by Tony Roberts
“You’ll have to beat me first,” Casca said, moving sideways. “You know of my skill.”
“You think death concerns us? You’re a fool if you believe that! We have vowed to put our lives into the hands of the Brotherhood. So what if you kill three of us? The fourth shall decapitate you and place your body parts all over this city. It shall be fun to see if they can find their way to one place again!”
“You’re fucking crazy,” Casca said, a cold knot of fear tightening in his guts.
“If you say so, Longinus. Now come face us and meet your fate.”
The four spread out. Casca knew he had to take them on hard and fast or his body would be separated and taken all over Jerusalem. Immortal he may be, but what would happen in this instance? He had no intention of finding out. He had to reduce the odds pretty damn quickly. The guy on the end, the one wielding a shorter sword than his companions and a smaller shield, was the one to go for first.
He feinted to attack the middle two, raising both sword and shield, and as the Brotherhood soldiers advanced, weapons raised to strike, Casca wheeled, went down low in a crouch and deflected the end man’s downward strike with his shield. His sword struck up hard, under the man’s guard.
Casca stepped back three paces, still moving to the left, rising up to full height, his eyes watchful. The Brotherhood warrior he’d hit was slowly falling to his knees, clutching his guts. It hadn’t been a killing blow, but a gut stab always incapacitated. Corvu the Lanista had drummed that tactic into his brain often enough at the gladiatorial school outside Rome back in the reign of Nero.
The other three closed in, mouths set grimly. There would be no quarter asked for, or given. There were no words spoken, just the crunching of feet as they trod on small objects on the stone floor. Three men. The middle one was the leader, and therefore most probably the most skillful. The one on the right was bigger, burlier and had a two-handed sword. The one on the left wielded an axe as well as a sword. No shield.
He was the next.
Casca slammed his shield at the axeman, slashing at the leader at the same time. The leader blocked, as Casca had anticipated. His shield had struck the axeman and sent him back two paces. Casca slid sideways, his sword executing a circle in the air. The leader came after him but was too far away to strike for the next few seconds. Another shield blow to the axeman’s head got him stumbling backwards and Casca’s sword cut through the man’s forearm that carried the axe.
He stepped away from the leader’s advance, blocking twice, once with sword, the next with shield. The leader, now having had two men wounded, decided enough was enough. He struck again and again, hammering at the scarred warrior’s guard. Casca deflected one blow aside and riposted, hoping to catch the Brotherhood man by surprise, but the blow missed.
The big man now came at Casca from the other side, having made a wide circling move around to the side of the altar. Casca had retreated close to it, hoping to protect his back. Axeman was down on his knees, trying to stem the blood spurting from his severed arm but clearly failing. He was doomed unless someone cut the blood loss fast.
The two handed sword came down in a blur. Casca sent his shield up above his head. The shock of the blow ripped the shield from his arm and it clattered noisily to the ground. Casca lunged and sent his sword up into the man’s groin, cutting in deep. He rolled, avoiding the vicious down slash of the leader. Sparks flew from the ground.
The two-handed swordsman screamed. Casca jerked the blade free. He’d probably destroyed his family jewels. He got to his feet as the leader pushed the screaming man aside. Now it was one on one. They clashed blades. The leader swept his shield forward to strike Casca in the face but the eternal mercenary twisted and the shield struck his shoulder.
Stepping back, Casca gripped the hilt in both hands. With the extra strength he now slashed from shoulder down towards waist. The leader used his shield. The force of the blow knocked the man sideways into the altar. Casca followed up, sword a blur of death. The leader ducked and the altar stone received the full force of what had been intended as a decapitation.
Both men slowly walked sideways, facing one another. Big man was curled up on the floor, whimpering. Axeman was on his side, his skin turning white. The first to have been hit was still on his knees, groaning.
“Three down, one to go,” Casca breathed, sucking oxygen into his lungs.
“Truly are you a demon,” the leader said, desperation showing on his face.
Casca looked over to the dark, lifeless shape of Rachel. “Perhaps, but it is you who will soon go to hell, for the murder of that woman.” He advanced, blade swinging. Slash. Clang. Step. Slash. The leader used shield and sword but the brute force of Casca’s attacks were too much. One blow knocked the shield sideways and the follow-up cut down into the man’s neck, showering Casca’s face with blood.
The leader dropped his sword and fell backwards, gripping his spurting neck. His legs kicked spasmodically on the ground as he lay there, trying to deal with his wound, but it was a useless reflex action. His legs twitched once more and then all was still.
Casca’s breathing was all that could be heard in the church, and he slowly walked up to the three others. One was dead and the other two going that way fast. He left them and wiped his blade. Sliding it into its scabbard he went over to Rachel and picked her up. “Sorry I could not stop them,” he said softly. He had hardly known her but felt her death just as keenly as any other he’d known at the hands of those bastards.
He lay her on the altar, then turned his back on the church.
It could all go to hell. In fact, it sounded as though it were. He orientated himself. East. That’s where he would go. Away from the madness of religious wars. The Egyptians and Turks wouldn’t rest while there was a Christian presence in Jerusalem. He wondered if they would be able to do anything about it. Would Europe send more men to reinforce the Crusaders? Who cared? He didn’t.
Silently wishing Giselle and Mehmet well, he strode down from the hill that he’d been turned into an immortal over ten centuries previously, and made his way to the east of the city. The killing would go on for some time yet and he wanted no part of it.
He would endure, as he always would, but he was no longer part of the Crusade. Head bowed, he strode purposefully through the streets of Jerusalem, leaving behind the screams and cries of a city being put to the sword.
EPILOGUE
The clatter of the rotors cut out and the silence that followed was a blessed relief to Danny. He sat with his head resting against the fuselage, drained by the tale that had just ended. He was aware of his surroundings but was too exhausted for the moment to do anything about it.
Casca sat opposite him, head bowed, eyes shut. Telling his life stories to someone took it out of him, too, as if he were passing some of his essence onto them. The two sat there in silence, immobile.
Hayley Richter yawned, stretched and flicked off the final few motors. The flight had been long and tiring and she’d put the chopper down in darkness at the first available flat location she’d found. What the place would look like in daylight was another matter. Time to worry about that later. She eased herself out of the pilot’s seat, draping the headset over the back of the padded backrest, and stiffly made her way back to where the three men were.
In the stretcher, in between the two exhausted looking men, lay a puzzled looking Julius Goldman. “What is going on here?” he asked, querulously.
“Oh, you’ve come round,” Hayley said, kneeling down. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know – I’m tied up in a stretcher in God-knows-where, with a strange but beautiful woman leaning over me, and Carlos Romano and Danny looking like shit. How am I supposed to feel?”
Casca grinned and leaned back, glad to east his aching neck against the hard steel of the chopper. Sweat ran down his face. They’d gotten away with Goldman and had destroyed the records. Now nobody would know about the clandestine operation he and Goldman had been part
of these past couple of years.
“Hey, untie me, will you, ma’am?” Goldman asked, struggling. “I’m not a nut case – at least I don’t think I am.” He suddenly recognized her by the faint light of the coming dawn through the forward Perspex screens. “Richter?” He’d seen her a few times around the Castle but hadn’t really gotten to know her.
Hayley grinned, gently unfastening the straps and easing the blanket off. Goldman awkwardly sat up and needed the help of Hayley and Danny to get to his feet. Shaking, he sat down alongside Casca and looked at him. “What’s up with you, Carlos? Last I heard you were in Mexico!”
“I still am,” Casca said. “So are you.”
“Huh? Would someone please tell me what in the name of God is going on?”
Danny looked at Casca. “You going to tell him?”
Casca shook his head. “I’m all talked out. You’d better, Danny.”
Danny looked pleadingly at Hayley. “I’m just about all in.”
Hayley stood up and glared at the two men. “Hell, you’ve sat here and done nothing but talk while I’ve flown this bitch all the way from the Castle. Now you say you’re too tired? Shit.” She stepped over the stretcher, went to the side door and hauled it open. The early dawn was showing in the east and Hayley jumped down to the ground, stretching her arms. They cracked.
Goldman looked from Danny to Casca. “Well?”
Danny slipped out after Hayley. “Gotta take a pee.”
Casca groaned and held his head in his hands. Goldman leaned towards him. “Shit, Carlos. I’m seventy-two. You look it. What’s happened; lost your immortality?”
“I wish I had,” Casca said, opening his eyes. “Good to see you, Doctor.”
“When you tell me what is going on, I might feel the same about you. Now, please, why are we in a helicopter in Mexico?”
Casca sighed and stood up. “Come on, let’s go outside. I need a cigarette. I’ll tell you the nuts and bolts, and you can fill in the spaces in between.”
Casca helped Goldman out and they all stood facing the slowly brightening horizon, none of them saying anything for a moment. Then Casca flipped a smoke into his mouth, lit it, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Well, Doctor Goldman, what is it you remember last of all?”
Goldman thought deeply. This was going to be interesting.
Continuing Casca’s adventures, book 40 Blitzkrieg
War looms in Europe, and Casca finds himself the target of a German police investigation into the death of a Spanish national in a Berlin hotel. To escape discovery, the Eternal Mercenary joins the new panzer corps and soon finds himself teaming up with a giant of a man called Gustaf Beidemann.
As war breaks out, Casca, Gustaf and the rest of his crew are plunged into a vicious campaign that takes them through Poland. All this time, unbeknown to Casca, the police are closing in on him, thanks to the efforts of one man, Erich Farben. Farben’s progress is stalled when war with the West begins, and Casca, Gus and his friends rampage through Belgium and become embroiled in the biggest tank battle of the war so far against the best that France can send into the field.
Just when it seems Farben has got his hands on his quarry, a guardian angel, connected to Casca’s long, distant past, appears out of nowhere, intending to save the Eternal Mercenary from spending years in a Nazi prison.
For more information on the entire Casca series see www.casca.net
The Barry Sadler website www.barrysadler.com
THE CASCA SERIES IN EBOOKS
By Barry Sadler
Casca 1: The Eternal Mercenary
Casca 2: God of Death
Casca 3: The Warlord
Casca 4: Panzer Soldier
Casca 5: The Barbarian
Casca 6: The Persian
Casca 7: The Damned
Casca 8: Soldier of Fortune
Casca 9: The Sentinel
Casca 10: The Conquistador
Casca 11: The Legionnaire
Casca 12: The African Mercenary
Casca 13: The Assassin
Casca 14: The Phoenix
Casca 15: The Pirate
Casca 16: Desert Mercenary
Casca 17: The Warrior
Casca 18: The Cursed
Casca 19: The Samurai
Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon
Casca 21: The Trench Soldier
Casca 22: The Mongol
By Tony Roberts
Casca 25: Halls of Montezuma
Casca 26: Johnny Reb
Casca 27: The Confederate
Casca 28: The Avenger
Casca 30: Napoleon’s Soldier
Casca 31: The Conqueror
Casca 32: The Anzac
Casca 34: Devil’s Horseman
Casca 35: Sword of the Brotherhood
Casca 36: The Minuteman
Casca 37: Roman Mercenary
Casca 38: The Continental
Casca 39: The Crusader
Casca 40: Blitzkrieg
Casca 41: The Longbowman