"You! Boy! You're up!"

And I was tossed into the circular dirt ring with no more warning than that. Captured not three days ago, I was now to be tested in front of an audience. If I were fast, I might be bought by a messenger-service to run all over Rome day in and day out. Endure very long, and I'd be set in the fields of richer farmers to pick vegetables for the rest of my life. Or, fight well and show any kind of skill with a weapon, and I'd end up in gladiator training, to learn something of fighting and die young in the ring. Ah, the freedom permitted to a slave. Right. Well, I'm not fast, nor would the pretense of it get me anything but beaten day in and day out for taking too long delivering some message or another. Endurance...well enough, but I don't think back-breaking labor suits the son of a former Celtic Chieftain. Gladiator it is, or something along the lines- perhaps I might get very lucky and a nobles' wife would choose to have a tall, fair-haired foreign-boy serve her until he became old and ugly. Really, miracles happen. And the real Messiah walks the earth. I'm sure.

And so I fought. Four or five tall, lean mastiffs wearing weak muzzles were my 'opponents', and I planned on making sure few of the dogs actually walked out of this ring, while I did. As soon as the gate was lifted they charged, muffled yelps and growls issuing from their slavering jaws behind the leather bindings as they tripped over and around each other to get at prey in front of them. It began, and was ended before they even got within ten paces of me- the wildcats of the forests of Welsh-land were neither muzzled nor claw less- and I'd fought more than one of them, even if it was winter when they were half starved, but desperate for the lifeblood in my own veins.

The first one to reach me was treated to a firm kick straight up across the jaw and by the sound made, even should it manage to work the leather bindings off it would not be able to make its teeth much good. It stumbled into the next to my extreme luck, and the gangly dog landed at my feet like a good little pet- where I did not wait for it to get up to land my feet on its ribs -using it to the double purpose of breaking the ribs, as well as vaulting myself over the last three dogs to the other side of the small circle. So it's five, and one of them it probably permanently out of the hunt. I landed in a crouch, similar to the very wildcats I'd been against in the past, and watched as the four dogs milled for a moment. They tripped over one another, and pawed at the muzzles, and generally proved that Roman dogs did not have half the brains a good Celt wolfhound did. After a moment or two, two of the three uninjured began to circle in two different directions as if to corner me...in a round ring. Heheh. Good enough I still have something to laugh at, even if it is idiocy.

But the moment of humor ended abruptly when a bucket of blood spilled down upon me from above, and the last two mobile dogs joined the others in a raucous stalking, barking madly and ripping at the muzzles. Apparently, these dogs weren't normally that skinny...possibly a misjudgment there. Dammit, I needed a good weapon! Laughingly one of the watchers up above threw a tiny eating dagger into the ring, nearly hitting me. Wow, that was timing. I tensed, afraid to move too quickly, but slowly- ever slowly- reached for the tiny knife. Every little thing in my favor counted. Just as my fingers were to close upon the hilt, the overseer in the stands whistled and the dogs pounced. I rolled under them away from the wall, but luckily I managed to get the knife...earning a small cut along my palm, but at least I now knew the knife was sharp. Without time for thought, the dogs followed and I darted to the right. One, a heavy mottled brown one landed on me before I could right myself, and I drove the knife into its side, feeling the tiny blade nick off a bone, and puncture something. Shoving the creature away in an effort to stand before the next dog would reach me; the knife was jerked out of my hands and into the spattered dust as the animal staggered and the whistling of the wound allowed me to know that it was a lung puncturing wound. Good. Two more knocked me back to the ground, too far from the knife to reach it. Something tore into my shoulder, and too late I noted one of the mastiffs had managed to break away most of its muzzle...and now tasted my blood. I know I cried out, but I also know that I heaved them both away with much more strength than I believed I possessed. I scrambled over to the weapon, my shaking hand scrabbling at the dust and closing upon the blade only inches away from the quickly dying brown dog. I could taste, I could feel the adrenaline roaring in my ears, feel slimy, sticky hot drip down my arm and chest and face...

And in the tiers above a gladiator-training school owner raised his voice to offer a sum of silver for the boy in the ring bellows' ownership, and after a few moments of auction-like offers were made and the dogs were called back from the fighting, covered human form.

In the arena below, Jou dropped to his knees and fought against passing out. He would live to see another day and he swore to himself, even as the cool darkness of unconsciousness set it, he would return to his people. As long as it took, and as many times the wheel would turn, he would return to the wildelands of his forefathers.