Masters of Rome (55 page)

Neither Vespasian nor his companions spoke as they approached the substantial façade of Sabinus' house, painted ochre with dull, deep red outlines to the door and the few windows. They stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up at the door; it was intact and there was no sign of a forced entry, nor was there any sound of violence coming from within.

Vespasian glanced up and down the street. ‘Well, either they've stopped watching your house or they've got what they came for and have disappeared.'

‘Either way, Marius or Sextus, or both of them, should be around,' Magnus said, clenching his thumb in his fingers and then spitting. ‘This ain't natural, this quiet at the second hour of the day. Where is everyone?'

Sabinus took some tentative steps towards the door. ‘There's only one way to find out.' He knocked quietly on the wood and received no response; a slightly louder attempt also passed without notice from within. With a shrug he turned the handle and the door swung open, unbarred on the inside.

Vespasian's innards turned and he and Magnus shared an uneasy look as Sabinus stepped into his house before following him in.

And then he felt it: it was the same cold sensation as the touch of the Lost Dead and yet he knew that they could not possibly be
so far from the damp island that they infested; those spirits could not cross water. And then he remembered the cold malice of their masters and his stomach lurched.

Sabinus sensed it too. ‘There's something in here,' he whispered, stepping carefully through the vestibule. ‘There's a dread reminiscent of the Vale of Sullis.'

Magnus sniffed the air as they entered the atrium. ‘Something's burning and it don't smell like it's just the hearth—' He stopped mid-sentence as they all three simultaneously drew breath and swallowed fast-rising bile. ‘Now that ain't natural.'

To the left of the impluvium lay a bloodied mess, steaming faintly in the cold atmosphere of the chamber. Even at a distance of twenty paces it was only just recognisable as human. Its surface glistened with fluids; here and there a twitch or a muscle contraction showed faint evidence of life. Reacting to the sound of the three men entering the room, the ghastly vision lifted its head, its lidless eyes making unfocused contact.

‘Magnus,' it croaked in an undertone, ‘finish it.' It lifted its left arm; there was no hand attached and the stump was old.

‘Marius?' Magnus ran over to the bloodied wreck. ‘What happened?'

Vespasian and Sabinus joined Magnus staring down in horror at Marius in his agony; the skin had been stripped from his head and limbs as if a Titan had sucked each in turn, scraping them with razor-teeth to remove the hide. His torso had received less damage but flayed strips of flesh hung from it in a surprisingly regular pattern as if it had been slashed by a mighty claw.

Marius' eyes rolled in their sockets and blood and mucus seeped from the hole where his nose had been. ‘Don't … know. Torn apart.'

Magnus knelt down. ‘Who by?'

‘I saw … nothing.'

‘Where's Sextus?'

‘Gone. Finish me.'

Magnus pulled his knife from its sheath, placed the point under Marius' ribcage and placed a hand around his raw shoulders. ‘You'll be remembered, brother.' The two men tensed and
then with a brutal thrust the iron sliced through the exposed flesh and on up into his racing heart.

An agonised grimace set across Marius' peeled lips. ‘Brother,' he whispered with the last breath that left his lungs. His lidless eyes fixed and his body slumped; Magnus removed his arm and laid his crossroads brother down as a scream that curdled blood rang out and reverberated around the marble walls.

‘Clementina!' Sabinus cried, spinning round and looking in the direction of the noise.

‘The garden!' Vespasian shouted. ‘Have you any weapons handy?'

Sabinus nodded and ran to a closed door; a few moments later he emerged with a sword and a long knife that he threw to Vespasian. ‘That's the best I can do.'

Vespasian caught the hilt in the air and, along with Magnus, rushed after his brother into the
tablinum
at the far end of the atrium and then on into the courtyard garden. They stopped, aghast at the sight that awaited them at the far end of the garden, forty paces away.

Their long hair and beards were matted and their ankle-length robes were smeared with filth; their dark eyes fixed on Vespasian and his companions. All five druids stretched out an arm towards them.

‘Juno's fat arse!' Magnus exclaimed. ‘What the fuck are they doing here?'

Vespasian stared in fearful disbelief at the Britannic priests, his heart chilling by the moment. Two held Clementina by the wrists, rigid with terror, and another two had Alienus, who shook and sobbed; his body was filthy and his hair and beard more disgusting than those of his captors. The lead druid stepped forward and Vespasian felt a jolt of recognition, and yet it could not be for the man was patently younger than when he had last seen him.

‘Myrddin?'

The druid stopped and smiled without mirth. ‘No, not yet. I have been Myrddin in a previous life and I will be him again when my time comes; until then I serve the living Myrddin and
he demands the life of the treacherous Alienus and the sacrifice of two brothers. Myrddin always gets what he demands. Heylel himself, the Son of the Morning, is present to witness this triumph over the fiends who unchained his captive Sullis and the death of the man who was destined to let the canker that will destroy the old, true ways grow in Rome's belly. And here you are, Vespasian, come of your own free will.'

Vespasian felt the same chill grasp at his feet as when he had faced druids before; the malevolent aura enshrouding them began to slip over him, his terror mounted and he could not move. To either side of him Sabinus and Magnus were also rooted to the spot.

Alienus was brought forward and the chanting began; he looked around in dread, struggling feebly, his body weak and emaciated from his long captivity. ‘It was Theron,' he shouted at the brothers. ‘They said it was Theron who told them where I was and where you lived; kill him for me.'

The yet-to-be-Myrddin interrupted his chanting to laugh. ‘Yes, it was Theron who told us your whereabouts when he returned to Britannia in the summer; we had been watching out for him for a long time. He told us what we wanted to know with very little persuasion and then Heylel feasted on his skin; so it's too late to claim vengeance on him – even if you could.'

Alienus was brought to the fish pond at the centre of the garden; the chant rose and Vespasian watched appalled, unable to move as if a force, unseen, willed him to stay still. He tried to lift a foot but it felt as if it were made from freezing lead. Alienus' head was pulled back and, as before with the young girl in the Vale of Sullis, something was stuffed into his mouth, which was then clamped shut whilst his nostrils were squeezed.

Alienus' body shook in weak defiance but he had not the strength to resist; soon he swallowed and, an instant later, convulsed. His mouth and nose were freed and immediately shot forth torrents of blood; blood oozed from his eyes and trickled from his ears. Blood flowed like urine from his penis and exploded from his anus in great bursts, splattering the lower areas of the druids' robes. His head rolled back and he called in
terror to the heavens, his cry dulled by the crimson mist that sprayed from his mouth as the blood drowned his gorge. His legs buckled and his captors released him to fall into the pond, jerking and twitching.

With a massive effort of will, Vespasian fought against the cold fear gripping his heart and rendering his body immobile as Clementina was brought forward to the pond.

‘Pray to your god!' he managed to say. ‘Cogidubnus and Yosef both defeated the druids using the power of their gods; we must do the same.'

Vespasian heard Sabinus intone a prayer to Mithras whilst he invoked his guardian god, Mars, praying that he spare him for the destiny foretold at his birth; Magnus clenched his thumb and spat repeatedly. Clementina shrieked as the pond water churned and the body was sucked under briefly before it shot back up and stood, with its feet just below the surface, bellowing guttural malevolence.

With each prayer he offered, Vespasian felt the cold power gripping him lessen and became aware again of the knife in his hand.

The druids' chant continued and the name of ‘Heylel' could now be distinguished.

Alienus' head turned to face Clementina, rotating well past his shoulder before his body moved to catch it up. The druids released Clementina but she did not run; she could not run. She stared wide-eyed at the bloodless corpse before her that was now the vessel for a god of unspeakable malice and wrath.

And its wrath was fuelled by its hunger.

With preternatural speed, the god grabbed Clementina's right wrist. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream. Sabinus cried out, imploring Mithras to hold his hands over his wife. Vespasian managed a step forward, raising his knife. The god outstretched its hands and pulled them down Clementina's right arm; although there was no sign of claws at the end of the fingers, they shredded her flesh, flaying her as easily as skinning a ripe fig. Now she found her voice and it conveyed the full horror of helplessly watching her skin being torn away.

The druids continued their chant, their voices growing more powerful as the god's strength grew.

Sabinus wept, still rooted to the floor; Vespasian, praying with all his will to Mars, managed another couple of steps forward. Magnus continued spitting and clenching his thumb.

Another shriek as the god stuffed the gore-dripping feast into its mouth with a bass rumble of pleasure and then seized Clementina's other arm with one pale hand whilst slashing the other across her face with hideous effect.

Vespasian forced his foot onward another pace; Clementina's screams and the horror being inflicted on her filled his senses so that he hardly registered the flashing iron that spun in from the right-hand side of the garden. So fast did it fly that it seemed a knife simply materialised in the yet-to-be-Myrddin's temple; his eyes widened with shock and his chant abruptly ceased. His four colleagues continued, unaware of the reason for their leader's swaying. A massive roar followed the knife and drew the druids' attention as the yet-to-be-Myrddin fell forward onto his knees; Sextus catapulted himself off the sloping roof of the colonnade to land with a body-roll in the garden. The chant faltered, the god thundered its filth, Clementina wailed in agony but the spell was broken. The chant ceased. Forward dashed Vespasian, Sabinus and Magnus as Sextus came barrelling in from the right. The druids did not run; they did not even raise their arms to defend themselves; they picked up the chant but too late. Sextus piled into two of them, sending them sprawling with a splash to the blood-puddled ground with him on top, stabbing with his knife at a speed that belied his lumbering ways, and adding to the gore already spattered about. With a straight arm, Vespasian powered his blade through the left eye of his adversary as Magnus ripped the throat from his with a shower of blood, severing his long beard.

Sabinus thrust his sword into the small of the god's back; it roared, its mouth full of flayed skin; it turned to face its attacker, pulling the embedded sword from his grasp. Freed from her tormentor, Clementina slumped to the ground bleeding from hideous wounds. Vespasian glanced down at her before
launching himself at the husk of Alienus as it struck out at Sabinus, knocking him far back as if suddenly dragged by an invisible rope. Vespasian's blade sliced through pallid flesh into the ribcage; no blood flowed or even seeped; the body was devoid of it. The god turned to him and spewed obscenities, loose skin falling from its mouth; Vespasian thrust again with his knife, piercing the shoulder but doing no harm to the lifeless body as Magnus and Sextus joined him facing the terror. They all three attacked at once and with a wild swipe of its pale arm the husk of Alienus smashed them aside, breaking both its forearm bones so that the hand hung at an impossible angle.

Its head turned, surveying each of them on the ground in turn; the dead eyes had vision and staring at their lifeless gaze Vespasian realised how to put an end to such a monstrosity. ‘The head! We must get the head!' he shouted. ‘I need to grab that sword.'

Magnus understood immediately and picked himself up as the god stepped out of the pond, its eyes rolling and the ground shaking beneath it. ‘Sextus, take the left!'

Sextus nodded, his breathing laboured; he sprang forward at the same time as his leader, each in a different direction as Vespasian circled around the dead druids and the crumpled body of Clementina to get behind the god.

Using its shattered forearm as a club, the god pounded Sextus' chin, sending him into the air, back arching and arms flailing. Vespasian leapt forward as Magnus landed a knife wound to the unfeeling thigh of what had been Alienus. Vespasian grabbed the sword and, raising his foot to brace himself against the god's buttock, wrenched it free as Sabinus charged back in and the god rumbled out its hatred.

Vespasian felt the weight and balance of the weapon, his eyes fixed on the neck just three paces in front of him; the image of Sejanus' freedman, Hasdro's, head, spiralling through the air flickered across his inner eye. He recalled the sensation of decapitation that he had first felt as a sixteen-year-old and the finality of it made his heart sing with joy as the blade hissed through the air; the impact of iron on flesh and bone juddered up his arm but
the honed edge was true. It carved through the neck's flesh, muscle, sinew and bone, sending the head up and forward, spinning on an axis through the ears but spraying very little fluid to mark its passing. The body remained upright, its limbs in spasm; the guttural roaring had ceased and in its place came the rush of expelled air. The head bounced on the ground and then rolled to where Sextus lay unconscious, coming to rest in the crook of his arm as the noise of rushing wind increased, seemingly from nowhere. The loose flesh around the gaping neck wound vibrated as if being blown upon and then the noise stopped with an abruptness that was almost a sound in itself and a faint scream could be heard; but no one could ascertain whence it came.