The Crossroads Brotherhood(19)

With a shrug the four Vigiles jogged off towards the conflagration leaving the two doormen alone.

Magnus ran back to the alley. ‘Now Servius,’ he hissed.

Instantly five men scaled the ladders, then crouched and leant back down to help their comrades. Once all fifteen were on the roof, the ladders were pulled up after them and they split into three groups.

As they disappeared from his vision Magnus went back to join his party. ‘Tigran and Vahram, get our guest ready.’

The Armenian cousins pulled back the leather sheet and, with a degree of difficulty, hefted Blandinus out of the cart and supported him between them, an arm around each shoulder.

Faint shouts and screams suddenly emanated from within the Albanians’ establishment. ‘Right, they’re in,’ Magnus whispered looking at the two Armenians. ‘When I give you the signal you run around the corner hollering in Albanian for all you’re worth that the place is under attack and you’ve brought a wounded man from round the back. We’ll be twenty paces behind you so you won’t have long to hold the door once you’ve killed the doormen. Don’t worry if you drop matey-boy here, he won’t feel a thing and we’ll pick him up.’

Tigran and Vahram grinned and nodded.

Good boys, Magnus thought as he peered around the corner, could be useful in the future. The doormen had now heard the fighting and were knocking violently on the door. Magnus heard the bolt slam back. ‘Now!’

The Armenians leapt around the corner, dragging Blandinus between them, shouting in an incomprehensible language. The two doormen glanced up at them in alarm and then at each other. They pulled the cudgels from their belts and one stepped through the now open door whilst the other held his position, with a puzzled look on his face, keeping the door clear for his comrades approaching from the shadows shouting for help in his own language. By the time they were close enough for him to make out their features, it was too late. He died looking into a stranger’s eyes with an unforeseen blade in his heart.

Magnus hurtled around the corner with his brothers in his wake as the doorman slumped to the ground. Within moments he made the door. Tigran held it open, the second doorman and the doorkeeper lay dead in a pool of blood at Vahram’s feet. Just inside the vestibule, Blandinus lay cast to the ground.

Lucio and Cassandros dragged the dead doorman in from outside and Marius shut and bolted the door.

Magnus looked through the curtains into the dimly lit atrium. Kurush and four or five of his men were struggling to hold back the Crossroads Brothers as they tried to force their way through from the courtyard garden. A gaggle of three frightened boys huddled in one corner. To his left the stairs leading up to the first floor were deserted. ‘Right Sextus, you stay here guarding the door and keep an eye out for anyone coming down them stairs. Kill anyone who isn’t wearing a Cohort tunic.’

‘Kill anyone not dressed like me,’ Sextus said, thoughtfully digesting his orders. ‘And look after Blandinus. If he starts to come round knock him on the head, but gentle like.’

‘Knock him on the head gently, right you are Magnus.’

‘Marius get those boys, one unconscious but alive. Alright lads, let’s do this.’

Magnus sprang through the curtain with a savage roar and his sword held steady at his side. Marius, Lucio, Cassandros and the Armenians followed, each yelling at the tops of their voices.

The sudden distraction from behind caused the Albanians to falter for an instant. Two went down immediately to the swords of their attackers in front whilst the rest gave ground.

Magnus leapt over a couple of the sumptuously upholstered divans that littered the room and pounced on Kurush, locking his forearm around the whore-boy master’s throat. ‘I don’t take kindly to greasy foreigners fucking with my clients,’ he growled in his ear.

‘Magnus!’ Kurush managed to gurgle through his constricted windpipe, ‘I thought we were square.’

‘Now we’re square.’ With a brutal thrust he forced the finely honed blade of his sword into Kurush’s side, up under the ribcage, slicing through his liver and into a lung. Blood spurted from the Albanian’s mouth onto Magnus’ forearm as Kurush went rigid with pain. Around him his brothers despatched the remaining defenders in a welter of dismemberment and savagery. With a final upwards thrust that lifted Kurush off his feet, Magnus felt the man go limp. He let him fall to the floor with the sword still embedded, his eyes open in sightless shock and his beard redder than it had ever been in life.

Magnus looked around breathing heavily, wiping the blood from his forearm on the side of his tunic. The only men left standing were his brethren and the Armenians, all also trying to catch their breath as they looked down at the Albanians sprawled at their feet. Magnus looked closely at the dead. None of them was the young rapist.