S.J.A. Turney - The Great Game

Indeed, few people had any business in the tunnels of the amphitheatre, just the food and wine and trinket stalls that had set up in a few of the dead-end radiating passages, and the people rushing to buy last moment snacks before the main event. Torches burning in sconces lit the routes from seating access passages to the stall areas, whole sections remaining dark between them.

Panting wildly and wincing at the pain lacing around his body, Rufinus shook his head at the organised chaos of it all.

‘Hey, captain! You’re not going to believe this!’

Rufinus turned at the voice to see two men in drab grey tunics moving toward him. At first glance, they were no different from any other spectator, but to the trained eye, the bulk of daggers beneath the tunics was unmistakable. Rufinus stared and realised he knew one of them from the Villa of Hadrianus.

His sword was already halfway from its scabbard before the two men ran at him, knives whipped out from their hiding places. Weapons were forbidden in the public places of the city centre, with the exception of the urban cohorts and the Praetorians, but with everything that was happening today, Rufinus could imagine just how easy it would be to sneak a knife into the amphitheatre.

As he levelled his drawn blade, Rufinus realised what they had said.

‘Captain’!

He turned, unsteadily, just in time to see Phaestor’s gladius come lunging out of the darkness of an unlit radial passage. Desperately knocking the blow aside with his own blade, he turned on his heel and ducked a slash from a dagger, crying out as pain tore through him from his many extant wounds. The two men spread out to make themselves harder to target.

He was surrounded and weakening with every moment. With all his training and experience and all the medicus’ drugs, he still doubted he could successfully take on one man in a fair fight, let alone three.

Swishing his gladius threateningly though the air, tears issuing at the strain, he turned to see Phaestor’s face emerge into the light, head shaking in disbelief.

‘I saw you die.’

‘Then I must be a ghost,’ he replied in a pained, hollow whisper. He certainly sounded like one. Gritting his teeth against anticipated pain, Rufinus swiped at him and Phaestor ducked back. A dagger from one of the men behind him clattered off his shoulder plate, then there was a snarl of animal rage and a snap, followed by a scream.

‘Good boy,’ he said without looking round.

The sound of desperate human and animal struggling raged behind him as Rufinus narrowed his eyes and stepped to the side, watching Phaestor warily.

‘Fortuna’s with me today, boy,’ the captain said with a dark smile. ‘Eighty arches and you find me straight away.’

‘I could say that was my luck rather than yours, captain.’

‘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.