He stood there, shocked, as the thousands cheered him.
He ignored the two god-like men, Dis Pater and Mercury, who were walking around the battlefield. They set to work. Dis Pater went from dead to dead and slammed his huge mallet at skulls. Each brutal swing drew a huge cheer from the crowd. After, each time Mercury leaned close, and I saw he stabbed each with a red-hot poker. When confirmed dead, the slaves of the two set about gathering the corpses, and they were dragged out of the Gate of the Dead.
It was simply one of the gates for the chariots, wreathed with black flowers. The other one had white ones, and the champion noxii was pushed to exit from it.
“Lucky,” Varro murmured. “Usually he would have gotten his arse killed last.”
There were officials getting up. They would be announcing the next event.
The crowds were going wild.
They were eating bread, speaking loudly with their friends and family, others lost, hoping to find their relatives and friends. Tiberius was seated on his seat, bored and wifeless. There was no Livia, I noticed. Nor was Antonia there.
There was the entire family otherwise.
Antonia, regal and old, sat near him, her shoulders squared and back straight.
Drusus the Younger and Livilla, Agrippina the Elder and her children were nearby. I even saw the young Gaius Julius, jumping up and down near his mother.
We all waited in silence.
Varro was holding his head high.
“Now,” he whispered.
Trumpets blared. They were clear, impossibly loud, and echoed across the sand and the hills. Then, gates were opening near us. Varro chortled. “Look at them, boys. There they are. Our boys. No novicii these, my friends. Sacramentum has been sworn, and all wear the brand. Battle has been tested at least once. Usually, we would have lightly armed and armored men fighting each other now, but no, this is special. Catarvarii, you lot. A melee. You barbarian, bastard horde, do you see them?”
He was half speaking to himself, and I guessed he was starving for victory, having bet against us heavily. Most would.
I saw them.
And finally, I saw Ulrich.
There he was.
Finally.
He was walking amongst the fifteen ordinarii, veteranii, but not champions.
Ulrich was a murmillo. His wide brimmed, ornate helmet was in his hand, as he marched to the sand with his brothers from the gates, and he waved.
“Behold, the centurion—” the officials shouted, and then we heard no more, as the people beheld the champion and cheered. The Dead Mars ludus was glaringly displayed, and while the other ludii would get their turn later, Varro’s name was prominently being announced across the theatre.
I saw one man, standing on one of the obelisks bases in the middle, lifting a parchment.
His voice was extraordinarily loud and clear, ominous like the absolute best actor’s. “Varro’s Dead Mars, and Augustus, Princeps Tiberius is proud to give you the past! The past marches on the sand, ladies, and lords of Rome! The great champions who stood against Brennus,” he called, and pointed his hand elaborately at the fifteen men, brilliant in silver armor and holding silver shields, their weapons a myriad of finest steel. Tassels and paint did not change them from being killing weapons. There were retiarii, with the manica that covered their arms, and their shoulders were covered by a galerus. They carried a rete, the weighted net, and fuscina and tridens, both three pronged spears and evil to their core. Sublicagulum was around their hips, a simple loincloth with wide belt, leather and chain.
There were four of them.
Then there were secutores, chasers, with their large shields, swords, fine helmets. Two eyeholes like in mine, and smooth on top, their manica made of metal strips; they also had the ocrea.
There were few of them too.
Three were thraeces, with those odd, short blades that curved to the front, and were meant to cut at the back, over an enemy’s shoulder. Their small parmula shields and greaves gleamed in the light of Sunna as they marched.
One looked like a secutor but had two swords.
The rest were murmillo, few of them, with their great helmets, manica, and padded arms, and hoplomachus or few, their spears gleaming, their greaves and padded feet shuffling, and their spears high.
They were young men mostly, save for Ulrich, who led them as they walked past us.
The official was yelling again. “Cheer those who saved Rome! And pray, you all, that they may do so again!” he called out. “Let them take their place on the hill! But first, let them be seen!”
Every eye followed them as they walked around the stadium. Even from the oblong end of the Circus, people were on their feet, trying to see every detail as the men walked past and around the track. It took time, the cheering was terrific, birds were scattering from the stone and wooden stands, and the gods themselves seemed to wink at Rome with assured victory, for Sunna peeked from the clouds fully and shone down on the fields around Rome, and then the city itself.
“They are—” said Pig behind me.
The Dacian finished, “—our death.”
“They are fools,” Pig insisted. “Cannot piss straight.”
“They,” I snarled, “are crow bait, walking dead, filth and shit, and we’ll stomp them to the sand, and piss over their fucking faces.”
Varro gave me a grin, and the others shifted, oddly filled with some confidence.
“Let them,” I snarled, “climb to their tomb.”
And slowly, accompanied by cheers, and only stopping to salute Tiberius, they walked to the six foot tall platform. There were the three levels of it, and the gladiators were, cumbersomely in their armor and shields, climbing it.
The first level was at three feet high.
The retiarii were taking their places at the bottom with the hoplomachi, and the secutors filled the holes. The second level held murmillo, and Ulrich, he climbed to the top and flashed his sword high.
Men and women screamed strange manic joy.
“And here!” called out the official. “Here are the enemy! Brennus the Senone! The Gaul who raped Rome!”
Varro—hampered by the blaring trumpets, dangerous and sonorous—grinned at me.
“Oh. You are Brennus. Go and make a good show, eh? Remember you lot,” he called out, “refuse to kill them, to fight, and it is hot iron for you. Up the shit hole, eh? Arrow and blade. Untouchable scum, you are, but at least you get buried when you die here and not thrown to the river like the dead noxii. Fight well! And should one of you win, you are mine. I doubt you will.”
“We will,” I said darkly.
He stepped aside. “Listen to the announcer. Then you attack. Or die.”
I placed the sword over my shoulder and walked forward. I stepped to the light and felt my heart beating harder.
I watched the enemy.
I felt no rage.
I cursed Woden. “What is the matter, eh? Did you leave me now? Is this not just, Woden? Should I not be here? Cassia. You like Cassia. Now let me avenge her.”
There was only silence. Though only in my head.
The crowds began jeering. They saw us coming, a block of trouble, well armored and armed, a horde of fighters. The gladiators stared at us impassively, their oiled skin gleaming, their weapons at a ready as they gyrated to stand against us. The chanting and the trumpets were blaring, and the announcer was waving his hand at us, but his voice was drowned out.
I looked around me and saw the mass of men spreading out.
Fools.
I stopped ten steps away from the enemy and waited. Men spread around me.
The horns went quiet.
The murmur of the people was less. I saw Tiberius leaning forward, and everyone tensing.
A white bird took to wing from one gate and flew past us beating its wings frantically.
The announcer grinned, lifted his hand, and lowered it.
Horns blared.
I lifted the sword and pointed it at
the enemy. “Kill them or die in agony.”
One by one, the prisoners ran forward, shields out.
And I waited.
I turned my head and saw the Dacian and the Pig also waited. The latter grinned. “I figure you know what to do. We are the reserve, eh?”
I cursed them. “Wait here.”
“Pleasure,” murmured Blaesus.
We stood behind as the rabble attacked. They looked splendid, but the gladiators were ready for them.
We saw a butchery.
The men, swords up, rushed forward, screaming. They crashed to each other, and shields up, when they had room in the press, they tried to push straight up.
Spears punched at them, as the hoplomachi and the retiarii attacked them from above. Lightning fast, the spears they usually threw early in the fight, sliced to necks and backs, and in the press, it was hard to say how many fell in that first, brutal moment they crashed to the platform.
Who had their shield up, tried to hack down on the gladiators on the platform, with little success as their own ranks were hampering their movements. One of ours fell at the feet of the platform, crushed by the others.
They spread left and right, hopping like rabbits.
The Pig whistled. “The bastards left the corners clear.”
Indeed, they had bunched in the middle, and the corner were clear.
That is where half of our men went. To the corners. They saw a space beyond the terrible press and butchery and tried to scale it, while their companions in death still tried to stab at the feet of the enemy in front. Their shields were crushed in the press—ineffectual, sometimes useless even. One gladiator, a young retiarii, threw his net over the stupid bastards below, and another followed suit, and at least five of our men and their swords were made useless.
The spears stabbed, and one of the secutores kicked down one poor man, who fell hard.
I saw men fall. Three, four.
But the ones going for the corners thought they would do well.
They hopped up, climbed up the both corners, ten of them jostling to get there, and so the murmillo and the thraex on the second level hopped down and crashed their shields at the fools.
They all fell hard, some trailing blood, though one thraex, screaming, fell too, his guts flowing as one of ours reached up and managed a slash across his belly. The murmillo danced over the climbing desperate and stabbed at their faces and shoulders.
The crowds were wild with excitement.
I watched Ulrich.
He was laughing, on top of all, happy, a lord of Rome at that moment. His sword was high, and he screamed orders at his men, though they needed few.
I hated him. I hated him, and what he had stood for, lies and deceit.
And still, I felt confused.
I had, ever since I had sent my son away. I had fought badly against the Ox.
Revenge tasted like ashes. I felt exhausted by blood and the fight, unable to move as I used to, with purpose of slaying, and to slay until I could slay no more.
I saw four of our men, holding shields on top of their heads, Germani all, climb for the lower platform at the left corner. Taking kicks, stabs, and hits, they managed to stand up, and then one died with his throat cut out, the other one fell on his face, as the gladiators killed him, slitting his neck.
A man with arm guard and two swords was standing over him and slashed at the Germani’s arse with the blade, laughing like a maniac.
Weeping, some twelve men who were left made the effort, halfhearted now, to get up.
Two retiarii jumped down on the side and attacked the men.
I watched Ulrich, laughing on top.
And then, Ulrich finally made me angry.
He pointed his sword my way and yelled, “Brennus! Come, Brennus! I will rape you with my sword! I will have your woman walking in my triumph, right to my cell and bed! She will love it! She will be my bitch for the night! She will drag her feet to the Roman wolf! What is a Gaul or Germani man compared to the champion of Rome!”
He was Germani.
But also, just then, champion of Rome in the re-enactment.
Cassia’s death made its way to my head. Her face, her dead hands.
And for some reason, Thusnelda’s face in Germanicus’s triumph also came to my mind. The face of her boy.
Armin’s terrible anguish on the banks of River Rhenus flashed in my face.
And I suddenly hated Rome as much as anything in my life. No Germani, but cruel easterners, or the bastard Romans would humiliate a woman thus.
In a world where I, like my father, had sold my soul to Rome—to lies, to deceit, to death and shame for fear of losing my loved ones, and perhaps for power one might find here—I remembered suddenly those brief moments of anger, shame, and spite for Rome.
Champion of Rome?
I would start with him.
I felt and heard the thrum of battle in my ears. I heard Woden’s whispered in the dark woods, deep from the fog, as he was dancing wildly, throwing his hand up, spear stabbing. His eyes, red and black, flashed, and I felt, this time, that he was not alone.
This time, someone else helped him.
Someone else was in that mist.
Someone I had struggled against, but also someone who was close to Woden, part of him, his kin, and the dark face of night-beast flashed there in the shadows, the eyes white and terrible.
Lok.
I stepped forward.
The mass of gladiators was now jumping down from the bloody, slick platform, kicking back our surviving men.
“Come on,” I snarled. “Guard my back and sides.”
“We are dead!” Pig shrieked, and I realized they had been cajoling me to move for a moment already.
I ran.
The murmillo and the thraex, shields bashing our warriors down, were pushing our men back in rout. Only two gladiators were down, thirteen alive.
I watched them push the mass of our men. Ulrich hopped down to the bottom platform and stood over the battle like he had won it.
His eyes went to me.
“Watch out!”
It was too late.
There were three retiarii and a hoplomachus now on the left side, pushing into the poor bastards, killing like mad things from Helheim.
Fast, fast as a weasel, I ran.
I ran straight for the retiarii, deep into the press of bodies, jumped over a corpse and a howling wounded and slammed my shield at them lot of them so extremely hard.
I remember two faces.
They looked up at me, and then they fell to my spatha, and I stabbed down at their writhing bodies. I stepped over them, hacked down one of ours, in mistake, and dodged a spear tossed by a hoplomachus, stabbing up at him and through his throat. I saw a murmillo before me, his visor bloodied, and he crashed his shield at me.
I pushed back, and we struggled, until the Dacian came and cut his shoulder and neck, and I pushed him over. Pig stabbed at another murmillo, at the man’s back, and I stepped past both, kicked a secutor in the knee, and Blaesus hacked him down so brutally, his skull was left in two halves.
The battle changed into a terrible chaos.
Suddenly, our desperate Gauls were hacking about amid the gladiators, pulling them down from behind, and they rolled in a brutal sand amid cutting swords and dying men. I squared against the man with two swords, the insulting, rude bastard, and his blades cut down. They hammered down at me, I let one crash against my helmet, and then I dropped my shield and gasped his swinging right hand and cut at the wrist. I pushed him away, kicked him in the throat, and looked up at the platform, blood red.
There, two murmillo, and Ulrich, were looking at the chaos below them.
Nay, Ulrich was looking at me.
I grunted and noticed my sword was bent. “So much for the finest steel,” I growled, and missed Nightbright.
I dropped it, grasped a heavy, terribly sharp trident from the dust and ran for them.
One turned. The murmillo slashed down
at me, and the trident impaled his forearm. I twisted it and ripped it out with flesh. He fell back, screaming, and I vaulted to the platform.
I realized the crowd was howling.
I realized it was on its feet.
I saw a murmillo, his sword and shield right before me, his eyes gleaming behind the ornate visor, and the blade cut at me extremely fast, the shield pushing back.
The blade cut to my already wounded side. I managed to bash it aside, but not fast enough.
Pig stabbed up from below, and my foe’s thigh was cut open.
He fell against me, his shield to the side, and I rammed my free hand under his helmet and grasped him by the mouth. I yanked him with me, slipping in the bloody platform, and the sword hacked to my helmet again, the man was pushing me back, but I held on to the platform, just barely, and stopped him. I squeezed his face as hard as I could, and I heard a bone popping. Gibbering like an animal, the murmillo let go of his weapons and tried to pry me off.
Ulrich had climbed back to the top.
“You won’t be safe there, you bastard,” I snarled.
He was shaking his head. “No,” he whispered.
“Aye, wife killer,” I snarled. “It is I. Your fucking bane, Rome.”
“Please!” he yelled. “Look, you don’t understand. You must not—”
I tossed the trident.
It flew true, fast, and sunk to his belt, guts, and crotch. He howled, danced back, and fell on his knees. I pushed the struggling gladiator down to Blaesus, who butchered him in the mud. I stepped forward to pull Ulrich down with the trident. He flopped to the platform like a fish, and there, I twisted the blade, my eyes on his, hidden behind his murmillo helmet. “For Cassia,” I hissed.
“Wait,” he whimpered. “You don’t know…they are all liars. I work for him now—”
I twisted the blade, he shat himself, pissed like a child, and meowed, as his belly spread over the wooden parapet.
Then he shivered, and finally died.
I leaned on the trident. I watched his eyes grow cold and lifeless and felt glee.
“Rome died, and can die,” I whispered. “All it takes is someone clever.”
Finally, I did notice the battle had ended, with only three or us still standing. The Pig, Blaesus, and I. When I looked up at the crowds, they were wild with fury, or joy, bets lost or won, thousands of them thundering at me with their feet and hands.
The Oath Keeper Page 9