Legion Of The Undead_Rise and Fall

by Michael Whitehead

  The third Risen joined the attack from behind. It bit into the guard's bicep and chewed at flesh that was still attached to the bone. The guard screamed until blood loss made him sink to the ground.

  Sergius grabbed Priscus’ arm when the older man looked as though, whether through an urge to help or shock, he might stop. He pulled until Priscus began to move again. They ran between two rows of terrace houses and Sergius pointed at an open door in one of the rows. He slowed as he reached the door and then stepped inside.

  There was a door in the far wall and Priscus slowly opened it to check the room beyond. The room was a small store room with jars of food on shelves.

  “We need to keep our heads down,” Sergius said when Priscus returned with a wine skin in his hands. He opened it, smelled the contents and took a drink. He passed it to Sergius who took enough to wet his dry mouth. “If anyone heard those screams we could have more company, living or undead.”

  Priscus nodded. “Thank you, I froze for a second. I’m not used to seeing death.”

  Sergius fixed a grin to his face. “You never really get used to it. You just learn to pretend you’re used to it.”

  The two waited a full ten minutes before risking leaving the house. They moved through to the other side of the building and after making sure they wouldn’t be observed, climbed out. The streets remained quiet, the fight had obviously not attracted any attention. The two men moved quickly but carefully, Sergius wondered if the other pairs were faring as well.

  It took ten minutes of moving through empty streets, checking corners as they went, before they came across an active patrol. Priscus spotted them before Sergius did and thankfully before the patrol saw the two interlopers. They ducked down an alleyway and around the back of a row of houses, coming out behind the patrol. Sergius signalled for Priscus to duck down behind a low wall and they gave the guards the chance to move away.

  At the end of this street Priscus told Sergius they were nearing the cages and warehouses he and his friend had seen before fleeing Ostia the first time. They slowed to a creeping pace, aware of the sound of their footsteps and made their way into the area Priscus had been leading them toward. Before they saw the cages they began to hear a repetitive metallic clanging noise, quick and rhythmic.

  The two men slid down to crouching height and crawled up against a low wall. They peered over the top and saw the source of the metallic rhythm. A guard was walking along the side of a huge, iron-barred cage letting the flat of his gladius slap against each bar in turn. The captives in the cage were becoming more and more agitated by his presence and the noise.

  The cage held hundreds, maybe thousands of undead, it was hard to tell how many because only one side of the cage was visible from their vantage point. The Risen were crushed into the cage, almost unable to move. Ten guards that Sergius could see stood in various places around the cage.

  Very close to the cage was a large opening that seemed to slope down and away, dropping underground. If Sergius had his directions correct, the tunnel that he guessed led from the opening, went east, toward Rome.

  It wasn’t hard to guess what the plan for these creatures was, the tunnel explained everything. The Risen were to be driven toward Rome and somehow brought into conflict with Emperor Titus’ army. It would be devastating in the extreme. No army in the empire could hope to fight such a force, especially if caught unaware.

  “Hey, you!” A voice sounded behind them and Sergius turned to see the patrol they had seen earlier coming up behind them.

  “Fuck!” he spat under his breath. “Get ready to run, Priscus.”

  The older man drew a hunting knife from his belt and passed it from hand to hand a couple of times. Sergius stepped toward the pair of guards with his Gladius drawn, he sensed rather than heard Priscus stand behind him.

  The guards looked at each other and drew their swords in return. Sergius stepped into one of the guards and with the speed of youth, drew his sword up the inside of the man's thigh. It was a quick, killing stroke that a man as experienced as a praetorian guard should never have allowed through his defences. Blood poured from the wound in pulsing waves and the guard screamed in pain and rage.

  The second guard was on Sergius in an instant. His blow came in high and Sergius had to sidestep to avoid being sliced down the middle. He brought the hilt of his sword up and smashed the guard in the nose with it. Gouts of blood poured out over the man’s chin.

  Priscus lunged forward to drive his knife into the guard's neck but with amazing speed for an injured man, the guard twisted and sliced a deep gash into Priscus’ shoulder. Priscus dropped to the floor with a yell, Sergius took the chance to drive his sword up and through the guard's back as he attacked Priscus.

  Sergius reached forward and pulled Priscus to his feet, at the same time hearing shouts coming from the direction of the cage. The fight had not gone unnoticed and more guards were running toward the pair.

  “Quick, move!” Sergius yelled at the injured Priscus. The wound looked deep and nasty, the bearded man was losing a lot of blood. Sergius dragged him along, down between two low, flat roofed, rows of houses. As soon as they were out of sight of the pursuing guards Priscus started to slow down, obviously struggling.

  “No you don’t!” Sergius shouted at him. “Get up and run. I will not let you give in.” He half dragged and half led the wounded, bleeding man round first one corner and then more. They could still hear the voices of the men searching for them.

  Sergius was unsure which direction they were heading in now and was surprised to turn a further corner and find themselves at the back of the cage. He pulled Priscus to a stop, checking the way for guards but instead spotted three more undead, in the distance but heading in their direction. He looked for an escape route but the only path was back toward the area where they had fought the guards.

  Deciding to risk the living rather than face the dead, he pulled Priscus toward the far side of the cage, past the entrance to the tunnel. As they moved around the cage he saw the back of a guard who was watching for them, oblivious that they had circled round behind him.

  Sergius pushed Priscus toward the tunnel entrance. “Get down where the shadows make it darker. Wait until I lead him away and then try to get back to the meeting point. I will find you there, don’t you dare give up on me,” Sergius whispered the instructions into Priscus’ ear harshly. He wanted the message to get past the shock and pain the injury was causing him. The bearded man’s eyes seemed to clear with an effort and Sergius felt a glimmer of hope.

  Sergius watched Priscus stumble down into the darker part of the tunnel and stepped in behind the guard at the cage. So intent was the guard’s attention on the direction Sergius had run, that he was dead before he realised his mistake. Sergius’ dagger buried itself deep in his throat and blood soaked his hand as he withdrew it.

  A glance behind showed him that the undead had made a lot of ground on him while he dealt with Priscus and then the guard. He turned and jogged in the opposite direction, keeping a weary eye out for the guards, wanting to draw the danger from Priscus. The three did as he hoped and followed him back into the town. He just had to hope that Priscus would take his opportunity to make a break and head toward safety at the right time.

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  Darkness had fallen when Priscus woke inside the tunnel. No light showed through the slatted wooden roof. He felt weak and nauseated, he assumed it was through blood loss. He mouth was so dry that his throat hurt, he had an overwhelming urge to drink.

  At the far end of the tunnel he could see orange torch light. He pulled himself to his feet, his shoulder screaming in sickening pain. He fought hard not to vomit as his head began to spin. He tried flexing his hand but could manage no more than a faint twitch of his fingers.

  Leaning against the wall of the tunnel for a moment brought him back to some semblance of normality. He started to edge slowly toward the tunnel en
trance, careful not to go too far and step into the light.

  As he got closer to the entrance he began to hear voices. Someone was giving orders, other voices were answering but Priscus couldn’t make out the words. His ears had a ringing in them that he hadn’t noticed in the silence, more problems brought about by loss of blood, he guessed.

  He weighed up his options, giving serious consideration to simply stepping out into the light and hoping that if the guards out there didn’t help him, they would at least kill him quickly. His sense of self preservation, or maybe simply cowardice, prevented him from doing so. He couldn’t bring himself to walk out to almost certain doom. As injured as he was, there was still hope.

  There was really only one other choice, Sergius had said that he believed the tunnel led directly to Rome. He would take that chance and hope that he could escape at the other end. If he didn’t make it that far he could always just lay down in the dark and sleep himself to death.

  Another wave of sickness gripped his stomach, he fought not to lose any liquid, thirsty as he was. He turned and looked into the stygian darkness, fear gripping him and turning his bowels to water. He had learned long ago that there were no such things as monsters, more recently he had learned that there were. As he stumbled into the darkness, wounded and alone he remembered the boy he had been, lying in bed and seeing the shadows of monsters in every corner. At least this time there were no shadows, the darkness was too complete for that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Titus sat astride his chestnut mare and watched his men train. It always filled him with pride to see the effort with which his men readied themselves to fight for him. Countless hours of formation drills and changes went into what, sometimes, amounted to mere minutes on the battlefield. Of course, many times it was much longer, battles that had gone on for days. Men slaughtering men from dawn until sunset and then beginning again the next day. That was when endurance and discipline really showed their worth.

  Roman legionaries were not bigger or faster than the armies they had faced, and beaten, to win their empire. They just knew when to find that extra bit of effort, to keep going when the other man gave in. To fight on when it was easier to just submit and die. Many a victory and been snatched from the jaws of defeat by nothing more than the blood, sweat and sacrifice of men like those before him.

  He was about to ask them to sacrifice more, bleed more than they ever had before. He would ask them to take the City of Rome against an army that had prepared for their coming. He would ask them to fight an army of the undead in the shadow of the walls of Rome. It would not be easy, Titus knew what he was asking.

  His legions had done well against the Risen on the beach. They had slaughtered the undead monsters to the last man. The legions had used new formations and new tactics and they had worked, in the main. The cavalry, however, had found itself out matched and had taken enormous casualties. So much so that they had begged him to redeem themselves. They had come to him and told him they had new strategies they would like to try. Titus had agreed and he now waited to be shown the new manoeuvres the extraordinarii had devised.

  A huge space had been opened up outside the camp for the demonstration. A full cohort of men were standing ready off to one side. Titus would not let the men practice with live bait unless he was sure they had taken precautions.

  Live wasn’t exactly the right word for thirty undead, but the sentiment was true. The legions had spent time gathering and capturing Risen for practice. They trailed behind the legions on the march in specially adapted carts, now they would prove their worth, or not.

  The cart sat in the middle of a grass plain and one rider was ready to release its contents. His horse jigged and twitched, close as it was to the Risen. On a horn signal from the riders at the far end of the field the single horseman pulled the bolt from the cage door and rode away as it began to swing open.

  Slowly at first, as if they hadn’t realised they had been set free, the Risen clambered out of the cage. Titus watched with interest how they merely milled about until their attention was caught by the two riders shouting.

  Instantly the pack of undead began to move with purpose, as if something in their heads had been set alight. They moved up the field toward the riders as a single group. The legionaries that lined the field stayed hidden behind a wall of shields, not wanting to interrupt the practice but staying close by, in case of a mishap.

  The two riders set off toward the group, slowly at first. Titus had asked about the fact that the horses had panicked when faced with the creatures. He had been informed that the horses had been fine until they had become trapped amongst the creatures. At high speed the horses seemed to be up to their usual battlefield best.

  The riders remained close together, gathering speed so that they kept perfect pace with each other, the riders almost touching thighs. As they got within a hundred paces of the group of Risen they began to separate and Titus immediately saw the plan. He laughed out loud at the simplicity of what the extraordinarii were attempting. It wasn’t without danger, but Titus saw the chances of it working were really quite good.

  At fifty paces the horses were up to charging speed but the riders stayed close enough that they could have reached out and touched hands. At the last possible moment they separated and the chain that was attached to both saddles stretched out between them. The Risen were too slow to react to such fast moving targets and didn’t even have the speed to turn their heads in time to track the charging mounts.

  The chain hit hard at exactly the right height to put all of the force of the impact into the exposed heads. The group of Risen were devastated. Bodies tumbled to the ground, more than one of them actually headless as the chain had separated their heads from their necks. Titus tracked the roll and spin of a head that had long blonde hair, as it bounced across the field.

  There was a moment when the whole world seemed to hold its breath while the Risen were thrown off their feet and the watching men waited to see how many would get back to their feet. For a time nothing moved, then slowly a Risen began to get to his feet. A second undead followed his lead and a third, Titus began to suspect the exercise had been a failure but as the sixth risen got to his feet he was followed by no more. Twenty four Risen had been stopped by the chain and two horses. The men watching from behind their shields began to cheer loudly, Titus forgot himself for a moment and joined them with his hands stretched to the sky in triumph.

  The two riders slowly rode back together, gathering the chain between them as they did. In an impressive piece of horsemanship they turned in unison and made a second pass at the remaining Risen. They thundered toward the shaken remnants of the group like rocks in a landslide. Again the move was impeccable, the separation and attack perfectly timed. The loss on the part of the Risen was almost total this time.

  As the horses came to a halt further up the field, only one lone Risen was getting to his feet. The skin on its face and head was ragged from the impact with the chain and hard ground. Black fluid oozed from its head and down its chest and back. It held its head at a strange angle, as if its neck was broken.

  The two riders came back together and one of them passed the whole length of chain to his partner. After a word he headed back toward the last remaining foe and neatly took the top of his head off with a cavalry sword. The monster fell to the ground, still at last.

  The two riders joined back together and slowly trotted toward their emperor. Titus applauded them as they came within easy talking distance.

  “I am very impressed, that was wonderful,” he said with genuine delight in his voice. The two cavalrymen came to a halt before him and saluted. “You may well have turned the balance of this war in our favour with that piece of riding, I am deeply grateful.”

  The two riders both beamed with pride. The loss of horses on the beach had not been the fault of bad riding or cowardice but the chance to bring some glory back to the extraordinarii was exactly what they had hoped for.

  “How
many pairs, like you two, do we have?” Titus asked.

  “Every horse we have left has been practicing the manoeuvre, sir,” one of the riders answered, obviously thrilled to be addressed by the man he called emperor.

  “I believe we have a hundred head of horse left. Not a great number by any stretch but if they are as effective as you two were today, they may be enough to clean the walls of Rome of Risen. With that done we will have a clean shot at the murderer Otho.” Titus thought for a moment, to honour these two riders would be to ignore the rest of the unit. “Tell your men to raid the food stores and find the finest food and drink we have, I will dine with my cavalry tonight.”

  “Yes, sir!” the men chorused in a show of enthusiasm that might have been comical. Titus’ smile was genuine as he dismissed them and watched them ride to their unit in triumph. His heart was full of love for his men. They would fight for him and die without question, if he asked it of them. They were the body, bones and blood of the empire. He would crush Otho with them.

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  Garic flopped onto his bed and closed his eyes. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been pummelled into submission. The days on the wall were more tiring than any he could remember. If he had been asked, he would have said that butchering was a physical job. Carrying sides of meat and the constant chopping were good exercise, that was without question but the work he had been doing on the wall was another matter entirely. He was sure that, in the few days since the recruits had begun full days fighting the undead, he had lost weight. The belt he wore on his tunic was beginning to feel slack and Garic thought he might need to make a new hole in it before long. He wondered how long it would be before he was so slim that Atia and little Tulius would walk by and not recognise him.