Preacher and the Mountain Caesar (24 page)

“Nooo. Just scare the Vestal Virgins a mite. Stir up some hullabaloo.”

* * *

Portia Andromeda awakened to something that she had not believed possible. A man in the cloisters of the Temple of Vesta! Not only a man, but a brute-ugly one at that. He had a hairy face, gaps in his teeth, which were too dark to be healthy, eyes too close together and squinched up. The shock of it robbed her of immediate speech.

“What are you gawkin' at, you ugly old prune?” a raspy voice asked her.

By the gods, are those animal skins he is wearing?
Portia asked herself. In all of her years in service to Vesta, she had never seen such a creature. As senior priestess, she must maintain her composure, her brain reminded her.

“Get out of this cell,” she demanded coldly, finding her voice at last.

A shriek came from another cell down the hallway. Had the barbarian army defeated the legions and entered the city? No. That was too preposterous to believe.

“How about a little kiss first, Sister?”

And then, Portia herself screamed. It seemed to come up from her toes to ululate through wide-stretched lips that trembled from more than the force of her wail. When she again opened her eyes, the man had disappeared.

* * *

“Where we headed now?” Squinty asked Preacher after they left the cloisters in shrieking feminine confusion.

“To the gladiator school,” Preacher told him simply.

“You joshin' me, ain'tcha?”

“Nope. I told Buck and the others to meet us there.”

“What do you want to go there for?”

“Simple, Squinty. There's bound to be about fifty highly trained fighting men locked up in there. We're gonna let them out. If they wants to join us, they'll be welcome.”

“I can see that. We need more on our side, right enough. Only, what if they want to stay right there and are willing to fight to do it?”

“We can leave those locked up. Down that street there, the Via Julius.”

Fires had drawn all of the watch away from seeking those who had started them. The twelve mountain men reached the gladiator school within five minutes of one another. Preacher advised speed.

“We've got to do this quick-like. Go in, free the ones want to come with us, and get out. Then it's for the walls.”

Two guards at the entrance to the cells died swiftly, downed by .44 bullets from one of Preacher's Walker Colts. A quick twist of key in lock and the men beyond began to yell in confusion and some in rekindled hope. Preacher and his band moved rapidly along the corridor, snapping back the wooden bolts that held the cell doors. Forty-seven wanted to join in the fight against New Rome.

“There's all sorts of firearms in a storage room I'll show you in the house of Bulbus.” They cheered him loudly as Preacher and Buck set out to lead the way.

All of the noise in the streets had awakened Bulbus. He looked wistfully at the trim posterior of the young slave girl in his bed, gave the bare buttocks a pat and climbed from his bedclothes. Once fully dressed, he headed for the atrium. He got there at the same time the mountain men swarmed into the central courtyard garden.

Swords and javelins proved no hindrance to the blazing pistols of the wild and wooly men of the High Lonesome. They brought down the five guards in as many seconds and surged toward the stores. Suddenly angry beyond any vestige of fear, Bulbus went for them with a
gladius
flashing in his pudgy hand. Preacher turned in time to see the blade poised to strike his head from his shoulders.

Having practiced long ago to speedily unlimber a six-gun, he filled his hand in a blur of controlled movement. The hammer came back and he squeezed the trigger. The small brass cap went off flawlessly, and the powder charge instantly followed. The .44 ball smacked into the thick middle of the master of games. A second ball went higher, through his heart, and flattened against his spine. Bulbus dropped the sword and staggered toward the fountain.

With a mighty cry, which sounded of regret more than pain, he pitched over the lip of the basin and splashed face-first into the water. Preacher watched Bulbus' right foot jerk spasmodically for a second and then turned to the men.

“Right through there. Pick the best, there's plenty of it. An' bring along all the powder, shot and caps you can haul. We have to beat these Roman mongrels to the wall.”

* * *

Preacher soon found that they had lost the race to the parapets. Helmeted soldiers lined the southern and western ones. He veered his much larger band into a darkened street and plunged along it toward the east wall.

Only a dozen men topped that bastion, Preacher discovered when they reached it. Easy as anything. He picked out five of the ex-gladiators who had taken helmets from the fallen guards and sent them up the stone steps.

“Tell 'em you've been drafted to help defend the city,” he instructed.

Halfway up the stairway, the “relief” force had attracted the attention of all but one of the soldiers. That was when thirty shots cracked in sharp echoes off the walls of buildings and the stone barrier. Thirty balls sieved the defenders, who pitched headfirst off the parapet or lay where they had fallen. Preacher led the way up after the decoys.

At the top he found a determined sergeant holding the two former gladiators at bay with a
gladius.
Preacher looked at the other man for a second, then clucked his tongue as he fired a fatal shot to the forehead of the sergeant. Then he studied their surroundings.

“Too bad we didn't get back to our ropes. We'll have to go back down and get out through that little bitty gate.”

Several looked at Preacher as though he were mad. “We can't make it,” one protested.

“I say we can. Now, git movin'.”

With trusted mountain men to serve as rear guard, Preacher started the freed gladiators through the low, narrow gate toward the outside. He cautioned them to remain quiet and stay close to the base of the wall. They might not know about the movable forts of the Romans. Nearly half of the escapees had disappeared into the tunnellike passage through the thick base of the stone rampart when others discovered their presence.

Some sixteen of the
vigilii
rounded the corner nearest the portal and stopped abruptly. These watchmen carried javelins in addition to their swords, Preacher noted at once. Made edgy by the sudden uproar within their city, and so far unable to account for it, the men of the watch reacted quickly. They all rocked back, and each hurled a
pilum.

One whistled past the left ear of Preacher, even as he drew his left-hand Walker Colt. He eared back the hammer the moment the weapon came clear of the holster and quickly aligned the sights. The big .44 bucked in his hand, and one of the watchmen cried out in pain. Other pistols fired a moment later. Eight of the watchmen had gone down in the first exchange. Preacher aimed at another and fired again.

In such an unfair contest, there could be no doubt of the outcome. The remaining eight died in a hail of bullets. Unfortunately, it served to announce the presence of the invaders to those on the walls. Hard sandal soles scuffed on the stones of the parapet as other sentries called to one another and closed in on the knot of men at the gate below.

“The main gate! Open the gate! Barbarians in the city,” one leather-lunged soldier bellowed.

While legionnaires poured in through the slowly opening portals, Preacher urged all speed and left New Rome at last. Behind him, the sky glowed orange from the fires in the buildings and gardens of New Rome. Alarmed shouts rose to the stars. Women and children were trampled by panicked citizens and the confused legions who hunted for a phantom enemy. Now all they need do was get past the legion camps and safely back to the ridge. Yeah, that was all.

24

Once again, daylight found the legions drawn up outside the bastions of New Rome. With blaring brass and throbbing drums, they formed their battle squares and began a slow, stately advance toward the distant collection of what Marcus Quintus Americus referred to as rabble and gutter-born barbarians. Like before, those he held in such disdain spread out in a long, double line and came forward. Following their strategy of the previous day, they deployed into a bison-horn formation. Only this time they were nearly fifty stronger. That had caused some dispute, and not a little discontent, among the generals.

All was not well in New Rome, they maintained. The turmoil of the past night had left deep marks on many. The senior Vestal Virgin and the Chief Priests of Jupiter and Mars had argued against resuming the battle so soon. The dawn auguries had foretold misfortune, they explained. One of the doves had been missing a heart, and the sheep had a large tumor on its liver. Furious at the insult handed him by the barbarians within his own walls, Marcus Quintus Americus scoffed at the omens for the first time since he had begun his childhood sacrifices at age ten.

Since then, he had completely forgotten his identity as Alexander Reardon. Like his son, he had been fascinated by blood as a child, and had taken an exhilarating, sensual pleasure in tormenting, killing, and examining the entrails of small animals. Now, enraged by the humiliation he felt, he turned his back on that and ordered the legions forward. Although still deprived of his cannons, the process of clearing the touch holes long and tedious, and requiring precision, he went forth with high expectations. The forces of New Rome still outnumbered the enemy by better than five to one. He sent the infantry against the center of the enemy line, now three ranks deep.

Riflemen opened fire first. He had included a number of them with the infantry this time. Poorly trained at best, they had little effect beyond causing a few of the scruffily dressed barbarians to duck with exaggerated motions, which elicited raucous laughter from their fellows. The steady tramp-tramp of sandals made a hypnotic rhythm as the infantry continued to advance. This would be easy! The legions would roll over this ragtag collection like a giant wave, Quintus thought to himself. He had instructed his generals to have the men take as many prisoners as possible. The games that would follow would be quite amusing.

* * *

“When they git to a hundred yards, open up on them,” Preacher ordered in a calm voice.

Obediently, the mountain men raised their rifles and took aim. The pretty boys in the band would get the worst of it, Preacher considered, pleased that there were noticeably less of them today. When the heads of the musicians rested in the buckhorn rear sights of the long guns of the mountain men, a ragged volley erupted along the line. The first rank knelt to reload while the second immediately fired over their heads.

Down went a third of the band and one centurion behind them. The range had closed to seventy-five yards. Another crash of weapons from the third rank. By then the first rank had reloaded and discharged their rifles from the kneeling position. With each man who dropped in the front rank of the advancing cohorts, another took his place from behind. At fifty yards, there was no longer a band, and the last volley barked from the rifles. From here on it would take too long to reload.

At fifty yards, the first flight of arrows hissed from the Roman squares. Three men among the ex-gladiators went down with slight wounds. Two in the front file, intent on readying their pistols, died for their incaution, transfixed by Roman arrows. The flat reports of handguns filled the air. The Roman enemy kept coming.

With all ranks firing and the flanking “horns” of the formation engaged also, the legions began to falter and slow. Preacher bellowed loudly to his army.

“Hold fast. Just a little longer now. An' watch out for them spears.”

A flight of javelins seethed through the blue morning to rattle and quiver when they struck only grassy turf. Another flock of deadly, feathered shafts took flight. To be answered by the roar of a hundred pistols. Cheyenne shafts answered them. More javelins arched in the sky and moaned through their descent. The shield wall of the Romans had closed to within twenty feet. Spear tips darted like the tongue of a rattler, probed all before them. Another bark of pistols brought down thirty soldiers.

Preacher emptied one Colt six-gun and drew the other. Soon now. He eased up the stick of blasting powder from behind his belt and made sure it would come free easily. Three legionnaires brought down as many among the ex-gladiators. They launched a final cluster of spears and drew their swords.

Suddenly the Cheyenne wavered and began to give ground. Soon the entire middle did the same. Menaced by the darting blades of the legionnaires, they appeared to have entirely lost their nerve.

* * *

Marcus Quintus saw it at once. He pointed out the faltering lines to Rufus Longinus at his side. “See? The savages flee in disorder from my magnificent legionnaires,” he smugly brayed. “They won't last long now.”

Inexorably the Roman center was drawn deeper inside the tips of the “horns,” something which held not the least significance for Marcus Quintus. His chest swelled with pride as he saw for the first time a litter of barbarian and Indian bodies on the ground, rather than only his soldiers. Aware now that the one commanding his enemies was the living legend, Preacher, Marcus Quintus took extreme pleasure from watching the destruction of the invaders. He turned to Longinus again.

“Send a messenger to Varras. Have his cavalry sweep the field obliquely. They are to try to get around behind the enemy and prevent any escapes.”

“As you wish, First Citizen.” Privately, Rufus did not like this the least bit. The evolution of the battle plan had a hauntingly all too familiar appearance. Something they had studied at West Point, he recalled, back in another lifetime, but not the name of the engagement or its outcome.

Stubbornly, the three ranks, minus the Indians, continued to hold, though now bowed in slightly. Then the cavalry began their charge. They had ridden only a few lengths, enough to be within the limits of the “horns,” when the buckskin-clad Preacher raised his arm and arched his body sharply. He hurled an object with all his strength.

It exploded a foot off the ground and disintegrated four legionnaires. A dozen more received injuries. Then, before the horrified eyes of Varras, the Arapaho, who had been hidden in a deep ravine to the left rear of the battle formations, rose up and fell upon the horsemen and the backs of the advancing cohorts.

* * *

Preacher timed the throw perfectly. With scant seconds left of the fuse, he hurled the blasting powder with all his might. “Let 'er rip!” he shouted to those around him.

With the roar of the explosion fresh in their ears, the mountain men steadied their line, and as the Arapaho seemed to materialize out of the very ground, the Cheyenne turned back to face the enemy. They laughed and hooted to show their complete lack of intimidation. It had a disastrous effect on the Romans. So did another stick of blasting powder that landed in the midst of a battle square.

Bodies flew through the air, and parts sailed higher. Dust cloaked everything, and the screams of men dying to their rear demoralized the front ranks. The tight, disciplined Roman formations dissolved into swirling masses of men, desperately engaged in hand-to-hand fighting.

A terrible slaughter began. On a low hill nearby, young Terry Tucker danced from foot to foot in anxiety. The night before, he had won his contest with Preacher to be allowed closer to the battle. He had not seen
anything
from the tower on the ridge. Even here, the dust had grown so thick he could no longer distinguish Preacher from the other fighters.

The conflict lasted for hours as the Arapaho and Cheyenne took revenge for their murdered brothers. Reduced to tomahawks and big, wide-bladed fighting knives, the mountain men hewed through the struggling legionnaires with deadly accuracy. The scent of blood thickened the air in a cloying, coppery miasma. Unremittingly, the numbers diminished for the Romans. Preacher's men were able to fall back and take time to reload pistols. Their addition to the fray took a brutal toll.

At last, the bedraggled survivors among the legions broke off and fled the field for the imagined safety of New Rome. Preacher called out to halt pursuit.

“Hold back now! We gotta get organized. Then we go after them. I want a tally of how many we have fit to fight.”

Subordinate leaders, appointed by Preacher, and the war chiefs of Arapaho and Cheyenne made quick head counts. It turned out that only forty had been killed—less than the number who had joined from the gladiator school. Another sixty had been wounded, ranging from serious to cuts and scrapes. It left Preacher mightily pleased.

Blue Nose Herkimer swaggered up to Preacher, who was cleaning his revolvers and Hawkin rifle with little Terry Tucker standing proudly at his side. Herkimer had a big smile plastered on his face. He clapped Preacher on one shoulder. “That was sure something, I declare. Never seed the like. How come those fellers was so dumb as to fall for it?”

Preacher thought on that a moment. “They failed to scout the battlefield. And, I reckon they never had much use for old fights fought a long ways off.”

“How's that?” Herkimer asked. “An' more to the point, how'd
you
know what to do an' that it would work?”

An enigmatic smile bloomed on Preacher's face. “A little reading I did a while back,” Preacher informed him. “About a feller named Hannibal and the Battle of Cannae.”

* * *

With his forces rallied now, Preacher went about laying siege to Nova Roma. The palisades of pointed-tip lodgepole pine saplings came down first, then the gaudy tents of the officers and plain ones of the enlisted men. From the bastions, the defeated Roman legions looked on in numb disbelief. How had it happened? How
could
it happen?

More than one asked that of his comrades. Meanwhile, given the distance between the camps and the city, they could retaliate against their primitive enemy only by hurling a few stones and large darts from ballistae and arbalests. Preacher had even considered it safe enough to allow Terry Tucker to join him. With night coming on, the destruction was completed. Fires were kindled and the invaders enjoyed sumptuous hot meals from the supplies of the officers of the legions. At least, the demoralized legionnaires consoled themselves, there would be no more fighting this day.

Early the next morning, their respite ended. Under cover of the most expert marksmen among the mountain men, Preacher rode to the large southern gates and buried the last four sticks of blasting powder under one pivotal corner. He tamped it down firmly, and wedged a big, flat piece of limestone between the ground and the wooden portal. Then he lighted the fuse and swung atop Cougar to race away without a scratch.

Moments later, the explosion shook the ground and threw gouts of dirt higher than the walls. When the smoke and dust cleared, the gate panel hung drunkenly on its upper hinge, canted sharply inward. The scaling ladders would not be needed. A superstitious mutter rose among the Indians. A couple of mountain men made the sign of the cross.

“Awesome,” Squinty Williams breathed softly.

Preacher was not done yet. “Let's go!” he shouted, waving a Walker Colt in the sign for an attack.

With a roaring shout, mingled with war whoops, the small army rushed the gate. Boiling water poured down on the assault force until sharpshooters picked off the soldiers who dumped it. Rocks rained down, along with a shower of arrows and javelins. Men fell screaming, yet nothing slowed them.

Mountain men swarmed through the opening and spread out in the streets. They left the legionnaires behind them for the Arapaho and Cheyenne to deal with. Those able warriors did so with grim efficiency. Far better trained, since childhood, they kept three arrows in the air to each one fired by the Romans. Those arrows hit their targets, tumbling legionnaires from the walls in a continuous spill. Shouts and the screams of the dying became a constant bedlam.

In a swirl, the battle turned into house-to-house fighting as the legionnaires abandoned the exposed positions on the wall and rallied in small numbers to resist the invaders. Leading a dozen stalwarts, Preacher made for the half-finished Imperial Palace. From the forum he had seen the distinctive figure of Marcus Quintus Americus disappear in that direction.

Twenty well-armed soldiers held them at bay half a block from the front of the marble structure. Their rifles cracked in irregular volleys. Preacher and the others spread out and returned fire. Two of the guards died. Another one screamed hideously when he discharged an inadvertently triple-loaded rifle. Three times the normal powder load ripped the breech plug from its threads and drove it into his mouth. It mushed his lips, shattered teeth, and embedded itself in the back of his head.

His scream changed to a gurgle that ended as he died. That broke the nerve of two others, who rose from behind the low wall and ran toward the building. Three quick shots dropped them. A deeply appreciated lull followed.

“I'm goin' around back. I got a feelin' that feller Quintus has got a lot of rabbit in him.”

* * *

Preacher had the right of it about Marcus Quintus Americus. While the legionnaires fought and died outside to buy him time, the First Citizen of New Rome hastily stuffed large panniers full of gold bars and shouted for servants to hurry in packing his clothes. His wife, Titiana Pulcra, stood in one corner of the treasure room and dithered.

“Why are you doing this, Marcus?”

“Shut up, woman, and help me.”

Shocked at his tone, Pulcra gathered her past store of grievances and responded hotly. “Alexander Reardon, don't you dare speak to me like that.”