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  The Killing Sands

  By Samayesan Hoole

  Copyright 2014 Samayesan Hoole

  Contents

  The Killing Sands

  The Killing Sands

  They wanted blood. My blood.

  The cramped ceiling trembled beneath the stamp of thousands, and the roar of chants plunged muddled and senseless into the gloom surrounding me. A solitary oil lamp flickered along bravely in a small alcove in the wall, its tame bronze light throwing the room into a maze of leaping shadows. But my eyes were fastened on the spectre that stared back at me from the crude table, its outline growing and fading by the uncertain light. It rocked gently to the might of the crowd, tempting me in. Dust fell intermittently onto its plumed crest; some trapped by the thick nest of red feathers, the rest trickling down to settle on the sweeping brim. I could sense something in the indecipherable blackness that lay behind those cold round eyeholes. Waiting. That was biting me the hardest. The beads of sweat that trickled down my temples didn’t just come from the stale heat of the labyrinth.

  I felt a suffocating tightness creeping up on me once more, and rose with a jerk from the stone bench. I took a lengthy swig from a clay jug that lay on the table, setting it back down with a clatter. I began taking sharp strides along the tiny perimeter, forcing some feeling back into my legs. Why was it taking so long?

  It seemed a distant life, a shadow of a memory, when the guard had marched me silently within these four damp walls. Swamped by the pale orange glow, I was already on the banks of the River Styx; restless, begging for Charon’s boat to finally take me across the dark waters to the lands of the judged. And all the while, the ground swayed to the rumblings of the mob.

  I knelt down to test the straps on my legs once more. Nothing gave. The manica glove enveloping my left sword arm was still wrapped tight. The broad metal belt fastened over the folds of my loincloth refused to move an inch. The meagreness of my armour still held firm. I cursed my nerves and sat back down on the cold slab. Action had to be saved for the killing sands.

  The clash of a Retiarius and a Secutor lasted moments. One sneaky thrust found its mark, and the contest was brought to a quick end. A sum of moments didn’t fill the depths I was trapped in. Down here, away from any tale of light and its susurrations, there was no telling of the time that had past. Guessing only made it unfathomably longer. This ceaseless passage of destructive thoughts could do monstrous things to a man, ending the contest before he had the chance to step out onto the shining arena. I had heard the story of the Bestiari, an animal hunter. He had asked to use the latrine, just before the show, the only thing he could without being subject to watchful eyes. Away from the guards, he grabbed the spongia and rammed it down his throat. Choking himself to death with a stick used for wiping arses. An end he had found much preferable to the clawed beasts that awaited him. I could feel the traces of his fear, the kind that made a man willing to resort to anything to avoid it. The shadows twirled to the flutes, the panpipes, the drums, of the underworld, begging me to join them. The day I had realised that my course was either to sell myself to the arena, or watch my family shrivel and fall like hollow twigs, that day did not hold the dread that I held now. Because now I was truly alone with my fate. My family were far away, distant, a breathless murmur. Whatever prayers they had for me were scattered in the wind like autumn leaves, no hope of them falling to settle on this small room, where the wind could never reach.

  Six months of training, hacking grooves into a wooden palus in the Ludus Magnus beneath the growing shadow of the Colosseum: this had not prepared me for reality. One victory in a small, makeshift wooden arena didn’t leave me ready to walk out to wager my life beneath the eyes of fifty thousand of the Roman horde. The gable of the helmet before me was already adorned with the relief of a palm tree, the tribute to my triumph. But its meaning, it had no meaning today. One fight; one victory. These numbers came larger: nineteen victories in twenty fights. Carcerus, the Bear of Campania, would have his chance to lengthen that.

  The noise suddenly crashed around the place like the break of a monstrous wave, threatening to burst through the cracks in the stonework; dragging me from my thoughts and turning my legs light. The fight was over. One man now loomed over a limp, defeated body. Waiting. Trial by the mob.

  And then it came, the reverberating sound couldn’t be mistaken through the stonework, couldn’t be concealed by the ruthless drum of Roman feet.

  Kill him…Kill him...Kill him.

  The gladiators had their answer. The vanquished had his sentence. The morning had gone sour, a brother had said to me. The lions had slunk into the shadows, refusing to paint their claws with the blood of convicts who had been strung up for their pleasure. The thirst of the mob still ran to a murderous pitch, and Emperor Titus didn’t refuse his subjects within the walls of his arena.

  I finally moved over to the helmet and held its clumsy weight in my hands. The feathered crest rose tall, set with the head of a griffin on its arched peak. Closer to the playing light, I could now see the hollow space behind the bronze grating of the visor. No shadow gazed up at me. That was my part to play. Easier for a man to chase out the soul of his opponent, if he cannot see the eyes that hold it. Easier for the rabble to demand the grating plunge of a blade, the vicious twist of a knife, the mindless splutter of shining red that drenched the sands. Just to let their thirst sink under unbroken waters, for a few moments. I turned the helmet round slowly, and raised it onto my head. The room descended into a darker pitch, separated into a dozen cold circles. As I fumbled with heavy fingers for the straps hanging off the cheek guards, the ceiling shook and the crowd howled one final time. I imagined dark blood now seeping through the cracks, dripping slowly onto the helmet with a listless patter. The Maniae, the rampaging spirits of madness, seemed only a touch away.

  I prodded at the hinges of the visor to make sure it was clamped shut, and then got my legs moving again to scour away the frail thoughts, walking across to where the weapons lay propped up against the wall. The tools of a Thracian, modelled on the warriors from the east, whom Rome stifled beneath her heel long ago. The sica felt light in the hand as I hefted it up, the curve of the short blade giving off a faded glint in the lamplight. The shield was a heavier proposition, a parmula, plywood bound by tough leather. These would seem pitiful when striding to face the Bear, a Murmillo, wielding the heavy instruments of a legionary. But the man I had felled on my first step over the sands had also been a Murmillo. Both factions had their measure of victories. This wasn’t the mismatch that the wild depths of my mind strived to imagine. I wondered what name they would give me in victory, to bring me up from the anonymity I had to cover myself with. Perhaps I would be allowed to wear my own.

  A grating series of knocks sounded and a guard marched in without delay. I didn’t move to regard him, turning instead to kneel before the tiny alcove that held the lamp. Behind the waving flame stood a stone figure in miniature. The features were roughly hewn, the face twisted into a wretched smile, not the work of an artisan. But they were still there to be seen; the sweeping wings, the wheel of fortune held in her left arm, the head of an unfortunate offender beneath the stamp of her right foot. The goddess Nemesis: friend of gladiators.

  ‘Goddess, lead me back to my wife, my children. Keep me safe.’

  I followed the mute soldier out the room, and along narrow, winding corridors. We were guided by row after row of oil lamps, nestled away in tiny recesses in the walls, smoke hanging suspended off their tips. A strange breeze crept up and down the tunnels, sending chills around my bare torso. A lull had set in, the mob awaiting their next meal. I could hear the faint rumblings of strange beasts, hidden somewhere in the labyrinth. More mournful than an
gry. I didn’t feel much better than them, a slave to the whims of the masses in all but name. An auctorati, a free man who freely chose to become a gladiator for a few thousand sesterces, a man who swore to endure branding, chains, flogging or death by the sword. For three more years I will be a prisoner of this oath, to keep my family from wasting away. For them, only them, I had to keep fighting.

  The small moments of tranquillity were flung to the side as the thunder returned, and the suffocating walls suddenly fell back as the tunnel joined a larger one. The guard moved to the side with a sharp gesture, leaving me to make my own way to the entrance. Light shimmered in the distance as the tunnel sloped upwards. Pure light, something I had not seen for what seemed an age, cut through the broad metal bars of the Gate of Life. A silhouette was moving slowly in my direction, his left leg dragging along the ground. The figure stared at me through small eyeholes as he passed in silence, the smooth fin-crested helmet of the Secutor dented in several