‘He’s yours!’
Striding up the corridor he felt the familiar burn of rage wash through him with the knowledge that one of his family’s murderers was close at hand. Pulling his knife from the stricken swordsman’s throat he tugged the unused gladius from the scabbard at the dying man’s side and stood to face the last door in the corridor’s short run. It opened easily, revealing a pair of hard-faced bodyguards with a squat, muscular man standing behind them.
‘Get him!’
Both of the men were armed with swords, and at Brutus’s command they advanced with the blades raised, ready to strike. Marcus threw his knife at the closer man’s feet, the blade sticking into the floorboard between them and distracting his attention for an instant in which Marcus lunged forwards and stabbed the sword’s point deep into his thigh, wrenching the blade free in a gush of arterial blood. The bodyguard staggered backwards, his breath whooping with shock as his life spurted from the torn limb, and the other man hesitated momentarily in the face of their attacker’s bloodied blade. He turned to flee but the Roman was faster, raising his stolen gladius two-handed and ramming the long blade through the terrified guard’s neck, snapping his spine and dropping him flopping to the floor. Marcus looked up to see Brutus climbing through the window with a look of abject terror as he stared back at his nemesis, and went after him with narrow-eyed purpose, snatching his knife from the floorboards.
The wooden scaffolding swayed gently as he climbed through the window and stepped out onto it, looking to his right to see the gang leader’s head vanish as he climbed down through a hole in the boards with a frantic haste that shook the flimsy platform. Two big steps took his pursuer to the opening in the scaffold’s rough planks, and he slid down the ladder with his feet braced against its legs to land with a thump. Brutus was in the act of climbing onto the next ladder down, squealing in terror as he realised that Marcus was gaining on him, but he was no better than halfway down the rungs when his grip on the ladder’s sides was brutally broken by the impact of the younger man’s booted feet. Scrabbling up from the floor, he drew a knife, but Marcus slapped it from his hand with casual ease and punched him once, a swift jab between the eyes that sent him reeling back against the building’s side, momentarily helpless. When his senses returned he found himself standing with his back to the open air beyond the scaffold, held erect by a powerful hand in his hair.
‘I can pay you! Whatever they’ve promised you, I can double it! Name your price!’
Marcus dragged his head close until the two men were eye-to-eye, his lip curling in disgust.
‘This has nothing to do with the Dog Eaters, Brutus! This is personal. My name is Marcus Valerius Aquila!’
He held the terrified man out at arm’s length for a moment, waiting while the realisation of who it was that had hunted him down sank into the gang leader’s battered consciousness.
‘Aquila? The senator’s boy?’
Marcus smiled cruelly, jerking the hand that was holding Brutus upright.
‘The same. I swore to find and kill you all. And now it’s your turn.’
Brutus’s eyes widened as he realised what was about to happen.
‘No! I-’
Marcus released his hair, put the hand into his face and pushed, sending the gang leader staggering backwards until his back foot found only empty space. He toppled into thin air with a screech of terror, but only fell as far as the end of a broken scaffold pole that protruded invisibly up into the night air twenty feet below. With a horrible crunch of bone, the two-inch thick pole’s jagged wooden end punched through Brutus’s body, suspending him ten feet above the ground and protruding up through his back. Terribly wounded, he groaned in shocked agony as the depth of his predicament became clear, slipping down a foot as his blood lubricated the pole’s wooden shaft. Marcus turned back to the ladder without a backwards glance as Cotta came down it one-handed, his other arm black with blood.
‘We need to get that cut bandaged-’
‘There’s no time. They’re breaking the door down!’
The two men hurried down the remaining ladders while voices shouted and cursed distantly above them. When they reached the ground, Marcus took a moment to look up at Brutus’s body. As the two men stared upwards, he slid further down the pole’s length, dropping to their eye level with another deathly moan of terror and pain, his hand ineffectually gripping at the gore-slathered wood in a vain attempt to arrest his descent. Cotta looked at the long, blood-smeared shaft rising out of the gang leader’s back with a soldier’s expertise, pulling a face at the monstrous wound.
‘That thing’s clean through his liver. Leave him. If he’s not already dead, he’ll soon wish he was.’
The Roman shook his head, staring dispassionately at Brutus’s contorted and blood-flecked face.
‘We can’t risk him telling anyone else who killed him before he gives up his life.’
Cotta hefted his knife.
‘Is that all that’s worrying you? Here, I’ll just have his tongue out then.’
He took a firm grip of the dying man’s chin, but Brutus summoned his last reserve of strength and pulled his jaw from the veteran soldier’s grip. His voice was no more than a ragged, choking whisper, but the hatred in his voice was unmistakable.
‘Death … Bringer … will … slaughter … you … all.’
He coughed up a gout of blood, his entire body shaking with the horrendous pain, and Marcus took his chin in one hand, pulling the gang leader’s contorted face round to look at him.
‘When you reach the other side of the river, if you can fool the ferryman into taking you across, you’d best start running. Because if Mortiferum does kill me, I’ll be coming after you to do this all over again.’
Brutus stared at him glassy-eyed. The young Roman realised that the man had lost his grip on life, and released his hold on the corpse’s jaw, allowing its head to hang loosely. He stood and stared at the corpse for a moment, feeling the same numbness that had overtaken him when he’d realised that Dorso was dead. He shook his head slowly at the absence of the elation he’d still hoped to feel in his moment of triumph.
‘Come on, there’s no time for that!’ Cotta dragged him away from the macabre scene, shouting back up at the gang members clattering down the scaffold’s ladders above them.
‘Victory to the Dog Eaters!’
The two men hurried away into the darkness pursued by the shouts of the dead gang leader’s bodyguards.
5
‘Fuck me, look at that lot! Word must have got around!’
An older soldier among the volunteer barbers snorted at his comrade’s observation.
‘Of course word got a-fucking round, you daft bastard, that cock Morban’s only offered another day of cheap haircuts.’
A queue of men had already formed outside the shop, and as Morban unlocked the door he had to put out a beefy arm to hold back the throng as his men filed inside.
‘Just a moment, gentlemen, the lads’ll be ready to get cutting shortly!’ Holding up a hand to indicate that the man at the head of the queue should stay where he was, he ducked back into the shop, grinning at his men as they readied themselves for work. ‘Now can you see why I set the price low? There’s barbers all over the Aventine standing wondering where all their customers have gone, while we’ve got as much work as we can cope with and more. You boys are going to make a decent purse today, just as long as you can keep up with the demand, so no fucking about with the finer points, just get the punters neat and tidy, get them out of the door and put the next arse on your seat.’