‘I don’t care who hears or doesn’t hear about it,’ Spartacus growled. ‘For freedom, anything. Anything…’
‘That particular guard is yours to slaughter as soon as we get the knives, my brother,’ the General said. ‘You will have your vengeance. Prepare yourselves, gladiators, prepare yourselves. The arena be damned! We are now about to fight the most important battle of our lives.’
Five minutes later Arishat returned with a fresh amphora of water. The sense of anticipation in the air was now as intense and palpable as cloud of hanging fog. Arishat’s face was wan and haggard with an almost debilitating anxiety, and with every step she took her legs and arms trembled visibly.
‘What the hell is wrong with you, slut?’ Nonus grumbled.
‘I’m … I’m … feeling … s-, s-, sick,’ she mumbled.
‘I’ll give you some medicine,’ Nonus sneered. ‘It’s right here under my chilton, bitch. Take it in your mouth and swallow the juice that comes out! That’ll sort you out!’
Arishat ignored him and staggered past on wobbly legs, making an unstable, lumbering beeline for the General and his friends.
‘Do you have the knives, girl, do you have them?!’ the General hissed as she approached, his eyes wide and white as sun-bleached sea shells on a black sand beach, his heart jumping with such frenetecism in his chest that he was not sure how it had not yet exploded.
Arishat gulped, and then nodded, biting her lower lip with such a force of fear that her teeth began to draw blood. Tears were rimming her eyes, and she looked as if she could barely maintain her grip on the amphora any longer, so frantically were her hands trembling.
‘There are th-, th-, thirteen in h-, h-, here,’ she managed to stammer.
The gladiators knelt down together in a huddle, with apprehension and anticipation as stifling as a raging desert sandstorm thickening the air.
‘My friends, we are about to do this for love, for honour, for brotherhood … and for freedom,’ N’Jalabenadou whispered solemnly, extending a hand straight out in front of him.
Oenomaus, Spartacus and the ten other gladiators who had pledged loyalty to them all placed their hands in a stack on the General’s. Crixus, meanwhile, watched with keen interest from his corner.
‘For love, for honour, for brotherhood, and for freedom,’ they all whispered in unison.
‘Arishat, when I say so, throw this amphora down and smash it,’ N’Jalabenadou said to the girl. ‘Then run as fast as you can for the door. Get out of the room before any guards can get out, and close and bar the doors behind you. Only open it when you hear one of our voices telling you to. None of these guards must escape to alert the others.’
‘Wait,’ Arishat said, colour returning to her cheeks as her own courage was bolstered by that of the gladiators. ‘Grab my leg, General, grab it!’
‘What?! Why?!’
‘I’ll draw them away from the door. It’ll give me a better chance to make it out and close it before any of them can escape!’
The General smiled knowingly and nodded his head.
‘Clever girl,’ he whispered. ‘Clever girl.’
With that, he shot out his hand and clamped it onto her calf.
‘Help!’ she screamed abruptly. ‘Guards, help me! One of these savages is laying his hands on me!’
‘Oh for fuck’s sakes!’ Nonus shouted. ‘What’s gotten into these blasted slaves today?! All right Titus, come on! Uncoil the whip, I’ve fucking had it with these mutts now, fucking had it with them and their shit!’
Titus grinned evilly and uncoiled the rawhide whip he kept at his side, and both of them began striding towards Arishat and the General’s group of gladiators, with violent intent scrawled blatantly across their faces.
‘Take your hands off the slut, you scum!’ Titus snarled. ‘You’re about to get the thrashing of your life for this fuckery!’
‘Get ready brothers,’ the General whispered as the guards approached. ‘There can be no hesitation. Speed and efficiency are key here.’
‘And you, you little whore, after I’ve finished thrashing this lot you’re going to suck long and hard on my—’
Arishat suddenly spun about, and with an ear-piercing scream of pure hatred and rage that emanated from the very deepest core of her being, she flung the heavy amphora right into Titus’s face. The move was completely unexpected, and the distance between them was far too close for him to do anything but gasp with shock in the split-second between him seeing the projectile hurtling towards him and it smashing into his face.
Everything from that splinter in time onwards seemed to happen in slow motion. The heavy amphora exploded as it struck Titus’s face, and the impact sent him stumbling backward in shock, causing him to drop his spear. While this was happening, the gladiators scrambled to their feet with a combined roar of primal aggression, and Arishat sprinted on her bare feet through the explosion – the explosion of flying porcelain shards, water, and naked, sharpened butcher’s knives.
Nonus froze up as his mind tried to process what came out of the exploding amphora. He saw the brightness of metal flashing against the light, and heard steel clattering on the floor, and a look of complete confusion blanked his long face for a drawn-out moment – a look which morphed rapidly into one of absolute horror and panic as he saw the gladiators lunging for the knives.
‘Oh fuck!’ he howled as he realised what was unfolding, with sudden terror raising his voice in pitch. ‘Oh fucking fuck!’
Then, as the General had promised, hell was unleashed.
Nonus spun around just in time to see Spartacus in front of him, brandishing a ten-inch butcher’s knife.
‘Who’s the cur now, you gutter rat?!’ Spartacus roared.
Nonus swung his whip with futile desperation at Spartacus’s face, but the Thracian was swift and agile, and he sprang back, snapping up his left arm to take the brunt of the blow. The whip coiled around Spartacus’s forearm, and
