Basilus could almost feel the weight of the decorations that would be heaped upon him. Could almost feel the warmth of Caesar’s grateful embrace.
With an ululating cry to Mars, he rode for the centre of the town. Barbarians or not, the centre of a town always held the centre of power. Senate, king or thug, men who ruled did so from the middle.
As panicked natives fled before him, Basilus, his best men following on immediately behind, made for the largest houses he could see — not dissimilar to the rest, but for slightly wider frontages and better quality shutters on the windows. His sword rose and fell, a spray of crimson arcing out through the air with every cut, the screams of his victims all-but lost among the general din of agony and panic that filled the settlement. As he burst from a mud-packed street into what appeared to be a village square — or possibly just a wider road, paved with cobbles — he saw two warriors emerge from the door of one of the larger buildings, catch sight of him and disappear back inside, slamming shut the door.
Reining in at the street/square’s centre, Basilus pointed at the house with his blood-slicked sword.
‘Get that door open. Every man in there is to be spared long enough to crucify them!’
Around him, men slid from their mounts and ran for the building, swords raised and shields held before them. The well-trained horses milled around a little, but made no attempt to leave the square as other cavalrymen arrived and pressed on into all side-alleys and streets, hewing at anybody they found in their path.
Basilus slid from his horse, tying the reins to the open shutter of another building, and caught sight through the window of two of the auxiliary cavalry — Gauls rather than Belgae from their kit — butchering the building’s occupants. One of them grabbed a woman who screamed and fought her captors. He shouted something in his native tongue at his companion, who was busy wrenching his sword out of the last victim, and the man rushed over to hold the woman, while the first trooper busily tried to drop his trousers.
‘Kill her and move on!’ Basilus snapped through the window at the surprised Gauls, then turned and strode across the street to the important building with the warriors.
The dismounted soldiers — mostly the rare Roman regular cavalry, with a number of auxiliary Gauls alongside — were shoulder-barging the door, which was shaking and cracking with each thump.
Basilus almost cried out in shock as someone grasped his shoulder and spun him around. His sword came up defensively, and he almost cut into the Belgic auxiliary officer before he realised he was an ally.
‘What?’ he snapped angrily.
‘This is madness!’ the cavalry officer spat into his face. ‘Stop this mayhem before it gets out of control!’
Basilus narrowed his eyes and pushed the officer off him, raising his sword threateningly. ‘You, soldier, are on notice of discipline. As soon as we’re finished here, I will deal with you myself. In the meantime, get your filthy barbarian hand off me before I remove it at the wrist.
The officer, who Basilus realised was unusually wearing a Roman-style tunic along with his Gallic trousers, stepped back, though the fury and fire never left his eyes. ‘Two alae of your cavalry have just deserted in the face of this madness,’ the man said angrily. ‘If you don’t stop, hundreds more will be gone before you can burn the place. My own Remi have refused to enter the town and are waiting in the woods!’
‘Then your own Remi are also disobedient cowards and will face discipline in due course. Now get away from me!’
Turning back from the fuming officer he was just in time to see the door splinter and explode inwards, a burly Gaul tumbling in after it. In a matter of heartbeats, a dozen cavalry were inside and the sounds of murder began. Taking a deep breath to calm the anger raging in his blood, Basilus strode across, sword at the ready, and pushed in through the door.
Three native warriors lay in bloodied heaps on the floor, along with three of his own men, though it took a moment for him to separate them out in the gloom, five sixths of the body-count being of Gallic or Belgic stock, regardless of the side for which they fought.
Two more warriors were still fighting doggedly, both wounded, while Basilus’ men laid into them.
‘Alive, damnit!’ he bellowed. ‘I’ve crucifixes to decorate!’
Behind the warriors, he caught sight of an old man with grey-white hair and a straggly beard, his high quality clothes and golden torc marking him out as some sort of nobleman. Basilus grinned evilly.
‘You! Surrender and I will consider halting the deaths!’ It was a bare-faced lie, but the old man couldn’t possibly know that. He was surprised to see the old nobleman smile at him, reach to the table next to him and pick up a flask of wine. The noble raised the flask in salute and took a deep pull at it.
‘Enjoy that,’ spat Basilus. ‘You’ll be thirsty on the cross.’
The old man, still grinning, spasmed for a moment and dropped the flask, which shattered on the ground. ‘Your general will kill you for this,’ the old man smiled as his legs crumpled beneath him and he collapsed to the floor, shaking violently.
‘Damn!’ Basilus snorted. ‘Just kill the lot of them. There’ll be no crosses today. Leave no one alive and no stone standing.’
He turned, still furious at this, to see the auxiliary officer who had manhandled him outside standing in the doorway, a look of defiance on his ugly, barbarian face.
‘Get out of the way!’ he snarled, stomping towards the door.
Without changing his evil expression, the Belgic officer stepped back out of his way, moving to one side not quite enough to clear the door, obliging Basilus to push him out of the way as he exited. His glorious mood at this unexpectedly easy victory was already gone in the face of impertinent natives, disobedient cavalrymen and a failure to take the leaders alive. He would settle his mood by burning the entire place to cinders and throwing any survivors they found onto the flames. The Eburones would hear of the campaign of Basilus and quake in fear. He would…
He almost jumped out of his skin for the second time in the day as once again a hand gripped his shoulder and hauled him around. His sword came up again automatically, but this time he had every intention of using it.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ snarled an old-ish man in a mail shirt, with a five-day growth of beard, heavy care-lines on his face and salt-and-pepper hair. It took Basilus half a heartbeat to realise it had spoken perfect Latin with a southern — Campanian? — accent. His sword was already on its swing but the man was remarkably fast, a gladius of unsurpassed quality easily knocking aside his own.
‘I don’t know who you are,’ Basilus snapped, ‘but if you touch me again I will have you torn to pieces, soldier.’ It was an assumption that the man was a Roman, but a reasonable one — possibly one of his dismounted cavalrymen. Everyone was being so damn insolent today!
‘Fronto?’ said the impertinent auxiliary cavalry officer behind him.
‘Galronus?’ said the scruffy soldier in front with equal surprise.
Basilus, suddenly very confused, was further baffled to see other scruffy soldiers falling in behind this new irritation, one of them a black-skinned Numidian with more scars than there appeared to be room for on a body. A horrible feeling thrummed through Basilus and his blood chilled a little. He’d heard the name Fronto before. Something to do with Caesar and the staff.
‘Fronto?’ he asked weakly.
‘’Sir’ to you, you pointless moron,’ the scruffy soldier snapped, smacking the flat of his glorious blade painfully on Basilus’ forehead. ‘Declare yourself and your unit, soldier, before I have Masgava here tear off your arms and feed them to you.’