“Who are you?” Vitus asked, he directed the question to the woman but made a gesture with his hand that showed he meant the entire cave system.
The woman nodded and reached to offer her hand to Vitus. “It is time for formal introductions. I am high priestess Juliana. Most of the people here lived in the village where our men found you, I come from the temple of Juno, high in the mountains. You are Vitus Protus and judging from your expression when I mentioned them, you are from the legions in Germania.” The last wasn’t a question and Vitus wondered how close the scouts had been to his party to hear his name.
“I am,” he admitted. “So what is this place?”
“Just a natural cave that the people of the temple and the village have known about for centuries. It was used as a winter store before the undead attacked, now it protects us from the outside world. Neither the temple or the village are safe from creatures who would attack us, living or dead.” The old woman was open and friendly, and Vitus found himself warming to her.
“You’ve had trouble with the men on horses that attacked us some days back?”
“We have,” she answered with a nod. “We tried to take the villagers into the temple, it kept us safe from the Risen as they don’t stray so far up the mountains. The raiders are a different matter, they were like hounds around a wounded deer. So, we made the decision to come down here.”
“So why leave your furniture and belongings down there? Why not bring them up here? You would be more comfortable, wouldn’t you?” Vitus asked but Juliana was already shaking her head in negation.
“Those things do not make for a good life, they anchor us to one place and they are not worth dying for. We leave the village as if it has been deserted and hope that people move on when they find no people.”
“So why bring us down here?” It was a question to which Vitus expected no good answer. He felt no immediate threat, but couldn’t help feeling that he was now a prisoner.
“You looked like you needed help,” Juliana answered, it was a simple answer and despite her priestesses robes, one that took Vitus by surprise. Juliana must have seen the surprise cross his face because she asked, “Have I misjudged you? Have I made a mistake bringing you here?”
“No, we will offer you no trouble,” he answered. “I was just a little shocked. It is not a time of easy friendship. What of our weapons?” Vitus gestured to the sword at his side and Juliana smiled.
“How else would you defend the people down here if we were to take your blade from you? Every strong man must do his part to aid those who cannot defend themselves. Stay as long as you need, Vitus. I feel you will not stay too long - there is a need in you to move on, I can feel it.”
Vitus nodded, “We have to get to Germania, but would welcome the chance to rest and heal.”
Juliana smiled once more, “Then our home is your home. Juno welcomes you and so do I.”
Chapter Eight
The scene that could be seen through the cracks in the window shutters was one of total devastation. This was how Secundus spent the days after the fall of Rome. The city was burning, black smoke plumed from several places around the city. Fighting still raged on every street, but Secundus was a defeated man who had found himself a place to hide and to heal.
In the days that followed he stayed in the room on the top floor of a terrace, brooding on his own fate as well as that of the city. He had never been to Rome before, despite fighting in her legions for most of his adult life, so to enter her gates at the moment of her demise was a bitter irony.
He kept looking out onto the skyline in both the hours of darkness and during the daytime, watching and waiting for the right time to move out from his hiding place and onto the streets in search of a better place and more food.
As he watched, his eyes kept being drawn back to the great houses on the Palatine, and from his vantage point high up on the third floor, he could see the buildings that had housed the great and powerful of Rome.
He did not know his history, so he had no idea that the house he now approached with his seven men had been the home of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. He had spoken to Domitius and explained that high on that hill, the answer to their problem was waiting for them. Huge buildings with enough space to house all of the survivors, secure enough to be defended, and with views that commanded the whole city.
They moved through the silent streets in the last light of dusk, keeping to the shadows and watching every corner of the first sign of movement. They had discussed moving up the hill with force, gathering every man they had and fighting their way to the grand houses, hacking down Risen as they moved. They did not have the numbers to do such a thing however, and it would defeat the purpose of acquiring a new base. What good would it do to win a new home, only to find it surrounded by the enemy the very instant they moved in? No, stealth and silence were the new watchwords in Rome.
From the courtyard opposite the house they could see the street had three Risen, wandering outside. Secundus considered waiting for them to move away but had enough experience to know that this could take hours. The Risen, when dormant, were not straight line walkers. They would turn and circle back, like a horse fly trapped in a windowless room.
He signalled to his men who, knowing what was to come, separated out along the walls and dropped deeper in to the darkness. Secundus took a piece of mosaic tile from a pouch on his belt. In the beginning, he had used coins but the metallic sound carried too far and he had nearly come unstuck more than once. Now he threw the tile against the courtyard wall and it made a noise that wouldn’t even have been heard in the city on a normal day - this was not a normal day.
The Risen whipped their heads round as if somebody had blown a horn to summon them. They did not look to each other for confirmation or wait to see what they would each do, instead they move in unison toward the sound, alert and aware that prey might be close.
Secundus stepped back and pressed his back against a wall, the Risen would come from behind him, leaving themselves open to his blade.
The nearest was a middle aged woman with a ragged stola hanging from her in strips. Secundus calmly drove the point of his blade into the back of her head before she even knew he was there.
The sound of their companion dropping to the ground made the two male Risen turn in his direction. Just as their badly adapted eyes saw him, they too dropped to the ground, taken from behind by his men with swift efficiency.
The bodies lay on the ground, crumpled like yesterday's dirty clothes. The men moved back out of the shadows and turned toward the house. They did not see the Risen who climbed the wall behind them.
He had been a teenage boy named Marcus in his former life. A butcher's boy, who had saved his master's life by warning him that the undead were attacking the market where he sold his wares. He had hidden and then fled the city after the first attack on the city by the Risen. It was outside the walls that he had been caught and bitten, only to return to the city of his birth. Now he dropped into the courtyard and latched onto the shoulder of one of Secundus’s men.
The man let out a grunt through gritted teeth, keeping it in his mind to try to remain silent despite the monster biting him. For a moment he looked to his fellow legionaries in silent appeal before the man nearest him pulled back the hair of the Risen and drove his knife into its temple.
The man let out a gasping breath and stared at Secundus from the ground. Blood poured down the front of his tunic, black in the dusk. “There is no chance the Risen didn’t hear that. You need to run,” he said through gritted teeth.
Secundus winced at leaving a man behind but understood the sacrifice the legionary was about to make. He could see in the man’s eyes what he intended to do and thanked the gods for brave men.
“Run! Now!” he said to the remaining six men and the group moved toward the door of the house of Augustus. Behind him in the now almost total darkness, the legionary began to shout. At first it sounded like so much noise, echoing of the s
ides of the buildings in the quiet night air. Then Secundus made out the words.
“My name is Fabianus Hortensius, my father was a legionary of Rome and I am the same. I am proud to have served with my fellow legionaries, it has made my life worthwhile. I die with honour and no regr...” The final word was cut off and replaced by screams that tore through the night, they were followed by silence
By comparison, the house was not silent. There was noise coming from behind the doors of the house and Secundus could hear banging coming from a number of the rooms, Risen woken by the noise of the breaking lock and the shouting of the now dead legionary.
All of the doors that led off the atrium were closed and Secundus signalled for his men to stop. They breathed heavily after the brief fight and the run that had followed. A couple of the six had wild-eyed stares that betrayed the pain they felt at losing their friend. Secundus placed a hand on one man’s shoulder, and the man nodded in silent response.
There were two small windows either side of the front door. One of the men lifted a bag off his shoulder and removed a roll of dark cloth from inside. He cut two squares from the material using his sword and covered the windows, pushing small nails into the plaster to hold the makeshift curtains in place. The atrium was thrown into total darkness for a moment until one of the men lit a lamp.
The plan had been discussed, and they would move from room to room in teams of four. One of the teams would now be short a man, Secundus reminded himself. They would destroy any Risen in the house and secure each room, blocking the windows with whatever came to hand. The cloth would serve for the smaller openings but larger windows would need something more substantial.
Secundus divided his men silently, taking two men with him and sending the other four off in the opposite direction. Moving his team toward the first door, Secundus knocked quietly, listening for movement inside. Something moved and he began playing out the plan as they had discussed it.
He took the lamp that one of his men carried and placed it on the floor outside the door. He signalled for his men to stand on either side of the door, out of sight. Secundus then turned the handle on the door and pushed it open, stepping back out of the circle of light formed by the lamp.
The Risen on the other side of the door was thrown into confusion by the lamp, unable to make out anything in the darker area outside of the light, while visible to the three men who hunted it. It looked ready to charge out of the door but unable to see what to charge at and it was reduced to stepping out of the door and straight onto the blade of one of Secundus's men. The sword was drenched in a flood of dark liquid as the legionary removed it from the Risen’s skull. The men bent to wipe the sword on the clothes of the creature he had just killed and the men moved into the room.
It was a bedroom. A large bed sat against one wall, and a few other pieces of furniture were placed around the room. Secundus took hold of one end of an expensive looking couch and began to drag it across the window while his men took the other end, and the room was soon secure.
He took a moment to look around the room, and thought that the furniture probably represented more wealth than every man here had earned in his whole life. Its value now was in keeping them all alive.
They moved from room to room, most of them were empty, securing windows and doors as they went. Soon the house was a fortress of solitude, with every window blocked to allow them to light the rooms without fear of attracting the undead.
The space was big enough to be able to move all of their survivors into one place, keeping them safe and easier to feed. The next question was how they would manage to get them all here?
Domitius moved around his house with tension showing on his face, and making Flavia take hold of his arms and turn him to face her. She waited until his eyes met hers and then stretched up on her toes so that she could kiss him.
“Be calm husband, it really isn’t so far and the men say the darkness will protect us,” she said to him. He looked at her with such fear and love in his eyes that it almost made her cry. The men had returned from the Palatine Hill with good news, they had secured one of the larger houses and were now ready to move the people to their new home. It was, they said, more secure and a store of food had been found which would help in the days to come.
After much discussion it was decided that the women, children, and a number of legionaries would make the first trip. The reasoning being that if they did run into trouble the interest of the Risen would make the second group's journey more difficult. Better that the little ones were safe as quickly as possible.
Flavia would take her remaining maids, most had left when the Risen had attacked the city but two had stayed. One, a kindly woman called Pamela Troupejonus, had been a servant of the family since she was a girl. Brought from a slaver who claimed she was from Britannia, Pamela had been too young to know where she was from or who her family might be.
Flavia had freed her some years ago after her long service and Pamela had remained in the house as a paid freedwoman. The other was a young slave named Sylvia who had a wonderful way with children, which made Flavia all the sadder that she and Domitius had never had any.
Between the three of them they would help the mothers keep their children safe and quiet on the journey. Secundus had warned them that any noise at all might attract the Risen and he hadn’t needed to elaborate further, they all knew what would happen after that.
Some of the men in the house had objected to sending their families out without them. Secundus had called them all into a room. The men had been silent and sullen as the centurion had walked back and forth in front of them.
“How many of you are fighters?” it was a loaded question but asked gently. Nobody answered and few could look the officer in the eye. “That’s fine, nobody is asking you to go out there and fight the undead. We are asking you to let us do it though. Your families are as important to us as they are to you. We are all that is left of Rome and I would like to make sure every one of us remains alive. My men are putting their lives at risk in order to make you all safer, so all I ask is to let us do our jobs.”
“But some of us want to leave the city,” one man complained. He sat at the back and Secundus had stepped forward in order to see the man better. It wasn’t meant as a threatening gesture, Domitius was sure, but the man was intimidating all the same.
“Then leave, but I advise against it,” the centurion answered. “My men can’t help you do that, and I would point out that every one of the Risen you will meet along the way were once people who tried to leave the city, as well.”
“What if we want to stay here?” another man asked.
Secundus smiled, “I understand you are scared, so am I every time I set foot outside. This house is defendable if some of you want to stay. The Praetor is coming with us and so is his wife, but if you wish to stay I’m sure he won’t object.” Secundus had stopped and looked at Domitius and the senator had nodded his agreement. “There is no food here, and I won’t ask my men to keep risking their lives in order to provide for you if you won’t come with us.” He pulled a seat toward him and turned it so that he might straddle it and lean forwards against the back of the chair. “We have other survivors elsewhere in the city and some of my men are moving them as we speak. If we do it in the dark, it will be as safe as we can make it. But if we can gather everyone together, we will be as secure as we can be. Let my men do their job, let them protect your families and then we will come back for you. Gods willing, we will all arrive in one piece.”
There had been some muttering but nobody had protested further. Now Domitius stood in the hallway of his house, waiting to watch his wife go out into the dark with the rest of the women and children, and he understood all the fears and doubts of the men in that room. He had lost so much of his life in the last few months, they all had. The city, the empire, and the people of Rome had all been destroyed by a swarm of undead that carried all before it, but to lose Flavia as well would be too much.
; Domitius turned to Secundus, “How long will it take to get them there?” He knew how far it was up the Palatine but he had never walked the journey at night while being hunted.
“Praetor, I can’t tell you that. I don’t know what we will encounter on our journey,” Secundus answered. “If I tell you and we take longer to return, will it make you worry less or more?”
“I see your point, Centurion.” Domitius stepped back out of the way of the gathering group of women and children. They all looked so scared that he wanted to tell Secundus to call it off, to leave them where they were, they would find a way to get more food, they would manage. He knew this was just folly, they needed these legionaries and the protection they could provide. If Rome was ever to live again, it would need men like Secundus to start its heart and make it beat once more.
Domitius leaned in and pulled Flavia close, “Don’t be brave. If you have to run, then you run. I need you, I am nothing without you. Don’t leave me alone, I wouldn’t last a day.”
“Husband, if you don’t let me go, I’ll never get to safety. Now kiss me and wish me luck.” She pulled away from him after he kissed her, she smiled but he saw sadness in her eyes. Then he turned and went to his study one last time, he couldn’t watch her go.
Chapter Nine
Julius had fought alongside the men of the Narbo and watched the people he had grown up with die. His father, a minor member of the city council and a merchant, had been lost from his sight some hours ago, and since the end of the fighting he had not been able to find him.
The Risen had retreated to fight the legions, and he had found his mother and sister. Knowing they were safe had made the pain and suffering of the previous hours worthwhile.
When the Risen had attacked, the walls of the city had been nothing to them and they had poured over them like water over a fall. Some had reached the top of the wall and simply fallen to the ground below, getting to their feet like twitching nightmares, angular and reeking of death. Others climbed down like insects, and on all the undead faces was the look of hunger.
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