“Quickly, straight across into that side street,” he said to Gallus, who led the group across. Vitus waited until they were all across before joining them. He saw the pain in Regulus’ eyes at the pace they were setting. He would watch the boy but would not slow down until they had to. They were making good time and avoiding too much trouble.
Garic passed him, last of the group, and put a brief hand on his shoulder. Vitus gave him a smile that he was sure looked half crazy. They were more than half way to their destination, Vitus guessed. The smoke here was enough to sting his eyes, it filled his lungs with heat that made him cough if he breathed too hard.
A woman screamed up ahead and Vitus slowed the group down until they knew what they were approaching. He crept along the moss covered wall of the building to his right. At the corner up ahead he got down low and poked his head around the corner, the were stacks of wooden boxes against one wall so he moved up and hid behind them. The woman was still crying and pleading with someone. After a second he risked a look.
He saw a group of five legionaries who had a woman between them, they were pulling at her clothes and pushing her amongst them. She had blood smeared around one side of her mouth, evidently they had felt the need to hit her at some point.
Vitus ducked back around the corner and spoke to Gallus and Tatius. While he explained to them what was happening, he was acutely aware of the speech he had made while in the hallway of Domitius’ house. The most important thing was the group and its safety. When he had said that, he had been thinking of the Risen and death. He hadn’t been thinking of men and rape. After a short discussion they decided that leaving the woman to her fate was not something they could do. Despite all the death and carnage in the city, this was one person they could help.
They moved toward the corner of the building. Vitus unhooking his bow from his pack and attaching a new string. Gallus and Tatius slowly, quietly, edged around the corner toward the stack of crates.
Vitus took a deep, steadying breath and felt his heart quiet slightly. He stepped out from the corner and was in plain sight of the legionaries ahead. They were still sporting with the woman but to Vitus it looked like the sport was coming to an end and more serious violence was about to begin. One of the men held her by the arms while a second gripped at her dress, ready to tear it down the front. She kicked out at him, catching him squarely in the privates. He fell to his knees before raising himself and readying his hand to hit her again. All of his friends were laughing at his misfortune so nobody saw Vitus until the legionary holding the woman let her go and fell to the ground, an arrow in his temple.
It took a moment for anyone to realise what had happened and Vitus wasted no time. He took another arrow and nocked it without hesitation. Without the time to aim, his second shot wasn’t quite as accurate but it ended its target’s life just as effectively as the first. It drove through his throat, spraying blood at the woman who was standing, shocked at the speed with which things had turned around. The spray of blood shook her from her lethargy, she turned and ran away from the men but away from Vitus as well.
The three remaining legionaries turned toward Vitus with shock on their faces. On seeing one man with a bow, they drew their gladius’ and began to run. Vitus had no time to draw another arrow, he dropped his bow and drew his own sword.
The running men had no time to react as Gallus and Tatius stepped out from behind the crates. One died instantly, his head almost severed, as Gallus swung with an almighty shout. The body took two more steps before falling into the path of his friends. The nearest man to him tripped over a flailing arm. He almost kept his feet but slipped on a patch of spilled blood. He hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of him. A sword ended his life, stabbing into the back of his neck, before he could recover.
The final legionary realised the fight was lost before he reached Vitus. He died wondering how things had turned so bad, so fast. It wasn’t Vitus that killed him, it was Regulus. The young boy fired his bow from a kneeling position, the arrow took the running man up through the armpit and must have shredded his insides on the way out through his neck.
It was a shot in a thousand and Vitus found himself standing, mouth agape, staring at Regulus.
“I didn’t want to miss out on the fun,” he said as he struggled to his feet. Lucia stepped forward to help him but he gently shook his head. Instead she stepped in and kissed him, when he was back on his feet.
“Lucky shot,” said Gallus as the two legionaries came back around the corner.
“You know better,” said Regulus with a smile.
Vitus scanned up and down the alleyway and seeing the way clear, got the group moving. As they passed him Vitus saw the Chin family were looking frayed and tense. He walked alongside for a moment and spoke to Lee.
“Are you looking after your mother?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the boy, brandishing a stave of wood like it was the best weapon in the world.
“Not far now, just keep yourselves together and we will be fine.”
As he spoke, there was an almighty crash from the far end of the alleyway. The entrance to the street was filled with thick smoke. Evidently one of the buildings in the street beyond had collapsed. A bellow of dust cascaded down the alleyway, reducing their visibility to nothing. Vitus heard Handan, Lee’s mother, scream as she lost sight of the rest of the group. Half of the party were choking. Vitus took out a scarf from his belt and tied it across his mouth and nose
“Quiet,” he hissed at them all. He needed to hear. If anything came at them in the dust and smoke, they were defenceless.
He lowered himself to the dirt of the alleyway. He could see a little further at this level as the smoke wasn’t so thick. He could see two of the dead legionaries, sprawled on the ground but nothing moved.
“Take a hold of each other and slowly move toward my voice,” he said as he crawled toward the far end of the alleyway. He heard the group shuffling around trying to find each other, coughing as they did.
Feet moved into the area he could see, he had no idea if they were from a living or dead person. He raised himself to one knee and said, “Speak or die.”
The feet turned to move in his direction, but no words were spoken. He made a split second decision, stepping forward, he sliced his gladius through the air at neck height. The gladius was almost jarred out of his hand as his blade met something metallic and unforgiving. A shock ran up his arm to his shoulder, almost deadening it. A rotting hand reached for him out of the smoke and almost took hold of his tunic.
Vitus stepped back and ducked down once more. He couldn’t hear any movement behind him and spoke to them. “Get down, there is something here.”
As he spoke he scuttled sideways, watching the space he had just vacated. Sure enough the feet appeared again, attracted to his voice. He took a different tack and swung at one of the ankles. The blade cracked bone and the thing crashed to the ground. Vitus was on it before it stopped falling.
He knelt over the figure and saw it was wearing a legionary helmet that must have dated back from before the time of Scipio Africanus. It was ancient and looked so out of place, here and now. A hand reached up, clawing at his face as he tried to get his sword in toward the head of his foe. He batted the hand away with his forearm and stabbed the blade into the creature's eye. The grasping hand fell away and Vitus rolled off the Risen, panting. His arm was numb from the shock of the initial impact but he was strong enough to hold his sword.
A new hand reached through the dust toward Vitus. He flinched and tried to back away, until he realised it was a human hand and not one of the Risen. Garic loomed out of the dust at him, a hard smile fixed to his face.
“You okay?” he asked. “No teeth marks?”
“I’m fine,” Vitus answered. He took Garic’s hand and pulled himself to his feet.
He tried to gather the group together but the smoke wouldn’t let him see who was there.
“Crouch down, everyone,” he said in to the
greyness. He did the same and soon all of them were within sight. “We need to stay low but this smoke might give us the cover we need. Follow me, we go slow and if I say stop, you stop.”
The group around him nodded agreement. They set off toward the end of the alleyway. Vitus’ eyes stung with the smoke, they were watering so much it was blurring his vision. He wiped at his face but it did little to help.
They arrived at the street and moved to the left. It was the first time they had travelled on anything but back streets. The people were much more numerous here, as were the Risen. The smoke cleared as suddenly as it had appeared, as they got down wind of the building that had collapsed. It was a large, municipal looking place but Vitus had no idea what it had been used for. He judged the time was right to move as quickly as they could, he signalled to the other soldiers in the group to be on their guard and set off at a run.
The scene on the street was total devastation. Dead bodies lay everywhere. Praetorian guards fought in pairs or small groups, outnumbered by the Risen in almost all cases. There seemed to be no leadership but Vitus wouldn’t be drawn into a fool's game. His heart cried out for him to stop and fight, to gather the forces around him and mount some kind of effective resistance. He glanced around at his group and pushed the feeling down, he would not sell the lives of the people he considered family in order to die alongside these legionaries. He was sure Regulus and the other fighters in his group were feeling the same turmoil but they stuck to their job with grim faces.
One street and then another and finally the barracks were ahead of them. It was evident almost immediately that something was not right, smoke was issuing from the yard and there was a concentration of people in and around the gate.
Vitus pulled his group up short and looked around quickly. There was a two story building across the road, the roof should give a good view of the yard below.
He signalled the group to move toward the door. It was locked but with very little effort Gallus managed to pry open the lock, with a splintering crack.
“Check the rooms,” Vitus ordered Gallus, Tatius and Garic. Regulus drew his blade and joined the other men without being asked. Lucia looked after him with a careworn expression.
It took less than a minute to secure the building, while this was happening, Vitus found a heavy desk in the corner of the room, which he pulled across the broken door. Finally safe for a moment the group took the opportunity to gather themselves. Handan first fussed over Lee, who brushed her away impatiently, then turned to her father with the same result. There were tears in her eyes but a strength in her that Vitus liked.
Leaving the group to recover from their ordeal, Gallus and Tatius guarding the door, he headed up to the roof with Regulus and Lucia.
The roof was flat and open, the three lay low and looked out across the street to the barracks yard. The gate of the barracks was still closed but a crowd of two dozen or more people were making every attempt to gain entry. Vitus guessed they were trying to get any weapons or supplies that might be left behind by the Praetorian guard. If they were to get to their goal and reach the trap door they would have to find a way of getting past the crowd or move them away from the barracks.
Chapter Twenty Six
Roman swords spilled Roman blood. Emperor Titus had ordered the Gates of Rome to be opened and that meant that people must die.
The crowd around the gates had started to gather almost as soon as the Risen had appeared in the city. The rumours of Risen outside the walls had been circulating for weeks but the gates had still seemed the best means of escape to so many people. By the time Titus ordered his men to open the gate, the people at the front were hemmed in and couldn’t move if they wanted to.
The half century who had been ordered to open the gates had gained entry to Rome via a hidden passageway. They had fought their way past Risen but never in numbers big enough to worry forty veteran legionaries. Once inside the wall, the gate had been taken easily. They had moved along the top of the wall, killing Risen as they tried to climb into the city.
The gate itself was as deserted as the walls. There had been talk that Otho was using civilians to guard his walls from the Risen. If it was true then those civilians had returned to their families. The men had hidden on top of the gate, waiting for the signal. They had been granted front row seats to a scene they did not wish to witness.
The legions at the walls were being massacred by the Risen, as huge numbers made their way around the walls to reinforce the undead that fought the Romans. At first the tactics that the legions had used on the beach, all those weeks ago, had worked well. Risen had fallen in their hundreds. It soon became evident, however, that the numbers weren’t thinning but growing. The undead force was gaining in strength, as the Roman numbers fell. They realised quickly how it was happening but were powerless to do anything about it. They watched the draw of the battle bring thousands of Risen around the walls, each following the one in front. It was like watching a line of cattle coming back to the farm for the night, only cattle didn’t kill the farmer.
Optio Alba watched alongside his men, he had been honoured with the job of opening the gate. Since his return from the mission under Sergius he had been handed a promotion and now had the task of getting the legions into the city. The scar-faced veteran waited impatiently, watching his fellow soldiers get slaughtered.
When the signal came, Alba was ready to move. He had been watching the crowd on the city side of the wall, it had grown bigger in the time they had been camped on the gate. This was going to be a difficult job but one he was willing to do.
“I’m leaving you here with your eight,” he told the Decanus closest to him. “I want this gate kept clear of Risen while the rest of us get the gate open.” The man saluted and started to give orders to the legionaries around him.
Alba ordered the rest of the forty to follow him down to ground level. The situation on the ground was worse than it had appeared from above, chaos reigned with as many people pushing to get away from the crush at the gate, as there were pushing toward it in a vain hope of getting it open.
A huge wooden beam lay across the middle of the gate. Ten men with someone to give orders would be needed to move it but before they could do that they needed to get to it. Alba tried to make himself heard over the cacophony of the crowd, it was obvious before he tried that it wasn’t going to work.
“Cut me a path to the gate,” he said to the men around him. To their credit they did not hesitate, they drew their swords and began hacking into the crowd. At first only those nearest the killing were aware of what was happening. They tried to turn and run from the men who should have been trying to protect them, instead they died on the end of a sword.
As more and more blood flowed onto the road beneath their feet, the crowd seemed to change and started to move away from the men who attacked them. People further into the crowd realised what was happening and pushed hard against those behind them.
The legionaries continued to cut into the crowd, leaving a trail of bodies behind them. Their emperor had ordered them to open the gate and that is exactly what they would do. The lives of civilians meant nothing to them compared to the wishes of their Caesar. Alba watched as a heavily pregnant woman was sliced across the chest in a blow that split her heavy breasts and spilled her blood on to the stones below. He felt a small moment of doubt but it was gone as soon as it came.
The crowd began to make space around the gate, at last. They backed away from the bodies that lay in the street. Without the time to count, Alba guessed his men had killed at least two hundred men, women and children. They formed a closed rank and stared, hard-faced at the people who had been able to escape their wrath.
People in the crowd screamed and cried. One woman tried to rush in to get to the body of a child on the ground. Alba nodded to one of his men. The legionary stepped in and drove his blade down into her shoulder as she bent over.
No-one in the crowd moved. The last killing had silenced them. Alba
turned to his men.
“Get that bar off that gate, now,” he said and ten of his men moved toward the beam that kept the gates closed. The rest of his men stayed in rank, daring anyone from the crowd to move. There was a malevolence growing in the people who stared back. Alba was acutely aware that if they rushed toward his men the swords they held would do them no good. They were outnumbered by five to one, at least. Only the will of his men and fear held the people back from extracting revenge.
“Leave the area, now!” he shouted to the crowd. There was a general angry murmuring but nobody moved. Alba tried once more. “If you are still in this area when that gate opens you will die. You will wish that you had been killed with the people here.” He pointed to the bodies on the ground.
“We need to get out of the city,” somebody called from back in the crowd.
“You need to return to your homes and let Emperor Titus clean the streets,” Alba replied. “These gates are going to open and there are Risen on the other side. You will be killed if you are still here, that is not a threat, it is a promise.”
“We will die trying to get home. The Risen are everywhere. Why didn’t the legions protect us?” a different voice, a woman’s asked.
Alba wanted to explain that it was Otho that had let them down and not Titus. He wanted to tell them that Titus was here to take back the city, that he was here to save them from the undead. He wouldn’t say those things. Partly because there wasn’t the time, but also because these people didn’t deserve to have such things explained to them. They had allowed themselves to be lied to when the truth was so evident. They had licked their master’s hand despite the fact that their master had beaten them and starved them. They had sold their freedom for safety.
Who were they to complain now that they were in real danger? They had done nothing to protect themselves. They stood here, faceless voices in the crowd, complaining that they hadn’t been saved. Not one of them had tried to save themselves.
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