His men formed a circle around the pair, shields facing in.They knew that Constantine was a solid warrior, but could he compare to thisqueen of death? They began to bang the flat of their blades against theirscuta, inching closer, tightening the ring around Constantine and theiropponent. Trapped, the Amazon grasped her spear tightly, and launched a rapidassault.
Constantine felt his reflexes speed up; he saw herattacks coming. His blade moved almost before he commanded it to as he parriedhigh, then low, then slammed his shield forward, knocking her off balance. Sheskipped back out of range again, her scythe-like speartip pushing back theencroaching ranks of legionnaires as it cracked shields and sliced open arms.
She’s stalling for time. That airship, or someone on it,must be critical to her, for her to make a last stand defense. He paused inhis attack, and heard no heavy artillery being fired. With a sinking feeling,he raised his voice. “Centurion! Why is there no artillery firing?”
Centurion Caesar pushed to the edge of the circle. His armorwas heavily banged up and he had several superficial wounds. “Sir!” he croaked.“All the artillery pieces have been sabotaged or destroyed. There’s no way forus to shoot it down from here. Klotus evidently managed to contact the Sciopartovia the tower line, and it’s already moving to intercept.”
The woman cast a look of such venom at Julius that he took astep back. She spoke for the first time. “I am Brimmas Amalia, Chieftess of thewarrior tribes of the Teutonberg. My ancestors fought yours and killed many aRoman weakling. It is my pleasure to bring you all into the afterlife with me,Tribune.” Her mouth stretched in an evil smile as she prepared herself.
Constantine considered her words. “After you,” he replied.
Closing the space between them in an instant, they clashedagain. Constantine got inside her guard, breaking her spear with a well-timedsmash of his heavy scuta. Yes! his mind cried as he heard it snap, thenher brief cry of despair. But the woman was crafty. She quickly disarmedConstantine with a sharp blow to his sword hand, using the broken haft of herweapon as a club.
His hand stung and he was fairly certain that he had feltsomething go pop. A tendon perhaps, or maybe a bone was broken. Heturned in time to catch the next attack on his shield. Amalia now wielded onepiece of her broken weapon like a short stabbing spear, thrusting it out atConstantine as they circled each other, no doubt hoping the hooked end wouldcatch the lip of his shield and yank it from his possession.
From far overhead came the thrum of airship engines. TheRomans cheered as the H.M.A.S. Scioparto shifted to engage theslow-moving Midgard Flyer.
“Looks like your friends won’t be getting away after all.You’ve sacrificed yourself for nothing,” Constantine jeered in his mostarrogant, imperial tone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Julius haddrawn his sword and had nudged his neighbors farther away from him.
“You’ll make good company in Hades, foolish Imperial.Prepare to die.” With that, Amalia threw herself forward again. Her first blowknocked Constantine’s shield aside and he felt it torn from his arm as herolled to the left.
“Centurion! Sword!” he shouted.
Julius tossed him his sword, the deadly spatha turning inthe air; Constantine caught its haft with his left hand and turned to face thechieftess, who was disentangling her weapon from the scuta.
She smiled coldly, no doubt thinking that he was weakened,now that he was forced to use his left hand. She rushed in and knocked at hissword with less effort than he expected. Her mistake-but then, how could sheknow that Master Vusentius required all his pupils to learn to fight with bothhands? He easily turned the blow away and dropped into a neat centralslice.
He looked up from one knee to see his handiwork. Amaliastumbled, looked down at the deep red gash that cut across her stomach, thenfell backward.
Constantine rose. As his men rushed in to congratulate him,he held up his hand to stop their inquiries and exultations, and kicked awayher weapons. Then he knelt by her side.
Her bloodstained lips twisted in a grimace. Then she workedher mouth for a moment and spat bloodied spittle in his face. “See you soon,”she croaked.
He stood and looked around. “What could that mean?” hewondered aloud.
Then he felt a gentle tremor, which grew to a shake, andthen a roar as the wall beneath his feet lifted him off the ground.Farther to the south, parts of the wall were being launched into the city andthe bay by a powerful blast. Huge columns of dirty gray water erupted from thewall and rushed to fill the city. Thick smoke rose into the sky, followingrocketing debris.
“Quick! Into the tower!” someone yelled, and the men racedtoward the safety of the guard towers, rocks and water and sizzling hotfragments falling all around them. A particularly huge chunk of wall hurtledtoward them and slammed into the walkway like a freight train. Constantine wasthrown off his feet, and darkness took him.
Epilogue
From his bed in the governor’s lavish mansion, aconvalescing Constantine stared up at the white mesh fabric draped over the bedat ceiling level, forming a translucent pavilion around his bed. Snapping tohis senses, he sat up abruptly, then stopped just as abruptly as his stomachtwisted, protesting such quick movement. He dropped sideways and was thankfulto see a wastebin beside the bed as his breakfast made a U-turn in his gut.
Several minutes later, he wiped his mouth and rolled backfrom the wastebin to carefully sit up. Pushing aside the gauze curtain, heswung his legs over the side of the bed and gingerly got to his feet, curiositydriving him to examine his hospital ward. He knew he’d been here for a week.He’d lost all memory of the events on the wall after this close combat duelwith the warrior chieftess, Amalia, and had relied on visitors’ accounts torefresh it.
He’d not been wearing his helmet when the explosion came,leaving his head unprotected during the aerial deluge produced by the massiveexplosion that ruptured the sea wall. Engineers examining the aftermathestimated that the explosives needed to rupture the sixty-foot thickness of thesteel and stone wall must have been stored in a warehouse that touched the wall,and that the rebels had likely been drilling into the wall for months to placethe explosives at its true center, already weakening it from the inside out-allpart of a nefarious plot to destroy the very city the rebels had fought so hardto seize.
“They might even have used acids or seawater on a targetedportion of the wall to weaken it. That would have taken weeks of planning, ifnot months,” one engineer had reported to him. That spoke of better planningand treason that ran much deeper than what anyone had suspected.
Within seconds of the explosion, the Mar del Nort had comeflooding into the city, wiping out the low-lying Sludge Bottom and reaching asfar as the heavily damaged air terminal in the northern quadrant and thecentral plaza in the eastern part. Estimates of dead or missing were in thetens of thousands. Between the flood and the fighting, most of the citygarrison and constabulary auxilia were dead or injured. The XIII Germania hadbecome the enforcers of martial law until fresh auxilia forces arriving fromthe south and east could relieve them.
Two figures approached Constantine as he turned back towardhis bed. He smiled as Centurion Julius Caesar raised a hand in greeting; he shouldbe smiling, Constantine thought, now that Legion Command Northwest hadconfirmed word of his brevet rank of centurion. Unfortunately the confirmationof rank had dumped weeks of overdue paperwork onto the newly minted centurion’sshoulders, as well. Constantine didn’t envy the young man that.