Unable to restrain himself, Batiatus jumped to his feet and instinctively punched the air.
“Yes!” he cried, before realizing that Crassus was regarding him with disdainful amusement.
“You appear desperate, as hungry dog leaping upon scraps,” the Roman muttered.
Batiatus lowered his fist and tried to remain aloof.
“I merely rejoice at grace of a true champion. His first blow one of beauty, to be followed by many of like appearance.”
“We shall see,” Crassus replied with a thin smile.
The bout became a cat and mouse contest, Hieronymus’s men launching wave upon wave of attack, and Spartacus and Varro having to use all their skill and experience to fend them off. There would be flurries of action, followed by increasingly longer periods where both pairs of gladiators would circle one another warily, weapons poised, looking for a vital opening.
After a while the crowd inevitably began to get restless, but Spartacus didn’t care. He was not here to please them-he had never been interested in pleasing them. He was concerned only with keeping himself and Varro alive.
And Doctore’s tactics were working. Slowly but surely Hieronymus’ s men were tiring, taking longer and longer after each attack to recoup their strength. The secutor was panting like a frustrated dog, his body streaming with sweat, and the hoplomachus was noticeably slower than he had been at the start of the contest, and starting to leave gaps in his defenses.
True, Spartacus and Varro were tired too, but only fractionally more than they had been when they had first walked out onto the sand. For them, it was simply a case of keeping their concentration and standing their ground, wearing down their opponents, and looking to capitalize on any mistakes …
Spartacus knew the game was changing when he saw Hieronymus’s men turn and nod to one another. Next moment they attacked again, but this time they switched, the secutor leaping forward to engage Spartacus, the hoplomachus targeting Varro.
Spartacus, without a shield, backed away rapidly as the secutor slashed and stabbed at him with his sword. Gritting his teeth against the ache in his muscles, Spartacus forced his arms to work quickly, the paths of the two swords he was clenching crossing and counter-crossing to create a defensive barrier as effective as any shield.
He knew he could only keep this up for so long, though. He couldn’t backpedal permanently-eventually he would have to go on the attack, and that would leave him vulnerable.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something flash through the air. He glanced to his left, and saw the hoplomachus’s spear arcing toward Varro. For a hoplomachus to release his most valuable weapon at such a stage of a contest usually meant one of only two things: either he was tiring and therefore taking a gamble, or he was inexperienced and had allowed his impatience to get the better of him.
Spartacus thought that in this case it was probably a little bit of both. As long as the spear did not find its target, then this latest development could only be to his and Varro’s advantage.
But then Varro cried out, and Spartacus’s heart clenched. However, he was unable to check on his friend’s condition immediately-he was too busy fighting off the secutor, who after a short pause had moved in for a fresh attack. The other gladiator was bolder this time, close enough for Spartacus to smell his rank breath, even through his helmet. Clearly Hieronymus’s man was sensing victory, and eager to close the contest.
Too eager.
Spartacus coaxed him in, chose his moment-and then, gritting his teeth and drawing on every ounce of strength in his beleaguered body, slashed upward with the sword in his left hand. Immediately, instinctively, the secutor lowered his shield to block the blow-which gave Spartacus just enough room and time to pick his spot, then ram his righthanded sword, point first, up into the gap between the secutor’s throat and the rim of his helmet.
The blade traveled up through the bottom of the secutor’s jaw, sliced his tongue in two and punctured his soft palate. Barely impeded by these obstacles, it continued up between his startled eyes and skewered his brain. Finally it forced its way out through the roof of his skull, splintering it like a clay pot as it did so, and slammed into the underside of the gladiator’s helmet with such force that it flew from his head and landed with a heavy thump on the sand more than ten feet away. As the legs of the already-dead secutor crumpled beneath him, Spartacus jerked back, pulling his sword from the man’s head in a geyser of blood and brain matter.
Once again Batiatus’s response up in the pulvinus was one of unrestrained joy. Leaping from his seat, he rushed to the edge of the balcony and leaned over it, cheering as loudly as any in the crowd. When he turned to Hieronymus and Crassus, his eyes were shining with savage glee.
“Note the speed and instinct of a true champion!” he bellowed gloatingly. “My Thracian a wonder, without equal! One would find it hard to deny that he is blessed by the gods.”
Crassus regarded him without expression.
“The bout is not yet over,” he remarked drily.
“In minutes its end will arrive,” Batiatus scoffed, forgetting himself in his excitement and relief. “Spartacus will see it hastened.”
“I fear your celebrations premature,” Hieronymus said, his smile fixed and his voice dripping with sympathy. “Your man is down.”
Batiatus’s look of triumph was replaced by one of alarm and he turned his eyes once again towards the arena.
What Hieronymus had said was true. Batiatus’s man was down. However, it was not Spartacus he had been referring to, but Varro. The cheers of the crowd were still echoing around Spartacus, but he barely heard them. Exhausted, but powered by the anxiety he felt for his friend, he spun round, fearful of what he might see. Varro was on his back on the sand thirty feet away, blood gushing from a deep wound in his left bicep. He had dropped his shield, and was desperately defending himself against his bulky opponent, who was standing over him, hacking down at him with the short, heavy sword he had pulled from his belt. For the moment Varro was fending him off with his own sword, but he was clearly tiring, his teeth clenched and his body lathered in blood and sweat. The killing blow was only moments away. With a roar that, rather than draining his energy, propelled him forward, Spartacus ran toward the two fighters.
He had hoped that his yell might give the hoplomachus pause, even distract him for a moment, but the big gladiator continued his bludgeoning attack as though oblivious to everything but the wounded man at his feet. Spartacus heard Varro let out a further grunt of pain as the Roman parried another hacking blow, only for his opponent’s sword to slide down the length of his own and pierce his leg. Again it was not a serious wound, but Spartacus knew that the more blood his friend lost the weaker he would become. Sensing victory, the hoplomachus stepped back and raised his sword above his head in both hands to deliver the killing stroke. Varro could do nothing but lie there, his own sword raised ineffectually in his rapidly weakening grip, as Hieronymus’s man made ready to split his skull.
Drawing back his own arm to its full extent, Spartacus hurled the sword in his right hand like a javelin. He had hoped that the tactic might buy him just a few more seconds, but in fact it proved infinitely more effective than that. The sword flashed through the air like a streak of light, its blood-smeared blade reflecting the sun, and buried itself deep in the hoplomachus’s back. His spine severed, the gladiator staggered for a moment, and then his legs simply gave way and he crashed to the ground in a billowing cloud of sand.