Men of Bronze

by Scott Oden

  The skin between Barca's shoulder blades prickled; the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He spun to his left, sword extended, and felt his stomach tighten.

  A man hung against the wall, his body held erect by thick bronze spikes driven through his wrists and ankles. His crucified form had been savagely tortured, his limbs broken, his face and eyes ruined. Flames had seared away his hair and beard, and a mixture of blood and liquified fat seeped through ruptures in his charred skin. There was something familiar about him. Realization struck the Phoenician, a hammer that cracked his soul.

  The thing on the wall was Matthias ben Iesu.

  "Who did this to you?" Barca whispered, staring at the body of his friend. The Greeks, Barca reckoned. They must have discovered Matthias was aiding the Medjay and tortured him for information. But bow? Barca could not fathom it, but they knew he was in Memphis. Phanes would hunt him, a lethal game of cat and mouse. By all the gods! If that was the game he wanted, Barca would oblige him.

  Sickened, the Phoenician turned away, looking for something to cover the body with. He would have to pry the spikes out with his sword. After that, he would find Ithobaal and …

  "Barca!" a voice from the street bellowed, speaking Egyptian with a Greek accent.

  The Phoenician sprang from the bed chamber and peered out one of the windows overlooking the Street of the Chaldeans. Torches flared, reflecting off the polished armor of a squad of hoplites. More were pouring from the adjacent buildings. One man stood apart from the rest, his armor silver-inlaid.

  Phanes.

  "Your friend, the Judaean, was a man of remarkable valor. I couldn't tell if he spoke the truth when he said you had twenty more men with you. I only counted nineteen corpses in the bazaar. Oh, well. I'm afraid I had to get a bit … rough with him, in the end. I offer you one chance to save yourself. Swear allegiance to me, pledge your blade to my service, and you just might walk out of this with your hide intact! Time grows short! What is your answer?"

  So, that was it, then? Ithobaal and the others were dead, too. Dead because they trusted him. Barca bowed his head. In the afterworld, twenty new souls occupied the Scales of Justice, swinging the balance farther toward the jaws of damnation. Twenty new souls cried out for vengeance.

  To answer their call, Barca needed a way out. Anticipating his arrival, the Greeks removed the wooden stairs that led up to the rooftop terrace, leaving behind fragments only. The windows were too narrow for him to squeeze through. The back door?

  "Barca?"

  A quick glance revealed soldiers streaming toward the front of the house. Damn them! The Phoenician bolted down the stairs and hurtled for the back door, for the garden and the tangled alleys beyond. The sound of splintering wood brought him skidding to a halt. Over his shoulder, he watched as the front door exploded inward.

  Hoplites, silhouetted by the orange glow of torches, poured through the breach. There were four of them in the vanguard, shields held at eye level. Others crowded at their backs. They were armed with hardwood clubs instead of spears.

  Phanes wanted him alive.

  "It's over!" a hollow voice said. "Throw down your sword! We — " The hoplite never finished; he never knew what killed him.

  Something bloody, vengeful, and utterly inhuman raged from the dark recesses of Barca's soul, filling his veins with a lust for rich, frothy gore. The thing that seized control of his body, the Beast, thrived on pain. It thrived on carnage and chaos and bodies torn asunder. Its strength flooded his limbs. Barca loosed a savage howl as he threw himself on the hoplites. Their armor, their training, their discipline, all amounted to nothing in the face of the Phoenician's elemental fury. His blade licked out, slashing through bronze and bone. A head leaped skyward, riding a fountain of blood. In the tight confines of the doorway, the Greeks could not bring their clubs to bear; their shields clanged against the door frame, against one another, useless. Men staggered and fell back.

  Without losing stride, Barca turned from the thrashing hoplites and hurled himself at the rear door. He ducked his head, his body knotting into a compact mass of muscle and sinew as he struck shoulder first. The aged, dry wood blew apart under the impact, and Barca rolled cat-like to his feet, cursing.

  Soldiers were scaling the garden wall.

  There were too many of them. Barca whirled to his right. If he could make it to the top of the wall, he could snag the lower edge of the window and use it as a ladder up to the roof. Once atop the house, the Phoenician could escape across neighboring rooftops. A desperate gamble …

  Greeks pounded toward him. Shouts and cries grew in volume. A half-dozen steps and Barca bounded into the air, swinging onto the wall. He crouched there for a split second, ape-like, before flinging his scimitar up onto the roof. Powerful muscles drove his body after it. Barca leapt, twisting, catching the windowsill with his fingertips. He tottered there for an instant before the mud brick of the window casing crumbled under his weight. Arms flailing, Barca plummeted, unarmed, into the midst of the Greeks.

  The game was over. It was time to die. Barca resolved not to sell his life cheap.

  Men went down under his weight. He grabbed a helmet crest and slammed a bronze clad skull into the ground. A knee shattered under his crushing heel.

  "Back!" a voice roared above the din. "He's mine!"

  Barca sprang to his feet. Like well-heeled dogs the hoplites backed away, forming a circle. Lysistratis stepped forward, sheathed his sword, and methodically stripped off his armor.

  "I've heard of you, Phoenician! You're rumored to be the best fighter in Egypt, bar none. Faugh! A reputation gleaned fighting desert rats is no reputation at all! I'm willing to match my pure Spartan blood against the thin eastern piss flowing through your veins any day! Come! "

  Without bluff or bluster, Barca hurled himself at Lysistratis. Here were two savage fighters: one the scion of a warrior culture, the other born to it naturally, both evenly matched in height and size. Fists hammered flesh as the two danced together then sprang apart, their long shadows alien in the wan torchlight.

  In that instant of contact, Lysistratis encountered something that left him chilled and shaking. He encountered a man stronger and faster than himself. A flurry of punches rocked the Phoenician's head back; Barca's riposte shattered the Spartan's nose and very nearly broke his neck.

  Back and forth they went. Sweat and blood poured down the Spartan's face; his eyes burned with hate. No blow, no matter how powerful, could slow Barca's assault. He fought in a single-minded frenzy that would not abate until one of them lay broken and bleeding on the ground. It was not like fighting a man — it was like fighting a creature of elemental rage.

  In desperation, Lysistratis drew a knife from his belt.

  The timbre of the fight changed, then. No longer did Barca dart in and out, fists cocked and flying. He circled, wary, his weight shifting to the balls of his feet. His eyes narrowed to slits and murder danced in their dark depths.

  The end came after a moment's respite. A heartbeat passed as the two men glared at one another across the intervening space. Then their bodies were in motion once again. Jab. Block. Backpedal. Momentum carried them against the wall. Lysistratis slashed at Barca's face, a feint the Phoenician had to twist to avoid. The Spartan saw his opening and lunged.

  A slower man would have been impaled, but Barca wrenched his torso, drawing the Spartan into a close embrace. Lysistratis watched his blade rip through the Phoenician's side. In the same instant, Barca's iron-hard fist streaked toward his temple. That blow had the whole of Barca's weight behind it, and it connected with a sound like an eggshell crushed underfoot.

  It was the last sound Lysistratis of Sparta would ever hear. He flopped to the ground with the side of his head caved in.

  Barca drew a breath, clutching his side …

  … and reeled as something smashed into the base of his skull. He went to his knees. Greeks swarmed over him. A foot lashed out, catching him under the chin. The sky wheeled as the ground
rushed up to meet him. Barca struggled at the edge of the abyss. A ring of faces, cold and merciless, watched as the Beast fled, watched as the darkness rose up to envelope him …

  7

  City of the dead

  Torchlight danced, striping the walls of the tomb orange and black, animating the exquisite carvings. The spacious burial chamber, a sign of great wealth, held only a granite sarcophagus. Grave goods should have littered the floor: furniture, statuary, jars of precious oils and wines, jewelry, cosmetics, figurines of servants and scribes. Everything the deceased needed to continue a pleasurable existence in the afterlife would have been provided. But, the allure of such wealth lying unguarded proved too much for some men to bear. Over the centuries, robbers took everything they could carry, leaving only the sarcophagus and a few shards of broken pottery.

  And the carvings on the walls.

  Three men sat in conclave, watching Menkaura in rapt silence. The old man strolled the perimeter of the chamber, studying the reliefs, the true wealth of the tomb. Scenes from the Book of the Dead were mixed with details from the life of the man interred here, an architect of some note. With a finger, Menkaura traced the hieroglyphs:

  Homage to thee, Osiris, Lord of eternity …

  One of the men cleared his throat, a nervous gesture amplified by the close confines of the tomb. Menkaura turned and met their curious stares.

  "Why have you called us here?" said Ibebi. He was a tall man, broad of shoulder, with skin the color of dark copper. His duties as master of the royal wharfs kept him impossibly lean and fit for a man of his years. He glanced around at his companions. "It could mean our heads if the Greeks find us!"

  "We have lived in the shadow of these Hellenes for far too long," Menkaura said. Torchlight played across his features, giving his age-worn face an unmerciful cast. "They strut through the streets as if they rule Egypt, not serve her. Their arrogance sickens me, and tonight it comes to an end."

  Word of the massacre had reached Menkaura, who bided his time among the tombs and monuments of the necropolis at Saqqara. The word, borne by his young kinsmen, was one of outrage. The Greeks had shot arrows into the crowded bazaar! A seething wave of righteous anger rolled through Memphis. Men clamored for insurrection, shook their fists and spat at the mention of the Greeks.

  "What of the Phoenician?" Menkaura asked.

  Ibebi shook his head. "They captured him alive."

  "We must do this alone, then."

  "What are you saying?" This from Hekaib, who served as supervisor of the royal building projects. He was a squat fellow, spindly-legged with a grotesque swag-belly. "We're no match for the Greeks! "

  "Hekaib is right. We're old men, Menkaura," said the merchant, Amenmose. He wore his wealth like a badge of honor: golden pectoral, kilt of the finest linen, gemstones glittering in the hilt of his knife. Despite this display of cultured softness, his scarred body yet retained its strength, its flexibility. Thick silver eyebrows, flecked with black, knotted in a troubled scowl. "Our days of glory are long past. The Greeks have superior arms, superior training, and superior numbers. Even in my prime I would have been hesitant. ."

  "In your prime, I watched you cut through the men of Cyrene like a scythe through grain!" Menkaura said. "And you, Hekaib, did you not fight in the vanguard at Sardis? And was it not you, Ibebi, who led the first wave of marines against the Libyan pirates of the Plinthine Gulf? Yes, we are old men, but tales of our doings still stir the blood of our younger kin — our nephews, our cousins, our sons. They watched the massacre in the Square of Deshur. Look in their eyes, and you'll see a desire for justice. With us or without us, they will fight. Without us, they will die."

  Menkaura let that sink in.

  "My son's wife," Ibebi hissed, "was in Deshur. She took an arrow in the back. She likely won't live through another night. Her brothers are ready to fight, as are my sons. Menkaura's right. They need hands guiding them that have felt spear shafts and sword hilts before."

  Hekaib frowned. "At Sardis, we fought to preserve an alliance I did not understand. We were willing to die for the homes of our allies. Can I do less for my own home?" He nodded at Menkaura. "I will do what I can."

  Amenmose dismissed them with a wave. "Given time, the Greeks will go away, just as the Assyrians did."

  Menkaura shook his head. "No, my friend. Given time, the Greeks will destroy all we hold dear."

  "Can you be sure of this, Menkaura, or do you give voice to your grief?"

  The old general bowed his head. "My grief is boundless, Amenmose. My son, your friend, did not deserve to die, not like that. Though as expansive as my grief is, my outrage will not be denied."

  Amenmose hedged. "What chance do we have without the Phoenician? If they can take him — him! — what chance would a gaggle of old men have?"

  "True, the Phoenician is a killer like no other. He saved my life, I owe him that, but he saved me for his own purposes. If death is his portion, then so be it. I will mourn him. Yet, the Phoenician is one man. We," Menkaura's gesture encompassed the tomb and beyond, "are a nation. Two thousand Greeks cannot stop a nation, Amenmose. The choice is yours. Will you stand with us?"

  Amenmose folded his arms across his chest, his head bowed in thought. "If we do this thing and fail, we will be hunted men, or dead. I have not worked my entire life only to lose everything at the end."

  "When the Greeks take everything, Amenmose, will you be better off, or worse?" Menkaura leaned across the sarcophagus, towering over the merchant. "When they drag your daughters off to slake their lusts, will you be better off, or worse? When your grandsons are castrated and sent to service a Greek tyrant, will you be better off, or worse? There are no guarantees in this, Amenmose. None. We all stand to lose our lives, and more. But what do we stand to lose under Phanes' thumb?"

  Amenmose smiled wearily. "You've not lost your gift for the game, have you my old friend? I will stand with you, though I do so with a heavy heart."

  Menkaura straightened. His eyes shone like glittering onyx. "Then it is decided. Return to your homes and spread the word, but silently. Ibebi, we will need weapons; spears, swords, whatever you can get your hands on. Hekaib, from you I need intelligence, anything your long ears can discover about the Greeks — their names, their families, their whores. Amenmose, you and I will recruit fighters from the young men, from the old veterans, and from those who have had their fill of Greek arrogance."

  Menkaura knelt behind the sarcophagus. He moved aside a sand-colored tarp and uncovered a cache of swords, antique sickle blades gleaming in the torchlight. He tossed one to each man. Ibebi ran an appraising hand over the tarnished bronze. Hekaib caught his sword with more grace than his stunted frame implied. He stared at it like a long lost friend. Amenmose shook his head sadly and lay his across his knee. They looked to Menkaura.

  "Let them fear us for a change!"

  At first, there was nothing but darkness …

  His senses returned slowly, in small increments, like a blind, deaf mute inching his way from oblivion's edge. He was aware of voices, of the smell of charred wood, and of a fiery pain lancing through his side. Something rattled in the darkness, and he winced as a cool rag touched his fevered brow. He tasted blood; his limbs felt like granite.

  Faces welled and ebbed in the darkness. Matthias, tortured and screaming. Ithobaal, writhing in gut-shot agony. Each of his men in turn, eyes rolling back in their skulls, tongues swollen and protruding. Barca, they howled. Barca, they cursed. Barca, they pleaded.

  "Barca."

  Neferu, clad in gauzy silks, floated through the blackness. Her face — thin and pointed — bore a look of indescribable ecstacy. Dark hair floated around her like the snaky locks of a Gorgon. Ruby lips parted; her tongue darted out. Barca, she panted. Barca, she moaned. Barca, she screamed.

  "Barca! "

  Hasdrabal Barca stirred, feeling dried reeds crunch under his naked shoulders. His eyes fluttered open. He squinted. The light from a guttering torch knifed through
his brain.

  "Ah, the sleeper awakes!"

  The voice came from nearby, distorted, hollow. He tried to struggle into a sitting position but could not move. His arms and legs were like wood. He tried to remember. Tried …

  "M-Matthias …?" he grunted, his tongue thick. He rolled to the side and spat blood.

  Derisive laughter. "No, not Matthias. I'm afraid your Jew didn't make it." A pause. "Help him up."

  Barca felt hands under his shoulders, levering him into a sitting position, his back against a wall. The room was hazy, indistinct. Colors swam before his eyes. He clenched his teeth and tried to focus.

  Slowly, the room came in to view.

  In the dim torchlight, Barca could make out few details. The walls were yellow sandstone, undecorated, the blocks rough and unfinished. Reeds carpeted the dirt floor. A door lay across from him, its stout timbers bound in green and pitted bronze, and cool air flowed from its barred grate. A man stood on either side of him; a third sat to the left of the door, his cuirass glittering in the uneven light. The smile on his lips dripped mockery. Phanes.

  "I'm surprised you didn't kill me," Barca croaked. "If our situations were reversed, you'd be waking up in hell right now, like that Spartan bitch of yours."

  Phanes gestured magnanimously. "That's where we differ, Phoenician. In my eyes it's not personal. Only conflicting senses. Your sense of duty conflicted with my sense of ambition. Ambition won, it's as simple as that. Lysistratis," Phanes sighed. "Lysistratis was a victim of your duty, my ambition. He will be missed."

  Barca glared at the Greek. "You've not won," he said, "so long as I have breath in my lungs."

  Phanes chuckled, propping his chin on his fist. "When I see you, I'm reminded of a dog my father had when I was a boy, on our farm in Halicarnassus. It was a scruffy, little black hound; easily the most stubborn beast I have ever seen. It had this patch of ground on a hilltop, at the base of an ancient oak, where it liked to take naps. Zeus have mercy on any poor soul foolish enough to want to sit in that hound's spot. Its hackles would rise, and it would howl and bay as though you'd put the bronze to it.