rocks that filled the air and thumped against the shields. He quickly returned to his place in front of the depleted square.
The Romans fought viciously, but their numbers were dwindling. Almost all of the Syrian archers were down. The square was closing in on itself as the withering assault continued unabated. The survivors, many of them wounded, were exhausted and suffered from the heat and the attack. Their swords began to sag and they switched them from one hand to the other.
The barbarians were equally exhausted and taking huge losses, yet they stubbornly contested every foot of the gradual slope to the never-Half a dozen of their corpses could be counted around every slain legionary.
The mercenaries' bodies, pierced by scores of arrows, looked like pincushions.
The giant overseer Macer was struck in one knee and the thigh. He stayed on his feet but could not keep up with the moving formation-He dropped behind and soon attracted a group of twenty barbarians who swiftly surrounded him. He turned, at bay, waved his sword like a windmill and cut three of them completely in two before the rest drew back and hesitated in respect of his awesome strength. He shouted and motioned for them to come close and fight.
The barbarians had learned their lesson the hard way and refused to be drawn into arms-length combat. They stood back and launched a torrent of spears at Macer. In seconds, blood gushed from five wounds on his body. He grasped the shafts and pulled out the points. A barbarian ran close and hurled his spear, striking Macer in the throat. Slowly he toppled over from the loss of blood and dropped into the dust. The barbarian women rushed in like a pack of mad wolves and stoned him to pulp.
Only a high sandstone bluff separated the Romans from the river's edge.
Beyond, it seemed that the sky had suddenly turned from blue to orange.
Then a column of smoke rolled upward, black and heavy, and the wind brought the smell of burning wood.
Shock gripped Venator, quickly replaced with despair.
'The ships!' he shouted. 'The barbarians are attacking the ships!'
The bloodied slaves panicked and made a suicidal dash for the river. The barbarians rushed in from the flanks and viciously assaulted them.
Several of the slaves threw down their arms in surrender and were slaughtered. The rest tried to make a fight of it from behind a grove of small trees, but their pursuers cut them down to a man. The dust of the sage land became their shroud, the dry brush their sepulcher.
Severus and his surviving legionaries fought their way to the summit of the bluff and suddenly halted, oblivious to the murderous onslaught raging around them, and stared in stunned fascination at the disaster below.
Pillars of fire rose and merged into a coil of smoke that unwound and reached upward like a serpent. The fleet, their only hope of escape, was burning along the river's edge. The enormous grain ships they had commandeered in Egypt were being incinerated under great sheets of rolling flame.
Venator pushed his way through the front rank and stood beside Severus.
The centurion was silent; blood and sweat stained his tunic and armor.
He gazed in frustration at the sea of flame and smoke, seeing the blazing sails disintegrate in a maelstrom of sparks, the dreadful reality of defeat branded in his eyes.
The ships had been anchored on the shoreline and lay naked and exposed.
A force of barbarians had engulfed the small body of seamen and torched everything that could burn. Only a small merchant ship had escaped the conflagration, its crew somehow beating off their attackers. Four seamen were struggling to raise the sails while several of their shipmates strained at the oars in their struggle to reach the safety of deep water.
Venator tasted the falling soot and the bitterness of calamity in his mouth. Even the sky itself seemed red to him. He stood there in helpless rage. The faith he had placed in his carefully executed plan to safeguard the priceless knowledge of the past died in his heart.
A hand was laid on his shoulder and he turned and stared into the strange expression of cold amusement on Severus's face.
'I had always hoped to die,' said the centurion, 'drunk on good wine while lying on a good woman.'
'Only God can choose a man's death,' Venator replied vaguely.
'I rather think luck plays a heavy role.'
'A waste, a terrible waste.'
'At least your goods are safely hidden,' said Severus. 'And those escaping sailors will tell the scholars of the Empire what we did here.'
'No,' said Venator shaking his head. 'No one will believe the fanciful tales of ignorant seamen.' He turned and gazed back at the low hills in the distance. 'It will remain lost for all time.'
'Can you swim?'
Venator's eyes returned to Severus. 'Swim?'
'I'll give you five of my best men to cut a passage to the water if you think you can reach the ship.'
'I . I'm not certain.' He studied the waters of the river and the widening gap between the ship and shoreline.
'Use a piece of debris for a raft if you have to,' Severus said harshly.
'But hurry, we'll all be meeting our gods in a few more minutes.'
'What about you?'
'This hill is as good a place as any to make a stand.'
Venator embraced the centurion. 'God be with you.'
