Anthony Riches - Fortress of Spears

‘You can’t fight all of us, not if we come at you together.’

Marcus smiled, shaking his head at the man who’d spoken and pointing the sword at him.

‘Well volunteered, you can be first in that case.’

Felix stepped Hades sideways, the coal-black horse responding easily to the familiar pressure of a knee in his ribs, then nudged the animal’s flanks with his boots, telling him wordlessly to advance a few steps while he made a show of pulling back on the beast’s reins as he goaded him forward with his feet. As the closest of the guardsmen turned to face the big horse, raising his sword to threaten mount and rider, Hades responded exactly as he’d been trained, rearing up and kicking out with a powerful forefoot which sent the soldier flying backwards in a spray of his own blood, his face smashed by the sharp edge of the animal’s hoof. Stepping down from the saddle, Felix slapped Hades’ rump, sending the horse cantering away from the vengeful swords of the two guardsmen who had turned to face him, and stooped to retrieve the dying soldier’s gladius.

‘I’d suggest you men get on with it and finish these two off, before they kill any more of you.’

The remaining soldiers advanced in response to Excingus’s goading, spreading out into a semicircle around the two men. One of the older guardsmen looked Marcus in the eyes, speaking to his comrades as he balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to attack.

‘When I give the word, we rush them. Nothing fancy, just mob the pair of them and get your iron into them. On my command… ready…’

As the praetorians readied themselves to storm their victims, each of the soldiers looking to his comrades for the signal to attack, a one-eyed barbarian warrior, covered in sweat and panting as if from a long run, broke from the trees behind the two prisoners. His sword was held ready to fight, and he weighed up the situation as the praetorians gathered around the two officers stared at him in surprise, panting out a question to Marcus.

‘You’ve not… killed them all… yet, then?’

The Roman shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face, and another warrior burst out of the forest to stand alongside the first, his chest heaving with the effort of their pursuit. He glanced around the men encircling Marcus and Felix, a wheezy chuckle fighting its way past his efforts to drag air into his lungs.

‘You made… me run… all this way… to fight… these children… Martos? He could have… managed this many… on his own.’

The last man to emerge from the trees topped the first two by a head, but he was barely breathing heavily despite the effort of the run. A massive war hammer was held loosely across his torso, its heavy iron head still smeared with blood and hair. Hefting the huge weapon on to one shoulder, he clenched his other fist and stepped forward into the ring of praetorians, his face a mask of snarling hatred as he gazed about him and spat out a challenge in his own language.

‘At last! Romans I can fight!’

While the praetorians were still staring at the newcomers with growing uncertainty, Lugos swung the brutal weapon in a wide single-handed arc, his massive strength making light of its dead weight and smashing the hammer’s wicked beak against a hapless soldier’s chest, dropping the man writhing to the grass with his ribcage smashed. Lifting the pole arm high over his head, he roared in triumph and smashed it down through the crippled man’s helmet to break his skull with a sickening crunch of iron and bone. The other two warriors exchanged a look and stepped forward alongside him, raising their swords to fight, but as they did so the praetorians broke and ran for their lives despite their weight of numbers. Lugos went after them with a bellow of rage, running down the closest man in half a dozen strides and snagging his shoulder with the hammer’s hooked counterweight blade, dropping the praetorian to the ground in a flurry of arms and legs and leaving the downed man to his fellow warriors as he chased after another panic-stricken soldier. Excingus took one look at the fleeing guardsmen and turned his horse away, spurring it away from the clearing and on to the road south.

Marcus sprang forward, running down the slowest of the soldiers and tripping him, kicking away his sword and dropping his own gladius before pouncing on him to grip his throat in one hand, raising the bloody hunting knife to tear out his windpipe. His voice was a feral growl, snarled through bared teeth, and the helpless guardsman went rigid with the threat of impending death.

‘The woman! Where did your officer take the woman!?’

The soldier pointed into the forest with a trembling hand.

‘Th… that way!’

The Roman jumped to his feet, dropping the bloodied knife and picking up both swords.

‘Stay down and they might let you live…’

He ran for the trees with a speed born of desperation, hurdling a fallen trunk and tearing through the undergrowth to find himself in a small clearing. Propped up against a massive oak on the open space’s far side was a man in the armour of a praetorian centurion, his chest covered in the blood that was still running from the small but deep wound under his jaw. Marcus stepped forward, raising both swords ready to fight in case the wounded officer were part of some trap, but there was no movement in the tiny glade other than the slow dripping of the other man’s blood. Struggling to focus, the wounded praetorian shook his head and laughed painfully, the movement causing the flow of blood to accelerate for a moment. His voice was almost inaudible, and Marcus had to lean close to hear the words, made almost impossible to understand by the praetorian’s horrific wound.

‘Young Aquila, is it? The things you see when you don’t have a sword in your hand…’

Marcus stepped forward and put the blade of one of his swords to the centurion’s throat, watching as the blood streaming from under his jaw ran across the polished metal.

‘Where’s my woman?’

Rapax studied him from beneath drooping eyelids for a moment before speaking, his eyes fighting to stay open from shock and blood loss.

‘No idea. Bitch stuck me with a knife and then made a run for it. Sent my men after her…’ The wheezy laugh came again, and with it a hardening of the dying praetorian’s face. ‘One little girl alone in the forest with two big soldiers? I doubt she’s enjoying that very much…’

Marcus locked eyes with Rapax for a moment, then ran the gladius up into the wound in his throat, pushing the blade upwards until it stopped against the back of the praetorian’s skull. Ripping the blade free, he ignored Rapax’s slumping corpse and turned away, stepping silently into the trees.

Felicia ran blindly through the trees, hearing the sounds of pursuit behind her as the two praetorians burst through the undergrowth in her wake, remorselessly closing the gap she had opened on them with her initial burst of speed from the clearing. She ducked into the shelter of a towering oak at the edge of a small glade, pulling her stola tight to her legs in the few seconds she had before the soldiers charged past a few feet to either side of the tree. The sounds of their pursuit died away, and she stared into the forest for a long moment, torn between staying out of sight and putting more distance between herself and her pursuers. The sound of their voices reached her faintly, and she realised that they must have stopped chasing her and started thinking through where she could have given them the slip. Their words were becoming clearer, and to her horror she realised that not only were they coming back towards her, but that they clearly had a good idea of where she was. A voice called out into the forest’s quiet, and she had no difficulty seeing the face behind it in her mind’s eye, the legionary whose stare had so disturbed her over the previous days. Maximus.