* * *
“Now ain’t that obligin’ of them to come in so close?” Philadelphia Braddock drawled.
Preacher agreed with him. “Sure enough is. Steady on, boys,” he added as the Romans halted, their formation still perfect.
Then came the commands to fire. The projectiles seethed through the air. Unlike the static squares of the Roman soldiers, the mountain men and Cheyenne allies were free to move at will. Which they did by jumping their horses forward enough to be missed by the missiles. A split second after recovering from the movement, they fired a ragged volley.
Bullets punched right through bull-hide shields. Even the brass ornaments on them yielded to .56 caliber lead balls. Preacher had taken aim at a fancy dude in a glittery uniform who seemed to be in command. His slug shattered the breastbone of Yancy Taggart and ended the career of General Gaius Septimus Glaubiae. The gaudy uniform became a heap of lifeless clothing at the feet of the primus pilus of the Thirteenth Legion. At such short range, not a one of the mountain men and Indians could miss. One hundred fifty-seven Roman soldiers went down in that first volley.
Marcus Quintus Americus stared on in horror as he saw his senior general slain with casual indifference. Another flight of arrows and javelins answered the fire, only to be avoided while men rapidly reloaded. The air turned blue with powder smoke once again.
Preacher made quick note that the discipline of the troops they faced had begun to falter. With a little luck, he might not even need to use the Arapahos. He drew a .44 Walker Colt, and the mountain men around him went to pistols also. The more rapid fire had a withering effect on the legions.
It had even more on the fancy-dressed fellow in the two-wheeled cart, Preacher realized as that one—it must be that Marcus Quintus—shouted an order. Another shower of arrows and then the Romans began to withdraw, marching backward, long rows of leveled javelins pointed at the men whom they left in command of the field.
“Well, if that don’t just beat all,” Preacher declared wonderingly. “Don’t know what to make of that.”
“Me neither,” Philadelphia remarked. “A feller gets himself all worked up for a fight like they did, it usual lasts a spell. They sure’s the devil had us outnumbered.”
“They may be back. Best pull back a ways and stand fast. I mark that Quintus feller to be a tricky bastard.”
* * *
While the archers let fly another deadly flock and the soldiers hurled their slender javelins, Marcus Quintus Americus looked around him in confusion. Another ragged volley came from fifty yards off. Why weren’t his own riflemen firing? For a moment, it plagued him; then he recalled that he had assigned them to cover the cavalry, which as yet had not engaged the enemy. Another thought struck him.
He would have to get a replacement for Gaius Septimus. His first spear had all the imagination and initiative of a stone post. Who could it be? Rufus Longinus of the Second? Yes. He had almost as much knowledge of military matters as Glaubiae had possessed. Bruno could get himself a new primus pilus. But this was hardly the place to hand out promotions. He turned to right and left, bawling out the most bitter order ever given by a commander.
“Fall back on the camp. Make it in good order and keep an eye on the enemy.”
Trumpets sounding, the order was relayed by the adjutants of each legion, one in temporary command of his. Slowly the tramp of thick-soled military sandals sounded, and the century squares became a retrograde movement. Dust began to rise in thick clouds. Not enough, though, to mask, let alone protect, potential targets.
Although puzzled by the retreat, the mountain men and Indians kept up a steady fire into the dwindling ranks of the legions until they maneuvered out of range. Quintus ordered his chariot to turn and get around the formations of troops. He wanted to be calmed and refreshed when he met with his generals to promote one man and offer advice. Tomorrow would be a far better day, he convinced himself. Besides, the omens had not been all that promising at the morning sacrifice.
* * *
Four-Eyes Finney seemed mightily pleased with himself. “He who hits and runs away . . .,” he quoted.
“Is a yellow-bellied cur,” Jack Lonesome added his own version to the end.
“Naw, that ain’t it, Lonesome,” Four-Eyes corrected. “It’s about livin’ to fight another day.”
“Why’d they run? Why didn’t we just finish them here an’ now?” the grizzled mountain man pressed his point.
“Tell you what, Jack,” Preacher began diplomatically. “We got ’em whittled down some, and it’s for certain sure those cannons don’t work. But there’s at least five of them for each one of us. What say we pull back to the base of the ridge and settle in. They’ll do somethin’ ’fore long.”
Preacher turned out to be right on that. An hour later, three officers, one with a white flag, rode out from the Roman camp. With them came a number of soldiers and a line of wagons. The one with the truce flag advanced to where the mountain men lolled on the ground, eating and sharing some scarce whiskey.
“Which one of you is the general in charge?”
Preacher came to his boots and tucked the stick of jerky he had been gnawing on in a shirt pocket. “I reckon that would be me. But I ain’t no gen’ral.”
“What do you call yourself?”
“Folks around these parts call me Preacher.”
“By Jupiter and all the gods,” the young Varras blurted. “Gaius told us you were the one we saw fight in the arena.” His tone turned rueful, and his expression became wry. “No one but you could have made good on that escape.” He saw that his flattery had no effect on Preacher. That decided him to come to the point.
“We came to ask permission to recover our dead and wounded.”
“He’p yourselves. We’ve got no quarrel with them.”
“But you do with us?”
“Somethin’ like that. There’s those among us who don’t take kindly to having our friends made into slaves and forced to fight to the death.
The trio of officers exchanged glances. The one in the middle, with the flag of truce, looked back at Preacher. “What’s wrong with that? It’s a good way for a barbarian to make a living.” They all laughed.
Preacher instantly developed a thunderous expression. “You keep that up an’ you’ll be joinin’ those you came to get.”
Varras’ protest came at once. “Bu-but we’re under a flag of truce.”
Preacher reached up and yanked the white flag from the astonished general’s hands. “Funny, I don’t see a damn thing.”
Youngest and the most nervous of the junior officers, the one on his left spoke in a soft, quiet voice. “Legate Varras, I think he’s serious.”
“At least you’ve got it right, Sonny,” Preacher snapped.
Touching a lightly trembling finger to his lips, the youthful general pushed his point. “Let’s—uh—get on with it, shouldn’t we?”
To their stiff backs, Preacher said, “You can come back for this rag when you’re done.” To the others he spoke in a low tone. “We’re gonna have to do somethin’ about that rudeness.”
* * *
By the time the dead and wounded had been retrieved from the field, darkness hovered on the ridge to the east. Westward, magenta and gold washed over the pale blue of the sky. Preacher had men busy making objects from the thorns taken from the underbrush and rawhide strips. While they worked, he went among them, explaining what would happen.
“When it gits good and dark, we’re gonna take these things out and scatter them in front of those little movable forts of theirs. Really sew the ground with them. Then some of us is gonna pay a visit to the big city.”
“How do ve get past dose soldiers?” Bloody Hand Kreuger asked in a surly tone.
“Ve don’t. You’ll be with the others spreading these here caltrops. Horses don’t like ’em much and men don’t either. Messes up their walkin’ right smart. I’ll pick those goin’, and everyone eat a good meal. We’ll start out at midnight.�
��
True to his word, Preacher led an expedition out from their camp at midnight. He and eleven others would penetrate into the city and cause what havoc they could contrive. Another party, under charge of Philadelphia Braddock, set off to scatter the deadly four-point caltrops in the tall grass outside the Roman camps. Preacher’s picks had smeared soot and grease on their faces, and all wore dark clothing.
They had a variety of flopped hats and animal-skin caps to break up the regularity of the shape of their heads. All carried pistols and knives, a few tomahawks. Rifles would only hamper them. At Preacher’s direction, fire pit trestles had been heated and one end of each bent into a hook. Ropes had been attached and knots tied along their length. Preacher had remained secretive about the purpose of these.
When they reached the walls, the fires burned low behind the palisades and everything lay in silence. Preacher wrapped his hook in cloth and shook out a length of rope. He gave it a steady swing, moving his hand and arm faster with each circle. At last he let it go and it sailed upward. It struck a foot short with a soft thump. When it dropped back, Preacher tried again. Once more he failed.
“This one’ll do ’er,” he assured the others in a whisper.
It didn’t.
At last, on the fifth toss, the hook sailed over the wall and stuck fast when Preacher pulled on the rope. Quickly the others with hooks began to throw them at the battlement. When the sixth one caught, Preacher leaned back and went up his hand-over-hand, feet braced against the outside of the rampart. More men quickly followed until all twelve had scaled the barrier.
“We’re here, now what?” Squinty Williams asked.
“I’d say a visit to the baths,” Preacher offered.
“Me?” Squinty squeaked out. “I’ve done took my summer bath.”
“I was thinking of breaking a few things in there and flooding the streets,” Preacher responded. “You won’t even have to take off those ripe-smellin’ moccasins, Squinty.”
“Don’t you be doin’ that to me, Preacher. I’ll have to swim for it if you break that place apart.”
“Not if you run fast enough. Now, let’s go.”
The twelve-man party made it to the baths without the vigilii spotting them. Inside, they subdued the night watchman and spread out through the series of pool rooms. Buck Sears led the way to the confluence of the underground waterways. There they plied crowbars and mauls to break the plaster away and penetrate the brick walls.
In no time after that, they were walking ankle deep in swift-flowing water. It spread through the baths and headed for the front door. Enough done here, Preacher thought. He directed them to split up into pairs and go do mischief.
“Keep a sharp eye for those watchmen,” he cautioned. He and Squinty headed for the central square, the forum.
“What are we going to do there?”
Preacher chuckled as he explained. “We’re gonna wake up some ladies and scare them out of their nightshirts.”
Squinty cocked his head, then shook it. “You actual thinkin’ about dallyin’ with some wimmin in a place as dangerous as this?”
“Nooo. Just scare the Vestal Virgins a mite. Stir up some hullabaloo.”
* * *
Portia Andromeda awakened to something that she had not believed possible. A man in the cloisters of the Temple of Vesta! Not only a man, but a brute-ugly one at that. He had a hairy face, gaps in his teeth, which were too dark to be healthy, eyes too close together and squinched up. The shock of it robbed her of immediate speech.
“What are you gawkin’ at, you ugly old prune?” a raspy voice asked her.
By the gods, are those animal skins he is wearing? Portia asked herself. In all of her years in service to Vesta, she had never seen such a creature. As senior priestess, she must maintain her composure, her brain reminded her.
“Get out of this cell,” she demanded coldly, finding her voice at last.
A shriek came from another cell down the hallway. Had the barbarian army defeated the legions and entered the city? No. That was too preposterous to believe.
“How about a little kiss first, Sister?”
And then, Portia herself screamed. It seemed to come up from her toes to ululate through wide-stretched lips that trembled from more than the force of her wail. When she again opened her eyes, the man had disappeared.
* * *
“Where we headed now?” Squinty asked Preacher after they left the cloisters in shrieking feminine confusion.
“To the gladiator school,” Preacher told him simply.
“You joshin’ me, ain’tcha?”
“Nope. I told Buck and the others to meet us there.”
“What do you want to go there for?”
“Simple, Squinty. There’s bound to be about fifty highly trained fighting men locked up in there. We’re gonna let them out. If they wants to join us, they’ll be welcome.”
“I can see that. We need more on our side, right enough. Only, what if they want to stay right there and are willing to fight to do it?”
“We can leave those locked up. Down that street there, the Via Julius.”
Fires had drawn all of the watch away from seeking those who had started them. The twelve mountain men reached the gladiator school within five minutes of one another. Preacher advised speed.
“We’ve got to do this quick-like. Go in, free the ones want to come with us, and get out. Then it’s for the walls.”
Two guards at the entrance to the cells died swiftly, downed by .44 bullets from one of Preacher’s Walker Colts. A quick twist of key in lock and the men beyond began to yell in confusion and some in rekindled hope. Preacher and his band moved rapidly along the corridor, snapping back the wooden bolts that held the cell doors. Forty-seven wanted to join in the fight against New Rome.
“There’s all sorts of firearms in a storage room I’ll show you in the house of Bulbus.” They cheered him loudly as Preacher and Buck set out to lead the way.
All of the noise in the streets had awakened Bulbus. He looked wistfully at the trim posterior of the young slave girl in his bed, gave the bare buttocks a pat and climbed from his bedclothes. Once fully dressed, he headed for the atrium. He got there at the same time the mountain men swarmed into the central courtyard garden.
Swords and javelins proved no hindrance to the blazing pistols of the wild and wooly men of the High Lonesome. They brought down the five guards in as many seconds and surged toward the stores. Suddenly angry beyond any vestige of fear, Bulbus went for them with a gladius flashing in his pudgy hand. Preacher turned in time to see the blade poised to strike his head from his shoulders.
Having practiced long ago to speedily unlimber a six-gun, he filled his hand in a blur of controlled movement. The hammer came back and he squeezed the trigger. The small brass cap went off flawlessly, and the powder charge instantly followed. The .44 ball smacked into the thick middle of the master of games. A second ball went higher, through his heart, and flattened against his spine. Bulbus dropped the sword and staggered toward the fountain.
With a mighty cry, which sounded of regret more than pain, he pitched over the lip of the basin and splashed face-first into the water. Preacher watched Bulbus’ right foot jerk spasmodically for a second and then turned to the men.
“Right through there. Pick the best, there’s plenty of it. An’ bring along all the powder, shot and caps you can haul. We have to beat these Roman mongrels to the wall.”
* * *
Preacher soon found that they had lost the race to the parapets. Helmeted soldiers lined the southern and western ones. He veered his much larger band into a darkened street and plunged along it toward the east wall.
Only a dozen men topped that bastion, Preacher discovered when they reached it. Easy as anything. He picked out five of the ex-gladiators who had taken helmets from the fallen guards and sent them up the stone steps.
“Tell ’em you’ve been drafted to help defend the city,” he instructed.
Hal
fway up the stairway, the “relief” force had attracted the attention of all but one of the soldiers. That was when thirty shots cracked in sharp echoes off the walls of buildings and the stone barrier. Thirty balls sieved the defenders, who pitched headfirst off the parapet or lay where they had fallen. Preacher led the way up after the decoys.
At the top he found a determined sergeant holding the two former gladiators at bay with a gladius. Preacher looked at the other man for a second, then clucked his tongue as he fired a fatal shot to the forehead of the sergeant. Then he studied their surroundings.
“Too bad we didn’t get back to our ropes. We’ll have to go back down and get out through that little bitty gate.”
Several looked at Preacher as though he were mad. “We can’t make it,” one protested.
“I say we can. Now, git movin’.”
With trusted mountain men to serve as rear guard, Preacher started the freed gladiators through the low, narrow gate toward the outside. He cautioned them to remain quiet and stay close to the base of the wall. They might not know about the movable forts of the Romans. Nearly half of the escapees had disappeared into the tunnellike passage through the thick base of the stone rampart when others discovered their presence.
Some sixteen of the vigilii rounded the corner nearest the portal and stopped abruptly. These watchmen carried javelins in addition to their swords, Preacher noted at once. Made edgy by the sudden uproar within their city, and so far unable to account for it, the men of the watch reacted quickly. They all rocked back, and each hurled a pilum.
One whistled past the left ear of Preacher, even as he drew his left-hand Walker Colt. He eared back the hammer the moment the weapon came clear of the holster and quickly aligned the sights. The big .44 bucked in his hand, and one of the watchmen cried out in pain. Other pistols fired a moment later. Eight of the watchmen had gone down in the first exchange. Preacher aimed at another and fired again.
In such an unfair contest, there could be no doubt of the outcome. The remaining eight died in a hail of bullets. Unfortunately, it served to announce the presence of the invaders to those on the walls. Hard sandal soles scuffed on the stones of the parapet as other sentries called to one another and closed in on the knot of men at the gate below.
Preacher and the Mountain Caesar Page 25
