The clang of steel against steel howled in Lucius’s ears, and his vision swam with the force of the blow. He sank to his knees, and tears of defeat, terror and hopelessness started streaming down his cheeks as the pawing hands of the guards, who had all rushed in to surround him, grabbed at him, pulled and dragged him, and then began ripping his armour off, piece by piece. Through the daze of fading consciousness the mocking laughter of the dinner guests buzzed and crackled, as the relentless blows from the guards’ fists and elbows and knees and feet thumped and crashed and crunched into his body.
Then he smelled it: the lighting of the pyre, the burning oil and the acrid, smoking wood. After that the terrible light of the flames began to shine; tenuous and timid at first, and then growing in cruel, eager stature to lick with ravenous hunger at the bronze belly of the grotesque beast.
The beast … the nightmarish beast that would consume him in slow, unspeakable agony.
And then, a brief respite; darkness.
63
VIRIDOVIX
Spartacus breathed out a sigh of relief as the archer’s struggles ceased, and the man’s body become limp in the crook of his arm. He relaxed his taut muscles, slackening his chokehold, and let the warm corpse slide to the ground. When he glanced across at the General, he saw his actions mirrored; each had succeeded in their efforts.
A few minutes earlier both men had scaled the walls of one of the outdoor courtyards, on the battlements of which archers were posted. The General, with his deep ebony skin, had merely needed to strip off his white loincloth to be perfectly camouflaged in the dark. Spartacus, however, had had to smear himself with soot from one of the fireplaces, thus blackening his body so that he too could blend in with the tones of the night.
The sky was cloudless, and a full moon beamed down on them; for the purposes of stealth and camouflage, they could not have picked a worse night for this mission. Despite the light working against them, however, both men had managed to scale the three-storey walls of the courtyard undetected, and sneak up behind the archers, who had been idly chatting and joking. These two archers now lay dead at the feet of the rebelling gladiators.
‘It is done,’ N’Jalabenadou muttered, still panting from the exertion of the kill. ‘Give the others the signal.’
Spartacus cupped his hands and hooted like an owl three times. He waited three seconds and did this again, and then repeated this sequence once more. Across the moonlit square a crowd of gladiators began to creep, and like a clutch of freshly hatched spiders they all started scuttling up the walls in a swarm. Once they were all up on the ramparts, they huddled around the General and Spartacus.
‘Who here is a skilled archer?’ the General asked, addressing the group.
Two new gladiators stepped forward immediately: a pair of slim, fresh-faced young men barely out of their teens, who had only been in the ludus for two months. Sethos and Sphaerus were identical twins from Syria, and they had been purchased by Batiatus from a conquering legion who had enslaved them as captives of war.
‘My brother and me have been shooting bows since before we could walk,’ Sethos declared, his dense accent rendering his words almost incomprehensible. ‘I could take an apple off of your head from fifty paces, no problem. My brother too.’
Sphaerus nodded, confirming this.
‘Good,’ the General said with a slow nod, his countenance grim and severe. ‘Here, take the bows and arrows off these dead guards. We must continue to use stealth if we are to get to the armoury without word getting out about our rebellion. If we can creep all the way along these ramparts, we can get to the armoury without being noticed by anyone below. However, to do that we need to eliminate all of the archers who patrol the battlements. Spartacus and I were lucky to have been able to creep up on these two, but for the rest, who are patrolling long, open stretches that are well-lit by this full moon above, there is no chance of sneaking up close enough to engage them in hand-to-hand combat before an alarm is raised. A well-placed arrow will be the only way to silence and neutralise them.’
‘Understood, General,’ Sethos said as he took up one of the bows in his long-fingered hands.
‘These Roman bows are nowhere near as good as our native Syrian bows,’ Sphaerus commented as he tested the draw weight of the bow he picked up, ‘but for this range they’ll do.’
He notched an arrow and loosed it at a shrub around fifty yards from the ludus walls. The arrow streaked through the air and disappeared into the bush with a barely perceptible rustle.
‘Shoots straight enough,’ Sphaerus remarked with a nonchalant shrug.
‘We’ll stick the arrows right through their throats,’ Sethos growled, narrowing his eyes and twisting the corners of his mouth into a dark scowl. ‘That way they won’t be able to scream.’
He turned and loosed an arrow off the wall as well, getting a feel for the bow.
‘Excellent,’ Spartacus said, his gaze tracing the flight of the arrow as it zipped through the crisp, moonlit air. ‘We will taste freedom tonight, my brothers … We will taste it, and we will drink it in as if it were wine sent down from the gods themselves! Tonight we will walk out of the gates of this prison as free men. Come! Let us not linger, for freedom awaits us, freedom awaits…’
***
When Lucius awoke, the bitter and metallic aftertaste of blood was heavy in his mouth, and spots of pain ached and throbbed all over his body. Through the blurry haze that was the regaining of consciousness, he became aware of a
