‘Why’s Ziri so cheerful?’ Vespasian asked Aghilas as they struggled up the loose sand. ‘If I’d just been enslaved I think I’d be pretty upset.’
‘It’s the way of the Marmaridae. Because they’re slavers they would rather die than become a slave, that’s why they were so suicidal at the well. Their honour required them to exact a blood price for our taking their water but then, when it was obvious that we would catch them, they chose to fight and die. As far as Ziri’s concerned he died as a Marmarides in that battle; the fact that Magnus beat him in single combat, yet let him live and made him his slave, means that he can never go back to his people. He now has a completely new life and accepts his fate.’
‘So he’s happy to be a slave and never see his family again?’
‘Yes, it’s the only thing he can do. If he was married and had children he is dead to them; to go back to them would mean a slow and painful death at the hands of his own family. All he has left is a new life serving Magnus.’
‘So Magnus can trust him?’
‘With his life, yes.’
‘Even against the Marmaridae?’
‘Especially against the Marmaridae.’
Vespasian looked at the young Marmarides following Magnus up the dune like a faithful hound and wondered what he was going to make of Rome. His musing was brought to an abrupt end by a cry of alarm from Ziri who stopped suddenly and pointed to the south. Vespasian squinted into the sun, shading his eyes with his hand. The horizon, normally a straight, sharp divide between light brown and blue, appeared smudged and indistinct.
‘Gods help us,’ Aghilas muttered.
‘What is it?’ Corvinus demanded.
‘Sandstorm, and it looks like it’s coming this way; if it is, it’ll be here before dark.’
‘What can we do?’ Vespasian asked.
‘I’ve never been caught in one so I don’t know, but nothing, I think; it’ll catch us out in the open, there’re no rocks to shelter behind for miles. We must just keep going as fast as possible and pray that it misses us, because if it doesn’t and if it’s a big one it’ll bury us alive.’
For the next couple of hours they pressed on over the unforgiving terrain with all possible haste; the sun had sunk onto the western horizon. News of the impending maelstrom had filtered down the column and the men glanced nervously south at the ever enlarging threat, now no more than ten miles away in the half-light. It had turned from a smudge on the horizon into a massive dark brown, land-based cloud and was increasing in size at an alarming speed.
‘Make your peace with your gods,’ Aghilas said, ‘there’s no avoiding it now; we’re dead men.’
Ziri ran up to Aghilas and said something in his own language; a brief conversation ensued.
‘He says the only way to have a chance of survival in a sandstorm,’ Aghilas announced, ‘is to make your camel lie down on the top of a dune and shelter behind it; he doesn’t know if horses are big or heavy enough but it may work.’
‘Pass the word down the column,’ Corvinus shouted, ‘shelter behind the horses or mules on top of the dunes.’
Vespasian pulled his horse down next to Magnus and Ziri. Sensing an imminent change for the worse in the weather conditions all the animals were skittish and needed to be firmly held in place. He peered over his horse’s back and felt the wind start to stir on his face.
‘Vulcan’s boiling piss, look at the size of it,’ Magnus exclaimed, ‘that’s got to be three or four hundred feet high.’
Vespasian stared at the rolling brown cloud in amazement; it was as least as tall as Magnus’ estimate but that was not as awe-inspiring as its speed. Now only a couple of miles away it rolled across the desert at a pace that not even the fastest chariot horse in the circus could outrun. As he watched wide-eyed it raced towards them, like a massive moving mountain eating up the ground before it.
Suddenly it went dark.
Then it hit them.
Within an instant the wind had accelerated from a moderate breeze into a howling gale that strained the ears. The temperature rose and visibility plummeted, so that he could only just make out Magnus sheltering behind his horse two paces away, as the air filled with tiny, sharp particles of sand moving at colossal speeds; they cannoned into the horses’ sides, stinging them sorely even through their coats. Vespasian jerked down his mount’s bridle as it attempted to stand and flee from the all-encompassing rage that surrounded them; despite the horse’s struggling he held it down with every fibre of strength until it acquiesced and lay still. Breathing became increasingly difficult. He pulled his tunic up over his nose, curled into the foetus position and squeezed his eyes tight shut, offering up prayers to every god he could think of, as the wind ripped around him, tearing the hat from his head and dragging relentlessly at his cloak, which cracked like a whip with the unremitting pressure.
The sun went down and darkness became complete.
Vespasian lost all sense of time.
‘Pull, you curly-haired little bugger!’ Magnus shouted, startling Vespasian back to consciousness.
He felt strong hands grasping his ankles, stretching his legs and then he started to slide downhill. Suddenly he could see stars, thousands of them.
Magnus loomed over him. ‘Are you all right, sir?’
Spitting out a mouthful of sand, Vespasian raised his head. ‘I seem to be,’ he replied with difficulty; his mouth was desert-dry.
Ziri held a water-skin to his lips. ‘Sir, trink.’
Vespasian drank and felt the lukewarm liquid course into his body.
Ziri pulled the skin away from him. ‘Sir, stop.’
‘He’s right, I’m afraid,’ Magnus said, holding out his hand to help Vespasian up. ‘It’s the only water we’ve got unless we can dig some more out.’
Vespasian got unsteadily to his feet and looked around. It was peaceful, there was no wind. The three-quarter moon splashed the rippling sand dunes with silver; to the north the monstrous shape of the sandstorm could just be discerned, ravaging its way towards the coast. Here and there Vespasian could see a few figures, no more than twenty, singly or in pairs, digging in the sand. ‘Where’s Corvinus?’ he asked, looking back to where he last saw the cavalry prefect and his mount.
‘He’s fine,’ Magnus replied, ‘he’s organising the search parties, although I don’t know how fruitful they’ll prove to be. Most of the horses bolted, only the lads that kept theirs down have survived. I’m afraid that Aghilas didn’t have the strength to hold onto his.’
‘Shit, we’re lost then.’
‘Not quite,’ Magnus said with a grin, patting Ziri’s frizzy hair like a favoured pet, ‘Ziri knows how to get to Siwa.’
The Marmarides nodded. ‘Master, sir, Ziri, Siwa, yes.’
‘He’s becoming quite talkative,’ Vespasian observed.
‘He is,’ Magnus agreed, ‘and so are we when we should be digging to see what we can salvage.’
The first rays of direct sunlight hit Vespasian’s face and it felt so good to be alive as he scrabbled in the sand searching for his precious water-skin. He had despaired during that timeless oblivion that he had spent curled up in the lee of his now dead horse.
At first he had been able to push away the sand as it piled up near his face but as the storm had intensified great swathes of it had been deposited all around and over him; keeping above it had meant that he was slowly rising and would eventually be higher than his protective mount. Giving up the unequal struggle he had managed to pull his cloak over his head and concentrated instead on keeping a small air pocket in front of his face, which, with the help of his long cavalry spatha acting as a tent-pole, he had maintained until he had lost consciousness in the stifling conditions.
How he had survived he did not know. He could only surmise that the goddess Fortuna had held her hands over him and that she really was safeguarding him for whatever destiny the gods had decreed for him, as he had, at the age of fifteen, overheard his mother profess. That day he had heard his parents speak of the omens surrounding his birth and what they prophesied. Since then no one had been willing to tell him of their content, bound as they were by an oath administered by his mother to all those present on the day of his naming ceremony, nine days after his birth.