the two of them moved forward as one to engage the hoplomachus.
With his partner out of action, the hoplomachus now had only two courses of action available to him. The less honorable option was to turn and run, in the sure and certain knowledge that eventually he would be caught, and-no doubt with the jeers of the crowd ringing in his ears — slaughtered on the sands like a suckling pig intended for the roast.
His second option, and that which he chose to employ, as any true gladiator would, was to take the fight to his opponents, in the hope that, with luck or skill or simply the sheer ferocity of his attack, he could put one of them out of action and thus even up the odds once again.
Roaring like an enraged bull, he ran forward, the spear in his right hand held parallel to the ground at waist height. The point of the spear was aimed at Varro’s belly, and it was clear he was focusing on the bigger man because he considered him the larger and slower-moving of the two targets.
That was his mistake. Because despite his size, Varro’s reflexes were surprisingly acute. As the hoplomachus lunged at him, he sidestepped and spun, grabbing the shaft of the spear as it passed through empty air and yanking it so hard that his opponent was jerked toward him.
Caught off-balance, the hoplomachus staggered forward, whereupon Varro raised his shield and smashed it into the man’s face. There was an almighty clash of impact as the heavier, thicker shield bent and mangled the hoplomachus’s metal helmet, crushing it inwards with such force that the man’s nose burst like a plum beneath a boot, and his lips were instantly shredded against his upper teeth, which in turn were smashed to jagged splinters of bone.
The hoplomachus dropped his spear and spun away, limbs pinwheeling wildly, giving him the look of someone who was comically, hopelessly drunk. Blood poured from beneath the rim of his crumpled helmet in thick loops and candles, collecting on his chest and running down his body like a red, tasseled bib.
Closing the gap between them, Varro ran forward and gave the man an almighty shove. His intention was not to knock his reeling opponent off his feet, however, but to direct him toward the nearby gate, which he promptly crashed into with a clanging impact that reverberated around the entire arena. Shaking his head, an action which caused droplets of blood to fly in all directions and spatter the sand like red rain, the hoplomachus leaned back against the gate for a moment, breathing heavily through his broken nose. It was a testament to his courage and experience that as Spartacus and Varro came at him again, pressing forward their advantage, he raised his shield and snatched at the sword in his belt, instinctively preparing to fight back.
His helmet was bent so out of shape that he was almost blind, but he tried to defend himself regardless, taking mighty swings with his sword. His desperate survival attempt proved to be sadly in vain, however. Eyeing the wildly swooping sword, Spartacus chose his moment, then leaped forward, raising and bringing his own sword down with speed and deadly accuracy.
The hoplomachus merely grunted, like a man punched in the gut, as his sword arm was all but sliced completely through at the elbow. It dangled grotesquely on a thread of skin and sinew, the sword dropping from the nerveless fingers, as blood gushed from the severed arteries and veins like water from a pump, turning the sand red.
Groaning, his exposed flesh turning a grayish-white, the hoplomachus began to slide slowly down the gate as his knees folded beneath him. Instantly Spartacus leaped forward, grabbed the man by the throat and forced him upright again. With the hoplomachus’s blood spattering his body, he turned and gave Varro a short, grim nod.
“Now,” he said.
On the other side of the gate, Mantilus jerked back as the hoplomachus’s body crashed against it. Before he could take another step, however, Oenomaus, standing behind him, stepped forward, reaching out with his long arms. He grabbed handfuls of the scarred man’s loose-fitting robe in two places-at the scruff of his neck and at the base of his spine. Lips curling back from his teeth in a silent snarl, Oenomaus then slammed Mantilus back up against the gate, directly behind the wounded hoplomachus.
Like a fish on a riverbank, Mantilus immediately began to squirm and wriggle, his white eyes bulging, his mouth opening wide and his forked tongue flickering out. He began to squeal like a child, his body so thin and light that Oenomaus couldn’t help but think that perhaps he
Yet, although he grimaced with distaste, utterly repelled by the feeble struggles of the bony creature within his grip, Oenomaus held on, crushing his captive against the bars, his arms clamped tight, his muscles like iron. As a bead of sweat trickled down the front of his bald head and into his eyebrow, he silently urged Spartacus and Varro to make haste.
The crowd had seen blood and mutilation and death aplenty today, yet still they bayed for more. With their excited shrieks ringing around him, Varro bent and picked up the hoplomachus’s discarded spear. Straightening up, he looked directly ahead of him, at the huge iron gates, and at the hoplomachus’s ruined body slumped against them, held upright only by Spartacus’s hand around his throat. Underpinning the exhortations of the crowd, at a lower level, he thought he could hear another sound-a sustained, high-pitched squeal, like a rat caught in a trap.
Bile, born of hatred and revulsion, rose in his throat at what that sound must be, and raising the spear like a lance, the point aimed directly at the hoplomachus’s heart, he began to run forward. There wasn’t a great distance to cover, fifteen paces at the most, yet by the time the spear found its mark it was moving with more than enough pace not only to penetrate flesh and muscle and even bone, but to pass right through the hoplomachus’s body, with devastating force.
Oenomaus held on grimly as the point of the spear erupted out of the center of Mantilus’s back in a gush of blood that in the shadowy stone-walled tunnel looked almost black. Though Mantilus’s mouth stretched almost to splitting point, and his white eyes bulged from his head so alarmingly that they seemed in danger of popping out on to his cheeks, his squeal was abruptly cut off, to be replaced by an almost-silent hiss of excruciating agony. With a spasm so sudden and violent that Oenomaus felt it snap through his wrist and down his forearm in a needle-thin bolt of pain, the scarred man’s body abruptly arched like a bow, as if his every sinew was as stretched and taut as a lyre-string. There he hung, suspended, like a letter C, for several seconds-and then, with manic vigor, he began to scream and thrash anew, so violently this time that Oenomaus was forced to release him and step back, for fear of having his face slashed open by the long nails on the fingers of the man’s flailing hands.
Mantilus did not die easily. Oenomaus watched grimly as he hung there, his death-throes continuing, frantic and uncontrolled at first, and then gradually less frenziedly, for the next few minutes. Froth and blood boiled from his mouth, and shit and piss slid down his legs, joining with his blood to form a thin gruel of his life-fluids beneath his mortally wounded body.
At last, however, it was over, the child-like body winding down, the bald head lolling, the scarred face and limbs going slack. Then with a last few shudders, the poisoner was still, and the only sound in the tunnel- aside from the distant cheers of the crowd beyond the gates-was the steady, slow drip-drip-drip of Mantilus’s blood on the stone floor.
Oenomaus stepped closer, and stared grimly into the man’s glazed white eyes and slack, dead face.
“Not a creature of Hades, but merely a man, like the rest of us,” he murmured. His gaze shifted to the pool of stinking fluids by his feet. “Filled not with dust, but blood, shit and piss, as it should be.” He nodded, as though satisfied, and said it again. “As it should be.”
XVI
Varro found Spartacus in his cell, sitting on his bunk, deep in thought. Beyond the open door could be heard the sounds of celebration-a hubbub of noise, interspersed with shouts of laughter of both men and women.
Varro held out a cup toward his friend.
“I have brought wine, whether you wish for it or not. I insist you drink in celebration of victory today.”
