Whom Gods Destroy: A Novel of Ancient Rome (The Sertorius Scrolls Book 4)

by Vincent B Davis II

  She seemed surprised that we’d noticed him but asked him to come out when she accepted it.

  Castor and I walked out before them to ensure no one had their eyes on us. Everyone was too focused on the pillaging to care. Even the legionaries from the hut had moved on to new targets.

  There were stables in the distance, and luckily they hadn’t been lit on fire yet with the rest of the fort.

  I offered the woman assistance onto a brown Boeotian horse, and Castor helped the child up behind her.

  She looked at me as if I had horns or one eye… well, one eye like a Cyclops. With a thick accent, she said, “Thank you.”

  “Go and do not look back,” I said, and slapped the rear of her horse, sending it flying from the stables and through the gate of the fort.

  Castor and I stood there alone.

  He met my eye for the first time in a while. He didn’t have much to say, but then again neither did I. He nodded. And that was all I needed.

  I walked a few paces and plopped down on the ground. As if the gods led me to just that spot, red and yellow flowers rose up from the weeds beside me. I plucked them and tucked them safely into my belt.

  Then I lay back. And despite the chaos, I fell asleep.

  Scroll XXVI

  Spurius Insteius

  We lined the men up in full battle array, a little more than half of what we had when we entered Corinth. Those who marched out with us were battered and bloody too, but if they could carry a sword and stand in a shield wall they joined us.

  Aulus and I had no mind for stratagem outside of the very obvious, but Lucius and Sertorius had taught us the basics of terrain before we departed Rome. We positioned ourselves with our left flank at a small body of water. A man could wade through it if he had a mind to, but it would be enough to slow their phalanx and that was all we could hope for. Behind us was a hill. We considered fighting from the high ground atop it, but we chose this terrain to make retreat nearly impossible, and I prayed that would make our men fight harder.

  A few horses were drawn up, no more than thirty. A vanguard at best, not large enough to function as a real tactical unit.

  Aulus’ eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion and fatigue, but his wily smile spread across his face as he thought of something mischievous.

  “One of us should lead the horse. It’ll give us the ability to charge from flank to flank where the men are faltering. The other should stand at the front lines,” he said.

  “What would you propose?” I asked.

  His grin grew. “I know it might be crass…” He pulled out a pair of bone dice.

  “Leaving it to the gods. Nothing crass about that.”

  “Highest number takes the front, and the glory it deserves.”

  He rolled, and I followed him. My number was higher, six to four.

  “I guess that settles it then.” He threw on his helm and buckled it beneath his chin. He placed his forehead on mine again. “I’ll see you on the other side,” he said. I didn’t know if he meant on the other side of battle, or on the other side of death.

  He swung himself on top of a horse and nodded for the cavalry to follow him. I took a moment to compose myself before squaring up before the legion.

  “Legionaries of Rome,” I said. All were silent, the only sound was our muddy standards flapping in the wind. “You all know why we’re here. The rebels have come to annihilate us. They have us trapped here in southern Greece. There is nowhere to go, and there are none coming to our rescue.”

  Their eyes glazed over as the truth settled in their hearts. I could see in their eyes the sorrow and knowledge that they’d never see their families again, never love another woman, never drink another cup of wine.

  I shook my head. “There is no retreat. If we try, they’ll flood into Sparta and butcher us all. We must stand and fight, to the grave if it’s what the gods require of us. But even now our brave allies within the city are rallying a defense. We must hold out until the morning light.”

  “Where is Tribune Hirtuleius?” one of the legionaries asked, and several others nodded.

  I hung my head. “He is wounded badly. But he fights for life as he would implore us to. We fight for him today. He believes in us. Let us make him proud!”

  Bruised and bloody, they still beat their shields and lifted their voices. We would need whatever inspiration we could muster.

  Finding nothing more to say I walked to the front ranks and stepped into the space opened for me. I placed my shield along theirs. A few of them looked my way and nodded, knowing if they died, I would die with them. None of us would be going to Elysium alone.

  We perked up our ears when we heard a dull thud in the distance. It grew nearer. The sound of a drum, four thousand feet stomping on each beat.

  “They cannot surprise us this time, men!” Aulus shouted from his horse behind us. “No shadows for them to hide in. They face us in the open now. We are Romans. We’ve beat the Greeks before and we’ll do so here!”

  “No mercy shown, no quarter given!” I screamed.

  A blur of armor and spear tips appeared along the horizon. They marched in perfect unison, one cohesive unit. I hoped they fought with less discipline.

  Our eyes were locked on the enemy, each man’s teeth grinding and knees shaking. Some urinated, others wretched. Some whistled in an effort to stave off the reality of their fear.

  “Jupiter!” I shouted.

  “Optimus!”

  “Jupiter!”

  “Maximus!”

  They lifted their voices higher. I raised my sword above the shield wall, the tip gleaming in the moonlight.

  “Jupiter!”

  “Optimus!”

  They would hear us, and I prayed fear struck their hearts.

  “They march slower than patricians run, don’t they?” one of the men said.

  “Don’t stop, let them hear you! Let them know your name, let them fear you. Jupiter!”

  They outnumbered us. But I saw no cavalry. That was good—or bad, if they were moving to flank us. Nothing to do now.

  “Let loose!” I shouted, and our first ranks sent their pila volley. The rebels cast aside their splintered shields and reformed. The next rank stepped up, but most of our supply had been spent in Corinth.

  “Out sword,” I bellowed as three thousand blades sang from their scabbards. “Brace!”

  The force of their spears crashing into our wooden scuta sent us back, our sandals digging into the damp Lakonian soil. The men grunted. There was no time for war cries now.

  The line broke. Some of our men charged their ranks, and others broke into ours. They smelled our blood, and we could smell theirs too.

  “Stand in formation, stand in formation!” I shouted but couldn’t even hear myself. The din of arms was already overwhelming, dizzying.

  The battle before us was as close to our training as the corruption of Roman politics was to Plato’s Republic. Not a man amongst us fought as he was trained, the chaos stripping away whatever discipline we’d formed.

  I stepped back into the second ranks and scanned the legion as best I could. I could see nothing but swords shimmering in the starlight, hear nothing but smashing shields and agonizing cries. I hoped the flanks were faring better, but how could I tell?

  “Protect your standards! Protect your brother!” I heard Aulus’ voice come and go as the small cavalry unit flew behind us toward the right flank. I took a deep breath. Had they been flanked?

  A spear tip flashed before my eyes, striking the man beside me. I stopped thinking and turned to push my way back to the front. There was nothing I could do about the others. Nothing I could do to save my brother. All I could do was fight and hope my men would fight and die with me.

  I lifted my shield and bore my weight against it, charging into spears and deflecting them from my path. “On me!” I shouted and they pushed up beside me.

  As we battered into their line, the front ranks dropped their spears and brandished the sharpened k
opis, the only blade to conquer the world except the one we wielded. And these Greeks knew how to wield it like their ancestors.

  The wood of our shields splintered as the curved blade hacked away at us. I lurched forward with my gladius. Ducked so low beneath my shield, I couldn’t even see the rebel, but I heard his screams and felt the warm blood traveling down my blade and onto my hand.

  “To the tribune!” some men behind me shouted.

  Beside me a legionary stood straight, with neither sword nor shield in hand. His head was bloody and his helmet missing. He looked at everything around him as if it were merely curious, like a dream.

  “Legionary!” I shouted.

  But he did not move. A kopis ripped through his shoulder blades and exited beneath his sternum. He crumbled without crying out.

  I crossed to the assailant and bashed my shield into his nose. His head whipped back but his resolve was strong. Before I regained balance he was hacking away at my shield. I stumbled back, trying to find solid ground between the bodies of the dying and corpses of the dead. Agile like an athlete, he kicked my shield away.

  His own shield, circular and gilded, slashed across my face, crushing my cheek and two teeth cascading from my lips.

  Cassia will curse me for that, I thought. Her image appeared before my eyes as clear as the snarling Greek. How easy it was to forget home when you suppose you’ll never return. But that blow and my own vanity reminded me.

  He stabbed forward as I dropped my shield. I stepped to the side as the blade sliced through my breastplate. I felt no pain. He stumbled on the legionary he’d killed, and I wrapped my arm around his. I brought my blade up, Cassia’s bright eyes still flashing before mine. I butted my head into his nose; then I severed his arm beneath the shoulder.

  I dropped the severed limb and stabbed through his chest, pushing with all my weight until the bones of his ribcage snapped and it slid easily to the hilt. I wedged the gladius free and kicked him back into the ranks of his men. “Reform! Reform!” I cried as the men did what they could to rejoin their shields.

  Diana’s moon had disappeared. The sky was turning blue. But our ranks were thin and our men faltering. We couldn’t last much longer, even without retreating.

  I heard a familiar voice on the other side of the rebels. A rebel leading from a single chariot, shouting out encouragement to his men. Even with the Corinthian helm covering most of his face, I could tell it was Meleagros, his bronze skin and thick jaw unmistakable.

  Aulus must have seen him too, for he let out a cry and led the cavalry straight toward him.

  I watched them descend past the right flank. There were few horsemen remaining, but I kept my eyes on the purple tribune’s plume of my brother’s helm.

  A horse’s scream broke through the tumult. The beast reared up on its hind legs, and I saw my brother fall into a swarm of rebels.

  The breath was driven from my lungs. I felt the pain of the fall myself. My twin, the Castor to my Pollux, my dearest friend. Life was impossible to imagine without him, so I chose not to do so.

  “Fight, fight to your deaths!” I shouted, picking up my shield. “To death!” The men repeated my cry.

  I wouldn’t live if my brother died. He was always a greedy bastard. Of course he meant to leave me here—he to glory and I to agony and regret. We’d followed each other everywhere our entire lives. This was no day to stop.

  A pike ripped through my shield, the wood caving in. It missed my forearm by a frog’s hair. I lifted it high and charged to impale the defenseless spearmen. He dropped the spear and I dropped my shield. He wrapped his arms around me with their waning strength while I twisted the hilt. He almost embraced me as his legs gave out.

  A kopis sliced down through my forearm from somewhere in the tumult. Exposed bone was stark white against the blood which poured out in pulses. At least I wouldn’t live long enough to develop an infection like Lucius.

  Horns blew far behind us. They’d flanked. Their cavalry had flanked us, and this was the end.

  All our eyes—on both sides of the battlefield—looked up to the hill. One lone rider looked down on us, dark and shrouded. For a moment I thought I was envisioning a god.

  To reinforce the theory, Athena herself appeared by his side, atop a strong white horse like Pegasus. A cloud broke and the twilight illuminated Andromache’s face.

  The rider lifted his sword with one arm, and I saw he was missing the other.

  Horns sounded again, and riders appeared all around the hilltop, enveloping it.

  “Charge!” the rider roared, and the voice was unmistakably that of my friend, Lucius.

  “Fight on, men, fight on!” I shouted.

  The rebels, stunned by the thunder of horsemen charging down the hill, stumbled back and broke ranks. Our legions parted, the wind of the cavalry flying past us nearly toppling us over. They pounced over the faltering shield wall and down onto the rebels. Lucius slashed and stabbed wildly with a longsword, the reins wound tight around his shoulder. His flesh ghostly pale like a shade of Hades but his eyes full of fire like Vesta’s flame.

  “Roma victrix!” the men shouted.

  I fell to one knee and bore my weight on my sword. Tearing a scrap from the tunic of a dead legionary I dressed my wound. I still couldn’t feel it. There was only the throbbing in my head, and the ache in my heart.

  Pluto had denied me.

  But at least Sertorius wouldn’t. Sertorius would be proud.

  It took some time before all the rebels could be butchered. But there was nowhere to run. Lucius, Andromache, and their Spartan cavalry would have chased them to the ends of the earth.

  Andromache herself cut the head from the treacherous Polemarch, bringing Meleagros’ head to Lucius like a present. He held it up by a tuft of hair, then frowned and threw it into a pile of the rebel corpses.

  I approached him. His eyes were glazed over now, and I knew the last of his stamina was wasting away by the moment. I wept when I saw his missing arm. He wept when he saw I was amongst the living. We found no words to share, so we embraced again.

  He pulled away and said, “Men of Rome.” The legionaries set down the bodies of the legionaries they’d been gathering and listened in. “We’re going home. We’re going home.”

  Their grateful cries lifted to the heavens, and it must have touched the gods for their tears soon filled the battlefield in a rain shower.

  Lucius clapped me on the back of the neck. He shook his head, still struggling to believe it all.

  “You bastards sure do have a habit of forgetting about me.”

  I turned to find my brother standing there, blood-covered but still wearing his infamous smile.

  “Aulus!” I shouted as we both ran to him.

  His eyes flooded with tears, but the moment I opened my mouth he burst out into laughter. He doubled over and placed his hands on his knees, barely containing himself.

  “Why, by all the gods, are you laughing?” I asked, incredulous.

  He reached out and pinched my cheeks to see my missing teeth.

  “Now who’s the handsome brother?”

  I pushed his arm away and wrapped him up. “You fool. I saw you fall.”

  He shrugged. “If I widowed Balbina, there’s nothing the Polemarch or anyone else in Greece could do to match her fury.”

  “Surely the gods have made a mistake,” Lucius said, matching Aulus’ furtive grin. “How could such a poor swordsman as yourself survive a battle like that?”

  Aulus clapped his shoulder. “If you had trouble pleasing a woman with two arms, I fear you’ll have no chance with just the one.”

  We collected wood and the bodies of our fallen. Priests from the city came and offered rites, praising their heroism I knew the rest of the Republic would not.

  It took all the pitch in Sparta to light the fire in that downpour, but once lit the flame roared with the force of each spirit it carried to the river Styx.

  We each approached the pyre and said our farewells
to so many men we loved like brothers but barely knew. One by one we departed and did not look back.

  Lucius was right. We were going home after all.

  Lucius Hirtuleius

  I remember so little of that battle, or the immediate aftermath. I remember even less of losing my arm or the pain I’m sure it caused. It was a wonder I was up and walking. If it hadn’t been for some concoction of the tiny Greek doctor’s, I’m not sure I’d have been able to stand. But it would take more than a missing extremity to keep me from fighting with my men. When I learned they were fighting, I demanded in my haze that they give me whatever I required to go out and fight. Andromache disapproved, but she understood—she was a warrior herself.

  When the battle was over and the bodies were burned, we deconstructed our camp and gathered what little we had with us. The Spartan elders graciously offered a carriage to bear me home, for they rightfully assumed I wouldn’t be able to remain atop a horse for three days, regardless of the potions I drank.

  A legionary opened the carriage door for me.

  I clapped him on the shoulder to show my thanks for what he and all the men had done. I sat on the edge for a moment. I was ready to return home. I was even more anxious to see Sertorius. To say the things I feared I wouldn’t be able to say.

  But there was something keeping me in Sparta, and I feared to leave. Then that reason approached before me, her smile making my stomach leap as it had the first time I saw her.

  “You won a great battle today, Roman,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I have you to thank for that.” My mind flooded with all sorts of things I’d like to say. I reddened when I remembered actually saying some of them. “I recall saying some strange things in my haze… I… I …”

  She leaned in and kissed me. I felt her pull away, but she couldn’t yet. Her breath so fragrant, her touch so warming, I could no longer feel the pain of my amputation. With the only hand I had left I ran my fingers through her hair. My callused fingers etched the lines of her soft face.