The other two retiarii had used the opportunity to fan out, one fighter on each flank of Falco as he faced the third survivor. Falco forced himself to relax, to focus on the three men who were trying to kill him. They were going to double cast; he knew it a second before either on the flank moved. Falco charged the one he sensed was the better fighter of the two, his shield now over his head, his sword held forward. The caster behind him missed, but the man he was charging, settled his net perfectly over Falco, or at least his shield, which Falco let go of a split second before the net completed its drop and caught him. The net fell to the ground, the shield it’s only captive. Falco dove to the ground at the feet of the retiarius, his sword point now extending forward and up, slicing into the man’s upper thigh as he tried to dance away, severing the artery.
Falco rolled twice to the right, feeling the sand against his exposed skin. The dying retiarius was brave as he stuck with his trident, narrowly missing pinning Falco’s neck to the ground. Falco was on his feet, giving ground, letting the wounded man bleed out as he struggled to approach. Falco could feel the wounded man’s pain, the faintness as his blood pulsed out with each beat of his heart. The other two retiarii were behind, recovering their nets.
The wounded man raised his trident and screamed something in his native tongue, charging forward. Falco stood his ground and met the trident with his blade, stopping the man’s charge as if he had run into a wall. With his free hand, Falco grabbed the man’s throat. He squeezed, massive muscles in his forearm rippling, and the man’s trachea gave way. Still Falco kept the pressure breaking though the skin, his fingers reaching the carotid arteries, popping into both like into grapes, blood flowing over his hand. The retiarius went limp, and Falco threw the body from him.
The last two retiarii were approaching very slowly, trying to maneuver him to have their backs to the late afternoon sun. Falco risked a glimpse toward the imperial box. A large awning shaded the box, but Falco knew she was there: he could feel her evil presence. His hatred grew.
Falco turned his attention to the approaching gladiators. He could pick up fear from them now. Their numbers were halved, and he wasn’t even scratched. They had recovered their nets, and he was without his shield, which gave them a slight advantage.
One said something to the other in their tongue. The second replied. Falco didn’t understand the language, but he picked up their intent. He had always been able to do that, a trait he possessed that he had only told one other person about in his entire life, his wife Drusilla. He had known since he was a small child that he was different, and he had instinctively known that showing off that difference would not endear him to others. The difference, though, had saved his life many times in the army and the arena and made him the crown at the gladiator school at Roe for the past two years.
They were going to attack him full on, at the same time. Nothing fancy. Casting simultaneously, side by side, and then charging, hoping to get in an incapacitating strike with their tridents and then finish him with daggers.
Falco smiled. He spread his arms wide apart, bloodstained sword glinting.
The crowd roared its approval and began to chant his name.
He turned his back to the two retiarii, which surprised them. It was his trademark to turn his back on his enemies, to acknowledge the crowd all around. It was as if he sought death, but it never quite found him.
He knew they would be charging a split second before they moved. Still he kept his back to them, sensing their approach, feeling their anger and fear bearing down on him. He even knew when they threw their nets, fifteen feet out as they had been trained. Time had slowed down for Falco, each second passing as if a minute. He could see details in the crowd, the crazed faces of the men and women who came here to see others die and then go home and make wild love, their lust provoked by the sight of the blood. Their roars were a faint sound in his ears, the sound of his own heart beating much louder to him. The dark seed in his heart wanted him to remain still to let the nets settle over his head and body, to allow the barbed trident points to do their job and release him from the pain of life.
Falco whirled, sword slashing getting caught in one net, and he let go of the pommel, the weight of the heavy weapon taking the net with it to one side. The other net fell to his left harmlessly. He could pick up the trill from the two men charging, tridents leveled, as they saw that although they had not captured him with their nets, he was now unarmed.
Falco anticipated the first thrust, coming from the retiarius to his right. The three prongs of the trident narrowly missed, and Falco jumped toward the weapon, jumping in, putting the shaft against his side, looping his right arm over it and clamping down, even as he turned to face the charge of the second man. As the second man thrust, Falco bobbed left, still holding the shaft of the first trident, catching the retiarius who held the haft by surprise and pulling him forward, right into the path of the second trident. The retiarius screamed as the three prongs pierced his skin, spitting him.
The retiarius desperately tried to pull his weapon out of his comrade’s body, but the barb on the end of each prong refused to release from muscle and bone. Falco let go of the other trident and raised his empty hands toward the last surviving retiarius. The man stepped back, whipping his dagger out of its sheath. He retreated as Falco came forward.
The crowd was in a frenzy, screaming Falco’s name. The retiarius turned toward the emperor’s box and cried out, begging for mercy, tossing his dagger away to make the point obvious and getting to his knees. Falco paused, peering into the shadow, out of which the new emperor Titus stepped. The flames were in honor of him, as he had just taken office two months ago after the death of a Vespasian, his father. Titus scanned the crowd.
Falco suddenly felt tired. When he had begun fighting, more often than not, mercy was shown, and a man who fought well would be spared. But each year the crowd’s thirst for blood could not be slacked so easily. They could not see beyond the immediate moment and the fact that every gladiator who died was very difficult to replace. Life was cheap in the arena and growing cheaper with each new set of games.
The thumbs were almost all down. Titus then gave Falco the same sign. He picked up the retiarius’s dagger and walked up to the man whose head was now bowed, his lips moving in some prayer to his gods.
Falco didn’t waste any time in showmanship now, slicing the blade across the man’s neck and stepping back out of the way of the flow of blood. The body slumped forward onto the sand, the blood soaking into it.
Falco turned and raised the blade to the emperor, then slowly spun about, showing it to the stands. The crowd roared its approval. When he completed the turn, he saw that the emperor was in his seat, another man leaning over, talking to him.
Gaius Marcus was the Ianista or head of the emperor’s gladiatorial school at Rome. When men had first been pitted against each other in such contest, the Ianista worked for private factions, and it had been a business. But the revolt at Capua in 73 B.C. led by Spartacus had forced the emperor to put all such schools under his own control. It was a move that went beyond security, though, as considerable sums of money flowed from such schools.