“Marcus Avitus,” the pit master bared his teeth. “You are reborn!”
“I am destroyed. By your hand.”
“And so? Your debt brought you to me, and in turn I have handed you the most marvelous destruction ever to befall a man. Show some gratitude!”
“And what of my wife? My daughter? Do you bring her to me as a gesture of good faith, or as a meal?”
“She is… insurance. I have invested much in your training and transformation. You young are so full of vitriol and folly and unrestrained emotion. It would be foolish to risk everything on the whim of your impotent fury.”
All through this talk I had been sizing up the monster that stood before me. My gladiator’s eye saw more than ever it had on the floor of the arena. His strength I gauged from the way he held my daughter, his speed from the fractions of a second it took his eyes to register emotion at my words and his hands to adjust to the squirming of my baby girl. I saw an opportunity presenting itself and, calmly and thoroughly, ran through the options and implications in the time it took him to speak.
“My mortal eyes had not seen how complacent power has made you,” I snarled, “for my fury is anything but impotent!”
Bald surprise showed on his face for only an instant, but in that time I had torn my daughter from his grip. Too roughly, and leaving chunks of skin under his fingernails, but alive and safer perhaps with me than with him. I was out the door before her heart beat next, and halfway down the corridor before the next. The pit master gave chase, but he had invested much in the illusion of his mortality, and I had little left to lose. I knocked aside servants and gladiators alike, finding my bearings quickly as I ran, and soon enough was shouldering aside a heavy oaken door to burst onto the busy sunlit street beyond.