Marcus raised his knife, the blade still dark with the dead sentry’s blood.
‘You know my choice.’
His friend nodded and stood up, pulling out his own dagger and tip toeing down the hall to the first doorway with the younger man at his back. Taking a quick peep around the door frame he shook his head.
‘Nothing. Which makes sense, because if there was anyone else down here with him they’d have heard us killing him and come out to play. So where are they, I wonder?’
They climbed the stairs to the first floor, back to back, Cotta leading and Marcus staring into the ground floor’s gloom as he backed up the steps behind him. The first-floor landing was just as silent, and a cautious examination of the rooms to either side of the stairs revealed nothing but empty rooms. The two men repeated their cautious climb to the second-floor landing, but found the building’s next floor equally silent. Looking up the next flight of stairs, Cotta nudged Marcus with an elbow and pointed up into the gloom.
‘See that?’
The Tungrian stared hard, realising what it was that the veteran was showing him. A thick wooden door, criss-crossed with iron reinforcing bars, had been installed at the top of the stairs, and was hanging half open in the building’s silence.
‘There’ll be men on that floor for certain.’
Marcus nodded.
‘There’s no point to an obstacle unless you man it.’
His friend mounted the first step, placing his foot down with slow, delicate care.
‘We take our time from here, and get it right. If we wake them now we might as well slit our own throats.’
They went up the stairs in complete silence, stopping with each faint creak of the treads to listen for any sign that they might have been heard, both men steeled to charge up through the door with their knives ready to fight. Reaching the door, Cotta gently pushed at it, grimacing at the hinges’ thin squeal of protest as he overcame the weight of the iron-studded wood, opening it sufficiently to slip through. Standing on the landing beyond, he cocked his head to listen, grinning at Marcus as the sound of snoring reached them. Somewhere in the unlit gloom one of the sleepers broke wind and muttered something unintelligible, and the veteran soldier waved a hand under his nose with a grin, leaning over to whisper in his friend’s ear.
‘How’s that to make you feel alive, eh boy? One cough and these slumbering idiots will be up and all over us, but right now we’re walking through them like ghosts. Come on …’
As he turned towards the next flight of stairs a figure emerged from the half-lit gloom of the room to Marcus’s left with the stiff-legged half-steps of a man more asleep than awake. He mumbled an irritated question, peering owlishly at Marcus in the dim light.
‘What’re you noisy bastards-’
Cotta took a single quick step and wrapped his arm around the sleepy man’s mouth, driving his dagger into his back. His victim spasmed, his bare feet slapping lightly on the floorboards as he fought the dagger’s cold, agonising intrusion. Marcus put the point of his own knife against the man’s bare chest, looking into his imploring eyes for a moment before pushing the blade home with a single thrust. The gang member’s eyes widened at the sudden intense pain, then rolled upwards as his torn heart stopped beating, the body slumping back against Cotta who lowered it slowly to the floor.
‘Come on!’
His face and tunic were covered in blood, and the coppery stink filled the dank air as he beckoned Marcus on, making the Roman wonder how long it would take for the stench to awaken one of the dead man’s comrades. They crossed the landing with slow, careful steps and then mounted the stairs, Cotta leading with his former pupil once more at his back. On the floor above there was quiet, and the veteran centurion took a moment to lean against the wall and blow out a long, slow breath.
‘Fuck me but that was close!’
Marcus looked up at the floor above them, protected by a door like the one they had passed through a few moments before, this one closed and presumably bolted.
‘Brutus should be up there, if he’s here.’
His friend nodded grimly.
‘And no amount of sneaking around is going to open that door. I think it’s time for a more direct approach.’
He led the young centurion quickly up the stairs, ignoring the inevitable noise of their footsteps just as the gang leader’s men would have done, raising his dagger and tapping smartly at the door with its handle. The two men looked at each other as footsteps thudded down the hallway on the other side.
‘Who is it?’
Cotta raised a hand to Marcus, putting his mouth close to the wood and growling a response.
‘Secundus.’
He winked, and bent close to Marcus’s ear.
‘What are the odds on there being at least one second son in a dozen men, do you think?’
The voice on the other side of the door laughed tersely.
‘Hah! Only you would be stupid enough to forget to give the password.’
Marcus raised his eyebrows at Cotta, who shrugged, then deepened his voice again.
‘Forgotten the fuckin’ password too.’
The man on the other side of the door was silent for a moment, and in that brief space of time the veteran’s face creased with concern as he waited for the sentry’s next words.
‘Fuck me backwards, surely even you can’t be that-’
His words were lost in the clatter of iron as the guard drew first the topmost bolt, then its twin at floor level. The two men braced themselves to attack, only to hear a sudden shout of alarm from two floors below. Marcus could hear the uncertainty from the other side of the door as the noise reached the guard’s ears. His voice was suddenly clearer, presumably as he flattened his ear against the door to hear better.
‘What’s that noise?’
Cotta nodded to himself and stamped at the spot where the door’s catch would be located. The thin iron catch snapped under the kick’s force, sending the door flying back into the sentry’s face with a solid thud of wood on bone. Marcus went through the opening first, flipping his knife to catch it by the blade before whipping his hand forward to send the sliver of metal flying the corridor’s length. The dagger buried itself in the throat of another gang member who was still struggling to draw the short sword from his waist, and he fell backwards, clawing at the wound as it spurted blood onto the floor at his feet. Without warning, a pair of men erupted from a room to their left, both armed with knives whose blades glinted in the dim lamplight. Cotta squared off with one of them, a vicious stab of his dagger making the other man recoil from the threat, while his companion snarled at the unarmed Marcus and drove his blade forward at the Roman with more enthusiasm than skill.
Sliding his body to one side the Roman took the extended knife arm, gripped it by the wrist and shoulder and snapped a knee up to break the elbow, plucking the blade free as his attacker’s face crumpled into a gasping shriek of agony. Cotta parried a knife thrust and punched his assailant hard in the face, sending him staggering backwards, shouting back over his shoulder as he followed up with his dagger raised.
‘The door!’
Marcus lunged for the door and slammed it closed, shooting the upper bolt as the first shouts echoed up from below, pushing its lower counterpart into place as footsteps hammered on the stairs. The sliding catch was broken, but the screaming bodyguard’s fallen knife slotted neatly into its keep and secured the door well enough to afford them a moment or two of respite from the men bellowing at them from the other side of its stout defence. He turned back to the fight to find Cotta locked in a death struggle with his opponent, the younger man’s greater strength slowly forcing his blade in towards the veteran’s throat. Seeing Marcus advancing on him, he grunted with renewed effort, forcing the knife down by sheer brute force against which Cotta was able to do no more than deflect its path to slice a deep gash into his arm. Before the gang member could raise the weapon to strike again, Marcus was upon him, punching a half-fist into his throat and dropping him choking to the floor.