‘Grab one from the first Roman you kill. Up! Up! Up!’ More and more ladders came smacking in against the barrier. Spartacus gritted his teeth and began to climb. This was the most dangerous part. He peered grimly up at the pointed stakes that formed the lip of the rampart. It was difficult to climb with one hand — the other held his sica — and easy to miss his footing on the rungs. Even more perilous were the defenders who awaited him. He was two- thirds up the ladder when a legionary appeared above, gripping a forked length of stick. With fierce concentration, he placed it against the top of Spartacus’ ladder and began to push.
Shit! Adrenalin surged through Spartacus’ veins and he shot up several more rungs. His ascending body weight made it much harder for the Roman to push the ladder outwards. Cursing, the legionary braced his feet and put all of his strength into it. Spartacus felt himself begin to move backwards. He climbed another rung and stabbed forward with his sica. His blade skidded off the Roman’s mail, causing no injury. For an instant, however, it distracted the soldier from what he was doing.
Spartacus came up another rung. A quick glance to the right revealed no defenders close enough to skewer him in the armpit. Up went the sica. Down it came, striking the legionary in the neck. The curved blade nearly clove him in two. His torso split apart, exposing neatly bisected muscles, the white of ribs and the purple-blue of pumping organs. Spartacus was showered in blood as he came leaping on to the walkway. The Roman’s body fell backwards off the wall, spraying sheets of crimson over the soldiers below.
Spartacus’ heart leaped. There weren’t more than five thousand of them. Caepio had been lying; the spy had not been able to get the word through to Crassus. After the previous day’s fighting, his enemy had assumed that the slaves had had enough. How wrong he was. Spotting a scutum leaning against the palisade, he scooped it up. He had just enough time to spin and raise it as a legionary thundered in from his right. With a heavy thump, the two shield bosses met.
Spartacus shoved his blade at the Roman’s eyes, but his opponent saw it coming. Sparks flew as the sica hit the iron rim of his shield. The legionary lunged forward with his gladius, and Spartacus twisted desperately out of the way, smacking his back off the rampart. There was almost no room to manoeuvre. All the advantage was with the Roman, whose blows hammered in, away from the void. With every strike of his own, Spartacus risked hurling himself into space.
He clenched his jaw. If they didn’t gain a foothold on the wall, their attack would fail. Placing his left shoulder behind the scutum, he advanced a step. Clash, clash. Their swords battered off their shield fronts. Spartacus punched forward with his scutum and then his sica. One, two. One, two. He pushed the legionary back a step. And two more. They traded blows again before the Roman’s heel caught on a pilum that had been left lying on the walkway. He stumbled, and Spartacus was on him like a hawk on its prey, barging him backwards so that he fell on his arse, squawking with surprise. The last thing he ever saw was the Thracian’s blade scything in towards his open mouth. The legionary choked to death on a gobful of iron and blood.
Air moved past Spartacus’ head. Instinct made him pull back, which just saved him from being struck in the neck by a pilum. Instead it scudded harmlessly by, over the palisade. He glanced down. The soldiers below were launching volleys at the rampart, regardless of the fact that they could hit their own men. Exultation gripped him. That meant the enemy officers thought the fight on the walkway was being lost. He leaned out over the front of the wall. He could see at least five ladders. ‘Come on!’ he roared at his men. ‘It is I, Spartacus! We have the whoresons on the run!’
Eager shouts met his words.
He spun back to the walkway to find a grinning Taxacis at his side. Behind him, Atheas’ head was emerging into view. ‘Which… way?’ asked Taxacis. ‘Left… or right?’
To his left was a large bunch of enemy soldiers, and in their midst, the scarlet transverse crest of a centurion. It was Caepio. We won’t get through there quickly enough. Spartacus pointed to his right and the nearest set of steps. ‘There!’ Six legionaries blocked the walkway, but before them, there was a gap perhaps ten paces wide where more and more of their men were spilling over the palisade. He darted forward. The Scythians were right behind him. ‘Get to the stairs!’ he shouted at his soldiers. ‘Kill those bastard Romans! MOVE!’
They hurried to obey.
Spartacus shoved in behind them. The outcome of the attack still hung in the balance, but at last he had a good feeling in his belly.
Chapter XVI
Despite Crassus’ wealth, he was a man of moderate taste. It was a small weakness to like a comfortable bed. The mattress in his quarters was purportedly of good quality — gods, it was thick enough — but he hated it with a vengeance. At first, when they had left Rome, it had seemed fine. Now, though, it felt lumpier than a straw tick used by the poorest of the poor. It was the reason that he was already up, a good hour before dawn. A scowl twisted his handsome face. The damn thing would have to do for the moment. There was no chance of locating a better one around here. As far as he’d seen, no one lived in Bruttium but primitives and latrones. And Spartacus.
Crassus put the mattress from his mind, but felt no less irritated. He was sick of everything about this shithole. It felt laughable now, but he had been glad to enter Bruttium. He had enjoyed the sea breezes and the escape from the filthy heat that they had endured in Campania and Lucania. No one could deny that the wild, mountainous countryside was magnificent or that the views of Sicily were incredible. Yet as autumn had passed into winter, these pleasures had soon soured. Weeks of lowering grey cloud, damp cold air and frequent rain had worn him down.
Crassus longed to finish the campaign not just because he wanted to crush Spartacus, but so that he could go home. In the capital, he could bask in the winter sun and the adulation of the Roman public, who would rightfully revere him. He could finish the account of his campaign and the superb generalship that had given him victory over the slaves. He would be the talk of the bath houses and the markets, cheered wherever he went. Crassus glanced at the letter he had begun composing, and the momentary improvement in his mood vanished. Would he have time to end the affair before that golden-tongued, arrogant little shit Pompey arrived? When he’d first heard the news that the Roman assembly had recalled his biggest rival from Iberia, Crassus hadn’t believed it. The effrontery of it! Fucking plebeians.
Yet the senators, unhappy as they must have been at the thought of such a prominent general returning to Italy with his legions at his back, had approved the order. That wouldn’t have happened if I had been there, Crassus thought furiously. Like all sycophants, however, his supporters in the Senate wouldn’t have been organised or vocal enough to prevent the decree from being carried. They’re a shower of pompous, self-serving whoresons! Couldn’t they and the rest just leave a man to do a job properly? He had only been in command of the Republic’s armies for a few months.
In the biggest clash since, his troops had proved their mettle by standing up to the slaves. Yes, there had been the inglorious rout of Mummius’ legions, but he had dealt with that in the most vigorous fashion possible. The practice of decimation had not been used for more than a hundred years, and its effect had been dramatically successful. Subsequent to that, he had cornered Spartacus in the toe and denied him the chance of escape to Sicily! Best of all, his soldiers had yesterday thrown back the slaves’ attempt to break through his fortifications on the ridge. Caepio had reported enemy losses of more than ten thousand men, which was a sizeable chunk of Spartacus’ forces. The end was surely nigh.
Not that the Thracian would admit it! Remembering the filthy legionary who had been brought to him the night before, Crassus felt his face purple. He hadn’t wanted to believe the soldier’s story, but he had definitely been a prisoner of the enemy.
‘How dare he? How dare he ask for such a thing? Fides, for a savage such as he?’ Crassus ranted at the bronze mirror which stood to one side of his desk. ‘The fucking cheek of it!’
Calm yourself, he thought. This is just what the whoreson wanted. The request had been designed to goad him — and it had worked admirably. Crassus took a deep breath, remembering how through a supreme effort, he had not ordered the immediate execution of the unfortunate legionary who had carried the message. Let it go, as you did the soldier. After a moment, he felt more composed.
A tiny, devilish part of him couldn’t help wondering what it might be like to lead a combined force of over one
