Robert Fabbri - False God of Rome

‘I think he’s thanking you,’ Vespasian commented.

‘So he ought to, he owes me his life.’

After quickly swallowing a couple of mouthfuls, the young man looked up at them and pointed to himself. ‘Ziri,’ he said nodding, ‘Ziri.’

Vespasian laughed. ‘Oh dear, you know his name now, you’ll have to take him home.’

‘Ziri,’ he said again and then pointed at Magnus.

‘Master,’ Magnus said, pointing to himself, ‘master.’ He then pointed to Vespasian. ‘Sir. Sir.’

Ziri nodded vigorously, looking pleased. ‘Master. Sir,’ he repeated.

‘Well, that’s got that sorted out,’ Magnus said, biting into a lump of bread.

Aghilas, much weakened by his wound, guided them without mishap to the second well, just two days from Siwa. Here the landscape changed; the hard-baked ground gave way to sand. At first it was just a thin coating on the desert floor but as they journeyed further from the well it became thicker until by late afternoon they were travelling over sand dunes as tall as a man. Their horses started to struggle in the soft footing and eventually they were forced to dismount and walk. The scalding hot sand on their sandalled feet was a torment to them all.

‘I’m beginning to think that this is much too much effort to go to just so that you can get yourself a good breeding wench,’ Magnus grumbled as they crested yet another mound of loose and treacherous sand with Corvinus and Aghilas; behind them the four turmae trailed into the shimmering distance.

‘We’re also rescuing a Roman citizen from a life of misery as an agricultural slave in the middle of nowhere,’ Vespasian reminded his friend.

Magnus grunted and battled with his unwilling horse, trying to encourage it to make the descent down the other side of the dune.

‘Horse, go!’ Ziri shouted, whacking the recalcitrant beast on the rump; it jumped forward and skidded down the dune, sitting on its back legs, taking Magnus with it in a flurry of sand, much to Vespasian’s and Ziri’s amusement.

‘I’m going to stop teaching you Latin, you fuzzy-haired little camel-botherer, if that’s the use you put it to,’ Magnus spluttered, trying to pull himself out from under his struggling horse.

Vespasian laughed as he led his horse down the dune. ‘I thought that was a perfect use of the language; he chose exactly the right two words from his vocabulary of at least twenty to make the horse go.’

Ziri grinned broadly, displaying his ivory teeth as he came down to Magnus. ‘Ziri master help?’

‘I don’t need your fucking help, desert-dweller,’ Magnus replied as he managed to extract himself. He brushed the sand from his tunic and began to lead his horse towards the next dune; with another grin Ziri followed.

‘Why’s Ziri so cheerful?’ Vespasian asked Aghilas as they struggled up the loose sand. ‘If I’d just been enslaved I think I’d be pretty upset.’

‘It’s the way of the Marmaridae. Because they’re slavers they would rather die than become a slave, that’s why they were so suicidal at the well. Their honour required them to exact a blood price for our taking their water but then, when it was obvious that we would catch them, they chose to fight and die. As far as Ziri’s concerned he died as a Marmarides in that battle; the fact that Magnus beat him in single combat, yet let him live and made him his slave, means that he can never go back to his people. He now has a completely new life and accepts his fate.’

‘So he’s happy to be a slave and never see his family again?’

‘Yes, it’s the only thing he can do. If he was married and had children he is dead to them; to go back to them would mean a slow and painful death at the hands of his own family. All he has left is a new life serving Magnus.’

‘So Magnus can trust him?’

‘With his life, yes.’

‘Even against the Marmaridae?’

‘Especially against the Marmaridae.’

Vespasian looked at the young Marmarides following Magnus up the dune like a faithful hound and wondered what he was going to make of Rome. His musing was brought to an abrupt end by a cry of alarm from Ziri who stopped suddenly and pointed to the south. Vespasian squinted into the sun, shading his eyes with his hand. The horizon, normally a straight, sharp divide between light brown and blue, appeared smudged and indistinct.

‘Gods help us,’ Aghilas muttered.

‘What is it?’ Corvinus demanded.

‘Sandstorm, and it looks like it’s coming this way; if it is, it’ll be here before dark.’

‘What can we do?’ Vespasian asked.

‘I’ve never been caught in one so I don’t know, but nothing, I think; it’ll catch us out in the open, there’re no rocks to shelter behind for miles. We must just keep going as fast as possible and pray that it misses us, because if it doesn’t and if it’s a big one it’ll bury us alive.’

For the next couple of hours they pressed on over the unforgiving terrain with all possible haste; the sun had sunk onto the western horizon. News of the impending maelstrom had filtered down the column and the men glanced nervously south at the ever enlarging threat, now no more than ten miles away in the half-light. It had turned from a smudge on the horizon into a massive dark brown, land-based cloud and was increasing in size at an alarming speed.

‘Make your peace with your gods,’ Aghilas said, ‘there’s no avoiding it now; we’re dead men.’

Ziri ran up to Aghilas and said something in his own language; a brief conversation ensued.

‘He says the only way to have a chance of survival in a sandstorm,’ Aghilas announced, ‘is to make your camel lie down on the top of a dune and shelter behind it; he doesn’t know if horses are big or heavy enough but it may work.’

‘Pass the word down the column,’ Corvinus shouted, ‘shelter behind the horses or mules on top of the dunes.’

Vespasian pulled his horse down next to Magnus and Ziri. Sensing an imminent change for the worse in the weather conditions all the animals were skittish and needed to be firmly held in place. He peered over his horse’s back and felt the wind start to stir on his face.

‘Vulcan’s boiling piss, look at the size of it,’ Magnus exclaimed, ‘that’s got to be three or four hundred feet high.’

Vespasian stared at the rolling brown cloud in amazement; it was as least as tall as Magnus’ estimate but that was not as awe-inspiring as its speed. Now only a couple of miles away it rolled across the desert at a pace that not even the fastest chariot horse in the circus could outrun. As he watched wide-eyed it raced towards them, like a massive moving mountain eating up the ground before it.

Suddenly it went dark.

Then it hit them.

Within an instant the wind had accelerated from a moderate breeze into a howling gale that strained the ears. The temperature rose and visibility plummeted, so that he could only just make out Magnus sheltering behind his horse two paces away, as the air filled with tiny, sharp particles of sand moving at colossal speeds; they cannoned into the horses’ sides, stinging them sorely even through their coats. Vespasian jerked down his mount’s bridle as it attempted to stand and flee from the all-encompassing rage that surrounded them; despite the horse’s struggling he held it down with every fibre of strength until it acquiesced and lay still. Breathing became increasingly difficult. He pulled his tunic up over his nose, curled into the foetus position and squeezed his eyes tight shut, offering up prayers to every god he could think of, as the wind ripped around him, tearing the hat from his head and dragging relentlessly at his cloak, which cracked like a whip with the unremitting pressure.

The sun went down and darkness became complete.