Conn Iggulden - The Death Of Kings

With their king alone and embattled, the guards were struggling desperately to reach him. The veterans tired and fell against them, their strength faltering. Mithridates seemed to sense it.

“To me, my sons!” he shouted. “Come to me!” And their efforts doubled into a frenzy.

Julius leaned back around the outside of a blow and then cut in fast, tearing his jagged blade through the shoulder. Mithridates stumbled as Ciro stabbed him in his powerful chest, shouldering into him with an explosion of strength. The king's blood poured out and he dropped his sword from limp fingers. His eyes met Julius's for a moment, then he slipped down into the press of mud and bodies. Julius raised a red sword in triumph and Accipiter hit the Greek flank, breaking them utterly and sending them running with the last of their brothers.

They had no oil to burn the bodies, so Julius ordered great pits to be dug at the rear of the camp. It took a week to make them deep enough to hold Mithridates' dead. Julius had forbidden celebration with so many of the broken army still alive. The irony of having to set up an armed perimeter of the very camp he had attacked for so long did not escape him, but he knew that with the charismatic king dead, there was little chance of the survivors gathering for another attack. He hoped the nerve had been cut out of them, but though Mithridates' sons had been killed at the end, Gaditicus thought more than four thousand others had escaped, and Julius wanted to get away from the valley as soon as the last of his wounded had recovered or died.

Less than five hundred of the Wolves had survived the attack on the camp, most of their number lost in the last battle around the Greek king. Julius had them buried separately and no one complained about the work. They gave them a full funeral that lasted most of a day, and the funeral torches gave off a stinking black smoke that seemed fitting for their sacrifice.

When all the dead were in the ground and the camp was clear of wreckage, Julius gathered his officers to him. From the veterans, he chose the ten most senior centurions to represent their voice and was sad that Cornix had not survived the fight to join them, though he knew the ancient warrior had chosen the manner of his death without regret. Quertorus came with the others and it was only as they sat down together that Julius noticed Suetonius too had joined them, though he held no command. The young man's arm was heavily bound where it had been cut, and the sight of it prevented Julius from sending him away. He had earned his place, perhaps, though Julius wondered if he had enjoyed it half so much as the night attacks he seemed to relish.

“I want to move on to the coast and rejoin Durus and Prax. Somewhere between here and the sea must be a legion, unless the Senate has lost its mind completely. We will deliver Mithridates' body to them and set sail for home. There's nothing more to hold us here.”

“Will you disband the men?” Quertorus asked.

Julius looked at him and smiled. “I will, but at the coast. There are too many survivors from the Greek army for me to be sending ours away now. As well as that, a number of the men I brought to your city died in the fighting, and I have gold to share out amongst the survivors. I think it would be fair to give shares to all those who survived.”

“Will you take the shares from your half, then?” Suetonius said quickly.

“No, I will not. The ransoms will all be given back to their rightful owners as I promised. Whatever remains from the half will be shared out amongst the Wolves. If you don't like that, I suggest you put it to them. Tell them how they don't deserve a little gold to take back to their city and villages for what they have done here.”

Suetonius subsided with a frown and the veterans watched him with interest. He didn't meet their eyes.

“How much gold are we talking about?” Quertorus asked interestedly.

Julius shrugged. “Twenty, maybe thirty aurei per man. I will have to work it out when we meet Durus.”

“This man has all that gold in his ship,” one of the others broke in, “and you expect him to be there?”

“He gave his word. And I gave mine to find and kill him if he broke it. He'll be there. Now, I want everyone ready to march within the hour. I've had enough of this camp. I've had enough of Greece.”

He turned to Gaditicus with a wistful expression. “ Now we can go home,” he said.

They found the first of two legions only eighty miles inland under the command of Severus Lepidus. In the heavily fortified camp, Julius and Ciro presented the body of Mithridates to Lepidus on a bier of cut wood. Ciro remained silent as they laid the body on a low table in an empty tent, but Julius saw that his lips were moving in silent prayer, showing respect for a vanquished enemy. As Ciro finished, he felt Julius's gaze on him and returned the look without embarrassment.

“He was a brave man,” Ciro said simply, and Julius was struck at the change in him since they had first met in a tiny village on the African coast.

“Did you pray to Roman gods?” Julius asked him.

The big man shrugged. “They do not know me yet. When I reach Rome, I will speak to them.”

The Roman legate sent an escort of soldiers to guide the Wolves to the sea. Julius did not protest the decision, though the escort felt more like a prisoner detail than a guarantee of their own safe passage.

Durus was aboard his ship when they finally arrived at the docks and called him out. He didn't seem overjoyed that they had survived, but quickly mellowed when Julius told him he would be paid for his time as well as the passage back to Brundisium, the closest port on the Roman mainland.

It was strange to be back on a ship again and Julius spent some of his new wealth in buying every barrel of wine in the port for a final celebration. Despite Suetonius's objections, the wealth of Celsus was shared out amongst the surviving Wolves and many would return home rich by their previous standards, even after an expensive trip in the comfort of a caravan ride or on horseback.

The veterans had asked to see Julius privately one last time before they left for home in the east. He had offered them ranks with him back in Rome, but they had only chuckled and looked at each other. It was difficult to tempt men of their age who had gold in their pouches, and he hadn't really expected them to come. Quertorus had thanked him for all of them, and they had cheered him, filling the ship with the noise. Then they had gone.

Durus caught the dawn tide out without fanfare or announcement. The young survivors of the Wolves had all stayed on, and they relished the short experience as sailors, with the easy enthusiasm of the young. The seas were calm and it was only a few short weeks before they tied up at the Brundisium port and stepped down onto the land.

Those who had been there from the beginning looked at each other dazedly for long moments as three centuries of his Wolves formed into a column for the march to Rome. Freshly promoted to command a fifty, Ciro dressed the line and stood in wonder as he considered finally seeing the city that had called him. He shivered, rolling his shoulders. It was colder than his tiny farm on the African coast, but still he felt a rightness to the land. He sensed the ghosts of his line had come out to greet their son, and was proud.

Julius went down on his knees and kissed the dusty ground with tears in his eyes, too overwhelmed to speak. He had lost friends and suffered injuries he would carry for the rest of his life, but Sulla was dead and he was home.

Cato wiped a pudgy hand across his brow. Even with the chill of winter still gripping Rome, the Senate building was full and the air heavy with the heat of three hundred of the nobilitas packed into the small space. Cato held up his hands for silence and waited patiently as the babble of noise slowly stilled.