Legionary(80)
He wiped at his tears, then lifted the phalera once more, glancing from it to the cell floor and the thought of what might lie deep below.
The seventh chamber beckoned him. Nothing would stop him.
Nothing.
Chapter 15
The gymnasium echoed with the scraping of feet on sand. Gallus and Carbo circled, back-to-back, their eyes tracking the three pushtigban who stalked around them. The three wore their full bronze armour and the hammer-wielder directed the other two with clipped commands. Gallus and Carbo faced them wearing just loincloths, helms, spathas and small, circular wooden shields. Nothing more.
Gallus glanced over to the shaded area at one side of the training court. There, Ramak and Tamur watched on. As always, Tamur seemed encouraged by some rhetoric Ramak was whispering in his ear, fists clenched as if strangling some invisible enemy. After six weeks of imprisonment, the Festival of Iron was just over a week away. The arena at the foot of the acropolis was nearly complete. Now it seemed that the archimagus and the spahbad wanted to rehearse the glorious slaughter of their Roman prisoners. The pushtigban grinned eagerly – as if in hope that this could be more than a rehearsal.
Suddenly, the warrior with the spike hammer lunged forward and smashed his weapon down. Gallus threw up his shield arm and felt the blow like a falling rock. He crumpled to his knees and the shield shattered, half crumbling away. Numb, he pushed up, barging the splintered shield boss into the pushtigban’s face. The warrior stumbled back, growling, hefting his hammer as if for a death blow.
‘No blood, not today,’ Ramak stood and called out.
The hammer-wielder seemed to wilt under Ramak’s glare. He lowered his weapon and sneered; ‘You make it all the worse for yourself, Roman. At the festival, you will suffer, and the last thing you will see will be my face. I will be smiling as I dash out your brains.’ He smoothed a finger over the point of the spike on his hammer as he said this.
Just then, another pushtigban swiped his spear around for Carbo’s shins. The centurion leapt over the swipe, but as he landed, the other warrior jabbed his spear forward, scoring Carbo’s thigh. Carbo could not contain a yell of pain, and he staggered, struggling to stay on his feet.
At this, Ramak sat forward. ‘I said enough! I want them to walk unaided into the arena on the day of their deaths.’
The three pushtigban turned, prostrated themselves in the direction of the archimagus, then kissed the ground.
‘But show me how you will despatch them,’ Ramak finished, a predatory grin stretching across his face.
The three pushtigban stood up. The hammer-wielding warrior flicked his head to one side then the other. One of his comrades swept his spear round to bash the spatha from Gallus’ grip, then the other prodded his spear at Gallus’ throat, driving him back until his ankle thwacked against the execution stone. ‘Kneel,’ the spearman spat.
With no option but to comply, Gallus knelt and lay his head on the stone. The stench of dried blood and innards encrusting the filthy stone turned his gut. The spearman stood back, then he felt the boot of the hammer-wielder press upon the back of his neck. Beside him, Carbo had been pinned to the ground likewise, the two spearmen holding the tips of their weapons to the centurion’s breast.
Gallus grimaced as the hammer wielder hefted the bronzed weapon. He refused to avoid the man’s glare. The man looked over to Ramak and Tamur for approval, then grinned and let out a roar. The hammer came sweeping down then halted, the spike barely an inch from Gallus’ temple.
At this, the hammer-wielder laughed aloud and looked up to his watching masters. ‘Archimagus, Spahbad; this is how the Roman’s brains will be cast across the sand. It will be a fine festival. In years to come I will regale my men,’ he pushed down, pressing on Gallus’ windpipe, ‘with tales of this wretch’s pleas for mercy.’
Still, Gallus refused to look away.
Pavo chipped at the salt face at the edge of the cavern. The salt stung at his eyes, worked into his lungs and burned like fire in the seeping wounds inflicted by Gorzam’s whip. Khaled’s cries still echoed in his every thought, and his every waking moment had been consumed with honouring the vow he had made with the man at the last. The seventh chamber, he affirmed, glancing over at the main shaft, or death.
He heard Gorzam’s rasping laughter echo through the cavern, turning to see the giant in conversation with his colleagues. Then his gaze drifted beyond the gathering and up the sides of the chamber wall. Behind the bars of the cell up there, he saw a shadowy shape move. Bashu! The man’s reward for his foul betrayal had merely been this cell slightly higher on the wall than his old dwelling. So far, the treacherous dog had kept well away from Pavo. A shrewd strategy, cur, he grimaced, then twisted away to look back at the salt face.