‘I think that’s got their blood up,’ Magnus said, nodding with approval at the manner of the priest’s demise.
‘Let’s hope so,’ Vespasian replied. ‘We’d better get them to the Marmaridae’s camp while they’re still in the mood.’
It was past midnight and the moon had set. Vespasian crept through the gloom of a palm grove guided only by the light of the few torches and fires that still burned within the Marmaridae’s camp. Behind him just over two hundred men from the town waited in the darkness along with Corvinus and his auxiliaries.
Upon reaching the edge of the grove he dropped to his knees behind a palm and peered around its trunk towards the slavers’ camp; all was quiet. Having satisfied himself that, apart from a few sentries dozing by campfires, there was no one abroad, he slipped back through the dark to his waiting men.
‘They’re not expecting any company,’ he whispered, crouching down next to Magnus and Corvinus. ‘I could see about half a dozen guards, most of whom seem to be asleep, none of them were patrolling; everyone else is in their tents.’
‘How can you be sure?’ Corvinus asked, dubious about the wisdom of the attack.
‘Because I couldn’t see them anywhere else; but you’re right, it is an assumption. However, that’s no reason not to do this thing; we outnumber them by a good fifty men.’
‘But most of ours are townspeople with improvised weapons; they’ll be up against trained fighters.’
‘Which makes the need for speed and surprise all the more essential, Corvinus, so let’s stop talking about it and do it; unless you’d prefer that I cancel the whole thing and tell the Governor that I was obliged to let a Roman citizen be carried off into slavery because my cavalry prefect shied away from a fight?’
‘You bastard.’
‘That’s better; now leave me the translator and take your men around to the south of the camp; Magnus and I will take the townspeople and cover this side and the east and west. Deal with the guards around the corral as quietly as possible; once they’re dead secure the corral and signal to me here by waving one of the torches. We’ll then move in on all sides setting fire to the tents and killing as many as we can before they wake up; after that it’ll be a hard fight. If we hear any screams before your signal we’ll charge in immediately.’
Corvinus grunted his assent.
‘And try not to kill the camels,’ Vespasian added.
‘Why not?’
‘Because we’ll need them to get home.’
Corvinus got to his feet, brushed the sand from his knees and moved off to muster his men.
‘What do you think?’ Magnus asked.
‘I think that he’ll do as he’s been ordered; he’s a good officer, he just doesn’t like me.’
‘Let’s hope that won’t cloud his judgement.’
‘Come on; let’s get our rabble army in position.’
After Vespasian had briefed the townspeople, through the translator, with orders to do nothing until they saw him go forward, they had moved into position in silence over the loose sand. Vespasian and Magnus waited, with swords drawn, in the darkness looking out over the Marmaridae’s camp that was now surrounded by a man at every five paces. Ziri lay next to Magnus clutching a spear. Apart from the occasional snort from one of the many hobbled camels scattered among the tents it was quiet. The sentries dozed peacefully by their dying fires.
Vespasian felt the tension of coming conflict rise within him, knotting his insides. He offered a silent prayer to Fortuna that she would preserve him from the desert’s warriors as she had done from the desert’s elements and felt confident that it would be so. However, others would not be so fortunate and, in the dark, in the privacy of his thoughts, he could not but help compare his actions and Ahmose’s. They had both sacrificed men for their own desires; the priest for luxury and he, Vespasian, for lust. It had cost Ahmose his life and it had made Vespasian an enemy in Corvinus, a man whose high birth would ensure that he would one day be able to keep his promise of vengeance. Capella had better pay his dues and Flavia had better be worth the risk and effort.
As time dragged on the tension of the wait started to play on the men’s nerves and Vespasian began to hear the odd rustle of clothing or the clink of a dagger as men changed their positions and fidgeted in the dark.
‘Come on, Corvinus, what’s keeping you?’ he murmured.
‘Perhaps he’s just fucked off along with his men and left us to it,’ Magnus whispered back.
Vespasian was just beginning to fear the worst when a muffled cry floated through the air from the direction of the corral.
‘Shit!’ he hissed, looking around at the sentries. A couple of them stirred and looked about but then, after a few snorts from a camel, wrote the cry off as an animal sound and settled back down to their snoozing.
Vespasian relaxed a fraction, knowing that Corvinus and his men were playing their part.
After a few more tense heartbeats a torch near the corral was raised from its holder and waved in the air.
‘Let’s go,’ Vespasian said quietly, getting to his feet at a crouch.
The townsmen on either side followed his lead, sparking off a ripple effect around the perimeter of the camp as each man felt his neighbour rise in the darkness; soon, more than two hundred crouching men were converging from all angles in grim silence upon the unsuspecting Marmaridae.
Vespasian approached the outer ring of tents on the northern side of the pool; behind them was the first of the sentries’ fires. Indicating to Ziri to retrieve a nearby torch and then for Magnus and the townsmen to stay covering the tents’ entrances, Vespasian edged forward. The sentry was sitting, facing him, cross-legged on the ground with his head on his chest and drawn sword in his lap. Holding his breath, Vespasian gently approached the sleeping man, his spatha at the ready. An instant before he could strike, the sentry, sensing a presence close by, opened his eyes to see a pair of sandalled feet before him in the dim firelight. He jerked his head up, wide-eyed in alarm, to witness Vespasian’s sword slamming towards him; it was the last thing that he ever saw. The tip of the spatha punched through his neck just beneath his bearded chin and crunched on up into the base of his skull; any cry that he attempted was drowned by the explosion of blood in his gorge, swamping the vocal cords and clogging his windpipe. He fell into the fire, face down, dead. Almost instantaneously his oily woollen robe and cloak caught alight, illuminating Vespasian.
‘Now,’ he hissed at Magnus.
Grabbing the torch from Ziri, Magnus thrust it at the bottom of the tent flaps. The flames caught immediately, eating their way up the dry, coarse linen until the opening of the tent was a rage of fire. Ziri stood at the entrance, spear in hand; the first Marmarides, dressed only in a loincloth, hurled himself through the blaze, straight onto its razor point. With a thrust and a twist Ziri gutted him, then kicked him back into the fire, his spilled, moist intestines hissing and steaming in the heat.
Screams rang out as Magnus and those townsmen who had managed to retrieve a torch moved around the ring, fire-raising as they went. The bolder townsmen, shouting encouragement to each other, as the attack was no longer a secret, surged forward to deal with the other sentries, battering them down under a hail of blows and jabs.
All around the outer ring tents were ablaze as the townsmen used the Marmaridae’s torches against them. Urging his men forward, Vespasian moved into the inner ring; but here fewer tents were burning and the tribesmen, now fully alerted to the danger, had roused from their sleep and were now dashing to defend themselves. The terrified bellows of the hobbled camels unable to move away from the fires merged with the shrieks and howls of the wounded and the dying into a raucous dissonance.