Street fighter

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Marcus knew he had made a fatal mistake the moment he backed into the corner of the yard. He felt the heel of his sandal scrape against the cracked plaster of the wall and instinctively took a half step forward to win a small space in which to move. It was what he had been trained to do at Porcino’s gladiator school — always give yourself room to move in a fight, otherwise you surrendered the initiative to your opponent and put yourself at their mercy. It was a lesson that Taurus, the stern and cruel chief trainer, had beaten into the trainee gladiators.

At eleven years old Marcus was tall for his age, and the hard training had made him strong and tough and had given him some skill with a sword. Even so, he knew the odds were against him as he faced his opponent, a wiry man in his thirties, fast on his feet and with a keen eye that anticipated almost every move that Marcus made in their fight.

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