Gladiator Clash

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Gladiator Clash
Chris Blake

Join Tom on an incredible treasure hunt through time and battle history’s mightiest warriors. The first book in a new time-travelling series – perfect for fans of Beast Quest.When ten-year-old Tom accidentally smashes a statue in a museum he releases Isis, a young Egyptian mummy who has been imprisoned for thousands of years. To break an ancient curse, the duo must travel back in time to find six hidden amulets - battling Gladiators, Knights, Greeks, Vikings, Pirates and Egyptian Warriors!On Tom and Isis’s first adventure they arrive in Ancient Rome. To find the amulet they will have to fight the fiercest gladiator who ever lived!

Time Hunters: Gladiator Clash

Chris Blake

Travel through time with Tom and Isis on more

adventures!

Time Hunters: Gladiator Clash

Time Hunters: Knight Quest

Time Hunters: Viking Raiders

Time Hunters: Greek Warriors

Time Hunters: Pirate Mutiny

Time Hunters: Egyptian Curse

For games, competitions and more visit:

www.time-hunters.com (http://www.time-hunters.com)

With special thanks toMarnie Stanton-Riches

Title Page (#uf9c20fdb-23b6-5166-b048-5021c5e51d0d)

Dedication (#u93b205ac-6433-533c-8380-e15732827bd4)

Prologue (#ub83db31a-43ea-5e31-8ec5-ee1939ec137f)

Chapter 1: The Mummy (#uf5a0d41a-586a-5f61-b850-5510fba6a848)

Chapter 2: Roman Holiday (#u5d7835e4-aebe-5582-85d4-9d9ebb00b209)

Chapter 3: Gladiator Training (#u460cad5e-54b2-5507-b6bb-f936e1107fb1)

Chapter 4: Anubis Drops In (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5: Try Outs (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6: Itching to Fight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7: It’s Showtime! (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8: Hilarus (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9: A Speedy Exit (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10: Top Cat (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11: Home Sweet Home (#litres_trial_promo)

Who were the Mightiest Gladiators? (#litres_trial_promo)

Weapons (#litres_trial_promo)

Gladiator Clash Timeline (#litres_trial_promo)

Time Hunters Timeline (#litres_trial_promo)

Fantastic Facts (#litres_trial_promo)

The Hunt Continues… (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Five thousand years ago

Princess Isis and her pet cat, Cleo, stood outside the towering carved gates to the Afterlife. It had been rotten luck to fall off a pyramid and die at only ten years of age, but Isis wasn’t worried – the Afterlife was meant to be great. People were dying to go there, after all! Her mummy’s wrappings were so uncomfortable she couldn’t wait a second longer to get in, get her body back and wear normal clothes again.

“Oi, Aaanuuubis, Anubidooby!” Isis shouted impatiently. “When you’re ready, you old dog!”

Cleo started to claw Isis’s shoulder. Then she yowled, jumping from Isis’s arms and cowering behind her legs.

“Calm down, fluffpot,” Isis said, bending to stroke her pet. “He can’t exactly woof me to death!” The princess laughed, but froze when she stood up. Now she understood what Cleo had been trying to tell her.

Looming up in front of her was the enormous jackal-headed god of the Underworld himself, Anubis. He was so tall that Isis’s neck hurt to look up at him. He glared down his long snout at her with angry red eyes. There was nothing pet-like about him. Isis gulped.

“‘WHEN YOU’RE READY, YOU OLD DOG?’” Anubis growled. “‘ANUBIDOOBY?’”

Isis gave the god of the Underworld a winning smile and held out five shining amulets. She had been buried with them so she could give them to Anubis to gain entry to the Afterlife. There was a sixth amulet too – a gorgeous green one. But Isis had hidden it under her arm. Green was her favourite colour, and surely Anubis didn’t need all six.

Except the god didn’t seem to agree. His fur bristled in rage. “FIVE? Where is the sixth?” he demanded.

Isis shook her head. “I was only given five,” she said innocently.

To her horror, Anubis grabbed the green amulet from its hiding place. “You little LIAR!” he bellowed.

Thunder started to rumble. The ground shook. Anubis snatched all six amulets and tossed them into the air. With a loud crack and a flash of lightning, they vanished.

“You hid them from me!” he boomed. “Now I have hidden them from you – in the most dangerous places throughout time.”

Isis’s bandaged shoulders drooped in despair. “So I c-c-can’t come into the Afterlife then?”

“Not until you have found each and every one. But first, you will have to get out of this…” Anubis clicked his fingers. A life-sized pottery statue of the goddess Isis, whom Isis was named after, appeared before him.

Isis felt herself being sucked into the statue, along with Cleo. “What are you doing to me?” she yelled.

“You can only escape if somebody breaks the statue,” Anubis said. “So you’ll have plenty of time to think about whether trying to trick the trickster god himself was a good idea!”

The walls of the statue closed around Isis, trapping her and Cleo inside. The sound of Anubis’s evil laughter would be the last sound they would hear for a long, long time…

Squeak-thump, squeak-thump, squeak-thump.

Tom Sullivan loved the noise that his trainers made on the shiny floor of the museum. He drank in the smell of wood polish and three-thousand-year-old dust. All the lights were off, apart from those in the display cabinets. All the visitors had gone home. It was just him and Dad.

He reached his dad’s office. It was on the first floor, at the end of the Ancient Greece section. The brass nameplate on the door said ‘Dr James Sullivan, Archaeologist’.

“One day I’ll have one just like it,” Tom said to himself. “‘Tom Sullivan, History Genius’. Ha!”

He knocked on the door.

“Hi, Dad, will you be long?” Tom asked.

Dad was poring over a sheaf of papers, which were scattered across his untidy desk. “Eh?” he replied.

“Do I have time to explore a bit more?” Tom said.

Dad looked up at him, his bright blue eyes staring out blankly from behind his glasses. “Oh, I’m not hungry, thanks,” he said. “I don’t like cheese and pickle.” He turned his attention back to the papers.

Tom knew his dad was lost in a world of his own, full of pyramids and Romans and Vikings. “I’m off to fight with some gladiators now, Dad,” he said. “Maybe some cavemen too.”

“That’s nice,” Dad mumbled.

Tom wandered through the familiar corridors, peering into the display cases of his favourite exhibits. In the hall of Ancient Greece, he admired the feathered Greek army helmets. In the Viking section, he marvelled at the shields and swords covered in strange letters. As he walked through the hall of Medieval Britain, he waved at some models of men wearing chainmail. Finally, saving the best until last, he went down the stairs to the Ancient Egyptian section.

Tom loved history and liked to pretend he could travel through time. He lunged towards a brightly painted sarcophagus, using his pen as a sword. “Watch out, pharaoh!” he told the exhibit behind the glass. “I’m a deadly swordsman from the future. Your armies will never defeat me!”

Then, with flailing arms, he started to fight off a band of imaginary Ancient Egyptian attackers, running backwards as if he was being chased.

Tom stumbled and tripped, only noticing the statue labelled ‘Goddess Isis’ when it was too late. He smacked into it at full force.

The statue wobbled to the right, then it rocked back to the left. Tom rushed forward to save it. “Nooo…!” he cried. But he was too late. The statue toppled on to the floor and smashed into a million pieces.

“Uh oh,” Tom gulped. “Dad’s going to kill me! The museum’s going to kill me! Everyone’s going to kill me!”

Tom’s heart pounded in his chest as he stared at the mess. There were pottery fragments everywhere. Then something very strange began to happen. The bits started to move and shake.

Tom gasped as five fingers reached out from what was left of the statue. The fingers were wrapped in dirty, torn bandages. Like an Egyptian mummy! Tom stared in shock as the fingers stretched out into a hand, opening and closing as if it was trying to grab him. The hand was followed by a wrist, then an arm…

Suddenly a whole, groaning, child-sized mummy sprang from the wreckage. The shape of some sort of mummified animal stood next to it. Both were wrapped head to toe in crusty shreds of cloth, the loose ends flapping as they moved. They looked at Tom and started walking towards him.

“Aaaargh! Don’t hurt me!” Tom cried.

But to his surprise the bandaged animal started to purr and then circle round his leg in a friendly manner.

Tom stared down at it. “Oh my gosh! Is that really a cat?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes, of course! It’s my cat, Cleo!” the mummy said, with a young girl’s voice.

The mummy stood up tall, which, Tom noticed, wasn’t as tall as him, and straightened its back with a crack. A cloud of dust billowed round the mummy and wafted to the floor, as if someone had beaten a grimy rug with a stick.

“Y-you spoke!” Tom said, wiping his sweaty palms on his school trousers.

The mummy folded its arms. “Well, of course I spoke! What did you expect me to do?”

“Er… but… I can understand you.”

“I’m not surprised. Father always said I was special,” the mummy sniffed. “That’s why he named me after the goddess of magic. My name’s Princess Isis Amun-Ra. I’m ten. Who are you?”

Tom scratched his head in exactly the same way his dad had done. “I’m Tom,” he said.

The ragged Egyptian princess frowned. “Just Tom? You don’t have a title?”

“Sorry if that’s not good enough for you,” said Tom, slightly annoyed.

“I suppose it’ll have to be,” Isis said. She picked up the scrawny cat mummy. “We’ve been stuck inside that statue for a zillion, billion years. Cleo’s not much of a talker, unfortunately. I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored.”

Tom looked properly at Isis. She didn’t seem quite so scary now that he knew she was just a ten year old like him. Even though she looks in worse shape than my great-grandma and smells weird, he thought. But, despite the fact that he was fascinated by this mummy-girl, Tom started to edge towards the door. He had seen films about mummys coming to life and he knew they liked to eat brains.

“Look,” he said. “I’m going to have to go home very soon. So… it was nice meeting you. Bye!”

“You can’t just leave me here. Take me with you,” Isis commanded, putting a hand on her hip.

“No way!” Tom said. “You’re an Ancient Egyptian mummy. My mum will go nuts if you drop bits of bandage all over my bedroom.”

“Bandage? My father was King of Egypt. These are regal wrappings, I’ll have you know!” Isis snapped.

“Look, Your Royal Dustiness, I’m a lowly human boy with a brand-new carpet and a mum who doesn’t care much for mess. So that kind of rules out grotty, ancient house guests – even princesses.”

Clomp, clomp, clomp. Suddenly, Tom heard footsteps getting closer.

“Dad’s coming!” he said. “Quick! Hide!”

Isis shook her head. “Hide? You must be joking! I’ve only just got out of that statue. I’m not hiding away again.”

“Tom!” Dad called out.

In a panic, Tom glanced around the room. For a second he thought about bundling Isis and Cleo into the shadows. But that would never work. Isis was rooted to the spot, arms folded. Cleo wrapped herself around Isis’s ankles. Tom made do with hastily kicking some of the broken pieces of pottery behind a nearby display case.

As Dad walked in, Tom stood in front of Isis and Cleo, desperately trying to make himself big enough to hide them both.