Path of the Tiger, стр. 410
‘You idiot!’ he hissed. ‘He was supposed to lead my army! Now look at what he’s doing! DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING, YOU USELESS HALF-WIT!’
‘Get your hands off me!’ Batiatus spat, ripping his arm out of Octavian’s grasp. ‘Your army be damned! It’s nothing without my gladiators! Nothing!’
‘This evening has turned into a fucking disaster!’ Octavian snarled through rage-clenched teeth. ‘And it’s your fault, you blasted oaf! Fix it, fix it now!’
‘SEIZE VIRIDOVIX!’ Batiatus howled at the top of his lungs. ‘SEIZE HIM AND THROW HIM IN THE BRAZEN BULL! We’ll put both him AND Lucius Sertorius into it! Guards, seize Viridovix!’
‘NO!’
A booming baritone voice smashed through the aural tempest of shouts, chants and screams, silencing everyone with its explosive thunderclap of undeniable authority.
Everyone turned around in surprise to see where this strange new voice had come from – and there, standing alone in the entrance to the dining hall was the General, outfitted in his brilliantly burnished gladiatorial armour, looking both dangerous and resplendent in the flickering copper glow of the torches on the walls alongside him.
‘What?! What on earth?!’ Batiatus stammered, stunned with disbelief.
‘NOBODY will be thrown into that monstrous creation tonight!’ the General bellowed, pointing at the brazen bull. ‘But all ofyou will die!’
64
VIRIDOVIX
‘I don’t know how you got out of your cell,’ bellowed Batiatus, whose rage had kicked into overdrive now that the jarring shock of this unexpected interruption had worn off, ‘but I assure you this, you filthy slave, the only ones dying tonight will be you, Viridovix and Lucius Sertorius! And I personally guarantee that your deaths will be as drawn-out and as painful as I can make them! Soldiers, seize him!’
‘Your soldiers are as dead as you are, Batiatus,’ the General growled. ‘Archers, loose!’
As he cried out this order he dived to the floor, and from the darkness behind him thrummed a volley of arrows, streaking through the air in a horizontal rain of death. The dining hall descended into pure pandemonium as the arrows thudded home, each deadly missile burying its hungry steel broadhead into human flesh.
‘Maharbaal!’ roared Batiatus, whose years of battle experience were now kicking in through the chaos of madly fleeing dinner guests and hastily mobilising troops. ‘Organise Octavian’s soldiers into a defensive formation! Shield wall, close ranks and advance on the archers, badgers to the rear flanks ready to break out and charge! And you, guard over there,’ he yelled, turning now to the fighting cage in which the bleeding gorilla and Viridovix were still imprisoned, ‘lock the cage before that one can join his friends!’
Viridovix dashed for the cage door, but it was too late; the guard snapped the lock shut just as he reached it. He gripped the bars and grunted with frustration as he pulled and yanked at the steel, trying to force the door open, but it would not budge. The bleeding gorilla, meanwhile, simply continued to moan and howl plaintively in a heap on the floor.
Batiatus, racked with crippling nausea while simultaneously caught in the grips of a paroxysm of rage, hobbled with wrathful urgency in his step over to one of the guards nearby, who was writhing on the ground in agony after being felled by an arrow, and clawing with bloodied hands at the wooden shaft protruding from his sternum. Ignoring the man’s rasps for help, Batiatus leaned down and snatched up the guard’s gladius and shield.
‘I’ll fight these dogs myself!’ he howled, his face dark with an apoplectic wrath that was as tempestuous as a mountain thunderstorm. ‘Maharbaal! Ready the troops!’
‘Yes boss!’ Maharbaal rasped. ‘Troops! Form up defensive tortoise! Shield wall up! Top, sides and front! Do it, ya stupid bastards!’ Maharbaal, unfazed by the chaos erupting all around him, then turned and roared out his defiance at the advancing gladiators. ‘General, you’re a dead slave! You and your traitorous, scum-eating friends! We’ll flay and crucify every last one o’ you before this night is over, ya filthy, treacherous sons o’ gutter whores!’
The banquet was over; a seething, roiling mass of sheer anarchy was all that remained. Octavian’s soldiers were executing their clockwork-precise manoeuvre into a defensive position while simultaneously advancing through the madness of the panicking guests, who were all running in blind, directionless terror about the hall – and being felled left, right and centre by hissing arrows as they attempted to flee. Through the confusion, however, two other men besides Batiatus were striding with cold focus: Octavian and his bodyguard Kurush. With determined intent writ raw across his fury-crimson face, Octavian locked a withering stare on the prostrate form of Lucius.
‘There’s no way you’re escaping me this time, wolf,’ he snarled, making a beeline for Lucius, who was still dazed, bound hand and foot, and ready to be thrown into the brazen bull, which was now scorching hot from the raging bonfire beneath it. ‘Everything else has fallen to pieces, but we’ve at least got you. Tonight, whatever else happens, you will burn!’
Meanwhile, the guests who had managed to escape the hall and run into the passageways now encountered a terrible surprise on their flight path: armed gladiators, led by Crixus, waiting in the narrow corridors with sharp and bright weapons at the ready. The butchery that followed in these small spaces was nightmarish … .and inescapable. Those who could turned on their heels and fled, screaming in wordless animal tones of unbridled fear, running back into the main hall even as their friends and lovers were being slaughtered behind them.
In the main entrance, the General roared out a hoarse order from where he was lying flat on the floor.
‘Archers, cease loosing arrows and move into the second position! First wave of assault troops, form up and advance with me!’
The storm of arrows ceased abruptly, and from the darkness behind the General a squadron of fully armoured and heavily armed gladiators charged out, the steel of their armour flashing molten ore