Descendants of Rome (#3 in Gladiator Series)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

Greece.

 

Lazarus laughed as he easily dodged a slow swipe at his neck, dancing out of the way.

“You cannot hope to become a gladiator if you are so slow!” Lazarus chuckled as his ‘sword’ striked his friend’s.

“Maybe it is you that is slow and I,” Damocles placed a hand against his chest dramatically as he whipped a strand of his long sand coloured hair out of his eyes, “Am just too fast.”

Lazarus held his lower lip between his teeth as he darted forward and swiped the thick branch beneath Damocles’s ankle, dropping the hefty man on his back.

Damocles remained motionless as he let out a deep sigh, “Do you not learn anything new, Lazarus?”

“Not when my old tricks are enough to defeat you,” Lazarus sensed the end of their little training session and held out a hand to his friend.

Damocles regarded him carefully before he took Lazarus’s offered help.

Rising to his feet, Damocles was not one to waste an opportunity and raised his branch swiftly, hoping to clamber Lazarus on the back of his head.

Knowing his friend too well, Lazarus stepped to the side and bent forward slightly so that Damocles stumbled straight past him, holding out his foot as he did so.

Damocles found himself once again face-first in the soft mud of the forest.

“Do you not learn anything new, Damocles?” Lazarus grinned.

“Yeah, yeah,” Damocles sighed as he lifted himself up. He wisely chose to leave the branch on the floor.

“That’s what I get for trying to trick a champion’s son,” Damocles did not think before he spoke and he immediately saw the way Lazarus reacted defensively.

“I told you,” Lazarus snapped, his mood instantly heading south, “My father has not taught me anything beyond how to hold a sword.”

“I thought that was your mother,” Damocles brushed mud off his knees, growing jealous that Lazarus had two parents who had fought in the arena whilst he had none.

To be worthy to fight upon the sands was a great achievement, one that would make his family proud.

Lazarus sighed, “My mother would not see me, nor my siblings, hold a sword if her life depended upon it.”

Damocles sighed as their conversation fell into a tense silence. It was true that Krista was vehemently against her children learning to fight.

Even when they were young, Damocles remembered Lazarus’s mother forbidding any sword play whilst all of the other kids were rolling in the mud with their wooden swords.

It had seemed odd at the time and even more so now considering her own activities.

“We should start heading back,” Lazarus looked up towards the sky, “It will be dark soon.”

“Yes, my parents shall be waiting for me,” Damocles turned with Lazarus towards the path that led home, “And you must not keep Andromeda waiting.”

Damocles felt a smug smile stretch onto his lips as the earlier tension was replaced with frustration.

Damocles could feel the anger Lazarus poured out towards him.

“I wish you would surrender this obsession you have over me and Andromeda.” Lazarus muttered, knowing full well that Damocles spoke the truth, “There is nothing between us.”