Silver rolled heavily, dragging Charlie with him, then heaved and got all four legs under him. Charlie slid precariously sideways. Pain stabbed through his chest. He gritted his teeth and pulled himself up until the muscles in neck, shoulders and arms strained nearly to breaking. He hooked his good leg over the animal's back just as the horse surged drunkenly. The momentum lifted Charlie into the saddle—and almost off the other side.
He slid facefirst toward the ground, bashed his chin on the horse's bony withers, and struggled madly for balance. He tried to grip with his hamstrung leg, his elbows, even his ribs. Charlie nearly blacked out, but he hung on. He pulled at mane hair until he was convinced entire tufts would come loose in his grasp. Silver stood stock still, head hung low and legs trembling. Without that tiny miracle, Charlie would never have halted his slide toward the ground or gotten himself back up into the saddle.
For long, shivering moments, Charlie sat as still as his horse and simply gulped air that stank of only God knew what. Then, trembling with haste, Charlie slid his feet into the homemade stirrups and thumped the horse's sides with his heels. Silver didn't need any further encouragement. The gelding put his head down and ran. Charlie tried to guide him, with almost no success.
His heart leaped into his throat every time the animal slipped or jumped across a nearly invisible fault in the earth. Finally Charlie gave up and let the horse have his head. If Silver stepped into a hole and broke a leg, there wasn't much Charlie could do about it. Not only was he too poor a horseman, Silver could probably see where he was going better than Charlie. What he wouldn't give for a lousy trail bike... .
Ash had begun to fall along with the heavy stones, and with it, lighter, stinging missiles of pumice. Charlie winced as he was pelted with showers of smoking debris. He was glad for the helmet and the metal armor. Just don't let any of that big, glowing stuff land on us... . By the time Charlie had worked through the worst of the fight-or-flight panic, he found it was nearly impossible to get Silver turned toward the villa, since that was marginally "toward" the erupting mountain.
He fought the horse's head and hauled desperately on the reins, kicking with his good leg as hard as he could. Silver screamed and fought the pressure, then bucked hard enough to send him sailing out of the saddle toward the horse's ears. He dropped the reins, grabbed the mane with both hands, and jarred himself hard when he slid back into the saddle.
"Unnhgh..."
If he hadn't had stirrups, he'd have been on the ground.
Charlie caught his breath, unable to hear his own cries in the black noise that surrounded them. Then he stubbornly tried again. He finally convinced the horse that he meant what he meant. Although the animal refused to move faster than a walk toward the mountain, he did at least walk in that general direction. Charlie just hoped he could find the villa in the thick ashfall.
Clear daylight had turned into a grotesque parody of a severe winter blizzard. He wrapped a corner of the cloak around his face to keep thick, hot ash out of his nose and mouth, then worried about Silver's respiratory system. Just about the time he was convinced he'd missed the villa in the thick, pelting debris, the walls loomed through the murk.
He found utter chaos. Several walls had fallen. Part of the roof had caved in. Most of the slaves had hauled makeshift packs onto their backs and were running, singly or in groups of two and three, toward the sea. One heavily laden wagon had already lurched on its way toward town, crammed mostly with people. Charlie pulled Silver to a sweating stop near the villa's main doors. A bear of a man with an armload of foodstuffs and a torch stopped as Charlie reined around to block his path.
Quintus.
The man scowled up at him. "Get out of the way!"
Charlie read his lips almost more than he heard the furious bellow. "Where is your master?" Charlie bellowed right back, breathing between his teeth through the pain.
"Gone, asshole!"
Son-of-a—
"Where is Aelia? The new slave woman?"
The man spat something vile and started to grab at the reins. Charlie moved instinctively, his hand shooting toward his hip for the holster... . His fingers closed over the sword hilt, instead. He had it free of the scabbard before he could even think about it, moving with the ease and speed of two years' deadly combat training in the arena. The horse screamed a warning and came off the ground, biting suddenly and savagely at the man's arm.
Charlie grabbed mane hair with his free hand and fought pain in his ribcage. Bloody war horse... . But Quintus' eyes had widened. Charlie shoved the tip of the gladius right up against his windpipe and drew a droplet of blood.
"Where is she?" Charlie snarled. "I don't give a damn about you! All I want is the woman, Aelia!"
"I don't know! In the house! Try the peristyle garden—"
Charlie urged Silver through sagging doors into the damaged house, snatching the slave's torch as he shouldered past. Silver's hooves clattered and slid on broken mosaic. The horse snorted and shied. Charlie stayed with him. "Easy... Come on, boy..."
The horse surged ahead again, fighting Charlie's grip on the reins and the urge to panic and run again. Charlie could literally feel that urge in the bunch and play of muscles under his legs. Heart in his throat, Charlie held him to a walk and urged him steadily forward. The gelding danced through the shattered villa, where nothing stirred but dust and volcanic ash.
He held the lighted torch aloft and tried to peer through the darkness. "Sibyl! Sibyl, where are you?"
Nothing...
The entrance to the peristyle garden had partially collapsed. Charlie hugged Silver's neck and urged the gelding through the tight opening. Silver snorted and tried to rear, then moved obediently forward. Fallen beams scraped armor along his back. Then they were through. The garden he recalled so cruelly was wrecked. The fountains were down, twisted into ruin. Part of the upper floor had collapsed into the side of the garden, burying half of it.
If Sibyl had been over there...
"SIBYL!"
"Help!" a faint voice cried out, from somewhere to Charlie's right, toward the collapsed rubble from the upper floor. "Help me!"
Charlie couldn't tell who it was, but they were calling out in Latin. He started to ignore the plea, then thought better. Whoever it was might know how he could find Sibyl. Or Lucania. Charlie eased Silver closer and held the torch down to light the face.
Xanthus.
Charlie's master lay at Silver's feet, his lower body pinned by debris. Blood snaked down the slave trader's face. He peered up at Charlie, lifted a trembling hand. "Please, help me..."
He thinks I'm a soldier come to rescue him... .
"Are there other survivors here?"
Xanthus blinked. "I—I don't know— Bericus ran when the walls began to fall. There was a slave woman—I don't know—"
"WHERE WAS SHE?"
Xanthus' hand shook. "Please, my legs are pinned, broken... Please, help me..."
Charlie stared down at the man who had tormented him, had tortured him for nearly two full years, and felt hatred turn to disgust somewhere down in the pit of his belly. Xanthus was a dead man, whatever Charlie did or didn't do to him. Or for him. And in just a few hours, he would be paid back a million-fold for every minute of Charlie's suffering. Lying there trapped while Vesuvius burned him to death... .
Charlie didn't feel very proud of himself for reaching that conclusion, but his own survival came first. He still had others to find, far more important in his world than Xanthus ever could be.