Path of the Tiger, стр. 415
‘Viridovix!’ the giant boomed. ‘We’re coming!’
The four warriors raced across the floor of the hall, converging into a tight fist as they ran. Forming a wedge with Crixus at its head, they drove into the body-packed chaos and smashed through the outer ring of defenders, fighting their way with furious desperation towards Viridovix.
‘My brothers!’ he gasped hoarsely, his face pale from blood loss, and his limbs leaden and heavy now that his adrenalin and energy were almost depleted. ‘We have won! We are free men!’
At that moment a spear shot out in a rapid jab from behind one of the soldier’s shields, and the leaf-shaped blade struck Viridovix between his ribs, the steel burrowing deep into his flesh. When the spear blade was plucked out, a wash of blood cascaded out of the wound, running down Viridovix’s side in a red tide of pain.
With a viciously swung, upward-arcing blow of his massive hammer, Oenomaus smashed the man’s shield into smithereens, and then a second later he crushed the soldier’s skull on the downswing, while the General, Crixus and Spartacus fought off adversaries on both flanks, clearing a path through which the grievously wounded Viridovix could escape.
‘Gladiators! To me!’ the General roared. ‘Tight wedge, final attack; now we break them completely and win this battle!’
With deft hands he swung his war-hammer while he blocked and slashed alternately with his blade-edged shield, driving the beleaguered defenders back with the intensity and speed of his attacks as a charging wedge of gladiators came rushing in to join the final assault.
Viridovix stumbled out from the rear of the gladiator wedge and dropped his sword, his bloodied chest heaving as he gulped in great gasps of air. He had single-handedly fought off an entire square of troops, but was now paying the price, and feeling the effect of both crushing exhaustion and the many wounds they had inflicted upon him.
He glanced across the room and saw Batiatus and his almost-broken defensive tortoise square moving towards the back of the room, being harried by gladiators as they went, with shieldmen falling constantly before the swift and skilful attacks of the elite warriors. Still, the defenders were well-trained and highly disciplined soldiers themselves, and each time a defender fell, the gap in the shield wall was immediately closed.
Above the noise of the battle the brazen bull continued to bellow. Viridovix stared at it for a second, feeling a wave of gut-wrenching horror and nauseating disgust pulsing through his body.
‘Lucius Sertorius is an enemy, but that is no way for any man to die,’ he growled.
He reached down and picked up his longsword, summoned one final burst of energy, and charged towards the grotesque instrument of torture.
Kurush, standing alone to await his fate, saw Viridovix coming. He simply laughed, releasing a great belly rumble that resounded across the killing floor that was the dining hall.
‘Come champion,’ he rasped, ‘one last gladiator duel! I have never lost a fight, and I do not intend to start now. Come and meet your barbarian gods; I will send you to them!’
He swung his dual scimitars in his hands, bent his knees and prepared for the imminent clash, an arrogant sneer smeared across his scarred face. Viridovix roared with primal fury when he reached Kurush and aimed a scything diagonal cut at his opponent’s shoulder. As Kurush deflected the blow, Viridovix turned the blade and aimed a horizontal slash at Kurush’s midsection, which again the bodyguard was able to parry, and as he did this he counterattacked with a downward hack from one of his scimitars. With swift and agile footwork Viridovix ducked and sidestepped simultaneously, correctly anticipating and thus evading the thrusting attack that came from the second scimitar. As he ducked and bobbed, he aimed an uppercut strike with his bear-claw at Kurush’s throat, while in the same motion he lunged forward with a low chop of his longsword, aimed at Kurush’s leading knee. Kurush had to evade the potentially lethal bear-claw strike, but could not dodge the low leg cut at the same time. Even though he sprang back with catlike speed, the tip of Viridovix’s longsword managed to catch him on the side of his knee. The steel bit deep into the flesh, and Kurush stumbled back with a grunt, but at the same time he aimed a savage overhead cut at Viridovix, which whacked into one of the gladiator’s pauldrons with a loud clang, and would have taken his arm off had it not been for the armour.
Viridovix, despite his failing strength and the breathlessness that was sapping the very final reserves of energy from his body, did not ease up his assault. He aimed cut after cut and stab after stab at Kurush’s weak points, concentrating now on forcing his opponent to bear his weight on his injured knee. Kurush was blindingly fast in both his strikes and parries, as well as light of foot in his movements, but his injured knee was a lethal handicap. Fear began to show upon his scarred visage, and it was with increasing desperation that he beat back Viridovix’s unrelenting attacks with retaliatory counterblows of his own.
For every viciously fast and brutally precise attack Kurush launched, though, Viridovix, despite his flagging strength and failing endurance, would counter with a swift and almost always unconventional flurry of blows, which he was only just able to fend off. Kurush realised, for the first time in his life, that he waslosinga fight. Desperation began to scuttle its cockroach swarm madness into his brain, and he pulled out, from the recesses of his memory, an attack he had last used many years ago on the sands of the arena. A complex manoeuvre that required immense skill, strength and dexterity, it had once been his signature flourish – a guaranteed crowd-pleaser at the end of a gladiatorial match, but more importantly, when launched with