Fronto and Aurelius hurtled round the corner at a run and the former legate felt his heart leap as he saw the open door at the top of the stairs. For a heartbeat or two he found himself wondering in a panic where Pamphilus and Clearchus, who were supposed to be guarding the door, were and then he remembered them emerging from that room by the front door. The idiots! They had heard the troubles and run towards it, abandoning their position here. He made a mental note to beat them black and blue for that, once he had control of the villa again.
Furious, he turned into the doorway. He could hear swearing in Latin in an elegant female voice, which could only mean that Lucilia was still alive. His heart in his mouth, he took the steps three at a time, Aurelius right behind him.
His worst fears were realised as his gaze took in the room. Pamphilus and Clearchus had given that large external door a little extra security when they had moved his wife’s living quarters down here, in that they had shifted all the racks of heavy amphorae and propped them against the door. Of course, in doing so they had also effectively cut off the only escape route from the room if it were breached from the inside…
The far side of the bare brick room held his wife’s well-appointed bed and the smaller ones of the two boys, as well as temporary cots for the four women on the house’s staff. A table and two chairs and a single chest completed the furnishings, the whole lit by three oil lamps in niches on the walls.
Close to the stairs entrance, Fronto could see four cloaked figures with their backs to him. There had clearly already been a brief altercation as two of the villa’s slave women lay in the middle of the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Beyond that stood Lucilia and Andala, his wife holding his glorious orichalcum-hilted gladius defensively as she let forth a stream of curses and invective that would make a centurion blush, while the Bellovaci girl brandished his second best sword in a very purposeful manner. Behind the two women, the remaining two slave girls sat on the bed, holding back Balbina and little Lucius and Marcus and brandishing small eating knives desperately.
Rage threatened to take hold of Fronto. He’d felt it happen a couple of times before in his life – the ferocity that took him so thoroughly that he lost all sense of time, place and self, simply surrendering to the killing fury until there was no one left to fight. Britannia had been the worst.
Not
here!
With immense difficulty, he forced it back down. This was no time for unchecked rage – he had to remain in control and make sure the women were safe.
As he stepped into the room, Aurelius coming up beside him, three of the four cloaked men turned their eerie, expressionless masks on him. For a moment, Fronto wondered why the four men had stopped in their attack in the first place. Even though Andala was whirling the sword as though born to it – and had clearly struck well with it, from the blood running down the tallest enemy’s free arm – they could still have easily overwhelmed the remaining women if they’d so wished. He realised rather sourly that they had held off killing the women so that their screams – or curses in his wife’s case – might draw their true prey to them. They might delight in killing Roman women and children, but it was Fronto they were here for.
Even as the three men facing him raised their weapons and stepped forward to strike, Fronto was bringing his own sword up. The centre one, tall and thin and willowy and with the wounded arm, stepped aside despite the press, twirling, and brought his wide blade across in a sweep that would have bitten deep into Fronto’s side had Aurelius not been there instantly, smacking the blow away with his gladius before whipping it back in an attempt to skewer the attacker, but the short, bull-shouldered man to the side was there immediately, blocking that blow.
Fronto’s sword lanced out forwards in a practised lunge, but the third, lithe, figure to the right simply turned sideways and the blade tore through his cloak alone. Not only was the man exceedingly fast, but Fronto was still largely unused to this long Gallic weapon and the weight and balance for such a thrust was all wrong.
Steel clashed and grated as he and Aurelius and the three men facing them danced their lethal jig, whirling, lunging, stabbing and swiping. Despite the two Romans’ skill and experience, they were still doing little more than defend their selves, holding off the three men. The Gauls were good at what they did and they outnumbered Fronto and Aurelius. It couldn’t go on like this. The Romans would tire first.
In brief snatches Fronto caught a glance of the room beyond their clash. Lucilia was still standing protectively in front of the children with the sword brandished, cursing the attackers like a foul-mouthed sailor, but Andala was weighing into the fray like a gladiator, her blade flashing and whirling as she parried and fought off the man facing her with far more style and skill than Fronto could have imagined her having.
As he repeatedly turned and parried blows from the front and the right, trying to hold off two men at once, in one of those clarity-in-battle moments, he instinctively felt rather than saw his opponent’s mistake. The lithe one on the right suddenly over-extended, trying to bring his blade around to Fronto’s unprotected side. Gritting his teeth, the Roman took advantage, bringing his own sword up and striking at that extended arm, driving the point into the muscle.
As the lithe one cried out, his sword falling from shaking fingers, Fronto almost died there and then. In attacking that man so, he’d opened himself up in exactly the same manner to the tall one in the middle, whose blade had been aimed unerringly for the point just below Fronto’s collar bone until it was caught by the desperate upswing of Aurelius’ blade and knocked aside.
There was no time to thank the man. Even as Aurelius, thrown off-balance in trying to protect Fronto, took the third warrior’s blade in his left arm, the middle Gaul came in for a second strike with surprising speed. Fronto found himself back-stepping towards the stairs, the tall one lashing out again and again at lightning speed, like a snake’s flicking tongue, forcing him on the defensive. The Gaul he’d wounded was recovering from the shock, using his good arm to draw a dagger from his belt, and would soon be in the fight once more, helping force Fronto back.
Aurelius clashed again and again with the man in front of him, and Fronto noted that even Andala was in trouble now, the fourth Gaul pressing her back towards the bed and his wife. As he swung and parried, desperately holding off their blades, Fronto saw brief flashes between the figures. He saw Lucilia motion for the slave women to keep the children back as she herself stepped forward. He felt his heart stop for a moment at the sight of his wife stepping into the fray, handling her blade inexpertly, but with a willpower he recognised as unstoppable.
Even as he fought, he reached up with his free hand and touched the Fortuna figurine at his neck. Across the room, Lucilia’s initial blow was clumsy and easily turned. But Andala was proving to be smart. Despite the failure of his wife’s attempt, the cloaked Gaul had been distracted by the attack, and gasped as Andala drove Fronto’s second best blade deep into his neck, turning it as she did so, ruining windpipe, gullet and arteries all in one, mincing the man’s throat before ripping the sword back out. She was of the Bellovaci, a tribe of the Belgae, and Fronto could remember their first campaigns up there six years ago.
Even the women were dangerous
, they’d said. Thank the gods, they had been right!
There was no shriek from her victim – he had no throat with which to do it – and as he staggered and dropped to his knees, Andala stepped forward like a victorious gladiator, ripping away the torn cloak and driving her blade down into his chest from above, executing him swiftly.
All this came to Fronto only in brief flashes, and his attention was pulled away as he felt a nick to his side, slicing through his chiton but leaving only a light flesh wound. Hissing, he dipped to the side, knocking the dagger from the third Gaul’s hand with his sword’s pommel and leaving that man unarmed once more.
Aurelius staggered as a heavy blow from the bull-necked one facing him slammed his blade back against his face and almost did for him.
And then Andala was there like one of the furies unleashed, stabbing Fronto’s gladius into the back of Aurelius’ opponent repeatedly and ripping it out –
stab, rip, stab, rip, stab, rip
.
The bull-necked one shrieked and stumbled forwards, but Aurelius just pushed him back and added his own blade to the flurry that was killing him so viciously, stabbing him in the chest even as his back continued to be ravaged. For a moment, Fronto wondered why Andala had concentrated on that one when Fronto was busily struggling to hold off
two
men, but the look in her eyes and that in Aurelius’ when they met across their keening victim answered that question readily enough.
The one Fronto had disarmed had stepped back, seeking his fallen sword now, and Fronto took advantage of the situation, finally facing only one opponent. He met the tall one’s blade with his and as the man tried to pull it back for another swift lunge, Fronto’s free hand grabbed the man’s wrist, yanking it to one side. He had the advantage now over a man with only one effective arm, the other being the bloodied result of Andala’s first scuffle in this room. The Gaul gasped. Even as Fronto’s grip tightened, pulling his blade down, so his own sword came up from hip level, point first, driving into the man’s flesh just above the bladder and shearing up through organs inside his rib cage until he felt the tip hit shoulder blade, arresting its gory progress.
The eyes behind that mask widened and the man shuddered as he dropped his sword, a huge wash of blood sheeting out from his belly and across Fronto’s hand. He coughed, and spatters of the blood that he’d spat into the inside of his mask sprayed through the mouth slit and then dribbled down the ceramic chin.
Behind the dying Gaul, Aurelius crossed the room and swiftly dispatched the unarmed one with little difficulty.
Fronto stood in the doorway, chest heaving from the effort, surveying the scene before him.
Four of the Sons of Taranis lay on the floor of his wine cellar. Four! He could hardly believe his eyes. Moreover, apart from the regrettable demise of the two slave girls, only a few minor cuts and grazes remained on the surviving combatants to show for what they’d lived through.
He
owed
divine Fortuna. He owed her a great debt.
Reaching down, he lifted the golden figurine of his patron goddess and kissed her fondly.
He watched with a newfound respect as Andala went around the room, putting his second best gladius through the hearts of the four fallen Gauls, just to be sure, ripping away their cloaks as she did so. Lucilia ran across the room, hurdling the corpses, and flung herself into his arms, and Fronto had to lean slightly to prevent the waving blade in her hand catching his arm.
‘I thought we were lost,’ she breathed.
Fronto cradled her close, smiling his thanks to the others, and when she finally stepped back, he laughed. ‘Lucky you had your favourite Amazon here!’ Andala gave him a confused look and stepped forward, proffering the sword to him, hilt first. He shook his head as he plucked his best sword from his wife’s hand. ‘Keep it, Andala. It’s yours.’ And to Lucilia: ‘you’ll have to see to her manumission, you know?’
‘So, seven left then?’ Aurelius murmured as he crouched over the butchered one and peeled the mask from his moustachioed, ruddy and flat face, rising with the cloak in his other hand.
‘I guess so. Lucilia? You and Andala stay here with the boys and Balbina until we’re sure the house is clear.’ As his wife and the Bellovaci girl backed over to the bed area again, Fronto gathered up the rest of the masks and cloaks. By the time he and Aurelius were carrying them up the stairs, Balbus, Cavarinos and Masgava had arrived in the corridor.
‘Everyone alright?’ the old man asked and his eyes widened as he saw the masks his son in law carried. ‘Lucilia and the children are fine,’ Fronto replied reassuringly. ‘Luckily it seems that our new Belgae girl is rather handy with a blade. She held them off until we arrived and dispatched one of them herself.’ He threw the cloaks across to Cavarinos. ‘Anything here you recognise?’
The Arvernian noble turned them over and around one by one until he could find the lines of symbols stitched into them.
‘A hammer and a bowl. Most likely that’s Sucellos “the striker”. Not sure what you Romans would call him.’
‘Yes, well, he got
struck
about forty times, between Andala and Aurelius here.’
Cavarinos peered at the other cloaks. ‘Stone and a severed head – that would have to be Rudianos. And there’s Toutatis here, and Dis, too if I am not mistaken.’
‘Good. The names are all I need. Masgava, could you make sure the rear of the villa is secured again and that the rest of the house is clear. Cavarinos? Come with me.’
A few moments later, with Cavarinos and Balbus in tow, Fronto arrived at the front door. Arcadios and Catháin were still there, and Pamphilus and Clearchus continued to hover, looking irritated and twitchy. Fronto stopped in the vestibule, reassuring his men that yes, everything was fine, but turned and pointed an angry finger at the two brothers. ‘No thanks to you two. You were supposed to be guarding the women’s door.’
Clearchus frowned in consternation. ‘The mistress said they would be fine, sir. She urged us to come and help.’