He started deadly combat with the sacrifice of many victims (8)
I believe the answer is:
hecatomb
'sacrifice of many victims' is the definition.
'hecatomb' can be an answer for 'sacrifice' (hecatomb is a kind of sacrifice). I am unsure of the 'of many victims' bit.
'he started deadly combat' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'he' could be 'tom' and 'tom' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'with the' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hecatomb that I've seen before include "Large-scale sacrifice" , "major sacrifice" , "great public sacrifice" , "mass slaughter" , "sacrifice victims" .)