Back to back they stood, a tiny island of death in the tossing sea of stunted bodies. The Roman gladius rose and fell-brutal chopping strokes swung from shoulder or a twist of the wrist. Demonic feces spat at them; taloned fingers tore at their shields. A slash, a chop. Crimson cloven skulls spattered brain, dismembered limbs spouted blood.
Before they had crept upon Bran Mak Morn from the dark, had leapt upon his unprotected back. Now the hell-fire of the altar of skulls showed him where to strike each deadly blow, and the angel of death at his back wielded her gladius in a flashing curtain of steel.
Then the mass of clawing bodies thinned, broke away from them and into the passages beyond. Advancing irresistibly upon them was a column of the legionaries-driving the serpent-folk before them in a measured tread of death. Fleeing across the cavern, the Children of the Night left their dead in broken heaps about the two Picts.
Bran touched Liuba’s shoulder as they paused for breath, warning her to keep her features covered. The advancing legionaries pushed past them without a second glance, intent on the retreating hordes of the serpent-folk. The mass of bodies encircling Bran and Liuba was ample proof that here were two of their comrades who had been cut off from the rest, who slumped in exhaustion now that they were given respite.
The legionaries had been positioned close to the altar of skulls, Ssrhythssaa had meant to demonstrate the power of the Black Stone to overawe his arrogant slaves. When the sudden battle erupted, the storm of steel centered upon the altar-then spread out from there as the legionaries swept the serpent-folk before them. At the periphery of the cavern, the battle now raged. The stone was strewn with hacked and bleeding dwarfish bodies, and now and again a dead legionary sprawled beneath a pile of reptilian corpses.
Forgotten in the fury of battle, the iron cages stood out from the spreading sea of carnage. As the fighting carried past them, Bran made his way hurriedly to where his sister was imprisoned. There were none to pay a second glance at the gore-streaked pair of legionaries.
Bran found Morgain standing in the first of the cages, seemingly unmoved by the slaughter that roiled about her cell. “Morgain!” Bran called, reaching her at last.
The girl came to the bars, as he reached out to her. Her eyes held a strange expression, Bran thought-then remembered she might not recognize him in this Roman harness.
“Morgain! It’s Bran!”
Her tongue flickered nervously over her lips. He reached through the bars for her. Her slim fingers gripped his arm with icy strength. The girl gave a low hiss, sank her teeth into his forearm.
Bran yelled, tearing his arm away from her suddenly feral grip. Blood streamed from ripping nails and teeth. “Morgain!” he gasped.
The girl flung herself against the bars, hissing angrily. Her fingers clawed for him. The expression of her face was no more human than the obscene hisses that bubbled from her throat.
“Morgain!” Bran groaned, remembering Titus Sulla. “What have they…?”
“Here!” Liuba shouted from the other cage.
Bran whirled, saw the naked thing that huddled on the floor of the second cell-her face buried in hands, hair spilled like a trailing veil. Her skin was mottled with livid bruises and crossing welts-not, as Bran first thought, from the reptilian stigma of the serpent-folk.
The skin of the girl whose long arms clawed to reach him was white and perfect. Bran remembered Morgain’s flogged body hanging in the cage. This skin had never known the lash.
In sick horror, Bran reeled away from the creature with Morgain’s image-flung himself against the door of the other cage. “Morgain!” he called, shaking the bars.
Veiled by the cascade of hair, her face raised to him. “Bran!” she gasped, after a pause for recognition to dawn. “Bran! Is it really you!”
Under the circumstances, the question might well be asked of anyone here.
“Morgain!” Bran breathed in relief. “Are you all right! Mother of the Moon! I thought…”
“The sorcery of the Black Stone!” Morgain explained, following Bran’s gesture of revulsion. “I was to be next-but Nero sent the wizard to a deeper hell instead!”
Bran fumbled with the cell door. Explanations could come later. “Well need a key-unless we can force this!” he told Liuba.
“Who’s… she?” Morgain wondered, seeing that Bran had a companion. “I think the wizard had the key.”
“A friend, Liuba-see if the key’s on Ssrrhythssaa’s body!” Bran snapped, turning from the cage.
Their presence had drawn attention.
Atla-who had sought shelter amidst the ranks of the legionaries from the chaos of battle-now slunk away from the retreating tide of slaughter. She was uncertain of Claudius Nero’s temper, and thought it wise to steal away while the legate was occupied with consolidating his victory. As the witch crept past the altar of skulls, the two legionaries who stood beside Morgain’s cell attracted her suspicion: the girl seemed too joyous at their presence. Atla came closer to learn why this was-just as Bran and Liuba turned around.
Atla stared in astonishment. “You!” the witch shouted. “But you were dead!”
“Not quite!” Bran snarled. “But you will be, witch!” He lunged for her, sword slashing downward. Atla yelled and leapt away, swift as a striking serpent. Bran’s swordpoint tugged at her gown as she writhed away.
The Pict swore. Given his own blade instead of this Roman gladius, and the witch would have been split from shoulder to thigh. Ada darted away, screaming an alarm. Wrathfully Bran plunged after her, mad for revenge. Atla fled for her life; the unfamiliar armor sloweckthe Pict’s pursuit. Pulling away, the witch sped across the cavern.
Bran cOrsed, started to hurl his sword at her back-thought better of it. This was no time to risk losing his weapon, even for vengeance. With Atla’s outcry, every lost second would count against their chances. “Bran! Come on!” Liuba called after him.
The Pict gave up his pursuit and turned back to the center of the cavern. Bran shouted jubilantly. Liuba had gotten the door open and was inside, helping Morgain from the cage.
“Your friend is a picklock,” Morgain laughed unsteadily.
Angry shouts rose above the din of distant battle. In the chaotic fighting that spread out into the cavern’s recesses and outer passages, no one had yet given thought to the figures about the glowing cairn of skulls. That situation was changing now.
“Atla has raised the alarm, and the meat’s on fire!” Bran growled. “We’ll have to make a run for it, before Nero can regroup his men!”
“I can find a way out,” Liuba said, “but we’ll have to cut a path through both factions.”
She handed her Roman gladius and scutum to Morgain. “Try these, and welcome. I’ll fight with my own good blade from here. I’ve had sufficient of masquerading in Roman harness. Would there were time to gird you in this tiresome cuirass and apron, for I see you have more need than I.”
“Which way?” Bran demanded. In the distance, he could see a few of the legionaries turning toward them uncertainly.
“This passage-I think!” Liuba told him. Clapping her helmet on Morgain’s head, she drew her own long, slightly curved sword, and made for a passage to their right-her unbraided fall of hair swishing at her back like the tail of an angry panther.
“Between us, Morgain!” Bran started after her.
The shield was too heavy for her, and put a strain on her cracked ribs, but Morgain hung onto it grimly out of pride. Bran had playfully gone over the rudiments of swordplay with her in mock combat, and there seemed no especial art to wielding the Roman blade. Morgain rather thought she could give an account for herself.