‘Death to the Romans!’ a voice from the back taunted.
Macro looked hard at Bato. He resisted a powerful urge to beat up the Thracian for challenging his authority but forced himself to hold back, conscious of the fact that the ludus guards and their weak-willed commander could not be relied upon to deal with the other gladiators.
‘Now look here. I’m the lanista. I set the rules. You bloody well follow them, got it?’
‘Fuck your rules!’ Duras chanted. ‘Fuck the ludus!’
Bato chuckled as he gestured at the gladiators. ‘You see, Roman. You’re wasting your breath. The men are all sworn to me. We have made our position clear. We will not cooperate with you until our privileges are restored and our bounty is paid.’
‘Tough shit. I told you before, there’s no money.’
A knowing smile tickled the Thracian’s lips. ‘A barefaced lie, Roman. I know that you acquired the princely sum of forty-five thousand sestertii from the sale of three men. That’s ample funds with which to pay off what me and my men are owed.’ Bato extended his palm. ‘Hand it over.’
‘Piss off! That money is already accounted for. There are more pressing debts to settle than your fucking prize money.’
‘I am trying to be reasonable, Optio. This is your last chance to save the ludus.’
Macro glared at the Thracian. ‘Back down now, or I’ll have every man here crucified, so help me.’
Bato sneered. ‘You can threaten us all you like, Roman. It will get you nowhere. We want our privileges and our money. And let me see …’ The Thracian paused, stroking his chin. ‘Yes, we would like to negotiate a higher percentage for future victories in the arena. I think an increase to seventy-five per cent of the winning fees sounds like a good deal. What do you think, boys?’
The other Thracians cheered in agreement. Macro breathed furiously through his nostrils, his temper darkening with each passing moment. ‘If you think I’m going to give in to some rabble-rousing savage, you’ve got another think coming.’
‘As you wish. But we shall not cooperate until you agree to our demands.’ Bato folded his arms. ‘Your move, Roman.’
Macer pulled the optio to one side until they were out of earshot of the gladiators. Lowering his shrill voice, the commander said, ‘We should negotiate. Give them what they want. No need for any bloodshed, sir.’
Macro clenched his jaw and looked at the commander in disgust. ‘I won’t negotiate with a bunch of thugs. Besides, if I agree to their demands, the imperial secretary and his aide will go through the roof. This ludus is already on the brink. We can’t afford to hand over most of the winnings to Bato and his mob just because they’re not happy.’
Macer fell silent. From the corner of his eye Macro spied a violent rage brewing in Aculeo. Now the doctore stepped forward and struck his whip at Bato. Macer winced at the distinct crack of leather tearing off strips of raw flesh. But the Thracian did not blink. Enraged, Aculeo stepped closer. Blood gushed down the gladiator’s chiselled torso. The doctore hocked up phlegm in the back of his throat and spat into the Thracian’s face.
‘You’ll get back to your cell now, scum, or I’ll whip you so hard you’ll be in the infirmary for the next month.’
Bato hardened his stare at Aculeo, the saliva slithering down his nose.
‘Fucking Thracians,’ Aculeo growled.
Bato launched his balled right hand at Aculeo, aiming for the neck, dropping his right shoulder and bringing his hand round in a wide arc. As he did so, Macro glimpsed a dark object jutting out of the underside of Bato’s fist. Fear burned in his throat as he realised that the gladiator was gripping a clay shard. The doctore’s eyes widened abruptly as he was struck. The whip fell from his hands. He looked dumbly down as Bato slashed the clay shard across his throat. There was a ripping sound as the shard cut through soft flesh. Blood flowed freely out of the wound. Bato wrenched the shard away, and hot blood splashed over the doctore’s chin and trickled down his chest. He staggered backwards and collapsed in a heap on the sand. The guards drew their swords. At the same instant the other gladiators pulled out weapons concealed under their belts and loincloths. Macer visibly shrivelled, taking a step backwards and glancing uncertainly at his men as all hell broke loose.
‘Kill them!’ Bato roared, pumping his blood-coated fist in the air. ‘KILL THEM ALL!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The seven guards were too stunned to react as the gladiators charged them. The nearest gladiator, a broad-shouldered Thracian with a hairy chest, lunged at Macer, yelling at the top of his hoarse voice. The commander lost his nerve and began blindly slashing at the gladiator, his sword trembling in his limp-wristed grip, a look of sheer terror on his face. Macro turned to the guards. An unfamiliar feeling of vulnerability struck him. Unlike them, he had no weapon, having left his sword in the lanista’s quarters.
‘Hold your ground!’ he barked at the top of his voice.
He looked back to the paluses just in time to spot Duras hurtling towards him, teeth bared, eyes blazing with fury. He gripped a sharpened stake in his right hand and plunged the tip at Macro, driving it towards his chest. Macro instinctively parried the thrust with a forceful swipe of his right hand. There was a dull slap as his forearm connected with the gladiator’s bicep. Now Macro dropped his shoulder and slammed into the gladiator, sending the man stumbling backwards and crashing to the sand. He snatched up Duras’s stake. A blur of colour to the right seized his attention. A pair of unarmed gladiators were storming towards him.
‘Come on!’ Macro goaded, shaking his stake at them. ‘Which one of you bastards wants it first?’
The gladiators swapped a quick look. Then they both charged at Macro, swinging their fists above their heads. Macro easily deflected their sluggish blows. Pouncing at the gladiator on his right, the optio drove his stake into the man’s neck. A look of agony contorted the Thracian’s face. He made a savage gargling sound, pawing desperately at his throat as Macro tore the stake free. A fist hammered the optio in the right side of the stomach as the second gladiator attacked him. Blocking out the pain, Macro turned to face the man, twisting at the waist and lowering his left shoulder. With his feet planted firmly on the sand, he skewered the gladiator in his exposed abdomen. The man howled in agony. Macro ripped out the stake and glanced up. The guards had backed up to the east-facing porticoes, crouching behind their large shields as the gladiators swarmed at them. Staying hunched, they tentatively stabbed and sliced at thin air with their short swords in an attempt to keep the Thracians at bay. The bodies of two gladiators lay sprawled at their feet.
Macro thought quickly. Although the guards had superior weaponry compared to the clay shards, surgical blades and lengths of wood in the hands of the gladiators, they were taken aback by the wild fervour in the eyes of the men. The gladiators threw themselves at the guards, foaming at the mouth as they roared battle cries in their native tongue. In turn the guards hacked frantically at the charging gladiators. The air quickly filled with the crunching thud of metal against flesh.
One gladiator leapt forward at one of the guards foolish enough to lower his shield and jabbed him in the neck repeatedly with a scalpel. The guard thrashed from side to side as the life spurted out of him. Sensing that the situation was turning desperate, Macro darted forward, his sandals pounding on the parched sand, and hammered his fist into the face of a gladiator attempting to flank the guards. The Thracian’s expression registered dumb shock, eyes blinking as his head snapped back.
Now a bearish gladiator slashed wildly at Macro with a clay shard. Macro easily ducked the attack and piked his wooden stake into the man’s thigh. Grabbing the legionary sword and shield from the slain guard, he sprang forward on the balls of his feet, rushing over the corpse and crunching his shield into the nearest gladiator, then cutting up with the sword and sinking the blade into the man’s armpit. The gladiator growled angrily, staggering back as the blood coursed from his gaping wound. Lowering his sword to hip level,
Macro now thrust at a second gladiator, managing to stab the man in his chest with a solid angled drive. Then he flicked his wrist, giving the blade a good twist and grinding up the gladiator’s bowels, drawing a terrified squeal of pain from the man as he collapsed to the sand.
‘Stick it to ’em!’ Macro yelled to the guards. ‘Cut every one of ’em down!’
The men began pressing forward, hunched behind their shields, inspired by the courageous actions of the optio. Slowly they regained the advantage, savagely attacking the poorly armed gladiators. Sword points glinted. Several gladiators continued their attack but their resistance soon crumpled as their makeshift weapons proved no match for their opponents’ swords. There was a ferocious roar as the guards pushed forward again, thrusting at the gladiators, stabbing at the mass of exposed torsos with ruthless abandon. The screams of the gladiators were swiftly replaced by the groans and strains of the attacking guards, and the frenzied thunk of swords slamming into bone. Suddenly the surviving gladiators retreated towards the training posts, looking on with dismay as their comrades disappeared under a hail of sword tips and a cloud of dust. Macro did not have time to congratulate himself. He searched frantically around the training ground for Bato.
A rush of motion ahead seized his attention. Duras had cornered Macer. The bodyguard wrenched the shield away from the commander’s feeble grip and tossed it aside as if it was made of papyrus. Macer screamed as he retreated from the gladiator, a terrified look stitched into his lax features. Duras roared throatily, diving at Macer. The commander jumped back with fear, slipping on disembowelled entrails and landing on his backside. There was a distinct jingle as the dormitory cell keys tumbled from his belt and landed just out of reach. Duras watched Macer scrabble away on his hands and knees, abandoning the keys, Macro looking on helplessly as the bodyguard bent his enormous frame at the waist and scooped the keys off the ground, chucking them to Bato.
‘Bugger it!’ Macro grumbled.
He raced towards Bato. The Thracian turned to face him, calmly standing his ground, wielding a wooden training sword which he twirled in his hand as Macro charged at him. His lightning-fast gladiator reflexes caught the optio by surprise. There was a flash of shadow as the wooden blade whacked Macro on the side of his head. He fell to one knee and tried to clear his head of the dizzying sensation. Bato lunged again, bringing the wooden sword down over Macro’s head as if chopping with an axe. Macro’s combat instincts kicked in, and he rolled on to his side. He felt the swoosh of the wooden blade as it grazed his cheek and stabbed the sand. Seizing the chance to counterattack, he cut up at Bato, aiming at the throat. The gladiator jerked his head at the last instant. The blade nicked his ear. He jumped back, half mad with anger as blood trickled down his neck. His glare turned to a grin as Duras disappeared into the shadows of the dormitory. Bato turned to follow him, and Macro was shaping to pursue them when a voice at his back stopped him short.
‘Sir!’ one of the guards shouted. ‘Look! To the south.’
Macro swung his gaze towards the open gate. Five gladiators had broken away from the battle and were charging the guards at the post next to the gate. Seeing the imminent danger, the guards lowered the portcullis and drew their swords. Macro promptly felt his throat constrict.
‘Oh shit. They’ll raise the gate!’
He was temporarily torn between pursuing Bato and securing the gate. But with only four guards left standing, and Macer having deserted, he knew he lacked the manpower to regain control of the dormitory. There were sixty cells in the dormitory, with two gladiators to a cell. Attacking it with a trickle of poorly trained and out-of-shape guards would be doomed to failure. On the other hand, as long as the gladiators were trapped inside the ludus, the people of Capua were safe. He quickly decided that isolating the threat was his best strategy, at least until he possessed the means to force the issue with Bato.
Macro turned to the men. ‘Who’s second-in-command here?’
A young guard with blond curly hair raised his hand. ‘Glabrio, sir.’
‘You’ve just been promoted, lad.’ The young man gave an anxious nod. ‘Now, where the fuck are the other guards?’
The young soldier nodded to the dormitory. Hideous screams echoed from deep within it, and he and Macro shuddered at the appalling fate awaiting those guards unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped amid a throng of vengeful gladiators.
‘It’s too late for them,’ Macro said, snapping Glabrio out of his trance. ‘Listen carefully. There are only two exits from the ludus. I’ll take care of the gate. I want you to fall back to the lanista’s quarters and seal the door. We have to make sure there’s nowhere for Bato and his men to run.’
‘What about Macer, sir?’
The optio stared darkly at the junior officer. ‘Macer has deserted. I’m in charge, lad. And I’m ordering you to bloody well seal off the other exit! If you prefer, I can write you up for dereliction of duty, and you can run the gauntlet at dawn. Am I clear, Glabrio?’
The young soldier nodded after a momentary pause. ‘Yes, sir!’
‘Good. Take one guard with you.’
Macro eyed the arms of a grizzled guard. Judging from his scars, the man had seen combat at one time or another. Unlike his commander, the optio thought glumly.
‘You! Name!’
‘Bassus, sir.’
‘Ever fought in a proper battle?’
Bassus nodded quickly. ‘I was in the Eighth Legion for twenty years, sir. Saw plenty of action down by the Danube.’
‘Today’s your lucky day, Bassus. You get to cut down a bunch of mutinous gladiators and save the imperial ludus from disaster.’ Macro gestured to the struggle unfolding at the gate.
The orderlies unloading the wagon had been scythed down by the onrushing gladiators; amphoras lay shattered on the ground, their contents spilling across the sand. One of the guards lay on his back, clutching his guts and screaming for his mother. His comrade put up a brave resistance, but he’d been forced back to the outer door by one of the breakaway gladiators. The other four gladiators split into two pairs, grappling with the two sets of coiled cord ropes used to raise the portcullis.
‘We’ve got to stop them from escaping,’ Macro said to Bassus. ‘If they break out, half the locals in Capua will find themselves at the wrong end of a blade. Same goes for us if the Emperor discovers our fuck-up. We’ve got to take them down.’
Bassus looked dumbfounded. ‘Seal the doors, sir? Forgive me, but we’ll be trapped too.’
‘Can’t be helped,’ Macro answered firmly. ‘We’re all that stands between a mob of angry gladiators and the people of Capua.’
Macro hurried towards the main gate. Bassus staggered at his shoulder, his breathing laboured as he struggled to match the optio’s pace. He was clearly exhausted from the skirmish. Years spent living in the relative comfort of the ludus, far from the rough and tumble of life on the frontiers of the Empire, had dulled his edge. Macro prayed that the guards’ superior weapons would be enough to stop the gladiators from gaining complete control of the ludus.
There was a barbaric cheer from the main gate as the portcullis slowly rose off the ground. In front of the outer door, the guard managed to cut down his gladiator opponent and dropped to one knee, clutching a wide gash on his right ankle.
‘Take the bastards on the left,’ Macro shouted to Bassus. ‘I’ll cut down the two on the right.’
Bassus nodded enthusiastically. Belting out a hoarse roar, Macro charged at the gladiators to the right of the portcullis. His veins coursed with hot rage and one of the gladiators glanced up at the onrushing optio and hesitated. Filling his lungs, Macro let out an animal snarl and leapt forward. The gladiator quickly dropped the rope and moved to meet Macro head on, bracing himself for impact. At the last moment Macro thrust his shield out, smashing into the gladiator. The shield juddered in his grip, sending tremors up his forearm. He had no time to admire his handiwork. A piercing grating noise told him that the portcullis had fin
ally been raised. The last gladiator on the right was frantically securing the rope.
The optio quickened his pace now, moving forward fearlessly towards the gladiator as he darted for the open mouth of the gate. Macro dived at him, nicking his calf muscle with the tip of his blade. A gout of red and pink oozed out of his leg. The gladiator spun round, hobbling with pain. Macro froze. The gladiator was clutching a sword taken from a dead guard. Incensed by his injury, he thrust his sword at the optio. Macro threw his head to one side at the last instant, the edge of the blade grazing his cheek. The gladiator sprang forward. There was an explosive grunt as the full weight of the man crashed on top of Macro’s shield, slamming the optio to the ground. He placed the sole of his hobnailed sandal on the gladiator’s chest and kicked out with all his might, launching the gladiator into the air. The man landed heavily a short distance away, the sword clattering out of his hand. As Macro scraped himself off the sand, he saw the gladiator roll on to his belly, crawling towards his sword. Macro had a moment to react. He glanced up and saw the portcullis directly over the floored gladiator. The spikes glistened like wolves’ teeth.
‘Leave the ludus!’ Macro shouted to the guard standing in front of the outer door. ‘Lock it behind you, and whatever you do, don’t open it up!’
The guard nodded and hobbled out through the doors, slamming them shut behind him. In the same instant Macro spun to his left and hacked through the tautened portcullis rope with his sword with a single clean blow. The rope snapped apart, and the gate crashed heavily to earth. The gladiator on the ground screamed as the spikes punched through his arms, legs and torso, impaling him.
‘I’ve always wanted to do that, sir.’
Macro looked over his shoulder at Bassus. He stood beaming over the bodies of the two gladiators who’d been operating the ropes on the left. They now lay sprawled on the sand.
‘What’s that, Bassus?’
‘Carve up a couple of Thracians. Devious buggers, sir. Couldn’t trust any of ’em further than you could piss.’
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