His face flushed with pleasure. "Oh. I... I care about you too."
"Then do this for me," she begged him. "I can enter that gateway and risk my life if there's something left behind that's worth saving."
He looked anguished. "But you're asking me to let you go to your death!" He licked his lips, and she knew that she wouldn't like whatever he said next. "I still own you, if you recall. I could forbid you to go."
She felt a flare of rage, but tamped it down. She didn't want their last words to be bitter ones. "There is a chance we'll succeed, you know."
He just looked at her, and she dropped her eyes.
And then, before he could say anything else, the shout came from the walls. "They're back! The dead have returned!"
Marcus approached, the ranks of the Praetorian Guard waiting behind him. "We should go."
Though Boda knew he was right, she couldn't bring herself to abandon the walls without seeing what danger they were leaving behind. She nodded to Marcus but walked away from him, up the stone stairs that led to the battlements. She heard footsteps behind her and saw that Marcus had followed. It was clear from his face that he felt the same conflict she did. Claudius had ordered him to leave half his men behind to face an unbeatable enemy alone.
When they reached the top, the soldiers on watch saluted hand to heart and stepped aside. They'd been right to raise the alarm. Beyond the battlements, the dead had returned in force. They remained outside bow range, their ragged ranks stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. There were more of them, Boda was sure of it. The beetles had had more time to fly, she supposed, and find fresh bodies to raise.
As she watched, the front ranks stirred and parted all along the line. The undead were bringing something new to bear on Rome. After a moment, as the great wooden mechanisms trundled into the open, she realised that they were catapults.
Marcus shrugged. "It's to be expected. The walls were built to withstand it."
She was sure he was right. The walls were thicker than she was tall and no rock, no matter how well aimed, would topple them. But she felt a stirring of unease all the same. The dead weren't fools. Whatever controlled them had proven to be a master tactician. They must know that the catapults would fail - so why had they brought them?
Her disquiet grew as she watched the catapults being braced, hordes of the dead working together to pull the tightly coiled mechanisms back. And then there was a roar, the catapults leapt upright - and the loads cradled inside them flew through the air towards Rome.
Boda could see within seconds that they'd misjudged the trajectory. The rocks were heading high over the walls and would crash harmlessly into the street behind.
Except they weren't rocks. As they flew closer, Boda saw that, impossibly, they seemed to be moving. For one brief, horrible moment as she looked up she saw an eye look back at her. Then the thing was over and down and it landed on the street below with a horrible wet thump. Blood spattered all around it and around the scores of others that had landed close by.
The dead weren't throwing rocks - they'd thrown their own bodies over the walls. The corpses remained broken and motionless on the ground for only a second. And then, one by one, they began to rise.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was chaos. The dead landed everywhere, more and more of them as the catapults did their work. Some of the defenders they killed as they landed, crumpling their bodies beneath them when they hit the ground. And then both corpses would rise to battle the remaining defenders.
A body fell to Boda's left, and she slashed out with her sword, severing its head before it could rise. The torso twitched and its dead eyes glared, and then the beetle crawled out of its mouth and it was still. She stamped down hard, but the creature was ready for her, on the wing before she could crush it. And soon, somewhere else, it would bring another corpse back to life.
Vali was at her back, hacking away with his own short blade. He was less skilled than her, but fearless. She saw him hack off the arm of a lurching corpse, then - as it kept advancing - its left leg. The body hopped another step forward, mouth open in a scream of rage, before losing its balance and toppling to the ground.
Petronius was already cut off from her, a horde of undead separating them. He'd drawn his sword but he couldn't wield it. Nero clung to his neck, his yells audible even over the din of battle, and Petronius couldn't use his weapon without hurting the boy. He shot her one last, desperate look, and then was lost to sight.
"To me!" Marcus shouted, and she saw that he was only ten paces away, gathering the ragged remnants of the Praetorian Guard around him.
The ground between them was thick with the dead. They'd strapped on swords and spears before they flung themselves over the wall. Boda saw a corpse which must have fallen on its own spear. Its hands pulled futilely at the long wooden handle protruding from its stomach, lacking the leverage to pull it out.
Boda stamped down on the spear, pinning the corpse in place as she lopped off its head. But behind it was one who'd landed better, his sword already in his hand. With a sick shock she realised that she recognised him. It was Silvius, the battlement commander who'd led them all to safety behind the walls of Rome.
Unlike many of the other undead, he knew how to fight. And, for the first time, she could see the intelligence shining behind his milky eyes. He didn't just want to kill - he wanted to kill her. His sword slashed low and lethal towards her legs.
She jumped clear of the blade only to stumble as she landed, tripping over the bloody remnants of another corpse. She brought her sword up just in time to counter the downward sweep of Silvius's blade. But he'd always been stronger than her and death had made him stronger still. His weight bore against her sword arm and pressed it down, bringing her own blade to within inches of her throat.
His face pressed nearer as if he wanted to be as close as possible to watch her die. His flesh had already started to rot, and a fetid smell washed off him. When he smiled she saw that his teeth were loose in their sockets, his gums brown and decayed. There was no spittle in his dry, dead mouth and his tongue looked as desiccated as an autumn leaf.
Her arm weakened and she let the tension seep out of it, allowing his face to come closer, closer... And when his cracked lips were within inches of hers she lashed her head forward, catching her forehead against his nose.
The blow forced the bone up and in, through what was left of his brain and the insect that had made a nest for itself inside it. Silvius's body gave one last, convulsive shudder and was still, his mouth gaping open to let his shrivelled tongue hang out.
A hand on hers helped drag Boda to her feet. It was Marcus, and she saw that while she'd been down the troop of Guards had moved to surround and protect her and Vali. There were pitifully few left now, and far too many among the dead attacking them.
"We should go," Marcus said. But she could see the conflict in his eyes. He didn't want to abandon the fight at the walls. He wouldn't forgive himself if the city fell because he wasn't there.
"Just get us a few streets away," she told him. "We can look after ourselves after that."
He shook his head. "I can't. Caesar's orders—"
"Were given before this latest attack!" Boda snapped.
"You'll die!" Marcus yelled, but Boda was pulling away and the dead were already moving in to separate them.
"That's actually the idea," Vali said, and then the Praetorian Guard were lost in the sea of bodies, leaving them to face the dead alone.
Petronius saw Boda for one second, her eyes meeting his across the crowd of bodies. Then the tide of battle took her one way and him the other, and she was lost from sight. The little boy in his arms squirmed and cried and Petronius hugged him closer. Boda had asked him to look after Nero, and that's what he meant to do.
He'd given up on the idea of fighting altogether. After whirling his sword and nearly cutting off his own head - not to mention Nero's - he returned it to his scabbard and concentrated on running
away.
He could hear the footsteps of the dead behind him. Why were they following? Did they know who he was? Sopdet knew his face, and she knew he'd opposed her. Was this her revenge?
When he chanced a look behind him, he saw that there were ten or more corpses racing after him. Some were long dead, staggering on flaking leg bones, sword pommels rattling in skeletal hands. But others were whole and strong and they were catching up. Nero's body was nearly a dead weight in Petronius's arms, dragging him down. The only chance he had to live was to drop the little boy.
He couldn't do it. How could he look Boda in the face if he did? He pulled Nero tighter against him instead, and turned left, swerving into a side street that he knew would take him to the Circus Maximus. He couldn't risk losing the time to look behind him again, but he could hear the undead following. It was clearly him they were after - or maybe the child in his arms. Perhaps they were trying to wipe out every drop of Imperial blood, leaving no one to rule Rome but Sopdet and her legions of the dead.
He could feel Nero's snot and tears running down his neck as he forced his legs to pump faster, harder. He forced himself to keep running when his body had already eaten up every morsel of energy inside it, and the breath was burning in his lungs.
The gates of the hippodrome loomed ahead of him, broad enough to admit four horses abreast. Petronius ducked beneath them, flinching for the moment of darkness while they hid the sun.
Then he was inside the great oval, at the bottom of the stands where the spectators sat. They were empty, as he'd expected. News from the walls must have reached here and the people had fled, but they'd left in a hurry. Petronius could see the detritus they'd abandoned: a cup of dates only half-eaten, one with teeth-marks visible in it; a dropped silk wrap, ripped at the hem; a child's doll, scuffed with dust where others had run over it. And below, something far more useful had also been left behind in the confusion - the chariots that would have raced today, if the dead hadn't intervened.
Petronius had nursed a dream of becoming a champion chariot racer for his whole childhood, until his father told him it was no job for a respectable boy. He'd watched every race religiously, bet on the Greens and joined in the riots when they lost. He knew everything there was to know about racing a chariot - without ever having actually done it. But how hard could it be?
The horses seemed to sense the unnaturalness of the dead. They snorted and pawed the ground as he approached and one let out that peculiar high neighing that was almost like a human scream. The dead let out a full-throated roar in response, and Petronius could hear that they were only paces behind, seconds away from catching him. Nero raised his golden-haired head and howled in fear.
But they were lucky. Petronius's gamble - his life-or-death gamble - had paid off. In their hurry to flee, the charioteers had left the horses in harness. The nearest team had begun to chew through the leather that imprisoned them, and the one beyond was hopelessly tangled in it, but the next chariot looked ready to go. As he drew closer, Petronius saw that it belonged to the Green team - and he took that as a good omen.
Nero yelled in shock as Petronius slung him onto the light steering platform, then hopped on beside him. The dead were close, but slowed by the horses, which reared and kicked as they passed. He saw one head crushed beneath a flailing hoof.
Then he had the reins in his hand, and they were off.
The streets of Rome here were eerily deserted. But as Boda ran through them with Vali at her side, she thought that they didn't feel empty. She could sense the people huddled silent and afraid in their boarded-up homes. She could feel their eyes on her, wondering if she was one of the dead. If she would be the death of them.
Her chest was tight with the effort of breathing and after five more minutes with no sign of pursuit, she slowed to a walk. Vali shot her a questioning look but dropped his pace to lope along beside her. The sunlight sparkled in his red hair and amber eyes.
"Can we really stop this?" she asked him.
He flicked her a surprised glance. "You were the one who told me we must."
She shrugged. "Even hopeless battles must be fought, if they're just. And you and I don't face the same death these Romans do. If we meet a warrior's end there'll be no endless darkness for us, but song and mead in the Halls of Valhalla."
He smiled, a sly, unreadable smile. "How dull. Imagine what the company will be like. All those over-muscled thugs bragging about their great deeds while drinking enough to poleaxe an ox. And at the head of the table, Odin himself - in all his dour, one-eyed, humourless glory."
She stared at him, shocked. "You insult the Allfather?"
"Believe me," he said. "If you knew him better, you would too."
Her smile died, unsure if he was joking. "So what is it you hope for, then, in the world that follows?"
"Ah, now there's a question. I intend to live for ever, of course."
"But we're about to step through the gates of death," she said incredulously. "Do you really think we'll be returning?"
He didn't answer, looking away before she could read his face. But she didn't like the flash of something she caught in his eye - was it pity, or regret?
And then the Temple of Isis loomed in front of them, white marble lips enclosing the hungry black darkness of its open mouth, the door that led to the gateway to death. She shivered as they approached it.
Petronius hadn't imagined that the dead would follow. He'd - foolishly, he now realised - assumed they'd be incapable of mastering the chariots. But the rotting corpse behind him handled the reins with ease, and now he looked more closely, he thought he detected something familiar in the hollow curves of its face. Could that possibly be Porphyrius, the most successful charioteer ever to ride for the Greens? Petronius had a horrible feeling it was.
Nero stood clasped between his knees, wriggling to get free. The little boy had stopped crying. He was laughing and clapping his hands, as if this was all some entertainment put on for his benefit. "Faster!" he yelled in his high, clear voice. "Want to go faster!"
Petronius would have been happy to oblige, but the streets they raced through were too narrow. Their chariot was pulled by two horses abreast and there was barely room for them to pass between the high walls of the slums to either side. As he negotiated a sudden left turn the chariot tipped on its axis and the left-hand wheel scraped against the wall of a house, sending a shower of sparks into the air.
The chariot behind negotiated the turn far more gracefully, gaining ground. Nero gurgled with pleasure and slid from between Petronius's knees, forcing him to make a desperate grab that left the reins slack for a crucial second. The horses interpreted the sudden release of tension as an instruction to give it their all, and Petronius found himself thrown against the backrest as the chariot surged forward with a terrifying burst of speed.
At least the dead fell behind a little, unwilling to match their suicidal dash. Petronius could see that there were three chariots' full of them, one two-horse affair like theirs and two more that were pulled by four. If they reached anywhere wide enough to let the horses have their head, the larger chariots would easily overtake them. But these narrow streets had dangers of their own.
Petronius pulled desperately on the rein with one hand as he clung to Nero's collar with his other. The horses were slow to obey. Maybe they'd been waiting all these years for a chance to truly let loose. Or maybe they could smell the stench of decay behind them. As they galloped into a small, statue-lined square, Petronius could see a desperate white froth around their mouths and knew they couldn't keep up this pace for long.
He yanked again, harder, and this time the horses obeyed - far too enthusiastically. They reared as they drew to a complete and sudden halt, neighing their fury. Behind them, the other chariots raced on, too surprised to stop in time. The dead were closing in, milky eyes glaring malevolently and mouths stretched wide in grins that anticipated victory.
But the horses they'd commandeered had other ideas. Well used, after y
ears of training, to avoiding the collisions that could end a rider's life, they veered to either side of Petronius's stationary chariot, like fast-flowing water diverting round a rock.
For one second, the dead were abreast. Skeletal hands reached out, fumbled and failed to connect. But one body - faster than the rest - flung itself over the gap between carriages and landed sprawled across the chariot beside Petronius.
It was one of the older corpses, brown mummified flesh stretched tight over knobbly bones. The speed of its impact had broken some of them and Petronius saw its left hand hanging from its wrist by a thread of skin. Half its ribs had been crushed to powder but it only lay still a second before it rose and rounded on him.
It was Nero who saved him. The little boy squealed in fear - or maybe excitement - and the corpse's head swung limply on its neck to locate this new prey. In the second it bought him, Petronius hooked his hands beneath its armpits and lifted. His hands cringed away from touching the decayed flesh but the corpse was far lighter than he'd imagined, all the living juices long squeezed out of it. He lifted it up then flung it away to clatter against the pavement beside the chariot.
The corpse rolled and rose, even less whole than before. Its right hand was gone entirely now, and half its skull had caved in, lending its head a leering, almost comic appearance. But the same murderous intent was evident in its empty eyes and it braced its legs and shambled back towards them.
'Skellington!' Nero said, laughing and pointing as Petronius picked up the reins again and led the horses in a tight circle. He flicked them and they were off, in the opposite direction from the chariots of dead - but not for long. Already Petronius could see that they were slowing, turning their own circles in the next square along.
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