Cristus moved ever so slightly and, as the muscles in his foot tore further around the deeply-wedged blade, let out a piercing shriek that cut through the silence of the hillside. Varro laughed.
“You are a good swordsman, Cristus. You’re also an idiot, a liar, a traitor and shortly a corpse. Best concentrate on pulling that blade out of your foot. Can’t reach me until you do, and the blood’s trickling away slowly.”
As he spoke, he began slowly to circle Cristus. The prefect attempted to keep his front facing the captain but, as Varro circled behind him, it was impossible. Even the effort made his face contort with the agony shooting up from his foot. Varro stopped directly behind him, smiled, and very, very gently kicked the stricken leg from behind. Cristus shrieked again, so loud that the birds left the canopy of the sacred wood. Combat all but forgotten, the prefect reached down toward the hilt of the sword pinning him, his mouth opening and closing in an ‘O’ of exquisite horror and agony.
With a calm smile, Varro reached out and gently plucked the man’s sword from his hand. The smile deepened as Cristus tried to turn once more and raised a hand to ward off the blow. Almost causally, Varro swung the prefect’s sword, cutting the fingers from the raised hand.
Fresh agony rang through Cristus as he stared first at his hand, with only a ‘V’ of thumb and forefinger remaining, the others lying like uncooked meat on the grass. With a grisly, determined look, Varro took his other arm by the wrist.
Cristus stared at him, repeatedly mouthing the word ‘no’ through a veil of tears, though no sound issued.
Varro stopped.
“You want mercy? You? After the deaths you’ve caused, you have the audacity to ask for mercy. Catilina’s wounds? Petrus’ death? And that poor messenger too? The soldiers in the valley station who didn’t even know what they were dying for? Turning Corda against me? And after all that, my wound and the poison? And you want mercy?”
Cristus stared at him, the pain and shock clearly evident, but another strange look of confusion joining them.
“Poison?”
Varro growled and tightened his grip on the man’s wrist.
“Yes. The Ironroot. Very subtle. Much more subtle than the rest of your activities…”
Cristus stared through the tears.
“I’ve never used Ironroot, Varro. I wouldn’t even know where to get it this far north.”
Sighing, Varro swung the blade and cut a single finger from Cristus’ hand.
“I know that me winning proves your fault anyway, but I’d really appreciate you unburdening yourself of your guilt quite noisily so that everyone else can hear it.”
Cristus whimpered, staring at his hand, still in the captain’s grip.
“I’ll confess to anyone. Just stop torturing me!”
Varro growled again.
“Then tell me how you got the poison to that barbarian!”
“What barbarian? What are you talking about, Varro? Please?”
The captain stopped and frowned.
“The Imperial sword. The nice officer’s sword that barbarian stuck me with? Covered in Ironroot? The one that killed me?”
Cristus stopped crying. For a horrible moment, he began to smile. Even through the tears and the pain, the prefect’s sides began to shake with laughter.
“What’s funny?” Varro barked.
“You!” Cristus coughed out. “You did all this to pay me back for something I didn’t do! Priceless. Oh, the Gods like a joke, Varro. They love a good joke, and this one’s on both of us. You’ve ruined me in retaliation for something I didn’t do, and now you’re going to die without even finding out who really did!”
Varro stared at this laughing maniac and suddenly felt a sharp pain. Staring down, he realise that Cristus had used his two remaining fingers on the other hand to draw a small, slender knife from his belt and thrust it into the captain’s side. Still gripping Cristus’ wrist, he stared in shock and suddenly collapsed to his knees, bringing the prefect with him. With a tearing noise the disfigured man’s foot tore in half around the blade in the floor.
Cristus drew his small knife back in his maimed hand, the blade making curious sounds as it tore back out through the leather support, and laughed again.
“Varro, Ironroot is an ingestive, you idiot. It would probably do you some damage on a blade, but not enough to be fatal. If only I had some on this blade, I could make your last minutes a little more interesting.”
He thrust forward with the blade again, going for the chest this time, but Varro’s own hand swung up, bearing his opponent’s sword and breaking the offending arm at the wrist.
Staring it his limp, broken hand, Cristus giggled.
“Best put me out of my pain Varro. I need to die first or my cause wins and I die a free and honoured soldier. And you’ll not even make it to the marshal. I know my anatomy, Varro. That was your liver. See how the blood pooling out at your belt and running down your leg is nice and dark? Darker than mine? That’s liver, that is. I…”
Mid sentence, the prefect stopped, his eyes glazing over as the tip of Varro’s sword broke through the man’s back and out through his tunic with a tearing sound. Cristus slumped over him, a mangled, bleeding mess.
Varro toppled backwards to the ground and looked down at his legs, tangled beneath him.
“Dark.”
It was true. The blood running in thick streams down his thigh was dark and wicked.
Clutching at the grass with whitening knuckles, he forced himself to his knees and looked around. Everything was blurred, as though seen through a pain of glass in heavy rain.
Rain.
It has been raining when he’d first met Catilina. He remembered it well. At Vengen. He’d reported to the senior officer in the square before the marshal’s palace. The rain was turning the gravel and dirt beneath his feet into a browny-grey mud that clung to his boots. He knew he looked dirty and haggard from a long ride, but then the palace doors had opened and she had appeared in her finery, a young lady; much younger than him, but so beautiful.
He smiled wistfully as he looked down at his knees and thighs, soaked through with deep, dark, red; the colour of Catilina’s dress that day, if he remembered correctly.
She had climbed onto her horse and walked it slowly across the square toward the civilian sector, pulling her hood up against the rain. Half way across the square she’d first looked at him. She’d stared and then slowly warmed to a smile. Rummaging in a pocket, she produced a coin and tossed it to him.
“Get indoors somewhere and get some wine while you dry off.”
With a lingering look, she’d ridden off.
He’d known that day that they’d be together til death. Curiously it hadn’t occurred to him it would happen this soon, but still, he’d known. And he was right, because here she was, his beautiful Catilina, with him in the arena. He couldn’t see at all now. Everything was a milky white, but his nose still worked. Even days on the road and nights in the woods hadn’t disguised that scent, like roses in the early morning dew. And other hands too; strong hands. He recognised those hands. Who did they belong to again?
There was a pain as he was slowly helped to his feet. He vaguely recognised the heady sensation of standing suddenly; light-headed. The pain was nicely distant. Like something experienced through that same window. If only he could see through the window, but it was so white. And someone was talking to him. He could hear that there were voices, but they were drowned under the surging noises in his ears, like a great torrent of water rushing down a gulley; like the bridge where they’d fought Cristus’ men in the mountain village. Such a loud rushing that there was little hope of hearing the voices. Shame, really. Catilina had a lovely voice when she wasn’t shouting, and Salonius… that was his name… Salonius… he had such a soft and calm voice for an engineer. He’d miss them.
Oh dear. He couldn’t smell Catilina anymore.
Silence.
Salonius gripped the slumped body of his captain with his left arm, holding him upright with all his strength,
