Sorina could hear the sound of Greek curses and, through the throng, could see they were close to the front line now. She hated herself, but a part of her admired the courage of Lysandra’s women. They stood in their civilised lines, fighting like ants – no honour, no glory – but they stood in the face of massive odds and did not turn their backs.
Amagê screamed a war cry and burst to the fore, her axe swinging, sighting an officer with a dirty white cloak in the front line. The woman was engaged with another warrior and didn’t even see the blow that struck her head from her body. Blood fountained, drenching Amagê and everyone around her with its warmth. Like a goddess, the Clan Chief ploughed into their lines, hacking and slashing – so intent on killing that she did not see the gladiatrix coming for her.
Sorina leapt to defend Amagê, taking the gladiatrix’s attack on her shield and striking back with venom. The warrior parried with her scutum and Sorina could see that – despite the blood and the filth – she was a great beauty. She had little time to admire her as the swirling tide of battle dragged them apart.
‘Kill them!’ she heard the woman shout in Latin. ‘Kill them all!’
The gladiatrices rallied to her call and they surged back at the tribespeople, their short blades stabbing, shields punching, feet churning forward. They could not win. But they could hold and they were forcing the tribespeople back.
And Sorina could feel the fear and frustration beginning to build.
‘At them!’ she screamed. ‘For our lands and our people! For freedom!’ She hurled herself into the fray, cutting and hacking with her longsword, but in the closely packed ranks, she had little room to strike. Furious, she dropped the longsword and stooped to grab a gladius from the hand of a dead Greek. It was better for close quarters killing.
It shocked Sorina how comfortable the Roman weapon felt in her hand. So many years at the ludus, so many years of practising with one, her body could not forget it. She ploughed forward, shield up, head low, stabbing out into the enemy lines. Thrust met counter thrust, blade met board, iron sank into flesh.
She could hear Amagê laughing and exhorting the gods as she killed – and for her part, Sorina found once again the thrill of battle – as familiar to her as the Roman sword in her hand. Here was the place where fear fled. Here, in the eye of the storm, she was striking down her enemies and defending her lands and those of others against a threat that would devour them all.
To her left a man fell, taken down with a stab to the groin. A boy leapt to fill his space and he too was killed. To her right, a woman took the boss of a shield to the face and two thumbs of iron to the throat. The man behind her – a Scythian by the look of him went down moments later. Then there was nobody and she too backed away, chest heaving from exertion. Likewise, the women facing them stopped, exhausted by the savagery of the fight. Cutting over the gasping and puking of those still on their feet were the screams of the wounded and dying, some crawling away, others unable to move from their wounds. The stench was ripe, shit and the coppery reek of blood.
Sorina knew that the moment was now. If they did not attack again now, morale would flee and the Greeks would have the day. She filled her lungs, about to cry out for them to charge again when she heard the sound of singing coming from the west.
She turned and saw soldiers advancing. They too looked like the hoplomachus gladiators from the centre of the gladiatrix line. But these ones were different. They were uniform, each one wearing a red cloak. Each one with a large round shield – on it painted an inverse V. Each one holding a heavy, iron tipped spear. There could only have been a thousand of them, but they moved fast, their feet flying over the muddy ground. They sang – women’s voices too – in Greek. Sorina’s eyes widened in horror as she recalled the inverted V on their shields: it was the lambda, the symbol of Lysandra’s beloved Sparta. Sorina remembered the time she shared with Lysandra in the ludus: the Spartan’s boasting of her upbringing in a temple where they trained young girls for prayer and war. Lysandra had been forged in that place and now her sisters had come to the battle, borne on the ships that had just passed by.
As if they were a single bronze-clad warrior, they smashed into the flank of the tribespeople and a great groan erupted from them. The Spartan Priestesses ploughed a bloody furrow, thousands deep in less time than it took for the full horror of what was happening to impress itself on Sorina. And at the sight of them, Lysandra’s gladiatrices counter attacked, throwing themselves into the fight with renewed vigour.
Sorina – like the rest – turned and ran. There would be time enough to kill them all on the morrow. But this day was lost.
As they fled back towards their encampment, the mocking shouts of the Greeks shamed them. Sorina comforted herself with the thought that, come first light, she would drag out their beloved Lysandra. She would be raped and tortured before their eyes before being set afire to honour Zalmoxis. Sorina would smear herself in the Spartan’s ashes and then put an end to her gladiatrices and her Sisterhood in a single day.
At the point of a sword, they had made Lysandra disrobe. Now, with a rope around her neck and her wrists bound, three burly guards dragged her naked through the barbarian encampment as the tribes hurled mud and abuse as she passed by.
She counted herself lucky; other women were now being raped by these animals who, when they were done, would kill them in the most vile way they could think of. That would happen to her too. She deserved it – she had led the others to this end.
A clod of earth hit her in the face and she stumbled, falling to cold, muddy ground. They laughed at her as the guards kicked her till the one with her leash dragged her to her feet by her hair, pulling her face close to his. He screamed at her, shouting orders or threats.
They were going to kill her anyway. With what little strength she had left, she lunged forward and smashed her forehead into the warrior’s nose. Down he went, but she had no chance to savour her moment, as one of the others punched her on the side of the head.
She fell again, the pain from the wound in her skull blinding her and bile rushed from her throat. A kick to the ribs sent her over again and she had no strength to rise. The one she had head butted stood over her, eyes blazing with fury. His cohorts shouted at him, gesticulating wildly – the message was clear: ‘we cannot kill her.’ Instead, he put his foot on her chest and fished around inside his trews. Moments later, piss spattered onto her face and neck as he relieved himself while the crowd laughed and jeered.
Lysandra turned her face away from the hot, stinking liquid as it ran over her head, stinging her wound, trickling into her ear and nose. She didn’t give them the satisfaction of cringing away, concentrating on keeping her face a stoic mask, eyes closed. The other two took a turn after that.
They dragged her then, forcing her to grip the rope fastened to her neck to save herself from choking until she was able to lurch to her feet and stagger along. She tried to make out details of the camp, picking out landmarks in case she had a chance to get away. But, with barbarian typicality, there was no order to it. It was simply an endless sea of tents, thrown up with no thought behind it.
At length, they arrived at a bigger shelter; smaller than a Roman general’s praetorium, but big nevertheless. The men shoved her inside and bound her tightly to the central pole of the tent. The one whose nose she had bloodied punched her in the stomach. It was excruciating, since her bonds didn’t allow her to bend. She coughed and gagged, making him laugh. He slapped her in the face and, along with the others, left her alone.
She struggled in her bonds, but her hands, feet and neck were bound fast to the posting and she had no leverage. After a few moments of trying fruitlessly to snap the ropes at her wrists, she gave up.
Despair opened like a pit inside her. She had failed so utterly she could barely comprehend it. In that moment, she realised that she had been deluding herself: the goddess did not speak to her. Rather, it was her own mind, her own ego – her subconscious telling her what she
wanted to hear.
Strategos.
The word mocked her now. What was she other than a failed priestess and an arena fighter? A pawn in Sextus Julius Frontinus’s grand plan; she saw it all, as plain as day. Why would a Roman senator entrust a former slave with an army? The answer was, of course, to buy the Romans time with their lives.
Lysandra knew she was going to die here. Sorina would inflict terrible torture on her and the thought of it terrified her. The pain was one thing, but the knowledge that she would be broken and humiliated filled her with dread. She told herself she would not beg for her death, but she knew she was lying. Sorina had all the time in the world to eke out her suffering. And Lysandra was strong; she had been trained to endure, her body fit and hard; she would last, and each moment would be filled with excruciating agony.
Tears filled her eyes. She sobbed, her body shaking with grief not only for herself but for those she had brought to the same end: Thebe, Kleandrias, Cappa and Murco, Illeana; they would all die, along with the thousands of trusting fools who had answered her call to arms.
Those that would fall in battle would be the lucky ones and Lysandra counted herself doubly a fool for bringing women to the man’s world of war. Only now, at the end, did she realise that the Matriarch of the Temple had been right to cast her out; wise, like the goddess they served, not to throw Spartan lives away on Lysandra’s vanity.
At least she and Kleandrias would be the only Spartans to die here. And die they would. Lysandra knew that even if the Heronai and the mercenaries escaped on Bedros’s ships, he and the others would stand and fall at Durostorum – obedient to her word.
Indeterminate hours crawled by and Lysandra thought she must have slept. There was shouting from outside the tent, the sound of many voices over which she could hear the cries of the injured. The day was over, then, and she could hear no victory songs from the barbarians.
They had held. Thebe and Euaristos had held.
The flap of the tent parted and Sorina stepped in. She said nothing for a time, lighting a brazier, which flooded the interior with light. Lysandra watched her from behind matted hanks of hair. Sorina would break her in the end, she knew that. But she would resist as long as she could. She would show no fear, even if it churned inside her like the roiling sea.
‘Warm enough for you, Lysandra?’ Sorina asked, coming close to her. ‘It will be warmer tomorrow.’
‘Good. The weather here is vile.’
Sorina chuckled. ‘You are afraid, Lysandra. I can see it in your eyes and the stains of your tears have cracked the blood on your face.’
‘I was weeping at the stench. I am unused to being around so many barbarians.’
‘Barbarians have bettered you.’
Lysandra looked Sorina in the eyes. ‘I hear no victory songs. No laughter. You have failed, Sorina. Even with these great numbers . . .’
Sorina slapped her in the face, delivering a sharp, stinging pain.
‘Truth hurts.’ Lysandra saw the Dacian’s cheeks colour as the barb found its mark.
‘You’re going to scream tomorrow, Lysandra,’ Sorina’s grin was feral in the half-light. ‘You are right, though. Your people did stand. There are many dead and tomorrow we will finish them. But before that, I will have you dragged out before them. You will pleasure our best warriors. Your eyes will be put out. And then we will burn you. It will take hours, but we have time. And we’ll see how much you have to say then.’
‘Quite a bit, I imagine.’ Lysandra willed her voice not to tremble. ‘Poor Sorina! Too old to fight me even as I am now . . .’
‘Why give you a chance, Lysandra? Even a small one? You’re mine. You’re in my power and there’s nothing you can do. I will make you pay for what you did to Eirianwen.’
The mention of her name sent a shock through Lysandra and bringing her face to mind gave her strength. ‘I loved her, Sorina – as she loved me. It was you! You drove her to her death. Your pride did it. Your rage did it! You could not bear that she was happy with me!’
‘Shut up!’ Sorina screamed at her. ‘Shut up! Because of you, she is dead!’
‘You killed her! You! With her own sword! By the gods, I wish I could have struck you down in the arena!’ Lysandra surged against her bonds to no avail.
‘But you couldn’t! You failed then as you have failed now! I will burn you alive as an offering to her shade, Lysandra. Your screams will be as music to my ears. I will have my vengeance and with it my peace.’
‘You will never have peace,’ Lysandra hissed. ‘I will haunt you in death as I have in life. I curse you in the names of all the gods . . .’
‘Your gods have no sway here, you arrogant bitch.’
‘Is that what you think, Sorina?’ Lysandra stared into the light brown eyes of her hated enemy. ‘Comfort yourself with that, then. But know that I will be the Fury in your dreams. You will fear sleep, because I will be your bringer of nightmares.’
‘Words. The empty, desperate words of a woman whose fate is sealed. Your nightmare begins tomorrow. Let us see if you are as bold when your legs are splayed and your body is spewing out the seed of barbarians because there is no room in you to hold it. Let us see if you are as bold when your skin falls melting from your flesh – for I will burn you slowly, Spartan.’
Lysandra swallowed. Sorina saw it and Lysandra registered the triumph in her eyes. ‘We will see, then,’ she said.
‘You won’t, ‘Sorina told her. ‘I’m having your eyes out, remember? Think on that, Spartan. But you’ll still be able to hear yourself begging to die.’ Sorina drew a dagger from her hip. ‘Something to remember me by till then,’ she said. She raised the blade and Lysandra refused to baulk. She would not flinch. She was still a Spartan.
Slowly and very deliberately, Sorina dragged the blade down the left side of Lysandra’s face beginning at her forehead. It was excruciating; white-hot pain burned as the tip of the knife sliced through her flesh. It slipped at her eye socket, digging into her nose by her tear-ducts before continuing on to her chin. Blood sluiced down her face and onto her neck and chest. ‘You still have your eyes,’ she said. ‘For now. And your ears. Later, when we have finished with our prisoners, I’ll make sure that you can hear them die. Think on it, Lysandra. Imagine their suffering. This is what you have brought them to. Your pride brought suffering to many. And their agony will soon be yours.’
Sorina turned and extinguished the brazier, plunging the tent into darkness. She left Lysandra with only black thoughts for comfort until the screams of the burning began.
67 A.D.
Sparta
Illeana knelt and covered Thebe’s headless corpse with the remnants of her cloak. It had happened so fast – too fast for even she to intervene. The woman with the axe had taken Thebe’s life in the blinking of an eye. One moment she had been fighting at Illeana’s side, the next, struck down.
Like so many others.
Illeana surveyed the carnage. The field was littered with dead bodies, mostly barbarians, but there were enough Heronai and mercenaries among them. Too many, she knew.
‘Come on, love!’ She looked up to see Cappa and a bloodied Murco in tow. ‘She’s gone.’ He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet.
‘Now what?’ Illeana asked. ‘What are we going to do now?’
‘A good question.’ They turned to see a tall woman of middling years striding towards them. She had the same weird accent as Lysandra and Kleandrias – the armour she wore marking her a Priestess of Lysandra’s Spartan Temple. With her were two others, one gaunt and red haired, the other blonde and fair. ‘Who commands here?’ the woman asked.
Illeana looked around. ‘We don’t know. Not anymore. Does Euaristos still live? Titus?’
‘Both still kicking last I saw them,’ Murco said.
‘Then they are now in command,’ Illeana said to the woman.
‘Who are you? We thank you for our lives. Without your help . . .’
‘I am Halkyone, ‘the Sparta
n interrupted. ‘We are aware that our intervention saved you. Where is Lysandra? It is at her behest that we have come.’
‘Lysandra is dead.’
‘Unfortunate.’ The woman pressed her lips into a thin line and Illeana saw – just for a moment – a flicker of sadness on her granite features. ‘These men – Titus and Euaristos. They took orders from Lysandra?’
Illeana looked at Cappa and Murco for support but none was forthcoming. ‘Euaristos commands the mercenaries down the line. Titus was one of Lysandra’s chosen men – A Roman centurion. But Lysandra was in command of this legion – we’re the Heronai . . .’
‘No longer. I am in command now, as there are no others fit to lead.’
‘Now hang on a moment. I don’t know about that,’ Cappa finally cut in. ‘I mean, we need to call the roll and . . .’
‘Are there other Spartans here?’
‘Only Kleandrias.’ Illeana said.
‘And he does not command?’
‘No.’
‘Then there are no others fit to lead. Bring these men to me. Now. We must make haste and the barbarians will not afford us much time.’
Illeana looked at Cappa and Murco but the woman’s demeanour seemed to have knocked the fight out of them. ‘We’ll go,’ Cappa said. ‘See if we can find Kleandrias too. He’s less up himself than most Spartans, if you take my meaning, lady.’
‘I do not,’ Halkyone said. ‘And I do not care for an explanation.’ She looked Cappa in the eye and he bristled, clearly preparing to argue. ‘You are still here,’ she observed.
‘Come on,’ Murco pulled him away. ‘The last thing we need is internecine bickering.’
‘Internecine,’ Cappa allowed himself to be drawn away. ‘What does that mean?’
Imperatrix (Gladiatrix Book 3) Page 36
