Severus and his surviving legionaries fought their way to the summit of the bluff and suddenly halted, oblivious to the murderous onslaught raging around them, and stared in stunned fascination at the disaster below.
Pillars of fire rose and merged into a coil of smoke that unwound and reached upward like a serpent. The fleet, their only hope of escape, was burning along the river's edge. The enormous grain ships they had commandeered in Egypt were being incinerated under great sheets of rolling flame.
Venator pushed his way through the front rank and stood beside Severus.
The centurion was silent; blood and sweat stained his tunic and armor.
He gazed in frustration at the sea of flame and smoke, seeing the blazing sails disintegrate in a maelstrom of sparks, the dreadful reality of defeat branded in his eyes.
The ships had been anchored on the shoreline and lay naked and exposed.
A force of barbarians had engulfed the small body of seamen and torched everything that could burn. Only a small merchant ship had escaped the conflagration, its crew somehow beating off their attackers. Four seamen were struggling to raise the sails while several of their shipmates strained at the oars in their struggle to reach the safety of deep water.
Venator tasted the falling soot and the bitterness of calamity in his mouth. Even the sky itself seemed red to him. He stood there in helpless rage. The faith he had placed in his carefully executed plan to safeguard the priceless knowledge of the past died in his heart.
A hand was laid on his shoulder and he turned and stared into the strange expression of cold amusement on Severus's face.
"I had always hoped to die," said the centurion, "drunk on good wine while lying on a good woman."
"Only God can choose a man's death," Venator replied vaguely.
"I rather think luck plays a heavy role."
"A waste, a terrible waste."
"At least your goods are safely hidden," said Severus. "And those escaping sailors will tell the scholars of the Empire what we did here."
"No," said Venator shaking his head. "No one will believe the fanciful tales of ignorant seamen." He turned and gazed back at the low hills in the distance. "It will remain lost for all time."
"Can you swim?"
Venator's eyes returned to Severus. "Swim?"
"I'll give you five of my best men to cut a passage to the water if you think you can reach the ship."
"I . I'm not certain." He studied the waters of the river and the widening gap between the ship and shoreline.
"Use a piece of debris for a raft if you have to," Severus said harshly.
"But hurry, we'll all be meeting our gods in a few more minutes."
"What about you?"
"This hill is as good a place as any to make a stand."
Venator embraced the centurion. "God be with you."
"Better he walk with you."
Severus turned and swiftly selected five soldiers who were unwounded and ordered them to protect Venator on their run for the river. Then he went about the business of reforming his ravaged unit for a final defense.
The few legionaries clustered around Venator-Then they made their dash for the river, shouting, and hacking their way through a loose line of startled barbarians. They cut and slashed like madmen on a bloody rampage.
Venator was exhausted beyond feeling, but his sword never hesitated, his step never faltered. He was a scholar who had become an executioner. He was long past the point of no return. There was only grim stubbornness left now; any fear of dying had disappeared.
They fought through the mad whirl of fiery heat. Venator could smell the odor of burnt flesh. He threw off another shred of his tunic and covered his nose and mouth as they fought through the smoke.
The soldiers went down, protecting Venator to their last breath.
Suddenly his feet were in the water, and he sprang forward, diving the instant it rose above his knees. He glimpsed a spar that had fallen free of a burning ship and feverishly paddled toward it, not daring to look back.
The soldiers still on the bluff countered everything that was thrown at them. The barbarians dodged and chanted defiance while probing for a weak spot in the Roman defenses. Four times they grouped in mass formations and charged, and four times they were hurled back, but not before they took down a few more of the exhausted legionaries. The square became a small knot as the few survivors closed ranks and fought shoulder to shoulder. Bloody heaps of dead and dying carpeted the land, their blood flowing in streams down the slopes. And still the Romans resisted.
The battle had been raging without let-up for nearly two hours, but the barbarians were attacking with the same intensity as at the beginning.
They began to smell victory and massed for one last charge.
Severus broke off the arrow shafts that protruded from his exposed flesh and fought on. Barbarian corpses carpeted the ground around him. Only a handful of his legionaries remained at his side. One by one they perished, sword in hand, buried beneath swarms of rocks, arrows and spears.
Severus was the last to fall. His legs folded under him and his arm could no longer lift his sword. He swayed on his knees, made a futile effort to rise, then looked up to the sky and muttered softly, "Mother, Father, carry me to your arms."
As if in answer to his plea, the barbarians rushed forward and savagely clubbed him until death released his agony.
In the water, Venator grimly clutched the spar and kicked his legs in a desperate attempt to reach the retreating ship. His effort was in vain.
The river's current and a puff of wind pushed the merchant vessel further away.
He shouted to the crew and frantically waved his free hand. A group of seamen and a young girl holding a dog stood on the stern, staring at him without compassion, making no move to bring the ship around. They continued their escape down river as if Venator did not exist.
They were abandoning him, he realized helplessly. There would be no rescue. He beat a fist on the spar in anguish and sobbed uncontrollably, convinced that his God had forsaken him. Finally he turned his eyes toward shore and gazed at the carnage and devastation.
The expedition was gone, vanished in a nightmare.
PART I
October 12, 1991
Heathrow Airport, London
No one paid the slightest attention to the pilot as he slipped around the crowd of media correspondents who overflowed from the interior of the VIP lounge. Nor did any of the passengers sitting in the waiting area of gate 14 notice that he carried a large duffel bag instead of a briefcase. He kept his head down, eyes straight ahead, carefully avoiding the battery of TV cameras aimed at a attractive woman with a smooth brown face and compelling coal-black eyes, who was the hub of the noisy activity.
The pilot quickly walked through the enclosed boarding ramp and halted in front of a pair of airport security agents. They wore plain clothes and blocked the aircraft door. He threw a casual wave and tried to shoulder his way past them, but a hand firmly grasped his arm.
"One moment, Captain."
The pilot stopped, a questioning but friendly expression on his dark-skinned face. He seemed idly amused at the inconvenience.