Spell of the Beast: Book 1: Shape Shifters of Rome

by M. A. Mott

  Spell of the Beast

  By

  M.A. Mott

  From the series

  Shape Shifters of Rome

  COPYRIGHT 2018 BY HARBINGER LLC

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  All Rights Reserved.

  For Shai

  Forever

  Cover by Christian Bentulan

  Table of contents

  Table of contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue: The Hound Follows the Scent

  The End

  Foreword

  “WHEN have I last looked on

  The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies

  Of the dark leopards of the moon?”

  —W.B. Yeats

  History and Art are filled with the magic of centuries, and never fail to warn us, instruct us, regale us, or lift us up. If there is something any of us face, however dark or unusual, chances are that someone has faced something similar in the past.

  The Goddess Tanit existed. She shifted her shape into that of a half-lion, which the Greeks called “leo-pard,” fought for her people and longed for someone to love. I’m glad to give her the chance to speak to you again. Hers is a tale of power, adventure, of vanished people and places, of love lost, and of love found.

  If you are just now finding out about Tanit, why not read her origin story? It’s available for free by signing up here.

  Thank you for reading this book, and for giving Tanit and her people a chance to live again in you.

  M.A. Mott

  Chapter 1

  TANIT PACED THE FINELY chiseled mosaic floor of the villa, growling for a mate, swishing her tail. Then she heard the battering ram boom against the gates of the fortress.

  She was mad with heat. This is the end, she thought. She knew she could not change out of her leopard form, back into human body—the green-eyed, tan-skinned, desert youth she’d been for more than a century. Estrus held her.

  The fortress door boomed again, echoing across the courtyard, through the open-arched window and into her golden chamber. The massive fortress door groaned inward from the battering ram. Cedar timbers snapped.

  Her chamber acolytes, in their tunics of pleated, gold-embossed linen, glanced about furtively; at her, out the window at the sounds of the Carthaginian guard fighting their last-ditch, hopeless battle, and back to her—the goddess they were sworn to serve with their lives. Oolaht, the priestess, her angular, strong face seemingly carved from black basalt, belted out orders at them.

  “The furniture! Pile it against the door!”

  The four women stood frozen, as if they had forgotten language.

  Oolaht stepped forward and slapped the closest one. The acolyte dropped the metal bowl of flower petals she had been preparing. It clanged like a gong against the stone floor, the delicate petals scattering like desert thistles before the wind.

  “Do as I command!” Oolaht yelled.

  Weeping, acolytes started piling the extravagant, gold-plated ebony furniture against the massive bronze doors of the chamber.

  The fury rose in Tanit. She stopped pacing.

  I am a Goddess! I will *not* lie down and die! I will die with my teeth crushing a Roman throat!

  She leaped two body lengths to the sill of the great window, tearing silken curtains aside with a swipe of her paw. The shreds lilted away in the deadly breeze.

  Chaos met her gaze. Her guard, pitched in battle, manned the parapets of the elaborate temple-fort that was her last home, her final refuge. Many lay fallen from the walls, arrows or spears protruding from them, a few still writhing in agony.

  Her people. Her children.

  Even in her cat form, awaiting a mate who never arrived, she felt the pang of her failure. Her children had died... and she was powerless to protect them. Even the line of long-lost Hannibal could not stop the Roman onslaught. This was the end. The iron men of Rome had come knocking.

  She roared from the window, stepped up to the wide sill and sat on her haunches. She roared again.

  I am the Goddess of the desert!

  Some of the men on the parapets turned to her roar. Below, the remnants of her finest soldiers stood in formation, awaiting the doors to fall. They looked back, eyes turned to her in respect, in need.

  “She commands you! Stand!” shouted Sulak, the commander, his silver-embossed sword raised. His purple tunic fluttered in the wind. The gold of his cuirass shined on his chest and back. “Tanit commands you! Throw your souls into the tips of your spears! Kill the Romans!”

  The door buckled inward, groaning, hinges snapping, planks splintering. It fell with a loud boom.

  “My Queen, my Goddess!” Oolaht beseeched her.

  Tanit did not heed. She bounded from the window, landing deftly almost 20 feet below as if it were nothing. Her claws gripped the flagstones and she hurtled across the open courtyard, closing the distance as if she were hunting gazelle on the plains of Kush.

  The Romans, in their ringed armor, curved rectangular shields, and shining, helmeted heads, poured through the broken gate and formed in their strict lines. The wide-plumed helmets of the centurions snapped in order, they blew their whistles twice sharply in signal, and the front Roman line charged.

  In their padded armor, round shields, and bronze helmets, her guards set their spears against the charge, jamming the butts of the spears in the ground. The Roman soldiers surged forward and used their shields to sweep the spears to the side, and closed against her soldiers. The Romans’ short swords slashed out and under the shields of her men, slashing at their legs. She heard several of them cry out, and her front defensive line started to buckle.

  She picked a large centurion, and pleased with the surprised, fearful look on his face, leaped on him, roaring. He turned away but she jumped on his back and bore him down. He cried out in fear. She pulled on the lower lip of his helmet with one claw, the other on the leather collar of his armor, peeling them apart. The helmet strap pulled tight against his throat, cutting his cry to a gurgle. She tore into the back of his neck, sinking her fangs deep, crushing his vertebrae with a sickening crunch. His body convulsed and fell limp. She tasted the coppery tang of his blood gushing into her mouth.

  Tanit, blood dripping from her fanged mouth, looked up to see the legionnaires recoiling, eyes wide with fright. Three bore their shields around to face her, swords ready, their wide points turned to bear. Now it was their line broken. She screamed in fury, swiping at them, feinting, looking for an opening—but she knew she’d drawn them open for Sulak’s men to strike.

  “NOW!” yelled Sulak. Immediately, one
of her soldiers thrust a spear-point into the side the closest legionary facing her. He screamed and dropped his shield and sword, crumpling to the ground. The others facing her turned to meet the new charge—and she struck at the closest man. she reached out, swiped at his leg, and hooked her talons into his Achilles tendon, rending it from the flesh in a gout of blood. The Roman fell back on himself, his right leg useless now. His sword dropped from his grasp as he sought to catch his fall. At that moment, another of her soldier’s spear found its mark. Her guard thrust the point deep into the Roman’s throat, cutting off his scream with a gurgling cry, the blood from his jugular spraying his compatriots.

  The Roman line faltered, and she heard their leader bellow at them to fall back as her soldiers pressed the fight. She swiped at the third man facing her, her claws scraping furrows in the design on his shield, buffeting it almost from his grasp, but he kept it facing her, retreating with his cohorts back out of the gate. She screamed in anger, striking again and again, each time scraping her claws against his shield, until he was out.

  Sulak shouted at his men to block the entrance. They did, with dozens of gleaming, bloody spear-points. Behind her, her soldiers to the rear dispatched the fallen Romans who still lived, moaning, crying out their last as each point found home.

  Outside the walls she heard a trumpet sound. A signal? The Romans outside shouted a word: “Equties! Equities!”

  She saw Sulak grimace. “Cavalry. Set your spears!” he told his men. Sulak turned to her, and knelt on one knee.

  “My Goddess. You must flee. Their horsemen come to run us down!” He saluted her with his fist across his chest. “I pledge my dying blood to you. Please, RUN!” Then he turned, even as hooves galloped up the stony road. “Brace!” he yelled.

  Tanit turned, saw the stairs leading to the parapets, and bounded up them. She would not flee; she would leap from the walls into the horsemen as they drew into the gate. Gaining the heights, she looked out at the vast host arrayed against her stronghold. She saw men in lines, with spears, swords, and a variety of gear; carts, donkeys, horsemen—was it an entire legion? Gods! She saw the men who had attacked the gate reforming their lines, while the rear ranks parted for a band of horsemen galloping up the road.

  An arrow whizzed past her left ear, and she heard one of her men cry out and fall from the wall, hitting the ground in the courtyard with a thud. Then more arrows flew, like angry bees buzzing past. More cries. More of her men screaming in anguish. She saw her archers nock shafts and let fly back at the host.

  Where, then, would a goddess choose her end? The horsemen approached, gaining speed on the now open roadway to the gate. The lead horsemen lowered their lances to strike home at her soldiers crouched in the stone archway. They were to break through her lines once and for all. Leading the charge, the forward man sat astride his black charger, arrayed in finery, his shining helmet embossed with silver and plumed with red ostrich feathers. His shining breastplate, etched with the image of a screaming gorgon, its hair a silvery tangle of filigreed snakes, shouted of a man high-born. Such a man filled her loins with longing, even as her fire turn to hate.

  Him, then. She would choose him. If not a mate in this life, then she would carry his soul in her jaws when she returned to the sky.

  The man shouted in Latin at his men, and they broke into a full-speed gallop. She watched from between the stonework, then timed her leap to fall full upon him. She braced, then launched her body from the wall. She held her roar until the moment her body was to strike his.

  He glanced up—and his steel blue eyes met hers. She saw no fear, but a grim smile. He sought this? He loved battle? She would give him fierce love.

  She catapulted from the wall and smashed into his body, colliding with a fury that collapsed the black steed he drove forward. She heard his horse cry out, then a loud pop as its neck snapped in the headlong tumble. She dug her claws into the man’s sides, trying to sink her teeth into his neck, but finding the hard-boiled leather neckpiece resisted her fangs. She screamed in anger, tearing at it, pieces of leather coming off in her mouth as the two tumbled around across the stony road. Behind them she saw another horse trip over the fallen steed, spilling its rider headlong. She and her prey finally stopped tumbling, the Goddess on top of him, pinning him against the stones.

  Her target, the large, muscular, dark-haired horseman, his blue eyes burning bright, bared his teeth and drew a dagger from his belt. The blade glinted. He stabbed up at Tanit, but she caught his arm, smashing and pinning it against the flagstones. The knife clattered from his grasp. Bending down on his face with her massive jaws open, she screamed her anger.

  You dare? I am a Goddess!

  Her scream pitched low into a growl as she prepared to tear out his throat.

  At that moment, one of the de-horsed lance bearers thrust at her side. The point tore a furrow into her hide and glanced off the ribs. The man fell forward over his commander’s fallen steed, thrashing in its death throes from the broken neck. She roared again and swiped at that man’s face. The blow knocked him back and tore off his helmet, which clattered away across the stones. The man screamed and he dropped the lance and crumpled to the ground, clutching the ruin of his face.

  Tanit turned back to her prey sprawling under her. He showed no fear, but anger. His arms pinned, he glared at her, defying the death blow he knew would come. She felt fierce fire within her, longing for him, even as she would certainly kill him. She could hear in the tumult the shouts of her own men, spurred out from the gate they had defended, closing with the enemy even outside the walls. Magnificent futility. They honored her with their bravery.

  A trumpet blared from farther down the road, and the cavalrymen around her paused, then seemed filled with renewed purpose. A second wave of Roman horsemen galloped up the road to relieve their comrades.

  Tanit knew this was the final blow. In minutes, the Roman horsemen would ride down her and her defenders and all would truly be lost. Now was her time to die.

  Or.... was there another way?

  A present. Tanit would leave the men a gift of madness in this commander. He would die writhing with the fever. Surely no Roman could bear the change. He would die as her lovers died, mad with her caress. She roared again in anger, and bore down her gaze at the face of the man beneath her. Bending her head, she bared her fangs and sank one in the flesh of his cheek...ever...so...slightly...raking open a cut.

  He grunted from the pain. A strong one, she thought! Even her lovers screamed. But not this man.

  Then, she bounded away, leaving the sprawled commander amid the fray around him. She sprinted through the crowd of men. Spear, sword, or even bowmen were too surprised by her wavering, black-and-yellow spotted form gliding through them like a zephyr before the storm. Light, almost invisibly she flew. Across the field of battle, running through the meadow, and to the trees. As she gained the edge of the foliage, she confronted a band of red-tunic-wearing, lightly-armed skirmishers; slingers, standing agape in awe at her. One had the temerity to place a stone in his sling and fling it at her as she approached. The stone whizzed past her head. She jumped upon him, tearing into his ribs from the sides, gutting him with a kick from her back legs, and crushing his clavicle in her jaws, then flew past. He tried to scream, but the effort thrust his entrails out of his body steaming onto the ground. Tanit disappeared into the forest.

  Chapter 2

  MAXIMUS GRUNTED IN pain as his men gathered around him, gingerly pulling him up into a sitting position. His first sergeant crouched beside him, looking over his body with concern.

  Maximus glared back at him. “What is it, Otho? Are you bringing some Hemlock to ease my passage into Elysium?”

  Otho sighed. “Well, clearly you must be weakened with age,” he countered. He lightly touched Maximus’ jaw, examining. “You let a priest’s pet cat scratch you, instead of gutting it and wearing its hide.”

  Beyond them now, groans of the wounded and dying Carthaginian soldiers, shouted or
ders from his men, and the clatter of carts coming to take away the casualties, met their ears. The battle was long over. Now, only mopping up. Little damage to the temple-fort. They would rest in ease and bind their wounds this night.

  “I think she liked me,” he said.

  Otho raised his eyebrows. “Oh? She’s a girl?”

  “Didn’t you see her kiss me?”

  Otho shook his head in mock concern. “What say we continue this over some drink after your wounds are bound up, eh?” he said. He then motioned the surgeon over to the commander, and then litter-bearers picking up the wounded.

  Maximus nodded. “But take me up to the compound. I want to see our new headquarters.”

  “As you command,” Otho said. Then he saluted with his fist against his chest, turned, and barked orders at the throng of busy Roman auxiliaries.

  Maximus grunted again as the bearers lifted him onto the field litter. Then, expertly raising him, they walked in practiced cadence up the stone road. The surgeon walked alongside Maximus, dabbing the honey salve onto the gash in his cheek. Maximus felt the burning in his gashed face subside, but also felt the dull ache of bruised ribs, pulled muscles, and the sting of scratches and scrapes from the fight on the road. Nevertheless, before they entered the tall archway and shattered wooden gate, he bade the bearers lower the litter, then stood, his hand on the surgeon’s shoulder to steady himself.

  “Commander, I don’t think...” the surgeon began.

  “Silence, Tabor. I think I’ll manage,” Maximus said.

  “As you wish, Commander. Allow me the honor of walking with you.”

  “Of course, my friend.”

  They walked, with Maximus limping slightly.

  His legionaries now combed over the compound. The fortress had stone walls, a wide flagstone courtyard, some wooden outbuildings, and a vast, ornate keep in the center about three stories tall with a tower stretching up two more stories. Its vaulted arches and filigreed stonework spoke more of Syria than Hispania. Silken drapes blew from windows, and occasionally one of his legionnaires would stick his head through a window and shout something to others carrying furniture, bowls, lamps and other items. Maximus would have to tell them to ready bedchambers for him and the other officers. Out of the topmost window, Maximus could see young women ducking furtively out an upstairs window, then dodge back in. That would be the chamber for the women the spies spoke of.