Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate (50 page)

Nestor tried to scream, but the blood-soaked rag thrust into his mouth muffled the sound. Not that it mattered. Berengarus and the other seven former prisoners had dealt with every other living soul in the house and no sound would be audible from the street.

Reaching down to the small table he had set next to the stone slab, Tulchulchur picked up a set of shears - slightly rusted iron things; heavy and solid. Leaning over Nestor, he went to work, placing them around the slave's nose. With a smile, the tip of his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth, the monster of Vipsul snipped half the Greek's nose from his face, the protrusion flicking into the air and disappearing into the shadows of the kitchen floor somewhere.

Modestus dropped to the floor to collect the grisly souvenir and, rising again, pushed a hole through the nose with a needle, threading it onto the body-part necklace he was making.

Tulchulchur waited a few moments for the fresh screaming to die down.

"Before we get to anything new, something you said already is not right. I wish you to write it all down for me again."

Leaning over, Tulchulchur wiped the slate with a damp rag and replaced it beside Nestor's hand. The fingers twitched but did not move.

"I am certain you do not wish me to start removing your lips, though I am very good at it. Write."

Tears streaming from his remaining eye, blood and ooze from the socket of the other, Nestor reiterated everything he had told them in sharp scribbles.

As the chalk fell away from the tablet, the wraith swept it up and peered at it closely, his clouded eyes running back and forth along the lines of messy, agonised text.

"This. This is where you lie: Massilia. You see, along with my years of experience in causing exquisite pain, I have become - through collateral means - a true expert on several other things: thievery, espionage, scouting… acrobatics, even. Mostly, though: truth-seeking and medicine. In the same way a man has 'tells' when he lies - one can check by watching his reactions and his eyes - writing can hold the same warnings. The very stress you feel when you deliberately mislead is visible in the strokes of chalk. And here - where you have written Massilia - is where your writing shows unusual stresses. This is where you lie."

He smiled and reached for the sharp, short knife with the serrated section of blade.

"And I see that despite everything, you still do not take me seriously. So before I issue any further threat, I shall take your lips to show you just how serious I am."

The following fifty heartbeats of sawing, slicing and screaming drew the hungry young Modestus to where he could see more clearly. The now almost skeletal face of the Greek shuddered at the agony, the exposed teeth stubs gnawing helplessly at the crimson rag between them.

"Now without pushing me to make any further gestures of my sincerity, I would like you to replace 'Massilia' with the truth."

Smartly, he used his rag to wipe the place-name from the slate.

Nestor cried genuine hopeless tears as he wrote the name of Fronto's home town on the slate. He had done all he could… no one could expect any more.

"And now you will tell us what else you are holding back."

Nestor's eye widened. There
were
other things, of course. Fronto's knee history that might be exploited. Balbus' heart condition that could easily be made to work for them. The directions to the villa he had been given and the name of a local merchant in Puteoli he could contact to move goods to them if needed. All sorts. Nothing critical anymore, but every tiny fragment he gave them would make it worse for the master and his companions. And if he did not, this monster would go on hurting him for many more hours.

He was choking!

The blood from his ruined nose was running down into his throat and, given the constriction of the bindings, he could do nothing about it. He finally smiled a broken smile. He was going to die. Blessed Aphrodite, he was going to die and be saved further agony.

"Tut tut tut."

Awareness flooded back into him and he realised with horror that his tormentor had loosened the neck restraint and raised his head to clear his throat. He was going to live. He could feel life-giving oxygen returning. No!
Nooooo
!

"I am no amateur, my Greek friend." Turning, Tulchulchur nodded at Modestus, who put his grisly necklace down on the small table and wandered over.

"Hold his head up so that he can breathe while I clean my instruments. Then we will uncover the rest of his secrets."

Nestor felt the former legionary take the killer's place holding his head up while the wraith went back to his knives.

The man's fingers probed the back of his hair, feeling the sticky blood matted into it. The sick ex-soldier was caressing his blood-soaked hair! And that was when Nestor had his idea.

Modestus was busy fondling the hair, rather than holding the head, when the Greek slave slammed his head back against the stone table with the audible crack of a skull breaking. Modestus stared down in surprise at his blood-slicked hands as Tulchulchur turned, his face a mask of abject fury. Before the former legionary could stop him, Nestor lifted his head again, leaving a pool of blood and hair on the surface and brought it down once more with another crack.

Modestus leapt in to stop the man's suicide, but he was too late. When the Greek's head came up again, brains were on the slab. The third thud was final, and the light passed from his remaining eye in moments, a rattle in his throat.

The legionary stood, stunned, staring at the body.

"I… I'm sorry."

Tulchulchur drifted, ghost-like across the stone-flagged floor. "You fool. Can you not perform even the simplest of tasks?"

* * * * *

Berengarus turned as the monster of Vipsul entered the triclinium, wiping the last of the blood from his forearms.

"Well?"

"Fronto, Balbus and four others including a Gladiator and a physician took ship this morning for Puteoli, which is a town in Campania over a hundred miles down the coast. Their womenfolk are there and Fronto knows the place intimately. I would have had a great deal more information, but the idiotic soldier boy let him die too soon."

"Modestus?"

"He will not be joining us. He has been contributing to his own necklace. I would apologise for the depletion of your force, but I fear he is no great loss. Come… let us uncover what we can of Puteoli."

"We go book ship."

"No. We are not prepared. I wish to know everything about the place before we leave. Fronto knows the ground, and so he has the advantage. We would be foolish to move without nullifying that advantage first. Modestus was a soldier. He would have told you all about tactics were he not so rash and foolish. You are an expert killer, my German friend, but sometimes it is worth learning from the military, especially if you are meaning to face them, and at least two of our quarry are experienced officers."

Berengarus' lip twitched angrily.

"Do not worry, my friend." Tulchulchur grinned as he handed him a hook-pointed knife. "We will soon flay their hides from their bones."

Chapter Sixteen

Titus 'Felix' Mittius - camp prefect and former primus pilus of the Eleventh stared down at the enemy. A veritable sea of Gauls and Belgae spread out across the wide valley to every side of the winter quarters, their armour and weapons glinting in the early morning sunlight as they prepared themselves for the next stage of the assault just out of ballista range. Six days now. Every morning the same sight. For six days.

Felix turned, cursing once again his ill luck in having been promoted to the position of Camp Prefect with full responsibility for the winter quarters' defences and construction just in time to have them tested to the limit by an unexpected army. He also kicked himself for not paying more attention to the grumbling of Priscus months ago about some great Gallic rebellion. He had - at the time - chided Priscus for jumping at ghosts and spreading panic about some mythical revolt.

It looked considerably less mythical from this angle.

Behind him, a party of the wounded from yesterday's brutal assault were busy tying sudis stakes together to form jagged barricades to bolster the wooden palisades where they were weakest. No one was being given rest - not even the crippled. Cicero had had a go at him for that, and even Pullo and Vorenus had expressed their displeasure at the badly wounded not being given adequate downtime. But Felix was determined to take his role seriously and he knew the legion better than anyone. The camp had to hold - forever if necessary - and the Eleventh were up to the task.

Cicero himself stood on the rampart at the west gate some thirty paces away, leaning on the crutch the medicus had given him. He did not look well - each day ravaged him a little more in fact - but still nothing stopped him from taking his place on the walls.

The Eleventh legion had settled into the pleasant wide valley two weeks ago now and spent the first of those weeks on supplies and construction. The camp was a work of art, even for a legionary fortress. Felix had leapt on the chance to prove his worth in his role and, despite the fact that no trouble was expected, had set the rampart at almost twice the standard height, gates with fighting platforms, a triple ditch with 'Punic' style slopes on the outermost - a steep drop from the exterior and a gentle inner slope, allowing for easier missile attack of the foundering enemy within it - and standard 'V' ditches for the other two. The interior buildings were of good solid timber and the central, most important ones had roofs of tiles formed from the mud of the nearby river and baked solid. Others were thatched in the native style for ease until more tiles could be manufactured.

But then, seven days ago, such manufacturing became an impossibility.

The Second cohort had been on logging duties across the river when a sizeable force of Nervii had poured from the heart of the woodland, screaming and hacking. Felix hadn't been there, of course, but he'd heard the story a dozen times now and, despite minor embellishments with acts of individual heroism from the tellers, the tale was fairly uniform. The cohort had abandoned their tasks instantly at the calls from the centurion and followed the signals that told them to cross the river in their own way and form up on the far bank. A few men had been lost during those initial clashes, but the barbarians had been unwilling to cross the river in dribs and drabs with a full cohort forming up waiting for them. The moments that bought them allowed the Roman force to pull back to the camp with little harassment.

By the time the enemy leaders had arrived on the scene and driven their men across the river, the Legion was safely behind Felix's solid defences and on the alert. Bless that centurion for having the foresight to abandon protocol and let the men cross the river however they felt best and form up on this side. It had been a combination of that decision and the enemy's reluctance to cross into Rome's waiting arms which had saved the legion, giving them time to prepare.

That first day had been as fierce a fight as Felix had ever experienced - every bit as bad as the most brutal actions of the past four years. As soon as it became apparent that they were not facing a small-scale uprising, but a push on a major scale, Cicero had made the decision to inform Caesar. The small force of native cavalry that served with the Eleventh - including a surprising number of Nervii - had confirmed that not only were the force outside members of that self-same local tribe, but also the Treveri, the Eburones, the Centrones and half a dozen others. And that meant an organised, region-wide rising against the Roman presence.

As the enemy had drawn up their lines on the south and east, Cicero's couriers had issued from the north gate and raced for the treeline on horseback, hurrying to deliver news of the attack to the nearest of the other legions: the Tenth. The legion had then settled in to weather the storm and await relief. The initial assault on the walls had come dangerously close to success a few times, the Gauls apparently riding high on a wave of self-belief, but as night fell on that first day it became apparent that the Eleventh had the strength to hold them off.

The legion's proud satisfaction had received its first knock that evening as the first Gallic campfires burned away the shade of the night, illuminating a grisly spectacle: Cicero's courier riders, each bound and nailed to a cross in the Roman style. The next few hours had involved an object lesson in how serious the rebels were about removing Caesar's army from Gaul. A few legionaries had managed to put a pilum into the suffering, tortured messengers to bring them an easy, early death, but several of them had lingered until the moon was high.

Cicero, Pullo and Felix had immediately gone into conference and decided that the only thing they could do at that point was to strengthen the defences. As that first long night dragged on, the men of the Eleventh had constructed twenty-four towers at regular intervals around the ramparts using the stores of timber that had been destined for barrack blocks. The men sacrificed their comfort for their safety, remaining in their tents for the time being.

The Romans had made their move in the game of siege-craft, strengthening the defences and placing their few scorpion bolt-throwers atop the towers. The morning saw the reply of the Gauls, their force having almost doubled in size when the first glimpse of the sun brought with it half a dozen more tribes eager to put an end to Cicero's occupation.

The second day had been, if anything, harder than the first. The smaller tribes who were considered more expendable - or possibly had more to prove - came forward under the missile attack of the legion and began to fill in the ditches for their stronger compatriots, who would then launch another attack on the walls.

And that became the norm for the week: by day the Gauls would expend their weakest men in an attempt to neutralise the Roman defences as far as possible, and then launch a vicious attack against the walls. Each time they were driven off, but the damage was worsening each day. More legionaries were sent to the medical section or laid out ready for burning each evening, leaving an ever-reducing force. And while the losses of the Gallic army were horrible and outstripped the Romans' each day, their numbers never seemed to diminish as new small groups joined their cause daily, appearing from the woods with the pomp and splendour of the Gallic elite - all goose-honking horns and dragon banners.