We had no time for him.
“Everyone, get back down, and then to the horses,” I yelled. “We will survive this!”
Thumelicus, staring at me darkly did not seem to agree. He stepped back from me.
I stared at him. “We have time enough to discuss our issues later, boy. Now we must flee. For your mother’s sake, flee.”
“She is alive?” he asked slowly.
They had not even told him.
“No,” I told him. “She is long dead. But she would want you to be alive!”
He laughed. “You worry about the Romans, Raven. Because if you think they only set up a simple trap in the castra, then think again. They also set it up outside.”
We frowned at his words, and then realized a trumpet was blaring. It was blaring below, a man was blowing it, and four archers concentrated their arrows on that man.
The arrows fell and struck him down, and another man with him.
Bu the trumpet was still playing.
Behind us, in the swamps.
And from there, I heard horses coming.
I hesitated and looked at my friends. Wandal grunted. “You can escape alone, I guess. Just disappear into the darkness. We cannot all get away, though.”
I closed my eyes, for just a moment, Raven of Rome had thought about it. I looked down.
“Gernot!” I yelled down. “Run!”
He hesitated, and looked around, and then it was too late. A dozen armored riders came from the night. Spears out, they rode to our sight, and our archers turned to fire at them. Four, then three more fell from saddles and many horses tumbled down into dusty, bloody ground, but more came.
Gernot turned to run with his men, and I saw Cassius springing forth just below us.
“Gernot!” I screamed.
It was too late.
Cassius got to my brother, and his blade stabbing, he put down three pirates, and then a fourth, ramming him to the wall with the sword. Gernot whirled and struck at the man with his sword, and Cassius laughed, and dodged under the blade.
His sword cut to Gernot’s neck, and the man sawed the blade down, and Gernot, gushing blood, fell.
I roared, and Tudrus stopped me from jumping down.
Men were pulling up the ladders and looking at me.
My eyes wild, I turned to look below, and to the walls, where the enemy crept for us.
I looked to the top of the tower.
Gochan, eyes wet, nodded. “As good place as any to die,” he said.
“We take the tower’s top,” I said. “They cannot burn us out there. And there we sell our lives dearly.”
I turned to Thumelicus as the rest of the men went up the stairs, a stream of terrified fighters.
Below us, the riders were coming, riding through the gate, and an old tribune was yelling something to Cassius, who was gesturing up at us with a bloody sword.
There were at least thirty of them. More out in the yard, many more.
“Bastards,” I hissed. “Damn it.” I looked at Armin’s son. “You hate me.”
“Did you kill him?” he demanded. “Arminius?”
I laughed. “Did I kill him? I have done far worse deeds than just killing your father. I had him killed. For Germania, and for me. Hate me, you should, but here is a gift for you. Go. Take a chance and run. We’ll buy you time.”
I turned away, and left him there, on the wall, and begged he would escape indeed.
We rushed up wide stairways for two levels, and came up, where dead Romans lay in pairs.
There, a circle around the hole in the roof, where three men might push up at the same time, we waited.
Most of the pirates were from the local coasts.
They were rough men, born in a remote part of the Roman dominion, they didn’t love Rome or its soldiers. Praying to their ancestors, the thieving bastards lifted what arrows they had, and prepared their bows.
Many were taking shots at the enemy on the yard and walls, while they were fetching armor.
There were some twenty-five of our boys left.
And us.
I watched my friends, and they all, to the man, smiled.
“None live this old,” Wandal said. “Only us. Proper ending, this.”
“Proper,” Gochan agreed.
“The boys will miss me,” Tudrus said sadly, “but I’ll make them a kingdom with Woden.”
Agamemnon grinned. “At least I die in a ludus, eh? Right Pig?”
Pig grunted. “As long as they are gentle with me.”
We waited.
“Hraban!” I heard someone calling, as steps suddenly echoed below, and the jingle of armor echoed to us. Cassius was yelling at me. “This time, you can’t get out by jumping, you hare! You might have killed more men than I did, but I shall kill you!”
“I piss on your house,” I roared back at him. “And not from fright! You piss too. No need to die with a full bladder!”
He laughed below, and then I heard whispered orders.
Below, on the stairway, heaved a fort of shields.
Shields to the sides, and shields on top, the surprisingly wide stairway and levels gave them room to maneuver. It was an ungainly, clumsy fort of shields, but it was filled with men, and they would come all the way to us, while guarding their lives beneath, and up there, they would kill us all.
The pirates watched them.
Then they began losing arrows furiously at the men below.
They tore to the leather of the shields, sinking deep, or spinning off.
Here and there, arrows found marks.
Men screamed under the shields, some were falling. Chaos ensued when men died in that packed column of men, but mostly, the shields were kept up, and they turned to come up the last stairs, a dark mass of death.
I felt Woden’s call.
The savage dance of the Horned God I saw, and his ferocity filled me with power. There was no sign of the stain of Lok, and still, part of me hoped the worse god of the two would show me a way out.
There was none.
This time, there was something about Woden’s dance which spelled doom, whispered of a glorious ending, the end for us all.
It was savage, but the dance was also desperate.
I would soon get to tell him to his face to jump to a well.
I was tired with him.
Arrows tore down, and then two bags of caltrops were thrown down by Tudrus, until they were all gone.
The pain and suffering they caused below was terrible.
Stepping on the barbed things, not even a caliga could stop it from penetrating skin and muscle. Four, five of the foe fell on their faces, and arrows tore to the rest, who were suddenly exposed, creating a horrible chaos midway down the stairs.
And into that chaos, Bohscyld attacked.
His ax was high, and he tore past us to smash the ax down. It chopped through men, and ground into armor so brutally, skulls were split into two, and swords and shields as well.
The rest of our men followed.
Together we ran down, little heeding the enemy that was looking up at us in their endless numbers. The armored riders were there, the better men, and the tribune amongst them, below to the left. We ignored the caltrops, that could claim our flesh like it did theirs, and smashed over the bodies into the horrified, half broken shield fort and killed. Bohscyld was in front, we in the back, and in the corpse littered stairway, we had no strategy. We simple pushed into them. Packed tight, many of them could not even turn.
At first, things looked promising.
Ten, then more of the foe fell under our brutal assault. Wandal and Tudrus were on my side, and my falx carved enemies down on either side of Bohscyld, who was now near the bottom. The pirates were shooting arrows from the top, and many were jumping down on the foe, howling with rage, causing chaos, and making corpses.
But more of them came up, and those of us who were suddenly isolated in their midst died, and then, a burly Pretorian caught Bohscyld’s ax with his shiel
d, then Gochan’s with his body, and fell over them, taking both down.
I stood over them.
I could not stop the enemy from bending down to stab at them a dozen times.
So, my falx avenged them.
It sliced and cut, and Wandal, the Pig, and Tudrus kept them away from me with swords, and there, that tribune, gathering bravery, led many of his best fighters over the bodies at us, and they tossed pila as they came.
One tore Gochan’s wounded body, making him groan.
One took Bohscyld in the face, shivering there in his already dead flesh. Several toppled pirates and many of them fell on the stairs. The Pig screamed, as one pierced his side, and he fell off the stairs amid the foe.
One guard pushed a sword into my side, but the chain deflected it.
Another banged his on my helmet.
I chopped down. I killed a man, then another, and when the tribune, face white with fear, tried to guide more men at me, I attacked.
“No!” Wandal called out.
I laughed, and in a terrifying rage, stepped forward and laid about the mass of Romans, the falx flashing, dull now.
The blade cut into an optio’s face, and took down a man, his leg gone. A guard grasped the weapon’s edge, but I sliced it out of his grip, and cut his fingers off in the process. Then the falx broke, as the tribune howled with fear, and chopped down with his spatha, and we fell together. I let go of the falx’s remains and pushed my fingers into the man’s eyes.
I felt men kicking and stomping over me, and then saw Tudrus there, hacking down a man, stabbing at praetorians, trying to stop a sea of foes.
I felt fingers around my arms, and felt I was being pulled back.
I grasped Gochan’s ax, and tried to stumble to my feet, but Wandal and some of the men were pulling me back up, and then I saw Tudrus and Cassius, and my friend was doomed.
Tudrus, standing amid four foes, all of them wounded, was howling his anger at them. Cassius slipped from the side, and his blade cut to the throat of my friend.
He fell on his side, and then under swords.
I struggled to get up, and Wandal fell back as I did, and I saw there were some ten men left.
A sea of foes rushed us.
Agamemnon, his sica to the side, a stolen shield in his hand, stepped past. He banged the shield at the foe, and cut, stabbed, and tore, until three men bore him down, pummeling him with swords.
I finally stood there on the bottom of the stairway, and Cassius, wordlessly, saying nothing, came for me.
The sword was gleaming, his helmet tall, and there was little emotion in his eyes.
He simply wanted to kill me.
I hacked the ax down on him, but he dodged. I dodged too, and his blade tore my thigh, and not my guts as it would have otherwise, and then it was coming for my throat.
I saw commotion amid the Romans, and then Cassius turned, and Thumelicus, holding two swords, rushed from a horde of foes, and stabbed at him.
The bastard had not left us.
Cassius cursed, dodged, but slipped on blood, and fell hard on his back. His sword came up. Thumelicus fell over that sword, but his swords sunk crudely to Cassius’s gut, and they fell together.
I cursed, and grasped the idiot, and together with Wandal, we pulled him from the enraged army of praetorians. I kicked Cassius in the throat as we went up, and saw he would never again run after me.
Up on the roof, Wandal guarded the way, as I collapsed on my knee, bleeding.
Man after man fell to his blade, foes rolled down the stairs, as Wandal, holding an enemy shield, stabbed each one down with rage and determination.
I watched Thumelicus bleeding and wondered if it had been enough.
We had at least tried. It too, mattered.
The men below were yelling. They were preparing for a final onslaught. I got up, and joined the remaining few, staring down at the maw of death.
And then, out of the night, men rode in. I turned and saw a troop of masked men emerge. There rode Flavus, leading thirty of his men to our rescue, more loyal to him than to Rome.
The enemy broke soon after, no matter that they still outnumbered us.
Many of them were hunted down and killed, and when Flavus found us, stunned, weeping over our dead, he ordered his men to make sure everyone left behind would be dead, and the wounded carried out.
***
Later, days later, I watched Wandal standing before graves. Gochan was there too, still alive, though pale, drinking wine. Agamemnon sat on a horse, his left eye gone, and half his face bruised into a blue and red mass.
I smiled at them gratefully, and they looked at the graves.
There, next to Thusnelda’s old grave, lay the Pig, and Bohscyld, and his valiant brother Tudrus, the rightful ruler of the Quadi. There too, Gernot, my brave brother, finally lay at peace.
They lay near the mountain, surrounded by flowers and wildlife, and I watched them, until Wandal stirred and turned to me.
I walked to him, and crushed him to my chest, and whispered, “Thank you, brother.”
He nodded and got to his horse.
He waved at Gochan, and at Flavus, who was silent and in deep thoughts. Wandal grinned. “I have a lot of families to look after now. I can now say, finally, that I am proud of you, Hraban. Live or die, he is free.”
I watched the benna, slaver wagon, where Thumelicus lay, clinging to life. Gochan nodded at the driver and got up to give me his arm. “Have to recruit some new men. I suppose I must look after many families too, including his. You know where to go?”
I nodded. “I know where to go. Ostia. I know the ship.”
I walked to the wagon and turned it towards Rome as Wandal rode for Dacia.
I never saw them again. Nor Rome.
EPILOGUE
It was in Hispanola, when I learnt Gaius had finally been struck dead in his underground passage to Forum. There, tribune Sabinus and many desperate Senators, women he had insulted, and other conspirators had killed him before the eyes of his guards. They split Caligula’s jaw with a sword and stabbed at him as many times as others had stabbed Julius Caesar, whose worst crime had been mercy.
Many of the newly hired Germani Guards went on a murderous spree of revenge.
There, in that passage died my creation, though all the ingredients for a terrible meal were already there to begin with. And I had entirely missed the terrible man that Claudius was.
Many of the conspirators fell in that passage as well, and then elsewhere in Rome, and it was perhaps lucky for Claudius that they did. Without Cassius, these great, brave assassins would have been ready to slay all who would try to continue the murderous family traditions. Without the Germani Guards Claudius might not have had a chance to stand as the Princeps.
If they had survived, perhaps some form of Republic would have been restored.
Pompeia might have been right, after all. Rome might have healed.
The Germani crimes inflated the situation, and the Praetorian Guards were needed to restore the order, and they found Claudius in hiding, and bribed by the fool, decided to make him the ruler of Rome.
So began the rule of the soldiers, not of the highest and noblest of blood.
When I heard of it all, I was sure Claudius would die, eventually, poisoned by one of his wives, or by one of the many lovers of those wives, and his weak children would fall to the swords of the equally wicked.
I was sure he was never happy, or safe again.
And Rome would never be the same again.
What I had done, and in what the others had helped, was final. Perhaps Claudius’s father had been right, and he had been the harbinger of doom, the ill omen, the punishment of gods on the Julii and the Claudii, who had exchanged honor and glory of Republic for greed and tyranny. But I am sure the tyranny would stay, and Rome would still grow, eating people and lands like a sick monster, until finally, one day, it would eat no more, and would be destroyed by people who were like Romans of old; free, driven b
y dreams, hungry for a better life.
By then, no man would be willing to die in Rome’s defense again.
In Hispanola, I also learnt how Claudius took up the hunt for us.
He was haunted by the thought I lived.
That I knew what he was.
And what he had done.
He was haunted by the fact I had taken the sword of Julius Gaius with me, when I pummeled Caligula in his bedchamber.
That sword was now a Goth treasure, no more Rome’s.
He soon found our hideaway, and escaping with my tedious charge, I made my way to Albion much sooner than I had planned for. The wounds of Thumelicus nearly took his life. He received many more in Gaul.
He should have died.
But he did not.
I kept the oath to Armin.
I kept one small oath, a tiny thing in comparison to all I had broken, but in the end, gods would find Thumelicus a place under the Sunna, and in a dream sent by Woden, or perhaps by Lok, his ways, and those of my sons, would one day meet, under a banner of war.
As for me, I would settle down with a new family, and eventually I would die, still plagued by nightmares from the time I listened to Lok and let vengeance loose on Rome.
-THE END -
AFTERWORD
Yes, I have yet again stretched facts of history to make the story flow better. I could have spent a whole book in the time of Tiberius, and Sejanus, and really elaborated on that part of the tale alone.
I also could have done this for Caligula, or mad Gaius, for his years were a truly fascinating time, a long, painful few years of death and debauchery, though some historians claim it has been much exaggerated by the contemporary historians.
What followed with Claudius, could be worth many books, as would the years of Nero.
This particular era was a pivotal moment in Roman history, for with the de facto demise of the Republic, and the final waning of the power of the Consuls, and the advent of Emperors, Rome experienced all the worst parts of a rule by one man. With Octavian, the empire knew unprecedented growth, and success. With the deaths of Gaius, Lucius, Germanicus, what remained was either weak or foul, and the success of Gaius and Claudius to the so-called throne was a tale of soldiers finding their power.
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