Finally, they made camp for a few hours, mostly to let the horses rest. Caught what sleep they could, themselves. And before dawn, were back in the saddle, following the faint tracks in the hard-beaten road that they’d been tracing out for hours now. Stopping to talk to farmers hauling plows out into the fields to break up winter’s sleeping soil along the way—wary, suspicious eyes, regarding their Roman armor and faces. “Still ahead of us, but not by much,” the patrol’s leader, a man with the odd cognomen of Libo, announced after one such conversation. “Let’s pick up the pace.”
And thus, with the first rays of the sun’s light peeking over the horizon, they finally set eyes on their quarry. Six men on donkeys, hastily trying to cut through a farmer’s field now, heading off the road towards the Nile. “Look, they’re heading for behind that farmer’s hut, to hide and let us pass them by!” the equite who’d spoken so knowledgeably about the properties of hyena rectums called.
“Form up,” Libo shouted back. “One of them, at least, is a mage-priest. We all know what that means. Get in close as fast as you can, and they can’t concentrate for shit to use their magic. So in we go, lads—at the gallop. Watch for holes in this field, though. No one needs to break a horse’s leg today.”
Two hundred pesi away, they spread out into a rough wedge shape, using the leader as the point of the simple triangular shape. Twenty men, four rows, more or less, with Tiberius just behind the leader, in the second row. They kicked their horses, and their legs, conditioned and strengthened by just this exercise, clamped to the horses’ sides. That hold and their innate sense of balance were all that would keep them atop the beasts, even at the full charge. Still, it took raw nerve for infantry to hold in the face of a cavalry charge. Horses outweighed humans, usually by about eight hundred pounds. And a trained war-horse didn’t flinch from trampling right over soft human flesh with their bare hooves. Were trained to bite and kick as well. Infantry only stood a chance when they had long spears, and were several rows deep—and preferably, had some sort of barrier in front of them. Spears. Ditches. Tribuli, or caltrops. These priests on their donkeys couldn’t have had time to set up such defenses, and were, in fact, still in motion. Trying to crowd behind that farmer’s hut in the distance.
One hundred pesi. Libo shouted to the fleeing priests, “Stand down! Dismount! Hands where we can see them!”
In response, the last of the donkeys crowded behind the hut. Tiberius could just see the door of the hut opening. The surprised look on the farmer’s face was lost to the distance and the gray light of dawn, but the rough door slammed right back shut again.
Sixty pesi. “Watch for spells! We’re almost in their range now! Watch for fire, and stay spread out!”
One man beside Tiberius shouted in fear and reined in, his hands flying to his face and eyes in consternation, even as the other riders thundered past him. “I can’t see!” he bawled over the noise of hooves. “I can’t fucking see!”
Another man screamed, and Tiberius caught a brief glimpse of something horrific—scarab beetles and scorpions, somehow clinging to the horse’s sides, swarming up the beast’s legs and scrambling up onto the rider. The horse reared, panicking, throwing the man, and then he was on the ground, covered in the creatures—if they were real. Tearing at his own flesh, howling with pain at the stings and the bites—
No time to wonder. Just enough to grit his teeth, pray to any gods that were listening for protection, and continue in. “Right flank, west! Left flank, east. Move around the house and pin them from both sides!”
Fifty pesi. Tiberius could just see the priests leaning around the western edge of the house. Could see their mouths moving.
And then the winds rose, slamming in from the west, carrying sand with them like a wave from the sea. Scraping over armor and skin. It wasn’t enough to stop the momentum of the horses, but then there was so much brown dirt in the air, it looked as if they were riding into the heart of a wildfire. They couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of them, and, unconsciously, every rider leaned back, and the horses responded, easing their pace as they all tried to ensure that they wouldn’t run into anything. “Steady!” Libo shouted, his voice almost lost in the wind. “Keep going! It can’t reach far!”
But somehow, the winds seemed to blanket the entire area. Whipping in a furious circle, the sandstorm intensified. Tore at their flesh. Tiberius couldn’t keep his eyes open, and his horse spooked under him, trying to bolt. He clutched the reins, sawing at the creature’s mouth, and clamped his legs tightly, trying to keep the beast under control, when another burst of wind came in, buffeting him from behind, making him reel. The sound of it was like nothing he’d ever heard before—not the shattering clap of thunder, but a steady, continuous deafening roar.
Their charge faltered. Turned into a nightmarish crawl as this horse or that spooked, throwing its rider, and galloped off, away from the freakish wind. Blind, they could only move forward. Deafened, they couldn’t coordinate. Tiberius’ horse finally bucked one time too many, and he flew off, hitting the ground in an agony of abraded, tortured flesh. Only where his metal armor stood between him and the wind, was there any relief from the pain—his legs, arms, and parts of his face felt as if they were weeping blood. On the ground, the dirt came up to cover him, relentlessly, and the wind shrieked and pummeled him every time he tried to rise.
He got his shield up over his head and crawled, his spear still in his right hand. Blind. I’m a worm in the earth, he thought, half-delirious, as the sand piled atop him. On my belly. Buried alive. The sand grew heavier atop him, but the shield provided a pocket of air, and at least the heavy sand gave some relief from the stinging, cruel wind. Keep going. Keep going. If you stop moving, you’re dead. Or you died already, and just don’t know any better. He’d have laughed, if he had any breath. Can’t see. Can’t hear. No idea if you’re going forward or up or down. Just a worm in the earth. They died and buried you, and the worms came to eat you, and now you’re one of the worms. Crawl on, Tiberius, son of Nero. Crawl on, like a worm. Like a ghost. You’re your own mane . . . .
Not enough air left. Every movement took more and more effort, and his head ached fiercely. See? Dead. Dead and buried. Just didn’t have the sense to stop moving. Tiberius managed to open his eyes in the darkness under the ground, and whispered, with what felt like his last breath, “Pluto. Proserpina. I give myself to you, to curse these fucking priests. I spit at them, and all enemies of Rome. May my death be their scourge.”
The curse of a dying man was held to have great power. And devotio, the rite in which the general of a Roman army promised his life to Pluto in return for victory, hadn’t actually been practiced since the Punic wars. But as his ears rang with the lack of air, Tiberius suddenly felt . . . comforted. Felt as if he had a legion of brothers all around him. And somehow found the strength to lift himself up, through the two feet of heavy sand over his head, and found that the wind had died. Nothing but sweet, blissful air.
He gasped for a lungful. Blinked rapidly, tears pouring through his reddened, painful eyes, clearing the dust, so he could see that he’d somehow wound up near the edge of the farmer’s hut—which had been in the middle of an arable field, with a plow set at the edge of one of the canals, waiting for the farmer to begin his day’s labor. Now, the walls of the hut were pitted and scored. Sand had piled up around it, halfway up the door, and the shuttered windows were silted in. Behind him, Tiberius realized distantly, five or so of the equites were struggling up from the sand, just as he had—some up to forty pesi away. He, on the other hand, was close enough to hear voices from the other side of the building. Voices speaking in Egyptian. Harried. Hurried.
And then one of them laughed.
Tiberius found his feet. Set them atop the shifting, uncertain drifts of sand. And came around the corner of the building, spear in hand and shield up, feeling nothing but empty coldness all the way through him. Caught a glimpse of wide, shocked brown eyes and a mouth rounded in horror, and
jabbed, hard, catching the first priest in the throat. The priest clutched at the wound as Tiberius yanked the spear back, and blood poured through the man’s fingers as he choked. Gasped. Fell to the ground, trying to hold his life in. Try all you like. You’re already dead.
Two steps, over the body of the dying man as he writhed. Five more priests, backing up, eyes wide in surprise. But they weren’t afraid. Not yet. One of them gabbled in his own language, twisting his fingers in the air, and something came up from under the sands. Agitated by the sudden storm, and drawn by the mage-priest’s command, a cobra rose up, flaring its hood, and struck, sinking its fangs into Tiberius’ left knee, coated as it was by an armor of his own blood and the sand that had entombed him.
He barely felt the bite. Didn’t feel the burn. Did feel the amulet hanging at his heart turn suddenly cold, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was killing these enemies. Now. Before they could do any more harm. My life for this, Pluto. My life for their deaths.
His first stab with the spear missed; on the second attempt, one of the priests shouted something, and the wooden shaft splintered in his hand. The fourth man shrieked the words of another incantation, and fire roared towards Tiberius. He ducked behind his leather-covered wooden shield with its metal rivets. The shield burst into flame; his legs, covered by that armor of blood and sand, felt the heat, but didn’t blister.
And treating his fiery shield as just another weapon, Tiberius slammed it into the face of the closest priest and bore down on the man. Hit him in the face with it, hard, and then held the shield right to the man’s reeling body. Heard the screams of pain and panic as the man’s wig and clothing caught on fire. Smelled burning skin and flesh as the priest staggered back. Saw the pattern of blisters left by the hot rivets, embossed into the man’s face and body as he rolled back and forth on the sand, trying to put the flames out. Too bad you filled in the canals with your sandstorm, Tiberius thought distantly, drawing his sword now, and stabbing down. Killing the wounded man mid-roll.
Footsteps behind him, as some of his fellow equites finally made it around the corner. The stoutest of the priests, who looked vaguely familiar to Tiberius’ dazed eyes, lifted a hand, and both equites locked in place. Shook. One of them took a step back, and then the iron conditioning of the legion kicked in. No retreat. We never retreat. We only go forward. Fighting some unseen compulsion, both equites continued forward, trembling in what looked like mortal terror. But forward they came. Inexorably.
The cobra struck one of them, coiled and ready—he shouted in pain, and staggered, trying to move in. The other man attacked one of the priests, and somehow, shaken by the magic used against him, missed. Giving another priest time to incant, and suddenly, the weapons held by all three of them turned red-hot to the touch.
Tiberius shouted in agony, the leather wrapping around the hilt of his gladius going up in flames in his hand, but held onto it anyway. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I’m already dead. They buried me in the ground, and my breathing this air is just an illusion. An anomaly. An extra chance granted by Pluto to exercise my own curse on them. Two decisive thrusts at the torso of the closest priest, and the red-hot blade sank into vitals both times, once again with the smell of burning flesh, and the rending howls of a dying man.
Neither of the other equites managed to hold onto the forge-hot blades, but even the man bitten by the cobra stepped forward now. Shields became weapons, hitting the faces of two of the remaining priests. And that freed Tiberius to chase after the last man, the stout one, who’d turned to flee now, heading for the line of date palms that marked the edge of the next field over.
Tiberius was limping on the bitten leg, the only reason he didn’t catch the man immediately. The priest swung around, and Tiberius finally recognized him through the haze of pain and battle-fury over his eyes. That’s Tahut-Nefer. I saw him at the Julii villa often enough. “Surrender,” Tiberius rasped, still holding his gladius in a hand that seemed to be made of equal parts pain and numbness. “You’ve got nowhere to run, priest.”
Tahut spun, but kept backing away. “Surrender? So you can crucify me in the name of Rome? I think not!”
He took another step back, and Tiberius followed him. Eyed the priest’s path. Noted how Tahut was backing right for the farmer’s wooden plow, which protruded up through the sand now, anchored in place by the weight of it. The curving wood that normally comprised the handles and the actual blade—bronze-tipped, pointed up into the air like a single sharp tooth.
And then Tahut’s hands lifted, and two fist-sized balls of fire formed in the air in front of him. Tiberius got the smoking remnants of his shield up in time, but they burned through the scorched wood, searing his arm behind it. And then he limped closer, inexorably. “I’m already dead,” he told Tahut. Saw how the words jarred the man, and added, quietly, “You can’t kill what’s dead.”
And then he was on Tahut, jabbing with the sword that seemed an extension of his arm, and the pain and misery of his burned right hand seemed to transmit right through to the blade’s tip. Caught the priest in one thick shoulder, but that was hardly a killing blow. Many gladiators keep a few extra pounds of fat on their frames. So it’s that much harder to find their gullets with a sword’s point. Blank, absent thoughts, and Tiberius took another step in. Slammed his shield’s rim into Tahut’s teeth, making the priest take another step back, spitting blood.
And then, as the blood hit the ground, the priest said a Name, which rang out through the air. “Kebechet!” Tahut snarled. “My blood for you! Kill this man!”
Something rippled through the air in front of him, a feminine figure that seemed transparent as water. Cold, clammy, wet fingers gripped his throat, and a second hand covered his nose and mouth, and water poured down his throat, and for a terrible instant, Tiberius thought he was about to drown on dry land. It burned, forcing its way into his lungs, and his mind screamed for an instant in mortal fear.
And then the terrible, stubborn part of him that Octavian had hated so much rose up, and Tiberius jammed his iron sword through the sleek, watery form of whatever spirit this was. And when his hand, bleeding freely from where it had been burned, rammed through the spirit’s body in the wake of the iron blade, it recoiled. Pulled away with a hiss, and he was able to strike it again and again with the blade, until it fled, turning into a white vapor and undulating away through the air.
Gasping and choking for air, Tiberius set off after the fleeing priest once more. Chest burning, leg on fire now, he managed one final sprint. And, mid-stride, kicked with his good leg, hitting the priest in the lower back, sending him tumbling face-first . . . right atop the upturned plow’s bronze-plated blade.
There was a meaty sort of sound as the blade ripped through the priest’s body, but it was low, through the intestines and out through the man’s back. Far too low to kill him cleanly. Tiberius stood there for a moment, coughing up pink-tinged water from his lungs, watching the priest squirm and writhe, trying to lift himself off the two feet of the curving blade that protruded from the sand. Listened to Tahut begging various spirits to help him—each Name rippled through the air, but nothing answered. Frantic invocations of the Name of Thoth, each one weaker than the last. Tiberius couldn’t understand a word of it, and yet, he understood the meaning all too well. Mercy, my lord. Mercy and life, please, mercy, I beg of you.
Watching this man beg for life, while Tiberius had consigned his own to the underworld to stop him, somehow grated. But there wasn’t any conscious thought at all as Tiberius brought the point of his gladius down, jamming it through where the bald scalp showed the hollow where skull met spinal column. Felt it crunch through the bone, and into the softer material of the brain. Felt the whole body spasm, once.
And then went limp.
Tiberius dropped to kneel, exhausted, beside the dead man’s body. Realized that his right hand was so badly burned, he couldn’t unflex it from around his sword. Tried to pull the blade free of the sk
ull, and realized that it was stuck fast, for the moment. Bad form, that. My old trainers would have a fit. Mechanical, useless thoughts.
He groped at his belt, left-handed, for his pugio, and tried to pry his fingers apart, only to give up as pain lanced up from the damaged tendons and screaming nerves. And then he just leaned there, feeling a lighter wind now against his abraded cheeks. And waited for Pluto and Proserpina to take their due. I’m ready. A bargain is a bargain. My life is yours.
Except, for whatever unaccountable reason, he kept on existing. Eyeblink after eyeblink, he remained conscious. No darkness. No Styx. No Charon. Just the pitiless light of dawn streaming over the Nile in the distance, and the hooting of strange birds in the palms above. What, don’t you want your sacrifice? Take me.
And then the other equites were on him, panting and in pain, just as he was. “He’s dead,” they told him, misinterpreting the pugio in his hand. “He’s already dead. Come here, let’s have a look at you—“
“Manius took a bite to the leg from a cobra—we’ve got him lying down, a belt around his knee, trying to keep the poison from swelling—“
“Anyone see Libo?”
“I think he bought it—“
“Hey, the sand over here is moving—might have a survivor! Help me dig, gods damn it!”
Tiberius let the others pull him away from the body. Let one of them take a look at his knee, where the cobra venom mysteriously didn’t seem to be spreading. Let them uncurl his hand from his gladius, clenching his teeth against the pain. Let them wrap the wound, for what good it would do, and generally provide the half-tender, half-joking concern that legionnaires showed each other, when no one else was around to see how much they cared. “Hope you don’t masturbate right-handed, lad. Otherwise, that’s strictly a non-issue for a while.”
“Hey! Did you see that last priest? Did you see what our lad did to him?”
Children of Tiber and Nile (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 2) Page 29
