Empire Of The Undead (15 page)

CHAPTER XVII

Dacia: 88 CE, Winter

There was no transition from sleeping to wakefulness. Rowanna’s eyes snapped open and she was immediately awake. The night had grown colder and darker and someone had thrown blankets over her. They reeked, emanating a base animal smell that was almost too intense to bear. Much worse was the low moaning, audible even from here that came from the other side of the gate. She wondered if the unearthly sound was what had woken her up.

It had stopped raining, and the only remaining clouds were wispy things that did nothing to shade the starlight. The moon was half-full. Most of the Romans gathered around a small fire, dicing. The three elephants loomed as dark shadows against the night sky. She had seen them sleeping standing up and wondered if they were now resting. There was no sign of Iullianus. Zuste was over by the stream, head down in thought.

She made her way over to him. His eyes were dark, and he did not even attempt to smile.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Ask Iullianus,” he mumbled.

“Zuste. Are you angry with me?” she asked.

“What does that matter?”  he asked. “We have hours at best to live. Why worry about something like that now?”

“Hours?” Rowanna asked. “The gate will hold longer than that.”

“Maybe,” Zuste said doubtfully, “but look up there.”

He pointed up to the top of the gate. There was a pair of men up there, balanced on the top of the wall. Even in the dark, one was obviously Iullianus. “He thinks and plans…but they have seen more lifeless. Many, many more. And, Rowanna, there are now undead elephants.”

His words sunk into her brain, instantly drowning her hope and cheer. “Those noble creatures, it doesn’t seem right,” she said.

“Not right?” he said angrily. “What’s not right is that they will break through those doors and we will all be dead. Or worse—we will become like those things.”  He paused, breathed deeply. “Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe they were the smart ones all along.”

Without thinking, she slapped him. Not as hard as she could, but as though he were her misbehaving son. The bearded alchemist stared at her in shock, rubbing his cheek.

“We could have given up by the apple tree, or on the way up here, but we’ve survived too much for such talk!”  She was yelling, and a few of the Roman soldiers looked at her, but she didn’t stop. “We’re healthy, we have food, weapons, and we have strong warriors with us. I can kill them, you can cure them. We can’t die. We won’t die.”

Zuste said nothing, just turned and stared at the river. Eventually, he spoke again. “They can come in through here, you know. Eventually, they’ll figure it out.”

Rowanna looked to where the cliff ended and the river began. The wall ended halfway through the river. It was far too small for an elephant to escape, but certainly big enough for men to come through.

“When did you see this?” she asked, panicked. It suddenly seemed as though every shadow, every splash, was a lifeless intruder.

“Just a small time ago,” he said.

“Why haven’t you told Iullianus?” she asked, getting angry. “We can’t give up.”

He held up his hands defensively. “I haven’t given up, not really. I think I have a plan. I have been running it over in my head and it might work. It might get us all killed, but that’s beginning to look inevitable now.”  His eyes lifted to the sky. It appeared as dark as ever, but he said, “Dawn is not far off now. Let us speak with the Romans.”

****

“By Mithras, I’ve heard better plans,” the Legatus had said when they had spoken to him. He leaned wearily upon the handle of his shovel, as it looked to be the only thing holding him up. “In fact, if I’ve heard of a worse plan, it escapes me.”

“May my gods and yours strike me down if it fails,” Zuste said. “It’s better than waiting for the inevitable.”

“Peace, friend,” the tall man had said with a smile, “but what do you say to the idea that we slip out through the hole?”

The Roman tried not to smile as both Dacians gaped at him. The idea of flight had not yet occurred to them. Perhaps it would not have ever occurred. A smile small did emerge on his face, but it was one of fondness. They were so like his own people, these Dacians.

“Trust a Roman rat to run when he can fight,” the alchemist said. “Why not stand here, against them, and at the worst, kill more of them than they can convert of us?”

Iullianus wondered at the man’s sense of obligation. He wasn’t craven, but nor did he habitually spoil for a fight. There was something deeply hidden—Zuste’s secret, or one of Rowanna’s that he was protecting.

“It so happens that I agree. However, I will present my men a choice. They may take their chances with the stream, or stay here with us.”

Thirty men— almost half of their forces—slipped out the river way in the next hour. “I hope they freeze to death,” the Dacian alchemist said. Iullianus said nothing, though he too was disappointed. What was the Roman Empire coming to?  They’d been much more motivated when they had conquered other lands. His home, for instance.

“Promise me one thing,” Iullianus had said to the collected men, “if I am bit or wounded, kill me immediately. I would not want to live as one of those creatures.”

The Dacians looked at each other very pointedly. There was definitely something secretive going on. He would have to ferret it out from them later. If there was a later.

The next two hours had been busy, and they’d collected all the elephant dung they could find and built it into a horseshoe shape surrounding the gates. When they’d finished, the wall of dried feces was nearly a meter high all around. More importantly, it was nearly two meters long. They added all the dry grass, papyrus, and cloth sacks they could find. Before the wall, they’d dug a pit that was over a meter deep. It wouldn’t stop the lifeless, but it would slow them down.

“If this works, alchemist,” Iullianus said to Zuste as they leaned on their shovels in the pre-dawn light, “I don’t know if I’ll be more surprised or grateful. Probably equal measures of both.”  He motioned to the two men who were perched on the gates.

“If this works,” the bearded man replied, “even I will want to kiss myself.”  The thumping at the gate was heavy now, a slow insistent pounding that shook the foundation and cracked the wood. The men on the gates held on and signaled their readiness.

“I won’t,” Iullianus said, “not with the role you assigned me.” With that, he sprang forward, towards the gate. The others formed a line. Rowanna had tried on some spare armor, but it was too heavy for her. Nothing the Romans had would fit Zuste, but everyone else was as covered as they could be. All had spears and swords, but behind them were dozens of stakes and sharpened wooden poles. This was one modification that Iullianus had suggested. Behind them all, between the battle line and the stream, were the three elephants. They were the auxiliaries and shock troops all in one.

The Roman commander reached the gate. “Brace yourselves,” he called. “Unless the gods favor the insane, we won’t live long today. If things get bad, head to the stream.”  He looked up at the two men perched on the top of the gate. “Except for you two. Just hold on and pray Jupiter is feeling kind.”  They laughed.

He turned and moved the great wooden bar from its posts, and turning, sprinted back. He was followed by a lurching, shambling tide of rotten death as the creatures massed forward. Before, they been as numerous as stars in the sky, but now, they were as many as grains of sand on the shore. Iullianus could see the lifeless elephants lumbering amongst the others. Lured by the scent of blood, they had trampled the human lifeless and had been throwing themselves against the barrier between them and their meal with agonizing force.

“Now!”  Iullianus called. A volley of four arrows sprang into the air, followed moments later by another. None hit the elephants in the eye, as they were supposed to.

“Damn,” he said. He motioned to the men on the wall. “Now!  Now!” he said, whirling his hand in the pre-arranged signal.

The two men had barely clung to the gates when they had swung open. Now they reached into their bags and dropped lanterns filled with lamp oil. Each had three, and when all of them had been dropped, they threw emptied drinking bladders that had also been filled with oil. They coated many of the lifeless that inevitably surged forward, though the majority were not touched—had not yet reached the gate.

Iullianus stopped before the pit and laughed as the lifeless reached him. His soldiers and Rowanna were there, ready to fight this menace. He hefted his heavy shovel and battered the heads of the ones that drew too close to him. They did not rise. Many of these were half-naked walking corpses. But there were some—former Dacian warriors or centurions—who wore armor. These centurion lifeless were a new danger. They were protected by armor, and so newly dead that they were hard to kill. The centurions had few weak points—their armor covered them from their ankles to their necks. Some even still had shields strapped to them, though they did not hold them in a useful way.

There were three centurions advancing on the Legatus now. He surged forward, and pushed heavily on one. It fell down, and quickly, the other two were knocked over as well. Before they could rise again, they were trampled by their own kind. He laughed victoriously, but something about the monsters bothered him—as though he had a forgotten but vivid nightmare about them.

Iullianus retreated back to the others. Beside him, Rowanna held her spear with both hands. She had no skill in the technical sense, but her enthusiasm made up for it and no lifeless was safe near her. She fought with a passion the Romans had never known. She was nearly as fierce as the women of his own tribe, who had exemplified warrior women for him. Iullianus had never before thought of her as attractive, but now, in the middle of battle, he wondered what it would be like to challenge that passion with his own weapons.

He killed reflexively as he imagined the Dacian woman completely nude, growling at him. He realized he had grown quite hard. Shaking his head to clear the images, he stabbed another lifeless.

Finally, too many had reached the gap. “Fall back,” he called, though he did not move. He stabbed, swung, and pushed against the swarming lifeless. After the others had made it back, Iullianus sprang back over it, onto the dung hill, and then back to the reassembling line of warriors.

“Trying to be impressive?” asked Rowanna. He shrugged with a guilty smile. They turned to watch as the first line of lifeless dropped suddenly. The pit was not deep, but it slowed them enough for the creatures behind them to crush them. The elephants were too big to bother with the pit, but they were even more uncoordinated and ungainly than the human lifeless.

“Oh, look at them,” Rowanna said.

Iullianus glanced and felt a stab of fear. Seeing the war elephants’ white, soulless eyes, just above their massive tusks, was a chilling sight.

“We still have some of our own,” he said, but his reassurance sounded hollow even to himself. “Though even my mighty
efossion
is outmatched against that foe.”

As lifeless of all kinds reached the mound of dung, Zuste appeared with a lit torch in each hand. A dozen men reached into their belts and lit their torches as well.

Zuste looked in askance to Iullianus. The nearest lifeless were only a meter away, but too many of them were not on the dung pile yet. Another flight of arrows came, and one hit an elephant in the eye. Iullianus did not see who had shot it, but he made a note to discover the man who had made the shot and promote him. The undead animal did not seem to feel pain, but with its vision restricted it stumbled and fell, crushing many of the lifeless beneath it.

There were still too many not on the pile, but the forefront were coming too close. The tide of undead swelled behind them, and Iullianus knew he could wait no longer. “Now!” he cried. Instantly, the burning brands were flung into the giant dung horseshoe. Both the lifeless and the dung pile had been soaked in oil, and the resulting heat was immediate and intense. The fire roared and crackled, burning through the oil-soaked monsters like dry kindling. The humans moved back as the heat grew more intense.

Iullianus was worried. The fire was burning too hot, too quickly. There were still hundreds or thousands of lifeless pressing forward and it did not look like the fire would last long enough to incinerate them. “It’s not going to last,” he yelled in warning.

Suddenly, Zuste was beside him. He seemed to guess from the Roman’s expression what the man was thinking, for he smiled and said, “Did anyone ever tell you that you worry too much?” 

The portly man reached his hand into his tunic and it emerged with three glass vials. Without a noted lack of ceremony, the alchemist threw the first one in. The fire flared up, larger than ever.

More of the lifeless were coming though, and Zuste hurriedly threw the other two vials. Iullianus guessed that they had already killed a thousand in these few moments, but there were several thousand more to come. He had counted five lifeless war elephants, though he had never been certain there weren’t more. From here, he could see three in various states of burning. None, at least, appeared immediately ready to attack.

The alchemic fires were burning as fiercely as ever. Very few lifeless emerged, and those who did, were quickly dispatched by the nearest soldier. Nevertheless, Iullianus doubted whether they would be able to hold out against odds such as these. Each defender would have to kill hundreds of attackers.