Spartacus laughed. “Who’s dreaming now, Crix? Look, we’ve come this far. We’ve reached a place where we can leave all that behind, make a new start to our lives. No, go back to our lives as they should have been. They may come for us in the end, but as I said, Gaul is big enough to hide more than one army. We’ll keep going north until we find a place where Rome is just a word, or not even known at all. If we turn south again, even without the women and children, we risk losing everything we’ve won. And for what? So you can sit in a marble house and spit at old men?”

“You’d let them chase you out of their land?” Crixus asked bitterly.

Spartacus gripped his arm with one of his powerful hands. “You’d wait for them to kill you?” he said gently. The anger went out of Crixus at his words.

“You don’t understand, you Thracian whoreson,” he said with a tight smile. “This is my land too, now. Here I am your general, the slave hammer who broke a legion on its own ground and two more at Mutina. In Gaul I’m just another tribesman in badly tanned furs. You would be as well. We’d be mad to turn away from all that wealth and power just to spend our remaining years hoping they never find us. Look, we have Antonidus now. He knows where they’re weak. If I didn’t think we could win, I would turn my arse to them and vanish before I ever saw another legionary, but we can win. Antonidus says they’re tied up on every one of their borders, in Greece, Africa, everywhere. There aren’t enough legions in the country to take us. Gods, the north is open, you’ve seen that. Antonidus says we can put three men in the field for every legionary. You won’t find better odds than that, not in this life. Whatever they have, we can beat, and after them, Rome, the cities, the country, the wealth—it’s all ours. Everything.”

He put out his hand and whispered the words that had marked each stage of their rebellion, from the first wild days to the dawning belief that they could break the order that had existed for centuries. “All or nothing, Spartacus?” he said.

The gladiator looked at the hand and the bond of sworn friendship it represented. His gaze strayed to the Mutina eagle where it leaned against the wall of his tent. After a moment of silent contemplation, he let out his breath.

“All right, all or nothing. Get the women and children clear away and then I want to see Antonidus before putting it to the men. Do you think they will follow us?”

“No, Spartacus, but they will follow you anywhere.”