by David McAfee
Probably not.
The faces. They came to him sometimes during the day. Not in dreams, Taras had not dreamed since he died, but in his memories as he lay waiting for sleep to claim him. He could still remember the faces of the people he had killed in Jerusalem: the two guards at the Damascus Gate, the woman and her son on the road to the city, the potter and his family… all leapt into his mind in vivid detail each time he laid down at dawn.
His kills for Rome had never haunted him this way.
Whatever gods had watched over him in life would have no love for him now. Taras stepped over another drunk, this one snoring in the street, and walked on. The hunger gnawed at his insides like a rat trying to escape a burning box. His mind screamed at him to go back and feed on the drunk, that no one was nearby to see. Still he walked on, his feet dragging on the ground because he no longer had the strength to lift them.
His feet carried him not deeper into the city, but farther out, close to the city’s edge. He soon found himself wandering the roads leading away from the city. Here, the twisted silhouettes of acacias blended with the curvy outlines of a pair of wild olive trees. Most such trees near the city belonged to orchards, where wealthy landowners hired men or bought slaves to harvest their fruit for oil and other uses. To see a wild olive tree was extremely rare, and he stopped a moment to take in the sight. The smells of the olives ripening on their branches came to him, and he remembered their taste on his tongue. Mary had loved olives.
He stepped to the nearest tree and reached his fingers up to the tart, round little fruits. They would be ready soon. Perhaps someone from the city would come and lay claim to them, or already had. He snapped off a branch and brought it to his face, inhaling the aroma. In many countries, the olive branch was a symbol of peace. Maybe the tree was a sign. Maybe he should make his peace. Maybe it was time to die, after all.
He clutched the branch to his chest and resumed his walk down the road. At least now he knew what he was looking for. A clearing. Someplace to sit and wait for the sun. In the morning, he would eat an olive and watch the sunrise over the eastern horizon.
Once, shortly after he began to court Mary, he gave her a bag of olives as a gift. She had clapped her hands happily and eaten several right away. She offered him a few but he declined, preferring the look on her face to his own indulgence. When she smiled at him the sunlight had seemed to reflect from her face, filling him with warmth and love. That was all he’d ever needed. Later that night they shared their first kiss, and Mary’s breath had tasted like olives. He wanted to have that taste in his mouth when he died.
He walked along the path for almost an hour before he came to a suitable place. A wide clearing in the trees just off the path, big enough that the sun would shine through it early, but not so big as to be someone’s field. As an added bonus, in the center of the clearing lay a large boulder against which he could rest his tired, angry back.
Perfect.
Taras smiled as he stumbled through the high grass and into the place that would see his death. The olive branch clamped firmly in hand, he set his back against the boulder and waited, hoping the weather would hold clear on the morrow and allow the sun its full force. He hoped it would not be a slow, painful death, even though he deserved no less. He hoped the fire would cleanse him of his misdeeds and allow him a place in the afterlife. He hoped to find the gods in a forgiving mood tomorrow morning.
But most of all he hoped to see his beloved Mary again.
***
He sat against the rock for over an hour, living in his memories and occasionally humming a bawdy drinking song from the white lands to the north. The memory made him feel cold, and the thin garments he’d stolen from the peasant in Jerusalem could not keep him warm, because his body no longer cast any heat of its own. I am a reptile, he thought. A lizard in the house of men, needing the warmth of their fires to keep me alive.
Their fires or their blood, but he was only willing to take one.
A sound to his right caught his ear, and he turned his head to face it. The brush rustled, something large was coming through the trees toward his clearing. He reached for his sword out of instinct, forgetting that he no longer carried one. His claws had become his primary weapon, but as he sat and waited for the thing to make itself seen, he had to wonder why he bothered. So what if it killed him? What difference did it make? A wolf, a bear, or the sun. They all amounted to the same thing. He left his claws in check, waiting for whatever the gods had sent him.
Still, he was not prepared for what he saw.
Mary walked out of the darkness on the edge of the clearing, a huge smile on her face as she showed off the ring he’d bought her. A sparkle shone from the depths of her deep brown eyes. Her hair was black as the night sky, and her smile reflected the moonlight, magnifying it and casting the clearing in a soft, welcome glow. Her blue dress fit so tight he did not need to use his imagination to picture what lay beneath. She looked just like he remembered her, and in her hands she carried a single red flower.
“For you, my love,” she said, holding the bloom out to him.
It was the flower that showed him the truth.
“You are not here,” he said, reaching for the stem even though he knew it wasn’t real.
The vision of Mary frowned. “What do you mean, my love?” she asked. “I am right here. Where else would I be but with you?”
“You are in Jerusalem, where I left you. I placed this flower by your tomb.”
Her eyes drooped. The smile faltered, and Taras’ heart broke as a tear spilled from the corner of her eye. “It’s not true, my love. I’m here. Touch me.”
Taras’ hand reached the stem of the red flower, and closed on empty air.
Mary was gone.
His rational mind told him she was never really there at all, yet a small part of him wished she would come back, even if it wasn’t real.
Taras laid his head on his hand and tried to cry, but tears would not come. Their cleansing power was another thing denied him by his condition, along with true sleep and rest. The sunrise could not come soon enough.
The next time he heard rustling from the brush, he ignored it.
Right up until the moment the club cracked him on the back of the head.
***
When he awoke, his hands were tied behind his back, and he was propped against a tree. His ankles were lashed together by a length of twine tied to a stake in the ground. Clearly, someone did not want him to go anywhere. But who?
He lifted his head and looked around. He was in another clearing, albeit a smaller one, surrounded on all sides by trees and scrub brush. The ground under him was littered with pine needles and dried leaves, but no grass. In the center of the clearing a small fire crackled and spit. Three hunched figures sat around the fire, casting long, dancing shadows into the night. They wore coarse, dark tunics and black breeches with soft leather boots on their feet. Despite their clothing, they huddled around the fire to ward off the night’s unusual chill. Taras could not see their faces, but their conversation drifted to him over the noise of the woods.
“Not a damn coin on him,” said one. “We should have just cut him and left him.”
“Aye,” said another. “Poor as the desert is dry. Who’d pay a ransom for the likes of him?”
“Did you see his hair?” said the last of the three. “He’s not from Greece, or Judea either.”
“No,” said the first man. “If he has any family, they are far away.”
“Why did we keep him, then?” asked the second man.
“I’ll tell you why,” said a new voice. Taras turned his head and saw a large, heavily muscled man step into the clearing, dragging a woman behind him. Like Taras, her wrists and legs were tied with twine, but she had the additional misfortune of having a gag in her mouth. “Because there is someone who will pay us for him,” the big man continued. “Balize.”
All three of the men at the fire cursed, and one of them spat in the dirt.
“She will pay good coin for him, Hio,” Grummit replied. “The woman, too. At least a gold for the two of them, perhaps more.”
“If she doesn’t kill you first, you mean,” said another of the three.
Grummit dragged the woman over to where Taras sat, then proceeded to tie the rope around her legs to a spike in the earth, similar to the one with which they had tethered Taras. The bandit finally looked up and noticed his captive was awake.
“He lives,” Grummit said. “We wondered whether you would wake again, northman. You were so weak when we found you.”
Weak. Taras was weak. And hungry. And these four men, having kidnapped him and tied him to the ground, smelled of steel, sweat, and blood. He found himself looking at Grummit’s neck; at the pulsing rhythm of the jugular vein as blood pumped through it. The image made his belly rumble. The sound rolled through the clearing, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Grummit laughed. “Hungry are you? Don’t worry, northman. You won’t be hungry long.”
He turned his back on Taras while Hio and the other two bandits laughed.
“What about the girl?” Hio asked.
“What about her? She will go to Balize, as well.”
“Seems a waste,” Hio said, staring at the woman’s torn clothing and flashing a crooked smile. “Balize won’t have near as much fun with her as I would.”
The two men by the fire chuckled, and Grummit turned to take another look at the woman. The look in his eyes changed from greed to hunger, and his hand went to his crotch. “Balize probably wouldn’t care if we played with her first. Especially if she didn’t find out.”
“Yes,” Hio said. “What difference would it make to her, anyway? The Bachiyr will only be interested in her blood.” With that, he stood up and fingered his belt. The other two men rose to their feet behind him, smiling and reaching for their belts, as well.
Bachiyr? They planned to feed him to another Bachiyr? The men didn’t realize he was Bachiyr, but this Balize surely would. She might even recognize him if word of his existence had spread. If so, she wouldn’t kill him, most likely. Rather, she would probably turn him over to the one called Ramah.
Killing him would probably be kinder.
“I’m first,” Grummit said. The look Hio flashed his leader was one of pure contempt, but he said nothing.
Taras turned to look at the woman, whose eyes grew wide as Grummit approached. The gag in her mouth muffled her screams, and the rope around her ankles held her in place. She backed as far away from the lumbering bandit as she could before it snapped taut, then she could go no farther. Her sobs echoed through the clearing, generating another round of laughter from their captors.
Grummit passed Taras on his way to the woman. He looked down and winked. “Sorry, friend,” he said. “You’re not invited.” Then he kicked Taras in the face.
Taras’ head snapped back. The pain was accompanied by the sound of crunching bone as his nose gave way to Grummit’s boot. Blood leaked out of his nose as the bandit walked by, still smiling.
The smell of his blood was almost more than he could bear. It called to Taras like a mother calling her child home for dinner. His belly rumbled again, this time sounding like an angry wolf, and the pain curled him into a ball as Hio and the other two men shuffled by.
Taras watched their backs as they gathered around the woman, and realized that no one was watching him. They were preoccupied with fondling her breasts and talking loudly about the many things they planned to do to her. He tested his bonds. They were strong. He would be able to break them easily if he was at his full strength, but he was weak. Too weak to run from another Bachiyr. Probably too weak to fight, as well.
Grummit dropped his pants and knelt in the clearing by the woman’s ankles while Hio and one of the other men grabbed her legs and pulled them apart. She screamed again, and Taras saw her face. Her skin was dark, but not brown like the men from south of Egypt. She had the same coloring as Mary. Dark hair, brown eyes. A little thinner and smaller through the chest, but still lovely in spite of the gag and the look of raw fear on her face.
Was that the look Mary wore before Theron tore her apart?
Grummit climbed on top of her with a grunt, and the woman screamed through her gag. But it was not her voice Taras heard, it was Mary’s. Mary’s voice screamed for help. Mary’s face twisted in fear. Mary’s legs pried open by brigands. His beloved Mary, lying in her shredded blue dress as four men had their way with her.
Suddenly his hands were free, cut into tatters by claws that had appeared of their own volition. He cut through the twine around his ankles and turned toward the men. They stood a few paces away, huddled around the woman, who cried and screamed through her gag. Taras’ vision blurred, and the entire clearing faded. As he stepped forward, it seemed everyone else moved much slower than they should. Voices became deep and slurred beyond understanding, and the insects that buzzed madly through the clearing now floated gently between Taras and his victims, their wings beating a slow but steady rhythm in the air. The woman’s scream droned on, a slow, scared monotone as he watched his hands stretch toward the closest bandit.
His clawed fingers shot forward, tearing through the flesh of the man’s back. Taras wrapped his fingers around his victim’s spine and yanked backward. The bones popped free of their moorings and ripped through his skin. Blood sprayed everywhere, and some of the droplets landed on Taras’ face. The smell drove him forward while the man screamed, then fell silent. By the time he hit the ground he was dead. Taras, meanwhile, had moved on to the next man.
The second bandit had just started to turn around when Taras plunged his claws into the man’s throat, twisting his hand and rending skin and tendons. He wrapped his fingers around the man’s Adam’s apple and pulled it free. The flesh ripped apart, sending more blood into the air. The man gurgled, and then he fell to the ground to lie in a growing pool of blood. His right hand clutched his throat, while his left hand still fingered his belt.
Next was Hio, who moved a bit faster than his two comrades. He reached for the sword at his belt and had it halfway out of its sheath by the time Taras grabbed hold of his head. The Bachiyr placed one hand on either side of Hio’s head and began to squeeze. Hio screamed and let go of his sword, grabbing Taras’ wrists and trying to pull them apart. But the human bandit was no match for the Bachiyr’s strength, and soon his eyes rolled up into his head and his arms fell limp at his sides.
The sound Hio’s head made as the sides caved in reminded Taras of breaking a clay pot filled with moist bread dough. First came a sharp crack, then a liquid plop as his hands tore through the soft material beneath.
The smell of blood hung in the air like a red mist. Taras inhaled great clouds of it, sending his hyper-developed senses into a frenzy. He pulled his hands from Hio’s shattered skull and turned to find Grummit standing over Mary with his sword hanging over her neck. The bandit was still naked from the waist down, and his erection pointed toward the sky as he poked the sword into the soft flesh of her throat.
“Whatever you are,” Grummit said, his voice wavering, “don’t take another step forward or I’ll cut off her head.”
Mary stared at Taras’ hands, her fear worse now than when Grummit had been about to rape her. Her heart thumped madly in her chest, buzzing like a hummingbird. Could she truly be more afraid of Taras than Grummit? A thin trickle of blood leaked from a cut on her neck, caused by the point of the bandit’s sword, but Taras barely noticed. His attention was focused on the look of fear in Mary’s eyes.
Why would Mary be afraid of him?
In his confusion, the vision faded, and he saw the truth. The woman on the ground was not Mary, and never had been. Mary was dead, killed by Theron. This woman was a stranger. She meant nothing to him. He should just walk away now while he had the chance.
But he didn’t.
Perhaps it was the smell of blo
od combined with his hunger, or maybe it was the thought of what Mary would think of him if he left the helpless woman to die, or it could have been the words of a dead Jewish rabbi, but something kept him rooted to the spot.
There is always a choice.
Taras took a step forward.
“Stop,” Grummit commanded.
Taras shook his head. “You are already dead, Grummit,” he said. “Release the woman and I will kill you quick. Kill her and I will make your death very slow. Choose.”
Grummit looked from Taras to the woman, then to the bodies of his three fallen comrades, killed in less time than it takes to blink. His sword arm wavered. For a moment Taras thought he would run, but then he looked back to Taras and screamed. He pulled his sword away from the woman’s neck and charged.
Grummit was a brute; vile and mean, but he was little more than a strong farmer with a sword. Taras had spent years training in the Roman Legion and had the added benefit of his enhanced reflexes and strength. As the bandit charged him, his heavy sword held over his head in a clumsy overhand chop, Taras ducked down and twisted to the side, jabbing out with his right hand and raking his claws across Grummit’s belly. They tore four long gashes into the man’s tender flesh, and several slimy ropes of intestine spilled out to hang, dripping, from Grummit’s abdomen. The bandit screamed in pain and tried to come around with his sword, but his angle was off and Taras swatted the blade away with his left hand.
The blood! It rolled down Taras’ arm from the gaping wound in Grummit’s gut. The scent of it pulled at his mind, tearing into it like an angry badger. His strength flagged as his sudden surge of speed took its toll, and Taras felt himself sinking back into weakness. Next to him, Grummit fell to the clearing floor, sobbing and grabbing as much of his innards as he could and trying to hold them inside.