Blood for the Masses

by B. L. Morgan

  Then I was thrown loose and Pugnax was on his knees with his hands to his ruined face. Blood poured through his fingers.

  I kicked him once in the face and he went to his back. Spitting the ragged piece of meat and skin that had once been Pugnax’s nose into my hand I held it up to the woman in the royal box.

  “Your prize,” I shouted to her and hurled the chunk of nose at the woman.

  The blood thirsty maniacs cheered me. A few minutes before, they hated me.

  The sun felt cool. Like cold ice water was poured over my head. Everything was very bright. Everything was white.

  The sand beneath my feet pitched and rolled.

  I fell to my knees. I laughed like a madman and everything went black.

  PART III

  O’ Death! The poor man’s dearest friend.

  -Burns, Man was Made to Mourn

  When life is woe,

  And hope is dumb,

  The world says, “Go!”

  The grave says, “Come!”

  -Arthur Guiterman, Betel-Nuts

  Like the dew on the mountain,

  Like the foam on the river,

  Like the bubble on the fountain,

  Thou art gone, and forever!

  -Walter Scott, The Lady of the Lake

  Love is everything, and

  Love is nothing.

  -The Walker in Darkness

  CHAPTER 34

  With the Dead and After

  I heard the loud sound of squeaks and creaking like a giant in a rocking chair. On top of that were the shrieks of birds and a loud buzzing filled my ears.

  My eyes felt like they were glued shut. I tried to open them and couldn’t do it. With the sound of creaking I felt side to side rocking. Everything was coming to me through a wall of fog. A layer of gauze was between me and the real world. It felt like I was inside a cocoon that I didn’t really want to break out of.

  Every bone and muscle in my body hurt.

  The smell around me was awful; rotten meat mixed with piss and shit.

  The rocking stopped, jerked to a stop.

  “Here, this one,” a harsh voice yelled. “Get them off quick.”

  I tried again to open my eyes. This time I succeeded. Bright sunlight scorched down into me. I opened my mouth to speak and only a dry rattle came out.

  Someone leaned over me. His shadow shielded me from the sun for a moment. I heard a gasp of surprise. The shadow moved back. The sun fried my eyes again.

  “What do we have here?” The harsh voice barked. “Get out of the way!”

  From the corner of my sight the first figure was shoved aside and the second figure moved in front of me. Both of them were just black outlines against a flaming sky.

  "You were supposed to check them, make sure they were dead." The harsh voice barked.

  "I did, I thought they were," The second voice said.

  "I'll finish him," The harsh voice spoke. There was the sound of sliding metal, a sword being drawn.

  "Wait!" the second said. "I know this man."

  "Just another slave," the harsh voice growled, "I'll make it quick."

  He stood over me blotting out the sun. He raised his sword above his head. "Pray to whatever gods you have," he said. "Your time has come."

  I tried to raise my arm to ward off the blow and can only raise it for a moment before it falls.

  Something crashed into the head of the one who was going to hack me to pieces. He pitched forward, falling across me.

  With a grunt he raised up to his knees.

  I see that I am in the back of a wagon filled with corpses, the rotting bodies of those who were killed in the arena. They were out here dumping them in ditches on the sides of this road.

  Rising above my butcher is the man who wanted him to wait. I recognize him now. It's McRae, the Scotsman. He had a large rock in his hand. He slammed it down onto the head of the Roman guard again. The guard pitched forward on top of me once more.

  McRae then got on top of the guard and pounded his head with the rock until his skull was caved in and the blows with the rock made wet smacking sounds.

  McRae dragged the soldier off of me.

  "I have got to get you out of here," he told me and gave me a drink of water from a rawhide flask he had untied from his hip.

  I tried to smile and thank him but my face muscles weren't up to it. I probably looked like a gargoyle. The way I must have looked I have no idea how he ever recognized me.

  I tried to sit up and passed back out.

  * * *

  The next time I woke up was to the sound of a crackling fire, the smell of roasting game animals and the cool feeling of my face being washed with a wet cloth.

  I opened my eyes and it was a teenage girl who was washing the caked on blood from my face. The girl squealed and slid away from me in the dirt. I sat up and it seemed like everyone in the camp turned and looked at me at the same time.

  It wasn't a big camp, maybe ten or fifteen people. They were a ragged bunch, a few women in their twenties and thirties, a few teenage girls, and McRae. The rest were old men and women. They had a few wagons with six horses tied among the trees.

  McRae saw me wake and came over. I remembered him as being the laughing joking guy from the cages who was so proud of his skill at giving women orgasms. The smile was gone from his face.

  I stood up and my head throbbed. I was figuring it wouldn't stop throbbing for about a month. It wasn't like I could get hold of any Tylenol either.

  We shook hands. "I want to thank you for helping me out," I told him. "If it wasn't for you, I'd be with the rest of them in that ditch."

  A half smile curled his lips. He said, "I was going to kill 'em anyway the first chance I got. He's the one who put the knife to me."

  For a moment I didn't know what he meant then I remembered what the buyer of McRae at the slave auction said right after he'd bought him. He said he'd paid as much as he did only to see the look on McRae's face as he was having him gelded.

  I didn't ask McRae if he had had his manhood cut away. I didn't have to. His face expression and his attitude told me. There was nothing I could say to him. That's the kind of thing that you can't just tell a guy that in time they'll get over it. What they had done to McRae, there wouldn't be any getting over.

  He showed me around the camp and introduced me to everyone. All of them were run-away slaves. They were reasonably certain that they wouldn't be bothered this deep in the woods at night. Slave hunting parties didn't like coming out here because it was nearly impossible to avoid ambushes. But just in case, there were sentries posted outside the camp.

  After my little tour we went back and sat on the bed of grass that they'd had me sleeping on. McRae asked me if I had any plans now that I was a free man again.

  I told him about Caesar Lanista's kidnappings and how Johnny and me followed him. Then I told him about what happened that got me put in the arena. I finished with, "The first thing I got to do is get Johnny loose. Then we find the women and get our asses back to where we came from."

  "Getting your friend out of that gladiator school in Micea looks to be suicide," McRae told me.

  "I don't have any choice," I answered. "I don't turn my back on friends."

  "Then I'm in," McRae said.

  I looked at him and the surprise showed on my face.

  McRae grinned and the way his face looked was frightening. "What we're going into at that school in Micea is a fight to the death. The way I am now, do you think I want to live long? I just want to make sure I take quite a few Roman bastards with me when I die."

  "Good," I told him. "Just don't die too quickly. There's a lot of Romans there to be killed."

  We started planning the days ahead.

  CHAPTER 35

  Camping Out

  McRae and the other people in the camp knew the countryside we were in fairly well. As it turned out I was the only one who spent his entire stay in Rome in a cage or in chains or in captivity of some sort.


  Most slaves in Rome had jobs to do. So except for being owned property that could be disposed of and done with as the owner wished, slaves usually did have a sort of freedom. All of the slaves in the camp except for McRae just walked away from their owners. Now they were all wanted criminals because they didn't like what their lives were and left them behind.

  I spent the next few days eating game animals and practicing with a sword McRae gave me. It always surprised the hell out of me just how natural handling a sword felt. When I fenced with McRae it felt like I was born with a sword in my hand. I had knowledge inside of me about this weapon that I could not account for.

  The lumps on my face went down and the purple bruises gradually faded away until I looked human again. Maybe I still didn't look very pretty, but at least I did look like I was a member of our species.

  After a week of recovering and honing our sword skills we were ready to set off toward Micea.

  Micea was only about forty miles away. So, two nights of horse riding should bring us to its walls.

  * * *

  The escaped slaves were going to head north the morning after McRae and me were leaving. They were hoping to cross the mountains, then leave the Roman Empire and find a peaceful secluded spot away from the rest of the world to live out the rest of their lives as free people.

  Unless they joined some larger community they would always be at risk from roaming bands of robbers and cut throats. This was not a good world they were in. Their chances of finding a safe haven were slim.

  The week I spent among those people was peaceful and calming. They didn't have much but what they had, they shared with me. Those people, without any questions, accepted me as one of them. For a short while it was like I had a family.

  These people were just ordinary folk. In America, we'd call them lower-middle class. In another time and place, just about everyone in America could be wearing chains. The night McRae and me rode out of the camp, if I would have been a religious man I would have prayed for their safety. As it was, I wished them good luck.

  So, outfitted with swords, daggers, ropes tied in bags slung across our horse's backs and clothes that made us look like ordinary travelers, we set out.

  * * *

  We rode down the wagon trail toward Micea mostly in silence. There wasn't a lot for us to discuss anyway. We knew what lay ahead.

  We were also quiet so we could hear what was in front of us. Night time outside of a city in ancient Rome was, except for moonlight, pitch black.

  We were both wanted criminals. McRae was more wanted than me. He'd killed his overseer. I was only supposed to be dead.

  Every time we heard the sounds of approaching horses and wagons we got off the road and into the woods and hid until they passed. This didn't happen very often. Three times the first night. Four times the second night when we were close to Micea. No one would be out after dark unless the party they traveled with was well armed and large enough to scare off any bandits that might be around.

  Just out of sight of Micea we turned east so we could travel parallel to the city walls and approach one of the smaller gates that would be guarded by a single sentry.

  For a half mile we skirted the city walls then the small eastern gate was in front of us.

  From the tree line with the crickets singing their eternal song around us we planned our next move.

  McRae wanted to bribe the sentry to get through the gate. I didn't have any money so I didn't know how we could make that work.

  "You start it off," he said. "I've got something that will get his attention."

  We came out of the tree line on foot leading our horses.

  We approached the sentry showing our palms to him so he saw we held no weapons. "We're just travelers looking for lodging." I said to him.

  "Your roof will be the trees of the forest tonight." The sentry answered.

  "Look, no one will know if you let us in," I said to him coming close enough to talk. "We'll pay you to let us through. We want to get a meal and there aren't any cafés out here."

  I fiddled with the money sack at my belt knowing it was empty.

  McRae put a hand on my shoulder, "Keep your money my friend. You've paid the last few days. I'll pay tonight."

  "It'll be expensive to get through my gate," the sentry said.

  "No problem," McRae answered. "I've enough for all," and stepped forward toward the man. He reached behind his back like he was going for a hidden money sack.

  With a movement too fast to be caught by the eye in the gate's dim torchlight, McRae stabbed the sentry in the ribs with his dagger.

  I clamped a hand over the sentry's mouth and tripped him and we all three went to the ground. In silence McRae stabbed the sentry three more times then slit his throat.

  We quickly went through the Sentry's pouches and took the gate key and what money he had. We propped him up in a sitting position like he was taking a nap. Then we entered Micea and locked the gate behind us.

  CHAPTER 36

  Savagery

  Micea was still awake. The streets were lit by torches that served as streetlights. In a dark alley between two buildings we divided up what money we took off the sentry. It wasn't much. The sentry must not have been much better off than most slaves.

  Well, at least he could have looked for something better if he wanted to.

  We moved down the streets fast to put some distance between us and the gate in case the sentry was found dead before we wanted him to be. We didn't run. We didn't want to attract any attention.

  At a café we bought a duck leg each and a glass of water that was a long way from clear. When I get back home I'm going to make it a point to send the guy who runs the water treatment plant a Christmas card every year. After drinking this shit, you don't know what could be swimming around in your stomach.

  We also got directions to the gladiator school. I'd only been inside the school the entire time I was here so I didn't know my way around town.

  We took our time eating to let the night get even later, and then set out in the direction of the gladiator school.

  * * *

  Back out on the street at about what I was estimating was 1 AM things were starting to get quiet. It was almost a mile walk to the school.

  On the way to the school the only people we saw on the streets were prostitutes, their customers and some thugs looking to kick the shit out of someone and take their money. The way the prostitutes looked, their customers must be desperate to fuck anything. The faces on those women looked like they'd worn out three bodies each. But there were guys willing to rent them.

  The thugs were a mean looking breed. With the cuts and bruises still healing on me, and McRae's general attitude, we looked meaner. They gave us the once over and searched for easier prey.

  The school itself was separated from all the rest of the buildings around it by a wide walkway so we couldn't just hop from a building to the school's roof.

  One thing that surprised me was that there was no sentry walking around the entire school. There was a guy at the front gate but that was it. No one else appeared to be stopping anyone from getting in.

  We made a complete circle around the building making sure there was no one else on guard but the guy at the front gate. There was no one.

  Then it hit me that it made sense. You would never expect anyone to be trying to break into this place. Hell, inside is only a lot of pissed off guys training to kill you.

  There's nothing in there you could make money off of, so there's nothing you'd want to steal. All the security they had was for keeping the guys in, not for keeping someone out.

  My plan, what I'd told McRae back at the forest was to climb up on the roof and come down into the open courtyard where we practiced. From there, get to the small cells where the girl had been sent to me. I was figuring if Johnny was still here, that's where they'd have him.

  There being only one guard, we changed our plans right then.

  McRae stayed hidden around
the corner to the right side of where the guard lounged against the front gate. I came around the corner to his left walking with an exaggerated stagger.

  The guard came to the alert as I approached him. I didn't recognize him at all and I knew he didn't recognize me.

  I staggered up to him. "Open your mother fuckin' door," I slurred at him loud enough to cover McRae's movements behind him. "You mother fuckin' gladiators think you're all so fuckin' tough. I'll beat the shit out of you all."

  He grinned at me. An evil grin and put his hand on his sword. "Move along," he said, "Before I have to hurt you."

  "Hurt meeeeee," I said and that was when McRae clamped his left hand over the guard's mouth and shoved his dagger between his ribs from behind. The guard's knees buckled and McRae withdrew his blade and stabbed him four more times, then threw him to the ground.

  I could tell McRae was really enjoying himself tonight. That wouldn't be a problem as long as he remembered why we were here and didn't just go kill crazy on me.

  We took this guard's money, got the key from him, and unlocked the gate. I took the guard's sword as an extra and sheathed it, keeping mine in my hand.

  Inside all was quiet. It was dark except for a few torches that were still burning out in the courtyard. The courtyard where the training took place was separated from the entrance by a fence made of steel bars.

  Through the steel fence by the dim light of two dying torches, I saw in the far corner of the courtyard a man was hanging from a single cross. The man was black.

  It was Johnny.

  "Oh shit," I said and McRae looked at me. I pointed to where Johnny hung from the cross. "He's over there," I told him.

  "You should have expected that," McRae answered and he was right.

  I told McRae to guard the door that lead into the main part of the complex and kill anyone who came out. He would have done the killing part without a word from me.

  A crude ladder was leaning against a wall near where Johnny was. The gate to the steel fence that lead out to the courtyard was unlocked. I went out into the courtyard and got the ladder and leaned it against the cross Johnny was on.