Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

‘What are they doing?’ Micon asked me as rough hands took us by the shoulders and pushed us on after the others. ‘Felix? What are they doing?’

I didn’t answer him, because I had picked out one Latin word amongst the excited laughter. One word known across the Empire, and beyond.

It froze my blood to hear it.

Gladiator.

The Germans pushed us on to our knees. There were half a dozen of us in the dirt, surrounded by a wide circle of German warriors, their smiling faces golden in the torchlight. Perhaps thirty of them. Young, their beards thin and eyes defiant.

I knew what was to come.

‘Felix?’ Micon chattered beside me. I ignored him, scanning quickly for any chance of escape, no matter how slim.

Nothing.

In the same moment, a warrior stepped from the crowd and towards the prisoners. He was young, but huge, his muscular arms as thick as marble pillars. He carried fresh scars, showing his experience of the battle in the forest. The skin of his face was stretched tight by an ugly smile.

‘Gladiator,’ he said in thick Latin. Then he raised his blade to point out a tall legionary who knelt beside me. ‘You.’

A sword came from the crowd to land beside the Roman. He looked from it to the warrior in the circle’s centre, and he knew in that moment that his life had run its course.

He turned to me and spoke. Rarely have I seen a man accept death with such strength. ‘My name is Seneca, from the Nineteenth Legion, born in Ostia.’ This soldier understood that no man should die amongst strangers.

‘Felix,’ I said, meeting his dry brown eyes, desperate to help him find some honour in the spectacle of his death.

The legionary then pushed himself to his feet, sword in his hand, fingers dancing on the pommel as he shook to loosen his grip. There was no quake in his muscles as he raised the weapon and assumed his defensive stance. German smiles slipped slightly at this show of courage, but cheers returned moments later when the muscled champion moved as gracefully as a dancer, his flurry of lightning blows driving the Roman backwards, and then the blade from his grasp. Two breaths and a strike later, Seneca was on his back, blood bubbling from his throat as he gasped away the final seconds of his life.

The German warrior used his feet to flick the fallen blade up and into his hand. He was clearly a master of the sword, trained since childhood for the glory of single combat. We Roman soldiers were cogs in a killing machine, skilled at taking life in formation through repetition, not grace. This warrior would kill us one by one, delighting in the irony that the world had been turned on its head – that the Roman army was beaten, and that Romans citizens would now provide the entertainment in death that they themselves had enjoyed as spectators in the arena.

The warrior grinned and held out the blade, inviting one of us to take it. Inviting one of us to our deaths. I looked at Micon. If I could buy time…

A Batavian auxiliary was not so indecisive. He stood behind me and stepped forwards, letting loose a torrent of curses in German. He spat at the warrior’s face as he took the offered blade, but the action provoked nothing more than a deep laugh.

The brave Batavian didn’t wait to be attacked, but lunged at his opponent. The move was slow, the man’s muscles spent from his captivity. Not so the tribesman, who sidestepped quickly, flicking his blade to nick the flesh of the Batavian’s arm.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. This would not be a quick death. He was toying with him.

The auxiliary tried to attack again, screaming defiance as he brought the blade across in a swinging arc. It was blocked easily, the German warrior bringing his thick skull down in a vicious and unexpected head-butt. It dropped the Batavian to his knees and the German swordsman took the man’s head from his shoulders with a skilful backwards swing. Jets of blood spurted into the air, the cut so swift and clean that the body remained on its knees. The onlookers cheered, and a teen broke from their ranks, rushing to the body and undoing the rope that held up his trousers. The watching tribesmen doubled over in laughter as the boy then aimed a stream of piss into what had been the Batavian’s neck.

As the braying laughter finally faded, the warrior picked up the severed head and spat into the Batavian’s dead eyes. This time, when he held out the challenger’s sword, I did not hesitate. My victory would come from buying more life for Micon, however short.

The huge man grinned as he saw my haste to take the blade, mistaking it for a desire to meet my inevitable end quickly – he had no idea that I wanted to draw out every bloody second.

I stepped back and felt the weight of the weapon. It was a long sword, and heavy. Exhausted as I was, I would struggle to swing it with enough speed or force to break the big German’s defence, but I had no intention of doing anything so clumsy. I would use the point to jab and parry. He would fight to cut, and I would fight for time. Even if I were fully fit and could defeat the man, I would never leave this circle alive – any Roman that killed this warrior would be cut down by his friends, and so my victory would be counted in breaths and heartbeats only. Maybe I could buy sufficient time so that enough of them grew tired of the sport. Even then my survival was not assured, but what guarantee is there in life, other than death?

And so I let out a cry.

I had been holding it within me since my enslavement began. The shout had festered within my chest; I had been unable to unleash it for fear of the fate it would bring. I had no such reason to hold back now, and all of the anger, the frustration, the hate burst out of my lungs with such ferocity that the watching Germans stepped backwards, some uttering protective oaths to their gods.

I screamed again; then I laughed. I laughed at the world, and my place in it. I laughed because, with a blade in my hand, I had regained some measure of control over my life.

‘You stupid ugly cunt! You fat piece of shit! Come on – come and die. Come and die!’ I challenged, grinning at the German warrior.

He didn’t die. Instead he danced about me, and I struggled to keep my eyes on his blade as it blurred through the torch-lit air, the singing steel missing me by inches and moments. Our blades clashed, and I knew that my life was coming to an end as my strength ebbed with every ringing parry. Every panted breath.

‘Die, you cunt!’ I shouted, and then let loose a high-pitched wail that made the warrior wince – I was alien to him, and superstition was creeping into his tribal mind: the stories that crones had whispered at the fire’s side; the tales of wicked spirits that had been burned into his soul.

The German roared his own challenge at such evil and attacked. Our blades met. So did our eyes. I could see in his that he knew he had beaten me before the fight had begun. What did he see in mine, in that moment where I knew that death was moments from taking me? I could even feel its hard grip on my shoulders, pulling at me, tearing me back off my feet.

I landed in the dirt, the last of my breath choking from my chest. A chorus of shouted German erupted, and I looked up; the warrior stood with the blade by his side and his eyes on the floor. An older warrior was inches before him, screaming oaths, spittle flying into the younger tribesman’s face. I couldn’t understand the angry words, but from the pointed fingers to myself and to the bodies of the warrior’s victims, I could guess their meaning – slaves have a price, and this man had not paid it. We belonged to Arminius, and so long as we were useful, we lived.

I wasted no time, and began crawling towards Micon. Strong kicks from German legs propelled me on my way. Hissing at my comrade to move, we skulked back to the mass of prisoners, leaving the bitter tribesmen arguing in our wake.