enclosure black warriors were streaming through the smaller gate.
‘Testudo!’ shouted Huy. ‘Back to the cavern.’ They formed the tortoise again, and moved like an armadillo with metal scales across the enclosure while the warriors swarmed about them, unable to pierce the shell. Smoke from the burning city eddied about them, choking them, blinding them.
Suddenly the man beside Huy cried out and grabbed at his groin. Blood spurted out between his fingers and he dropped to his knees. The ground over which they were advancing was strewn with dead warriors cut down by the head of the tortoise. They had to step over them. Dozens of these bodies who had been feigning death came suddenly to life, rolling quickly onto their backs and stabbing up under the skirts of the men above them.
Huy shouted a warning, but it was in vain. The enemy were inside the body of the tortoise, leaping to their feet, thrusting and hacking about them, forcing Huy’s men to turn and defend themselves, exposing their backs to the warriors on the outside.
The tortoise disintegrated into a mob of individuals, and the black swarm poured over them as hiving bees.
‘With me!’ Huy gathered Lannon, Bakmor and a few others about him and they broke out of the mob in a tight bunch and raced for the cleft of the cavern. The smoke was thick and oily, choking them so they coughed as they ran. Huy swung the axe, cutting a path for them and five of them reached the entrance to the cavern but Bakmor had taken a thrust through the ribs. He pressed one fist to it, trying to staunch the flow of life blood. Huy changed the axe to his other hand, and helped Bakmor up the steps into the mouth of the cleft. His blood ran down Huy’s side, it felt hot and gelatinous. On the top step Bakmor stumbled to his knees.
‘It is finished, Huy,’ he choked, but Huy picked him up bodily and carried him into the entrance. He propped him against the wall of the cavern.
‘Bakmor,’ he panted, and pushed his head back to look into his face. Bakmor’s eyes looked back at him without seeing, dead and glazed. Huy let the handsome head drop forward, and stood up.
‘Here they come,’ shouted Lannon, and Huy hefted the axe and leapt to Lannon’s side to meet the first dark rush of bodies into the passage. The four of them - Lannon, Huy and two legionaries — held the entrance long enough to clog it with piles of dead warriors.
Then the archers came up and the first volley of arrows swept the passage. One of them struck a legionary in the throat, and he fell with a dark gush of blood from the mouth.
‘No cover in here,’ Huy shouted. ‘Back to the temple.’ They raced back along the passage, and the next volley whistled amongst them. One struck Huy’s helmet and glanced away to light sparks off the wall beside him, another found the seam in the last legionary’s breastplate and lodged in the bone of his spinal column. His legs collapsed under him. Desperately he clawed his way after Huy, dragging his crippled body by the sheer strength of his arms alone.
‘Your favour, my lord,’ he screamed, in terror of the castrating blade, the ripping of his bowels while he still lived. ‘Don’t leave me for them, Holiness.’
Huy checked his run, and shouted, ‘Go on, Lannon. I’ll follow you.’ He went back, and the legionary saw him coming.
‘Baal’s blessing on you, Holiness,’ he cried, and tore his helmet loose, bowing his head forward to expose the neck. ‘
‘Find peace!’ Huy told him, and cut his head from the trunk with a single stroke of the axe, turning to run again as he did so. An arrow hit Huy in the face below the eye, glancing off the bone and sliced him open to the ear, dangling there by the barb in the fleshy skin.
Huy tore it loose as he ran after Lannon. Together they crossed the cavern of Astarte, their footsteps echoing from the domed walls; skirting the still green pool, they reached the door of the temple as the next flight of arrows hummed around them. Lannon stumbled slightly, and then they were into the temple.
‘Can we hold them here?’ Lannon gasped.
‘No.’ Huy stopped to catch his breath. ‘The archives!’ Then he looked at Lannon. ‘What is it, Majesty?’
‘I also am hit, Huy.’ The arrow stood out of the joint of his armour near the left armpit. The angle of penetration was such that Huy felt a cold gust of despair. The arrowhead must lie close to the heart. It was mortal, no man could recover from a wound of that nature.
‘How is it?’ Lannon demanded.
‘There is no pain, Huy. It cannot be too bad.’
‘You’re lucky,’ said Huy, and snapped off the shaft, leaving a short stub protruding from the wound.
‘Come,’ he said, and with a gentle hand on Lannon’s arm led him back through the temple into the archives.
‘The sun door?’ Lannon asked.
‘Only at the very end,’ said Huy. ‘Only when all else fails.’ And he steered Lannon into one of the stone recesses.
‘Your face.’ Lannon stared at Huy in the uncertain light of the torches, as though he had noticed the gaping slash across his cheek for the first time.
‘No doubt it’s an improvement,’ Huy grunted as he tore a strip from his tunic and knotted it into a crude sling for Lannon’s left arm.
‘Can you use it?’ he asked and Lannon worked his fingers, opening and closing them.
‘Good,’ Huy nodded, and placed the tang of Lannon’s shield in his left hand. The sling would help support the weight of it.
Huy cocked his head, listening to the stealthy footsteps, the whispered voices and the clink of weapons within the temple of Astarte.
‘They are coming,’ he said. ‘It will not take them long to find the passage.’
