Conn Iggulden - The Death Of Kings

Julius walked past the clumps of them with the others, re-creating the action in his mind. He saw many bloodstains around each group of the dead, no doubt where the enemy had fallen and been dragged away for burial. To leave the Roman bodies where they lay was a deliberate insult, an act of contempt that began to kindle a rage in Julius that he saw reflected in the eyes of those around him. They walked with swords held ready, stalking the streets in growing anger and chasing rats and dogs away from the corpses. But there was no enemy to challenge. The port was deserted.

Julius stood breathing heavily through his mouth, looking at the broken body of a small girl in the arms of a soldier who had been stabbed in the back as he ran with her. Their skin had blackened from exposure, the hardening flesh creeping back to reveal their teeth and dark tongues.

“Gods, who could have done this?” Prax whispered to himself.

Julius turned to him with his face a bitter mask. “We'll find out. These are my people. They cry out to us, Prax, and I will answer them.”

Prax glanced at him and felt the manic energy pouring off the younger man. When Julius turned to face him, he looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

“Form a burial crew. Gaditicus can say the prayers over them when they are in the ground.” Julius paused and looked at the horizon, where the sun burned a dull winter copper.

“And get the rest of them out cutting down trees. We'll do the crucifixions here, along this coast. It will serve as a warning to whoever is responsible for this.”

Prax saluted and ran back to the mooring point, pleased to get away from the stench of death and the young officer whose words frightened him, for all he thought he'd known the man before.

Julius stood impassively while the first five men were nailed to the rough-cut trunks. Each cross was raised with ropes until the upright slid into the holes to hold them, made steady with hammered wooden wedges. The pirates screamed until their throats were raw and no more sound came but the whistle of air. From one of them, bloody sweat dribbled from his armpits and groin, thin crimson lines that wrote ugly patterns on his skin.

The third man spasmed in agony as the iron spike was thumped through his wrist into the soft wood of the crossbeam. He wept and pleaded like a child, pulling his other arm away with all his strength until it was gripped and held for the blows of the hammer and the nail that speared him through.

Before his men completed the brutal task with his shuddering legs, Julius walked forward as if in a daze, drawing his sword slowly. His men froze at his approach and he ignored them, seeming to speak his thoughts aloud.

“No more of this,” he muttered, thrusting his sword into the man's throat. There was a look of relief in the eyes as they glazed, and Julius looked away as he wiped his sword, hating his own weakness, but unable to stand watching any longer.

“Kill the rest quickly,” he ordered, before walking alone back to the ship. His thoughts ran wildly as he strode across the dock stones, sheathing his sword without being aware of it. He'd promised to put them all on crosses, but the reality was an ugliness he could not bear. The screaming had cut through his nerves and made him ashamed. It had taken all his will to see the first few nailed after the horror of the first.

He grimaced in anger at himself. His father would not have weakened. Renius would have nailed them himself and not lost sleep. He felt his cheeks burn with shame and spat on the dock as he reached the edge. Still, he could not have stood with his men and watched any longer, and walking away from them alone would have damaged him in their eyes, after his own orders began the cruel deaths.

Cabera had refused to join the legionaries on the dock for the executions. He stood at the rail of the ship with his head on one side in unspoken question. Julius looked at him and shrugged. The old healer patted him on the arm and produced an amphora of wine in his other hand.

“Good idea,” Julius said distantly, his thoughts elsewhere. “Fetch a second, though, would you? I don't want dreams tonight.”

Only a few of the port buildings had roofs and walls secure enough to be used by Julius's men. Too many of the others had been torched, with just their stone walls standing as empty shells. Alternating between the warehouses and the three ships, Julius sent his men scouring the local area for supplies. Though Celsus had laid in enough to last him most of a winter, it would hardly serve to feed so many active soldiers for long.

The legionaries walked warily as they searched, never alone and always with an eye for a surprise attack. Even with the bodies cleared and in the earth, the port was a silent, brooding place, and they lived with the thought that whoever had destroyed the peaceful Roman settlement could still be close, or coming back.

They found only one man alive. His leg had been gashed and infection had set in quickly. They found him when they heard him move to kill a rat that came too close to the smell of blood. He smashed its head with a stone and then yelled in terror as Julius's men took him by the arms and brought him out into the light. After days in darkness, the man could hardly bear even the weak morning sun, and he babbled crazily at them as they dragged him back to the ships.

Julius summoned Cabera as soon as he saw the swollen leg, though he guessed it was useless. The man's lips were rimed dry crusts and he wept without tears as they tipped a bowl of water into his mouth. Cabera probed the puffy flesh of the leg with his long fingers, finally shaking his head. He stood to one side with Julius.

“It has turned poisonous and reached right up to his groin. It's too late to take it off. I can try to ease the pain of it, but he hasn't much time left.”

“Can't you… put your hands on him?” Julius asked the old man.

“He's gone too far, Julius. He should be dead already.”

Julius nodded with bitter resignation, taking the bowl from his men and helping the man to hold it to his lips. The skeletal fingers shook too much to keep it still, and as Julius held one of them, he almost recoiled from the fever heat that burned through the taut skin.

“Can you understand me?” he asked.

The man tried to nod as he sipped, and choked horribly, turning bright red with the efforts that tore at his remaining strength.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Julius pressed, willing the man to breathe. Finally the spasms died and the man let his head fall onto his chest, exhausted.

“They killed everyone. The whole country's in flames,” he whispered.

“A rebellion?” Julius asked quickly. He had expected some foreign invader, rampaging through a few coastal towns and back to ships. It was a common enough tale in that part of the world. The man nodded, motioning with his quivering fingers for the water bowl. Julius passed it to him, watching as he emptied it.

“It was Mithridates,” the man said, his voice hoarse and raw. “When Sulla died, he called them…” He coughed again and Julius stood in shock, walking out onto the deck and away from the ripe smell of sickness that had filled the room. Sulla was dead? He gripped the rail of Celsus's ship until his hands cramped. He hoped it had been a slow agony for the man who had taken Marius from him.

Some part of him had imagined scenes where he would return to Rome with his new men, rich and growing in power, to battle Sulla and revenge Marius. In his quieter moments he knew it for a child's fantasy, but it had sustained him for a long time, a dream that made the months in the cell, the fits, all of it, bearable.

As the day wore on, Julius threw himself into the thousand tasks that needed to be organized as they secured the port area. The orders he gave and the men he spoke to seemed distant, as he tried to think his way through the news he had heard from the dying man. At least organizing the provisions and billets gave him something to occupy him. Sulla's death left a hole in his future, an emptiness that mocked his efforts.