False God of Rome (11 page)

With animal ferocity they drew him into their midst, feet, fists and nails lashing at him, their cries of hatred drowning his shrieks as they battered and pummelled him mercilessly. Vespasian
and his companions watched with grim satisfaction as the bloodied priest was hurled, wailing, into the air to be caught by many pairs of hands. Gripping his ankles and wrists strong men pulled
Ahmose, eyes bulging with fear and agony, in opposing directions; others cut at his body with knives, concentrating on his joints. His shoulders and hips dislocated under the pressure, which grew
until, to a savage roar from the crowd, his left arm, its sinews severed by multiple slashes, ripped from his shoulder, followed, a moment later, by his right. Ahmose’s head crashed down onto
the ground as the macabre trophies were waved in the air. The men holding his ankles then pulled his legs apart, heaving on them with all their might, rending the ligaments and muscles until the
right leg parted at the knee in a welter of blood. Unable to tear any more off him the crowd then took it in turns to batter out of Ahmose what little remaining life was left in him with his own
dismembered limbs.

‘I think that’s got their blood up,’ Magnus said, nodding with approval at the manner of the priest’s demise.

‘Let’s hope so,’ Vespasian replied. ‘We’d better get them to the Marmaridae’s camp while they’re still in the mood.’

It was past midnight and the moon had set. Vespasian crept through the gloom of a palm grove guided only by the light of the few torches and fires that still burned within the
Marmaridae’s camp. Behind him just over two hundred men from the town waited in the darkness along with Corvinus and his auxiliaries.

Upon reaching the edge of the grove he dropped to his knees behind a palm and peered around its trunk towards the slavers’ camp; all was quiet. Having satisfied himself that, apart from a
few sentries dozing by campfires, there was no one abroad, he slipped back through the dark to his waiting men.

‘They’re not expecting any company,’ he whispered, crouching down next to Magnus and Corvinus. ‘I could see about half a dozen guards, most of whom seem to be asleep,
none of them were patrolling; everyone else is in their tents.’

‘How can you be sure?’ Corvinus asked, dubious about the wisdom of the attack.

‘Because I couldn’t see them anywhere else; but you’re right, it is an assumption. However, that’s no reason not to do this thing; we outnumber them by a good fifty
men.’

‘But most of ours are townspeople with improvised weapons; they’ll be up against trained fighters.’

‘Which makes the need for speed and surprise all the more essential, Corvinus, so let’s stop talking about it and do it; unless you’d prefer that I cancel the whole thing and
tell the Governor that I was obliged to let a Roman citizen be carried off into slavery because my cavalry prefect shied away from a fight?’

‘You bastard.’

‘That’s better; now leave me the translator and take your men around to the south of the camp; Magnus and I will take the townspeople and cover this side and the east and west. Deal
with the guards around the corral as quietly as possible; once they’re dead secure the corral and signal to me here by waving one of the torches. We’ll then move in on all sides setting
fire to the tents and killing as many as we can before they wake up; after that it’ll be a hard fight. If we hear any screams before your signal we’ll charge in immediately.’

Corvinus grunted his assent.

‘And try not to kill the camels,’ Vespasian added.

‘Why not?’

‘Because we’ll need them to get home.’

Corvinus got to his feet, brushed the sand from his knees and moved off to muster his men.

‘What do you think?’ Magnus asked.

‘I think that he’ll do as he’s been ordered; he’s a good officer, he just doesn’t like me.’

‘Let’s hope that won’t cloud his judgement.’

‘Come on; let’s get our rabble army in position.’

After Vespasian had briefed the townspeople, through the translator, with orders to do nothing until they saw him go forward, they had moved into position in silence over the
loose sand. Vespasian and Magnus waited, with swords drawn, in the darkness looking out over the Marmaridae’s camp that was now surrounded by a man at every five paces. Ziri lay next to
Magnus clutching a spear. Apart from the occasional snort from one of the many hobbled camels scattered among the tents it was quiet. The sentries dozed peacefully by their dying fires.

Vespasian felt the tension of coming conflict rise within him, knotting his insides. He offered a silent prayer to Fortuna that she would preserve him from the desert’s warriors as she had
done from the desert’s elements and felt confident that it would be so. However, others would not be so fortunate and, in the dark, in the privacy of his thoughts, he could not but help
compare his actions and Ahmose’s. They had both sacrificed men for their own desires; the priest for luxury and he, Vespasian, for lust. It had cost Ahmose his life and it had made Vespasian
an enemy in Corvinus, a man whose high birth would ensure that he would one day be able to keep his promise of vengeance. Capella had better pay his dues and Flavia had better be worth the risk and
effort.

As time dragged on the tension of the wait started to play on the men’s nerves and Vespasian began to hear the odd rustle of clothing or the clink of a dagger as men changed their
positions and fidgeted in the dark.

‘Come on, Corvinus, what’s keeping you?’ he murmured.

‘Perhaps he’s just fucked off along with his men and left us to it,’ Magnus whispered back.

Vespasian was just beginning to fear the worst when a muffled cry floated through the air from the direction of the corral.

‘Shit!’ he hissed, looking around at the sentries. A couple of them stirred and looked about but then, after a few snorts from a camel, wrote the cry off as an animal sound and
settled back down to their snoozing.

Vespasian relaxed a fraction, knowing that Corvinus and his men were playing their part.

After a few more tense heartbeats a torch near the corral was raised from its holder and waved in the air.

‘Let’s go,’ Vespasian said quietly, getting to his feet at a crouch.

The townsmen on either side followed his lead, sparking off a ripple effect around the perimeter of the camp as each man felt his neighbour rise in the darkness; soon, more than two hundred
crouching men were converging from all angles in grim silence upon the unsuspecting Marmaridae.

Vespasian approached the outer ring of tents on the northern side of the pool; behind them was the first of the sentries’ fires. Indicating to Ziri to retrieve a nearby torch and then for
Magnus and the townsmen to stay covering the tents’ entrances, Vespasian edged forward. The sentry was sitting, facing him, cross-legged on the ground with his head on his chest and drawn
sword in his lap. Holding his breath, Vespasian gently approached the sleeping man, his spatha at the ready. An instant before he could strike, the sentry, sensing a presence close by, opened his
eyes to see a pair of sandalled feet before him in the dim firelight. He jerked his head up, wide-eyed in alarm, to witness Vespasian’s sword slamming towards him; it was the last thing that
he ever saw. The tip of the spatha punched through his neck just beneath his bearded chin and crunched on up into the base of his skull; any cry that he attempted was drowned by the explosion of
blood in his gorge, swamping the vocal cords and clogging his windpipe. He fell into the fire, face down, dead. Almost instantaneously his oily woollen robe and cloak caught alight, illuminating
Vespasian.

‘Now,’ he hissed at Magnus.

Grabbing the torch from Ziri, Magnus thrust it at the bottom of the tent flaps. The flames caught immediately, eating their way up the dry, coarse linen until the opening of the tent was a rage
of fire. Ziri stood at the entrance, spear in hand; the first Marmarides, dressed only in a loincloth, hurled himself through the blaze, straight onto its razor point. With a thrust and a twist
Ziri gutted him, then kicked him back into the fire, his spilled, moist intestines hissing and steaming in the heat.

Screams rang out as Magnus and those townsmen who had managed to retrieve a torch moved around the ring, fire-raising as they went. The bolder townsmen, shouting encouragement to each other, as
the attack was no longer a secret, surged forward to deal with the other sentries, battering them down under a hail of blows and jabs.

All around the outer ring tents were ablaze as the townsmen used the Marmaridae’s torches against them. Urging his men forward, Vespasian moved into the inner ring; but here fewer tents
were burning and the tribesmen, now fully alerted to the danger, had roused from their sleep and were now dashing to defend themselves. The terrified bellows of the hobbled camels unable to move
away from the fires merged with the shrieks and howls of the wounded and the dying into a raucous dissonance.

Standing to the side of a burning tent’s entrance, Vespasian brought his spatha slicing down as the flaps burst open, but he mistimed the blow and severed the escaping man’s
outstretched hands. Leaving him to roll away in blood-spurting agony, Vespasian swiped his sword back at the tent’s opening, slashing it across the chest of the next man out as a Marmarides,
burning like a beacon, hurtled past him to plunge with a scream and a hiss of steam into the pool at the camp’s centre.

Vespasian despatched the last man to emerge from the tent and then swiftly looked about; Magnus and Ziri were meting out the same treatment to the occupants of a tent nearby. All around the camp
similar scenes were being played out as the enraged townsmen, brandishing clubs, farming implements and daggers, fell on the unprepared slavers who had been so long a cause of fear to them and a
threat to their peaceful way of life; now with thirty-two of their compatriots to save from a living death they took to their task with ferocity. Smoke billowed all around as the torched tents
turned into fierce infernos; blazing men flung themselves from them to be impaled on pitchforks or mown down by scythes. The tang of their crisping skin blended with the acrid smell of burning
natural fibre.

Through the chaos of the thickening fumes and flames Vespasian could see that a few knots of Marmaridae had managed to group together and were now mounting a vigorous defence; the ill-armed and
inexperienced townsmen facing them were beginning to fall beneath the vicious slashes of their long swords and their taste for the fight against more organised defenders was leaving them.

‘Magnus, with me,’ he bellowed, leaping over the pile of corpses at his feet. Pulling his pugio from its sheath with his left hand, he sprinted towards a group of three Marmaridae
advancing steadily, with swords flashing, upon a thin line of wavering townsmen. Crashing through a gap in the unsteady line, Vespasian ducked under a wild sword swipe, headbutting its perpetrator
in the belly while plunging his spatha deep into the groin of the tribesman next to him. The three of them went down in a flurry of sand as the townsmen took advantage of the remaining
slaver’s momentary surprise at Vespasian’s sudden arrival and set upon him with a renewed confidence. Rolling off his opponent as they landed, Vespasian thrust his dagger down into the
man’s ribcage, puncturing his lung.

‘I thought you were calling for assistance,’ Magnus said, hauling Vespasian to his feet by his sword arm as Ziri thrust his spear into the throats of the two stricken men.

‘I was,’ Vespasian panted; his heart was racing. ‘Some of them are starting to form up; let’s keep working our way round until we link up with Corvinus’
lads.’

Passing two collapsed, flaming tents, whose trapped and screaming occupants were being mercilessly battered to death, they were faced with a mob of fleeing townsmen who brushed them aside,
almost toppling them into a burning tent in their anxiety to escape the terror behind them: Grey-beard.

‘Fuck!’ Magnus swore as all three of them came to an abrupt halt; the heat of the burning tent singed the hair on their arms and legs.

Swinging an enormous two-handed sword, the Marmaridae chief, flanked by four of his followers, strode towards them, vengeance in his eyes. At the sight of the Romans Grey-beard snarled and ran
forward with his sword raised above his head, bearing down upon Vespasian; his men followed, the two to his left spotted Ziri and hurled themselves screaming at him.

With a deft flick of his spear, Ziri heaved the burning tent into the air to land over the two men as Vespasian parried Grey-beard’s crushing downward blow, which slid along his blade in a
grating spray of sparks to come to a jarring halt on the oval guard. He was just aware of Magnus, next to him, throwing himself to the ground at the feet of the men to Grey-beard’s right,
tumbling them over, as the Marmaridae chief put ever more downward pressure on his spatha, forcing him to one knee; screams from the men struggling beneath the burning tent rang in his ears. In a
swift double movement Grey-beard slammed his foot into Vespasian’s chest, sending him crashing onto his back, and raised his sword, growling, his teeth bared, with the effort; as it reached
its zenith the motion suddenly stopped and blood spewed from his mouth. Grey-beard stood immobile for a few moments, as if frozen in time, then his sword fell behind him and he turned his head to
look at Ziri whose spear was embedded in the side of his chest. With a slow nod to his killer, which seemed to Vespasian to be a look of understanding, the Marmaridae chief collapsed to the
ground.

The sound of fighting next to him forced Vespasian to take his eyes off the dying Grey-beard and look round. Magnus was astride a tribesman, each had their hands around the other’s throat.
Just beyond them a second tribesman, with blood gushing from an empty eye socket, raised his knife and aimed at Magnus’ exposed back. Vespasian whipped his sword arm round, letting go of the
spatha’s hilt and sending the weapon spinning through the air to crack side-on into the man’s midriff, winding him. He leapt to his feet and, hurdling Magnus, jumped on the one-eyed
Marmarides, pummelling his face with his fists as the two of them fell to the blood-stained sand. Blow after blow he dealt in a frenzied attack that carried on after the man’s nose was
flattened and his jaw shattered, until a hand grabbed his hair and he felt a blade at his throat.