by B. L. Morgan
As I was climbing up to get him down I told Johnny, "Hell Bro, least I can do for you now is give you a decent burial."
A voice as dry and raspy as fall leaves rustling in the wind answered, "You ain't buryin' shit!"
Johnny's head moved slowly up to look me in the eyes. His eyes were swollen and his lips were busted from a beating, but he was alive. I saw now what I couldn't see in the torchlight from the ground. Johnny wasn't nailed to the cross. He was tied to it.
"You're alive!" I said in a shouted whisper.
"No! I'm a fuckin' spook," he rasped. "Get me down."
I cut his right arm loose and he slung his arm around my neck so I could cut his left arm loose.
"If you kiss me, I'll drop you on you fuckin' head," I told him.
"If you drop me," he answered, "I'll kiss you with my size ten hambone upside your head."
That's just what friends are for, to appreciate being rescued.
I got Johnny to the ground and was trying to massage some life back into his arms and legs when we started hearing shouts and the ringing of steel against steel.
I gave Johnny the extra sword and we were heading back to where McRae was when the door he was guarding burst open.
Two Roman guards came flying out of the open door. Before they knew anyone was in front of them McRae cleaved one's skull in half and with a neat backstroke disemboweled the other.
A crowd was behind them coming fast.
The guards from the complex were being pursued.
Johnny was up and on his feet even if he wasn't very steady. We went to help McRae but when a flood of maybe ten of the guards came through the door he backpedaled out to where we were.
Screaming maniacs with weapons were on their heels slashing and stabbing at them. We retreated to the corner of the courtyard where I'd just got Johnny down from the cross.
The guards from the gladiator school, numbering somewhere around fifty, flooded out of the door and were prevented from exiting by the front door by a few of what I now knew were escaped gladiators that somehow got around and came in the front door. The guards were boxed in.
They went to the only place they could, the courtyard.
This escape must have been in the planning for a long time because all the gladiators that I saw, somewhere around thirty, were well armed.
We would have been all right in our little corner except the escaped gladiators didn't just want to escape. They wanted blood. They were going to make every one of the guards pay for every beating they received.
The gladiators drove the guards backward across the courtyard right at us in our corner.
Desperate men fight with desperation, and the guards were attacked from the front and the rear. They were finding out what the word “desperation” meant.
As the guards were forced at us in our corner by the screaming horde on their heels, a strange ancient form of bloodlust seemed to take hold of me. A handgun and bare fists will always be my weapons of choice but in that corner I began to love that sword. I began to love the way it felt when I drove the blade home and heard my foe cry out in agony.
Time after time, one of the guards would rush me slashing away. Using skills that I had no idea I had ever had before, I would parry the attacks then rip their guts out or run them through the heart. There was something about taking an opponent down with a long blade that was addicting. Feeling his heart shudder and stop when you run him through and seeing his blood spill at your feet was a primal savage feeling. And I liked it.
When the guards had thinned down to around five I spotted the guy who appeared to be the leader of this force of freedom fighters.
He was stocky, had dark brown hair and the most scarred up vicious looking face that I'd ever seen. When the last of the guards were lying in the dirt with his blood coloring the soil I went to shake this leader's hand.
"John Dark," I said and extended my hand in greeting.
"Spartacus," he answered and shook my hand and gave a smile that would make children cry and run away.
"Well hell," Johnny said and shook his hand too. "You sure as shit don't look like Kirk Douglas."
CHAPTER 37
Micea in Flames
Spartacus ordered the other gladiators around like he believed he was some kind of army commander or something. It was effective because they did do what he told them to do.
He posted guards dressed like the former guards of the school at every entrance so no one would know that there was anything unusual going on. Then he sent groups of five to search the school to kill any remaining guards and release all the rest of the slaves from their cells.
Without a second thought, McRae joined up with Spartacus newly formed army and followed his orders without hesitation. One look at Johnny and Spartacus told me to take him to the mess hall and get him some food and water.
I wasn't much for taking orders but since he told me what I intended to do anyway, I played along with him. On the way to the mess hall Johnny told me that after he'd been told his black skin was worth too much alive to just kill him, Miletus ordered that he be beaten then hung on the cross. So that's what they did with him every day.
"They kicked my ass and hung me out to dry, daily," Johnny said. "I sure know what an overused sweatshirt feels like, because I've been put through the wringer around here."
We ate some food that was in the kitchen beside the mess hall and Johnny must have drunk two gallons of water. I guess hanging out on a cross all night was thirsty work.
Then I wanted to go check on the slave girl that I'd fucked the last night I was here. I could do with having a repeat of that horizontal tango we danced.
We got to the women's quarters about the same time that the search parties were setting them free. There was a celebration going on but my celebration was short.
Verona, as I found out her name was, had been sold the day after I was hauled away to a wealthy merchant heading back home to Carthage. She would probably be on a ship by now out on the Mediterranean Sea.
* * *
After the school was searched and secured Spartacus started proving himself to be about as blood thirsty as the Romans he'd just freed himself from.
He sent out what he was calling, "His Soldiers," to break into the nearest houses. There, they were to kill all the Roman citizens and free all the slaves, arm the slaves and send them out to do the same thing.
An hour and a half after Spartacus sent out his soldiers, screams of terror and pain could be heard on every street in Micea. Fires were everywhere. The gladiators and freed slaves raped women and children and killed the men.
Sometimes they killed the women and children too. It just depended on what mood the party that invaded that particularly house was in.
Johnny and me stayed out of it as much as we could. Neither one of us wanted to be a part of butchering innocent people. Keeping slaves was not right but what we were seeing was savage and heartless murder on a large scale.
When the sun came up Micea looked like a wasteland. Corpses were everywhere.
The gladiators and the freed slaves claimed the spoils of war and stripped the city clean of anything of value that they could carry.
Spartacus made clear his intentions of going from town to town, killing all Romans and freeing all the slaves to raise his army. Standing on the top of an empty slave cage, on top of an ox drawn wagon in the same open courtyard where we'd been auctioned as slaves, Spartacus shouted his intentions to his troops at noon. His army now probably numbered just under a thousand.
They cheered his every word. A look came over Spartacus' face that I'd seen before. It was a steely resolve, a power, a need to take everything and own it and bend the world to the shape that he wanted it to be. I didn't like that look. I'd seen it in black and white newsreel footage. The man who I'd seen wearing that look when I'd seen it before was Adolph Hitler.
CHAPTER 38
On the Road
Johnny and me slipped away from the orgy of death that
was going on downtown and stole some money, clothes, and supplies from a devastated house. Then we caught some horses that were running free in the street, grabbed a map from a burnt out shop, and rode away from Micea.
* * *
We were heading to Rome.
Sushi and Sherry St. Clair were exotic looking women. On the auction block in Rome they would fetch a high price. We were betting they were still in the city of Rome, sold to some local rich guy.
If they weren't….well, we'd cross that bridge when we came to it.
The road to Rome was hot. The map we had didn't give us very much detail, just enough to let us know what towns we'd pass as we passed them and landmarks so we knew what road we were on.
Getting food wasn't very hard. There was a lot of traffic on the roads heading to Rome, mostly farmers taking crops to the city to sell. We sometimes bought fruits and vegetables from them. Other times we'd spot an apple tree off the road and go raid it.
We weren't having the kind of meals we were used to back in the good old U.S. of A. where meat was always available at a cheap price but it didn't seem to be doing my body any harm to be doing without it either.
During the night we got as far off the road as we could without taking a chance at losing where the road was. We'd taken some blankets when we'd stolen the clothes and money and in the forest camped out with a small fire burning.
McRae had taught me what stones to knock together to make sparks to start a fire with. I was grateful as hell for that now.
When there were no forests, we slept under the stars in the open fields. Looking up into the untouched heavens it was easy to see how someone born to this world in this time could be awed by its size. In our time almost all the Earth had been explored. There was an accurate map that covered nearly every square inch of the Earth by the end of the twentieth century.
During this time, maps were only guesses, sometimes not even very good guesses.
To the north was an unknown frozen land where it was rumored Frost Giants ruled. To the west was a vast ocean that it is said flowed off the face of the Earth into never ending nothingness. To the south across the Tyrrhenian Sea was a land of steaming jungles where great beasts roamed. To the east were ancient kingdoms, where it is said the ghosts of the Elder Gods feast on the souls of unwary travelers.
Looking into these skies, no airliners with their blinking lights and fifty plus passengers sailed overhead. The only satellite that looked down on us on this night was the face of the moon.
* * *
About half a day’s ride from Rome we came around a bend in the road and ran right into what looked like an ambush. Actually, the ambush had already happened.
Four guys, who looked a lot like cutthroat thieves were beating the hell out of a chubby old man dressed in dark robes beside his covered wagon. They were backhanding the older guy and demanding that he tell them where he had gold hidden.
The old man wasn't telling them anything. So they were going to kick his ass some more. He was bleeding from the lips and nose.
The four didn't see us until we were right on top of them. With a glance between us to communicate what we were both thinking we went after the assholes.
I can't tell you why I went after those guys so fast. I'm not a hero or anything like that. Maybe it’s just knowing that someday I'm going to be old and I'd like it if somebody helps me out when I get there.
Johnny got to them a fraction of a second before I did. A big ugly looking guy, with a dull expression on his face like he'd been kicked once too often by a horse, yelled, "You'd best mind your own…"
That's when Johnny's foot landed upside his head and knocked him to his back in the dirt. If that boy hadn't been kicked once too many times in the head, Johnny was out to correct that.
We both dismounted and two of the three guys still on their feet drew knives and one drew a short sword. They charged us.
Three common thugs who don't know shit and don't have long swords charging two guys who just broke out of a gladiator school is not a good idea.
Johnny was in some kind of a Bruce Lee mood. He whipped out his sword like a Samurai, held it over his head, and met the charge of the three all by himself.
I would have hopped right into the middle of it but the way Johnny was swinging that blade of his around I had to give him some room. If I wouldn't have backed off he probably would have taken a chunk out of me by accident.
The two with the knives darted at Johnny with their knives held out in front of them. Just like Samurai Delicatessen chopping bologna for sandwiches, Johnny sliced both their hands off cleanly at the wrists.
Johnny had a look on his face like I probably had back in that courtyard when I practically fell in love with my sword. It was a combination of blood lust and concentration. There was nothing he wanted more in the world than to see all three of these guys dead in the road.
The two fell away screaming about their lost hands.
Johnny moved on to the third guy who didn't look too excited about a fight where the odds were even up. Beating up on an old man with two friends to help was more his speed. He wasn't given a choice in the matter.
Leaping into him and howling like a banshee Johnny ripped the others sword loose from his grasp with a savage backstroke then nearly ripped him in half with a swing of his sword that any major league home run king would be proud of.
The two that were still alive vanished into the bushes at the side of the road. The other guy's blood spewed out into the dirt in the road. He shuddered out his last breath.
The guy Johnny booted in the head was getting to his feet now.
I drew my sword, kissed the blade and smiled at him. He chased his buddies into the bushes.
We turned to the man who we had just rescued.
CHAPTER 39
Welcome to Rome
Johnny helped the old guy sit down and lean back against the wheel of his wagon. I got him some water.
He had the look of some kind of a cleric with his non-callused hands and round soft face, but he sure wouldn't have passed for a Catholic Priest with his shaved head and purple robe.
In his own way the old dude was kind of tough. Although he was chubby, physically weak and the robbers had kicked his ass, he was still trying to not show his pain as much as he could.
After he'd taken a long drink from my water flask, through swollen and bleeding lips he said, "I offered them food, but they refused it. I only carried enough money to get the supplies for the Brothers." He indicated the wagon which we later saw was filled with a good supply of fruits and vegetables.
"They would have killed me if it wasn't for the two of you. Thank you. For as long as you need, the Brothers of Isis will shelter and feed you. We are eternally grateful."
Johnny and me glanced at each other. We both knew what the other was thinking. The last time we'd heard the name Isis was from that guy in Johnny's bar who had the portal below the Masonic Lodge in Cahokia. If they got another one of those portals, when we get the girls, this might be our plane ride home.
"Seeing as we don't have your local discount Diners Club card with us," Johnny told the old guy. "We'll be happy to accept the Brother's hospitality."
We helped the old guy get himself together and when we stood him up he shook our hands. "My name is Marius," he told us and the strength of his grip surprised me.
Maybe the Brothers of Isis take a vow of chastity and develop a good grip because of that, I thought.
"And what might your names be?" He asked and we told him our real names because in this world we were totally unknown anyway. Hell, I could have told him I was Mr. Magoo and Johnny was Corky the Clown and it wouldn't have made a difference.
We traveled that day sitting in the wagon with Marius. Marius insisted on handling the reins and our horses were tied to the back of the wagon.
I was happy to be out of the saddle. The inside of my legs were chafing from so much riding. I was beginning to wonder how cowboys got such a reputati
on for being studs anyway. All that bouncing up and down on your nuts all day can't be doing them very much good. Maybe the cows talk and give them that reputation.
Nights out on the range can get lonely and a big mooing cow looking at a guy with those big old cow eyes, well things could happen.
* * *
Marius wasn't a bad conversationalist. Once he got over his lips being sore as hell, he became the most talkative monk-looking guy I'd ever been around.
When he asked us what we were doing going to Rome I told him that we were farmers whose bad crops had forced us off of our lands. The look he gave us told us that he knew it was a lie.
"All right, I'll come clean with you. We were the personal guards of the King of Siam," Johnny said. "John fucked the King's favorite concubine and that was OK till she wanted to fuck me too but I told her she was too damn ugly for my black dick, so she told the King we raped her and we had to leave real quick before they chopped our heads off."
Marius laughed at that. "I don't believe that either but it's a better story than the first one."
"You're an asshole," I told Johnny.
"For what?" He asked.
"For lying to Marius like that," I told him. To Marius I said, "He's the one that fucked that ugly bitch. I didn't. If he knew how to sling his meat right, we'd still be living high on the hog."
For the next hour after that, Marius told us what an incredible city Rome was.
Rome, the eternal city, has the highest buildings, the most people, the best restaurants, and the best entertainment. The list went on and on. By the time we got there, I really expected to see something fantastic.
Maybe for this time Rome was something incredible. For two average Midwestern city boys from East St. Louis, Rome wasn't shit.
The same kind of stink that met us outside Micea before we saw that city assailed us outside Rome. The thing is, the smell this time was stronger and hit us farther out. The aroma of raw sewage and the body odors of millions of people packed close together who didn't take regular baths was eye watering.
