Rise and Fall

by Michael Whitehead

  The second fight was a heavy-weight affair. The speaker announced the four fighters as they stepped out into the sunshine. The light reflected off their masks and polished armour and they walked forward to salute the emperor. Much bigger and more heavily muscled than the two previous fighters, all four of them were a fearsome sight. They separated into two pairs and faced off in the center of the arena. One pair were swinging nets and held tridents, long reach weapons, designed to keep their opponents at bay while they tried to tangle their limbs.

  The second pair held short-handled maces. Heavy iron balls dangled on lengths of chain from dark wooden handles. Vitus looked at the ease with which the big men carried the weapons with a little awe. He wasn’t sure he could manage to hold such a weight for long, let alone use it to bludgeon an opponent.

  The fight would be one of tactics and brutality. The net team would be hard pushed if they allowed the mace team inside their defences. They would have the upper hand as long as they could keep their foes at a distance but a trident was only dangerous as long as your enemy was on the far side of the metal spikes.

  The two teams circled each other with one swinging their nets in wide slow arcs, ready to throw them out at the first sign that they could tie up the other team. The maces hung loose in the grip of the second pair.

  The crowd began to lose patience quickly, wanting to see more blood. They did not care for tactics and began to boo the fighters and throw objects into the ring. Finally one of the mace team stepped too close and as his opponent threw out his net, the mace fighter slipped on the sand. The net caught on his armour and pulled him forward as he slipped.

  The second member of the net team lunged in with his trident, spearing the fallen man in the shoulder. The blow glanced off a heavy pauldron that the man on the floor wore. Despite the shoulder armour, a thick line of blood began to flow down his exposed chest.

  Seeing his partner fall, the second mace fighter stepped in and swung his weapon underarm, up into the elbow of the man who had speared his friend. The sound was sickening, even from Vitus’ position in the senator's box and the arm bent almost double as the elbow joint snapped. The injured man fell to the sand, writhing in agony.

  With two men on the sand, the remaining fighters squared up to each other. Vitus could see the mace fighter playing for time, keeping his distance. He was giving his partner time to get himself untangled from the net that tied up his feet.

  The trident fighter inched forward, swinging his net high above his head and keeping his trident low to protect his body. The crowd bayed for more blood. Their booing of moments before forgotten at the sight of blood and shattered bodies.

  It happened so quickly that even the watching crowd hardly had time to react. The men on the arena floor were given almost no chance at all. One second the two men were locked in a life and death struggle with each other, the next a pair of trapdoors had dropped open in the sand and Risen had started to leap out at them. There was no climbing, the undead launched themselves at the fighters from their unseen, underground cages.

  The standing mace fighter went down almost instantly. His back was to one of the trapdoors and three Risen were on him before he even knew they were there. They bit deep into the flesh on his back and legs, dragging him down in a mass of screams and blood.

  The crowd reacted with howls of ecstasy and anger, leaping to their feet to get a better view of the creatures that had haunted their nightmares and daydreams. Vitus saw Otho stand up from his seat and applaud with his hands held high above his head. The senators stood and reacted with shock and anger at the spectacle.

  The net fighter reacted with a speed that saved his life and that of the man on the floor. He threw his net almost blindly at three Risen, as they came from the second pit and at the same time stumbled backward far enough to land on the sand, behind the tangled man that was already there.

  The net caught two of the undead in its heavy cords and dragged them toward each other in a clumsy struggle of limbs. The third came on but changed its target as it saw the gladiator who frantically tried to untie his feet from the net that held them.

  His new victim had the presence of mind to forget his feet and caught the leaping, biting monster by the throat, inches from his face. The blackened mouth snapped and snarled at him and the dead eyes glared into his.

  His struggle was cut short when the weight of the Risen rolled off him. The creature fell to the sand with three holes in the side of its head. The trident wielder stood over them both before reaching down and helping the tangled man to his feet. The first three Risen were losing interest with their first victim, being distracted by the noise from the crowd. Two of them turned toward the remaining gladiators, while the third headed toward something he had seen in the crowd.

  The two fighters stood slightly apart to give each other room to use their weapons. The first undead attacker leapt at the large man holding the trident. His years of training took over and he dropped to one knee, bracing the weapon against the floor. The three spikes took the Risen under the chin and drove hard into its skull. The monster went limp in mid jump and the weight of its prone body snapped the handle of the weapon. The jagged end of the shaft skewered the kneeling man in the calf but he rolled away before the falling creature could land on top of him.

  Vitus watched as archers appeared on the arena wall and took aim at the wandering undead. It seemed to be confused by the noise that came from the baying crowd and wandered aimlessly, lacking a destination. The archers drew and loosed their arrows and the staggering creature was ended.

  The two Risen caught in the net were still unable to free themselves and were adding a little humour to the bloody show. They stumbled into each other and thrashed under the net. The two gladiators ignored them in favour of the final dangerous enemy.

  The mace fighter did not try to attack the creature's head directly, as his weapon was too unwieldy for the job. Instead, as the Risen rushed and jumped, he stepped to one side and swung the heavy iron ball at its feet. The weight of the attack caused the undead to spin in the air and land hard, breaking its neck. The gladiator then stepped forward and destroyed its skull with the mace in his hand.

  The two men were bloody and shaken but turned to the tangled pair under the net. With an efficiency born of years of experience, they dispatched the remaining two Risen. The crowd were on their feet screaming with blood lust and excitement and the two men saluted the crowd from the center of the sand.

  They turned to the Emperor’s box and saluted Otho as he sat looking down at them. The emperor stood and raised his arms above his head to silence the people. Vitus was shocked at the control he seemed to have over them, as the noise first lowered and then disappeared.

  “These men have demonstrated the superiority of this empire over the undead creatures.” The crowd let out a brief but loud cheer before Otho continued. “This fight is not over though. One man from each side still stands.” There was shocked silence from the thousands of watching people. “I will leave it up to you, the people of Rome. Shall we let them both walk out of the arena alive for their valiant efforts today or shall we command them to continue fighting.”

  Vitus watched the two men on the sand. They were bloody and exhausted by the brief but violent struggle with the undead. Neither man looked away from the emperor, however. Respect was everything at times like this, Otho could be merciful or cruel and his perception of the two men could sway his choice of how to act.

  He waited for the crowd to build to a crescendo of noise before raising his hands once more. A hush fell as they waited to see if the two fighters would live or fight on. Otho let the moment hold for a moment before raising his thumb and allowing the men to leave with their lives.

  He turned to the people and shouted, “Let it not be said that I do not know how to be merciful. Those men fought well today and I will allow them to fight again.” The crowd erupted in applause and cheering and Vitus wondered if the fight for Rome wasn’t already won.
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  Chapter Ten

  The whole of Rome lay before the men on the wall but not one of them turned to look at the city. The drop at their feet was six times the height of the tallest of them. In front of them a constant fight was taking place between a unit of eight legionaries and a slow but constant stream of undead attackers. As one Risen went down to a blade or a bludgeon, a new one would appear from outside the wall to take his place.

  Garic, being closest to the outside edge, looked out and immediately regretted it. A sea of undead stretched out, far from the wall. An uncountable number of flesh hungry killers with nothing but the prey on the other side of the wall on their minds.

  A legionary stepped forward, toward the outer edge of the wall and cleaved the skull of a woman as she gained the top of the wall. It was quick efficient killing, giving her no time to find her feet before he struck. Further down the wall, a second man was wielding an iron bar with which he clubbed at anything that reached the top.

  Garic looked out once more at the sea of dead faces down below them and his heart sank at the enormity of the task. This fight would go on day and night until one side or the other was completely wiped out. There was a line in the sand that the Risen could not be allowed to cross. If they gained a hold on the city, all was lost.

  His musing was interrupted by a young guard, who stepped back into Garic as he swung at an undead child that had sprung over the edge of the wall. His blade cleaved the young girl's face in two, leaving a sodden mass of bone and flesh in its wake.

  “Okay, you’ve seen enough for now,” Centurion Horatius said from Garic’s right, “make your way back down into the yard, I will speak to you before you start your training.”

  The men filed off the wall and down into the courtyard that was now their home. As they made their way down, Garic looked across at the Colosseum and wished he could have been at the opening games. The noise from the crowd could clearly be heard in the distance. They made ill-formed ranks and waited for the centurion to speak.

  “You are not legionaries. You will never be legionaries. I look at you and I weep for this city. You have seen the fight that is taking place above our heads. It is a fight we will eventually lose. The enemy will not tire and he will not despair. He will keep coming until he has what he wants. Your families and friends and the people of this city will be crushed under the weight of that undead army outside.” He looked round at them all. Garic tried to stand tall but his heart was too heavy to manage it.

  “You are in a privileged position. Men like you are being formed into units all around the city. You men have been chosen to protect the walls that keep us all safe. Every woman, man and child that lives another day longer, will do so because of you. Every mother that tucks her children into bed, will do so because you kept them all safe.” The men in the line began to shuffle and fidget as he spoke. “You will be trained and you will go up onto that wall to fight. How well you train will decide how long you live. If you fall, there will be men to replace you but not for long. We can kill hundreds of those monsters out there for every one of our men and still lose this fight.”

  The centurion walked slowly in front of the men and stopped in front of a man at the far end of the line from Garic. “Do you have a family at home?” he asked.

  “Yes, centurion. A wife and two children,” the man answered, sounding nervous.

  “Do you miss them? Do you want to go home to them?” asked the officer, looking sympathetic.

  “Yes, centurion,” came the reply once more.

  “Forget it. Put it out of your mind. You live here now. You eat, you sleep and you fight here. By doing so you will keep your families and children alive for longer than you would otherwise do by being at home with them. I warn you now, put them out of your mind and keep them out. If you go up onto that wall with thoughts for anything but those dirty, murdering animals out there, you will die in seconds. If you allow your mind to wonder, you are finished. Worse than that, you will cause the deaths of those who fight with you.”

  As he finished talking there was an enormous cheer from inside the arena that both gladdened and broke Garic's heart. He had made the decision once before to risk his life in order to protect his family and now he found himself in that position again. True, the choice had not been his but he would not shame himself by turning his back on the duty before him. Lee would have informed Praetor Domitius or Vitus by now and Garic was sure his family would be taken care of. It saddened him to think of not being there to eat with Atia or to tuck little Tulius into bed tonight but if that was his sacrifice, then so be it.

  Centurion Horatius continued as he paced back and forth before them. His massive chest, made bigger by his chest plate, heaved up and down as he moved.

  “You will begin training tomorrow. Get a good meal inside you and a good night's sleep. Tomorrow most of you will work harder than you ever have in your lives.” With this said, he called over a legionary and gave the man instructions that the men in the line could not hear. The legionary nodded and walked toward the waiting line.

  “Follow me,” the legionary said in a bored, almost contemptuous drawl. The men filed after the soldier in silence, with heads bowed. He led them into a low building that contained a dozen small rooms, with two beds in each room. The legionary walked along the row, pointing in turn and saying, “You two, next two”, as he reached each room.

  Garic found himself following the dark skinned man he had first seen in the cart, into a room. He said nothing for a minute, just sitting on one of the beds and putting his head into his hands. The last twenty four hours had seen him ripped from the street into the back of a cart, torn from his life and told he would be made to fight the undead on the walls of Rome. It had been enough to test any man and he felt like crying.

  A heavy hand rested on his shoulder and he looked up to see his new roommate looking down on him.

  “If you despair already then you will never survive this,” the big man said.

  “Not despair, just tiredness,” Garic answered, looking up from the cradle of his fingers. It was the truth, weariness was overtaking him as the day began to map itself across his mind. “I’m Garic," he said to his roommate and held out his hand.

  “Hakor,” said the heavily muscled man, taking Garic’s grip. “I wish we could have met in better times my new friend.”

  “If only,” Garic said. “What brought you to Rome, Hakor?”

  The dark skinned man looked at Garic as if weighing his trust in the butcher. After a while he laughed to himself. “Trouble,” he said. “I was a slave on an estate outside Rome before all of this started. I was too much trouble for my master and he was too much of a good man to beat me into submission. I was brought here to be sold at market but the slaver who was to sell me decided to hold on to his stock after the gates were closed. The prices dropped too much, you see. Then, this morning, the guards turned up and confiscated us all.”

  Garic shook his head in amazement. “That is some bad luck you’ve had Hakor. It’s a wonder you are still smiling.”

  “Luck is nothing but chance that we choose to believe was sent to us personally. I found out yesterday that the farm I was sold from was destroyed by the undead a couple of days after I was brought to Rome. We never know which is our luckiest, or unluckiest day. If I hadn’t come to Rome, I would now almost certainly be dead. Or maybe I would have survived and instead I will die on the wall tomorrow. There is no way of knowing.” Hakor smiled a thin but warm smile, his smooth skin wrinkling as he did.

  “How did a slave become so wise?” Garic asked with a chuckle.

  “They don’t take away our minds when they put us in chains, Garic. In some cases that is a curse but in mine, it helped me remain hopeful.”

  The two men lapsed into silence as they sat in the room that was now their home. Two men from different worlds, now tasked with the same job. Garic lay back and laced his hands behind his head. His family would know what had happened by now, he had to trust that hi
s friends would take care of them. He was sure they would.

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  The forest was silent and still. Regulus looked about him with growing familiarity. The trees reached for him with prying hands but he brushed them aside. His bare feet found the path to the hut, even as his knees sank into the damp mist that shrouded the ground. The sense of evil that permeated the air clawed at his mind as he came closer to his destination.

  The silence was stifling as he found the clearing and saw the hut. Blood pooled at the base of the walls as it sweat from the blackened wood. Green and black mould grew under the eaves of the roof and boiled, as if heated.

  A familiar laugh filled his head as he tried to step before the building. “Back again my Roman friend.” It wasn’t a question. “You are beginning to intrigue me, boy.”

  Regulus tried to still the rapid beating of his heart as he felt the voice grip his mind. It was like thick sap filling his head, slowing his thoughts. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. Slowly, he felt his thoughts become his own once more.

  “Such power!” the voice said. “Oh, the things we could do together, boy.”

  “Tell me who you are,” Regulus demanded.

  “It is still not the time for such things, Regulus. Patience,” the voice said. “Why have you returned?”

  “I want to see what happened here,” Regulus answered, against his will, the words ripped from his mind.

  “To what end? You can’t change what has passed. The damage is done. This is a place of power, you are helpless here.”