Turning, Balbus scanned the scene. In return for a single bruise, he had killed one, incapacitated another and left the third stunned and shaking on the floor. No others around. And Fronto kept telling him he was getting old!
Casually, he ripped the gladius from the dead man's neck and strode over to where the slinger was crouching, trying to stop his world spinning before attempting to rise.
He would never rise again.
Balbus grabbed his hair, lifting his head to face upwards and then calmly cut his throat from ear to ear. The man wheezed and bubbled as the blood fountained out onto the dusty earth and the older soldier let go and stepped back, trying not to become coated with any more gore than necessary.
All three. With a nod of satisfaction he turned, ignoring the wailing of the man who was still trying to dislodge the dagger from his eye. With a shrug he consigned the pugio to the 'lost' category and stepped a few paces down the hill.
Squinting, he tried to focus on the far side of the fumarole-strewn ground. It was with a mix of satisfaction and regret that he spotted the man who had tried to circle and entrap him running for the Puteoli road and accelerating with every pace. Acrab - the Syrian? - was leaving just in time.
The only activity remaining - barring the screaming of the wounded man behind him - was a vague shape of men deep in the central mudpool area. The others were fighting off the rest, then.
With a deep breath, Balbus shifted his grip on his sword and strode towards the low-hanging white cloud.
* * * * *
Masgava was comfortable with his lot. Three men was a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. He had once killed five in one fight in the arena at Thuburbo Minus, and had come away with only three stitched wounds. His two companions he wasn't so sure about. While they were good men and clearly fighters by trade and experience, a soldier was not trained the same way as a gladiator. They were taught to rely on formations and the support of their comrades.
The big Numidian parried a clumsy sica thrust with his own longer sword and brought his short-handled axe up, twisting it to trap the enemy blade. With a quick jerk downwards he used his two weapons to shatter the man's sica.
The move left him open to the others, but they were predictable - unimaginative fighters. As the pair lunged at him he side-stepped, driving his bulk into the warrior with the broken sword, and the other two narrowly avoided driving their weapons into each other. Content that he was in control of the fight, Masgava risked a glance sideways at the others.
Palmatus was struggling, but still in control. He had managed to force one of his opponents to drop his small circular shield - looked like he'd broken the man's arm - and the warrior was fighting on half-heartedly, but the other was still in good condition and seemed to be pushing the former legionary backwards.
Galronus was faring little better. The two men on him were working concertedly, taking turns to force the Gaul onto the defensive while the other made a lunge for some unprotected part. The Remi noble was managing to fight off each attack and had even managed to draw blood on them in a couple of places, but he was clearly tiring.
A movement out of the corner of Masgava's eye caught his attention and without even looking round, he lashed out backwards with his foot, catching his would-be killer in the crotch and making him double over.
A blade slashed his upper arm - just a decorative line among the network of scars - but Masgava stepped back to reposition. Served him right for getting distracted.
The man who wielded now only a stub of jagged broken sword had gripped it in both fists in an overhand position and raised it in front of him, looking for an opportunity to drive it into any ebony flesh that came available.
With an almost negligent laugh, Masgava turned and swung the axe, rear facing. The air rushed along the blade as the leading edge - a two-finger-width haft of ash - slammed into the broken blade end on. The man's hands and the weapon in them were slammed back and the rounded pommel of the broken sword smashed into the man's forehead with an audible cracking noise. The killer's eyes turned humorously inward and he dropped like a stone.
Masgava instinctively ducked from the waist as a blade whistled through the air at chest height. Turning, he grinned at the two men facing him who took a nervous step backwards, one of them still gripping his aching crotch with his free hand. The pair looked at one another, perhaps for support, and then shifted their grip on their weapons and took a single deliberate pace forwards. Masgava hooked one of his boots into the dry mud and dust at his feet and waited. Sure enough, the two men leapt at the same time. The Numidian brought his foot up and showered them both with choking, blinding dust and mud.
As they floundered and fell forwards, coughing and blinking, the gladiator casually chopped down with his axe and cut through the neck of one. The blade was not quite large enough to completely sever the appendage, but the body slumped to the ground with the head at an odd angle. The remaining man backed away, wiping his eyes desperately.
Once more, Masgava took the opportunity to check on his friends. Both were down to one opponent, and both the enemy were wounded, but Galronus' left arm was hanging limp at his side, blood coursing down it in torrents from the shoulder. Palmatus' right leg was shaking, almost buckling, and soaked a dark red with blood from some fairly unpleasant wound. He would have to be careful else he might end up prone.
Well, when he was finished with this cretin, Masgava would go and help the others.
He turned back to the remaining man only just in time to jerk his head to one side. The man had thrown a dagger and Masgava felt the blade scrape along his temple and skull before it disappeared off into the distance with a muddy splat.
By the time he had recovered from his sudden unplanned defensive move, he turned back just in time to see the man running at him, shoulder first, intent on knocking him flat, sword back and ready to swing once the big Numidian was unbalanced.
Masgava almost laughed as he simply stepped aside and let the man's momentum carry him on and into the mud pool beyond where he tipped, yelling, into the boiling gloop. The third man had been dealt with, but Masgava had not the leisure to watch the poor fool boil. Instead he looked down at a sudden pain only to realise that the man had actually succeeded with that swung blade as he passed. With a grimace and biting down on his lip, Masgava dropped his weapons, reached down to his belly and gripped the bottom lip of his wide wound with his fingers, pulling the sheared flesh up to contain the loops of bowel that were sliding around ready to fall out.
Damn it!
With the single-mindedness of a man who had cheated death a hundred times, and with gritted teeth against the agony of the wound, Masgava lifted the flap of his stomach flesh outwards and peered into the hole in his gut.
He smiled. Miraculously he could see no real internal damage. It had simply been a lucky glancing blow. With grinding teeth and tears of pain welling in his eyes, he pulled the lips of the wound together and held his innards inside.
There was a scream nearby, but he could not spare the time to check what was happening with the other two.
"Jove!" said a wheezy, tired voice. The big Numidian looked up at the invocation to see the blood-spattered figure of Balbus striding towards him with sword in hand.
"Lucky blow."
Balbus shook his head. "A belly wound." His face was a picture of concern. Such wounds were usually the worst for a warrior. It could take days to die and the pain would be intense the whole time. Masgava took a deep, shuddering breath.
"I need your help."
"You have it." Balbus glanced at the others but seemed satisfied with what he saw.
"I will open the wound and I need you to run your hands along the tube and look for cuts. I think it is intact, but I need to be sure."
Balbus went pale. "What?"
"Check for interior damage. If my gut is whole it will heal and I will live. If not, I want you to give me a warrior's death here and now. I do not want to live out my final hours on a
table stinking of blood and shit and writhing in pain. Will you check?"
Balbus stared and then nodded. What else could he do?
"And then" the big man added, "I will need help pinning the wound together."
Behind them, Galronus and Palmatus, the latter limping and staggering, the former with a swinging useless arm, closed together on the one remaining man. The criminal turned to run - a fatal mistake.
* * * * *
Fronto backed away from the stairs, listening to the creepy drag - thump - drag - thump of the wounded wraith's feet on the steps. Distantly, he could hear the clatter of Berengarus' own passage through the building and up the wooden staircase at the house's far side.
He had perhaps a count of a hundred before the big barbarian found him, and that meant a count of a hundred to deal with the living-dead thing that was rising up the staircase to find him.
Tulchulchur was a murderer rather than a warrior. He relied on stealth and control, his victims taken by surprise and then restrained. Fronto was neither of those things, so it should hardly be a challenge.
Moving around the wooden floor, he positioned himself a little way back from the head of the stairs, gladius in hand and ready for the fight. With a smile of satisfaction he waited. A long moment later - a moment filled with that eerie 'drag - thump' - the smashed, glistening, crimson head of the wounded ghoul appeared over the edge of the stairs, the misshapen eye swivelling in an attempt to join its partner as the monster of Vipsul locked his gaze on Fronto.
"Caaaaan't kiiiiillllll meeeeee forrrr iiiiii kiiiiill yoooouuuuu" it hissed as it limped up the last step.
"I beg to differ" snarled Fronto flexing the knuckles of his free hand.
With that horrible dead-thing grin, Tulchulchur limped forwards, straight at him.
Fronto frowned. It was simply too easy. Something must be going on that he was not yet aware of? A quick scan revealed nothing else, though - the sounds of Berengarus' footsteps put him two rooms away yet at least. With a strange feeling of uncertainty, he put his weight onto the ball of his right foot and lunged forward. The wraith didn't even raise his knife to try and block the blow. Fronto's gladius sank into the flapping tattered robes and he felt it bite into something resistant. When he yanked the blade back out there was no blood. Fronto stared in confusion.
The ghoul grinned and simply let go of the knife, allowing it to fall away to the floor. Reaching into his tattered clothing, his hands closed on something. As the woollen shreds were swept aside, Fronto noted the bull-hide chest piece that had protected the thing and realised that his blow had merely penetrated the armour and likely only grazed the ribs of the man beneath at best.
But it was not the bull hide to which Tulchulchur's hands had gone. They came out balled into fists and pressed tightly together in an almost penitent fashion. Fronto frowned as he took a pace backwards. Whatever the lunatic had in those closed hands, it could hardly stand up against a gladius. The former legate's sword arm lanced out again, this time for the thing's maimed skull. The monster tried to tip his head to one side out of the way. He was surprisingly fast, but these days Fronto was faster. The sword's edge ripped through Tulchulchur's cheek, actually severing the connector for the lower jaw and then slicing his ear in half, grating against skull.
The wraith's jaw unhinged and hung in a horrible lop-sided grin. Still the thing came on. Fronto tried to take another step back, but slammed up against the wall.
Tulchulchur gave a strange, keening giggle that bubbled the open maw with blood and leapt at him.
Again, Fronto lashed out with his gladius and this time the blade bit deep into the ghoul's chest, meeting resistance at the bull-hide before piercing it and pushing through between the ribs and into the centre of the body. There was a momentary flicker of pain - or possibly irritation? - in the creature's strange gaze, and yet still it came on as though the wound were a mere scratch as if to embrace him in death.
In that moment Fronto found the hilt of his own gladius pressed up against him, still in his enemy's chest as the thing grabbed for his head. The monster was on him then, the smell of stale sweat, poison breath and mildewed decay mixed with fresh blood all about it. Even as the life was clearly fleeing the maimed, unpleasant thing, its hands suddenly flicked out and up.
Fronto's eyes widened as the throttling cord looped around his neck and the hands pulled tight. Tulchulchur still had a surprising amount of strength, yet it was clearly ebbing. Fronto could see the life departing the man's eyes in mere heartbeats as his own hands came up, abandoning his sword hilt in the desperate attempt to alleviate the choking pressure of the cord. With relief, he managed to hook two fingers inside the loop and prevent it from slicing into his windpipe.
"Weeee gooooo togettttthhhhhheerrrrr" the thing hissed in his face, spitting blood and bile.
The wraith was dying but, with the ends of the garrotte looped and tied around his wrists, the falling weight of the slumping killer was simply adding all the more pressure to the garrotte. Fronto felt the first rising of panic. For all his skill with blades and his strength, he was in real trouble. With one hand trapped holding the cord a hair's breadth from killing him, he was left only with one hand. He could do nothing to untangle the cord from the wraith's wrists. The only option available was to sink to the floor with the dying thing, try to disentangle himself and retrieve his precious gladius from the body.
But he was too late for that.
Berengarus stepped into the room, swinging his long blade experimentally. The big German was grinning.
"Go on, then" Fronto snarled. "Gloat. You appear to have me trapped."
Desperately, his free hand was trying to disentangle the cord from his neck even as the rattle of death rose in Tulchulchur's throat. He needed to buy himself time to get free and retrieve his gladius.
Berengarus, however, simply swung his own sword once more as he stepped forward. He had no intention of dragging this out. Fronto stared as the huge barbarian grinned and shifted his grip on his sword.
And then the colossus suddenly straightened and spasmed, his head jerking. His eyes widened and bulged. Frowning in incomprehension, the big barbarian took a laboured step forward, but his body seemed not to respond as he expected and instead of closing on Fronto for the kill, he dropped to his knees like a sack of grain.
With only a simple blinking look of disbelief, the huge man fell forward onto his face.
Fronto's gaze moved to the large kitchen blade jutting from the man's spine halfway up his back - well placed to sever the nerves and paralyse, if not to kill. Even as he accepted the fact that he was saved, he looked up beyond the hilt to the form of his saviour in the doorway.
Lucilia looked shockingly calm.
"She was my mother you shit!"
Berengarus was not dead, his body shaking slightly as he tried desperately to rise despite the fact that his body was no longer obeying his own commands. His twitching hand was trying to reach round behind him to pluck the blade from his spine, but only his fingers seemed to respond.
Lucilia ignored him entirely as she stepped over the body and crossed the room to help Fronto remove the cord and stand. An angry red welt ran around Fronto's neck, making him look like the victim of a failed hanging.
"Come on."
With Lucilia's support, he waited until his legs felt stronger and rose to his full height. He peered for a moment at the two bodies in the room. Tulchulchur was gone completely and there was no way he was going to waste even a copper 'as' under the tongue of that thing. Berengarus was clearly alive and trying to communicate and to move, but remained twitching and immobile like some insect pinned to a board. Fronto knew that back wound. Even if the blade were removed, he would never walk again. There would be no movement in his lower half, but more than that, he appeared to be having trouble with the rest of his body too. Good Fronto thought. He would hopefully live a long, painful and extremely miserable life for what he had done. There was no carcer in Puteoli, but there w
ere some lovely cave systems in the cliffs.
Slowly, rubbing his neck and clutching Lucilia as though he might collapse, he made for the stairs with a last look at Berengarus, whose mouth was opening and closing in some kind of plaintive whisper.
Let the bastard suffer.
"You shouldn't have come back. It was foolhardy."
Lucilia raised an eyebrow. "Think where you'd be if I hadn't, beloved husband."
"True. But still…"
His wife's eyebrow simply stayed quizzically raised. "What makes you think I came back for you?"
"What?"
"I needed to cut my bonds. The knives are in the kitchen."
Fronto blinked and Lucilia simply laughed. "Come on. Let's get some air. It smells in here."
"You are a bloody marvel, woman. You know that?"
"Of course I do, dear. Now come on."
Epilogue
Fronto stood in the courtyard garden of the villa, rubbing his red sore neck and enjoying the chill of the evening with the faint damp that threatened rain during the night to come. The events of the previous few days, and indeed much of the year, had been distilled in his mind in the solitude of the peaceful garden into a simple fact: nowhere was safe in these times. For so long he had spent two thirds of each year tramping around foreign soil with the legions, bringing the light of civilization to the backward and extending the power and the influence of the republic, and the remaining third generally in some cheap cesspit of a tavern in Tarraco or Barcino gambling and drinking away the winter months.
And then he had broken his own personal rule and returned to Rome and to the bosom of his family and the last three years had proved that Rome and Italia were every bit as dangerous and troublesome as Hispania or Gaul, but with the added peril of having other people relying upon him there. That was the great change, of course. In bringing his troubles back home, he had involved the family and his close friends and imperilled them, and that was near unforgivable. His father would be appalled.
Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate Page 50
