by Barry Sadler
The madness left Casca as he looked at the face of his friend. "So it was you who were my shadow? Why didn't you ride with me?"
Hrolvath coughed, his lips paling. "I thought you preferred to be alone, and you might have sent me back. I came after you on the next ship. You were easy to find." He coughed again, painfully. "All I had to do was ask anyone I met if they had seen a madman, and they would point me in the right direction."
Casca shook his head. "You should have stayed away. What did it bring you but this?"
Both of them knew that Hrolvath's wound was fatal. The blood on the lips came from his lungs; it was only a matter of minutes or even seconds before his shade would leave his body.
Hrolvath shuddered; his mouth filled with blood. He turned his head to the side to let it drain out. He didn't have the strength to spit it out.
Hrolvath grinned. "We're sword mates. I couldn't let you go alone. You might have gotten yourself killed." Casca laughed bitterly. "I wish it had been so; then at least you would not have come to this damned place."
Hrolvath shook his blond head. "No! Then I would not have been here to save you. That makes it all worthwhile. I ... have saved you." His words faded as his final breath escaped.
Casca lowered his head and stood, looking at the young man who had died believing that he had saved his friend's life. The irony of it brought gales of hysterical laughter. He couldn't stop; he laughed till tears ran in rivers as he cried out to the stones of the hall, "Did you hear? He died to save my life."
Gregory moaned, stopping his fit of hysteria. Casca walked quickly over to him and stomped on the side of his head to put him back to sleep. He wasn't ready for him yet. He had things to do before he could give the Elder of the Brotherhood his full attention.
He built a cairn of stone for Hrolvath on a knoll, away from the graves where members of the Brotherhood had been laid to rest in the past. He didn't want Hrolvath near them. When he had laid the last stone, he had one more thing to do. He found his ax and went to look for some trees.
It was past dawn when he prodded Gregory to his feet, legs wavering under the load of the beam. Casca mocked him.
"You want to know what it feels like to die as Jesus did? Then I'll show you, for surely no one could know better than I."
Pulling up a thorn bush by the roots, he lashed the back of Gregory into bleeding shreds, forcing him up the same path where the Brothers of the Elder Dacort had held their re-enactments of the crucifixion. Gregory stumbled, falling on his face and breaking his nose. Casca grasped him by the hair to drag him back up to his feet, the beam placed once more on his shoulders.
Gregory sobbed in pain, but there was none of the numbing effect of one lost in religious ecstasy. His was a wail of pain and terror.
Gregory was blinded with blood and tears when they reached the place of death. He had to be stopped by a slap from Casca's hand. He tried to get to his knees, hands clasped in front of him to beg for mercy, only to have his pleas silenced by a fist breaking three of his front teeth, filling his mouth with splinters and blood.
Casca sneered at him. "Mercy? You want mercy? Where was the mercy shown to Demos? Where was the mercy given to Ireina and Hrolvath? I'll give you the mercy you deserve: none! The best I can give you is to let you know what pain truly is."
He forced Gregory to his back to lie with arms outstretched as he was tied to the cross beam by his arms. Casca sweated as he performed a task that he had done only a few times before. But he remembered well. He didn't regret that he had no spikes to puncture Gregory's wrists and feet. It had been a special occasion when they'd done that to Jesus. Pilate hadn't wanted the Jew to live too long.
This time, he would do it as they did in Rome for common criminals. Only the ropes to hold the arms to the beam. No block for the feet to rest on, and one more thing. He stood over Gregory and raised the ax above his head. Turning the blade to the side, he brought it down twice in rapid succession, breaking the bones of the second leg before Gregory could finish screaming from the first.
Leaving him to his pain, Casca went to one of the places where the crosses were dropped into prepared holes. He had to dig one out, removing some chunks of rotted wood from the last occupant's cross. Once this was done, he dragged Gregory on his cross to where he could begin to raise it. Grasping the head of the cross, he grunted, raising it high enough to get it on his shoulder. Then he began to work his way up the length of it, forcing the cross into an erect position till the foot of it slid into the hole he had prepared. It slid in with a familiar thump, accented by a shrill scream from the Elder.
Once the base of the cross was in place, Casca packed dirt and rocks around it to hold it firmly. Then he sat back to admire his handiwork. Pleased that he hadn't forgotten how to do the job properly, he turned his attention to Gregory.
"How do you like it? Is it as glorious as you expected? You know, you're luckier than Jesus. You're going to live a lot longer than he did, and you'll know pain that you've never dreamed of. When the swelling starts in your legs and the weight of your body gradually dislocates your shoulders, your own hanging weight will force your lungs to labor harder and harder to get a breath. I have seen men last two days, but I don't think you're that strong. You probably won't go more than ten or twelve hours. So enjoy yourself. I am."
Casca stayed in one spot till sunrise and then rose to stretch his legs. Gregory's screams had been reduced to mewling whimpers. Casca moved a boulder over to stand on and poured water down Gregory's throat to give him strength.
"Not yet! You don't die," he whispered gently. "Not yet!"
Casca talked to him as the heat of the day built, noticing in a detached manner the swelling of Gregory's legs as the blood settled in them, stretching the skin to the point where it was near to bursting.
"You know," he said amiably, "in the old days, it wasn't uncommon to crucify a person head down. That was done when we had a lot to do and didn't have enough crosses to go around. That way most of them died in just an hour or so."
He tapped the point of his sword against the stretched purple skin of Gregory's right leg, just a gentle touch. A dark stream of blood shot forth, propelled by the built-up pressure.
"There! That ought to make you feel a bit better. It'll ease some of the swelling."
The day passed slowly for the man on the cross. Ravens collected on nearby branches to wait as vultures gathered overhead. Casca wondered how the carrion eaters could know when there was going to be food for them and show up before dinner was ready to be served.
Near noon, Gregory forced open his left eye. The other wouldn't move, swollen shut by blood and pus. He tried to force his tongue to move, to make words that came out in a half-dry, rasping whisper. Casca didn't have to hear the words to know what was being said. He walked around the cross, looking over the man, noticing every detail of the manner in which the joints of the shoulders were twisted and distorted out of their sockets. The swelling, where blood vessels had ruptured under the strain, had left red and purple streaks running down the man's chest.
He tested him as a master chef does a fine pastry. He was nearly done. It was time to finish.
Casca stood in front of the cross, looking up at the swollen face of the master of the Brotherhood. "There's one thing yet to be done; then you can go. I'm sorry that I don't have my spear, but I guess that won't make a lot of difference at this point." He drew his sword, placing the point against the skin, just under the last rib on the left side. "I should just leave you for the vultures to finish, but I guess I'm a little selfish. This is one thing I want to do myself."
Gently, taking his time, he slid the sword in, ignoring the sudden burst of blood that spurted forth to cover his arm to the elbow.
In his state of half madness, Casca could feel every vein, nerve, and vessel that his sword cut through. When it touched the heart, he felt a shiver run the length of the steel, transmitting itself to his hand. He hesitated a heartbeat, smiling at Gregory.
; "This is it. This is the big one. Hope you appreciate all the trouble I went through for you. "
He gave the handle of the sword a gentle push to set the point of his sword into the jerking muscle of the heart. Gregory opened his mouth. A scream came forth to echo over the barren hills, frightening several ravens from their perches, to fly frantically to a safer altitude. Casca wiped the blade on Gregory's loincloth before replacing it in its sheath.
It was done. Perhaps now he could sleep without the voices of those beloved tormenting him with their pain. Slowly, heavily, he left Gregory to the scavengers, not looking back. He found his horse and mounted, turning the animal's head back to the west. He hadn't noticed that the sun was falling and night was once more on the land. He lay over the pommel of the saddle and closed his eyes. In the whisper of the wind, for just a moment before he slept, he thought he heard the tinkling sound of a child's laughter, fading away, being carried on the wind.
The horse carried him, half conscious, exhausted and drained by the curse of his own existence, through canyons of cold stone, reaching over him like the spires of an abandoned city.
The words of the ice cave came to him again:
Endlessly weary, the Silent Sentinel guards the Tower of Darkness.
Endlessly, endlessly weary.
Continuing Casca’s adventures, book 10 The Conquistador
Sixteenth-century Mexico…where enemies of Aztec King Moctezuma are sacrificed to his bloodthirsty gods by the thousands. Among the soldiers of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, Casca (alias Carlos Romano) returns to the savage land to seek revenge on the priests who once ripped the very heart from his chest!
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