Spell of the Beast: Book 1: Shape Shifters of Rome

by M. A. Mott

  “The one in the center is called the Lord of the Hunt, at least to these local people. He is chief of the gods. The bear, the horse, the wolf...and the cat...they are all also gods who walk among people.” She pointed to the cat. “We are they. The people in here are worshipping us.”

  “You mean, this thing I am, this creature I have become. I am that?”

  She smiled, but he did not return it. “Yes. You are now of an ancient line, so ancient, older than Rome. Older than Carthage. Older than Athens, or Troy. You are mighty. You are beautiful.”

  He grimaced, with a lost look on his face. “This is an abomination.” He pointed at the dancing human figures. “These...these stick people...they are nothing but barbarians!”

  She reached out to touch him, but he recoiled.

  “These are believers, the ones who watch for us, made this to honor us,” she said. “We are gods, my love.”

  “I am a questor of the Senate and the People of Rome. I am not some dirt-eating cave-dweller.”

  “That is your priests, your senators, your consuls and philosophers talking,” she said. “They are speaking. Not you.”

  “No! I am a Roman!”

  “You were Roman, and you may still be in part. But you are now a God.” She saw his face contort with loss and pain. She touched him again, lightly, on the shoulder. His muscles tensed beneath her hand. He drew away again. He turned away from the mural.

  “Take me from this place. I wish to see it no more!” He lurched away, back down the rock on which they stood. She followed, keeping them both in the light. The figures on the walls danced away behind them. Ahead of her, he stumbled over the rocky floor in his bid to get away from her and what she’d shown him.

  She did not reach to him with her feelings, like she had in the time he escaped from the citadel. Now was not the time to intrude into an angry, confused mind. Instead, she followed him quietly, confidently, patiently, just enough to keep him in the edge of light provided by her torch. At one point, he lurched into the direction of a dead-end corridor, and she’d gently voiced, “This way,” pointing in the direction of the cavern’s mouth.

  In this way, she took the lead position and was the first to see the tribesman, his blond hair drawn back in a braid, a reddish-blond beard, clad in brown leather leggings, his bare chest painted blue. In one hand he held his spear, iron-tipped, its butt resting against the ground. In his open left hand, extended forward, he held the pendant of one of her acolytes. There was blood on it.

  She put out her hand where Maximus stood next to her and touched his chest, stopping him, feeling him tense.

  The tribesman’s blue eyes, narrowed slightly, sensing Maximus was not one of her dark-skinned countrymen, but a man of northern Mediterranean stock—and with his close-cropped hair and beardless face, a Roman.

  She put her hand on the man’s, which was holding the headband, looked at him with her golden-flecked green eyes, and spoke softly to the tribesman in his own, soft, lilting Celtic tongue.

  “My warrior friend. You are Thal, of the Lusitani?”

  The man nodded, blushing furiously. She knew she honored him by addressing him by his name.

  “What do you bear? The garment of my child?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Forest mother,” the man called her their name for her among the hill folk, “...your child lies outside here. She is alive, but hurt.”

  “Let us not tarry,” she said. She started to go past him.

  “But...my mother,” he said, bowing slightly, “This man with you, is he not Roman?”

  “He is no longer,” she said, sparing a glance back at Maximus, then to the tribesman. “He is now my mate.”

  The tribesman knelt briefly before them, bowing, then stood up, handed her the headband, and turned to lead them out.

  Outside, the glare of the day was softened by the shade of the tree canopy that hid the mouth from the surrounding countryside. There, next to the smoldering fire, stood several tribesmen, all clad similarly to the Lusitani who had met them in the cave. They stood around a fur pallet on which lay the young acolyte, one of her entourage from the temple. Her white linen robes were muddied and bloody. A gash shown red on her forehead, where one of the men was dabbing at it with a poultice.

  Tanit got to her knees beside the girl. It was Renata. Such a strong one, she thought. Yet the girl seemed to sleep deeply. Too deeply. She laid her hand on the girl’s chest and felt it rising and falling in shallow breaths. She was near death. She leaned over and listened to Renata’s heart flutter in small, pitiful beats. Tanit suddenly got up and grabbed the small pot they used for cooking. She dipped water into it from the goatskin bag near the entrance. She barked in their native tongue at the men standing all around.

  “Get me wood to build up this fire. I must boil this water!”

  After putting the water to boil, she sat down again next to the girl and put her hand on her head, lovingly, but with intent.

  Near her, Maximus paced back and forth, watching them, waiting for something. Tanit knew his mind was in turmoil. He awaited word on his men. Had the girl come through them? What was the state of the company? She tried to put the chaos of his mind from her. As much as she wanted to comfort her lover, Tanit knew the girl would need all her energy to come from brink of death.

  After several hours, the girl’s breathing eased. Eventually, she coughed. Tanit gave her small, slow sips of honeyed tea. Her eyes fluttered open, and Renata looked up and saw her goddess. Relief, fear, and anguish flooded all at once. She cried out, sat up, and clutched herself to Tanit’s breasts, crying.

  “The Hound!” she said. “The Hound has taken them!”

  “Taken who, my child?”

  “Oolaht and the others. They are going to crucify them! The Romans who came will crucify them and the men at the fort!”

  Tanit felt rage and fear well up within her. She fought to keep from changing. Then she felt something brush her mind. She turned to where Maximus had stood. He was gone. She ran to find him, but only found the rough tunic laying on the path down the ravine.

  He had changed. He was going to war.

  Chapter 16

  THE BEDRAGGLED ENTOURAGE, with its dark-skinned woman, its two hapless Romans lugging a large, bound chest, and the train of young women straggled into the yard before the thatched-roof home of yeoman farmer Wythled. He stood, arms crossed, chucking his tongue pensively, his woman Thyl clutching his shoulder.

  Why this now? Why? He had been faithful to the Gods. He had given the Romans anything they asked of him, and in return, he was named “friend” of them and never harassed him, never his stock taken from him, nothing but good relations. Similarly, he had never turned away a countryman, never turned away a fellow Iberii, and yet, here he stood now, with obvious refugees from the fort of the renegade Carthaginians on the hill. This was nothing but trouble. The fight there had lasted days. The Romans had come through, like they do, making friends with some, enemies of a few, and then using the friends to attack the enemies. Wythled had avoided that. And now, this? Why were Roman soldiers running away with the strange Carthaginian women in tow?

  One of the soldiers spoke to the woman in his native Latin. Wythled knew a little, but did not exhibit any sign he did. Instead, he glared at them as they discussed how to approach him for his cart.

  “We Romans to the cart go,” said the larger Roman soldier to the woman. Wythled strained to understand Latin. It always sounded backward to him. “Handle this problem, I will.”

  “Handle it not will you!” the woman (Was she a priestess? Yes, thought Wythled. She was the dark one of which they talked. The loud, dark one.)

  “We Romans to the cart will go, say me!” the soldier said, at least according to Wythled’s ears.

  “Not you will! Language of these people know I!”

  “Know I better!”

  “Testicles of bulls you do!” The woman turned away from the soldier to Wythled. “Sir farmer, we are in need of your help.�
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  “Mmmf,” Wythled grunted. What were they about to try to sell him?

  The Romans, who had set down their burden, stepped forward. The large one spoke again.

  “Cart you have with wheels and pony?” the Roman asked. “Make value for it?” He pulled out a purse and poured some small-denomination coins into his open hand.

  Wythled frowned at it. First, not much. Second, and more important: a Roman offering him a bribe? What next? How bad was this going to get? If a Roman soldier were offering a bribe, that meant things had not gone well in the battle at the fort. Yet, Wylthled had heard the news that the fort had fallen to the Romans. What the hell was going on?

  The woman leaned in and opened her hand. In it shown a gold Denarii of the Roman Republic. It was more money than he’d seen in his life. He felt his back go cold. The situation was apparently very serious. Dire. They certainly faced grave danger. He turned to his wife, Thyl.

  “Go inside. Take the children with you, except for Clyddeth. Tell him to fetch the cart and pony,” He turned back to the dark woman and stared into her eyes. She stared back. There was a patient resolve, but...yes, desperation too.

  “You pay well to such a humble man as me,” Wythled said. “Is there another price hidden in this coin I or my family will have to pay?”

  He watched her gaze falter. She swallowed and spoke. “I am from...the temple. The Romans now fight among themselves, but some want to kill us. We run from them with these two men, who also face danger. Your wagon will help us gain ground away from them.”

  He nodded. He was in it now. Just their coming here would raise questions. His pork was in the pot now. But gold like that would get him and his wife and children a good way down the road as well. Just as well. The ground in these parts was starting to give up less and less crops and he’d have to move in a few years anyway, and then, without this gold. He would give her the cart and the pony. He nodded to her, took the coin, turned and whistled to his son. From behind the thatch-roofed cottage came the cart, driven by Clyddeth, drawn by their stout, red pony, his shaggy fur flying. He stopped before the throng and hopped down from the bench seat and took hold of the pony’s harness.

  Following prompting by Oolaht, the two Romans hefted the chest up into the back of the cart, and several of the young acolytes clambered to get in, but were stopped by Tichus’ outstretched arm. They looked puzzled at him, and back at Oolaht.

  “Pardon, ma’am, but that pony can’t pull everyone,” he said. “The chest, and two at most.”

  Oolaht nodded. “Of course,” she said. She motioned for the two youngest to climb in. “We’ll take turns.”

  With that, they left the farm, bumping down the rutted road toward the mountain. Wythled watched them disappear into the dusk. Thyl came back out from the cottage and stood beside him, and he slipped his arm around her protectively.

  “Did you find out what they are running from?” she asked.

  “The Romans fight among themselves,” he answered. “They’ve fallen out and seek escape.” He looked around the surrounding countryside. No signs of pursuit. But he’d heard the dogs in the night, many of them, chasing something. “We need to be ready,” he added. “We need to pack, and go visit your cousin.”

  She put her hands on her hips and pointed in the direction of Oolaht’s now-vanished band. “You just gave our cart away!”

  He nodded, and opened his hand. The gold coin shined in the dim evening. Thyl’s eyes grew wide. “Ohhhhh,” she said quietly.

  “Yes. They paid well. But this means we must leave now or perhaps lose it all. Quick, get the children. Bundle them up. Grab some food—as much as we can carry. I’ll have Clyddeth put the goat on a lead. We must strike out before dawn.”

  After a short scurry about the little farmstead, the family set off across the broad fields surrounding their home. Thyl had suggested the hills, but Wythled insisted on her cousin’s. The woman and her two Roman deserters—that’s what they had to be, he surmised—were going to the mountains, and Hell would surely follow them. He took one look back at the little house, thought they might come back when things quieted down, and turned away to lead his little band into the mist.

  They had been walking for hours, stopping for a short rest near a stand of birches, when their pony, Tukor, trotted up out of the darkness. The tatters of harness from what was formerly their cart trailed behind him. He seemed tired, but happy to see them. The blood spattered on his shaggy red coat was not his.

  Chapter 17

  AFTER BUMPING DOWN the rutted, washed-out trail for a few miles, Oolaht and her weary entourage, with their rattling wooden cart, halted briefly in dusk, then set out across the broad, rocky plain set between them and the high hills where lay the holy cave.

  The going was slow—they bounced and bumped along the way, the small pony straining at the cart. Eventually, the two young women on the cart got off. In a way, it was more comfortable to walk. Tychus led the pony by the bridle. Often several had to get in and shoulder the cart over a rut or boulder.

  “Methinks this cart isn’t so much faster,” said Quintus.

  “So, you’d rather carry the chest then?” Tychus grumbled. “Well, get it then and be quick about it.”

  Quintus scowled at him. “I didn’t say that. And why do we need to be haulin’ around this big chest anyway?”

  “Medicine for the commander.”

  Quintus grunted. “Yeah, well, I guess there’s that.”

  Tychus nodded. “There’s that.”

  They stopped about halfway across the plain, near an outcropping of rocks from which a spring bubbled. They drank from it, they watered their pony, and Oohlat saw to it that a goatskin hanging from the cart was filled, along with a jar she produced from the chest. Into the jar she crumbled a brown powder, drank some, then passed it to her acolytes. She offered it to the soldiers.

  “What’s this then?” Tychus queried. He sniffed the jar.

  “It is from our trade with the lands beyond Persia,” she said. “They call it choi.”

  He sipped some. He made a face. “Tastes bitter. Do you poison us, woman?”

  “Only if I poison myself. If you don’t want it, I’ll be glad to finish it for you.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Rejuvenates the spirit,” she said.

  He shrugged, took a larger drink from it, then handed it to Quintus, who, after sniffing it, drank from it as well. They passed it back to Oohlat who drank the last in the jar, then wrapped a cloth around it and tucked it back into the chest. They continued, and after a while, they perked up. The tea had in fact given them vigor.

  “Gods, that Choi is good stuff,” said Tychus.

  “Glad you liked it,” Oolaht said. She was going to add something sharp about Romans, and how if they preferred trading to conquering, they might learn a thing or two, but then she saw something in the distance. She squinted. “What’s that?” she said, pointing.

  Small shapes lay ahead on the plain among a group of large boulders. They appeared to be some kinds of animals, goats or dogs. They appeared to be unmoving.

  Tychus, too, squinted into the plain ahead. He grunted. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  They did. In the long minutes trudging and bumping along, it became clear that the creatures were in fact dogs—they appeared to be the ones that had belonged to the Roman huntsman. They were torn to shreds.

  Tychus grit his teeth. “There was a battle here. Someone, or something, fought them and won.” He pointed to the ground. “Look at how the dirt’s been kicked up. The sod is torn. This was a mighty battle.” He crouched down. He seemed to be examining tracks. He pointed to a bit of torn sod. “See these claw marks? These hounds fought...a large cat, I guess.” He fell silent, probably putting the information together.

  The sight filled Oolaht with dread, although a little hope. It was horrific, but, that large cat was not one of the bodies lying there. Nor was the body of Maximus, nor that of her Goddess.


  “Come, we must hurry,” she said. “If the patrol is in this area, they might just find us.”

  Tychus stood up. “Aye, let’s make haste.”

  The ground was rockier now. The cart bumped and rumbled loudly, wracking the nerves of the little band.

  “Anyone around for a mile’s gonna hear us,” Tychus worried.

  “Maybe they’ll think we’re just peasants,” Quintus said. “Just farmers on the way to market or something.”

  “Ha,” Tychus sneered. He looked around at the boulder field surrounding them. Now the rocks were even larger, and the cart with its bedraggled escort had to navigate around them. “There’s no peasant dumb enough to take his cart into a field of boulders like this.”

  “Only someone dumb as a couple of privates,” said a voice.

  From behind the boulders around them stepped several Romans, their markings showing they were from Tychus’ and Quintus’ own unit.

  Tychus cursed, his hand going to the hilt of his gladius...then relaxed. He knew these men. The tall one, a blond centurion, had been his commanding officer before he had transferred to Maximus’ personal guard. He grinned and saluted, his hand across his chest.

  “Namron,” he said. “How goes the fight?”

  The centurion looked from one side to the other, then put his hand on his own sword. That’s not good, thought Tychus.

  “Funny you’d ask that,” Namron returned. “As it happens, we have orders to hunt down two traitors who are helping a witch and her little demons escape.” He sneered. “Looks like we’ve found you, Tychus.”

  Tychus kept his grin, but felt his back grow cold. This was it. He was going to have to fight these men—brothers, as far as he’d ever been concerned—or go along quietly, his hands bound, and be put before the tribunal. And what of the chest and medicines for commander Maximus? Perhaps he could point that out. He stepped back and crossed his arms. Behind him, the women gathered close to the small cart.

  “Good thing you did,” Tychus said. “Even now, we strike out to take these medicines to our commander Maximus.” He glanced around at the gathered soldiers. Seven. He saw one a rank ahead of him, fingering the whistle around his neck. That one would call down the whole legion on them. There must be scores searching among the rocks. He made a mental note to kill that one first. It might buy them some time before reinforcements arrived.