Their voices floated back to him and he didn’t understand the language. There were four new men to add to the roster. He would inform Glauci and Titus Lucius, the doctore, who trained the men in the art of fighting. Lucius would ensure that the men saw the medicus, physician, and from there, Lucius would start them on their new career as gladiators. If he were right, these men would bring them much gold. He didn’t often get men such as these and a smile crept over his face. He could feel his purse filling with gold even now and he laughed, because his friend, Glauci would thank him very much and he would owe him much.
He turned, chuckling to himself and shook his head. He remembered when he’d been a gladiator. What a time, he’d been a bull of a man, not this wretched shadow he was now. But he had a woman at night and mulsum, honeyed wine, to ease the aches. He was fairly sure that the big one was going to earn him a lot of coin. Whoever they were, they were his now and he would make sure that Lucius did a good job. Because he suspected they were in fact soldiers, he estimated that it would only take about six months of training. Maybe a little more, but Scauras knew his men.
He jerked when he heard a clatter and sighed. The fools, could they not operate the pullies without his constant supervision? He moved quickly and saw the culprit.
“You maialis, castrated pig, know better than that! Do you wish to break my equipment? You’ll feel the lash if you do that again, you fool,” he snarled, the four men forgotten.
Θ
Marco felt the foot in his back as he was shoved through the gate and onto the hot sand. He could feel the heat of it and he cursed. His whole body ached and stung. Thad and Greg were ahead of him and Dean was beside him. His brain was seized with shock. He had never ever been assaulted in his life. People didn’t screw with him and so he was in shock of the physical abuse. His eyes wide and searching all around him, he took in his surroundings. Thousands of people were above him and their screams and catcalls hammered into his head like nails. He moved quickly to Thad and Greg, who were stumbling toward the middle of the arena. It looked so different from only a couple of hours ago and his mind jolted. Two hours and they were standing naked in front of thousands. The noise washed over him like a ceaseless wave and he felt it in his bones.
“What in the hell do we do now?” Dean cried out, shifting from one foot to the other. His body was covered with a thick sheen of sweat and blood ran down from several cuts. Bruises were already forming on Dean’s fair skin. It looked as though there were a hundred lines crisscrossing his body.
“Stay together, those bastards haven’t seen us yet,” Marco said, nodding his head toward a cluster of prisoners who were fighting like frenzied madmen. Hysterical screams were emanating from the roiling mass of humanity.
“We use all our training Marines, oohrah!” Dean cried.
The other men responded in kind and they readied themselves.
“Are we really going to kill them?” Greg asked.
“Dude, we’ve got no choice. They don’t give a flying shit if they kill us or we kill each other. Prepare yourself for a mindfuck, Greg; we’re going to have to kill and I mean everyone who comes at us. Otherwise, we’re dead and I don’t mean just for right now. Gladiators fight to kill. They will kill you, if that’s what’s expected,” Thad said. Marco noticed that Thad was moving in front of Greg, as a shield. Greg was kind of their little brother. Greg was capable of protecting himself, but the guys looked after him. Greg had gone into the Marines right after high school and they all knew he was still a kid.
Thad had long powerful legs and Marco had seen the man spar in the gym. He thought that Thad had said he was second degree black belt, but wasn’t sure. His brain was misfiring and terror was nearly choking him. They would spend the rest of their lives fighting. He had joined the Marines to fight, but not like this. They were all trained in hand-to-hand combat, but he’d always figured he’d have a rifle to do his killing and at a distance, not face to face.
The scent of blood and bowels permeated the air and he took a moment to look around. The prisoners were roughly a hundred feet away, still fighting each other. Up in the rows where they had stood looking down only hours before were thousands of men. Each level going up was filled to capacity with people, moving and screaming. He could see women in the higher tiers. On the ground around them was dark patches of blood, body parts, lengths of intestines, and excrement. There was a lone eyeball looking up at him. Human. He didn’t know if most of the body parts were human or animal as he remembered the lion in the cage. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that asshole with the whip, Appuleius, he thought his name was. Fucker, I’ll get you, you sorry son of a bitch, he thought darkly.
Marco saw the ugly stripe marks down both Greg and Thad and knew his own body held the marks. He shifted and drew in
