Pelorus shook his head, looking back at the ludus, at the bodies of the masters and the freed slaves. “My war ended ten years ago, Thracian. I just didn’t know it. Go. Make sure theirs does not.”

Pelorus watched her from the shadows. He saw the fear in her eyes—not the fear of death, but the hollow, gnawing fear of hope being tortured.

“No,” Pelorus said, tossing the purse to Sura’s killer—he did not yet know she was dead. “I am the one who opens the gates.”

Sura startled, clutching a rag to her chest. “I… I cannot find the well.”

Crixus, the Undefeated, bristled but said nothing. Even he felt the cold weight of Pelorus’s stare.

“Come with us,” Spartacus said.

He took a heavy coin purse from the dead man’s belt and walked out into the burning ludus. Spartacus, bloody sword in hand, stood amid the wreckage. He saw Pelorus emerging from the smoke, the purse in his hand, Batiatus’s blood on his tunic.