‘Get off the sand, Sannitus, or I’ll cut you down alongside this piece of shit.’
Julianus took one look at the Roman’s face and took a pace backwards with an eye on the door. He stopped abruptly as it opened in his face and a massive figure squeezed through the gap with a sword held in each hand.
‘Nobody leaves. Not until this fight is done.’
Cleander looked over at him with a beatific smile that made Julianus’s blood run cold.
‘Ah, there you are! There’s a sight to make a man proud to be a citizen of this great city. Greetings, champion, and welcome to the emperor’s blood match! You’re just in time, it seems …’
The big man nodded to him and then turned his attention to the sand.
‘Sannitus.’
The lanista was still staring at him, as if unable to believe the evidence of his eyes as his erstwhile nemesis walked forward, brushing past the gathered procurators as if they weren’t there.
‘Flamma … Of all the men I never expected to see in this ludus again.’
The big man shrugged.
‘Sometimes a man can’t ignore the things that need to be done. Even if I’ve managed to turn a blind eye for the last few years.’
He turned his attention to the two men crouched in their fighting stances.
‘Well then young Marcus, how much longer are you going to play with this fool? Didn’t I always tell you to get the job done as soon as you found your opening?’
Mortiferum shook his head, his eyebrows raised in disbelief.
‘Fuck you old man, whoever it is you think you are! This blood match is over! I’m going to carve this upstart into-’
He staggered backwards as Marcus launched himself bodily into a ferocious attack, frantically defending himself as the Roman remorselessly drove him back with a strength born of the fury that was pulsing through him. The rage that had festered inside him during the years of his exile was abruptly, terrifyingly free, unthinking, unquestioning, raving for the blood of the man who had slaughtered his family.
‘My sisters were raped and murdered, and left for the crows on a rubbish dump!’
He smashed through Mortiferum’s reeling defence, but rather than use his blades on the man he pivoted with the speed of a striking snake, hammering the point of his elbow into the gladiator’s face and punching him backwards.
‘My mother bled to death at the hands of men who called my father their friend until you did their dirty work for them!’
Mortiferum rallied, but his wits had been shaken by the blow, and Marcus’s swords were momentarily too fast for him to counter. He chopped at the gladiator’s sword hand, and Julianus shrieked in horror as three of his champion gladiator’s fingers dropped to the sand. Velox started forward, only to find himself looking down the blade of one of Flamma’s swords, the big man’s attention fixed on the fight but the sword’s point unwaveringly aimed at his throat.
‘One more step …’ He raked his gaze across the men lining the back wall, his face twisted in contempt. ‘Any of you who want to die here, try me!’
Frozen in place by the threat, the champion gladiator watched in horror as his brother, unable to hold the sword in his ruined hand, attempted to hurl it at his tormentor. The blade merely tumbled uselessly to the ground, and Marcus pushed it aside with his foot as he advanced upon his stricken enemy.
‘My brother was sold into slavery!’
He battered aside the remaining blade with one sword, then stabbed the other down into his opponent’s thigh, his long blade skewering through the muscles as it pierced the limb to protrude from between his hamstrings, a thin trickle of blood running from the point onto the sand. Mortiferum stared into Marcus’s face in hollow-eyed disbelief, and the Roman leaned in close, whispering in his ear as he twisted the blade, dragging a groan of agony from the gladiator.
‘My father was tortured until he confessed to a treason he had never committed. But he never gave up the secret of where he’d sent me, to escape you and your fellow scum.’
Pulling the sword from Mortiferum’s leg, he kicked the staggering gladiator’s feet from under him, whipping down the other blade to pin him to the ground and dimpling his bare chest with the weapon’s point.
‘And my name is not Corvus! My name is Marcus!’
He leaned on the blade, sinking the first inch of metal into his helpless opponent’s chest. Mortiferum stiffened, fighting the iron’s cold intrusion.
‘Valerius!’
Slowly, surely, Marcus pushed the sword’s blade deeper until it pierced his opponent’s heart, shouting the last word the doomed gladiator would ever hear.
‘AQUILA!’
The gladiator stiffened, his eyes rolling back as he lost consciousness, his back arching as Marcus thrust the sword through his body. He stared down at the dead man’s corpse for a moment before turning back to face the men staring at him, dropping the other sword.
‘My vengeance is complete.’
‘No. It isn’t …’
Velox stepped forward, glaring at Flamma as if daring him to use the swords that were still pointing at him. His voice was thick with hatred, his stare loaded with menace as Marcus turned to face him.
‘You’ve killed the wrong man, Marcus Valerius Aquila.’
Marcus shook his head.
‘Mortiferum was the last of the Emperor’s Knives, the men who destroyed my family. I have taken vengeance …’
Velox shook his head, his face contorted by a savage, distraught rictus of a grin.
‘Yes. You have your revenge. On the brother of the man who carried out the deeds you just described.’
Cleander stood, his voice matter of fact as he looked across the sand at Mortiferum’s blood-spattered corpse.
‘It’s true. I had the records of the whole matter of your family’s liquidation retrieved from Perennis’s private files, after your revelation with that stolen gold led the emperor to put the butt spike of a spear through the praetorian prefect’s guts, and ordered his sons to be murdered before they could mobilise their legions. It seems that on the night in question, Mortiferum was somewhat preoccupied with a more than usually shapely boy. He persuaded his brother here to take his place, and, it has to be said, the stand-in seems to have performed his duties with commendable vigour.’
He waved a finger, and the praetorians waiting behind him stepped forward, levelling their spears at Marcus and Flamma.
‘And now, I suppose you might be tempted to do something heroic, given that your revenge has been a little flawed in its execution, but I’d advise against it. I’m happy enough to pay Julianus here the blood price for Mortiferum, but his brother was never part of my plans …’ He smiled at the expression on Marcus’s face, as the realisation of exactly what it was that he was saying sank in. ‘When the Knives started dying, apparently for no reason other than either their own stupidity or weariness with the life that they had chosen, I thought it sensible to undertake a little recruitment of my own. These men may wear the praetorian uniform, but they’re mine, bought and paid for. And who knows, with the demise of the last of the originals, I may find it necessary to make use of them to fill the gap that’s been left by their loss. The only question now is what to do with you, now that your usefulness to me seems to have run to a natural conclusion?’
Velox stepped forward, growling out a response to the question.
‘I treated this man as an arena brother, and he has repaid me with the death of all that was left of my family! Give him to me. I’ll rip out his spine and hang it from the ludus gates!’ He looked at Flamma with disdain. ‘Think you can get in my way, old man? One word from me and you’ll be arse-deep in gladiators, all of whom will be vying to be the man who kills you.’