‘Look at you: you’re a mess. There’ll be no resurrection this time!’ the ex-gladiator snarled, and swung his blade, angling it down at the last moment, changing his apparent neck blow to target the groin.
Rufinus ducked back from the strike, but he was slowed by his painful wounds, and the captain was fast! The blade carved a shrieking dent down the bottom two plates of his armour. Behind him he heard an animal yelp of pain and spared only a moment’s thought for Acheron. The wound had clearly not been terminal, as another roar of bestial fury rang out, followed by a snap and a blood curdling scream.
The sound of running feet echoed around the passageways, but Rufinus couldn’t pay any attention to it. Circling once more, he watched Phaestor, checking for a ‘tell’. He couldn’t win this on fighting ability; he had neither the strength nor the speed. Only anticipation, surprise and trickery could save him now. A distant roar rose like a tide.
‘Hear that?’ Phaestor grinned. ‘That’s Commodus on his glorious, glittering journey round the outer square, making for the entrance. You’re too late. You couldn’t save him now, even if you lived… which you won’t.’
Rufinus’ eyes narrowed at the tensing of the captain’s left thigh muscle, and he prepared himself for the lunge, his grip on the blade changing slightly so that he would easily knock the thrusting gladius out of the way. And suddenly Phaestor was at him, though not with the expected lunge. As he stepped forward, the crafty captain pivoted and swung the blade in an unanticipated slash at Rufinus’ side. It was masterful.
Rufinus was wrong-footed instantly by the captain’s feint and felt the blade, perfectly-aimed, slash into his side just at the point where his segmented armour ended. He yelped with the pain, though his last-moment staggering and graceless step away from the blow took most of the force from it. A flesh wound, no worse than many of the others already bound beneath his tunic. In fact it helped; one fresh wound occupied all his screaming nerves and dulled the cries of the older ones.
Again, he circled painfully, leaning slightly with the wound and feeling the blossoming wetness on his tunic, watching the captain with a new wariness. The man was playing with him as though they were fighting on the sand of the arena itself. This was no military fight and no boxing match. This was a gladiatorial bout, pure and simple.
Out of the corner of his better eye, he could see another four men rushing into view, their tunics plain and drab, daggers in their hands ready to join the fray. Acheron was still audible behind him, dealing with the last feeble resistance of the other two men. The poor beast was wounded, though, and couldn’t be expected to handle another four attackers on his own and, if one thing was certain, it was that Rufinus had his hands full with just one.
Phaestor’s sword lanced out with an astonishing speed and Rufinus, his gladius ill-positioned, raised his battered left arm and caught the blow on the manica, the blade sliding along the steel plates and raising sparks as it was pushed away from its target. The sheer force of the blow, combined with Rufinus’ increasing weakness forced him two steps back and one sideways, where he had to stagger to avoid falling to his knees. If he fell now it would all be over very quickly. His trademark clumsiness would have deadly consequences.
Before Rufinus could react further, the sword whipped away again, and the captain spun back into the dark of the passage from which he had originally emerged. Gingerly, Rufinus staggered toward the shadow, trying to move into a position where he could see the shape of Phaestor in the dim light that shone past the crowds back among the entranceways.
Again, he was too slow. Phaestor’s blade lunged out and flicked twice like a striking snake, cutting a line across his right bicep and then wrist, almost causing him to drop his sword.
Gods, the man was fast!
Rufinus staggered, his leg buckling for a moment before he managed to straighten it again. He was going to lose. He couldn’t beat the lightning-fast ex-gladiator, and he apparently couldn’t even successfully anticipate his moves!
Like a ghost, Phaestor backed into the stygian corridor, his shape becoming indistinct in the gloom. Rufinus concentrated. Moving into the darkness himself would be suicide, but standing here like this he couldn’t hope to counter the next move, and the longer he stood here doing nothing, the more strength sapped from his body and the closer Commodus came to crossing to Hades.
He was irritated at being left no other choice, and the emperor’s too-fast progress around the amphitheatre’s exterior could be tracked from the noise of the crowd. Grinding his teeth, Rufinus stepped back into the larger corridor, where Phaestor would have to come out to him.
He almost expected a blow from behind, and a quick glance told him why the other four new arrivals had not joined the fray and ended it for him quickly: Mercator and Icarion had appeared from a stairwell nearby, javelins discarded and swords out and ready, and had intercepted the thugs. A separate battle now raged in the curved corridor nearby.
Phaestor stepped from the gloom, an evil grin splitting his swarthy features. ‘You’re good, Praetorian, particularly for a man in your state.’ He paced forward menacingly. ‘For all your wounds, for a soldier, you’re very good. But you’re too rigid. Legionaries are always taught rigidly, with no attention to the so-many ways you can outmanoeuvre an opponent. You’re predictable and formulaic, because you learned to fight in ranks.’
He spun the sword in his hand with a light, expert grip. ‘Me, on the other hand? I learned my trade in this very building. Winner of twenty two combats. Only ever lost twice, and both times I fought well enough they let me live. Got my rudis and my freedom, but I never lost what this place gave me: a talent for killing. I’m not fettered by the legion’s rules and discipline. A legionary will never beat a gladiator… you’re just too slow and clumsy, and your strength’s wilting like a flower. Look at you: you couldn’t raise an eyebrow, let alone a defensive stroke.’
Rufinus’ mouth curved up into a slight smile as he subtly shifted his grip on the gladius in his hand.
‘You find it amusing? I assure you, you won’t for long. Your time’s running out, little Praetorian. Soon I might decide to stop playing with you and let you die.’
With no warning and no shout, Rufinus threw himself forward and down in a graceless belly-flop, the like of which he had achieved accidentally countless times in his life, tripping or slipping. He landed heavily and painfully on his front beneath and before his enemy.
Phaestor had been prepared for a strike but his blocking blow, already moving out to stop Rufinus’ blade, was at chest height, while Rufinus had fallen gracelessly to the floor, face down, landing with a thud that expelled every last breath from his chest.
Clumsy…
He had always been clumsy. But the one useful thing about such clumsy falls is that they were never expected and couldn’t be anticipated. And this time, his sword had arced out sideways and forward as he fell, the weakened guardsman putting every remaining ounce of his strength into not the dive, but the swing.
Phaestor, stunned by the crazed move, looked down at the idiot he had been facing, now prostrate on the ground in front of him, dazed and with the breath knocked from his chest. The captain smiled as he decided it was time to end the bout. The young man was clearly mad.
It was as he wondered what the idiot had intended that Phaestor realised just how much agony was racing up his leg and burning along his veins like a petroleum fire. His eyes narrowing in confusion, his gaze left the body of the man on the floor and drew closer until he was looking directly down.
At the sandaled foot and half a shin lying sideways on the floor in a slick of crimson, a jagged nub of white bone visible at the top.