David Drake: Killer

The prey leaped up onto the grating. The creature had been RyRelee, emissary from a Class 5 planet of the Federation-and more recently, before it lost its false skin and the battery of biomechanical devices which permitted it to kill and stun and process information in hundreds of human languages, had been N'Sumu the Egyptian wizard. Now, in the last moments of its life, it was the lizard-ape. It caught a cross-bar scarcely eight feet above the ground, and the tiger smashed it back to the sand with both hind paws firmly planted.

The purple-skinned corpse did not even twitch as the tiger used it as an outlet for its rage.

"I am not pleased," said the Emperor. His voice was emotionless, but his normally florid face was a mask of white fury when he turned to look at the tribune. Domitian's private amusement was to be shut up in a room with flies whose wings had been clipped; and to kill them, one at a time. "Marcus Lacerta, I think you lied to me."

"I-" the tribune gasped. His cognomen, Lacerta, meant Newt; in this moment he looked very like a newt stranded on a hot rock with no hope of escape. "My lord and god, I-"

The Emperor waved him to silence. "Philon," he said. "Marcus Cloelius Lacerta here. To the arena this afternoon… with another tiger, I think."

The tribune whirled around with a scream frozen on his face. Two of the Germans whom he had until that moment commanded gripped him expertly, effortlessly. Their spears fell ringing to the travertine paving, unnecessary now that the threat from the arena had failed so markedly to materialize.

"It's a pity, you know," said the Emperor. He extended his thick lips in a pout. "I was looking forward to seeing a real killer."