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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: Shanna was a swordswoman, a slave sent to serve in the arena in fights that were used both for wagers and as omens to determine the Emperor's policies. But wherever there is gambling, there's someone with a system to beat the odds.

eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, Published: Sword & Sorceress 9, 1992
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2008

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Diana L. Paxson's Shanna Series

7 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [26 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [41 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [20 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [198 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [21 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [69 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [92 KB] , hiebook (KML) [78 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [56 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [18 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [22 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [54 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [34 KB]
Words: 6395
Reading time: 18-25 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"As first founder of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Diana does know a good bit about swordplay. Hence the extreme verisimilitude of the fighting scenes in her work."--Marion Zimmer Bradley, author of The Mists of Avalon

The enemy blade was a blur in the bright air. Shanna shoved her shield up to meet it, honed instincts swinging the battered wood where the sword would fall. Peripheral vision sighted an expanding shadow beside her. Swearing, Shanna caught an arm-numbing blow from the second sword and the air rumbled with laughter.

Belisama's breastplate! How had Culain gotten so fast? Shanna glared at him over the rim of her practice shield.

"Need a new one soon, Shanna, if you fight with me!" Culain grinned as her swift glance noted the widening crack in the battered boards.

His fair skin was lightly sweated; in the harsh light his luxuriant mustaches glistened like gold wire. Culain should have been wrapped in the brightly chequered mantle of a warrior on the Misty Isles instead of a dun tunic and scuffed fighting leathers. And I, her thought continued grimly, should by rights be swathed in a silken veil.

But the time for that was fourteen years past. Instead of the golden torque of a royal-house, she wore the iron neckring of a slave of Belisama. She had survived three years in the ring, and Culain two; but for most, the Gate of Death was the way out of here, not the Gate of Victory. All around them similarly clad pairs were battering each other back and forth across the beaten earth of the Arena's practice ground. To either side curved barracks with the mess hall and armory opposite the great statue of Belisama that guarded the gate through which her slaves entered the Arena.

Culain's blue eyes glinted as he lifted his leather-wound practice swords. He had been generous to offer her this workout. Clearly, she needed practice against two swords. The cut of the longsword was more dangerous, but the short could serve as shield or weapon, changing direction with blurring rapidity. The past meant nothing: in the Arena, there was only the next fight, the next blow. Settling into a balanced crouch, Shanna lifted her shield and waited for it to come.