new opponent, Thanos could see Lucious sauntering over to the iron gate.
“Let me in or I will kill you and find your family and torture them all to death!” Lucious yelled.
Thanos heard the gate rattling as it opened, the crowed booing Lucious.
“Thanos!” Ceres yelled, holding up two daggers.
Of course. He was growing weary and needed lighter weapons. He nodded toward her, and she threw them to him.
Right away, Thanos kicked the combatlord in the chest so he flew backward. But with impeccable balance, the combatlord landed on his feet and charged toward Thanos, sword in hand. The combatlord lunged forward, thrusting his sword toward Thanos, but Thanos jumped out of the way.
As they moved around the arena, Thanos noticed that little by little, his nemesis grew exhausted, his chest heaving greatly with each breath, his movements slackening a hair. His plan was working. He didn’t want to kill the man, no, only exhaust him so he could render him unconscious like he had the first one.
Right as Thanos approached his shield, he picked it up from the ground and flung it into the combatlord’s face. The combatlord fell to the ground lifeless, and for the first time since he could remember since entering the arena, the spectators went silent.
Thanos panted and gazed up at the podium, awaiting the king’s decision, hoping he would not be commanded to murder his unconscious adversary.
However, from what he knew about the blood-thirsty monarch, Thanos feared King Claudius would force him to do something he had worked hard to avoid – kill.
The king glowered at Thanos as if he didn’t accept that the battle had ended in Thanos’s favor, the tension between the two palpable, the entire Stade void of the faintest of sounds. After arising from his seat, the king walked to the edge of the platform, his hand outstretched, his thumb outstretched to the side.