Athos looked up, and met Athea’s eyes with his own, “Thank you.”
Without replying Athea turned and headed over to another customer. Athos watched as she smiled and presumably asked them if they would like anything else. The couple, a middle-aged man, and woman, both smiled back at her and shook their heads no. She then worked her way around the room making several trips back and forth to the kitchen. Removing empty plates, bringing out steaming dishes and setting them in front of other patrons, and ensuring everyone had enough to drink.
Finally, after what must have been the longest wait that he could remember, she emerged from the kitchen with his not so steaming plate of lamb. As she set the plate down in front of him, Athos touched a piece of the meat lightly with his pinky. It was room temperature.
Athos then looked up and smiled at Athea, “Athea, I would like to talk. I have something important I must tell you.”
With an audible sigh, she asked, “What?”
“I wasn’t myself the other night,” he holds up a hand before she can interrupt, “No really. Ever since I woke up from my injury, I’ve heard the voice of Nikas inside my head.”
Athos waited for a response. Athea pondered this new revelation for several moments looked down at him, smiled and said, “Wow! That’s the best you can come up with? No, hey hun I was a complete self-centered ass the other night. You have my deepest apologies. I swear I’ll never do it again and make sure you get a back rub every night. That would be an excuse. You insult me by lying.” Without waiting for a response, she storms into the kitchen.
Within a few seconds, the entire tavern is treated to the sound of Athea’s yelling, “How could you let him back in here! I told you what he did the other night and the things he said to me.”
A period of silence ensued where Jacob was presumably responding and then more yelling, “I’ve worked in this tavern for a number of years. No customer has ever disliked the service I gave them until today. How can you expect me to serve such a beastly man?”
Jacob at this point lost his temper and started yelling, “You’re the one being courted by him. I could ask you the same thing.”
“How dare you!” Athea yelled followed almost instantly by the sound of her open palm striking the side of Jacob’s face. She then burst out of the kitchen and made for the front door of the tavern. A man opened it a few moments before she reached the door and stepped through. She took the door from him and slammed it shut.
Jacob emerged from the kitchen. His face was flushed, and he had a very prominent hand print on his left cheek. He sighed audibly and said, “My deepest apologies for the disruption. Everyone’s next drink is on the house!”
This instantly cheered up the tavern’s clientele and no one complained about the slow service as Jacob balanced his duties in the kitchen with Athea’s duties of serving the customers.
Athos slowly ate his cold meal and finished off the wine. As he ate, his mind reviewed what had just happened, Well that was an absolute disaster. Nikas was right I should have never come here tonight. With the knowledge that there truly was no hope for winning Athea back, he tried to fight off tears.
“I told you so,” The Nikas personality said.
“This hurts so much. Can you just take over?”
“No, you need to face this pain. Feel it, let it eat at you, and overwhelm you. Then learn to control it, and finally box it up. Leave it in that box until you need to draw it out. Then use it to create the drive you need to slay the Empire’s enemies.”
Athos bought another bottle for the road and headed back to his room at the fort. There he drank the entire bottle and relished in the numbness it brought to his heart as the effects of the alcohol washed over him. Mercifully it finally claimed him, and he passed out in a stupor on his bed.
Chapter 29
Afternoon, August 18th 636 Somewhere on the Jerusalem Road, Palestinia Province, Byzantium
Baltazar held up his hand which signaled the driver to stop the wagon, “Jaco, there appears to be quite a number of damned coming down the road in front of us. Can you and your men use your bows to pick some off while I form up a shield wall?”
Jaco nodded, “Aye.” He looked back at his men and pointed at the damned up ahead on the road, “Let’s go send some of these bastards back to Satan’s breast!” Without waiting for a reply, he galloped off toward the damned. His men instantly followed his lead.
Baltazar looked around. To their right was a hill and to their left was the Sea of Galilee. On the flat strip of land in-between, was the Jerusalem road they were using to head south toward Yarmouk. The flat terrain immediately surrounding the road was broken by the occasional Palm tree. The light breeze moved the fronds back and forth lazily.
“Wagons, hold your position. Guardsmen, dismount and form shield wall across the road.” Baltazar yelled back at the men.
The men did as they were instructed. At the same time, Jaco’s seven men halted a few horse lengths from the damned and let loose with a volley of arrows. The arrows struck several of the damned and two of them, arrows piercing their heads, collapsed into a heap. Driven into a frenzy of hunger at their first potential meal in days, they howled and charged the men.
Without further orders, Jaco’s riders all drew another arrow and shot it at nearly point blank range into the charging group of the enemy. Three damned were dropped as they took off at a gallop narrowly avoiding grasping fingers. As they rode back toward the shield wall, they turned in their saddles and fired their bows again. This much more challenging angle was known as the Parthian shot. This volley slew only one more of the undead.
As Jaco’s group rode toward Baltazar’s shield wall, a second group of damned topped the hill to Baltazar’s right. Noticing them, he exclaimed, “Mary mother of Jesus!”
He glanced back at the thirteen wagons lined up on the road behind him. It was pure chaos. Seeing the damned, the drivers tried to turn their wagons and flee. The road was too narrow for them to turn, so the wagons moved onto the beach, seeking room to finish turning around. Every single one of them got stuck in the sand.
Thinking quickly Baltazar came up with a plan. The damned running down the hill was only 100 feet away at this point, “Break formation and reform against the water.” He then yelled at the drivers, “Unhitch your horses and ride them out of here! Hurry!”
As the guardsmen ran past him to obey his orders, he drew his ax out and banged it on his shield to draw the attention of the damned away from the wagons, “Yeah that’s it you ugly bastards come to me!”
Baltazar kept yelling at them and slowly backing up hoping the men had the shield wall formed behind him. He couldn’t afford to glance back and look to confirm it. The first damned quickly closed the distance to him. The thing must have been an athlete before being turned into a minion of Satan as it outdistanced its fellow undead by a considerable margin.
Baltazar planted his feet and shoved his shield into the creature as it finished its charge with a headlong lunge. Angling his shield, the damned’s head smashed right into the metal boss in the center. The demon spawn’s skull split and bits of brain matter crusted in purple ooze fouled Baltazar’s shield. The savage beast, however, would trouble him no further.
Baltazar then glanced back at his men, “Good, Lael step back so I can take your place in line.”
Using the extra time the first damned’s lead bought him, he turned and ran back to the now open space in the line, “Plant your right foot behind you, so that you can brace for the impact. When it happens, swing your ax at the top of the damned’s head. Don’t hit it with all your might or the ax will get stuck.”
The men collectively tensed as the damned closed the last few feet between them. With snarling, moaning, and much teeth clicking, the wave of the damned crashed into the shield wall. The wall swayed under the press of the creatures but held. The inexperienced and very nervous guardsmen began killing them one by one.
The horde filled the entire space between the shie
ld wall and the top of the hill. With nowhere else to go, Jaco’s men rode into the shallow water behind Baltazar’s formation. They halted and began peppering the horde with arrows. Surprisingly, none of the guardsmen had fallen to the onslaught during the initial attack.
In between swings, Baltazar looked out over the horde of the demon spawn that had now surrounded them and pinned them up against the Sea of Galilee. There must have been hundreds of the things pushing to feast on them. Looking to his right, he saw several dozen of Satan’s minions feasting on two horses and a wagon driver. How the heck are we going to get out of this?
The guardsmen to his left screamed as one of the damned managed to slip in under his guard and bite his ankle. Baltazar struck him in the head to put him out of his misery. Lael, his single guardsman in reserve, stepped forward to plug the hole in the line. The bodies of the slain quickly piled up in front of them much as they did at Yarmouk. Baltazar needed to do something now, or all would be lost.
“Ok listen up, men,” Baltazar paused and severed the reaching arm of a damned. “We are going to need to fight our way forward,” He then brought his ax up into the chin of the now one-armed creature. The fine cutting edge easily pierced the soft flesh and penetrated the brain pan. It flopped to the ground dead in front of Baltazar, joining his first six kills. “When I say begin you are to take a step forward every time you slay one of these bastards. Do not let the shield wall break. We have to do this together, or we will all die right here. If you understand, yell yes sir one by one starting with whoever is on the far left. Do you understand?”
The man on the far left responded as Jaco put an arrow into the damned trying to flank him, “Yes, sir!” The responses quickly moved down the line past Baltazar and ended when the man on the far right yelled, “Yes, sir!”
God I hope this works. “Ok, begin!”
As Baltazar said it, he slew his eighth creature crawling up over the pile of seven corpses in front of him. He put his left shoulder under his shield and pushed the pile causing several of the bodies to roll off the top, tripping several of the creatures behind it. Baltazar then hopped up on the pile and brought his ax down on the top of a damned’s head. The rest of the men in the line followed suit, and they were all standing on the corpses of slain creatures.
Baltazar sheathed his ax, drew his Spatha, and swung it in a large arc at the damned in front of him at head level. The ploy worked, and the razor sharp blade passed through the heads of four damned all at once sending brains and bone matter flying. Stepping forward, he jammed the Spatha blade into the next undead reaching for him.
Baltazar then slew a damned in front Lael who was just to his left now. Lael took a step forward into the now vacated spot. Slowly the rest of the line followed suit. A gap began to open up between the shield wall and the sea. If not for Jaco’s men using their bows to keep creatures out of the gap they would have been flanked.
Baltazar noticed the problem, “I need the man on each end of the line to pivot and block the gap. Protect the backs of your comrades!”
The two men on the end of the line followed the order and were able to plug the gap. The shield wall was shorter, but now they had a little bit of beach behind them. It was a relief to have a little space not swarming with the damned. The effort might be all for naught as the damned continued to fight for the chance to make Baltazar’s small group a meal.
In between slaying damned, Baltazar looked out at the teaming mass in front of him, This is it. I simply don’t have enough men to kill this group.”
Seconds turned into minutes, and then the minutes turned into a few dozen as they fought to simply survive. Like Yarmouk, the bodies of the slain piled up before them. Unlike Yarmouk there was nowhere to retreat. Baltazar attempted to prolong the order to withdraw as long as he could. Even as the damned clambered up the slain bodies of their comrades and looked down upon the shield wall. Catching sight of Baltazar’s group as they ascended the grisly peak, they would often moan, growl, or scream at the men before throwing themselves onto the shield wall.
Several times the damned, using the mountain of bodies as a springboard, landed on shields and were flung back into the surf by Baltazar’s men. Jaco’s riders would dispatch these with a jab of their spears to the face. Unable to delay any longer Baltazar ordered the men to step back five feet. The waters of the Sea of Galilee turned purple as the ichor from the slain damned flowed into the sea. The warm water lapped up against their calves letting the men know there was very little room to back up further.
Another dozen minutes passed by as Baltazar’s men felled damned by the score. Again, given no choice thanks to the growing pile of corpses, he ordered his men to back up another five feet into the surf. Despite their lack of training, the situation turned them into lions. damned after damned was slain and the shield wall held. The water, now up to their waists, was a constant reminder that there was simply nowhere else to retreat.
Baltazar jabbed a creature in the eye with his Spatha. Several minutes ago he had switched from his Spatha back to his ax as it was easier to swing over his head in the water. His fingers had grown slippery on the wooden stock, and he had dropped the ax into the water. Unable to locate it before the next damned flung itself at him he drew his Spatha and slew it.
The Spatha’s pommel was wrapped in leather, which gave him a better grip on it, despite the water and purple ichor that passed for the blood of the damned. He stole a glance at Lael to his left, while at the same time he slew a damned by slicing the skull in half using a powerful sideways swipe with his Spatha, “Thanks for believing in me back at Tuba. I’m sorry your faith was misplaced.”
Lael severed an arm that had grabbed his shield with a mighty swing of his Spatha, “No worries, I know what you mean about being able to control fear now. Despite all this,” he gestures at the horde dying to feast upon them. “I don’t feel anything. Only a calm numbness.”
“That’s how I felt at Yarmouk. When I thought the end was coming.” Baltazar said.
“What happened next? Obviously you were rescued somehow.” Lael asked.
Baltazar pointed back at Jaco’s men behind them, their horses now standing in water that came up to their mid-chest, “We were rescued by riders of the 8th Mesopotamian.”
Lael chuckled, “Considering they are stuck behind us, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen today. Hopefully, God has a better plan than allowing us to become meals today.”
“Hopefully. . .” Baltazar’s voice trailed off.
They fought for several more minutes. Baltazar ordered one final retreat. The water, now up to their elbows, made it difficult for them to swing their weapons. Jaco’s men, their horses, now swimming, dismounted and held onto their tails, “We're going to see if we can swim parallel to the shore and get out of this water.” Jaco yelled at Baltazar.
In between kills Baltazar glanced back, “You’ve done all you can back there. Try and save yourselves.”
“Aye, lad. If we can get to shore without the damned turning us into a snack, we’ll try and come back for you.”
Jaco’s men slapped their horses on the rump and held onto their tails as the animals swam north. Several of the damned noticed that some of their food was trying to leave, so they broke off from the main group and charged into the water. Jaco’s men drew their axes and fought these creatures as best they could while floating in the water.
Baltazar stole a glance at Jaco’s floundering men. Damn, they were our last hope of getting out of this.
Baltazar jammed his Spatha into the gaping maw of what seemed like the hundredth damned trying to bite him today (in reality it was only the sixty-fourth). The Spatha cleanly penetrated the skull, and the tip went all the way through the back of its head until Baltazar yanked it free to deal with the next one. As he yanked out the Spatha, the body started drifting north as it floated on top of the water.
“Look, the bodies are floating away! Maybe we can hold here until we run out of them?” Baltazar r
emarked.
As he said it a guardsmen off to the right cried out in pain. He held up his right hand. Several of his fingers were missing, and the savaged stumps bled freely. Without warning, Jaco severed the man’s head from behind with his Spatha and took his place in line. Baltazar noticed that the guardsmen were becoming very fatigued and their movements were slowing down. They just don’t have the conditioning that months of hard training bring.
Lael now panting said, “I don’t know how much longer I can keep swinging this ax. My arm feels like lead.”
“Hang in there.” Baltazar pointed at the damned with his Spatha, “I think we are starting to run out of them.”
“Sure doesn’t look like it,” Lael replied.
The conversation was interrupted by a roar, “Was that a man?” Someone off to Baltazar’s left asked. He didn’t recognize the voice.
Again the sound of a roar washed over Baltazar’s group as they fought desperately to live another thirty seconds. From behind Baltazar heard, “I hope to hell that isn’t a damned bear.” A man said chuckling at his pun.
They heard the roar again. Baltazar finally found the source. A man topped the hill behind the damned. He was easily the size of three ordinary men. Wearing nothing but a loin cloth he charged down the hill holding a gladius in his right hand and an old style square Roman Legionnaire shield in his left hand. As he ran down the hill, his brown beard which reached down to the middle of his chest billowed in the breeze created by his rapid descent.
Without any regard to his safety, the man smashed into the rear of the damned. Sensing a new source for meat several of them turned to attack him. The man slew quite a lot of them in the first few seconds but was soon surrounded, “Well shite, so much for our rescue.” Baltazar muttered under his breath.
As Baltazar and his men continued to fight on two new figures appeared at the top of the hill. One dressed in the banded armor of a Roman Legionnaire also carried the old style square shield and wielded a gladius. The other appeared to be a woman. The man sheathed his gladius, and then they both pulled out a sling. With stunning precision, the pair begins firing small stones into the heads of the damned immediately around the man with the long beard.
Byzantium Infected Box Set Page 42
