Imperatrix (Gladiatrix Book 3)

by Russell Whitfield

  Was Sorina out there, Lysandra wondered, or was she already dead? She pushed the thought aside, focusing on the job in hand. She should say something to encourage the Heronai but, before she could open her mouth, another voice rang out.

  ‘Here they come, girls!’ Illeana shouted. ‘We’ve faced them before and back there we only stood behind sticks. But we held them off. All of them. Now look – they’re dying in their hundreds and they’re nowhere near us. When they get to the wall, they’ll be tired and tired fighters make mistakes. I should know – I’ve sent enough of them to Hades in my time! Stand fast. Hold the wall. Kill them! Kill them all!’

  The Heronai roared in response, weapons clattering on shields and some began to chant Illeana’s name. Absurdly, it irked Lysandra: once again Illeana was the darling of the crowd and everyone’s favourite. She surmised that that was the way it was always going to be. Some people – like Lysandra herself – the gods had blessed with intelligence, skill and of course Spartan blood. Illeana may not have the blood, but she had charisma to spare – the touch of Aphrodite must be on her, and Lysander reflected how even Athene, the Virgin and the Wise, held no power over the Cyprene.

  The pounding from the artillery was relentless. Titus’s spotters were organising the elevation, ensuring that the stones and bolts delivered maximum carnage. But the barbarians did not break – there were too many, Lysandra realised. This fight would end as she knew it must – hand to hand, eye to eye – as it was in the arena.

  Burly warriors were heaving the heavy gangplanks towards the wall and behind them, hundreds carried makeshift ladders. Lysandra was forced to duck as arrows began to hiss back from the horde: they were not organised volleys but rather a constant erratic rain that, in some ways, felt more dangerous.‘Keep your shields ready!’ she ordered, ‘and your heads down.’ She herself gripped the secutrix scutum in her hand tighter and raised it so that only her eyes peeked over the top, the rest of her head protected by her red-crested helmet. With that and her cloak, she knew she made herself a target. At her sides, Cappa and Murco stepped in with Kleandrias close by. ‘I need room,’s he snapped. ‘Like Illeana, I have killed many – probably more than all three of you put together!’

  ‘Just doing our job, strategoi,’ Murco said.

  ‘Strategos!’ This from Lysandra, Kleandrias and Cappa.

  It was the last thing Cappa ever said. An arrow from the horde below whizzed by Lysandra’s face and went through his neck. Blood spurted from the wound on both sides as he gagged, eyes rolling in pain and terror; he reached out and clutched at Lysandra before his legs gave way and he fell onto the fighting platform, the dead weight too much for her to bear. He lay there, kicking his legs, his body trying to live as Hades pulled him close. The desperate, heaving rattle of this throat trying to draw breath and the wet, whistling sound of the air exiting the wound was obscene; Lysandra could hear it above the sound of the barbarians below, the shouts of the Heronai and the artillery shot.

  ‘Cappa!’ Murco threw himself to his knees, not knowing what to do. ‘Get a healer! Get a healer here, now!’ Asklepian Priestesses in white tunics came running up the steps to the platform but as they arrived, Cappa had stopped moving. ‘Cappa!’ Murco began sobbing. ‘Oh no!’

  Kleandrias dragged him to his feet. ‘He is dead!’he shouted into the other man’s face. ‘We live. They killed him,’ he gestured in the direction of the attackers. ‘We can do nothing for Cappa’s body, Murco. But we can make sure his shade has plenty of slaves in the

  Dark Hall.’ Murco was staring at him, the shock of Cappa’s death still freezing him. ‘Come on!’

  Murco blinked and, white-faced, he nodded and stepped back to Lysandra’s side. Kleandrias took up Cappa’s position on her left. ‘We will avenge him, Murco,’ Lysandra said.

  Below, the barbarians had reached the ditch.

  ‘Stand ready!’ the woman next to Illeana shouted at the top of her lungs. Helena was her name – or Tough Boots as she was called behind her back. She had been with Lysandra in her ludus and stayed with the Spartan when she had built her temple. She was a lochagos – a line commander and all the women respected her.

  Huge men threw the great wooden planks across the gap as the Heronai hurled javelins and stones down at them. Not all the walkways stuck – some fell short and plunged into the ditch others dug in and then slid away. But a quick glance up and down the lines told Illeana that hundreds of them were succeeding.

  Behind the Heronai the archers and artillery kept up a withering hail of shot and barb, the ordinance falling into the middle ranks of the barbarians.

  ‘They’re going to be annoyed,’ Helena said to her out of the side of her mouth.

  ‘True enough,’ the Gladiatrix Prima responded. ‘But I keep thinking of what they did to your girls back there,’ she added, louder. ‘Think on that when the first one of those bastards puts his head above this wall!’

  They would not have long to wait. The barbarians were pounding across the walkways now and Illeana could hear their guttural language, the screams and shouts as they came close. The first prongs of a ladder clattered against the wall and Illeana shoved it away. Moments later, it was back again. She reached out.

  ‘Wait,’ Helena stopped her. Then: ‘With me . . . now!’

  They both pushed – the ladder was heavier because a man bearing

  a sword was clambering up it, behind him, a woman clad in animal skins bearing an axe. Both of them fell back into the swarming mass below. An arrow careened off the wall close by Illeana and skittered away. She shook her head and looked at Helena who raised her eyebrows. There was no time to talk – another ladder hit the stone bulwark.

  Another ladder thudded against the wall.

  ‘Fuck me, you stupid bastards, push it off!’ Mucius shouted. ‘Look alive there!’ All down the line, the barbarians were crossing their portable bridges and coming at the wall en masse. Behind the front-runners, there were tens of thousands of them in the field, helpless against the carnage that the artillery and archers were causing. But the enemy milling below the wall on their walkways added their own ordinance to the fray: spears, stones, arrows even axes were being pelted up at the Felix as they ducked and shoved, desperate to keep the barbarians from gaining purchase.

  ‘Keep it up, keep it up! ‘Mucius’s optio, Livius, was pacing up and down the fighting platform, ignoring the screams of wounded men as they were struck by Sarmatian missiles. He approached Mucius. ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ he informed him – as he always did.

  Mucius laughed, the fear in his guts dissipating. ‘If you get killed, I’ll make sure I’ll toast your shade.’

  ‘Look out!’ Livius shoved him hard, sending him off the fighting platform and down to the ground. Mucius landed flat on his back, stunned; reserves crowded around him, hoisting him to his feet, many voices asking him if he was all right. He pushed them aside, looking up at the platform just as the corpse of a tattooed warrior crashed to the ground in front of him, pierced by a dozen wounds. He’d made the platform, then – and Mucius realised that Livius had saved his life: the bastard must have been behind him. Livius looked down and waved at him briefly before turning back to the fight.

  Mucius pushed and shoved his way through the men of the Felix, wading towards the steps and ran up, back to the platform. Casualties

  mounted, the missiles from the attackers took their toll on the men – but they were holding. As the thought occurred to him, he saw one lad take a stone straight in the face; he fell back, spitting teeth and gobs of blood. A huge tribesman hoisted himself up where the legionary had been standing and began to clamber over. Another man went to stab him, but then another head appeared above the wall, forcing him to turn and cut the enemy down.

  ‘Shit!’ Mucius drew his gladius and charged the giant who was flailing about with a sword that the centurion reckoned was half as tall as a man. Behind the barbarian, another was up and over. The warrior cut down with his blade, splitting
a legionary’s head in two, helmet and all. Blood and brain matter spattered those close by as the Sarmatian – or whatever in Hades he was – roared, lost in battle fury. The men were backing off and as they did, more of the enemy were getting up onto the platform.

  Mucius pushed one of the lads out of his way and ran right at the barbarian, but as he drew close, Livius grabbed his long hair and pulled his head back. The optio’s blade sprouted from the giant’s torso before he withdrew it and shoved him off the platform – to the curses and shouts of the men below.

  The barbarians fought with an insane, desperate kind of courage, as though death held no fear for them. Mucius had seen this before: they could overwhelm you with their force and their raw courage, but it was a fragile thing and if you stood firm, you could overcome them.

  But as more men – and their damned screeching Amazons – reached the wall, he began to fear that they had so many bodies to throw into the fight that they would just keep coming and coming and coming until it was the Felix and her allies that broke and ran.

  Run to where? He looked down and across at the second wall: Valerian’s redoubt. And then? Then it would be all over. They had to stop them here. Because while the redoubt might seem like a safe haven, in Mucius’s experience, if it came down to retreating there, they’d be down to the triarii.

  Fear.

  Not the kind of desperate, frantic terror that you felt in the thick of the fight where everything happened so fast. This was different and Valerian had never felt it before – not even when he had been watching Pyrrha fight. This was a churning, gut wrenching sense of hopelessness; the die had been cast and there was nothing he could do but watch and hope. The commanders on the front were rotating their forces, keeping fresh troops at the wall so that they would not become exhausted; Titus and the Artemisians were raining a constant hail of missile shot over the walls and onto the attackers; all Valerian had in his hands was the decision of when and where to throw in his reserves.

  For now, he could see everything from his vantage point, but it would be dark soon. The sky was turning and if they could just hold out, it would buy another day. Another day for Iulianus to win his fight and come to their aid. All down the line, the fight raged, thousands of voices lifted in fear, rage and pain, the endless cacophony of weapon on weapon, sword on shield.

  Decabalus’s allies were on the wall, first – worryingly – at the Felix’s position; the men, though, were having none of it and those attackers who reached the fighting platform were being despatched. He saw with satisfaction – even from this distance – that the centre and the notionally weaker north end where Lysandra commanded were holding. The enemy was failing there. Lysandra’s gladiatrices, hypaspistai and her Spartans were fighting like Olympians. Below them, the barbarians hesitated as bodies fell in increasing numbers, crashing back to their walkways or tumbling down into the ditch.

  A female warrior gained the platform. She was bulky, her black hair shaved short at the sides of her head. With an axe, she cleaved her way to the centre, striking about her like a mad woman, hewing into Euaristos’s men like a Fury. Behind her, huge warriors – one of whom threw himself in front of a sword stroke that should have killed her. A chieftain, he reckoned, or a chieftain’s wife or daughter. Either way, she was backed by elite fighters, well kitted, huge in size and ferocity.

  Valerian could see it happening before his eyes – the auxiliaries backing away, eyes on the new threat as yet more and more Sarmatians gained the wall. He reached for the whistle around his neck and blew three sharp blasts. It was picked up by his signallers and the buccinas responded in kind, calling in a reserve from the Felix. The legionaries took off at a trot and he could see Settus and his ill- tempered optio, Slainius, leading the run. The Eight and Tenth of the Tenth centuries were good men – not as good as Mucius’s First of the First, but hardy enough – and no one in their right mind wanted a fight with Settus. Valerian hoped their arrival would bolster the faltering troops before it was too late. Two centuries was not a great number, however. He hesitated, unsure if he had thrown enough to support the centre. But if he put more in there, what if Lysandra’s corps came under pressure – they were, after all, only women. And the barbarians had gained their first successes in his sector.

  He just didn’t have enough at his disposal to cover all the options: another blast at the whistle, and two more centuries from the Tenth began the run to the centre line.

  Which, he realised, was beginning to crumble and break apart.

  Sweat drenched her body, her lungs desperate for breath, but she had pushed on, eyes blinded by the salty, stinging rivulets that ran into her eyes.

  But Sorina had made it unscathed, through the gauntlet of stone and arrow and across pitted ground. Behind her, she had heard the plainspeople following her, urging her on as she led them to battle. Soon, the younger, fleeter ones overtook her and, like a swarm, they descended on the wall, their gangplanks thudding down as the defenders pelted them with javelins.

  She doubled over, hands on her thighs, heaving for breath, a dribble of vomit escaping her guts and spilling out down her chin. A heavy hand clapped her on her shoulder: Amagê, her broad face florid with exertion and spattered with sweat and mud. ‘You’re insane!’ she shouted, pulling Sorina up. She looked her straight in the face then, saying nothing, but her eyes expressed her gratitude. Amagê had frozen and it was she, Sorina, who had taken charge.

  Thousands rushed past them, hurling their bodies into the fray, every man and woman amongst them desperate to outdo each other in feats of courage. There would be legends carved out today.

  For some.

  Sorina looked back at the field; the arrows rained down and the onagers shot carved swathes through the crowds. The ground was littered with the injured, some screaming, transfixed by ballista bolts, others rolling in agony with the caltrops piercing their feet. Hundreds. No, she realised, thousands. It was a killing gallery for the Romans as they took lives that they could not even see.

  Amagê’s bodyguard arrived some moments later, angry and tired, weighed down by their armour and weapons and, Sorina reckoned, unaccustomed to joining battle on foot – as was she, she thought, ruefully.

  They found themselves in the centre of the line, looking up at the auxiliaries who were hard pressed to stem the tide but – as yet – no one had gone over the top as the soldiers shoved ladders away from the wall and sent warriors tumbling away.

  ‘What do you think?’ Amagê asked her.

  Sorina scanned the walls. On their right, the Romans – the best of the best – were taking the brunt of the assault. Sorina reckoned that most were veering to their left to avoid the arrows and shot: it was illogical, but then – she looked around – this was all madness. In the middle, they had gained no headway and on their left she could see the gladiatrices and, right in the middle of them, the red- cloaked priestesses from Lysandra’s temple. They and the other hoplomachai were giving bloody hell to those trying to gain the wall, their huge round shields and long spears creating a second wall – but one that had iron teeth. Either side of them, secutoriae, fighting with small scuta and gladius, killing, killing and killing again. Of all the fighters, Sorina realised, Lysandra’s were the most skilled and the most deadly. How would that be received in Rome, she wondered? The women outfighting the men.

  Scuta. Gladius. Hoplomacha. Secutrix. She cursed herself – these were Roman words and they had become part of her.

  ‘Well?’ Amagê pressed.

  ‘The centre,’ Sorina decided. ‘We’ll break their body and cut off the arms. Look there, ‘she pointed with her sword to the right. ‘The wall is thick with legionaries – the strongest point of the defence. They can’t lose the town, Amagê, if they have nowhere to hole up if we take the wall. Over there, on the left, Lysandra’s women are too well kitted for the fight. But here, ‘she jerked her chin at the wall, ‘if we can take them here, we’ll win this.’

  ‘Then let’s take this fucking wall
!’ Amagê hefted her axe and Sorina could tell she was about to charge straight into the fight.

  She reached out and grabbed her arm. ‘Wait here,’ she said.

  ‘Why!’

  ‘Because they are fresh, and you are too important to throw your life away. Wait a while.’

  Amagê gritted. ‘I am Clan Chief, I must lead the charge – it shames me to hang back.’

  ‘Better shame now and defeat later, Amagê. You fall and the Sarmatians will lose heart – and so will the others. ’

  ‘They will think me a coward if I do not fight!’

  ‘And you will fight. But not yet. Trust me – we’ll wet our swords in Roman blood – but when the time is right.’ Amagê screamed in frustration and turned away, knowing Sorina was right and hating the fact that she was.

  Sorina looked back to the battle, waiting. Above, the sky was turning dark; Sorina’s eyes narrowed. If the night came too early, it would hand the Romans a victory and they would have preserved their wall for another day.

  Unless . . .

  Events on the right interrupted her train of thought as the first warriors were gaining the heights. They were few in number, but they had proven with their lives that it could be done. The Romans were not done yet, she knew. They would fight until they were dead – or someone with a red, ermine trimmed cloak told them to stop.

  The fight raged on, Amagê pacing around in frustration as yet more of her kin ran past and up to the walls – and were thrown back. Behind them, the rain of death from the artillery kept up, though the rate of shots was slackening now. The Romans too knew the dark was coming and they were conserving their ammunition. If she were a soldier, fighting along that wall, she would be thinking the same thing. The night is coming – all I have to do is stay alive until the dark. And I will live another day.

  There was a roar of triumph up ahead – the warriors had finally gained the top of the wall and were pouring over it, a river of iron and flesh. ‘Now, ‘she said to Amagê. ‘Now is the time!’