Ruin and Rebirth

by Michael Whitehead

  A hand reached down and helped Secundus to his feet and he turned to see Lepidus looking back down the passageway. It hadn’t been a loud fight but the Risen would be attracted to any sound in the silence of the city.

  Turning to the house Secundus saw a flicker of movement through a crack in the shutter. He put his eye to the wood and could make out a vague shape behind the window. He turned to the door and, as loudly as he dared, he knocked three times. There was an agonising moment when nothing happened and he thought he might have to knock again, risking the sound being heard. Just as he was about to put fist to wood once more, he heard a thin, reedy voice speak on the other side of the door.

  “What do you want? Who are you?” the voice asked, sounding scared and surprised.

  “For the love of the gods, man, let us in, we will explain everything,” Secundus answered in a whisper with his face pressed to the door, as if this might stop the noise carrying to far out into the streets.

  Once more time seemed to slow, while whoever was inside the house decided whether to open the door. Secundus turned to Lepidus, the legionary was watching the passageway with a concerned look on his face. Every second they were outside increased their chances of being spotted by the Risen. Just as Secundus was about to give in and retreat to the relative safety of the house across the road, the door opened.

  Secundus pushed his way into the house and his men followed him. He heard the door close behind him and let out a long breath of relief. A tall, stick thin man was standing inside the door, holding a knife. He looked to Secundus like he had never brandished a weapon at anyone in his life.

  “Put down the knife,” he said, holding up his hands to show he meant no harm. He was glad to see his men had been sensible enough to sheath their own weapons as they entered the house. “My name is Secundus, I was a centurion in the army of Titus, we came because one of my men saw a light in your window and we wanted to check if there were survivors here.”

  “There is only me,” the tall man said, but something in his eyes told Secundus that the man was lying. He didn’t force the issue, after the last few weeks, it was a wonder that he had even opened the door.

  “Okay, you’ve done well to stay safe for this long. We are gathering survivors together, we have a number of legionaries and more and more civilians are coming in all the time. It is easier and safer to be in one place. We are here to take you with us.” Secundus said. In truth he hated this part of the mission. It was easy with legionaries, you ordered them to do whatever it was that you wanted them to do, and then they did it. With civilians there was always that moment when they tried to make up their minds if they wanted to acquiesce or argue with you.

  “Where would you take me?” the man asked, sounding like a scared child.

  Secundus started to lose patience and decided to start again. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Paulus,” the man answered.

  “Paulus, we are your best hope of staying safe, I promise you. We have a large, safe place and plenty of food.” In honesty, the food was starting to look a little thin, but there was always a new supply to be found, the city had emptied so quickly that most people had left dried goods and cured meat behind.

  I still don’t know if I should...” Paulus began but he was interrupted by a tall, grey haired man who stepped into the doorway, wearing a toga.

  “Thank you, Paulus,” the man said, “I’ll take over now.”

  Secundus stepped forward and held out his hand to the newcomer, who shook it warmly, holding it in two hands. He had a quiet confidence that said he was the owner of the house and the man that Secundus needed to speak to.

  “Sir, my name is Secundus we are a here to take you to a safer location,” Secundus said.

  “I’m Praetor Domitius, I have to ask where exactly you have found in the city that is safe?”

  Secundus stepped back and looked at the grey haired man, judging if what he had just heard was true. If he really was a Praetor, then he was the most senior man still alive in Rome, at least that they had found so far. He looked into the man’s face and saw only honesty.

  “Praetor, forgive my ignorance. I came into Rome with Emperor Titus and wasn’t aware of who you were. We have a warehouse, it’s been secured and we have been there since a week after the attack,” Secundus answered.

  “Excellent, and how many of you are there?” Domitius asked.

  “Thirty five legionaries and almost fifty civilians, sir.”

  Domitius nodded and asked, “how any more people could you take with you?”

  “It’s hard to say, Praetor,” Secundus answered. “How many people are there here?”

  Domitius did not answer but instead stepped through the door and further into the house. He motioned for Secundus to follow him. In the hallway there were four people, laying down as if ready to sleep, as the two men stepped into the room, the people lifted their heads to see.

  As they moved from room to room it soon became clear that there was at least one family and sometimes two behind every door. The house was not as big as some in Rome but as they moved from door to door Secundus began to get an idea of the amount of people in the house.

  An elegantly dressed woman came to join Domitius, and Secundus guessed this was his wife. She put her arm around the Senator and smiled weakly at Secundus.

  “We are very nearly out of food, Centurion,” she said in a cultured voice, "we were beginning to despair."

  “How many people are here?” Secundus asked.

  “Nearly seventy, we opened our doors during the attack and the people have been here ever since,” Domitius replied. “Can you take us all?”

  Secundus stepped back, holding his hand to his mouth in an involuntary gesture of shock. This would almost double the number they had in this safe house and put enormous pressure on his food and water supplies.

  “I really don’t know,” Secundus said, honestly. We were expecting a family, maybe two, not this many people.

  “We owe it to these people to help them,” Domitius said to the centurion. “These are what is left of the people of Rome and it is our duty to save them if we can.”

  Secundus nodded, he knew the Praetor was right, but he wasn’t a man who was trained or equipped to deal with things on this scale. A century of legionaries needed leading but they were all capable, trained men. These were civilians, women, children, they would be vulnerable from the moment they set foot onto the streets. Then there was the matter of finding them somewhere to sleep and food to eat. It was impossible.

  There was a plan, it had been born in the days he had spent in the small house, after the battle. It had been a daydream that had taken root and grown in his mind. Until this moment it was nothing more than fantasy, but need had forced the idea back to the front of this thoughts.

  “I have an idea,” he said to the Praetor. The man was now the most powerful man left in Rome, hopefully that meant they had found a leader that they could rally behind. Secundus spent some time explaining his plan to the senator and, at the end, the people who heard what he had to say were impressed and dubious in equal measure. He looked to Praetor Domitius, trying to gauge the man’s reaction, the face was a politician’s face, and showed little of the thoughts behind it.

  Eventually Domitius said, “we have little to lose. The way I understand our situation, anything is worth a try.”

  Chapter Six

  Otho had forgotten how good it felt to march with legions at his back. The constant rhythmic sound of thousands of marching feet sounded like the beat of his own heart. He sat atop his horse and looked back at the column that stretched back as far as he could see. An unbroken line of trained killers, armed and armoured.

  The deep blue sky was broken only by a few wisps of cloud as they left the mountains behind them and marched into Southern Gaul. The city of Narbo Martius was a few miles ahead and Otho was waiting to hear news from his scouts. Narbo was the regional capital and the Via Domitia passed straight though
the port, making the city the most important in the region. The Via Aquitania ran from Narbo straight to the Atlanticus. Otho wouldn’t send troops that way but to hold the road would be a huge advantage in the future. It would open a land passage and a sea route, assuming the city could be taken. No news had returned to him yet of the situation in Narbo and the wait was grating on his nerves.

  He kept turning over the decision to move across land in his mind; had he made the right choice? Was it better to start taking back the empire before he had taken the city? It was impossible to tell, and so he told himself that the choice was made and he would live or die by it.

  Otho’s thoughts were interrupted by one of the staff officers from his new legion, he had not had time to learn the man's name and promised himself that he would.

  “Sir, we have news of Narbo, two of the scouts have returned. You asked to be informed,” the officer said after saluting the emperor.

  Otho looked up at the sky and decided the men had marched long enough for today. The sun was lowering toward the horizon and, if he was being honest with himself, the hours in the saddle were starting to tell on his own backside.

  “Sound the halt and order camp to be raised,” he said to the cornicen. The man raised his long curved horn to his lips and blew a series of notes. Behind Otho the column of legionaries came to a stop in immaculate order. It would be some time after those at the front had stopped before the men at the back came to a halt.

  Orders were issued by centurions and legionaries began the process of building the night’s camp. It was a job so familiar to the men that every one of them knew exactly what was expected.

  In a couple of hours an exact replica of the camp they had struck this morning would be standing, every tent and path between them in exactly the same place. A legionary walking into a the camp of a strange legion would be able to find his way around as easily as that of his own legion.

  As always, Otho’s tent was the first to be erected, and his team were so quick that it took only a few moments longer to put up the tent than it did for Otho to dismount his horse. He took a few minutes to walk the soreness out of his legs, and take in their surroundings. The ground was sandy and thick sharp blades of shrub grass grew sporadically, other wise the landscape was as sparse as any he had seen since leaving northern Spain. The mountains had been lush and cold but on reaching the lower ground the sun had been relentless and the grassland had turned almost to desert.

  “Caesar,” a voice interrupted his thoughts. Otho turned to see the same staff officer whose name he did not know. Otho nodded, giving the man permission to speak.

  “Caesar, our initial report was wrong, there were two scouts that returned to camp but one of them was bitten. With your permission, the bitten man will be put to death, the second scout met him on the road and while he had not seen the town, he has questioned the first man.” The officer looked anxious at reporting bad news to his emperor.

  “So, what you are telling me is that you wish me to hear second hand information in order that a man who has all the answers I need can be killed?” Otho asked rebuking the officer but in a gentle way that was not his normal nature.

  “Sir, we thought that you would not wish to be exposed to a man who might become one of the undead.”

  “I have dealt with the Risen before and if the man still breathes, I’m sure there is no danger,” Otho said with a grin that was meant to settle the man’s nerves. The officer nodded and saluted, before turning from Otho and giving orders to a legionary who was standing ready.

  Otho took a final walk in the warm evening air before ducking into his tent. He had given his men enough time so that the tent was exactly the way it had been when he had stepped out of it that morning. Roman efficiency at its best, thought Otho with a grin.

  A few minutes later two scouts, wearing little more than rough tunics and carrying dispatch bags were escorted into the tent by his guards. The two could not have looked more different, one was dusty but fresh looking with a straight back and eyes that stared into the middle distance as he stood to attention waiting to be questioned.

  The second man was sweating heavily, a dressing on his leg was beginning to show a black flower of infected blood. He was struggling to stand to attention and Otho was of a mind to call for a chair, but the look of determination of the man’s face held Otho’s tongue. To treat this man as anything less than a legionary would shame him, in his last hours.

  “At ease, men,” Otho said and turned to the fresher of the two men first. “Report.”

  “Caesar, I was three miles outside the town when I came across, Legionary Quintus. He had already been bitten but had been into the city of Narbo. He told me the city was over run, I thought it was wiser to bring the man who had seen the city back to camp, rather than risk trying to gather the same information and not make it back myself.” The scout looked nervous, he had made a choice that might reflect on him as wise, or if Otho chose it, cowardly.

  “You did well, soldier,” he said and turned to the injured man who was favouring his uninjured leg and wincing.

  “Report,” Otho said to the second man.

  “Caesar, I reached the city of Narbo Martius this morning. The hills above the city gave a good view and there appeared to be a battle underway. One force was much bigger than the other but from my position I was unable to tell which side had the advantage. I ventured into the city but before I could reach the main fighting, I was over-run by Risen. I cut down seven of the undead but eventually I was bitten. I fought my way free and met legionary Ruso who got me back to base.” The injured man looked troubled by the lack of detail in his report. Otho cursed that they knew so little but would not let the man know that his sacrifice was for nothing.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” Otho said to the two scouts. “Your information will be invaluable, dismissed.” He would not prolong the injured man’s pain with useless words. He would be taken from the tent and put out of his misery. He waited until the two were led from the tent and let out a sigh.

  They were walking into a fight with almost no information. They knew the people of Narbo were still battling the Risen and that was good, but the numbers were unknown and the terrain would be difficult in the extreme. The battle in Rome had shown that the Risen were almost impossible to fight in a city. The buildings and backstreets gave the undead too much of an advantage and too many places to hide.

  “Fetch me Ursus and Numarius,” Otho said to one of his guards. The man saluted and left the tent immediately. It was time to discuss new tactics. They would need to draw the Risen out of the city if this fight was to be one they could win, without the kind of losses that would see the campaign finished before they even got started.

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  The walls of the temple were cracking, and shards of black glass lay scattered on the floor. The blood still flowed down the glossy surfaces but the lines of decay could be seen as Regulus walked the large hall. More and more the temple was empty when he came to it. The old man Viddus was absent and Regulus wondered if he would one day, not be here at all.

  The faces of what looked like trapped souls still screamed out in silent agony from the pillars that stretched up to the impossibly high ceiling. They reached out hands in mute petition, begging him to free them or end their suffering. He walked on unable to help and sickened by their captivity. Above them the ceiling boiled like a swirl of dark cloud over a bloody sky.

  The air in this place was soaked with malevolence and an unseen threat, but suddenly the feeling changed. Regulus could feel a force in the air like a pressure, forcing itself on the walls of the temple as if huge hands were pushing in from all sides.

  He could feel the floor of the temple, usually so sleek and glassy underfoot, now warped and unformed. Cracks and undulations had appeared where there had been nothing but smoothness and solidity.

  “You feel it? The corruption, the decay?” Viddus said from far behind him.

  Regulu
s turned to see the aged figure cloaked as always, huddled in the far corner of the temple and crouching as if he was trying to hide. He walked toward the old man and felt something he had never encountered before; fear. If Regulus was correct, this was a god and now he was being reduced to cowering in the corner.

  “What is happening here?” Regulus asked Viddus. He stopped short but knelt. Slowly the old man turned to face Regulus, the hood hiding his face but a gleam of blood-tinged light caught his eye.

  “They are breaking through,” Viddus said to him in a whisper, insanity curdled his voice that had been so strong only a short time ago.

  “Who are? Who is breaking through?” Regulus asked even though he knew the answer. He had been told by the priest in Rome, but never quite believed it at the time. Now with these few words Regulus understood that everything he had been told was the truth.

  This temple was a gateway, a door to a prison, and the old man before him was the guard. A god who took it on himself to protect the world from an evil so old that not even the gods knew its real name. How many thousands of years had he been here, holding back a force so powerful that it could destroy gods?

  “The ancient ones are almost here,” Viddus said, the fear in his voice making it break.

  “They sent out the weakest of their magic and corrupted the souls of the dead. Now, they themselves are coming and nothing will stop them. This place, this doorway, is all that stands against them and it is not enough.”

  “Then why do you let them escape? Why do you allow them to destroy us all?” Regulus asked, remembering all of the threats and promises of destruction Viddus had thrown at him in so many conversations and fights.

  “Allow them? I can’t stop them, child. They corrupt, they corrode. I am almost powerless to stop them.”