The Great Game (34 page)

Two punches and he was down and starting to lose control. If he’d been prepared… if he’d known the attack was coming…

Rolling back, his mind whirling, he sprang rather unsteadily to his feet. It was almost unbelievable just how strong the Sarmatian was. Rufinus had been punched by some big bastards in his time, but he’d never felt such raw force exerted in one blow. Moreover: in a blow swung from the side and without any built-up momentum.

Swaying slightly, he backed away, wondering for a moment which side of the garden doorway he was on. Still on the inside. The brute had knocked him back into the garden and there was little hope of getting away from here.

With a start he realised that he’d backed up against the curve of the garden wall and the huge Sarmatian had now entered through the arch and was stepping maliciously toward him, only two paces away.

He’d had a bad start, because Tad had all the surprise and initiative.

Time to take the fight back and make it his own. First step: use every advantage you can get your hands on. Reaching down, his right hand closed on the hilt of the gladius sheathed at his waist.

Unbelievably, the giant was there immediately, grasping the wrist and hauling it away from the hilt, pushing back the resisting arm as though Rufinus had the strength of a babe and pinning it roughly against the bricks.

Desperately, Rufinus turned slightly in order to shield his left arm from the same treatment and used it to somewhat uncomfortably draw the sword in his off-hand. The blade felt unwieldy there. Lucius, his damned brother had been naturally good with both hands, which had made sword practice when they were children rather uneven. Rufinus knew just how poor he was with his left. Somehow he managed to waggle the blade out into the open, but the huge barbarian was already only a foot from him and there was precious little room to bring the weapon to bear.

Desperately, he tried to turn the blade to ram into the man’s back. Fetid, stinking breath blasted into his face and he winced as those sharpened teeth grinned evilly at him. Without being able to see it, he felt Tad’s other enormous hand close around his own left and squeeze.

The pain was instantly unbearable. The man could squeeze life from a brick!

A bone in his hand cracked and another crunched and white hot agony lanced up his arm. He yelped as Tad broke two fingers with consummate ease, ripping the blade from his failing grip.

The other huge barbarian hand let go of the wrist it held up against the wall and dropped to grasp Rufinus’ throat. The hand was so inexplicably large that it completely engulfed his neck, the tips of thumb and fingers reaching around until they touched the wall behind him.

Yet the giant exerted no pressure.

Rufinus stared into that inhuman maw and suddenly became aware that his gladius was rising into view. As he goggled helplessly, Tad pushed the sword into the mortar of the wall, jamming it deep until the blade was half-hidden between bricks. Then, with a simple jerk, he pushed down, snapping the blade as though it were a wooden stylus. Grinning, the huge man threw the hilt over his shoulder, where it came down somewhere in a bush.

Rufinus realised with a sinking feeling that it was over. There was simply no way he could beat this thing. Tad clearly had more strength than anyone he had ever faced and, to add somewhat unfairly to the man’s advantage, he was tall, broad and ridiculously fast for a man his size.

Grunting, Rufinus tried to swing with his right hand, but there wasn’t enough room to gain any power and all he managed was a light tap on the brute’s upper arm. Desperately, he tried to call for
help but as soon as his mouth opened, that inhuman grip tightened and all that came out was a gasp. His sight blurred and he felt a sluggishness begin to fill him.

The Sarmatian almost effortlessly pulled Rufinus away from the wall once again and as Rufinus’ left arm came back for another blow, the beast pushed him back, trapping the arm against the wall behind him and exerting enough force to keep it there.

Rufinus blinked. The man was a born fighter. He’d never seen such effortless ease in combat. What a soldier the man could have made. Or a gladiator… He was aware that his mind was wandering. The pain was intense and his brain was compensating by trying to take him somewhere else. He tried to shake his head and clear it, but failed due to the grip on his neck.

With another wicked grin, Tad let go of his neck, Rufinus dropping a foot to the gravel as the monster stepped into him, turning so that he immediately began to grind his victim against the wall with the meaty bulk of his shoulder, his knees slightly bent to put him at the right height. It was like being crushed beneath a rock. Rufinus felt his ribs straining, the air forced from him by the tremendous pressure of the giant.

A horrible realisation dawned on Rufinus. Tad could have killed him a dozen times over by now, but clearly had no interest in his death… yet. But the man was not just a killer, was he? He was something else. Something far worse.

Rufinus’ heart skipped a beat as he heard a bone-chilling rasp and his eyes swivelled downwards to see the huge fist drawing one of the skinning knives from its sheath.

‘No!’

It was a weak cry and pointless, of course. The only people who would hear would be the servants in Pompeianus’ residence and none of them would dare interfere. Whatever Tad wanted to do he was going to have the opportunity. Rufinus was helpless.

His eyes filled with tears and then squeezed shut as he bit clean through his lip when the skinning knife made the first slice on his forearm. He opened them again, feeling as though his arm was on fire, burning in the heat of a furnace. A short strip of skin hung from his arm and the bastard was grinning as he reached down and bit the strip off, tearing it away with his needle teeth in a jerk of agony.

Rufinus stared at the glistening pink patch on his arm, the true horror of what the next moments would likely hold suddenly sinking
in. Barely able to think logically, his mind whirling in pain and darkness, Rufinus found that his damaged hand had managed to close on the huge man’s belt. Desperately, he shuffled it along until he found the pommel of the other skinning knife.

With as deep a breath as he could manage past his bruised ribs and the pressing weight of the Sarmatian, he pulled the knife free of the sheath.

For a moment he dithered, not sure what to do next: try and gain back some advantage by jamming the blade into the beast, or cut his own throat to end it before he was skinned raw. No. He was a fighter. And a survivor. If there was
any
chance, even the smallest one, he had to grasp it with both hands! There was no way, with Tad’s shoulder and back against him, and the size of the man, to get the blade to the face or chest. The most he could hope for was the side of the man’s torso or his upper arm.

With a grunt, he thrust the knife into the big man’s ribs. Again, he stared in disbelief as the Sarmatian simply stepped away and yanked the blade back out carelessly, allowing a huge gout of blood to gush out onto the white gravel. Rufinus was momentarily free of the man’s grip, but he had no strength left. He was unarmed, breathless, trapped and with broken fingers, battered head, bruised ribs and a partially-skinned forearm that burned more with very moment.

The Sarmatian grinned and held up the two skinning knives with a flourish, scraping the blades along each other menacingly. Rufinus shuddered and fell back against the wall. With a dramatic gesture, Tad swept his arms out to both sides, a blade in each and, standing like a crucified man, he bowed slightly, mocking his victim.

A dark blur from the corner of Rufinus’ eye caught his failing attention and he blinked in shock.

Acheron, the larger of Dis’ huge dark hounds, leapt from the shadow of the gate, his huge, slavering, serrated jaws closing around Tad’s wrist and snapping shut with an audible crunch.

Rufinus stared. The huge cannibal turned in surprise to see the dog hanging from his outstretched arm, the knife already falling away to the floor as the animal swung back and forth from the limb, blood spraying from a torn artery and fountaining up into the air.

Almost as if playing with a rag doll, Tad swung his damaged arm sharply, the dog coming away in another spray of blood and tattered skin, its large paws skittering across the hard, icy gravel
before turning, hackles up and snarling as though on a hunt, facing the stag.

Both Rufinus and Tad stared in disbelief at the dog and the young spy turned back to his enormous adversary just in time to see Cerberus, the other huge hound, leap and close its jaws around Tad’s other wrist. Again the sound of snapping bones between those powerful jaws was audible in the freezing air.

What in the name of Fates and Gods was going on?

Clearly Tad was as baffled as he, turning to this new threat and shaking the second dog from his damaged arm. His right hand hung at an odd angle and waggled as he shook his arm. The spray from the ruptured artery in the other hand passed across Rufinus, washing his face with warm blood and making him close his eyes, suddenly oblivious to the pain he was suffering. He was numbed by the shock of his sudden salvation at the hands of two beasts that he’d been expecting to savage him every day for weeks.

Tad stood, arms still out by his sides, staring at the two hounds that growled and snarled, tensed and ready to leap again. Rufinus gaped.

‘Acheron! Cerberus! Down!’ The familiar shape of Dis, thin and grey, appeared through the gate. Rufinus’ heart skipped another beat. He genuinely had no idea what was going on and couldn’t decide whether the man’s sudden appearance was a good thing or a bad one.

‘Dis?’

The huge barbarian, lifeblood gushing from his shredded wrist, turned to his compatriot, his eyes wide with confusion.

‘I am afraid this is the end, Tad. Unfortunate that it had to happen so precipitously, but you forced it and now events are in motion.’

Still the big brute stared in confusion, a feeling shared by Rufinus as he slumped to his backside on the freezing gravel, leaning against the wall, the pain and effort suddenly too much, his knees buckling beneath him.

He watched as though in a dream as the hollow-eyed second in command, a man he had feared his greatest enemy for months, stepped forward, drawing a gladius from his side. Tad’s head was shaking. The confusion was too much for him, suppressing his understanding, belief, and ability to react.

As Dis stepped close to him, Tad’s brain suddenly began to race and he realised what was about to happen. Both his knives had gone, his hands useless, wrists shredded and broken. Desperately, he held up an arm to block the sword that began to descend toward him, slowly and inexorably, point first.

Rufinus watched in amazed horror as the blade slid into the man’s forearm, angled down at the last moment expertly so that it slid neatly between the bones in the arm. The point appeared through the other side and continued its deadly path, entering his right eye and sliding onwards with a nightmare bony rasp until it touched the inside of the back of Tad’s skull.

With what appeared to be a look of genuine regret, Dis turned and gave Rufinus a sad glance as his arm moved, twisting the blade a half turn left and then right, mincing the enormous man’s brain.

There was a sound that would stay with Rufinus for the rest of his life as Dis withdraw the sword with terrible slowness to avoid catching and nicking the blade. With a slopping noise, the point came free and the Sarmatian hovered upright for a moment before toppling backwards.

Rufinus stared into that gory hole of an eye for a moment before turning away. A man’s spirit leaving his body was a private thing - even a savage monster who would spend the rest of eternity wailing and screaming in the dead plains of Tarterus.

Bending, Dis grasped the dead brute’s tunic and used it to clean his blade before calmly sliding it back into its sheath and striding across to Rufinus.

‘You are a mess.’

Rufinus blinked in confusion. ‘You… Tad? What?’

Dis grasped him and helped him up. ‘We need to get you out of sight immediately. The next guard that passes that arch will see all of this and then you, my dangerous little friend, are well and truly screwed.’

Rufinus stared at the man. ‘But… what?’

‘Come on.’

Ignoring the burbled confusion from the wounded man, the hollow-eyed guard officer helped him carefully across the slippery gravel, careful not to cross the grass where they would leave tell-tale tracks. Rufinus was still spinning in confusion as they reached the door to Pompeianus’ apartments proper. Rapping quickly, Dis stepped back.

Rufinus’ head spun, wondering where the two huge dogs were. Acheron and Cerberus sat patiently beside the mound of flesh that was the Sarmatian cannibal at the far end of the garden.

The door opened and the servant opened his mouth to speak, his eyes widening in surprise at the state of Rufinus. Dis gave him a hard look and gently pushed the wounded young man into the door, addressing the servant.

‘Take him inside and get him cleaned up. And leave the door ajar; I shall be back in a moment.’

Rufinus shook his head in confusion. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To dispose of two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and bone and throw a few buckets of water across the mess. Let the man clean you up, then we’ll talk.’

Rufinus allowed the smaller servant to draw him inside as he watched Dis vanish out through the doorway once again. His mind continued to reel.

‘Come, sir.’

The servant led him unprotesting through the corridors and rooms of the luxurious complex, up a flight of stairs and into a huge triclinium. ‘Triclinium’ hardly did the room justice, for this was no simple dining area, but a gold-and-black marble banqueting hall with a fabulous polychrome mosaic that stretched across the floor from wall to wall, full of representations of the great structures and earthshaking buildings of all the provinces of the empire. Partially illuminated by braziers that also provided adequate warmth, most of the light came from an enormous arch that overlooked that beautiful garden, itself subdivided into smaller arched windows, each twice the height of a man and filled with leaded, glass-paned windows.