Page 77 of Brother at Arms

I had other ideas. If I was going into the Cloaca Maxima to drown in Rome’s offal, Aulus was coming with me.

When he seized my ankles and started to heave, I clenched my abdomen as hard as I could and used the strength of it to roll onto my side, kicking one foot from his grasp.

Aulus snarled and grabbed me again. I continued rolling, until I was face down on the packed earth floor. Aulus’s hands clamped around my calves, and he tried to drag me around to thrust my feet into the hole.

I focused on my leg muscles and jerked from his grip, which made him lose his balance and fall on his backside. While he vented his rage at me, I kicked again, pushing him closer to the opening.

Aulus agilely rolled to his feet and slid out his knife once more. I reasoned he didn’t want to cut my throat or kill me in an obvious way—when my body was fished out of the river somewhere far downstream, I’d be just another Roman who’d met with misfortune in the Tiber. Nothing to do with Aulus.

Aulus hadn’t held back slaying Gotarz and nearly killing Arsakes, but then, they were foreigners. He must believe the magistrates wouldn’t worry much about their deaths.

Xerxes and I had been champions of the games, beloved of Rome. Gladiators didn’t count for much in the layers of society, being very nearly at the bottom, but public feeling wasn’t the same thing as the law.

Aulus couldn’t afford to be branded as a murderer and torn apart by those who still lauded me in the streets, even if a magistrate dismissed the case.

He couldn’t afford to let me live, either.

I willed my hands to work, to let me push myself up and land him a stunning blow. My hands didn’t obey.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aulus draw back his knife and the blade come down. I rolled again, the knife catching me on the side of my leg.

He hadn’t aimed between my shoulder blades or lower down my spine, but at the backs of my thighs. A man sliced to the bone there could lose the ability to walk or even move for a long while.

I heaved myself once more, feeling more strength return, though I could only flop over onto my back. I shoved one leg to the side, catching Aulus’s foot and tripping him.

He righted himself and came at me, eyes blazing with rage. My next kick caught the lamp and sent it flying into the hole to the sewer. The light winked out as it flew downward, any splash it made drowned by the water’s cacophony.

As Aulus yelled in fury, I took advantage of the sudden darkness to roll to my stomach, away from the hole. I’d rest and then keep rolling until I regained more feeling in my limbs.

Aulus still had his knife, though. He found me by stumbling into me and then struck down at random, no more trying to disguise my death as an accident.

The blade bit into my arm and upper back, as much as I flailed to avoid it. I tangled my legs in his, and Aulus went down, but soon was on top of me, the knife finding my throat.

I felt the blood trickle on my neck, though the sting of the blade was still muted by his poison. I didn’t know if he’d coated the knife again, but slicing my throat would kill me without doubt.

I thrashed as much as I could, but Aulus didn’t let go. He nicked me again in the hollow of my throat, and I felt the blade start to go in.

There was a bright light and a cry. Aulus rose into the air and seemed to float above me, held high by the sinewy hands of Xerxes’s ghost.

A halo surrounded Xerxes, who grinned down at me.

“You didn’t think I’d abandon you, did you, Leonidas?”

Chapter 26

Aulus twisted in Xerxes’s grip, swinging his knife, the blade glinting in the light of the lamp Cassia held.

“Let him go,” Cassia commanded in panic. “The knife might be poisoned.”

Xerxes, who resolved from ghost to the very real form of his brother, yelped and dopped Aulus.

Aulus swung to face him, then his eyes widened in shock. “No!” he shouted. “You are dead.”

Lucius spread his arms. “I’m indestructible, me.”

Aulus blinked, trying to resolve the contradiction, then he snarled and struck again. Lucius quickly brought up one arm, encased in his silk-lined cloak, to deflect the knife. Aulus’s momentum crashed him into Lucius, both men tumbling toward the still-open drain.

Cassia danced around them as they grappled. She clutched a brick she’d swept from the floor, as though trying to find an opening to bang Aulus over the head. I heard another step in the shadows, and I tried to call a warning to her, but my voice wouldn’t work.