Empire Of The Undead (27 page)

CHAPTER XXIX

Italy: 89 CE, Early Spring

The arrival of the two in camp had been strange, to say the least, but both had quickly proven their worth. The big Celt, for surely he was one, despite his accent, fought fearlessly. He leaped into battle like an avatar of Mars, but the woman, that plain, brooding, middle-aged woman, she was something else. Felix had occasionally raced against highly-skilled female charioteers, but never had he seen a woman move with such deadly purpose. He was relieved not to have to face either of them.

The line of Romans had hit the lifeless horde with fierce, irresistible power. Hundreds of the white-eyed monsters had fallen, but ever were there more. Too many to count, too many shambling inevitably toward the outnumbered living. Even with the deadly efficiency of their two allies, the legion of death had faltered. They might still have won, Felix thought, but then the worst thing of all happened.

The leader, the thing that had shaken the Senator, emerged. It seemed impossible, for the lifeless had no minds, but it roared and they were heartened in their dark dreary way. The heartless one at the front stood there, its large body seeming to inspire the undead behind it. Looking like Hannibal himself, it roared a challenge at the Roman forces. Four Praetorians charged, and it ripped them apart with shocking brute strength. Even without a lower jawbone, it took huge bites from their dismembered bodies.

Five more Romans, two of them charioteers advanced upon him. They locked their shields and held blades ready. The huge lifeless heaved a torso at them. It battered their shields, halting their advance. Moving not quickly, but more so than the other lifeless, the leader of the lifeless lumbered into them. Its hands closed around one of the charioteers heads and it ripped it off with a wrenching snap.

The others cut at their monstrous foe. Though their blades sliced its flesh, it did not even notice. With cruel power, it bit, chewed, and tore them into shreds. It took only moments. Felix swallowed. He was the closest living thing, and he would confront it, and he would die.

A flash of red and suddenly the man named Iullianus was there. His blade was almost faster than the eye could follow, and he knew not to stab anywhere but the head. Still, he was outsized and out-strengthened, and his attack quickly turned to a desperate defense. It snarled, mouth full of broken, pointy teeth. The Hannibal monster grabbed Iullianus by the throat, lifted him into the air. His blade dropped to the ground as he grabbed at the hand choking his life away. Even from where he stood, Felix could see the red-haired man’s face turn red as he shook and struggled against the creature’s awesome strength.

The big man swung his hand behind his head, drawing a blade from behind his back. Felix blinked. It was not a blade at all—it was a shovel!  What madness was this?  Swinging with all the power he could summon, Iullianus drove the edge of his metal shovel into the neck of his powerful foe. It was a strike with divine power.

The lifeless leader’s head was sundered from its body and it went rolling to the ground. Its face was a mask of pure hate as it fell. Iullianus fell, dark hands still clasping at his throat. He stood, turned to the Roman forces, and bowed.

Felix joined the ragged cheer when at last the black lifeless had been sent back to the grave, but it had been short-lived. There were still far too many enemies clawing, gnashing, and rending, for any to have had hearts lifted.

Step by bloody step, the Romans had pushed the lifeless back. They were too few, however, far too few. They fought in single file, stretched across the road and into the fields. Else, the monsters would flank them and all would fall, but their battle lines were so thin, and one man falling meant danger to those on either side of him.

Felix cursed again the muddy terrain. He and the other charioteers were not meant to fight hand-to-hand. Already many of his
aurigae
friends had died, and the chariots sat untouched in their wagons. What difference weather could make! 

He stabbed again at the chest of an undead monster. The creature's brittle ribs cracked and the scent of death choked him. Bile filled his mouth. The lifeless grabbed at his wrist with an immensely strong grip. A chill filled his arm and the sword fell from his hand.
Felix jumped back, but the thing did not let go and he nearly lost his balance. With inevitable joy, the corpse moved its ravenously grey mouth toward his hand.

"No," Felix cried. He punched it in the head with his other hand as hard as he could. The thing did not relent much, but it was enough that Felix was able to jerk his hand back. It felt dead, numb.

The snarling thing came for him. Felix dropped his left hand to his belt and he stabbed upward with his falx. It went into the corpse's eye, splattering pus and juices on his hand. He didn't even have time to be disgusted, as the lifeless fell, three more moved toward him.

A red rage filled Felix. This was not the cold, instinctive fury that had won for him so many matches at the Hippodrome. This was white-hot rage, the kind that overrode all other thoughts.

He was dimly aware of charging the lifeless, of stabbing, cutting, and swinging a gladius—where had that come from?—and of cutting down white-eyed foes until he panted with exhaustion. Swaths of disembodied and disemboweled lifeless surrounded him.

Something sailed over his head, and there was an explosion of thunder. "Warfire!" Felix cried. Finally something good was happening, and it felt enormously satisfying to have a weapon the lifeless did not. He turned and saw Hyacinthus and four
aurigae
holding the deadly
tzykalia
. Together, they lofted more of the deadly missiles into the ranks of the undead.

Thunder rolled through the thick air, and the sizzling smell of burning flesh filled his nose. The men were far enough, away, however, that the warfire did not deafen them. The lifeless lit up like dry kindling as the fire jumped through their ranks. Masses of burned bodies and ash fell to the ground.

Felix leaned on his sword, too weary for celebrating. His long hair hung in sweaty clumps and he brushed his fringe from his face. Hundreds of the approaching monsters were walking into the wall of flame, and hundreds more had already melted from the intense heat. He did not know if it would be enough. He narrowed his eyes and scanned through the haze of the fire. It was hard to see, but it seemed like thousands of corpses still awaited.

"This fire of yours is a boon from the gods," a voice said behind him.

Iullianus stood next to him. He was breathing heavily and his hair was plastered to his skull with sweat, but he seemed unharmed.

"I saw what you did, with that toy knife of yours. You fought well, lad."

Felix swallowed the words, judging that no insult was meant. He did look young, and he was much smaller than this brute of a man.

"You, too, Legatus. You and your woman. I've never seen someone fight with a shovel before."

"I have had too many blades break, and this shovel was my only friend for many long years," Iullianus said. He laughed, belying the craziness of his word. Felix could smell the musky sweat on the other man, though it mingled with the scent of blood and ash from the fire. "Though we have seen this many only once before, when they killed my entire legion in Dacia."

"You had said something earlier. I thought you exaggerated."
"No. Fewer than ten of us survived."

Felix could not hide his shock. "So few?  What happened?"

"Much like this—we were entrenched in camp. We held off attacks for weeks, until there were finally too many of them. None of us should have survived."  As the big man talked, a blur of movement near the canyon caught Felix's eye. He dismissed his initial thoughts and listened again to the big man. "We were saved by only one thing."

"What was that?" Felix asked. He glanced again to the horizon, to the edge of the horde, and this time he knew.

"Elephants," said Iullianus. "I had a force of well-trained war elephants. They managed to turn the tide of the battle enough that some of us survived. Though in truth, it took aid from a small army of Dacians as well."

Felix could feel the bitterness in his smile. It was too extraordinary not to believe. He laughed harshly. "You are in luck then, Legatus." 

"I do not understand."

The charioteer pointed toward the legions of the lifeless. They were parting, allowing for great gaps. Behind them came the lumbering beasts, shimmery behind the curtain of flame. Iullianus squinted, mouth frowning in concentration.

Even at that distance, there could be no doubt.

"For Mithra's sake!" Iullianus swore angrily. "What are we supposed to do against that?"  He gestured toward the mountains that moved toward them. They had once been his, presumably.

Now they were undead monsters, war elephants that could not die.

***

“It might be too late,” the Senator said. “There just aren’t enough of you.”

“Senator,” Felix said, “please.”

Rufus cocked his head, studying the battle. The Legion of Death was holding—just barely—against the seething hordes that battered them. Iullianus was leading them now, and he had inspired the men to acts that surpassed mere bravery. They had dug in and with a wall of fire and a shield wall behind that were nearly intractable. Yet, the elephants had not reached them. Could they withstand those raging, disintegrating beasts?  Felix doubted it. “That might be the last thing you say to me. To anybody.”

Felix laughed. “You know I fear not death. The fires have dried out the ground. We have the chariots we’ve carted with us this entire time, and I still have a score of men who will ride out with me. With our speed, we can fight even those great elephants. Perhaps save the others.”

Rufus waved his hand in assent. It was not an admission of Felix’s arguments so much as an unwillingness to continue his side of the conversation. Their war was taking a toll on everyone, but the Senator was perhaps suffering the most. The effort of leading was suffocating even this practiced leader of men.

Felix nodded his thanks and jumped away, motioning to the group of charioteers who were standing nearby. As he told the Senator, the warfires had dried out the wet earth. He knew they had close to the camp, and he hoped they had further away. It would still be muddy in places, but it was the best chance for the chariots since they’d left Rome.

In moments, the smaller
bigae
were unloaded and attached to horses. Though they were the same chariots used in the hippodrome, they’d been fitted with blades on the wheels and outside. They were deadlier than any chariot had ever been made to be. Would that be enough? Felix thought about bringing amphorae of warfire—there was room on the platform—but the stuff was too flammable, too unpredictable. It wasn’t worth the risk.

The charioteers were looking at him and he realized they were scared. All were veterans of countless races, but this was a storm, a deluge of a ferocity that none had encountered before. He was the eldest, the leader. It was up to him to inspire them, to give them words of confidence and fill their hearts with bravery.

“Well,” Felix said, “let’s go kill some things.”

They got off to a bad start. The ground had dried on the surface but was muddy deeper below. Much of their maneuverability would be sacrificed, and it took sheer effort just to move forward in some of the more mired places.

But advance they did, and soon Felix’s chariot was charging forward. His falx was strapped to his waist and he held a gladius with both his hands—with the momentum of the chariot, he could behead numerous of the shamblers with little effort on his own part. The spikes on his wheels were even more ferociously deadly—they ripped the lifeless into pieces. This did not always kill them, but it made them easier to slay for the now advancing foot soldiers.

Felix felt uneasy. As many as they killed, there were far more. Even if they never tired, it would take days to kill all their foes, and there were still the elephants, drawing ever closer. Much slower and ungainly than their living brethren, they nonetheless managed to stamp and stomp their way toward their living opponents.

He pulled his chariot to a stop, taking advantage of a brief lull in the battle. Those elephants would be hard to stop, but he had an idea. It was one that was likely to get him killed, but perhaps he could take a few of the beasts with him. He raced back to the camp for some supplies.

CHAPTER XXX

Italy: 89 CE, Early Spring

"Fall back," he cried. He was speaking to perhaps seventy men, covered in sweat and smeared with smoke and ash. Iullianus shook his head slightly as he surveyed the survivors. This couldn't be happening again. What cruel fate led him to lead so many disastrous campaigns?  

The fires had stopped the horde. The Greek and his assistants had created a shimmering buffer that disintegrated the oncoming masses, but the elephants lumbered through, pushing their bulk through the fiery wall. The flames had caught them, clung to them, and they'd become pyrotechnic weapons. There was no fighting these beasts of inferno that the men had routed from the burning undead.

The boy, Felix, had led the charioteers directly into battle against the burning creatures. Iullianus shook his head with impressed memory.
So close
. Had the ground been dryer, or had there been more than the scant handful of charioteers, the battle could have been won. Some of the charioteers had used ropes to tangle up the legs of the giant beasts, knocking them down and leaving them immobile. The fires leaped from enemy to ally, and some of the slow elephants were quick enough to strike with tusk or trunk and kill the advancing charioteers. The pressing crush of human undead cut the margin of error down further, and eventually, only Felix and six others had escaped.

They'd regrouped at the camp, and shields were locked and
pila
were readied. The Senator was ashen-faced and much of his personal guard had joined the survivors. Those that didn't, began to pack up the camp. Though they had many wagons, they were leaving the weapons and armor. All that mattered was enough food to get them to Rome, and the wagon that Hyacinthus was personally re-loading. It sat a distance away from the sleeping tents and cook fires, Iullianus noted. That was for the better.

The lifeless were massing again. The only thing stopping their surge was their hunger, and they were feasting on the fallen soldiers. Iullianus could not hear their screams, but some men had merely been wounded, unable to flee, and now they were eaten alive. He shuddered. It was far better to die in battle.

It had taken far too long, but many of the elephants had eventually burned to death. The burning scent of long-dead elephant made him gag, but there was no time to focus on it. But as the burning elephants had pushed the men back, the warfires had died down. The last three undead war elephants had made it through with the fire only scoring their legs. Unlike their living kin, these had a taste for human flesh. They ran down fleeing soldiers or batted them to unconsciousness with their trunks.

Iullianus wanted to speak with the Senator, but the man was busy. He found instead, the charioteer, and the lad seemed surprisingly capable.

"How far back is Rome?" he asked.

"Five days, maybe," the boy said slowly. "We did not come as quickly as we could have."

"That is too long," Iullianus said. "We need to flee."

"We are faster than the lifeless," Felix said.

"Yes, while we are awake, but we need to stop. We need to piss, to eat, to sleep. Those things behind us, they will stop for nothing. If we flee, we must do so as relentlessly as they will follow."

Felix briefly closed his eyes and sighed. "Again, your words ring with wisdom, but—"  He never finished the sentence. A war-elephant, covered with flickering fire, was running straight for them. Though not as fast as an elephant that yet lived, the lifeless animal was far quicker than a man was.

Iullianus and Felix scattered. The big man ran to his left, into the burnt thickets on the side of the road. Felix ran the opposite direction, into flat farmland. The elephant pursued neither of them. It thundered past with a headless Praetorian clasped in its trunk. Specks of meat and flesh clung to its teeth.

A man screamed in fear as it ran into the camp. A big German man stood before the beast and with great precision, lofted his
pilum
at it. It sunk into the dead flesh but the beast did not hesitate. The German turned to run away but it was too late. The trunk slammed down and the body of his fellow soldier knocked him aside. Iullianus watched in horror as the elephant careened to a stop. Releasing the soldier it had held, it scooped up the fallen German. Moving the man's head to its mouth and with as much effort as a man would make with a grape, bit the German's head off.

Iullianus scanned the road behind him. The horde was moving again, shuffling forward with a ravenous purpose that defied logic and reason. He glanced towards Felix to see if he had seen it yet. The boy was staring with horrified panic, but he was looking the other way, into the camp.

"Felix," Iullianus said.

"Oh, Jupiter no," Felix said softly.

The war elephant was charging again, but this time, its targets were the
aurigae
who were loading up the wagon. The wagon that was filled with warfire. If the elephant charged into that, it would kill not only itself, but also every living being that opposed it. Iullianus fought the urge to run. If the elephant struck that wagon, the difference a few seconds of distance would make, was negligible. He supposed the inferno that would consume them all would at least be preferable to death by lifeless.

The flaming beast, still clasping the headless German's body in its trunk, drew closer to the wagon. The
aurigae
had scattered, fleeing for their lives as their doom bore down upon them. Now the horses screamed and fled away, across the smoky plain. Only one man stood there; a fat man holding a jar in each of his hands.

He shouted at the beast, and then turned and ran. For a big man, he could move quickly, and he ran away from the wagon, into the burnt farmland. The beast changed course slightly and rumbled after him. Relatively fleet as he was, Hyacinthus was no match for the beast's speed.

He knew it too, it seemed. He turned and flung a jar at the lumbering elephant. He had not dared stop, and it was a poor throw. It hit the ground several paces from the intended target and plumes of smoke and a thunderous crack resulted almost immediately. The resulting explosion did nothing to distract the beast. Some of the fire caught the shaft of the
pilum
and it began to burn.

Iullianus later supposed it was there that Hyacinthus realized what he must do. His actions required a kind of bravery that not one man in a thousand possessed. He doubted his own ability to have made such a choice, but the rotund Greek was more hero than Iullianus would ever have guessed.

Hyacinthus stopped running. He held the warfire to his chest with both hands in an almost motherly gesture. The elephant lumbered up to him. It was still burning, but just slightly, so that it had an otherworldly glow.

A twitch alerted him to Felix's movement and Iullianus dropped his shovel. The lad sprang away, toward the confrontation. What good he thought he'd do was never revealed, as Iullianus grasped him from behind. He held on tight with both hands as Felix fought back with surprising strength.

"Let me go. I'm warning you," Felix said harshly.

"You'll do nothing but join him in his grave," Iullianus said sadly. He pinned the lad's arms to his sides and held on with fatigued arms.

The elephant grasped Hyacinthus in its trunk. It opened its mouth and pulled the man toward it. Hyacinthus wriggled and pulled his hands free. He must have been less than a man's height away when he threw the
tzykalia
full of wildfire into the thing's mouth. Felix struggled against his hold, but Iullianus clasped with all his strength and the young man could not break free.

The resulting explosion boomed with the raw, divine power of the Gods. The war elephant's mouth melted away instantaneously. It flung the Greek man down with horrible strength as its face continued to melt away. Smoke poured from its mouth, from its floppy ears, and from its trunk.

It stepped forward once, twice, and then fell. Even after all the bad luck they'd suffered, Iullianus was not expecting the burning, disintegrating beast to fall upon the Greek man.

It landed mostly on the ground, but its leg fell with crushing force upon the Greek. Hyacinthus lay prone and unmoving beneath the burning beast as its flesh sizzled and bubbled from the great heat.

The wagon full of warfire was uncomfortably close, but as yet, had not caught fire. They'd have to move that wagon, and quickly, though the horses would not welcome crossing that field of flame. Felix struggled against him again, and he realized that he still held the young man in his arms.

Iullianus at last released his grip, and both of them ran to the fallen man. His torso was crushed but his head and hands were free. Together, the two of them dragged him out from under the crushing leg of the monster.

There was little recognizable in the man who had been a gentle flower. His ribs were crushed and his neck had been broken. Parts of his flesh had been burned and had blackened. When he spoke, it was in a hoarse whisper.

"Ah, Felix. The gods make fools of us all."

"Hyacinthus!" Felix cried. "You are my oldest friend. You are like a father to me," he stopped talking, as his voice choked with tears. Iullianus was no stranger to death, but his insides ached. He glanced over to the wagon, feeling nervous about its very existence. It was still not burning, and seemed to be safe. Three of the
aurigae
had reappeared and were loading up the last of the containers into the back of the wagon.

"You can't die," Felix said at last. Iullianus turned back to the scene before him.

“Do you remember, a long time ago that I told you it was better to spend your coin on long odds?” Hyacinthus asked, his voice a strained whisper.

"The day at the circuses. The day before my first race. It has been in the back of my mind ever since. I remember it well," Felix said.

  “I might," Hyacinthus said, and the strain in his voice was more apparent than ever. "I might have been wrong.”   He took one more gasping breath and then his body relaxed with horrible finality into the muddy field.

"Now," Felix said to the red-haired man. "Help me pick him up. We will burn him. Burn him in the fire he created."