A woman with half of her hair torn away at the scalp to reveal the skull beneath got to the top of the gate. A guard put an arrow in her, but she didn’t seem to feel it. She reached the top and flopped over and into the yard below. A second guard stabbed his sword into her but she continued as if nothing had happened.
She reached for the nearest slave and, grabbing him by the leg sank her teeth into him. He screamed and screamed. Three men stabbed her in the back but to no avail. Finally she was stopped by a dark skinned slave who put a scythe into her skull from behind.
Men stood and watched as the slave screamed and bled. Unable to come to terms with what they were seeing. He was carried away out of Lucia’s sight, and the fight continued.
Having seen the blow to the head end the fight, the defenders fought with more confidence. They struck with spears and swords at the faces and heads before them. Soon there was a small pile of bodies stacking up against the gate. The guards on the walls fired arrows down into the crowd but there just weren’t enough archers to thin the horde.
Lucia kept watching as her father came into view shouting orders at the men guarding the gate. She couldn’t tell what he was shouting because of the noise of the fight. He was pointing to the walls to the side of the gate.
A noise behind her made her turn around quickly, images of monsters in her head. Rosa stood behind her.
“Lucia you’ve seen enough come girl, I need to keep you safe.”
“I need to see what happens to my father, Rosa. I’m scared for him.”
“I know you are, girl. It won’t do him any good if he sees your face at the window though will it?” Rosa was stern but kindly, she tugged as Lucia's arm.
At that moment there was a loud creaking noise from outside. Both women turned to look as the front gate crashed into the yard. It crushed at least a dozen defenders under it, and the dead scrambled into the grounds of the villa. They clambered over each other to get to the living flesh inside the walls. Lucia saw one stop at the edges of the gate, and begin to bite a man trapped under it.
The defenders were in disarray. Lucia couldn’t see her father from the window. She wanted to run to the door and rescue him. She felt Rosa pulling hard on her arm.
A slave fell as two living corpses pulled him to the ground and bit into his neck. One of the dead, a woman, fell as a guard drove an arrow into the top of her head from the wall. Her father was still nowhere to be seen. Men shouted in panic, yet the attackers made no noise.
Lucia finally allowed herself to be dragged by Rosa towards the cellar. Tear filled her eyes, and she stumbled blindly along the hallway. Rosa guided her and spoke to her in the sweet voice she had used when Lucia was a child.
“Come now, girl, you'll be fine. Just come along. Let me take care of you, all is fine.”
Lucia had seen the things that had attacked her world. It wasn’t fine and it would not be okay. The gates of Hades had been thrown open and creatures had spewed out. All manner of things would never be fine again. The world had turned to evil, and her father was out there fighting the tide. She would hide as he asked but in the end nowhere would be safe enough to hide from the beasts that ate the flesh of men. She slumped down onto the floor of the cellar and the tears of what she had seen spilled onto Roman soil.
CHAPTER SIX
Governor Clemens looked up at the temporary platform. The original walkway was now twice as deep, and was held up by large wooden beams that used to belong to catapults and other war machines. The chief engineer was showing the work to the governor. He, in turn, had invited Vitus and a couple of other centurions to walk with him.
The governor directed most of his questions to the engineer, but most of his comments to Vitus. As it was Vitus who had forwarded the idea, this seemed perfectly natural to everyone except Vitus.
He was a man used to taking orders and following directions after decisions had already been made. Now he found himself in a position which required him to give orders, and make decisions. He was doing his best to play the part he had been handed. He just had to hope his acting was up to the job.
“So do you think we will be able to get two and a half thousand men onto the platforms and over the other side?” Governor Clemens asked the chief engineer.
“Sir we have used every piece of lumber we have, and this platform is as strong as we can make it. As for whether it will hold, I can’t be sure. If I had time to plan and calculate weight and other measurements I could be exact. Now, I just don’t have to time or the figures required to give you more than a vague answer.” The man looked annoyed at having to be so unsure.
“Honest as always, Quintus, it’s all I can ask for.” He shook the engineer’s hand and looked up at the platform.
“Well men what do you think? Can we make it work for us?”
There was general agreement. He continued “We will be leaving a lot behind us when we go, we will be exposed for two maybe three nights before we reach the standing camp. It’s going to be hard marching and rough nights, but I’m sure your men can handle a little hardship.
“Tell them to take all they can carry and still hit forced march pace. We eat what we carry, it’s as simple as that. No baggage train and no support. If we had any cavalry left it might make me a little easier, but we make do with what we have.”
The centurions nodded and waited for further instructions.
“As far as the injured are concerned we will take those that can walk.” The words cut deep but the centurions had known they were coming. The men who were too badly injured would be left behind. It was the governor's call, but that didn’t take the weight off the shoulders of the officers.
“Sir, is there nothing we can do for them?” One of the older centurions asked.
“I wish there was but we can’t ask the men to march thirty and forty miles a day carrying stretchers. It would put every life in camp at risk. This enemy is as dangerous as any we've ever faced, and my aim is to get as many men back to base as possible.” He looked down at his feet and back up. “Tell that to your men, all of you. It is my call, and I will live with the consequences.”
“We leave at daybreak tomorrow. All men are to be assembled with kit ready to go at the first sighting of the sun. We open the gates soon after, and then our fate is in the hands of the gods.”
Governor Clemens turned to the chief engineer to finalise the details while Vitus and the other centurions left. Bactus caught up with Vitus.
“How are you doing now?” He asked.
“Still feel like a lost sheep to be honest but I’m learning to fake it.”
“It’s only what the rest of us do, lad,” Bactus patted him on the back and laughed. “You’ll spend the rest of your career doing it if you keep the rank. Didn't you know? The legions are full of officers just trying not to fuck up so much that the man above him notices.”
“Thanks Bactus”, Vitus said with a grin. “Talking to you always puts a smile on my face.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” Bactus said over his shoulder as he headed to his men.
The tent was full of morose faces. Centurion Vitus Protus had just given them their orders for the following day. They were to pack everything they could carry on the three day march. The march would be at forced march speed, forty miles one day and thirty miles the next.
Anything they left behind would be lost for good. The only food they would get until they got to the legions standing camp would be the food they took with them.
All of this was the reason that any injured men who could not march would be left behind. The news had not gone over well. In fact, Vitus thought, the first real orders he had given his men had pushed them close to insubordination.
“There are five hundred men out there in those hospital tents. Are we supposed to leave all of them?” One man asked, his voice a careful measure below a shout.
“The orders are that any man who cannot make the march will be left behind,” Vitus said in a voice that brooked no argume
nt. “We have the best part of two and a half thousand men to consider. We have to make our way over a hundred miles to safety. We can’t rely on the enemy giving us an easy time of it either. I'm not happy about leaving good men behind, but that’s how it is. I don’t expect to hear any more about it.
We gather in the center of camp with full kit at dawn tomorrow. From there we will take our places on the platforms and the gates will be opened. Hopefully those things out there will take the chance to enter the camp and we go over the walls to safety. It’s not going to be easy but it's the best plan we have.”
“Sir, if I may?” Regulus spoke up. Vitus hoped he wasn’t about to make a difficult situation worse.
“Go ahead, Regulus.”
“Will we be leaving the men armed, sir?”
“Every man will be left with a gladius and food.”
A few of the men nodded their heads thoughtfully over this news, the others just shook their heads.
Vitus left the tent a while later, and Antonius joined him. They stood and watched the camp making itself ready for the following morning. There was a sick feeling in Vitus’ stomach.
“The life of an officer I guess.” Antonius said.
Vitus nodded. “I’m trying to put myself in their shoes. How would I feel if I was one of them, being told to leave my friends behind?’
Antonius swung round to face him. “Sir, you aren’t one of them anymore. You are an officer now. You have to make the hard choices, and deliver the bad news. If they don’t like it it’s your job to make sure they follow orders anyway.”
It was the first time Antonius had called him sir, and it felt strange. He hadn't asked for this, but here he was, stuck up to his chest in the shit and feeling like he was being sucked in deeper by the hour.
“I’m just glad I’ve got a man like you to back me up.”
Antonius nodded and turned without saying a word. He headed back into the tent and Vitus heard him shout.
“You’ve got your orders men. I don’t care if you don’t like them. You are soldiers of Rome, and you will do exactly as you are told. The next man I see with anything except a smile on his face will answer to me.’
Vitus headed into the camp feeling a little better.
Vitus followed his feet on to the wall. He stepped along the new wider platform, trying to remember how an officer walked. He was aware that he had seen officers everyday for years but nothing he had seen seemed to have stuck in his mind.
Vespas always seemed to have an air of confidence that made him at once someone the men could turn to and also the last person they would want to talk to them.
He found his new centurion’s uniform invited the merest nod of recognition and a quick look away from the men on guard duty. Like most things since his promotion, it felt strange indeed.
He leaned out over the top of the wall and was dismayed at the sight that greeted him. The dead were six or seven deep along the full length of the wall. Men, women and, Vitus was horrified to see, children jostled and bumped each other in a vain attempt to gain entry.
They scrambled with dead hands as if they could climb the sheer wall. In one or two places they even seemed to gain a foot or two before falling back.
It occurred to Vitus that this was the first time he had been able to look at these creatures without being in a fight for his life. He had time to really examine them. They were, in their way, as different to each other as live men were. Even the legionaries among them who still bore the uniform and marks of Rome were unique. They had different faces and sizes, they bore different injuries and moved as individuals among a group. Now he looked at them it was actually more like a swarm. They all had one very obvious thing in common though. They were dead. Rotting flesh and gaping wounds aside, they all had a dead stare that betrayed no life. No intelligence lurked behind those eyes and no light either. They were eating machines.
This was an enemy that could not be broken or scared. No clever trick on the part of a general would rout them. A cavalry charge into the flanks would get no more of a reaction than a full frontal assault. There was only one way to beat these things and that was to utterly destroy them.
You could, he supposed, trick them. Wasn’t that exactly what they hoped to do tomorrow? To deceive and then run from them? But that would only delay the fight for another day. They had only been here for a couple of days and already they had Roman Legions running for cover. This was a fight the legions had not fought before, and they would need to think before they found it was too late.
A guard walked past him on his rounds. He stopped and saluted.
“They're a sight, sir. That's for sure.” He said looking over the wall a short distance from Vitus.
“They are. Is the group getting bigger?” Vitus asked
“It was for a while, sir. I think a few may even have left since we've been here. We tried firing arrows into them at first but the head is such a small target and moving as they do, we were missing six for every one we hit. Got to remember the Germani are still about, sir”
Vitus nodded, “Have you tried counting them?”
“A couple of the boys did, sir. They were saying we’re outnumbered about two to one. I don’t know if that’s right though, I mean to say, they aren’t the world's best thinkers, if you know what I mean.”
Vitus laughed and to his surprise it was genuine. If you’d asked him, he would have told you that he didn’t have any humour left in him but this guard had managed to find some anyway. Vitus found himself liking this man.
The guard continued. “I tried to count them myself but I saw faces of men I’d known. After that I couldn’t look at them closely anymore.”
There it was, the real horror of it all. These monsters, the Risen, the dead, call them what you would, they were people. At least they had been until a couple of days ago. They should still be breathing, or spending time being gravely dead. They were instead trapped in this torturous limbo, doomed to pray on people who had once been their friends.
“What's your name?” He asked the guard.
“Albus Blabus, sir.”
Vitus took the man's hand in the legionary grip and said, “Good luck tomorrow.”
“Thank you, sir”, replied the guard as he turned away to his duties.
Vitus continued his walk along the wall with a heavy heart and a troubled mind. This whole affair was doom laden. No-one could come out of this a hero, there were no winners. The more men the legions lost, the stronger the enemy grew. The enemy didn’t fight for home or honour, they fought because it was all he knew or understood. To be capable of beating this thing that had reared its head meant he, and all his kind, must be the same way. Did he want to become a monster to beat a monster? He guessed tomorrow he would find out.
The afternoon was a long one. Men spent as much time as they could packing and repacking kit. They tested straps on packs and repacked again. Swords were sharpened, and anything that could be, was cleaned.
They did everything they could not to think about the morning, and what was to come. The men that would be left behind wrote letters to loved ones, and said final farewells to friends. Although Vitus was sure that more than a few of those that would stay were capable of making the march, he wasn’t expecting what came as dusk turned to dark.
The torches were lit and meals had been eaten when a message was passed around that the men were to gather in the center of camp. Vitus gave the order that his men were to attend and followed them to the meeting.
Governor Clemens stood in front of two hundred men all of whom were carrying an injury of some kind. Many stood only with the support of their neighbour. Others held arms in slings.
Governor Clemens spoke first. “I have made many hard decisions in my career serving Rome. None were harder than the one I made last night. I chose to leave behind any man who could not march with the legions tomorrow.
“I did not make this choice lightly. I do not know what is in store for us tomorrow, but nothing I have se
en makes me think this journey will be easy.
“I have weighed the importance of the fit men before me against the injured men behind me. This enemy outside the walls is such that every man is needed to quell the danger. We have seen what they are and how they grow stronger every day. That is why the men capable of marching and fighting must come first.”
The legionaries being addressed by the governor bowed their heads unable to look at the injured men behind him. Shame at what they would do robbed them of pride enough to look their brothers in the eye.
“Half an hour ago I was sent for, by the men behind me. I went to the hospital tent because I felt the need to explain my actions to these men,” he waved a hand at the injured legionaries.
“They did not want to hear my words. All they asked for was the chance to be heard. I give them that chance now.”
A lone centurion, who Vitus did not know, stood with the aid of a friend and limped to the front, dragging his leg behind him. He spoke in a clear, deep voice that carried to the gathered crowd.
“We are your brothers. We are men of Rome. We are proud that we have fought beside you, and we are proud to die for you now.” The crowd was silent but heads lifted to see him speak. “We took our oath to the legion knowing that our deaths were a likely outcome. It was an oath we made willingly. Every time we have stepped into battle we knew our lives could be at an end, and every time we walked off the battlefield we knew it was only at the cost of the lives of our brothers. Tomorrow we pay that cost for you and we pay it gladly.”
These words were marked by one single, short but deafeningly loud shout by the injured men behind him. A shock ran down Vitus back, and he saw men around him standing taller. Snarls appeared on faces and fists were clenched. The centurion continued.
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