Vulcan's Fury: The Dark Lands (33 page)

“Not all would agree that this,” Flavius gestured to The Wall, “is vital. In fact, few in the Senate see it that way.”

“Then they are ill-informed. As Caesar, I—”

“You are Caesar no more,” Sergius interrupted, spurring his horse forward a few paces. “Julius Livius shall be anointed as Caesar, and the pretender Pleminius has been deposed.”

His anger now a flood of hot metal in his veins, Tiberius stepped forward himself. “On what grounds? Can you honestly tell me that this is anything but the overthrow of a legitimate reign by greedy, pandering fools?”

Sergius snorted. “I need tell you nothing, other than that you will be tried by the Senate.”

“Which has already found me guilty of fabricated crimes so they can steal my family’s wealth.” Tiberius shook his head sadly. “This is an old, old game, Sergius, one that dates back to the days of Old Rome.” Sparing the man a pitying look, he went on, “You conduct yourself like an urchin on the streets of the Aventine, stealing scraps from others less fortunate, instead of standing on your own two feet and living like a true Roman. Men like you are the offal of our civilization, carrion eaters who put the Dark Wolves to shame.”

“We would negotiate your surrender, Tiberius,” Decius said as he and Flavius came abreast of Sergius, whose mouth was working behind closed lips as if he were chewing on stone. “You must understand that this battle is over. You and the men of
Legio Hercules
fought with great skill and valor, but beyond our current superiority in numbers,
Legio Traiana
will arrive before dawn.” He gestured out to sea, where Tiberius saw with a sinking heart a long string of station keeping lanterns aboard otherwise dark warships. “There is no need of further bloodshed. Your men will be treated well, and once your affairs are settled they may return to duty or leave the service, as they choose. On that, you have my word of honor.”

“And my family?”

“It is my sad duty to inform you that they will share your fate as decreed by the Senate.”

“That was not the arrangement,” Sergius told him in a heated voice. “The girl is mine! Livius himself made me this promise.”

Horrified, Tiberius and Octavia both looked up at the parapet atop The Wall at Valeria’s agonized face.

Taking another shuffling step forward, Tiberius hissed, “You will never,
ever
so much as touch my daughter.”

Sergius grinned. It was a foul, feral expression. “In that case, I’ll settle for your wife.”

“Enough, Sergius!” Flavius said in a disgusted voice.

“Enough?” Sergius reined his horse around and drew away from his two companions. “
Enough?
Well, I have certainly had enough of you two.” He nodded to a centurion in the front ranks of what Tiberius suddenly realized must all be men of
Invictus
, Sergius’s legion.

Flavius and Decius were as surprised as Tiberius when the men on either side of the centurion hefted their spears and hurled them from point blank range. Flavius fell from his horse, three spears embedded in his flesh. Decius, who reacted quickly enough to dodge the first salvo, was still not quick enough to get away. He, too, fell from his horse with a gurgling cry, three spears in his chest and one in his neck.

Tiberius expected the men under Flavius and Decius to react, but with a sinking feeling he realized that only men loyal to Sergius had actually witnessed the murder. The men of the other two legions were on the far side of
Hercules’s
formation and couldn’t see. They would know that something had happened, but not what. And by the time they figured it out, it would be far too late for Tiberius and the others, and Sergius could tell them any story he pleased.

“It’s been an honor, sir,” Marcus whispered from behind him.

“Indeed it has, dear friend,” Tiberius replied as he pulled his wife close. He saw the shimmer of steel in her hand as she drew her dagger, and he gave her a loving smile.
The envy of all Roman women
, he thought. Looking to Pelonius and, behind him, Karan, whose sword gleamed in the light of the fires around them, Tiberius said, “If you can, get to my daughter and help see to her safety. She needs your wisdom and counsel as much as she needs swords to protect her. And if not…”

“If not, we all will greet you in the afterlife, Caesar,” Pelonius told him.

As Sergius rode forward, a triumphant smirk on his face, Tiberius nodded to Marcus.

“
Legio Hercules
,” Centurion Marcus Tullius, First Spear of the Roman Empire, ordered, his booming voice transforming Sergius’s expression to one of fearful surprise, “
attack!
”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The men facing the soldiers of
Legio Hercules
were hardly prepared for what came next. Like the great, snarling beast for which the legion had been named, the men of
Hercules
stormed forward, attacking on three sides while their rear was guarded by the flames of the castrum’s burning wall and north gate. None of the men under command of Caesar were fool enough to think they would survive, but each knew that they would go to the afterlife with honor.
 

As his men fought what he knew would be their last battle, Tiberius, his vision turning gray, slowly sank to his knees, Octavia beside him. Looking up, Tiberius saw that Pelonius, Marcus, and Karan still stood by. “Go,” he rasped. “Go…save our daughter…and yourselves…”

“In all my years, I’ve never disobeyed an order,” Marcus said, kneeling beside Tiberius, “but I will not leave your side, Caesar.”

Tiberius took his hand and squeezed hard. “The Empire…stands in peril.” He took a shuddering breath. “You swore an oath, centurion. Please, old friend.”

“Do as he says, Marcus,” Octavia said as she held her husband to her breast.
 

“Yes, Empress,” Marcus rasped. Squeezing Tiberius’s hand one final time, he got to his feet.

“It shall be as you command, Caesar,” Pelonius said.

Tiberius looked up and was sure he saw a faint wet gleam in Pelonius’s eyes before the man — who had been a slave, gladiator, soldier, scribe, teacher, and many other things, but above all a good friend — turned and dashed toward The Wall, Marcus at his side.

Karan lingered for just a moment, then rendered a deep bow before he followed the older men.

Tiberius stroked his wife’s cheek with his fingers. “I am glad…you are here.”

“I would be nowhere else, my love,” she said quietly.
 

Tiberius saw the glimmer of steel in her hand. He closed his eyes, an expression of peace on his face, then nodded.
 

With a smooth motion, Octavia drew the wickedly sharp blade across her husband’s throat before plunging it into her own heart.
 

***

“
No!
” Valeria screamed as she saw her mother’s body slowly slump to the ground atop her father’s lifeless form, a pool of blood spreading across the flagstones beneath them.

Even above the furious roar of the battle, Sergius must have heard her. He looked up, and his eyes locked with hers.

“There is nowhere you can run,” she shouted, her fingernails scraping the stone parapet, “nowhere you can hide that I will not eventually find you. And when I do…”

“Revenge can wait,” Septimus interrupted, “and right now it’s not about you doing to him, it’s about him doing to you. Let’s see that doesn’t happen, shall we?”

Paulus pointed at three familiar figures running across the expanse of the staging area in the eye of the storm of battling soldiers. “They’re heading to the center entrance.”

“Girl, stay here,” Septimus told Valeria. After seeing the rebellious look on her face, he added, “It’s not because you don’t know your way around with a blade. It’s because the entrances were designed to be defended by only a few men at a time. Cram too many in there and we’ll just be tripping over one another. Just stay here with your big fuzz ball. We’ll be right back.” He paused, then briefly touched her arm. “I promise.”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

“Okay, then,” Septimus said with obvious relief. “Let’s let them in, shall we?”

Haakon and Paulus followed him down the steps that led into the labyrinth inside The Wall. While the corridors were lit by torches in wall sconces, Septimus had been through here so many times he easily could have found his way in the dark. In fact, Pelonius had drilled the men of
Hercules
to move about the defensive works in total darkness.

The center gate was wrought from thick iron that ran in deep slots set in the stone on either side. Far too heavy for men to lift directly, it was fitted with an ingenious system of counterweights that allowed as few as two men to raise it by turning a capstan, which in turn acted on a set of lift chains. When the gate was closed, the counterweights were disengaged and massive bolts were thrown which locked the iron gate to the surrounding stones.
 

“Haakon, open the gate!” Septimus ordered. The huge barbarian was strong enough to manage the job himself. “Paulus, with me.”

Side by side, the two men stood before the gate as Haakon, grunting with the effort, turned the capstan.
 

When the gate had been raised knee high, Septimus called out, “Hold it there!”

With no little difficulty, Haakon managed to engage the ratchet mechanism that could hold the gate in position anywhere along its travel.

Three soldiers thrust themselves through the gap, but they weren’t the ones Septimus was looking for. With economical motions, he stabbed two in the neck while Paulus thrust his sword through the back of the third. More tried to come through, all of them with strips of cloth around one arm, marking them as the enemy. Haakon dashed over to help before Septimus and Paulus could be overwhelmed, gleefully hacking and slashing at the men who never made it up from their hands and knees before they lost their heads or were skewered like suckling pigs.
 

“Hold!” Septimus blocked Haakon’s sword as an older soldier, covered in blood, rolled over the bodies that were piled up in the gap. It was Marcus.

Behind him came Pelonius in a frantic dive to avoid a pair of spears that hit near the bottom of the gate with a clang.
 

“Quickly!” Pelonius gasped. “Pull the bodies clear or the gate won’t close all the way!”

As Septimus and Haakon fought to keep more of the enemy from coming through, Marcus, Pelonius, and Paulus frantically dragged away the dead.

A cry of surprise and agony arose from outside just before half a dozen bodies crumpled to the ground, visible through the gap below the gate. Then Karan rolled through, his blade dripping with blood from hilt to tip.
 

“Clear the gate!” Pelonius ordered, and the others sprang back.

Lowering the gate didn’t require Haakon’s strength. Pelonius kicked the ratchet release, and with a deafening clanking and clattering the gate slammed down, crushing two men who had just begun to wriggle under it. While Pelonius had designed the gate to be enormously strong, it was made with a certain degree of imprecision on purpose. Even buoyed up slightly by the bodies, which had been crushed to bloody paste, the locking bolts slid home.
 

“Thank the gods,” Paulus breathed. “We’re safe.”

“For but a fleeting moment,” Pelonius said grimly. “We can’t stay here. We don’t have enough men to mount a proper defense to keep them from scaling the wall.”

The others stared at him. “But what can we do?” Marcus asked.

“I have an idea,” Pelonius told him. “Come, we need to get to the parapet. And quickly.”

***

As furious as the battle had been, no one, least of all Sergius, could have any doubt as to the outcome. His men, which now included those of the legions commanded by his three fallen generals-in-arms, were crushing the surviving legionaries of
Hercules
against the burning walls of the castrum, leaving the apron before The Wall clear of any resistance. He had been irritated that his men had not been able to catch Caesar’s accomplices before they reached the safety of The Wall’s center gate, but the escapees’ respite would be brief enough. Already ropes with grappling hooks and scaling ladders were being brought forward. Hundreds of men would assault The Wall simultaneously. Those cowering within would no doubt kill a few, but their fate was all but sealed.

And so, it would seem, was that of Caesar.
 

Dismounting from his horse, Sergius came to stand beside the bodies of Tiberius and Octavia, lovingly entwined in death just as they had been in life. He felt a moment of intense, almost painful envy, as if a great chasm had opened in his soul, revealing the bitter, secret truth that he had never experienced such love, neither given nor received, and that he probably never would. With a supreme act of will, he forced the chasm closed, stepping away from the pit of despair that he knew awaited him there.
 

Kneeling down, he gently rolled Octavia over so he could see her face. Her expression matched that of Caesar himself: she had gone to the afterlife at peace. “Such a waste,” he whispered to himself as he ran the back of his fingers across her cheek. She had been an exquisitely beautiful woman. Just like her daughter.

“What shall we do with the bodies, sir?” asked his senior centurion.

Getting to his feet, Sergius answered, “Give her body to the fire. Take Tiberius’s head as a trophy for the Senate, then toss his body into the flames, as well.”

The centurion bobbed his head. “Sir.”

Sergius stood back as a pair of men hefted Octavia’s body. “Gently!” He felt a fool for feeling even a shred of compassion for the woman in death, but could not deny it.
 

Drawing his sword, the centurion nodded to another pair of men who propped up Caesar’s body. With a well practiced swing, the centurion’s blade severed Tiberius’s head from his body in one swift stroke. A third soldier caught it before it hit the ground and stuffed it into a canvas sack while his companions bore the headless body to the flames. After two swings, they sent his body sailing into the fire. Octavia joined him moments later.