The sand was red with blood.
Marcus stood in the middle of the arena, breathing hard. His sword dripped thick drops of crimson onto the ground. Around him lay three bodies. Dead men. Men he had killed.
The crowd screamed and cheered. Thousands of them, packed into the stone seats of the Colosseum. They wanted more blood. They always wanted more blood.
Marcus looked down at his hands. They were covered in red. Under his fingernails. Between his fingers. Splattered up his arms. This was his life now. Kill or be killed. Over and over again.
But Marcus had a secret. A terrible secret that made him different from every other gladiator in Rome.
He could not die.
Oh, he could be killed. He had been killed. Stabbed through the heart. Throat cut. Skull crushed. He had died in every way a man could die. But he always came back. His wounds would heal. His body would fix itself. And he would wake up, ready to kill again.
It was a curse. Given to him by a witch two hundred years ago, though the memory was foggy now. She had cursed him to live forever, to watch everyone he loved die while he remained. To kill and kill and never find peace.
The gate on the far side of the arena opened. Four more fighters came out. Big men with scars and muscles. They carried different weapons. Swords, axes, a trident and net.
The crowd went wild.
Marcus tightened his grip on his gladius. The short sword felt good in his hand. Familiar. He had killed with swords for two centuries now. Before that, he had used spears and clubs. Whatever the age demanded.
The first man rushed at him with an axe raised high. Marcus waited. He had learned patience over the years. The axe came down in a heavy swing meant to split his skull. Marcus stepped to the side. The blade bit into the sand where he had been standing.
Before the man could pull his weapon free, Marcus drove his sword up under his ribs. The blade punched through skin and muscle, through the diaphragm, into the lungs. The man's eyes went wide. Blood poured from his mouth. Marcus twisted the sword and pushed deeper, feeling it scrape against the spine.
The man made a wet gurgling sound. His legs gave out. Marcus pulled his sword free and kicked the dying man away.
Blood sprayed across the sand in a wide arc.
The second attacker came from behind, trying to be smart. Marcus heard the footsteps and spun. The trident stabbed at his chest. Marcus knocked it aside with his sword and grabbed the shaft with his other hand. He yanked hard, pulling the man off balance.
Then he slammed the pommel of his sword into the man's face.
The nose broke with a crunch. Blood and bone fragments sprayed out. The man staggered back, trying to see through the blood pouring into his eyes. Marcus didn't give him time to recover. He swung his sword in a wide arc that caught the man across the throat.
The blade cut deep. Through the windpipe, through the arteries, through most of the neck. The man's head flopped to the side, held on by just a strip of skin and muscle. Blood fountained out in powerful spurts, each one timed with the dying heartbeat.
The body fell forward. The head twisted at an impossible angle, nearly torn off.
Two down. Two to go.
The last two worked together. They circled Marcus from different sides, trying to trap him between them. One had a sword like his. The other had a heavy club studded with iron spikes.
Marcus charged the one with the club. It was the unexpected move, and it worked. The man barely got his weapon up in time. Marcus ducked under the swing and drove his shoulder into the man's gut. They went down together, rolling in the bloody sand.
Marcus ended up on top. He dropped his sword and grabbed the man's head with both hands. He slammed it down into the ground once, twice, three times. The back of the skull cracked. Blood and brain matter started leaking out onto the sand.
But the fourth fighter was on him now. Marcus felt the sword pierce his back, sliding between his ribs. The pain was white-hot and immediate. The blade pushed through his body and came out his chest in a spray of blood.
Marcus looked down and saw the tip of the sword sticking out of him. His own blood ran down the steel.
The crowd gasped, then cheered even louder.
Marcus smiled. This was nothing. He had survived worse.
He reached up and grabbed the blade with his bare hand, ignoring the way it cut into his palm. Blood ran down his arm. He pulled himself forward along the sword, the blade sliding deeper through his body. The fighter behind him tried to pull the weapon free, but Marcus held it tight.
With his other hand, Marcus reached back and grabbed the fighter's wrist. He twisted hard. Bones snapped. The man screamed and let go of his sword.
Marcus pulled himself off the blade. Blood poured from the hole in his chest and the hole in his back. He could feel his lung collapsing. Could feel his heart struggling. But his body was already starting to heal. Already starting to fix itself.
He turned to face the last fighter. The man was cradling his broken wrist, eyes wide with fear.
"Please," the man said. "Please, I surrender."
Marcus picked up his gladius from where it had fallen. The crowd was chanting now. One word, over and over.
"KILL! KILL! KILL!"
Marcus walked toward the man. The fighter backed away, still begging.
"I have a family," he said. "A wife. Children."
Marcus had once had a family too. A wife and a daughter, back before the curse. He had watched them grow old and die while he remained young. That had been the worst part. Watching the people he loved turn to dust while he continued.
He raised his sword.
The fighter tried to run. Marcus caught him by the hair and yanked him back. He drove the gladius into the man's stomach and pulled it upward, opening him from groin to sternum. The belly split open. Guts spilled out in a slippery pile of pink and purple. The smell hit Marcus like a wall—shit and blood and fear.
The man fell to his knees, trying to hold his insides inside. It was useless. They kept sliding out, coiling in his lap like wet snakes.
Marcus kicked him over and thrust his sword down through the man's chest. Through the heart. The body jerked once and went still.
The crowd roared. They threw flowers and coins into the arena. They chanted Marcus's name, though they didn't know it was really Marcus. Here, in Rome, he was called Deathless. The gladiator who could not be killed.
Marcus stood in the center of the carnage, surrounded by the bodies of seven men. Blood pooled around his feet. The hole in his chest had already closed, the flesh knitting itself back together. In an hour, there would be no sign he had ever been wounded.
He raised his sword to the crowd. They loved him for his killing. They didn't know he hated every second of it.
That night, in the cell beneath the arena, Marcus felt it starting. The familiar sensation that meant he was about to jump through time. It always happened like this. He would live in an age for a while, sometimes years, sometimes decades. Then the curse would activate and throw him forward in time.
He didn't know where he would end up. He never did. The curse took him where it wanted, when it wanted. All he knew was that wherever he went, there would be killing. There was always killing.
The world started to blur. The stone walls of his cell began to fade. Marcus felt his body being pulled apart, every piece of him scattered across the years. It hurt worse than any sword thrust, worse than any wound. Like being skinned alive and set on fire at the same time.
He tried to scream, but he had no mouth. He tried to hold on, but he had no hands.
Then there was only darkness and pain and the endless forward pull of the curse.