Imperatrix (Gladiatrix Book 3)

by Russell Whitfield

  Thebe tried to stay relaxed as he charged her, waiting to see how to counter him – but the man was forced off course by the crush and was propelled, shrieking towards the tip of a stake. Unable to stop, he was forced onto it, the wooden shaft piercing his chest. His blood burst out in great gouts as he screamed and writhed in agony.

  There was no time to think as more warriors hurled themselves forward with spectacular disregard for their own safety; like ravening beasts, they surged against the barricade, desperate to get at the Heronai – but the women of the temple held them off with shield and sword, striking back at faces and limbs sending their foes screaming to the earth.

  By Thebe’s side, Illeana moved with speed and economy of motion, her sword licking out with deadly efficiency. A wild-haired woman tried to weave her way through the stakes, but Illeana stepped forward, ramming the gladius into her neck; she fell with a gurgling cry to lay on the ground, legs kicking in mute agony as her ruined throat tried to suck air into her lungs.

  Thebe smashed her shield-boss into the face of another man, sending him reeling away, but the instant he was gone, he was replaced by another warrior – this one wielding an axe. He swung it at the staves that protected her, smashing them to splinters. With a roar he leapt forward – onto her blade as she rammed it into his groin. His blood was hot on her wrist as she twisted her blade, trying to free it. The warrior was heavy and he tipped back, dragging her with him. Thebe screamed in panic as she over-balanced and fell, her shield thudding to the earth.

  Frantic, she tried to rise and could hear the barbarians screaming as one of their foes came to within their grasp. A woman flew at her, sword raised; Thebe’s arms flew up in self-preservation, eyes closed. But the blow never fell; Illeana had leapt from the lines, sword whirling as she hacked the woman from her feet. Thebe pushed herself back on her backside, legs flailing to propel herself backwards as Illeana moved with incomparable grace amongst the enemy; so swift and precise were her movements that it seemed to Thebe that the goddess herself had come from Olympus to aid them.

  Rough hands hauled Thebe back into the relative safety of her line. ‘Illeana!’ she screamed, as the Roman ducked under an attack and, on rising, cut upwards with her sword, severing the man’s hand at the wrist. He fell to his knees, clutching the bloody stump as it geysered blood. Illeana spun around, her shield knocking the teeth from another warrior – a thrust took another in the guts as she fought her way backwards, each movement of her blade stealing another life. The Heronai surged forward to the small breach as she reached it, barging their shields into the faces of the enemy so that Illeana might reach safety. The Roman dived to the ground and squirmed under her protectors, escaping the horde as the defence closed around her.

  She was laughing.

  It was war.

  People died, that was the way of it. But in a war of honour, there was pride; a feud might go on for generations as sons took vengeance for their fathers and grow their reputation by the strength of their sword arm. They would be respected by friend and enemy both.

  There was no honour in this.

  Philip of Macedonia, had invented total war. His son, Alexander, had mastered it and Alexander’s military heirs, the Romans, had perfected it. Though it went against her grain, she knew in her heart that Decabalus had the rights of it by imitating them; like the metals mixed to make a strong sword, the Dacian King hoped to temper the natural ferocity of his people with Roman discipline.

  But the Tribes, Sarmatian, Scythian and Getae had no such tactics or strategy. They fought in the old way – close with the enemy and defeat him eye to eye. They had courage, good weapons and numbers. This last was the key, she knew. No matter how good the position, how well trained and disciplined the soldiers were, they could not fight overwhelming odds forever. It was all a matter of time. Time and toll.

  She rode at the front of the cavalry, Amagê at her side. Both of them knew that horses would be useless in this weather and on this ground, but the height afforded them a good view of the battle. Sorina struggled to remain dispassionate; she had fought countless times, but it pained her to see so many people fall in the first rush, struck down by arrows that fell with a rapidity she had not seen before. Mercenary archers, she guessed: Rome’s strength was her infantry, but she had no qualms about hiring specialists for a job. Few in number they might be, but they were already paying for themselves.

  Amagê, she could tell, was living and dying with each man and woman; it was like watching a spectator at a gladiatorial show. The Clan Chief hissed, groaned and cheered as the battle ebbed and flowed. The Roman ditch causing her the most distress; hundreds died in it, most crushed by their own kin. She turned to Sorina. ‘These Romans fight battles sitting on their arses,’ she spat.

  ‘You know as well as I – they fight to win and they don’t care that they shame themselves doing it.’

  ‘They can’t win,’ Amagê declared.

  ‘No,’ Sorina agreed. ‘They can’t. But they will take a bloody price, my love.’

  They were quiet then as the first wave of warriors reached the Roman barricades and battle was joined in full. Behind them, countless others, heading towards the fray, an endless sea of bobbing heads, glinting weapons and shields. Arrows from the Roman lines rained down, sharp metal mingled with the downpour.

  Sorina’s gaze swept along the front: the auxiliaries to the north were holding off the assault, using their spears to devastating effect. The hotchpotch of mercenaries were faring less well to the south – the centre of their line comprising strangely-clad warriors with round shields, heavy armour and long spears that caused most of the damage. They looked like hoplomachus gladiators, she realised, those clad like the Ancient Greeks. On either flank of the spear wielders were heavy infantry, faux legionaries with smaller shields . . . a chill going through her. They resembled secutors from the arena.

  ‘Gladiators,’ she said to Amagê. ‘On the southern wing. Those are arena fighters.’

  Amagê peered into the distance. ‘They seem a bit small to be gladiators – I thought they were all huge.’

  ‘Not all,’ Sorina murmured, thinking of her old trainer, the Parthian known only as ‘Stick’. She was about to speak again when she heard a roar erupting from the fight in the south – and then she saw it: the line closest to the river was beginning to bow. ‘There,’ she pointed with her spear. ‘Amagê, there!’

  ‘They’re breaking through!’ the Clan Chief snarled. ‘They’re breaking through!’

  ‘They are breaking through,’ Lysandra said. She pressed her lips into a thin line as the barbarians pressed their assault close to the river. ‘The stakes aren’t holding. I had not anticipated this.’

  ‘Soft ground?’ Kleandrias guessed. ‘The stakes will be easier to drag out.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lysandra could say no more, her voice caught in her throat.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Cappa said.

  Lysandra puffed out a breath. ‘Inspire them.’

  ‘You can’t,’ Murco stepped forward. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘If we do not stem them, we are all finished, Murco. Kleandrias – go to the peltasts and bring them to that flank in support.’

  ‘What about the Artemisians?’

  ‘No. Keep them going as they are. Titus will marshal them as needed.’

  ‘As you command,’ he said. ‘But you should – ’

  ‘I am the strategos!’ she snapped, anger, disappointment and no little shame boiling to the fore. ‘This error is mine – I will right it. You will obey me. Go! Now!’ Kleandrias snapped a salute and ran off, his armour clattering as he did so.

  ‘You’re going to get us killed,’ Cappa told her, but he had a grin on his face and a glint in his eye.

  ‘We shall see. Come, Cappa. Murco. Let us add our weight to the fight.’

  Lysandra drew her sword and strode away, leaving the Romans in her wake, her scarlet cloak flying out behind her as the wind whipped across the grou
nd. She could hear them following on and pretending to argue about who was going to be first into the fray and who would stand by her side. They were good men. She offered a prayer to Athene that they might live, even if she did not.

  That all of them might live if she did not.

  It did not take her long to reach the rear ranks and the steady stream of injured and dying being ferried to the medical carts. The screams of her injured were loud in her ears, as were the battle cries of those at the front. ‘Make way!’ she shouted, barging her way through the throng of Heronai. ‘Make way!’

  ‘Lysandra!’ one woman shouted. ‘Lysandra is here!’ Soon, the cry was taken up by others.

  Lysandra pushed and shoved her way to the front, bearing many slaps on the back and helmet as she did so. The closer she got, the easier the going became because the press of bodies was less as her troops wavered. But she could hear her name being shouted over and over by the women behind her.

  She now saw the full throng of the enemy: men and women, tall and fearsome in aspect, coated in mud and filth, their weapons red with the blood of her Heronai. The stakes that were supposed to hold them at bay were in ruins, lying like so many dead men in the Dacian mud.

  Lysandra ran forward as a barbarian spearman took down a girl in the foremost rank. She blocked his leaf-bladed weapon with her shield as he struck out at her and rammed her gladius into his throat. Another warrior, a woman this time, hacking at her with a longsword: Lysandra parried and struck low, the gladius plunging into her meaty thigh, sending red ichor flying. Behind her, she could feel Cappa, Murco and the Heronai surging forward.

  A huge warrior, armed with an axe – its haft almost as tall as a man – lunged at her from the side – it was all she could do to raise her shield in time and the impact of the axe blade onto the wooden surface nearly broke her arm. The barbarian dragged the weapon away, and with it the shattered remnants of her scutum. He roared in triumph and raised the weapon aiming to split her in two, a move she countered by kicking him in the testicles. He fell, clutching himself and she swung the gladius hard at his neck. Her arm jarred as the blade sunk in, cutting through flesh, bone and gristle; his head tipped sideways at an obscene angle, blood fountaining skywards.

  Lysandra tore the weapon free and turned to see an amazon hurtling towards her, sword raised. There was no time to react and time seemed to slow as the weapon fell – but no blow landed. Murco dived at the woman, tackling her and taking her down into the mud. The two rolled away, lost in the surging scrum of the battle – she wanted to go after him but could not as more enemy pressed her. But now, her Heronai had found their strength and they rallied around her, screaming her name as they threw themselves at their foes.

  Lysandra stooped and picked up a fallen gladius, grateful of the respite. She stretched her neck from side to side, spun both blades twice and breathed out sharply through her nose before hurling herself back into the fight.

  All was chaos now as the Heronai regained the ground they had lost, screaming the names of the gods that they served so loud that the Olympians must have heard. Lysandra slashed and hacked her way forward, her blades moving with remembered ease as they stole the lives of her enemies. She had seen death up close before and she could see in the eyes of many she killed that they had not – and those around them began to fear her. She had no breath to shout encouragement, she simply killed and killed, her arm never wearing of it.

  It was a nightmarish tableau, the screams of the wounded, the sight of the their guts spewing onto the churned ground, limbs fallen, severed arms still clutching weapons with shattered bone protruding from them, the endless cacophony of iron on iron, the thud of weapon meeting shield. If Athene was the goddess of strategic warfare, Lysandra knew well that she was dancing on Ares’s field now and he would be revelling in the craft that she, his wiser sister’s handmaiden, was displaying.

  She took a blow to the side of the head and stumbled, her helmet falling away; it was Cappa this time who came to her aid and with him – impossibly – Murco, bloodied, mud-spattered but still alive and fighting ferociously. Both men stood before her, shields locked, their swords stabbing out at the wall of flesh before them, buying her precious moments to gather her senses.

  Heronai flooded past her, taking the fight to Dacian allies and Lysandra sucked in a huge lungful of air, held it and let it out, trying to recover her breath. Sweat, blood and rain drenched her hair and it hung about her face in greasy hanks; her hands were coated in gore, her armour spattered in filth, her cloak ripped into tatters.

  For a moment she thought they could win out; but then she saw the mass of enemy bearing down on them. Their cavalry had dismounted and were now throwing the weight of their swords into this fight. The rush of the Heronai was stemmed and she saw many fall as the counter shove of the barbarians drove them back.

  ‘You all right?’ Murco asked as he ran to her, Cappa in tow. ‘We lost you there for a moment.’

  There was no time to wonder at Murco’s survival. She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Murco – find Thebe,’ she gasped. Tell her . . . refuse the front and fight on an echelon. I will hold here until they can redeploy.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Murco said in his doleful tone. ‘You’ll be cut off – ’

  ‘And we will be outflanked if I do not! Murco, we can still win this,’ she lied. ‘We can! I can feel the fight leeching out of them.’ That much, she thought was true – but there was no power that could stop the barbarians from overrunning the south flank now. The Heronai did not have the numbers to press home their advantage before the barbarian re-enforcements overwhelmed them.

  ‘But – ’

  ‘Murco, you must tell the surgeons to move to behind the lines – the barbarians will not spare them or our wounded if we are overrun.’

  ‘We can’t leave you. You’re the strategos. We need you!’

  ‘This was my fault!’ Lysandra shouted. ‘My mistake! I have led us to this.’

  ‘Throwing your life away won’t help,’ Murco’s mournful face was full of purpose.

  ‘And how long do you think these women will stand if I turn and run? The rest of the army needs time. I will ensure they have it. And we are wasting it here.’

  ‘Lysandra –’

  ‘Murco!’ Cappa grabbed his friend by the shoulder. ‘Come on. She’s told us. Let’s go!’ He shoved the man forward and turned to Lysandra, his grizzled face set, his eyes alive with fury. ‘We’ll deliver the messages and then we’ll be back for you.’

  Lysandra nodded and gave him a tight smile. They both knew it would likely be the last time they would see each other this side of the Styx. ‘Goodbye, Cappa,’ she said and ran back into the fray before he could answer.

  The fighting was frantic now – the only reason the Heronai were still holding was the ditch – and it was so full of bodies that the barbarians were stumbling across a grisly carpet of twisted limbs and shattered bodies. The women of the Heronai continued to rotate the front rankers, but with each passing moment they were being pushed back as exhaustion and wounds took their toll. Lysandra’s hands and arms became numb from killing and still they fought on. The rain ceased, and soon after, a putrid mist began to rise from the sweat-drenched bodies of the combatants and the exposed organs of the dead. The day began to turn dark, but she had lost all sense of time, aware only of the need to survive.

  Lysandra found herself facing another axe man – she took him high and low at the same time, both blades licking past his guard and striking him simultaneously under the chin and in the side. She felt a thudding blow under her ribs and staggered – her armour held but it hurt her badly. The man delivering the blow was struck down by a woman to her right and he collapsed still living, his screams muffled by the hundreds of booted feet that crushed him to a bloody pulp.

  The barbarians surged forwards, pressed by the weight of the masses from behind them – and there was nothing Lysandra or any of the others could do. They were borne along by the t
ide, carried backwards, still lashing out with their weapons as all cohesion broke down.

  A snarling woman with blonde hair swung her sword at Lysandra; she parried with her left blade and shifted her weight giving her the angle to open the barbarian’s throat with the gladius in her right hand. As she did so, she saw a huge warrior swinging for her head, his sword bright in the gloom.

  Bright light flashed before her eyes and Lysandra found herself looking up at a grey sky through a bloody veil that fell into blackness. And there was no more pain.

  Illeana saw a barbarian preparing to cut down at a woman to her right – she reached out and grabbed him by his long hair and pulled hard, sending him off balance and exposing his throat to the sky. Her blade sunk into the gristle of his larynx, which spewed blood as he fell. She was weary now, but she saw that the barbarians too were weakening, backing away across a stinking carpet of their own dead.

  ‘They’re backing off!’ she shouted, which caused the women around her to cheer. She saw a black shape speeding towards her and raised her shield: the arrow careened off it with a metallic pang. ‘Bastard,’ she muttered.

  Illeana looked down the line towards the southern bank: she knew nothing of military matters, but it looked to her that things had gone badly wrong. Indeed, the pressure on her part of the army was lessening as the chaos and easier pickings down there were siphoning the enemy away. ‘They’re losing down there,’ she said aloud. ‘Thebe, we have to help them!’

  ‘We can’t!’ the Corinthian said. ‘I can see what is happening here. Lysandra’s orders are to form an echelon –’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A . . . diagonal. We need to turn on an axis and keep our extreme right close to the river. And hope that Bedros arrives on time.’

  ‘What about the wall?’

  ‘It has done its job,’ Thebe looked over to the retreating barbarians. ‘Look how many we’ve killed.’