It was Vespasian’s turn next and he passed out the slop bucket; as he received it back he locked eyes with the slave and after a moment the recognition hit him like a Titan’s punch and he just managed to prevent himself from exclaiming out loud. It was with shaking hands that he went through the remainder of the routine and as he grasped the loaf of bread he felt an addition to it. As the grille closed he glanced down in his hand and saw a scrap of paper. He opened it quickly before the torch moved on too far and read: ‘We’re both here, be ready.’ He screwed it up and breathed a long sigh of relief that turned into a series of sobs that he could barely contain and then gave up trying to. Tears streamed down his face and they were not tears of sadness as his false friend, despair, left the cell forever; they were tears of relief and hope. He cried freely as he wondered just where Magnus was and how Hormus had become the gaoler’s slave.
Vespasian now doubled his efforts to toughen up his body, pushing it hard, forcing it through tiredness. When he was too exhausted to carry on, he slept, deep and peacefully, knowing that each sleep could be the last in this subterranean nightmare. Each time he heard the key clunk in the door at the top of the steps his heart leapt with hope and he put his eyes to the grille to make sure that it was indeed Hormus coming down the steps with the gaoler.
Each time it was and each time nothing happened; no shared look between them nor hand signal to notice, no note, nothing, not even a surreptitious nod until one time, as Hormus put his hand into the sack of loaves, he pulled out a knife. The first the gaoler saw of the weapon was as it plunged into his right eye, and then it was but the briefest of glimpses; his howl drowned the sound of misery in the corridor as Hormus twisted and turned the blade so that it made a mush of his brain. Vespasian looked on, almost panting with desire to wield the blade himself as the gaoler weakened and fell to his knees. Hormus withdrew the knife from the pulped wound and, as the light was dying in the gaoler’s other eye, he thrust it in so that the man died blind. Working his wrist left and right, he howled with hatred and Vespasian realised that Hormus must have been put through an exceeding amount of misery by the gaoler in a comparatively short time for that hatred to manifest itself so strongly.
Hyperventilating with released tension, Hormus let the body slump back, threw the bolt on the door and pulled it open. ‘We must hurry, master.’
Vespasian croaked; his mind had formed a reply but nothing came from his mouth and he realised that he could not remember the last time he had spoken. He stepped forward and took his slave in his arms and for the first time in the whole long dark moment that he had endured he felt the comfort of another human, one who was not trying to harm him. Hormus gently prised his master’s arms from around his shoulders as all around a cacophony arose from the other inmates who had realised just what had happened and were now clamouring for release; but Hormus ignored them and led his filthy, naked master by the hand, up the steps. ‘If we are to get out of here alive, we must do it quietly,’ he said. ‘We cannot afford to release the others because of the noise they’d make.’
Vespasian did not care one way or the other; all he knew was that he was mounting the steps that, apart from his brief foray beyond them, had been for the course of his incarceration the horizon of his world. With each step the weight of his misery seemed to lighten until he came to the door to the world beyond. As Hormus opened that door to a long dim corridor Vespasian saw that the world outside really did still exist and, with a ragged half-sob, he stepped back into it.
*
Hormus began to run and Vespasian, still holding onto his hand, kept pace. At the end of the corridor they came to a narrow, spiral staircase; it was not familiar to Vespasian from the dim memories of his failed escape. Up they ran taking the steps two at a time, but as they approached the top, Hormus slowed, then stopped. With caution he stuck his head around the corner and, after a few moments, signalled with his hand, before leading Vespasian, at a walk, out into another corridor. A light shone from an open door on the right, twenty paces away, and beyond it a silhouetted figure was walking towards them. Vespasian still grasped his slave’s hand, his brain struggling to make the transition from a dark, enclosed world to this place of space and light. The figure walking towards them stopped just before the open door; voices emanated from it.
Vespasian felt Hormus’ hand tense and became aware that the slave was still brandishing his knife in the other. The silhouetted figure had a sword, its blade shone dim in the light, and Vespasian realised that they had to kill the men in the room before they could progress for fear of being spotted as they crossed the doorway. Hormus let go of his hand; Vespasian stopped, feeling as if he had been cast adrift. Hormus and the man with the sword were now either side of the door with their backs against the wall; Hormus held up three fingers to indicate the number of guards in the room and then with a mutual nod of heads they whipped through into the light to surprised shouts that turned into agonised screams. Vespasian ran forward, suddenly clear in his mind as to what he needed to do. He hurtled through the door and into the light, a thing of filth and matted hair, and, with an animal growl that came from the bestial core of his being, he launched himself on the third guard, his lips peeled back, his hands like claws. Releasing the rage that had built up within him in all that time in a dark cell, he sank his teeth into the throat of the man as his hands tore at his victim’s eyes. Feeling blood spurt into his mouth, he clamped his jaw tight and shook his head, ripping the flesh, while he forced thumbs into eye sockets. The guard flailed his arms, trying to fight back, but against such animal fury a mere human was powerless and Vespasian drove him down onto the floor. A red mist covered Vespasian’s eyes as he savaged the guard with teeth and nails; he could see nothing, hear nothing, but he felt everything; he felt life so powerful, coursing through him as he ripped and clawed the body beneath him in a frenzy of death.