‘Mithras, no!’ Zosimus gasped.
Pavo felt all the hope in his heart dissolve. But fear quickly replaced it as shouts of alarm rang out all around the chambers below. He turned to his comrades. ‘We’ve got to go back,’ he said.
‘What?’ Quadratus gasped. ‘Are you bloody mad? Let’s wait for the ladder to come back down and we can rush them. Freedom is right there!’
‘Pavo’s right,’ Felix gasped. ‘They won’t drop that ladder back down anytime soon and there’s nowhere for us to hide in this chamber. They’ll search this place high and low until they find out who knocked out that guard,’ he jabbed a finger up to the basket at the top of the pulley, then nodded downwards, ‘and the others.’
‘Then we must be quick about it,’ Khaled said. Already, the guards in this first chamber were whipping at the slaves, driving them back from the salt face and into clusters where they could be counted.
Pavo was last to descend the ladders back through the levels. They hurried down until they reached the third level, then flitted through the forest of stone pillars to the next ladder. They halted only when a guard leading eight colleagues barked to them. ‘Where are you taking this one?’ he flicked his head at Bashu, who was acting the cowering prisoner well.
The guard stared at Pavo in search of an answer. Pavo mustered the few words of Parsi Khaled had taught him. ‘Down, to the next chamber.’
The guard cocked his head to one side. ‘Did you not hear the order? No movement between chambers until further notice.’
Pavo hesitated. The guard snatched on his indecision, his gaze narrowing on seeing the dark rings they all wore around their eyes, then noticing that some of them wore no boots. ‘Who are you?’ he said, levelling his spear and motioning for those with him to do likewise. Nestled amongst these stone pillars they were obscured from the rest of the cavern, and the guard seemed nervous. ‘Remove your veils!’
‘What is this, comrade?’ Khaled said in a light-hearted tone, his hands extended by his sides.
The guard’s shoulders dropped a fraction, as if he was ready to back down, then his scowl snagged on Pavo’s chest, where the edge of the phalera glinted. ‘Hold on, that’s Gorzam’s . . . ’
His words ended with a punch of iron into flesh and a stunned croak. Zosimus’ spear quivered in the man’s breastbone and the other seven with the guard gawped. ‘At them!’ Felix rasped. As one, they fell upon the guards like lions, driving their spears into guts, swinging their fists and smashing out teeth. Pavo leapt for the nearest man, they clashed their spears together like swords until the guard batted Pavo’s weapon away. The guard grinned and readied to thrust forward with his own lance. Pavo jinked clear of the blow, grabbed the spear shaft and pulled the guard towards him, then thrust his forehead into the guard’s nose. With a crunch of bone, the man’s nose flattened and he flailed backwards, stumbling past the rockfall and then swaying at the edge of the main shaft, arms swinging for balance. His eyes widened in terror as he lost the battle and toppled into the darkness, his cry long and desperate before a meaty crunch ended it. Pavo looked around to see that the rest of the guards had been dealt with. The scuffing of boots and babble of more approaching voices started all of them into action once more. They scrabbled down the ladder into the fourth chamber.
‘Be swift, be safe,’ Pavo called after Sura, Zosimus, Felix and Quadratus as they carried on back to the fifth chamber, below.
Pavo, Bashu and Khaled saw that the guards here in their chamber were almost done rounding up the slaves. He glanced up to the shadowy alcove to see Gorzam, sitting up, rubbing at his temples, shaking his head as other guards questioned him. The slighter guard by his side seemed equally confused.
Khaled waved Bashu off back to the cells, then pulled at Pavo’s arm; ‘Come on.’ The Persian led him to the edge of the cavern and into the accursed tunnel, right to the end where the water spring trickled. There, the pair hurriedly stripped off their guard armour, burying it under a pile of salt rocks. Wasting no time, they scuttled back through the tunnel then stood tall again when they came back to the cavern. No sooner had they emerged than a whip cracked by their ankles.
‘Into line!’ a prune-faced guard snarled.
Pavo backed away from the lash, bunching up with Khaled into the mass of sweating, terrified slaves.
‘We have achieved nothing today,’ Pavo whispered bitterly.
‘But we live on for tomorrow,’ Khaled replied.
Both men’s gazes were upon Gorzam as he stood tall and shook his head, blinking and steadying himself.