Guardian of Rome (#2 in Gladiator Series)

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

 

 

Gaius tried to keep his temper in check as he was led through the forest.

News of their defeat had already reached Pompeia and he knew if he did not earn the results she was expecting soon, then he would go the same way as Commander Niclaus, only not by Krista’s hand.

He had expected that Krista would pull a hat trick with the villa but posting fake guards and issuing a full retreat was not what he had imagined.

Krista was a proud creature and he could not be forced to believe that the retreat was her idea alone.

But it was always a possibility hence why Gaius had posted scouts around the forest and like a moth to a flame, Krista had come.

She had been drawn into a fight and, using her pride against her, she was led directly into a trap.

Gaius applauded the young man who could outlive the Gladiatrix long enough to trick her, even if it was only for a short while.

Brushing a branch aside, Gaius stepped over a rock and entered the scene of death.

No less than twenty of his soldiers were bleeding into the ground, dead.

Some had their own swords sticking out of their chests, others had lethal gashes across their throats and Gaius was surprised to find that one was impaled on a broken branch fifteen feet off the ground.

No one said that Krista wasn’t talented.

Turning from the dead man, Gaius glanced over the bodies that were piling up when he noticed an arrow sticking out from one of their chests.

“Wait!” Gaius ordered as the man’s body was pick up, ready to be thrown on a pile and burnt.

Curling his fingers around the arrow, he ripped the weapon from the man’s dead flesh and instructed the men to carry on.

As the body was carried away, Gaius looked intently at the arrows.

They were made from the blackest wood with a sharpened arrow head and raven feathers. Tilting the arrow closer, Gaius sniffed the arrowhead and cringed at the strong incense, still detectable after a few hours of being buried inside a chest cavity.

Gaius’s blood ran cold as he recognised the scent; poison.

And there was only one person he knew of who carried black arrows draped in poison.

If he was working with Krista then their chances of winning this war suddenly deteriorated rapidly.

 

* * *

 

Rheia walked behind ‘The Destroyer’, her eyes fixed permanently on his back.

His seven foot figure and three foot wide shoulders were enough to make everyone in the street step away from him.

Rheia could not imagine any man beating this beast and that’s exactly why Pompeia had ordered him to Rome.

If the best men in the world could not beat Argus, ‘The Destroyer’, then Krista could not either.

Rheia realised why Pompeia was so happy lately; Pompeia thought that she had found Krista’s match; the man who could successfully beat the Gladiatrix.

Rheia prayed she was right because if Krista succeeded in killing ‘The Destroyer’ then Pompeia had just helped towards increasing Krista’s popularity amongst the commoners.