‘How the fuck did he do that?!’
The emperor was on his feet again, pointing in amazement at Velox, suddenly wrong-footed as his veteran opponent summoned whatever measure of his massive strength that still remained and hit the thrusting sword so hard with his other blade that it was smashed to the ground. While Velox’s defence was still open, he threw a looping punch with his left fist, fingers still wrapped around the hilt of his other sword, the blow connecting squarely with Velox’s temple and sending him reeling away on legs suddenly robbed of their strength. The crowd were on their feet, half of them howling indignation at the tactic while the remainder were jubilant at Flamma’s escape from what had looked like certain death a moment before. Scaurus shook his head.
‘He’s shown his hand too early, if his plan is to overwhelm the man with brute strength, because he won’t get that close again. Velox will just stand off, and cut Flamma to ribbons.’
The younger fighter was indeed suddenly giving a good deal more respect to his opponent, intent on taking the time he needed to recover from the enervating blow he’d taken a moment before. As if he knew that his opportunity would be a fleeting one, the veteran stamped forward to attack, moving faster than the champion could retreat in his momentarily shocked state. Some hint of the fleetness of foot that had combined with his bestial strength to make the veteran fighter invincible in the days of his pomp still remained, and he covered the distance between them in half a dozen swift steps to attack with a furious purpose of his own. Velox retreated in the face of his fury, his swords flicking out to punish the big man for his assault with first one cut to his thigh and then another, but Flamma was too quick and wary to allow a killing blow to open the femoral arteries, which his opponent was aiming for, and as the younger man tarried an instant too long to make the second cut he seized his chance and lunged forward on one bleeding leg, punching Velox between his eyes so hard that the champion flew backwards to land full length on the sand.
‘Can you see what he’s doing? He can’t kill Velox if he’s to keep his word, but he’s damned if he’s going to allow the man to best him.’
Scaurus nodded agreement with Marcus’s words, his gaze riveted on the bloodied veteran as he stood waiting for his opponent to rise, his chest heaving from exertions that would barely have troubled him five years before. While the disoriented champion climbed to his feet, the older man bowed ironically to his crestfallen opponent, wringing a chorus of laughter from the fascinated crowd who were now silent for the most part, recognising that they were watching arena history being made.
The younger man shook his head, taking a moment to steady himself before he attacked again, driven forward by his pride, and Marcus shot a glance to where Julianus was watching, his face aghast as his most valuable asset moved back into sword reach one heavy step at a time, where previously he would have stepped lightly forwards. As if he recognised that Flamma could not kill him without impugning his own honour, the champion threw himself into one last frenzied attack, his swords swinging almost incoherently as he stepped forward. And then, as Velox made his final attempt to win the bout, the man Marcus had known throughout his youth surfaced in what was left of Flamma in one last glorious, fleeting display of the almost divine gifts that had seemed routine in the big man’s heyday. Strutting forward with the same grin that had advertised his apparent immortality to the crowds who had roared him on over the years of his glory, he parried half a dozen wild sword strokes, any of them enough to tear out his life as the champion’s blades raged wildly at his defence, indifferent to their deadly threat as he closed remorselessly in on the younger man. Parrying one last desperate lunge aside, he flicked his blades aside in a trick he’d taught to Marcus years before, snapping out his left hand to grip Velox’s tunic and drag him bodily into close range. Once, twice, three times he twisted at the waist to sink his massive right fist into the helpless gladiator’s stomach, then stepped back as the younger man bent double, gasping for air with his lungs brutally emptied, smashing one last titanic back-fisted blow into the side of Velox’s head to send his opponent spinning senseless to the ground.
A stunned silence reigned for a long moment before the crowd found its collective voice, a cacophony as they screamed and bellowed their conflicting pleasure and rage at the result. Marcus looked over at Commodus who was holding on to the balcony rail, his knuckles white with the force of his grip. Before the emperor had chance to even begin to consider the verdict the crowd was howling for, Flamma bent to pick up one of his swords, raising it over his head and waiting until the hubbub had reduced to a puzzled hush in reaction to the unprecedented nature of the bout’s end.
‘People of Rome!’ The hush became silence, as the sixty thousand men packed into the arena strained their ears to hear what the former champion had to say. ‘I came here today not to fight, but to die! My strength is used up …’
Voices rang out begging their idol to deny his own words.
‘It’s true! I have an affliction that I would wish upon no man, not even this murderer lying at my feet devoid of any honour.’
Commodus stirred himself from his amazement.
‘Archers!’
Cleander was at his master’s side in an instant.
‘It might look bad, my Caesar, were you to have one of the greatest champions of the Roman arena that has ever been known shot down like a dog in the moment of his victory. Riots have begun over less, and the flames of public unrest are so much easier to ignite than to quell. And if you were to allow Flamma a moment more, I suspect there’ll be no need …’
Flamma looked up at the imperial box, as if he knew where to find the man he had trained to fight while still a boy. Marcus looked back at him through his grief-stricken tears, the big man’s words of the previous evening still echoing in his mind, the answer to the horrified question he’d blurted out when his mentor had agreed to give Cleander one last fatal day in the arena.
‘Why? Because, my lad, there’s a crab gnawing at my bones.’
Marcus had frowned, shaking his head.
‘A crab?’
‘I’ve paid the doctors the best part of a year’s winnings to understand what’s happening to me. If I were to take off this tunic you’d be revolted by the growth on my back, black and lumpy …’ He shook his head. ‘It was the last man I consulted, a man called Galen, who treats the emperor and takes the occasional case on the side when they’re “interesting”, that made my blood run cold. He told me that I am afflicted by what he calls “the Crab”, our translation of the Greek word “Carcinos”. He tells me that the growth will kill me inside half a year, and that I will die in agony as it invades my organs and destroys them. I can feel it eating me sometimes, a hot pain deep in my chest. My last fight is already lost, Marcus. The only question is whether I go out on my feet, or on my knees in supplication to the pain that grows stronger every day. Would you deny me a swift death, and a glorious exit from this life?’