That seemed to get far more attention than some random kid screaming out in panic. Henric’s uniform bought him an amount of credibility that Kre just couldn’t achieve on his own. This time there were screams as they pointed at what they thought was a dead guard. The panic set in and the audience around them started to shove and run for the exits.
It still seemed far too localized though, as if word wasn’t spreading as fast as they wanted. Still, it was better than nothing. Kre glanced over at Gnore and started to wonder if his companion had anything else up his sleeve when a scream broke out from further around the stands.
It was followed shortly by another. Then another.
Soon, the entire arena was nothing but screaming and shoving. Even the competing gladiators had stopped their fight, though they still watched each other warily, in case their opponent tried to take advantage of the odd goings-on to end the fight.
The audience around him swarmed and shoved, knocking him about. He managed to keep his feet under him though, and he was amazed that the folks were still holding tight to their drinks despite their fear of whatever it was that had them spooked.
Despite their panic, the folks kept a wide berth around Gnore, who had paused in his own attempts to scare them and was looking further up the stands. Henric also seemed to have an eye on something, though he maintained his appearance of being gravely wounded. Kre shoved his way through and knelt down next to the former guard.
“What’s going on?” he asked quickly. He tried scanning the area, but his eyes kept darting to the guards that seemed to be working hard, but utterly ineffectively, to calm and guide the members of the audience.
“I thought I heard someone say rats,” Henric murmured, “but that’s hardly possible in a place like this.”
“Rats? Why would that be so scary anyway?” Kre mused on that a bit as the area around them cleared. He looked over at Gnore, who was subtly gesturing into the arena pit, about ten feet below the wall where he was standing.
“I think Gnore intends to go find Beleg,” Kre explained to Henric, who hadn’t seen Gnore’s motion due his playing dead. “We should go with him before the guards get things sorted and find us.”
Henric nodded and looked around to see if anyone was looking their way before grabbing Kre’s outstretched arm and pulling himself up. If anyone had been looking, it might have seemed like Kre was doing the brunt of the work, possibly trying to get the injured man to safety.
He pretended to carry Henric to the wall, where he spotted the two gladiators being escorted to two different doors on the opposite side of the pit. Kre glanced back up and thought he caught a glimpse of something large, brown, and furry darting between the legs of a pair of frantic guards.
“Now,” Gnore hissed, seeing their opportunity amidst all of the turmoil and with the hopes that they could make it to the doors on the far side without being locked out.