Shuffling and jostling, three dozen men in black lined up with their swords. In front of us appeared a giant, resembling the tank commander from my first day here. Just as lumbering, massive, and ominous.
— Hello, scraps! Ended up here, did you? That means you’re the dregs of society. Worthless slag, garbage, — the man laid out our situation and continued: — We’re going to mold you into something sweet. The metal in your hands is a combat weapon. What’s on your shoulders — who knows. Might be heads, might be cabbage stumps. We’ll find out. Your job is to show you can survive out there.
The speaker waved a hand toward the arena and continued:
— Whoever ends up as feed for the livestock will from now on and forever be feed. Whoever fights off that fate can consider himself moved up to the next level. Becomes a fighting monkey. So, the assignment’s clear. Forward, males!
I didn’t understand a word of it. Not a bit. The shield, heavy and stiff, dug its sharp edge into my shoulder and pressed on my elbow. The sword was no product of thoughtful design either. The hilt, cold and slick, awkward to grip, kept threatening to slip loose. I touched the blade with a finger and yelped. It turned out to be sharp, and it felt familiar. I tumbled into somewhere unknown, past or future, where this shield and sword, scutum and gladius, had been the meaning of my life.
Someone cracked me on the back of the head and bellowed over my ear: — Scrawny monkey! Onto the arena!!!
I walked out onto a field strewn with sawdust. Slopes rose all around, packed with people. Wherever I looked, an uncountable crowd howled, whistled, hooted. The number of spectators defied even a rough guess — it seemed like millions. They filled the space around and above for hundreds of meters. The spectators near the top of the slopes looked like tiny bugs. But even they were screaming, pouring their ant-sized squeaks into the general roar.
Whoa!
The noise and racket began to die down, almost stopped. But no silence followed. The crowd churned, boomed with every kind of weapon — a salvo of volleys to salute something joyful.
What?
Ah, there it was!
At the far end of the arena, gates swung open, and out sprang striped cats… would you look at that! Ten tigers gathered into a yellow-brown clump, glancing around nervously, hunted, in the exact same wretched confusion we’d been in seconds before… they couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
«The kitties are in trouble,» flashed through my head.
The creatures that had inspired pity stopped glancing around. The kittens’ eyes flashed. The tigers had found breakfast. Breakfast was us — thirty men in black. The predators charged.
I had never felt so miserable and terrified.
My palms went sweaty instantly and nearly dropped the sword. A dull ache spread through my gut. My legs turned to wood. Nausea knotted my insides and threatened to spill them out. Ugh! One man broke away from us and, screaming, ran sideways. Two tigers went after him. The rest charged straight at us, as single-minded as before.
But what was this? For a split second I flew back into the past, where the shield and sword had been extensions of my arms, and the battle with death had been the meaning of life. I came back from the past a warrior. The fear evaporated. I shoved the guy on my left so he’d fall back a step and sideways. He got it, moved, raised his shield, and froze. I waved my sword at the guys on my right, signaling them to press in closer, and shouted with everything I had: «To arms!»
Whew! Just in time!!!
Our crowd drew together, bristling with raised swords, and there! take that! like this!!! one striped monster crashed to the sand, its belly ripped open mid-leap. The smell of enemy blood was a rush.
We realized that together we were a force. We charged the tigers, splitting into groups of four, shoulder to shoulder. I have no idea how, but we beat the predators back. We killed two tigers. The rest, whimpering and snarling, vanished. Five of our brothers, mauled but alive, were carried off the arena.
Whew!
I looked around.
All that remained of the poor devil who’d tried to run was a pile of scattered meat on a skeleton, about ten meters from the shield and sword he’d dropped to run faster.
With the price of his cowardly life, he’d drawn off two predators — the hungriest, the quickest, the sharpest. Eight dull-witted tigers are easier to handle than ten average ones.
What now? How much time had passed?
