God shall send forth His mercy and His truth.
My soul is among lions;
I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire.
“My soul is not among Lions. It is assaulted by a demon priest and dragon. And it is not just me they have come for, Oh Lord, but by their horrible sacrifice they’ve unleashed a dread one, Oh God! The dragon...” and before she could finish the words, once again her spirit was plucked out of her body.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Decemus signaled to his men who were carefully listening to the slave while pretending not to. Much to their credit, they did not protest. Their courage had found a hard place to stand and wasn’t abandoning them now. When the slave released the booby trap, and no guard had been alerted, Decemus assumed that was because every available soldier was in the battle raging outside the city. Even so, he crept out of the drain in the room above, barely breathing. Looking quickly around, he moved forward, and his men followed like shadows. The high priest’s quarters were close, just a few yards down the hall that led out of the great room where the sacrifices were made.
As Decemus led the way, he started to smell something foul. At first, he couldn’t place it, then one of his soldiers sniffed, and said, “We must be close, that is snake scent. It is foul, they eject it out their ass like a skunk, but worse. You get it on your clothes, and you have to burn them. Nothing takes it out. Must be a lot of snakes up ahead because that is a wretchedly powerful stench.”
So far, they had not encountered guards. Decemus was surprised, but realized why should they post guards? A giant serpent guarded the high priest. All the guards could do was be snake food. He signaled his men to stop with his quickly raised hand, then quietly whispered, “Light your torches. If we are going to encounter another serpent, then it is going to encounter fire. Don’t worry about alerting the guards once we engage the serpent guarding the priest. There is no escape plan. We will make it up as we go. There is a kill plan—if you can hit the snake with a firebomb, do it. Better if you can get it in the eye or in its throat. After we get this done, gather to me, and we will try and find our way back down the drain. Ready?”
They nodded and slipped into formation behind him.
Decemus followed the stench toward the high priest’s quarters. The dark hallway felt heavy, like walking through deep water or a swamp, and again no guards. His nerves tingled. Every instinct he had warned him they were walking into something dangerous. This is the supreme leader of the city, and no guards? You would think the gate to hell would be better guarded. But, he reminded himself, it was General Sappho who commands those guards, and if the general moved them out to make way for him, who was he to argue his good luck? At least until the high priest was dead, and then he would be surprised indeed if the guards still failed to show up.
As Decemus and his team drew closer, the temperature of the hallway changed. A chill rose up to greet them. The small hairs on the back of their necks stood up. There is a sixth sense, a special kind of knowing that elite soldiers have. It keeps them alive and is the difference between killing and being killed. Combat awakens it. Like eyes adjusting to a bright room or a sunny day, their perceptions take on clarity that has a way of flowing through them in dangerous situations, whispering, “This way,” or “Not there.” All Decemus’ soldiers wore that mantle. And Han Xing had known enough to look for it in his troops and develop it in them. At this moment, in this place, it was fully triggered. Their bodies were sensory nets, detecting with every nerve and natural sense the atmosphere and operational environment around them. The energy drain was huge, but typically the confrontations did not last long, and if they survived, they were able to recover fairly quickly.
After surging forward in deliberately irregular, hushed moves, they found the high priest’s chambers. A bronze lock on the door sealed it from intrusion. Decemus’ team was prepared for that. Han Xing had introduced them to tools Chinese spies developed and used for centuries. The lock quickly pried open and burst from the hasp with the screech of old metal. The noise blared like rusty thunder. They instinctively hugged the walls and waited and listened, but no footsteps, no voice of alarm. Their instinct was to release their breaths, but knew the noise of their exhalation would echo down the hall. With iron discipline, they eased their breathing back into its controlled state and opened the broken door. They were careful to lift up on the door, so its weight would not fall on the hinge with a rusty creak and betray them to the occupant of the room.
The high priest’s room was weakly lit by smoldering torches attached to the far wall. The reptilian stench was overpowering—a dark musky smell of decay and rot. Decemus recognized the sweet, metallic smell of blood faintly mixed in with the powerful odor of the serpent. His men moved through the door behind him, and he signaled them to move toward the walls. Opium-laced smoke lined the floor of the room, hiding it, and drifted slowly through the air. Decemus didn’t think he could have moved quieter than they had been moving, but in this room, he swore he could hear his own sweat trickle down the sides of his face. Scanning the room, he immediately saw the throne of the high priest, probably fifty feet from the entrance. A dark aura surrounded it. Decemus looked carefully through the shadow that veiled the throne, recognized it was occupied, and gasped. The high priest was seated on it! It took a millisecond for him to realize the man was in a coma, not moving, with his head tilted to one side.
A quick movement across the floor caught his attention. Decemus looked toward it. One of his soldiers, farther into the smoke-lined room, cried out in pain. There was the sickening crunch of breaking bones and a scream that, if nothing else had, would surely bring guards running now.
Decemus sped toward the solider as did his other team members, only to fall back scrambling as the great serpent’s head broke through the fog, towering above them with the body of the broken trooper in its mouth. The writhing warrior had his sword hand free, weakly striking at the serpent. His blows glanced off the iron hard scales.
The snake’s head was larger than a small chariot, and its coils lay across the smoke-filled floor like small mountains barring the way to the high priest’s throne. With a quick move of its head, it opened its vast jaws and swallowed the poor soldier whole, the bulge of the man’s wrecked body obvious in the snake’s throat. Two obsidian tipped spears plunged through the air to stick into the snake’s scales but were broken off at their shafts by the serpent’s lashing coils. The spears pierced the beast, but not enough to slow it down.
Nauseous-smelling blood spewed from the huge snake, coating Decemus and his soldiers with its putrid spray. The snake screeched an alarm that shook the room and was surely heard throughout the high priest compound. Decemus knew time was short and that the serpent’s convulsions and raging might be enough to awaken the high priest and bring the dragon back as well as all the soldiers left in the city. The beast dodged missiles and firebombs with its lightning speed. Decemus was frantic.
He quickly lit another firebomb, started toward the serpent convinced his old dream must be fulfilled. Both he and the great snake would die in a fiery blast. Then instead in a flash of inspiration he hurled the bomb at the throne. The snake, instinctively protecting the high priest, struck at the bomb, catching it in its jaws, swallowing it, leaving Decemus a half-crazed heartbeat to scream, “Down!” before the room exploded in fire and blood. The explosion shattered the snakes head, blowing it clean off its body. Its coils lashed in a frenzy, like a giant whip slashing through the air, catching one of his troops in the chest and smashing him against the wall.
Decemus struggled to stand. Dazed he shook his head, saw the open door, and quickly shouted at the soldier closest to it. The yells of men racing down the hall toward the high priest’s quarters added speed to the soldier’s movements. The soldier slammed the door shut and crammed his spear against it as he’d been taught. It wouldn’t hold long, but it didn’t have to. Decemus moved quickly through the smoke, wading through the gore of the serpent,
its coils still shuddering in their death throes as he pulled himself over them. His team divided themselves into two, half preparing to hold the door, the other half moving toward the throne of the high priest.
Just as Decemus closed in on the throne, the high priest moved, his eyes opened, and he smiled, “I’ve been waiting for you...”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Regulus was hurting. Every blow that slammed against his army struck him, and every soldier that fell marked him. His army had been beaten back from the walls of Carthage, but not in disarrayed panic. They fell back, organized and disciplined, but weakening, bleeding, dying one by one, always moving back toward the fortification. This time, it did not look like they could hold. Regulus knew that, but like a mountain on the shores of a raging sea, he stood against the storm, as if by sheer will he could break the tide that roared against him.
****
Han Xing knew too much of the ebb and flow of battle to see a way out of the drowning pool set against them. Sooner or later the last Roman phalanx would break, the last Roman soldier fall, the command bunker would be taken, and they would all perish.
The numbers had been too much for them. Their resolve would not break, but their bodies would. He stood silently by his friend and general, reading the dispatches and seeing in his mind’s eye the battle, as though stretched out in front of him. Han Xing saw the camp laid out like a large rectangular city with four gates, two of which faced the onslaught of the Carthaginian army, and two in the rear of the camp still held by the Romans and not attacked. These might be used to escape, if worse came to worse.
He looked around the room at the unit banners that surrounded him, wondering which one would have to be sacrificed to hold the Carthaginians in the camp while others escaped out the back gates, but that would only happen if the withering lines of the struggling Roman army survived long enough to keep the Carthaginian horde from flanking them and surrounding the camp.
The Roman fortress was made of wood and stone with walls of dirt ramped up against the fortress, spiked with sharpened sticks so that any enemy would think twice about running through their sharp maze to throw up ladders and breach the walls. On top of those walls stood turrets from which the remaining ballistae kept up a relentless attack against the dragon and the army below it.
The limits of the surviving ballistae against an entire army were distressingly obvious. The large projectile weapon would lash out, carving a bloody rip through the hordes before it, only to see the gash quickly close with more soldiers. Two towers were all that remained; the others had been blasted into fiery masts of flaming wreckage by the dragon.
The two gates that faced the front of the Carthaginians were fiercely protected. The last phalanxes to withdraw were slowly being forced through them, and men who had a few minutes respite from the battle were being thrown back into the defense of the gates. They could not hold for long. His army had fought and died by the thousands and were still fighting, but the flood of angry, bloody people breaking against them did not seem to have an end.
Han Xing looked at Regulus. It was his duty as head of Regulus’ staff to inform the general when it was time to get out of harm’s way and remove himself from a hopeless battle. He was about to do that when Regulus shuddered, shook his head and grinned. “They almost have us where we want them.”
The Chinese general lost all hint of inscrutableness and stared at Regulus like he was eyeing a mad man. “By that, you mean what?”
Regulus gave a weary laugh. “A kill box, sir. A kill box. They want this fort, so we shall let them have it; only we won’t tell them we are giving it to them. We will pile them in and shove them together, and then when as many as can be stuffed into this fort are here, we shall burn it down.”
Han Xing’s worried look disappeared, replaced by a look of awe. The Legate of the Legion had lived up to his title, and now like a hunted and bloodied fox, he saw a way to trap the hounds who tried to run him down and destroy him.
“Now for the details,” Regulus went on. “First, we pull the troops in. Second, we have the front lines deliberately look like they are in a panicked retreat. Third, after the gates fall, we let them pour in, holding them only at the flanks and last two gates. They should pour into the fort, bunching together. Our last stand, or what they think is our last stand at the back gates, should cause their commanders to pour more of them into the fort. And that is when we signal the fleet to bomb the fort with everything they have.”
“Han Xing’s momentary hope crashed hard. “But, Regulus, how do we signal the fleet? The hill that held the semaphore was overrun during the first hours of the battle.”
Regulus didn’t skip a beat. “I’ve been thinking about that, and here’s what we are going to do.”
****
Miriam cast a fleeting thought into the gale force that pulled her out of her body. “Not again!” As she looked down over the command bunker and the battle now being fought on the outskirts of the Roman fort, she fell silent.
She wasn’t sure what to do. Previously, Elijah guided her. This time she was alone, hovering over the battle. She saw the Romans being pressed back inch by bloody inch into the confines of their battered fort. The fort burned. Two of the four towers, broken and fallen, were flaming like torches. Romans fired from the fort walls, pouring arrows, spears, and stones at the horde that slammed against the walls. The mass of Carthaginians crashed like a bloody tide against the retreating phalanxes of the Romans, crushing individuals under their feet, then climbing on their bodies to draw closer.
Miriam screamed and wept over the sounds and smells and flames that played out below her. A reptilian roar rolled across the fiery sky and drew her from her focus on the death beneath. She glanced up and saw the dragon. Not the dragon that battled the Romans and could be pierced by their weapons. Miriam saw the spirit of darkness that controlled the earthly dragon. Not the beast of the earth, mortal and bleeding, but the hovering demonic entity. Three times as large as its mortal host, dark and streaming fire from its nostrils, it screamed out, and as it did, souls of the dead were sucked into its maw and into the furnace that stoked it. The beast was devouring the essence of the dying and seemed to be growing and getting stronger with every dark soul it consumed. Miriam instinctively moved back, trying to hide from the preying eyes of the screaming Leviathan.
Caught between wanting to run and hide, and wanting to charge the dragon, the source of all the destruction and misery around her, her thoughts raced. What would Regulus do? He would attack it with a sword. But I have no sword. Then she remembered what Regulus had done. He had attacked the dragon when it had first manifested on the city wall, cloaked in the tornadic winds of its birthing. He had sounded the shofar! She knew the officer, Othniyel, that had blown the shofar. Like her, he was a Jew. She had gotten to know him and several others of the Jewish contingent among the Romans. As soon as she thought about him, she also despaired. How am I going to find him in this throng? I won’t, unless I start looking. I don’t even know how to move in this realm. Damn, how do I... And then, “Ohhhhhh...” as the bottom fell out from her feet and she plunged to the ground below. “Uff!” She grunted as she fell onto the battlefield.
Miriam realized immediately that she was no longer in the spirit but had landed right in the middle of Regulus’ overrun headquarters. His tent, abandoned early in the onslaught, was still burning, as were all the other tents that surrounded the original headquarters. She saw Othniyel’s tent blown over and singed, but still intact. She hurried to it, found the entrance and crawled beneath the fabric. She felt ridiculous, crawling around in Othniyel’s tent, looking for his shofar. But another part of her knew she could not battle against a demon spirit with anything but a weapon of the spirit. And the only thing she could think of that she had seen work was that trumpet. Frantically, she tore through cots and clothes and nothing! She worked back out of the fallen tent, and then stood, casting searching glances around her. The main battle was several yards away
, wounded and dying lay everywhere, and their cries mixed with the shouts of battle enveloped her.
She stood there, bewildered, not sure what to do or where to go. Finally, instinctively, she cried, “Lord, help! You brought me here. I am all alone and have no idea what to do next.” And then, before the next words formed in her mouth, she saw it.
The shofar lay in the ruins of Regulus’ tent! Surrounded by the burning embers and charred bodies of the men who died. Both Roman and Carthaginian bodies piled up near the ruins of the tent. But in the center of the burned-out pavilion, there it was... She ran to it, grabbed a spear to move it out of the embers, and finally got close enough to grab it. She reached for it and screamed. Her skin blistered at the touch. Not hot enough to burn up, just hot enough to burn her. She wrapped her hand in a piece of tent cloth, reached back for the shofar, and this time she could hold it. She held it closer and looked around for the water barrel in the Roman compound. Finding it, she plunged the shofar into the water hearing the hiss of the hot bone as it blew off its heat in the water.
Then it occurred to her, I don’t know how to blow this thing. Where is Othniyel? I don’t have time to look, and chances are he is with Regulus in the command center. She groaned, exasperated. It can’t be that hard. Can it? Again, she prayed, “Lord, I have done what You asked me to do. I am here now with the trumpet. In the past, You used it to force this spirit back. Please do it again, O God!”
She drew the trumpet to her lips. Just as she did, she saw the beast drawn from the tomb of history, bleeding and battered sweeping in from the main battleground. It sensed her presence and that of the trumpet and turned toward her, breathing fire down in desperate streams of flame. She knew if she ran out of the way, the dragon’s flame would miss her, but she wanted to blow the shofar right in the face of the dragon. So, she stood, took several deep breaths, and blew. The sound that came forth was not the same melodious bellow that rang out before. This time the note that shot from the end of the ram’s horn took on her essence, not Othniyel’s—a reflection of her, not the young Roman trumpeter that had blown it or Regulus that ordered it. It sounded like pure crystal, shattering, high-pitched, and sharp, and it slammed into the dragon, breaking its charge and dousing its flame. The dragon hit the wall of sound and crumpled, knocked from the sky. Miriam’s eyes almost popped out of her head, but she didn’t have time to rejoice.
Dragons and Romans Page 21
