Chapter 2
… A Meeting of Like Minded Individuals …
When they reached the homestead, both Cyrus and Marcus felt the buzz of a third Immortal.
Everyone there was interested in the newcomers, so they couldn't pinpoint who the Quickening was coming from.
But Cyrus recognized the Immortal once he spotted him. Nudging Marcus in the arm, he nodded towards a sandy blonde haired, young looking man.
"Daniel," he whispered to the Immortal standing next to him.
Marcus nodded.
Later, the new slaves were stripped, bathed, deloused and dressed in loin coverings. They were then handed sackcloth for clothes and itchy, woolen blankets. Marcus felt as if he were in prison though they were not mistreated.
Their new owner made his speech, which Marcus barely paid attention to, about the games and the roar of the crowd, and then filed the new gladiators into their cells.
Surprisingly, Marcus and Cyrus were able to share a cell with Daniel.
Flabbergasted, Daniel asked, "How did you get captured?" in Cyrus' Persian language.
"In a stupid move," Cyrus haltingly explained in Marcus' common language as he had answered Daniel in his native language. "I was killed in battle. When I came to, I was already in the cage."
Cyrus looked at his new friend with a question in his dark eyes, then looked back at Daniel.
"This is Marcus," he indicated his new friend, then other man. "Daniel," Cyrus explained, indicating the blond Immortal, "my pupil."
Marcus and Daniel clasped forearms in the formal greeting of warriors.
"You are Marcus Aurelius?" Daniel exclaimed in a hissed whisper fluidly in Latin as he recognized the older Immortal.
Marcus gave a half smile, "That was the recent past. I am now Flavius." He said making up a name on the spur of the moment.
"Alright, Flavius," Daniel and Cyrus smiled.
Thus began their lives as gladiators.
