by R. M. Meluch
The gladiator tried slamming his shield into Steele’s shield again; Steele was ready to take the hit—and not straight on this time, but at an angle that blocked the gladiator’s sword arm. Steele was already reaching around him with his sword for the man’s hamstring. Got the back of his knee instead. The gladiator folded hard onto the knee and pitched backward, unable to hold himself upright. His helmet hit the arena floor, and sat askew on his head, blinding him.
Steele dashed in, stabbed into the crease of his groin. Arterial spray and sounds of enthusiastic disgust from the crowd answered him.
As the spectators relished the sickening horror, a whole cadre of fully armed soldiers came out of a gate. One commanded Steele to drop his sword.
The sword dropped from his hand of its own accord. The guards surrounded him in their box formation. Heat was leaving with the end of danger. Steele was feeling his wound now. He saw his leg coated with blood.
The guards held ranks around him, while all eyes turned to Caesar’s box.
Romulus of late appeared only for the games’ commencement, then gave his seat over to some picturesque damsel while he tended to weighty affairs of state and war.
The yellow-haired lanista walked out in his sparkling robe to the fallen Ax, whose guts had fallen from his abdomen.
The designated sweet of the day in Caesar’s box stood up. She came to the gilded rail and spread her bangled arms to the crowd, soliciting their opinion.
The enormity of sound swelled, most of the thumbs voting down.
The young woman’s thumb made a slow feint upward to boos. Then, with a foxy smile, she thumbed decisively down. The cheer soared to the sky.
One of the guards strode over to the Ax and plunged a sword into his neck. A spurt of blood said that the Ax had not been quite dead yet. But he had been a gladiator so he got the sword, before Hades could poke him with a spear, and the slave with the hook came out to collect his carcass.
The lanista proceeded to the other gladiator. This time the crowd was demanding, “Live! Live! Live!” and the young woman obliged with a thumb up. The crowd cheered, though it really seemed too late. The bleeding from his severed femoral artery had stopped. That one was already dead.
Still, men rushed out with a litter and physically carried the fallen gladiator out of the arena at a run.
So that was what the bronze gladiator Xeno meant by they like me. If they like you or they need you, they don’t let you stay dead. Roman medical technology for resuscitating the newly dead was unrivaled.
Steele’s muscles were cooling, trembling a little from dehydration. The wound in his thigh hurt now. He was ready for a shower and one of those nice intradermic injections. Come on, let’s go, guys, take me in, he thought.
He heard the lanista announcing something in Latin. Crowd cheers spiked. Steele tried to see what was happening through the armed wall of his guards.
Got a glimpse of a gladiator in shining armor, bounding out the gate and collecting adoration, tens of thousand of voices chanting his name: XE-NO! XE-NO! XE-NO! The champion himself, back from the dead.
Steele’s wall of guards started to separate around him. One commanded Steele to pick up his sword.
They were making him fight again.
33
STEELE PUSHED ASIDE MORTAL disappointment and picked up his sword from the sand.
Dissonance roiled within the crowd voices. Sympathy for the devil. This fight was fixed and their favorite villain deserved better. Their champion deserved better.
They wanted to see Xeno go against the mighty Adamas in full strength, not a defanged tiger.
Instead they were getting the championship bout with the villain lamed. A champion was only as strong as his strongest enemy. Someone had seen fit to prechew Xeno’s meal.
Steele’s guards were leaving him, keeping their shields toward him.
The lanista was striding toward the gate. I am tired of you and I hope you die.
Xeno waited.
And Steele charged sideways, to hell with the pain in his thigh. He ran all out to catch up with the lanista headed for the gate. It was not wise to expend strength on someone without a weapon, but this man had already killed him. Steele could not survive this bout and every one knew it. He was going to take his real killer with him.
The amphitheater filled with sounds of surprise, alarm, screams. The lanista became aware of his peril, looked back in time to see Steele’s face just before Steele took off his ridiculous yellow hair and his head with it. It surprised even Steele that his blade went all the way through muscle and bone, but he didn’t think he had ever been so angry. Through his blur of rage he heard the shrieks and laughter. And applause.
He turned to his opponent. Xeno was pounding his shield with his own sword. Took Steele a moment to realize that Xeno was applauding too.
Steele looked up to the crowd, gestured at the lanista’s body with his sword, soliciting a thumbs down.
And got it, with riotous laughter.
He turned to face Xeno across a length of sand. The noise died away, came back in a slow tide of chants and roars, rising and rebounding off the enclosing walls, to become a physical force.
Steele advanced at a walk to meet his fate, the Coliseum ringing. Xeno pointed his sword to Steele’s helmet where he’d abandoned it. Steele shook his head, refusing it.
Xeno took a battle stance. Steele made the first charge. Could be his last. Pain and fatigue vanished in an adrenaline surge. He caught the downstroke of Xeno’s sword with his shield, his own thrust deflected by Xeno’s shield, and he charged past. Both spun round, exchanging places. Xeno was first on the counterattack, and Steele could only turn out and away from the thrust. He jumped back in for a return stroke that landed on Xeno’s shield.
They traded hammering blows, till Steele got Xeno open—the sword stroke had gone that way, the shield that way—and Steele slashed.
Short! Scored Xeno’s cuirass, nothing more. Xeno bowled him over with his shield. Sprang over him, but couldn’t bring the kill home. Xeno’s sword plunged into sand and wood as Steele rolled back to his feet.
Somewhere in the eternity of minutes the spring left Steele’s legs. This is it. His strength was ebbing, limbs felt to be solidifying. Not even rage and noise were enough to keep his energy from slipping away.
He clashed against Xeno, shield to shield, sword hilt to sword hilt, pushed into his push. Xeno grunted behind his shield in American, “Put up a finger, Adamas. I bet they spare you.” He pushed off to the side.
They leaped apart. Xeno shouted at Steele, pointed his sword, demanded to know if he would yield. Steele shook his head. Spoke the only Latin he cared to know, “Semperfi.”
Steele lifted his sword high, charging in for a mighty slash. His shield felt to be lifting itself as the blade sliding in underneath it ran him through.
He hit the ground twitching, spitting blood. He’d pitched over onto his back. Couldn’t breathe. Diaphragm severed. Blood in his head sang for oxygen. The gladiator stood over him with his blade poised over his throat. Steele’s trembling fingers felt round in the sand to find his sword. Found the hilt, closed his hand round it in a shaky grip but could not lift it. The muscles in his abdomen would not let him lift anything. Didn’t even know if he still had muscles down there. Nauseous and his muscles wouldn’t even contract to let him vomit.
He stared up at the blade over him. Kept trying to lift his own blade. Managed only to flip it over on its other side. The crowd noise peaked.
Sand was growing warm and wet around him. He knew what the wetness was. The victorious gladiator’s face was turned toward Caesar’s box, waiting on the verdict. Xeno was wide open. He left a perfect opening and Steele couldn’t take it, his vision narrowing down to a tunnel.
The crowd was in tumult. At least half the voices chanting Live. Live. Live. As the light faded.
The evading Marines had moved their camp far away from where they hid the Roman bodies.
Kerry B
lue dragged back from her foraging mission, late and empty-handed. She gave a sniffle as if suffering an allergy to something Roman.
“What kept you!” Carly whispered a cry as Kerry Blue flopped down to sit by the small fire.
“Oh. Um.” Blue brushed the back of her hand under her nose. Shrugged. “I, uh, had sex with some guys I didn’t wanna.”
Kerry Blue was well known for not saying no. She stood by for the snotty remarks to come rolling in. The bull mastiffs were a tough crowd.
“Hell!”Twitch cried.
Cain said, “I’m so sorry, Blue!”
Kerry broke into tears. Carly looked over, scolded Cain, “What did you say to her!”
Kerry was smiling through her sobs. She grabbed Twitch and Cain in turn by the head, and kissed whatever part of the head met her lips, ‘cause she couldn’t see for tears. “I love you guys.”
Twitch wore that helpless look that guys get when a woman is hurting and they’re, well, helpless.
“You left ‘em alive?” Cain asked Kerry.
“Not my choice.”
The Marines passed round the food they’d gathered from the woods. A share came round to Kerry Blue. She pushed it away. Sniffled over her knees. “Hell of a way to treat a Russian student,” she mumbled.
Cain crouched near her, afraid to touch her. “If you see ‘em again, point ‘em out, Kerry. I’ll hit ‘em where they don’t ever wanna be hit.”
“I don’t care where you hit ‘em as long as it’s fatal,” said Kerry Blue.
“You got it, gal.”
Kerry shook back her hair. “Don’t tell the Old Man, ‘kay?” Startled them. They exchanged glances. Did she not remember that Steele was dead? Carly answered her carefully, as if she were breakable, “If that’s what you want, chica.”
Steele came to awareness coughing up liquid on the hard white floor. Must’ve got a thumbs up from the pretty thing standing in for Caesar. He had been counting on it when he’d let himself open for that thrust. Thought it an incredibly dumb idea as the blade was going through him. Looked now as if it could pay off. He knew where he was.
This time around he recognized the moment when it came. Only two medics with elephant pikes and a locked door contained him. When the warm water spray subsided, he grabbed both pikes and hauled both medics down to the slick floor with him. He cracked their heads hard on the floor and hacked off one’s ear with a blade he found in a drawer.
The ear won him a green light on the door lock. The color made him pause a moment. Green still meant go in Rome. Only the U.S. fleet had flipped its colors for the siege.
The door opened for him without alarms, and Steele let himself out to the corridor.
He knew the way to the POWs’ cage from here. He paused at the alcove by the stairs to pull out one of the beam cannons, then ran to his Marines. Immediately said, “Gimme a language module.”
Icky Iverson, dumbfound, surrendered his through the bars, as the others rose in astonishment. Not just alive but Steele was naked, wet, and armed.
A Roman passed a tunic out through the bars of the gladiator cage. “Here. No one wants to look at that.”
Ranza said, “I’m not having a problem with it.”
Keeping his distance, Steele snatched the tunic out of the offering hand. Icky said, “Sir, you have an extra ear.” Steele used the ear to unlock the cage. He passed his cannon to Ranza, then he let the criminals out.
As Steele pulled the tunic over his head, one of the criminals snatched the medic’s ear away from him and ran with it.
The gladiators, still caged, were yelling for guards. Steele would have left them locked in there even if he still had the ear. He was leaving this circus behind him.
They heard the criminals running into guards. Heard shouts and gunfire. Ranza passed the cannon back to Steele, and the Marines headed up a cross corridor. Dak took point.
Coming to a corner, Dak glanced round first, startled to see a face right there. Dak grabbed the owner of the face by the front of his tunic and hauled him back round the corner with him Dak wrapped him up in a tight headlock before he saw what he had.
A young black man in Roman garb. He had a cultured look about him, not like the evils of society they had just set free from the other cage. This one was not burly as a gladiator. His skin was soft as a baby’s.
There followed from around the corner sounds of more beings coming up the corridor. Dak jumped out into the intersection, hiding behind his hostage and warned, “Don’t come any closer!” He pretended he had a weapon at the Roman’s back.
There were four armed human guards. They stopped, but one of them laughed.
The captive locked within the crook of Dak’s elbow advised Dak in perfect, if strangled, Americanese, “You chose your hostage unwisely.”
“Nuh uh!” said Dak. “You can’t pretend you’re one of us.”
“I cannot because I am not,” said his hostage, sounding altogether stately. “But an escaping political prisoner just won’t give the effect you are looking for.”
Ranza, hunched against the wall around the corner hissed: “Oh, no! You’re not the guy who got burned with Captain Carmel!”
“I am that guy,” said Gaius Americanus.
The guards were grinning, inching forward.
Steele reached round the corner with the beam cannon. “Dak, get down.”
Dak hunkered down, hauling his hostage down with him. Steele pointed the cannon blindly over Dak’s head.
“Aim a little lower, Colonel,” said Dak. “There. Four of ‘em. And I don’t see any personal fields on ‘em.” The four Romans kept grinning. “Are you playing Russian roulette, Yank?”
U.S. weapons only fired for their authorized owners. There were nineteen U.S. beam cannons in the alcove. Steele growled at Dak, “Is there anything out there I shouldn’t shoot?”
“Nothing but Romans. You’re good, sir. Fire at everything.”
“You think that weapon is yours?” said a Roman, closing in. “Your weapon was not in the stack, Colonel Steele.”
Steele gunned down all the smiles.
“They’re all mine,” said Steele.
Marines checked the bodies to make sure they were dead. They took the four Roman weapons. Ranza carved off one guard’s earlobe with his own knife, and gave the capsule from inside it to Steele, then started on the other three. “Romans, lend me your ears.”
Steele turned back to Dak’s prisoner, Gaius America-nus. He remembered a distinguished older man. He told Gaius, “You look different.”
“So does Captain Carmel,” said Gaius Americanus. That was true. Steele motioned for Dak to loosen his grip a little. “What are you doing here?”
“My door opened,” said Gaius. “So I think: I have a friend or I have an enemy baiting me. Either way, I decided not to cower in my cage.”
“You’re not coming with us,” said Steele.
“No,” Gaius agreed. “I am not.”
Automatons, a full dozen, came marching down the stairs. Steele turned, clutching the guard’s capsule. He spoke in halting Latin. “I have these prisoners. Go catch the others. Move.”
The automatons immediately turned and retreated double time. Steele stared after them, astonished that they actually obeyed. Ranza let out a cackle, showing her gapped teeth. “It can’t be that easy!” Steele snarled, hand to his midriff. “Marine? Be careful what you call easy.”
From somewhere within the enormous building, weapons’ fire and shouting sounded. “Mister Americanus, what’s the best way out of here?”
“I’ve never been down here before,” said the Senator. “I didn’t know this was here. This is outrageous.”
“If we get to the first floor, would you know the way?”
“Yes,” Gaius said provisionally. “I think the loading dock would be my choice. If your ear pieces haven’t been disallowed by the time we get there.” Steele hadn’t considered that. The instant that some one with human intelligence found the guards dead with
bloody ears, the capsules they carried would turn from authorizations into targets. They needed to move fast.
They rushed up the stairs where the automatons had just gone. Gaius, after a momentary pause to get his bearings, led the way to the dock.
At their approach, automatons on the dock kept working, loading and unloading hover trucks. Except one, dressed as a guard. That one turned toward them with a gun. Said, “Domni, do you require assistance?”
“No,” said Steele.
They descended some concrete steps from the dock to the ground, where Gaius murmured to Steele, “Kindly order me to go now.”
Steele and Dak exchanged looks. What to do with the Roman Senator? Killing seemed the safest option.
As if reading their minds, Gaius said softly, “With Augustus dead, I am now Romulus’ worst enemy. You want me alive. I opposed the war.”
Himself, Steele would have voted for the war.
He motioned to Dak to release Gaius. “Go,” Steele commanded. Gaius walked quietly away into the city. The Marines could not do that. They could not blend. They draped a cargo tarp over themselves and left the dock on the flatbed of one of the hover trucks.
When the scenery was nothing but trees on either side, they baled out, leaving the guards’ capsules in the truck. In moments, backup lights appeared up the road. “Oh, skat!” The truck was coming back. The truck came to a stop next to the Marines, and in a machine voice, the truck informed the disembodied capsules riding in it that the truck had lost part of its load right here.
Steele picked up a capsule, verbally authorized the offloading of things at this point, and ordered the vehicle to continue on its way.
As they watched the truck go, the Marines realized that the Romans would have an easy job of tracking them to this location. The first task was to get as much space between themselves and this place as fast as they could. Not sure which way to go.
From this point forward, the escape plan was a little on the nonexistent side.
34
SENATOR QUIRINIUS OPENED the backdoor of his villa to find a young black man who smelled rather strongly and would do well with a haircut and a shave. Recognition poked about the Senator’s consciousness but did not set in until the young man spoke in an older voice, “Will you help me?”