Rome's Executioner (16 page)

Artebudz and Bryzos hurtled up the stairs and disappeared into the inferno, with Vespasian and Sabinus speeding after them as gushes of liquid splattered down on to the burning oil, evaporating immediately into a thick, foul-smelling steam. This, along with the flames, blinded Vespasian for a few steps but his vision returned as he emerged through the fire and on to the landing at the far end of a long corridor running back along the width of the keep to another set of stairs. It was punctuated with four, evenly spaced doors on either side. He spun round to his left, Sabinus to his right, both taking care not to slip on the burning oil, as an arrow bisected them and slammed into the wall beyond. Feeling grateful to his trousers for protecting his legs from burns, Vespasian looked up to see, by the light of the flames, Bryzos and Artebudz both releasing arrows at two Getae, one about to shoot, one reloading, halfway down the corridor; two more lay dead at his feet, slop-buckets at their sides. Both arrows punched into the shooting man, hurling him to the ground as his shot thwacked harmlessly into the wooden ceiling. Vespasian and Sabinus charged forward as the second Geta fired; Artebudz recoiled on to his back with an arrow in his chest as they surged past him. With no time to reload the Geta turned, pelted down the corridor and leapt up the staircase, disappearing with a sharp cry and a well-aimed arrow from Bryzos through his calf.

The corridor was clear but was now starting to fill with smoke as the oil burned off, leaving the wooden floor and stairs aflame through which Magnus, Sitalces and Drenis appeared, smouldering and singed. From outside the sound of fighting had grown closer.

‘Sounds like our boys are pushing them off the walls,’ Sabinus shouted. ‘Bryzos, cover that far staircase with oil. If anyone tries to come down torch it.’

Magnus handed Bryzos his amphorae and Drenis gave him his torch and he hurried off to obey his instructions.

‘Right, let’s get searching these rooms,’ Sabinus continued, ‘and Sitalces, get that rope from Artebudz.’

‘It’s all right, I can carry it,’ Artebudz said, raising himself painfully to a sitting position. ‘I don’t seem to be dead, just a bit bruised.’ He pulled at the arrow, which was embedded in the coil of rope; that and the thickness of the Getic topcoat had saved his life.

‘Well, you’re a lucky bugger,’ Sabinus said. ‘You and Sitalces come with me: we’ll do the right-hand rooms. Vespasian, you take Magnus and Drenis down the courtyard side. We’ll do it alternately so we don’t get caught in any crossfire. Get moving.’

The heat from the fire was intensifying as Vespasian kicked the door nearest to it open and pulled himself back quickly behind the wall, out of shot. No arrows hissed out, but a huge draught of air from an open window was sucked in to feed the oxygen-craving fire, which started to burn with renewed vigour. Drenis twisted into the room, bow at the ready.

‘Clear!’ he shouted a beat later. They moved on to the next door. Behind them Sabinus’ group crashed open their first door.

By the time both groups had got to their last doors the smoke, gradually filling the corridor, was forcing them to stoop in order to breathe with relative ease. Heat from the fire on the floors below was rising through the floorboards.

‘Rhoteces had better be in one of these,’ Vespasian said to Magnus as he braced himself to kick it open, ‘I don’t fancy going up another level.’

A cry from Bryzos stopped him mid-kick. Vespasian spun round to see the ginger-haired Thracian, feathered with arrows, drop his torch and fall at the foot of the stairs, from the top of which appeared the feet and legs of a charging posse of Getae. Sitalces, Drenis and Artebudz immediately started pumping arrows into the attackers, sending the foremost tumbling and slithering down the oil-slick stairs. With a desperate last burst of energy the dying Thracian reached for the torch and with the tips of his fingers flicked it towards him. Vespasian and his comrades watched it roll with a slow inevitablity, into the pool of oil; the burning pitch caused it to fizzle and smoke, then, reaching its flashpoint, it burst into flames, engulfing Bryzos and the dead Getae piled around him; his screams grew with the intensity on the fire. Unable to get through the conflagration the surviving Getae withdrew, trapped on the floor above.

With the smell of burning human flesh assaulting his nostrils and Bryzos’ dying screams reverberating around his head, Vespasian kicked open his final door. Again Drenis wheeled in and again the room was clear. Vespasian rushed over to the window and risked a quick look out. Files of legionaries were spewing on to the south and west walls from the left- and righthand siege towers. The central one, nearest the gate, was on fire; men, some burning, some not, were hurling themselves out of the inferno. Something had gone badly wrong. However, down in the courtyard the Getae were being split up and becoming encircled in small groups, as fresh legionaries poured down the steps from the wall to bolster their comrades already embroiled in savage, hand-to-hand combat. Directly underneath him a couple of contubernia broke down the keep’s door; flames gushed out and they immediately withdrew towards the fortress gate, led by the easily distinguishable figure of Caelus.

Knowing in his gut that Caelus was coming for them, Vespasian ran back towards the corridor as Sabinus kicked open the final door; two arrows whistled out, narrowly missing Vespasian as he cleared the doorway. Artebudz and Sitalces jumped from their places either side of the door and returned fire, bringing down the two Getae inside.

Sabinus rushed in. ‘Fuck!’ he shouted. ‘He’s gone.’

Vespasian ran in and joined his brother by the window. A taut, vibrating rope, attached to a ceiling beam, led out of it. The brothers stuck their heads out of the window; ten feet below them was a Getic warrior and beneath him, twenty feet from the ground and just visible in the orange ambient light cast by the burning siege tower, was the recognisable figure of Rhoteces.

‘Quick, pull,’ Vespasian shouted, grabbing the rope. Magnus and Sitalces joined the brothers heaving on the rope. After a couple of sharp tugs the Getic warrior appeared, wide-eyed with fear, at the window. Artebudz sent an arrow into his open mouth and he fell with a shriek. The rope went suddenly slack and they all fell back into the room.

‘The bastard’s jumped,’ Vespasian bellowed as he picked himself up and darted to the window. He grabbed the rope and without pausing leapt through the opening and started to slide down.

Vespasian descended quickly; the rope burned his hands, but the thick trousers protected his legs. As he passed the second-floor window he caught a blast of heat from the fire now raging within. From below came the sound of whinnying and neighing; the fire and noise had spooked the Getae’s horses and they were surging, like an undulating black cloud, east, along the flat ground between the river bank and the slope leading up to the fortress walls.

Vespasian hit the ground; Sabinus arrived an instant later. The horses continued to thunder past just below them.

‘Rhoteces couldn’t have got through this lot,’ Sabinus shouted to his brother as Magnus and then Sitalces joined them. ‘He must have gone along the walls, but which way?’

‘Away from the horses,’ Vespasian replied. ‘Once they’ve passed he’ll cross behind them and head for the river; it’s his only chance of escape.’ He darted along the wall, against the tide of the horses, as Artebudz and Drenis made it to the ground. Above them flames burst out of the keep’s windows.

The din of the battle raging in the courtyard, on the other side of the wall, intensified as they left the lee of the keep. They crossed the path of the sewer outlet as the rear of the stampede passed them by. To their right they could see the dark shapes of scores of dead horses who had floundered in the foul-smelling sewage marsh to be trampled over by their fellows.

There was no sign of the priest.

‘We’ll skirt around the marsh to the riverbank and then work our way upstream,’ Vespasian shouted as he raced right, down the slope.

They were halfway across the flat ground to the riverbank when a shout caused Vespasian to pause.

‘There they are, lads; up and at ’em.’ Caelus and the sixteen men that he had used to try and break into the keep had rounded the west wall, a hundred paces away, and were sprinting down the slope towards them, silhouetted by the siege tower burning like a huge beacon.

‘Shoot on the run,’ Vespasian ordered, unslinging his bow and notching an arrow. They each had time to release three or four shots apiece before they came to the steep bank leading down to the river. The resulting fire brought down none of Caelus’ men but forced them to raise their shields and slow down to a trot so as to keep them level and firm. Vespasian and his comrades turned and pumped volley after volley at them but they came on, flamelight flickering off their helmets and shield rims, impervious, behind their shield wall, to the arrows loosed at them, until they were almost within
pilum
range.

‘That’s it,’ Sabinus growled, ‘we’ve got to get out of here.’

‘You’re right, brother,’ Vespasian agreed, ‘back to the—’ He was cut off before he could complete the order.

‘Men of the fourth century, third cohort, Fourth Scythia, I command you to halt!’

The powerful and unmistakable voice of their primus pilus, bellowing from behind, brought the line to a sudden stop thirty paces from Vespasian.

Caelus spun round.

‘About turn!’ Faustus yelled.

With the discipline honed from years of obeying orders unconditionally they turned their backs on their supposed Getic enemies and faced Faustus, who came running out of the shadows. With a roar Caelus threw himself at him, sword pulled back for a deadly thrust to the groin. At the very last moment Faustus deftly stepped to his left and, as Caelus overbalanced past him, brought the hilt of his gladius crashing down on the back of his neck, sending him sprawling, semi-conscious, to the ground. Faustus quickly relieved him of his weapon and turned to address the bemused legionaries.

‘This piece of filth was using you to sabotage a Roman mission,’ he bawled at them. ‘Those men are ours; they had no choice but to fire at you. Tribune Vespasian, bring your men forward.’

Vespasian led his comrades up to the legionaries and pulled off his Getic cap.

‘When I saw Caelus leading his men back through the gate I knew he’d be after you so I legged it over here,’ Faustus told him as the legionaries recognised Vespasian and started to mutter amongst themselves.

‘Thank you, my friend,’ Vespasian replied, ‘I’m afraid we missed the priest though, he’ll be well away by now.’

‘Well, we’ve all had a bad night then; the attack was a fucking shambles. We didn’t seal off the village properly and almost a thousand of the Getae broke out and torched our tower as it reached the fortress walls, killing a lot of my lads, before forcing their way out through the gates in the siege-wall. But at least we’ve dealt with the rest of them, the fortress is ours.’

‘Come on, little brother, we’d best be going,’ Sabinus said. ‘There’s still an outside chance of catching Rhoteces if he’s taken a boat downriver.’

Vespasian sighed. He was exhausted, but knew that even if there was just the smallest of hopes they should try. ‘What are you going to do with him?’ he asked quietly, looking down at Caelus, who was just starting to come round.

‘Well, I couldn’t kill him in front of the men,’ Faustus replied in a low voice, kneeling down over Caelus. ‘One of them would talk and Poppaeus would have me for murder, so I’ll take him back to the fight and finish him off there.’

A quick series of shrill whinnies caused them both to turn. The air filled with the rumble of hooves.

‘Shit! The horses are coming back,’ Vespasian cried.

‘Form a wedge, shields both sides,’ Sabinus yelled. ‘Pila to the front!’

The confused legionaries, aware that there was a danger fast approaching but unaware of its nature, quickly ordered themselves around their erstwhile opponents into a pilum-bristling V-formation as the first of the horses appeared out of the night, surging towards them.

In the confusion Caelus took his chance; he whipped his
pugio
from its sheath and rammed it into the side of Faustus’ neck; as the blood spurted from the jugular vein he leapt to his feet and pelted towards the fort. Vespasian made to run after him but one glance left, towards the dark tide of terrified beasts now only feet away, checked him. He let the doomed centurion go and instead knelt by Faustus, desperately trying to stem the gushing stream of blood.

The stampede reached the wedge.

An instant before contact the leading horses, perhaps sensing more than seeing the solid-looking, spike-ridden obstacle in front of them, veered right and left to avoid it; the rest followed their lead and the stampede flowed around the wedge like a river streaming around an island. From the relative safety of the interior Vespasian, hands pressed to Faustus’ neck, glanced back to see Caelus flick a terrified look over his shoulder and put on another turn of speed before disappearing, with a curtailed shriek, under the torrent of hooves.

The legionaries stood firm as the stampede washed around them; the ground shook with such force they were obliged to loosen the tension in their knees to soak up the shock waves pulsing up through the earth. The cries and the hoofbeats of the maddened, wild-eyed, foaming beasts enveloping them were deafening as they passed not an arm’s length from the shields; some animal instinct kept them just clear of the pilum points.

Finally the tip of the wedge appeared through the tail of the stampede and the last horses passed either side to be sucked together again, sealing the rend in the herd as if it had never existed.

They were clear.

It was a while before anyone moved.

‘Fuck me! I think I shat myself,’ Magnus said eventually in a hoarse whisper, ‘not that you’d be able to tell over the smell of these trousers. How’s Faustus?’

Vespasian looked down at Faustus who smiled weakly. ‘I told you the horse-fuckers wouldn’t get me,’ he whispered. ‘My Lord awaits me.’

His eyes glazed over and he was gone. Vespasian closed them with the palm of his blood-soaked hand and stood up. ‘Take Centurion Faustus back to the camp with honour,’ he ordered the legionaries, ‘and scrape up that lump of shit as you go,’ he added pointing to the battered and raw body of his friend’s murderer lying in a mangled heap a few paces away.