The applause died down. Dimly he heard the voice of the games announcer: “And now . . . wilds of Britannia . . . we bring you . . . Arius the Barbarian . . . playing the part of . . .”

With a clank of machinery the heavy gate cranked up. Blinding sunlight flooded the passage.

“ACHILLES, THE GREATEST WARRIOR IN THE WORLD!”

The cheering hit him like a wall as he strode out into the sunlight. Fifty thousand voices shouting his name. A blur of bright silks and white togas, pale circles of faces and black circles of open mouths, backed by a roof of dazzling blue sky. He’d never seen so many people in his life.

He caught himself staring, and slammed down his visor. No need to know who Achilles was, or what kind of part he was playing. Killing was killing.

The demon uncoiled joyfully in his gut.

The announcer’s voice again, hushing the cheers. “And now, from the wilds of Amazonia, we bring you fitting opponents to the mighty hero Achilles—”

The gate at the other end of the arena rumbled. Arius shrugged his cloak off and his sword up, shifting into a crouch.

“THE QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS AND HER CHAMPIONS!”

Arius’s blade faltered.

Women. Five women. In plumed golden helmets and crescent-moon shields and gold anklets. Breasts bare for the audience to leer at. Slim bright swords raised high. Lips clamped into hard lines.

The demon rage drained away. Left him cold and shaking. His sword point dropped, brushed against the sand.

The red-plumed leader let out a kestrel shriek as she swooped down toward him.

“Oh, damn it,” he snarled, and brought up his sword.

He picked them off one at a time. The smallest first. No older than fourteen. She stabbed at him with more desperation than skill. He killed her quickly. Then the dark-haired one with the birthmark on her shoulder. He clipped the sword out of her hand, turning his eyes away as he hewed her down. Every stroke lasted a century.

In extreme slow motion he saw the leader cry out, trying to pull them together. She knew what she was doing. Charging together, they might have brought him down. But they panicked and scattered. And, to the raucous enjoyment of the crowd, he chased them down one at a time and slew them.

He just tried to do it fast.

The leader in her brave scarlet plumes, she was the last. She put up a good fight, catching his sword again and again on her slim shield. Her blade landed twig-light against his own. Her eyes showed huge and wild through the visor.

He knocked her sword aside and drove his shield boss against her unprotected breast. Her neck arced in agony. She crumpled to the sand like a broken clay figurine.

Not dead. Not yet. Just strangling on her own blood, crushed ribs trying to expand. He took a tired step forward to cut her throat.