Stone and Steel

by David Blixt

  Death. The Roman's sword was lost, but his shield was still on his arm. Kneeling over the groaning man, Judah knocked the Roman flat, wrenched the shield, raised it high and drove the edge of it like a massive spade down into the gap between helmet and armour. The Roman's head parted from his body, sending spurts of blood onto the stones all around.

  Judah staggered to his feet, looking frantically around him. He'd fallen clean through the ranks of one century, and was now between the horses of the vanguard and the tortoise of the legion. Weaponless, bloodied, naked – even his kilted loincloth had ripped away – he was sure that death was coming for him at any moment. I'm going to die a fool's death.

  But so far no one was seeing him. The soldiers to the south were huddled behind their shields, and the horsemen were galloping north for the mouth of the valley, and escape. Every heartbeat brought more Judeans down towards the road. If Judah could survive just one minute more, he'd be among his fellows again.

  There were Romans in the road, dead or dying from spears and sling-stones. Clutching the bloody shield, Judah ran to the closest, a groaning man in a silver helm whose chest was spurting irregular gouts of blood through a hole in his breastplate. Judah bent low and plucked the man's sword from its hard scabbard.

  “Fellator,” gasped the dying Roman. Judah wondered if it had been his stone that had caught this man.

  He heard a clatter of hooves behind him and turned. A mounted man had glanced back, seen him, and was now reining about to cut him down. The moonlight reflected off a bald pate and huge Judean sword. “No! I'm a brother!” Judah opened his arms, refusing to fight another Jew.

  The horse came racing at Judah, the massive sword held high. Judah lifted his own blade to parry it—

  The clang of metal on metal sounded like it was inside his head. But it came from just behind him. Judah ducked and glanced back. The horse was already past him. Lying on the ground Judah saw the injured Roman whose sword he had stolen, a long knife in his hand. He had no face. His helm had been split, and there was blood pooling all around him.

  Judah glanced up at his rescuer. Much older than Judah, wiry and very tall. Deep-set eyes, bristling brow, and a neatly-squared beard. He'd killed the Roman with a huge version of the traditional Judean sword, long blade angled forward at the midpoint like a crooked finger.

  It was less than fifteen seconds since he'd landed on the road. Now the Roman centuries on the slopes were falling back under the crush of the thousands of Judeans racing down from above. Boulders bounced down into the ranks of the tortoises, breaking the Roman ranks. The Romans themselves were abandoning their tortoise shell to draw their swords and attack their besiegers.

  The lone horseman looked back the way he had come. A rabble of Judeans had come down onto the road, chasing the other riders. He was cut off from his companions.

  “Thank you,” called Judah.

  The tall man gave Judah a disdainful glare. “Gratitude later. Fight now!” With a grimace that was part snarl, part grin, he leapt down from his saddle and waded into the ranks of the scattering Romans, leaving Judah behind.

  Clever, thought Judah. Cut off, his only chance now is to change sides and fight with us.

  But he was cut off because he rescued me. I owe him my life. Judah followed the bearded turncoat onto the valley floor where the forces or Rome and Judea were meeting to become a roiling mass of men, blood, and steel.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  ROMAN LEGATES WERE SHOUTING orders. “Forget the siege engines! Leave the baggage! Kill the mules!” The stones had started again, this time from the front of the valley – some clever Judeans had climbed the crests to harass the Roman escape route.

  A stone struck a glancing blow to Cestius Gallus' breastplate, rocking him back in the saddle. “Cacat!” The Roman general clenched his knees on the saddle's horns, but the weight of his armour threatened to topple him.

  A hand shot out to steady him. King Agrippa was leaning sideways in his own saddle. “Gratias.”

  “If the general were to fall, Caesar's wrath would be all the greater. Besides,” added Agrippa with a ghost of a smile, “my sister likes you.” His Latin bore no trace of foreignness or rusticality. A client king, Agrippa had been raised in Rome, and was in spirit far more Roman than Jew.

  “Thanks,” repeated Gallus.

  Glancing back, the king scowled. “Though I confess, I might risk Nero's fury to see Florus fall.” Just behind them, Florus was refusing to get back into his saddle, choosing instead to climb into a covered wagon with his wife.

  Though he agreed, Gallus had no time for a chat. The emboldened Judeans were coming ever faster. If the Twelfth Legion and all its reinforcing cohorts did not escape this valley at once, they would die to the last man. He shouted to every man that could hear: “Fly fly fly!”

  As Agrippa shook his reins and galloped off with the Roman officers, he realized in passing that he had lost his bodyguard.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  JUDAH CHASED HIS tall savior through the thick of the fighting. A silent challenge had been issued, and Judah had never backed away from a challenge in his life.

  But if the goal was to kill more Romans than his opponent, Judah was clearly out-classed. The gaunt moonlit figure bested two legionaries with contemptuous ease, killing one and slicing out the other's eyes with a single stroke. The man was clearly well trained, a merchant of death, purchasing one life after another. Every flick of his wrist drew Roman blood.

  Lacking training, Judah fought by instinct, relying on his size and strength to see him through. He was used to shifting stones, and now he employed his strong arms to haul Romans off-balance and stab them or, more often, punch them with the hard wide pommel at the sword's other end.

  More and more Judeans were joining them down on the road, and it was pure confusion. Screams and shouts and the occasional sparks of steel on steel. The smell in the air was earthy and electric – blood and sweat and shit and fear.

  Judah still held the shield, but it was getting in his way. It slowed him too much, and he was not interested in defense. This was the moment to attack! What did it matter if he fell here? This would be a fine place to die, and for a fine cause.

  This would be a good death. Though I wish I weren't naked…

  Embracing the inevitable, Judah threw his shield aside. At once a Roman seized the opening and lunged. Judah caught the man's arm in his free hand and brought his sword down hard. The Roman screamed, blood geysering out of the stump at his elbow. Judah twisted the severed arm and stabbed the Roman with his own blade. The lifeless fingers fell away from the grip, and Judah waded into the enemy ranks with a blade in each hand. That's better, he thought.

  He wasn't aware he was laughing until a voice said, “What are you giggling at?” The question came from another Judean fighting beside him. Phannius, another mason. Where did he come from? Phannius was a lout, and fought like it, clubbing as many friends as foes, the idiot. His family considered itself above Judah's because it had a drop of priestly blood. Judah hoped the fool was cut down. Would serve him right.

  Judah's bile was very personal. Last month, after almost a year of courting, Judah had asked for Phannius' sister's hand in marriage. He'd been refused. Not good enough.

  Deborah. She'd smiled at him with such eyes—

  Judah gasped as a Roman spear was knocked away from his nose. He hadn't seen it at all, not until the tall bald turncoat had beat it aside. “Pay attention! I didn't save you for nothing!”

  Almost sheepishly, Judah redoubled his efforts. He was covered in blood, a fair amount of it his own. Despite his strong lungs he was panting now. Worse, his mind was beginning to fog. The hardest part of sword-work, he was finding, was the shock of the blows. That, and pulling the sword out of flesh – though it went in easy enough.

  He saw a sword coming down to cleave his skull, and he brought up both his blades in a cross to catch it. He was about to shoulder his attacker away when a reflection of moonlight caught his
eye. The lamp-like orb was shining down upon a pair of golden wings, bobbing high above the roiling swords and spears. It was a shaft of illumination just for him. The V of his swords overhead made a perfect frame for the large eagle perched high atop a pole. The Roman Aquila, symbol of Rome's might and majesty.

  The eagle…

  Binding the Roman's sword away with one blade and stabbing with the other, Judah was seized with an insane notion. To his protector he shouted, “Tell me your name!”

  The fearsome turncoat was driving back three legionaries. “Levi!”

  “Levi, I'm going for that eagle! You can come or not.”

  Levi barked out a short, “Oh, can I?”

  But Judah was already moving. The thing was just a dozen paces away. Not good enough? I'll show them how good I am. How good we both are, Asher. I'll die a hero of Israel.

  He moved without thought, without fear. He felt only an angry confidence, as if his sword strokes were being guided. The Lord is my sword, and my sword is His. I am that I am. “Come on, you bastards! Come on!”

  Suddenly Levi was by his side, and Judah grinned in spite of himself. I'm not the only fool. They fought furiously–heaving, shoving, slashing, hacking, stabbing–Judah with twin Roman blades, Levi cleaving with his massive crooked one. They called out taunts and curses in every tongue they knew as they moved inexorably towards the eagle.

  Sensing the danger to their standard, the Romans closed ranks, creating a solid wall around the aquilifer. Dressed in glittering silver armour and the skin of a desert lion, he was a man chosen for his absolute fearlessness. The aquilifer would give his life before he let his eagle fall.

  The Roman shield wall was bristling with spears. Dodging a spear thrust to his face, Levi grabbed a nearby legionary by the chin-strap and hauled him around onto the sword of his neighbour. Hacking down with his massive sword on the other side, he created a momentary gap in the thin line. “Go!”

  Judah leapt at once, diving and stabbing out with both swords. One blade drove through the leather skirts into a thigh, the other one up under a Roman's chin, exiting through the top of his skull.

  Both swords were torn from Judah's grip. He let them go and roared as he shouldered through the ranks. Barking his knee on a breastplate, careening off another armoured shoulder, he touched the road with one foot and launched himself at the aquilifer.

  The aquilifer's silver armour gave him an almost ghostlike presence in the moonlight. But he was quick. He lifted the staff in his hands and thrust the butt end of it at Judah's face. Judah's hands clamped down just before it struck him, diverting it to one side. He landed badly, but held on to the staff, wrestling for control of it, the eagle at the far end dancing jerkily.

  This was more like the fighting Judah knew, the rough and tumble battles of Jerusalem's stews, where elbows, knees, and teeth came into play. There were swords around him, but the Romans were too busy with Levi and the others to waste precious seconds ending his life.

  He yanked the staff, hard. The lion's head fell askew and Judah butted the aquilifer's nose with his forehead. Blood erupted, misting the air between them. Some entered Judah's nose and mouth as he breathed in, and for a moment he choked on Roman blood. “Bastard!”

  “Cunnus!” snarled the Roman. “Fellator!” Enraged, the aquilifer tripped Judah and they tumbled together to the hard road, just missing a spear thrust aimed sidelong at Judah's back.

  Landing on top, the Roman straddled Judah's chest and pressed the staff hard against Judah's throat. “Irrumator! Mentulam caco!”

  Gripping the staff tightly, Judah ground his teeth and focused his strength. Slowly, incredibly, the hearty oak shaft began to bend. Oak was a wood beloved of Mars, Judah had heard. Stupid foreign gods, with their stupid pagan loves and idiot superstitions! He heaved harder and harder, grinding his teeth so fiercely they felt like they might shatter.

  It was the oak that shattered, bursting in a shower of splinters right in the aquilifer's face. Taking advantage of the Roman's surprise, Judah drove the two splintered ends of the staff upwards. One gouged a deep furrow in the Roman's cheek while the other tore away most of the man's left ear.

  The aquilifer was damnably well trained. Even as he twisted away in agony, he drew his dagger and stabbed blindly down. Judah used the broken stave to block the blow and jabbed up again. This time the wooden shaft deflected harmlessly off the hard Roman breastplate.

  Smearing blood from his face with one forearm, the aquilifer pinned one of Judah's wrists with his knee. He stabbed down, and Judah barely got the broken haft in his free hand between him and the dagger's wicked point.

  The aquilifer put all his weight down. Slowly, inexorably, the dagger inched towards Judah's throat.

  Is this how Asher died? At the end of a Roman knife? Surging with rage, Judah heaved the aquilifer sideways and clubbed the Roman hard on the side of his head with the golden eagle, cracking his skull. The aquilifer fell to the dirt under a spray of blood.

  “For you, Asher! That's for you!” Shoving the limp Roman off him, Judah struggled to his feet, a nightmarish figure, naked, howling, drenched in blood. “You hear me! That's for my brother!” Swinging the broken Roman standard around his head, he dived into the Roman ranks and beat at them with their own symbol. Behind him Levi came fast, sweeping his massive blade to protect Judah's back. But Judah was past caring about safety. He had the eagle, and with it in his grip he was fearless, unstoppable.

  “The eagle! The eagle!” Judean cheers spread like wildfire. The whole world knew the significance of the Roman Aquila. Touched by the hand of Nero himself, it was a piece of Rome. Taking it was nothing less than a miracle, a sign from the Lord!

  The massed Judeans surged forward and began literally tearing the legionaries to pieces.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  AT THE MOUTH of the valley, governor Florus saw the eagle fall and chortled. Now they've done it. These Judeans have doomed themselves for certain.

  Not far off, King Agrippa shared the pride of his people's great deed, yet felt sick at heart. Today his countrymen had touched off a self-immolating inferno, building their funeral pyre on a tower of bravery. The definition of a Pyrrhic victory. He saw the massive crooked blade among the Roman ranks, slicing and maiming. O Levi – what have you done?

  General Gallus reacted practically. “Ride! Now, while they're cheering! Ride!”

  The two governors, the king, and a handful of Roman nobles and officers escaped into the night, leaving behind more than four thousand Roman soldiers dead or dying. A few hundred struggled on, fighting for their personal share of honour, hoping their gods looked on them with favour.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  JUDAH WAS IN the thick of it, a prodigious figure of death. One Roman he approached was his own age, but thin and unmartial – an officer sent from Rome, probably some scion of a famous house. The fellow dropped his sword and knelt before Judah, hands clasped and eyes streaming. “Pax! Pax! Elision!”

  Judah didn't know the last word, but the meaning was clear – mercy. Picturing his twin brother doing the same before some Roman, Judah stabbed the young officer in the throat and moved on, looking for his next foe.

  But there was no one left to kill. The Legio XII Fulminata – wielders of the Thunderbolt, conquerors of the Nervii, victors of Alesia and Pharsalus – were no more.

  II

  THE CELEBRATIONS LASTED straight through the night. Word of the victory had gone back to Jerusalem, and the city's women, children, and elderly had poured out to bring their men food and water. Dead Jews were lovingly returned to the city. Pyres for the Roman dead were made from broken wagons and siege engines. Around the huge fires there was dancing and singing, and many prayers of thanksgiving.

  Dawn found Judah walking aimlessly among the jubilant Judeans, the eagle still clutched in his hand. He had been carousing all night, and now exhaustion and wine made him feel muddled and stupid. But still, whether cavorting with the crowds or searching the dead for loot, e
very fighting man stopped to shout acclaim for the hero of the hour.

  It wasn't pride that kept Judah holding the standard. The damned thing was glued to his hand by gore, and he was too tired to pry it free. Seen up close, it was a homely image. Crude, not at all magnificent. The likeness of Nero Caesar was laughable, worse even than the one on coins. The eagle's wings were lopsided – no, that was from where Judah had crushed the aquilifer's skull. The golden talons clutched the engraved Roman numerals XII.

  It might not have been much to look at, but a lost eagle was a grave blow to Rome's immortality. Only a handful had ever been taken, and Rome had proved it would do anything to reclaim them. Famously, Augustus had negotiated a humiliating peace with Parthia in order to recover the eagles of Crassus, dressing it up as a Roman military victory. What would the Romans not give to get this eagle back? Judea's freedom was a small price for Roman honour.

  He'd pulled a long tunic over his head at some point to cover his nakedness. Blood and offal made the garment cling to him in a most ill way. He was sticky all over, his leg was throbbing where the hobnails had torn him, and he had countless scrapes, cuts, and bruises. There was a gash along his chest where a Roman sword had nearly laid him open.

  Dazed, he belatedly noticed that some men were picking through Roman corpses looking for arms and armour. I should do that. He attempted to pull the staff out of his grip, but his left hand became lodged in the sticky mass of gristle and hair as well. Laughing at the absurdity of it, he was shaking at his fingers when a quiet voice said, “Step on the haft.”

  Levi. The tall man seemed to be Judah's own shadow. Obediently, Judah bent over and used his foot to wrench the broken staff from his grip.

  Hands free, Judah made a proper introduction. “Judah ben Matthais. Thanks for saving my life.”

  “Levi ben Patroclus. You're a young fool, and brave. Such men need protection.”

  “I've never seen anyone fight like you.”

  “I did not take the eagle.”