"You think they'd—" Ganesha's deep wisdom, Draupadi's supple grace, extinguished in a pool of drying blood, either in sacrifice or by Rufus's rough mercy.
"They wouldn't betray us. Not those two," Rufus said. "It's what I'd want for me. You would too, sir. And even if they're not Romans..."
"Never mind, soldier." In another minute, Rufus would have him wet-eyed—and this was no time for tears. "Anyhow, you did not succeed."
"No, sir," Rufus drew himself up. "It's Carrhae all over again. We have failed."
The boom of a great gong shuddered through the walls, its vibration shaking into them as they huddled against the worn masonry. Just so had they heard the gongs and bells and drums of The Surena's reinforcements and prepared to sell their lives in the bright sun so far away.
"Well," Quintus said, "we have known we were living on borrowed time. So now we pay it back, eh?"
He had well expected that grim laugh from Rufus.
"It's worse than you know, sir. They have set a guard more dangerous than any we might have expected. The lady Draupadi herself."
Quintus whirled to grab the centurion's shoulders, slamming him back against the rock. Chaos was come, if Draupadi could be turned against them. And he had been so sure that she would not.
"It's not like that!" Rufus hissed at him. "You know how worn out she has been. The way Lucilius turned, that seems to have been the last straw. When he brought her in, they talked to her, and she shook her head. That was when they grabbed her. I was going to go after her, but three of the boys held onto me.... I let 'em live.... They forced some drug into her...."
Quintus heard himself moan.
"... and now she seems to have turned inside ... not like a madwoman, but like a sibyl seeing visions. And what she sees, they can use. They can use her."
"How do you know?"
"We saw her sitting there. Just sitting. I was surprised that she wasn't better guarded. So, one of the lads thought he could sneak up and rescue her. One less to worry about, eh? And he knew it would please..."
"Never mind that," Quintus said, holding onto a ragged calm. After hearing that his son was dead, his grand-sire had thanked the messenger and called him "guest." Never mind that he was dying inside. "What happened?"
"They've got her staked out like a lamb for a lion! She pointed at him and chanted something. Sir, he wasn't expecting trouble. He trusted her! And when she chanted, he just marched up and saluted. 'Watch this,' says one of the Black Robes, and slits his throat in front of that runaway from the crows, that traitor...."
"Lucilius just stood there?"
"Right before the altar. They've let him keep his sword and gear—haven't issued him a black robe yet. But they don't let him near the Eagle, and they don't treat him with the kind of respect he likes."
Maybe Lucilius had never been much of a tribune, but for him to stand there while priests slit the throat of a Legionary—crucifixion was too good for him.
Having given his report, Rufus stood waiting, as he always had, for orders.
Old war dog, Quintus wanted to say. Tell me what to do. Escape into the desert? Hide, and attack from within the ruins over and over again? Choose to die? But not even the centurion's years of experience had prepared him for this day. And it was not Rufus's duty to order, but to obey. Still, by his own example, Quintus had the advice he sought. Do a Roman thing.
Quintus drew his sword. "I shall not sheathe it again, save in enemy flesh," he said between clenched teeth. Manetho shuddered.
"Steady, man!" Rufus clapped him on the shoulder. "The tribune says we're going in there to fight, so we're going in there to fight. You like living this way? You'd rather die on the altar or like that poor fool who got his throat slit? At least now you can die like a soldier."
There were women, children in the ruins. They would die, too; but they would die in any case, whether the Black Naacals took them or by the half-understood powers they hoped to unleash overwhelmed this oasis. Families had died, too, Quintus knew, in the rising of Spartacus. And Ganesha and Draupadi would die, too. Poor Draupadi, trapped at the end in the illusions she spun so well. Perhaps the drug would wear off, and her mind would be clear at the last to remember he loved her—if that were not the last cruelty of all.
Manetho straightened. "You're going to fight. Even if you have no hope. We have never had any hope. So we will fight at your sides. Perhaps your gods will look more kindly upon us than our own have done."
"Good man," Rufus said, his voice oddly gentle. "Tribune...?"
"Let's go," Quintus duly ordered.
He followed the centurion to a darkened room in which Legionaries crouched, armed and waiting. At the sight of their officer, the Romans lined up, ready to move.
Manetho gestured, and slaves seemed to pour from every crack, every comer of the ruined walls. Moonlight spun a frail light through a broken wall, then faded as clouds scudded across the disk. When the wind blew them past, the moon was darker, as if moving into eclipse. The slaves flinched from the bloody light. It would be good to see the sun again. Quintus did not expect to.
Manetho guided them deeper within the Temple complex, where the great walls rose about them like the broken teeth of a slain Titan, dead in battle. The slaves he led seemed young and thin to Quintus, too young for real battle.
"Pass the word," he told Rufus. "Each of the men is to take one of our friends in charge. Under his shield."
Don't let them die alone in the dark with no decent example to follow, he was going to say, but his throat tightened.
Empty-handed, a man who had served long ago as standard-bearer came to his side. A pity they did not have the Eagle. At the worst, they could have used it to blast this entire place. Now, the best they could hope for was to destroy it too.
There was no one here to see these last of Crassus's Legionaries victorious or once again disgraced—no one except the gods and, maybe, the manes of those who had cared for them. And near them stood their allies, the men of Ch'in, led by Ssu-ma Chao. He nodded at Quintus as the Roman approached. He too preferred to stand by his own forces.
They had Draupadi, poor, drugged girl, set up as a guard. He knew she would give the alarm, and he was equally certain he could not kill her.
As the gong rang out once more, the slaves crept closer. A cloud slid once again across the cracked face of the moon, then vanished, almost as if it had been eaten. Under the tainted moonlight, Manetho's men blended into the Roman ranks. The battle lines shifted to receive them; for a moment, Quintus's heart was gladdened to see how much stronger they looked.
Again and again, gong and drums sounded, until the vibrations could be felt through their sadly worn-out boots. The Dark Ones must know that they were coming. Lucilius would have warned them. If the gods were kind, perhaps Quintus could at least kill him.
The air thickened. For a moment, his consciousness seemed to lurch sideways. By now, Quintus was used to that shock of displaced time. In just such a space apart, he had marched through a tunnel of wind and blowing sand to the oasis where they had found water and, seated by a fountain, Draupadi herself.
The way out from the arch would be closed now— even if they had Draupadi and Ganesha to break through the Black Naacals' magics. If they succeeded now, even if they won, their victory would be like that of Pyrrhus: another such, and they were lost.