Anno Mortis

by Rebecca Levene

  "When you're grieving, every second seems like a year. A year stretches into eternity."

  "Then slit your wrists and join them that way. Why should the world be changed to fit your needs?"

  Seneca was scowling at him now. "I've seen the other side, boy. I know what waits for us there. When I was young I was very sick, did you know that?"

  Petronius looked at the other man, the way his stick-thin limbs seemed to struggle to support even his own frail body. "I can believe it."

  Seneca smiled bitterly. "My parents thought I'd die - and I did. For two whole minutes illness took me out of this world and into the next, until the doctors brought me back. And I saw..." The focus of his eyes shifted outward as his thoughts turned inward. "You've heard the legends, but like every educated man today you probably don't believe them. You laugh them off as superstition and metaphor. Idiots, all of you. The afterlife is exactly as the legends say, a bleak darkness where the sun never shines and the rivers that run are icy cold and empty of life. And the people... they've forgotten what it is to feel, or think. They're shades indeed, mere shadows of who they once were, waiting for judgement from a god who has no patience with human foibles or needs. At the age of seven, I swore I'd never return there - and Sopdet offered me a way to ensure that I never did."

  Petronius was left momentarily silent by the old man's passion. His narrow, sagging cheeks were flushed and there was a light in his eyes Petronius had never seen before. And he almost agreed with him. Almost. "But this is no kind of escape," he said. "Without the barrier between them, won't this world become like that one?"

  Seneca shook his head, but for the first time he looked a little doubtful. "Sopdet promised me that it's this world which will change the other."

  "Did she?" Petronius looked across the half-eaten heaps of food to find that Sopdet was watching them closely. "And did you ever ask her why she wanted this? Or did you just assume her motives were the same as yours?"

  Seneca's mouth thinned, and it was obvious he didn't have an answer.

  Boda was used to fighting other men, and the vacant look in the corpses' eyes made them easier to hack and dismember. Her arm was smeared with blood up to the elbow from the recently dead and she was splattered with fouler fluids from those who'd been lying in the ground longer.

  But her people had taught her to respect animals, and the tiger was the most astonishing creature she'd ever seen. Powerful muscles moved liquidly beneath its fur and it could only have been dead a day. Despite her knowledge that it meant her harm, she couldn't bring herself to strike it. And then it leapt, lethal and beautiful.

  Without thinking, she raised her sword, the point positioned precisely to skewer its heart. The sword sunk in to the hilt but the tiger didn't even slow. Its body landed on hers, knocking her to her back beneath it. Close to, she could smell the earth caked in its fur and the first hint of putrefaction.

  The creature's jaws snapped shut, inches from her face. She braced her arm beneath its neck and pushed desperately, but it was no good. The tiger was stronger than her, and it had the leverage. When its jaws closed a second time its teeth grazed her nose, scraping the skin and flesh from its tip. Then its front leg slashed out, claws digging deep grooves in her arm. She gasped and her hand loosened, an involuntary reflex she couldn't control.

  Instantly, the tiger lunged. She twisted her body and jerked her head to the side and this time its teeth caught her ear. They closed and pulled and she felt the lobe tear away. The agony was instant and almost overwhelming. But the second the tiger took to chew its morsel gave her a chance.

  Her sword arm was hopelessly pinned beneath its left leg. She dropped the blade and rolled to one side, away from its terrible jaws. It tried to stop her, legs scrabbling to keep their hold on the ground, but the force it could exert sideways was weaker than the pressure of its massive weight bearing down. The leg gave and she was free.

  Her own sword sliced her back as she rolled over it and her first grab took the blade and not the hilt, opening a deep cut in her palm. The hilt was slippery with her own blood when she finally grasped it, but she held on tight and swung. This time she was aiming for the neck, and her blade bit deep and stuck fast in the tiger's spine.

  The tiger writhed on the end of her blade like a fish on a hook. She braced her feet on the ground and held tight. The metal rang as its teeth snapped against it but the blade held. A stalemate.

  A quick glance to the left showed her that Vali had his own troubles. He faced the wickedly hooked tusks of a great black boar as a skeletal monkey gibbered on his shoulders and tore at his hair. There'd be no help for her there.

  The tiger was still twisting and turning and she realised that it would never tire or stop. But she would. Her hand could barely keep its grip on the hilt of her sword and the blade was already beginning to loosen, working free of the bone.

  She only had one chance. The next time the tiger's head swung round she pulled against the motion rather than moving with it, allowing the creature's own strength to wrench the metal out of its neck. The flesh and bone gave grudgingly and for a moment she thought the sword would stick fast. She was unbalanced and vulnerable - easy prey without a weapon to wield. She gritted her teeth and gave one final, desperate tug, straining her injured shoulder almost beyond endurance. And suddenly her sword was swinging free.

  She scrambled desperately backwards, almost falling to her knees in her haste. The neck was still her only sensible target, beheading the tiger the only way to stop it. But she was weaker now than when she'd first tried that move, and her blade blunter.

  The creature span to face her, lips curled back as it snarled. In a second it would pounce. With a fierce yell, she circled her sword above her head - one circuit, then two - before bringing it down with all her strength.

  The blade sliced through flesh and bone and then flesh again to emerge the other side, nicked but whole.

  The tiger's head flew a short distance through the air and landed neatly on its neck. Its eyes blinked and glared furiously at Boda as its jaw snapped on nothing. She stamped on its head, again and again until the bones of its skull cracked and splintered and the grey spongy mess of its brain oozed between her toes. When she finally took her foot away, the eyes were blank and the jaws still.

  She took one deep, gasping breath, then turned to Vali. His short knife was buried deep in the boar's eye. Blood oozed around it and he was using it to hold the creature away from him. She wondered if he'd seen her own fight and decided to follow the same strategy. But with only a short belt knife he had no hope of administering the coup de grace.

  Her shoulder ached fiercely and her arm burned with fatigue but she lifted her sword and brought it down behind the boar's ears. After three more strikes the creature's neck parted, and one quick thrust took the monkey's head from its shoulders, leaving the bones of its body to slither down Vali's back. There were deep scratch marks around his eyes where it had tried to gouge them out.

  "You need a bigger sword," she said.

  He gasped a surprised laugh. "Maybe we can ask them for one."

  He gestured to their right and she realised for the first time that there were other living people nearby. Abandoned horses and wagons suggested they were merchants or farmers, bringing their wares to market. But some of them had swords and were fighting back against the dead. Boda could see small clusters of them scattered over the approach to the city's walls.

  It was obvious the dead were winning. The living were hopelessly outnumbered.

  "We have to get inside the city," Vali said. "The walls will keep the dead outside."

  Boda nodded, looking at the struggling bands of living people. Some of them included children, huddled at the centre of the groups. "Yes, we need to get to Rome. And we need to bring them with us."

  Petronius was eating a concoction of strawberries and honeycomb when the messenger came from the city walls.

  The man bent over to whisper in Caligula's ear, but he was pantin
g for breath, and fear made his voice so loud that everyone at the table could hear it. "There's news, Caesar. Grave news..."

  Caligula raised an eyebrow. "Grave enough to interrupt my dinner? To tear me away from celebrating my beloved sister's return?" His hand reached out for Drusilla but met empty air. She was leaning away from him and across Sopdet, whispering in the ear of the man beside her. The young, good-looking man with merry eyes and a full head of honey-coloured curls. Caligula's lips thinned and the messenger flinched back when he turned his angry eyes on him.

  "Well?" Caligula said. "What is this news?"

  The messenger looked like he wanted to turn tail and run, but he didn't, and Petronius shivered. News serious enough to risk the Emperor's wrath must be very grave indeed.

  "It's... outside the walls of Rome, Caesar. There are..." He dropped his head. "The dead have risen from their graves. They're marching on the city."

  Sopdet smiled gently. The cultists' eyes darted around the room, frightened or ashamed. There were a few gasps from the other guests, but mostly laugher and catcalls. Suggestions that the messenger was drunk, that he'd lost his mind.

  Caligula laughed too. "The dead rising? How absurd."

  The messenger's hands balled into fists. "I've seen them with my own eyes, Caesar. They're slaughtering everyone they can find. And the walls are barely defended. If they fall... You must send the Praetorian Guard to reinforce the soldiers there."

  "I must send them? Whose command must the Emperor of Rome obey?"

  "It's... it's... Caesar, it's..." The messenger stuttered into silence.

  Caligula turned his back, flicking a finger at one of the soldiers who guarded the door. "Kill him."

  The legionary stepped forward, sword drawn.

  "Outside, you fool!" Caligula snapped. "We don't want to put people off their dinners. And while you're there, fetch that wretched uncle of mine. He's mourned long enough - the boy was only a slave, and a Greek at that."

  The door closed behind them and it was only because he was listening for it that Petronius heard the messenger's muffled scream, quickly ended. The other dinner guests continued to gorge themselves. Caligula poured more wine for his sister. And Sopdet's eyes met his, spiteful and triumphant.

  The first group Boda and Vali found was completely unarmed. There had been at least twenty of them to begin with, but ten were dead now. The rest stood in a tight ring, arms held out to ward off the dead. In the middle of their circle crouched a boy and a girl, with fine light hair and open, trusting eyes. They couldn't have been older than five.

  The dead weren't armed either. Unlike Boda's people, it seemed Romans didn't bury their warriors with their swords by their sides. It should have been an even match, but the walking corpses could shrug off any injury.

  She saw one man kick out, the toe of his boot catching a shambling corpse between its legs. The blow was hard enough to lift it off its feet for an instant, but when it came down it leapt forward, its own arm lashing out to catch the man across the face. His head snapped back and he dropped to the ground, stunned. The circle of the living closed tight to fill the gap he'd left - and he lay helpless outside it.

  Boda had to look away as the dead descended. But she smelt the blood they spilled, and the contents of his stomach as they ripped it open. She raised her sword and prepared to charge.

  Vali's fingers clawed into her arm. "We can't help them. You'll just get yourself killed."

  "We've got a chance," she said. "The dead are weak."

  It was true these were less recent corpses, only dry skin covering old bones. When a woman kicked another in the chest, the ribs caved in, revealing hollow nothingness inside. Her sword would make quick work of them.

  Vali didn't release her. "It's not just them. Look."

  Behind the living, the undead animals were preparing to charge. She saw another tiger leading them, and a row of wolves behind.

  "Then we save who we can," she said.

  The merchants smiled as she approached, sword swinging. It cut through two corpses in one stroke and they crumpled to the ground, dead hands still grasping. Boda stamped on them as she pushed past a merchant and into the centre of the ring.

  "What -" the man said.

  She didn't have time to explain. Maybe these were his children. Maybe he'd understand.

  Vali had followed her, though he was cursing her idiocy. Close by and getting closer, she could hear the roars and growls of the dead animals. She picked up the girl first and swung her little body high to settle it on Vali's shoulders. The boy she put on her own. His weight was almost intolerable on her injured shoulder but she made herself run, out of the ring of the living and away from the attacking beasts.

  The shouts of the merchants followed them. She wanted to believe that some of them were thanks, but she couldn't worry about it. The girl was sobbing, wriggling on Vali's shoulders as she tried to look behind at her parents. Boda held fast to the little boy's legs, forcing him to face forward. She could hear the screams behind her and she didn't want him to see what was causing them.

  If the animals had charged on, they would have been finished. But the creatures stopped to feast on the merchants and Boda and Vali managed to run clear, legs labouring under the weight on their shoulders.

  The little girl fisted her hands in Vali's red hair and Boda saw him grimacing as he ran. A corpse lurched in front of him, teeth bared in a grin too wide for any living face. His small knife flash out and widened the smile still further, splitting the skull at the weak point of its jaw.

  The corpse staggered to the side then made another grab for him - until Boda's blade took it through the stomach, sending its upper torso crashing to the ground and its legs running aimlessly in the other direction. She grabbed Vali's hand after that, keeping him within her sword's defensive range.

  Ahead of them she could see another group of the living, larger and better armed than the previous ones. They even had shields, which they'd used to form themselves into a defensive turtle, the weakest members of the group crouched beneath as they shuffled agonisingly slowly towards the city walls. It was the same formation the legionaries had used when they defeated Boda's people in the western forest. Maybe there were soldiers in that group. They certainly looked like the best hope. But Boda and Vali would have to fight their way through fifty paces and hundreds of the dead to reach them.

  Caligula couldn't stop looking at Drusilla. It was amazing how quickly he'd come to accept that it really was his sister looking at him through another woman's eyes. But he knew Drusilla better than he knew anyone in the world. He was familiar with every expression that flicked across her face - the small polite smile that showed she was unbearably bored, the droop of her eyelids when she was planning some mischief, the arch of her eyebrows when she saw something she liked. He knew the way her hand would land, light but not innocent, on the arm of a man she was interested in. He'd always known what the spark of desire looked like in her face.

  He knew her so well, how could he have forgotten how miserable she made him? She knew she was doing it, too. As she flirted with that son-of-a-whore Nerva, she kept shooting glances at Caligula out of the corner of her eye, gauging his reaction. Working out just how much she was hurting him. She'd always done this, always.

  Another messenger came in, blathering something about the dead rising outside Rome. Caligula didn't bother taking his eyes off Drusilla, just clicked his fingers for a guard to dispose of him.

  "Caesar," a voice drifted from further down the table. Caligula couldn't remember the man's name, but he was something big in the wine trade. "Perhaps, Caesar, we should listen to him."

  There was a murmur - no, more than a murmur, a chorus - of agreement. Caligula finally wrenched his attention away from his sister to look at his other guests. They were staring back at him with expressions ranging from fearful to angry, with every shade of alarm in between.

  "What is this?" he said. "Are you questioning my judgement?"

 
The soldier left the door open this time, and the scream of the dying messenger was very loud in the near-silent room. The only other sound was the chink of silver against ceramic as one grey-haired, barrel-chested guest continued eating, oblivious. Outside, the pile of bodies had grown quite high. Flies were beginning to buzz around them.

  "Please, Caesar," the wine importer said. "Killing the messenger won't change the message. You need to do something."

  Instead of gasps of shock at this treachery, there were nods of agreement from the other guests. Even some of the cultists were joining in - and they were the ones who'd caused the problem in the first place.

  "I don't like that man," Drusilla said. "Get rid of him for me." She leaned back in Caligula's direction and trailed her fingernail from his shoulder to his wrist. Exactly the same trick he'd seen her using on Nerva earlier.

  Caligula shrugged her hand off petulantly. Her face fell, a tear forming in the corner of her eye, and he instantly felt like a scoundrel. How did she do that to him?

  "You heard her," he said to the nearest soldier. "Kill him." He looked around at the other guests, not cowed even by this, and thought that an object lesson in obedience wouldn't be out of order. "And you can leave his body where it is. Even dead he'll be better company than half the people here."

  This time, the soldier didn't jump to obey him instantly. His hand hovered over the hilt of his sword as he looked across at his captain. But Marcus's face was as impassive as a statue, and he nodded without hesitation.

  The man - what was his name, anyway? - rose to his feet as the soldier approached. "Don't do this, citizen. You know that I'm right. You should be at the walls fighting the enemies of Rome, not in here—" His last word tailed off into a choked gurgle as the sword took him through the gut.

  The soldier pulled it free, resting a hand against the man's shoulder to ease the blade out as his knees gave from under him and he collapsed back onto the cushions. Caligula smiled to see his neighbours flinch away from his corpse. His blood pooled around him, viscous and red.