His pleading words had little effect. The dimachaerus took another step toward Telemachus, swords angled in a ready cross before him. “What if we love the fight?”
“Those who live by the sword will die by it.”
“In honor.”
“In futility. Do you think your name will be known in a year? For generations to come? Be remembered as the fighter who ended the games. Be the last gladiator.”
Indecision rippled across the dimachaerus’s scarred face. “If we stop fighting, we die.”
“We all die one day. Let us make our lives, however short, count for something bigger than ourselves. Join us!”
Trumpets and shouts nearly drowned out his words, their huddle of non-fighting gladiators drawing enough attention to warrant adistraction by the game master. Swords twitching in his hands, the dimachaerus stared at Telemachus for a moment, then a strange mixture of resolve and surrender crossed his face before he turned and strode away.
Telemachus let out a breath, pivoting toward Adel. “Dear girl.”
Adel dropped her weapons and flung her arms around Telemachus’s neck, the gesture uncharacteristically vulnerable and desperate.
“You’re here,” she said as he hugged her back and set her on her feet once more. “Why are you here? You’re going to be killed.”
“Life is precious, Adel. And I cannot sit by and watch men cheer as it is ended. Watch men go to stand before their Maker without knowing who He is and what He’s done.” Telemachus gripped her arm, pulling her out of the path of a retiarius’s net as it flew toward a running secutor. “Will you join me? Fight for life. End these vile games. Be the last gladiatrix to set foot in this arena.”
She nodded and glanced at Felix, Telemachus following her gaze.
“Medicus.” Relief made the word emerge in a huff. “I thought I saw you fall.” His eyes dropped to Felix’s arm, clutched against his side.
“Not yet.”
Telemachus gave a single nod. “Then let’s end this. In Jesus’ name. Let it be so.” With that he whirled away, rushing into the chaos, shouting, tearing fighters apart and throwing them to the ground. He left confusion in his wake, fighters glancing between each other as if wondering if the game masters had sent a slave to call a cease to the fight.
“He’s doing it,” Felix muttered, and the knowledge sent an iron rod of hope through his spine.
Telemachus curved toward the edge of the arena, shouting all the while and leaving a trail of confused stillness behind him. Felix and Adel bolted after him, her long hair flying behind like the pennant of an army battalion, leading the charge. They couldn’t get close enough to flank him, bodies and swords blocking their way. Ahead, Telemachus continued to shout.
“Do not spit in the face of God’s mercy! How can you celebrate His gift of victory over your enemies by cheering on murder? He has given you peace and safety andthisis how you choose to use it?”
A glass amphora flew from the stands, narrowly missing Telemachus’s head. It crashed to the sand at Felix’s feet, shattering in an explosion of shards and wine.
“Go home, old man!” someone screamed.
Telemachus tilted his head back, flinging an arm toward the fighters. “These are men and women made, like you, in the image of our God. How can you, citizens of a Christian empire, cheer on the bloody spectacles of our pagan past?”
The hum of the crowd flared and fell, confusion and anger rising on the roar of tongues. Then a three-beat rhythm slowly rose from the stands, deep and dark, as if it came not from the voices of men but from the very pits of hell.
“Down with him!”
Down. With. Him. Down. With. Him.
A semicircle of warriors in various colors began to assemble around Telemachus, and not for his protection.
“Hurry!” Adel shouted, her heart pounding in time with her feet. She dodged to the right and Felix moved with her.
She leaped the body of a fallen Visigoth gladiator, shuttering her mind to any identification. There would be a time to mourn, but it was not now. Now was the time to fight. To defend the man who risked his life to save theirs. The man who even now was slowly being surrounded.
The circle was closing.
Why wouldn’t they listen to him?
Even as the question flicked through her mind, she knew the answer. If they surrendered, stopped hurtling down the path they were on...what was left for them? Who were they? What purpose did they, could they, have?
