‘Come on, rich boy. Take your punishment,’ he spat, a crafty smile tickling his upper lip.
Pavo shook his foggy head clear. Away to the side of the arena he spotted Duras, his hulking silhouette framed like a mountain against the moonlight. The bodyguard had locked his arms round Macro’s neck, pulling tight. It was too dark for Pavo to see the expression on Macro’s face, but the gargling sound of the optio struggling for air carried sharply across the arena.
Pavo turned his eyes on Bato, hatred for the Thracian raging inside his heart. He hefted his hands a few inches in front of his chin to protect his face. Bato pounced forward, but instead of swinging at Pavo’s face he launched a devastating low punch that the younger man moved too late to parry. Fierce agony exploded in his guts as Bato hammered him in the side of his stomach, forcing him to stoop forward and lower his guard. Now Bato smacked Pavo on the jaw. The blow sent him reeling. A deafening crunch reverberated through the young gladiator’s skull. White spots danced across his vision. His legs felt detached from his body. He could hardly stand.
‘Get it over with,’ he muttered grimly.
Bato chuckled cruelly. ‘I’m not going to kill you, Roman. I’m going to take you and the lanista hostage.’ He smacked his lips as a pleasing thought played out in his head. ‘A decorated military hero and the imperial First Sword will do nicely when it comes to bartering for our lives.’
‘Pallas will never negotiate with you,’ Pavo said. A needling agony flared in his ribs. He gritted his teeth and fought down the pain. ‘The Emperor would lose face by ceding to a mere Thracian. Your situation is hopeless. The battle is over. Surrender now and the rest of your men might be spared.’
‘Fool,’ Bato sneered. ‘On your feet.’
Pavo glimpsed Macro in his peripheral vision. The stocky soldier was still trying to prise free of Duras’s suffocating chokehold. Pavo boiled with rage at the thought of Bato triumphing. He had come too far, overcome too many obstacles. He had made a vow to Titus, and he wouldn’t see it broken by this barbarian, or the two Greek freedmen, or anyone else who stood in his way.
With a burst of anger he stepped forward and launched a series of quick jabs aimed at Bato’s midriff. His muscles, honed during the months of rigorous training under Macro’s tutelage, found a hidden strength the young gladiator did not know he had. He had been transformed from a gaunt, angular young recruit into a well-developed fighter, and now his reserves of strength enabled him to take the fight to Bato. The Thracian lowered his hands to block the strikes, the speed and suddenness of the attack catching him off guard. With a swift push forward Pavo headbutted Bato. There was a dull crunch as the blow struck his jawbone, and Bato groaned in agony as his head snapped backwards. He stumbled away from Pavo but the young gladiator kept on coming, the blood pumping between his temples, his taut muscles shimmering with each blow he struck. Bato swung a desperate left hook, dazed by the onslaught. Now Pavo sidestepped the Thracian’s sluggish fist and launched a powerful uppercut. His knuckles struck his groggy opponent clean on the chin, slamming the jawbone against the roof of his skull. Bato’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he fell away. In the same moment Pavo leapt at him, roaring at the top of his voice. The Thracian grunted as Pavo tackled him to the ground.
But Bato was not finished. Spitting out blood, he crawled towards the sword and dagger, their tips glinting in the moonlight. Pavo rolled away and darted ahead of him, his lungs burning with exhaustion. He seized the four-pronged dagger before his opponent could snatch it and crunched the Thracian’s fingers under his foot, grinding up knuckle joints. Bato looked up at him. He bared his bloodstained teeth at the young gladiator.
‘You can’t kill me. My followers will take revenge on you. They’ll hunt you down.’
‘Wrong,’ Pavo replied. ‘Most of your men have been routed by the Germans.’
There was a look of outright hatred on the face of the Thracian as Pavo thrust the dagger at him. Bato let out a throaty cry as the prongs pierced the nape of his neck. His neck muscles spasmed as the prongs tore through flesh and muscle and tissue, his legs and arms flailing in pangs of wild agony. He took one final glance at Pavo, cursing the young gladiator as he died.
A deep grunt snapped Pavo’s attention towards Macro. The optio had sunk his teeth into Duras’s forearm. Blood oozed. Jerking his head up, Macro spat out a chunk of flesh and wriggled free of the howling bodyguard. Duras clutched his bitten arm. Leaping to his feet, he dismissed the injury and swung wildly at the optio, swivelling at the hips, dropping his shoulders and launching punch after punch. Macro desperately tried to sidestep the blows.
‘Macro!’
Pavo chucked the sword towards the optio, who caught it in both hands and spun back to Duras. In the same smooth arc of motion he plunged the sword into the bodyguard’s abdomen. Duras’s giant frame shuddered. His eyes bulged with fury as he clawed at his opponent. Macro snarled back, burying the weapon almost up to the handle. The bodyguard gave out a final anguished groan. Then he sank to his knees, blood pooling around him. Macro stepped back from the gutted bodyguard, breathing heavily.
Silence lingered over the practice arena for a drawn-out moment. Pavo heard the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, loud as a thunderstorm. His pulse thumped furiously between his temples; his body was racked with tension. He stood rooted to the spot, blinking at Bato’s sprawled figure, barely able to believe that the ringleader of the ludus rebellion was now dead. A sharp pang of pity hit him. In his previous life as a respected military tribune, he would have been quick to congratulate himself on slaying Bato. But in the past few months he had been subjected to the same living conditions and the same appalling treatment as Bato and his followers. The lot of a gladiator was, in his opinion, even worse than that of a common slave. At least slaves nurtured hope that their master might set them free. The most a gladiator could reasonably hope for was a quick and noble death in the arena, with the crowd screaming his name. It was a cruel and miserable existence, and Pavo could understand why men would seek to remove themselves from its yoke, even if he disagreed with the vicious acts of persecution and revenge adopted by Bato and his fellow Thracians.
A loud roar erupted to the north, shaking Pavo out of his stupor. He and Macro shared a glance.
‘The Germans,’ Macro reported.
Pavo raised an eyebrow at the optio.
‘I’ve heard that battle cry a hundred times on the Rhine Frontier.’
Pavo fell quiet for a moment. ‘I suppose it won’t be long before they have the ludus back under control.’
Macro approached the young gladiator and gave him a pat on the back. ‘Close call, that.’
‘Quite. I’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime, sir.’
‘All in a day’s work in the Second, lad. Not for nothing are we the hardest bastards in all the legions.’