by Ahimsa Kerp
“We could have given up by the apple tree, or on the way up here, but we’ve survived too much for such talk!” She was yelling, and a few of the Roman soldiers looked at her, but she didn’t stop. “We’re healthy, we have food, weapons, and we have strong warriors with us. I can kill them, you can cure them. We can’t die. We won’t die.”
Zuste said nothing, just turned and stared at the river. Eventually, he spoke again. “They can come in through here, you know. Eventually, they’ll figure it out.”
Rowanna looked to where the cliff ended and the river began. The wall ended halfway through the river. It was far too small for an elephant to escape, but certainly big enough for men to come through.
“When did you see this?” she asked, panicked. It suddenly seemed as though every shadow, every splash, was a lifeless intruder.
“Just a small time ago,” he said.
“Why haven’t you told Iullianus?” she asked, getting angry. “We can’t give up.”
He held up his hands defensively. “I haven’t given up, not really. I think I have a plan. I have been running it over in my head and it might work. It might get us all killed, but that’s beginning to look inevitable now.” His eyes lifted to the sky. It appeared as dark as ever, but he said, “Dawn is not far off now. Let us speak with the Romans.”
****
“By Mithras, I’ve heard better plans,” the Legatus had said when they had spoken to him. He leaned wearily upon the handle of his shovel, as it looked to be the only thing holding him up. “In fact, if I’ve heard of a worse plan, it escapes me.”
“May my gods and yours strike me down if it fails,” Zuste said. “It’s better than waiting for the inevitable.”
“Peace, friend,” the tall man had said with a smile, “but what do you say to the idea that we slip out through the hole?”
The Roman tried not to smile as both Dacians gaped at him. The idea of flight had not yet occurred to them. Perhaps it would not have ever occurred. A smile small did emerge on his face, but it was one of fondness. They were so like his own people, these Dacians.
“Trust a Roman rat to run when he can fight,” the alchemist said. “Why not stand here, against them, and at the worst, kill more of them than they can convert of us?”
Iullianus wondered at the man’s sense of obligation. He wasn’t craven, but nor did he habitually spoil for a fight. There was something deeply hidden—Zuste’s secret, or one of Rowanna’s that he was protecting.
“It so happens that I agree. However, I will present my men a choice. They may take their chances with the stream, or stay here with us.”
Thirty men— almost half of their forces—slipped out the river way in the next hour. “I hope they freeze to death,” the Dacian alchemist said. Iullianus said nothing, though he too was disappointed. What was the Roman Empire coming to? They’d been much more motivated when they had conquered other lands. His home, for instance.
“Promise me one thing,” Iullianus had said to the collected men, “if I am bit or wounded, kill me immediately. I would not want to live as one of those creatures.”
The Dacians looked at each other very pointedly. There was definitely something secretive going on. He would have to ferret it out from them later. If there was a later.
The next two hours had been busy, and they’d collected all the elephant dung they could find and built it into a horseshoe shape surrounding the gates. When they’d finished, the wall of dried feces was nearly a meter high all around. More importantly, it was nearly two meters long. They added all the dry grass, papyrus, and cloth sacks they could find. Before the wall, they’d dug a pit that was over a meter deep. It wouldn’t stop the lifeless, but it would slow them down.
“If this works, alchemist,” Iullianus said to Zuste as they leaned on their shovels in the pre-dawn light, “I don’t know if I’ll be more surprised or grateful. Probably equal measures of both.” He motioned to the two men who were perched on the gates.
“If this works,” the bearded man replied, “even I will want to kiss myself.” The thumping at the gate was heavy now, a slow insistent pounding that shook the foundation and cracked the wood. The men on the gates held on and signaled their readiness.
“I won’t,” Iullianus said, “not with the role you assigned me.” With that, he sprang forward, towards the gate. The others formed a line. Rowanna had tried on some spare armor, but it was too heavy for her. Nothing the Romans had would fit Zuste, but everyone else was as covered as they could be. All had spears and swords, but behind them were dozens of stakes and sharpened wooden poles. This was one modification that Iullianus had suggested. Behind them all, between the battle line and the stream, were the three elephants. They were the auxiliaries and shock troops all in one.
The Roman commander reached the gate. “Brace yourselves,” he called. “Unless the gods favor the insane, we won’t live long today. If things get bad, head to the stream.” He looked up at the two men perched on the top of the gate. “Except for you two. Just hold on and pray Jupiter is feeling kind.” They laughed.
He turned and moved the great wooden bar from its posts, and turning, sprinted back. He was followed by a lurching, shambling tide of rotten death as the creatures massed forward. Before, they been as numerous as stars in the sky, but now, they were as many as grains of sand on the shore. Iullianus could see the lifeless elephants lumbering amongst the others. Lured by the scent of blood, they had trampled the human lifeless and had been throwing themselves against the barrier between them and their meal with agonizing force.
“Now!” Iullianus called. A volley of four arrows sprang into the air, followed moments later by another. None hit the elephants in the eye, as they were supposed to.
“Damn,” he said. He motioned to the men on the wall. “Now! Now!” he said, whirling his hand in the pre-arranged signal.
The two men had barely clung to the gates when they had swung open. Now they reached into their bags and dropped lanterns filled with lamp oil. Each had three, and when all of them had been dropped, they threw emptied drinking bladders that had also been filled with oil. They coated many of the lifeless that inevitably surged forward, though the majority were not touched—had not yet reached the gate.
Iullianus stopped before the pit and laughed as the lifeless reached him. His soldiers and Rowanna were there, ready to fight this menace. He hefted his heavy shovel and battered the heads of the ones that drew too close to him. They did not rise. Many of these were half-naked walking corpses. But there were some—former Dacian warriors or centurions—who wore armor. These centurion lifeless were a new danger. They were protected by armor, and so newly dead that they were hard to kill. The centurions had few weak points—their armor covered them from their ankles to their necks. Some even still had shields strapped to them, though they did not hold them in a useful way.
There were three centurions advancing on the Legatus now. He surged forward, and pushed heavily on one. It fell down, and quickly, the other two were knocked over as well. Before they could rise again, they were trampled by their own kind. He laughed victoriously, but something about the monsters bothered him—as though he had a forgotten but vivid nightmare about them.
Iullianus retreated back to the others. Beside him, Rowanna held her spear with both hands. She had no skill in the technical sense, but her enthusiasm made up for it and no lifeless was safe near her. She fought with a passion the Romans had never known. She was nearly as fierce as the women of his own tribe, who had exemplified warrior women for him. Iullianus had never before thought of her as attractive, but now, in the middle of battle, he wondered what it would be like to challenge that passion with his own weapons.
He killed reflexively as he imagined the Dacian woman completely nude, growling at him. He realized he had grown quite hard. Shaking his head to clear the images, he stabbed another lifeless.
Finally, too many had reached the gap. “Fall back,” he called, though he did not move. He stabbed, swung,
and pushed against the swarming lifeless. After the others had made it back, Iullianus sprang back over it, onto the dung hill, and then back to the reassembling line of warriors.
“Trying to be impressive?” asked Rowanna. He shrugged with a guilty smile. They turned to watch as the first line of lifeless dropped suddenly. The pit was not deep, but it slowed them enough for the creatures behind them to crush them. The elephants were too big to bother with the pit, but they were even more uncoordinated and ungainly than the human lifeless.
“Oh, look at them,” Rowanna said.
Iullianus glanced and felt a stab of fear. Seeing the war elephants’ white, soulless eyes, just above their massive tusks, was a chilling sight.
“We still have some of our own,” he said, but his reassurance sounded hollow even to himself. “Though even my mighty efossion is outmatched against that foe.”
As lifeless of all kinds reached the mound of dung, Zuste appeared with a lit torch in each hand. A dozen men reached into their belts and lit their torches as well.
Zuste looked in askance to Iullianus. The nearest lifeless were only a meter away, but too many of them were not on the dung pile yet. Another flight of arrows came, and one hit an elephant in the eye. Iullianus did not see who had shot it, but he made a note to discover the man who had made the shot and promote him. The undead animal did not seem to feel pain, but with its vision restricted it stumbled and fell, crushing many of the lifeless beneath it.
There were still too many not on the pile, but the forefront were coming too close. The tide of undead swelled behind them, and Iullianus knew he could wait no longer. “Now!” he cried. Instantly, the burning brands were flung into the giant dung horseshoe. Both the lifeless and the dung pile had been soaked in oil, and the resulting heat was immediate and intense. The fire roared and crackled, burning through the oil-soaked monsters like dry kindling. The humans moved back as the heat grew more intense.
Iullianus was worried. The fire was burning too hot, too quickly. There were still hundreds or thousands of lifeless pressing forward and it did not look like the fire would last long enough to incinerate them. “It’s not going to last,” he yelled in warning.
Suddenly, Zuste was beside him. He seemed to guess from the Roman’s expression what the man was thinking, for he smiled and said, “Did anyone ever tell you that you worry too much?”
The portly man reached his hand into his tunic and it emerged with three glass vials. Without a noted lack of ceremony, the alchemist threw the first one in. The fire flared up, larger than ever.
More of the lifeless were coming though, and Zuste hurriedly threw the other two vials. Iullianus guessed that they had already killed a thousand in these few moments, but there were several thousand more to come. He had counted five lifeless war elephants, though he had never been certain there weren’t more. From here, he could see three in various states of burning. None, at least, appeared immediately ready to attack.
The alchemic fires were burning as fiercely as ever. Very few lifeless emerged, and those who did, were quickly dispatched by the nearest soldier. Nevertheless, Iullianus doubted whether they would be able to hold out against odds such as these. Each defender would have to kill hundreds of attackers.
Iullianus called two men to him. To the first he said, “Grab the supplies we prepared. Make sure they are watertight.” To the second he said, “The thing we discussed. Do it.” The man had a very sharp, very long spike at his side. Iullianus knew that he himself should have done this duty, but it was too hard. He’d been through too much with the noble beasts, and he couldn’t kill them himself. But even worse was to leave them here alive to be devoured by the lifeless and possibly face their corpses again.
“Fall back,” he said. “Prepare to get wet.”
He heard splashing, much more than one man could possibly make. He whirled, braced to see lifeless emerging from the frozen stream. Then he stopped, suddenly uncertain. There were many figures climbing from the water, it was true. They were dressed in rags and looked wild, as though they’d been sleeping in trees or caves, but they moved with grace and precision, and he could hear them talking. The man he’d sent to check on the supplies had been overwhelmed and had a knife at his throat. A tall man emerged, and the others seemed to defer to him.
Iullianus strode up to him. They were nearly the same height—it had been a while since he’d talked to anyone his own size. “I am the Legate Tettius Iullianus. Release my man at once,” he said, “and explain what you are doing here.”
“We came,” said the other man. He had sharp features and blue eyes, and a large wolf pendant hung around his neck. “To kill some of the baleful.” His Latin had the same accent as Zuste. The Dacian man waved to his men and they released their Roman prisoner.
“Then we will have time enough for talking later,” Iullianus said. He yelled to the man who had reached the elephants and motioned for him to stop. It was surprising at how much relief he felt.
More and more men emerged from the river. They looked cold, but they had skins covered in animal fat that seemed to help. Within moments, there were two hundred Dacians behind them. By Iullianus’ estimation, they were all warriors, though they had the lean look of men who had been skipping meals for too long.
The Dacians had bows with them, and they quickly strung them. At the same time, men with axes, swords, and spears, ran to the line of fire and reinforced the handful of Romans who fought there. When the fires began to die down again, Zuste ran up and down the line, throwing vials that exploded with intense heat. He had seen the man playing with potions for the last several days, but hadn't any idea just how useful an alchemist could be.
Iullianus waved to his men on the gates. He could not hear them over the battle, but they gestured to him. They seemed to be pleased, or at least less dour than they’d been since climbing up there.
“It’s a clever thing, these fires,” said a voice beside him. The tall Dacian was suddenly next to him. The man looked familiar and his bearing was unmistakably noble. He held an old sword that looked to have already seen some use that day.
“One of your kind thought of it,” Iullianus admitted, stabbing the face of a lifeless soldier whose armor had burned into its skin.
“I had heard there were Dacians here, from those who escaped in the dawn. It was they who alerted me. I admire a commander that values humanity and life over obedience.”
“I admire anyone who risks their life to save mine. If you brought beer, we can be best friends,” the red-haired man replied. Just then, a horde of burning corpses emerged from the fires and there was no longer any time for talking.
Iullianus realized how much the rules had changed. An army of men would not charge into a raging fire, and when they lost half their forces, they would break. Many armies, in fact, would break from far fewer losses. These things would fight until the last of them was killed. He wondered if there was a way to use their single-mindedness against them.
The fires roared again, surging forward and there was time to breathe. Many of his soldiers had fallen, along with several of the Dacian warriors. He realized suddenly the terrible menace that was represented. There was no time to check for life. A wound in this battle was a death sentence. He called some men to him and soon, they were beheading their own dead.
“What are you doing?” The Dacian leader asked, suddenly beside him.
“They will rise again,” Iullianus said, swinging a borrowed sword down on a groaning Dacian. It didn’t cut through the neck entirely and he raised it again. “You must know that.”
“I do,” the man said, “but such a solution had not occurred to me.”
“If you have a better idea,” Iullianus said, “I’m willing to hear it.” The blade came down and the wounded man’s head rolled away.
“It is difficult for me to see Romans butchering my men, whatever their reasons. Let me take care of them.”
Iullianus gestured to the battlefield. “Have at it.” He turne
d to confront the last of the wounded soldiers. It was the man he had sent to the water, bleeding from a dozen small wounds.
“Please,” the man said. Iullianus drove his blade into the man’s throat, filled with anger. How dare that man plead? He knew the circumstances, knew that there could be no chances. He was furious that he felt his eyes moisten. Anger was a short-lived madness, but he needed to stoke it, to embrace it. He needed anger to survive the world.
It was then that the monstrous elephant lumbered through. It was coated in flames. Quicker than a heartbeat, it snatched up a Dacian spearman with its trunk. The man’s body crumpled in that strong mouth and he disappeared down the thing’s throat.
It was nearly too much. Dacian and Roman warrior alike backed away from the terrible burning beast. Undead humans were frightening enough, but these men did not know how to fight the burning beast before them. Iullianus glanced at the three elephants that were still alive, but they would be no help. They were afraid of flames and if one fell, it would be on the wrong side of the fires when it came back.
Suddenly, the Dacian leader was before the beast, a long spear in his hand. The elephant lowered its head and stabbed with its tusks. The man leaped away, dropping his spear. The beast was a bit slower and stupider than when it had been alive. It scanned the area ponderously with gleaming white eyes.
The tall Dacian man regained his feet almost instantly. He went from run to crouch to run so quickly it was almost impossible to see the spear he had reclaimed. He was far too close when the elephant saw him and with a leap, he drove the point deep into the thing’s eye.
Nothing happened. The elephant-thing didn’t seem to notice. Its trunk grabbed at the tall man and once again he dropped to the ground, just avoiding the grasping limb. The elephant charged forward but the man rolled away and sprang up. He either had a flair for the dramatic, or was very lucky.
“Archers, fire!” Iullianus called.
