‘Don’t do this, Cavarinos. You’re stronger than this.’
The gleaming point of the Arvernian’s sword came to rest just under Fronto’s chin. The man swallowed. Fronto daren’t do the same despite the dryness in his mouth.
He felt the nick as Cavarinos’ blade cut through the flesh and for just a moment wondered what dying would feel like. But that was all it was: just a nick. For the Arvernian noble was swinging around now with remarkable speed. In that curious slow-motion in which a heartbeat can take a year, Fronto realised what his friend was doing and, his own life hanging by a thread, fell heavily backwards to the ground.
Cavarinos spun with the blade still at neck height. Luguros, druid of the Arverni and tutor to the great rebel king tried to cut out with his own sword to stop it, but he was far too slow, taken completely by surprise. Cavarinos’ blade bit into his neck on the right side and only stopped when it wedged between the joints in the spine. The druid’s nerves pulsed and the sword fell from his twitching fingers. His head lolling unpleasantly to one side, Luguros, who had for a year borne the cloak of Cernunnos the forest lord, turned in jerky motions to stare in horror at his killer. Cavarinos let go of the sword, which remained wedged in the neck even as he tried to talk and instead folded up to land in a heap on the floor.
Fronto, only peripherally aware of this, hit the floor hard, the pain of the wound in his side almost overwhelming. And yet his senses were still active. As he hit, his arm was already sweeping out. The gladius may be lightly pitted with rust for lack of cleaning, but its previous owner had been diligent at the time, and the edge was as keen as any Fronto had seen. The blade cut deep into Molacos’ leg just above the ankle and snapped the bone with the blow. The Cadurci hunter screamed as his leg separated above the joint, only a narrow strip of flesh and muscle connecting them. He spun and fell, shrieking.
As he hit the ground Fronto was already lunging across the floor, his gladius jabbing into any flesh he could find, striking foot, then ankle, then shin, thigh, groin. The blade slid home there until only the hilt protruded next to Molacos’ manhood and blood from the severed artery flooded the man’s tunic, forming a huge lake that flowed to meet that of the fallen druid nearby.
Molacos coughed once, tried to say something, and then jerked and fell still.
Fronto hauled himself round in the crimson pool and slowly pushed himself up to his knees. Cavarinos was standing over the fallen druid, but his eyes were on Fronto.
‘For a moment,’ the former legate breathed, ‘I thought you were going to do it.’
‘For a moment, I was,’ Cavarinos answered flatly, and there was no hint or trace of humour or wit in his tone. ‘Today I have finally cast out the last of what I was and left myself hollow.’ He turned to look at his king and Vercingetorix backed away across his cell, sickened.
‘Well however hollow you may feel, my intact gut and soul thank you,’ Fronto muttered, hauling himself painfully to his feet, his hand still gripping the crimson, sticky hilt of the old gladius.
‘It is over,’ Cavarinos said quietly.
‘Probably,’ Fronto corrected. ‘There might be survivors out there.’
‘Not that. Not the fight. My world. My world is over, Fronto. The tribes are doomed. This is the death rattle of the land you call Gaul, here in this room. The world will never be the same. I will never be the same.’
‘You did what you had to. What you knew to be right. There are those of us, even those who fought your people again and again, who can see a value to a future together. Gaul and Roman, building something that is better than both. Labienus suggested such a thing years ago when we were facing the Belgae, and at the time we thought he was dreaming, but in retrospect, I suspect he was ahead of his time there.’
The room fell silent, just the groans and thuds of the wounded outside insisting on their thoughts.
‘I have to go.’
Fronto blinked. ‘Now? Where?’
‘Anywhere. Galatia, probably. As soon as the tide will take me.’
‘Then you will have time for a last meal with us.’ Fronto crossed the room and clapped his hand on Cavarinos’ shoulder, wincing at the pain in his side as he did so. ‘For now, let’s go see if anyone else is alive…’
* * * * *
Biorix was on his knees at the outer room’s edge, clutching his side, from which leaked torrents of blood. A few paces away, the blonde woman lay on the floor, propped up with one arm. Occasionally the pair would swipe at one another with their blades, though both were clearly exhausted and half dead from wounds and blood loss.
Other than them the room was a house of the dead, bodies strewn in a carpet, some still shuddering or moving, groaning in their final moments. Almost casually, contemptuously, Fronto stepped between the corpses and slammed his gladius home between the blonde’s shoulder blades. The woman gasped, croaked out a man’s name almost too quiet to hear, and slumped to the ground.
‘Fronto!’
He turned to see Cavarinos waving him over, and stepped between the bodies, nodding respectfully at Biorix as he did so.
His heart jumped, then thundered.
Cavarinos was helping one of the wounded up.
Balbus coughed and winced.
‘Fortuna, you beautiful bugger,’ Fronto grinned, hurrying over.
His father-in-law was pale as death, a lump the size of a hen’s egg on his forehead, coloured black and purple. His sword arm was crimson and soaked, but the old man was a veteran of many wars and knew precisely what to do. Before the severed artery had bled him dry, he’d whipped off his scarf and tied it so tight around the top of his arm that the blood flow had been staunched. Fronto knew that if he washed that arm it would be a pale purple-blue from lack of blood. He also knew that the arm was almost certainly lost, but the sacrifice of the limb might well have saved the old man’s life.
‘I think we’ll need both those doctors Glyptus knew,’ he murmured.
‘For you, as well,’ Cavarinos replied, pointing at Fronto’s side. ‘You’re as pale as an Arvernian winter. Anyone else alive?’
Fronto nodded to Balbus, who clearly still felt too weak to reply, and rose, prowling around the room, pausing occasionally to administer the mercy blow to the few Gallic slaves or guards who were fighting against the pull of Hades. Procles and Agesander were still and silent. Dyrakhes was gone.
He stopped, startled, as the decurion from Comum groaned. Crouching, he helped pull the man to his knees. He did not seem to be exhibiting any wounds from the fight, though the general coating of blood from his scourge injuries that had leaked into the wrappings made it rather hard to tell.
‘Jove and Minerva!’
He turned at the shout from the doorway to see a guard – the one who’d run before the fight – standing in the square of light, a truncheon in hand and a look of disbelief on his face. Even as Fronto rose and held up conciliatory hands, the figure of Curtius Crispinus, head of the carcer guard, appeared next to him. The shapes of numerous other guards were visible behind them in the street. The centurion’s face worked repeatedly between fury and incredulity.
Fronto coughed nervously and looked around. The room was a palace of the dead and wounded, blood coating most of the surfaces, organs and bone in ample evidence.
‘I can see how this might look…’
‘You would free the decurion?’ Crispinus demanded angrily. ‘I was told to watch out for Caesar’s men as they’re duplicitous and dangerous. It would seem Pompey has you figured.’