Harry Sidebottom - King of Kings

Unarmed, Titus stood for a moment, then bent and retrieved his sword, unsheathing it. He tested its edge and point on his thumb.

'It does not have to be that,' said Ballista.

Titus laughed bitterly. 'A stepmother of a choice. If I run I will die of thirst. If I hide the reptiles will find me, and I have seen what they do to their prisoners — I would like to die with my arse intact. Better the Roman way.'

Ballista nodded.

'Will you help me?'

Ballista nodded again. 'Here?'

Titus shook his head. 'Can we walk?'

The two men left the circle of light. After a time Titus stopped. He accepted a wine skin that Ballista offered and sat down. He took a long pull and handed the drink back as Ballista sat next to him. Back in the camp the lanterns went out one by one.

'Fortune, Tyche, is a whore,' Titus said. He took another drink. 'I thought I would die when the city fell. Then I thought I would escape. Fucking whore.'

Ballista said nothing.

'I had a woman back in the city. She will be dead now, or a slave.' Titus unfastened the purse from his belt. He passed it to Ballista. 'The usual — share it out among the boys.'

They sat in silence, drinking until the wine was gone. Titus looked up at the stars. 'Fuck, let's get it over with.'

Titus stood up and passed over his sword. He pulled his tunic up, baring his stomach and chest. Ballista stood close in front of him. Titus placed his hands on Ballista's shoulders. The hilt of the sword in his right hand, Ballista laid the blade flat on his left palm. He brought the point up ever so gently to touch the skin just below Titus' ribcage, then moved his left hand round behind the soldier's back.

Ballista did not look away from the other man's eyes. The smell of sweat was strong in Ballista's nostrils. Their rasping breathing was as one.

Titus' fingers dug into Ballista's shoulders. An almost imperceptible nod, and Titus tried to step forward. Pulling the soldier towards him with his left hand, Ballista put his weight behind the thrust of the sword in his right. There was an infinitesimally slight resistance and then the sword sliced into Titus' stomach with sickening ease. Titus gasped in agony, his hands automatically clutching for the blade. Ballista felt the hot rush of blood as he smelt its iron tang. A second later there was the smell of piss and shit as Titus voided himself.

'Euge, well done,' Titus groaned in Greek. 'Finish it!'

Ballista twisted the blade, withdrew it, and thrust again. Titus' head jerked back as his body went into spasm. His eyes glazed. His legs gave way, his movements stilled, and he began to slide down the front of Ballista. Letting go of the sword, Ballista used both hands to lower Titus to the ground.

Kneeling, Ballista pulled the sword out from the body. Coils of intestines slithered out with the blade. Shiny, revoltingly white, they looked and smelled like unprepared tripe. Ballista dropped the weapon. With his blood-soaked hands he closed the dead man's eyes.

'May the earth lie lightly on you.'

Ballista stood. He was drenched in the blood of the man he had killed. Maximus led several others out of the darkness. They carried entrenching tools. They began to dig a grave. Calgacus put his arm round Ballista and led him away, quietly soothing him, as he had when he was a child.

Four hours later the moon was up and they were on the move. Ballista was surprised that, after Calgacus had undressed him and cleaned him, he had slept a deep, unhaunted sleep. Wearing new clothes, his armour burnished, he was back on Pale Horse, leading the diminished party towards the west.

One by one the stars faded. When the sun rose again there were the mountains ahead still blue in the distance. And behind was the dust of their hunters. Much nearer now. Not above two miles away.

'One last ride.' As Ballista said the words he realized they were double-edged. He thought a quick prayer to Woden, the high god of his homelands. Allfather, High One, Death Blinder, do not let my careless words rebound on me and mine, get us out of this. Out loud, he called again, 'One last ride.'

At the head of the column Ballista set and held the pace at a steady canter. Unlike yesterday, there was no time to dismount, no time to walk and let the horses get their breath back. As the sun arched up into the sky, relentlessly they rode to the west.

Soon the horses were feeling their exertions: nostrils flared, mouths hanging open, strings of spittle flecking the thighs of their riders. All morning they rode, the mountains inching closer. Some god must have held his hands over them. The track was rough, pitted and stony, but there were no cries of alarm; not one animal pulled up lame or went down in a flurry of dust and stones. And then, almost imperceptibly, they were there. The track began to incline up, the stones at its side grew bigger, became boulders. They were in the foothills.

Before the path turned and began to grade its way up the slopes, before the view was blocked, Ballista reined in and looked back. There were the Sassanids, a black line about a mile behind. Now and then sunlight glinted perpendicular on helmets or pieces of armour. Certainly they were within thirteen hundred paces. Ballista could see they were cavalry, not infantry. He had known that already. He estimated there were some fifty or more of them. There was something odd about them, but there was no time to stop and study more. He coaxed Pale Horse on.

They had to slacken the pace as they climbed. The horses were labouring hard. Yet they had not been in the high country long before Haddudad said, 'The Horns of Ammon.'

They turned left into the defile. The path here was narrow, never more than twenty paces wide. It ran for about two hundred paces between the outcrops that gave the place its name. The cliff on the left was sheer. That on the right rose more gently; a scree-covered slope a man could ascend, lead a horse up, probably ride one down.

'At the far end, where it turns right, out of sight the path doubles back behind the hill,' Haddudad said. 'Place archers up on the right, hold the far end. It is a good killing ground, if we are not too outnumbered.'

As they rode up the defile Ballista retreated into himself, planning, making his dispositions. When they were about fifty paces from the end he stopped and issued his orders. 'I will take Maximus, Calgacus and the girl with me up the hill. She is as good with a bow as a man. The Greek boy can come to hold our horses, and you' — he pointed to one of the two the remaining civilian members of his staff, not the North African scribe — 'will come to relay my orders.' He paused. He looked at Haddudad and Turpio. 'That leaves you two and five men down on the path. Wait round the corner, out of sight until you get my command, then charge down into the reptiles. Those of us above will ride down the slope to take them in the flank.'

Haddudad nodded. Turpio smiled sardonically. The others, exhausted, hollow-eyed, just stared.

Ballista unfastened the black cloak he had been wearing to keep the sun off his armour. He dropped it to the ground. It landed with a puff of dust in the middle of the path. Then he untied poor Titus' purse from his belt. He opened it. There were a lot of coins. A soldier's life savings. He scattered them on the ground just beyond the cloak. As an afterthought he took off his helmet, the distinctive one with the bird-of-prey crest, and tossed that down as well.

Haddudad grinned. 'Cunning as a snake,' he said.

'Among your people that is probably a compliment,' Ballista replied.

'Not always,' said the Arab.

Ballista raised his voice to reach them all. 'Are you ready for war?'

'Ready!'

Three times the call and response, but it was a tired, thin sound, almost lost in the hills.