‘I’ll take the forests of Germania any day,’ Magnus muttered from behind him. ‘At least they didn’t make you feel like you were going into the caldarium with your clothes on. Wearing fucking trousers in the hot bath, who’d have thought it?’
‘I thought you were going to say: “it ain’t natural”.’
‘Well, it ain’t natural; but you’re mocking me now, I can tell.’
‘Sorry, it’s just to ease my nerves. I think that at the moment I’d rather be anywhere but here.’
‘Yeah, well, I reckon that’s something that we can all agree on, even Yosef; and I expect that Sabinus is thinking exactly the same thing.’
‘I hope that he is thinking.’
‘We’ll find that out soon enough.’
Vespasian collided with Cogidubnus who had stopped suddenly. Just beyond him the two scouts had gone down onto their knees.
‘What is it?’ Vespasian whispered.
One of the scouts spoke softly to the King and indicated ahead.
‘He says that we’re close; he can tell by the air, it’s dense with Sullis’ power.’ Cogidubnus whispered something in his own tongue to the rest of his men behind Yosef. With remarkable stealth they fanned out in the dark with hardly a twig disturbed. ‘Now we shall have need of our gods,’ the King muttered, pulling out his Wheel of Taranis from beneath his tunic.
Before Cogidubnus had completed the motion a shrill shriek off to their right pierced the heavy atmosphere, chilling their hearts despite the humidity. A score of torches suddenly ignited thirty paces away, their flames leaping up, bathing the underside of the canopy with a flickering glow and revealing a cage dangling from a high branch. Vespasian turned towards the light, his hands clammy and his hair lank with sweat, and was shocked to see his breath steaming out before him as if he was in a snow-covered land.
And then he saw them.
Out from behind each column of flame appeared a long-robed figure; the druids walked a couple of steps forward and stopped at the edge of a steaming pool that bubbled at its centre. Again the shriek was repeated and Vespasian saw that a young girl, naked and no more than ten years old, was in their midst; the two druids to either side of her held her firmly by her long, golden hair. Tears streamed down her face and she screamed again in abject terror; urine squirted from between her legs. A vicious curved knife was put to her throat to force her head back and a ball of some sort of food was forced into her mouth. A hand clamped her lips tightly shut so that she could not spit and fingers pinched her nostrils together. Unable to breathe she swallowed and, an instant later, convulsed. Her mouth and nose were released and immediately emitted thick streams of blood; blood seeped from her eyes and ears and flowed free from between her legs. She tried to cry to the heavens but her voice was drowned by blood flooding in her gorge and she sprayed a thick mist of crimson into the air. Her knees buckled but she remained upright, supported by her killers. The druids chanted a short prayer and Vespasian recognised the word ‘Sullis’ as they threw the still-twitching small body into the pool whose steaming waters turned red with the innocent blood.
It seemed to Vespasian, watching in horror, that the sacrifice had lasted an age but in reality it had been the work of fifty or so heartbeats. Glancing up at the cage he could make out a figure slumped within, motionless, taking no notice of what passed beneath. He drew his sword and heard the rasp of metal as his companions followed his lead; he started to edge forward with dread gripping his bowels but with his desire to rescue his brother overriding everything.
‘Stay back!’ Yosef shouted, raising his staff in the air with one hand whilst rummaging in his bag with the other.
The bubbling in the pool increased, buffeting the girl’s body, which was floating face-down and still emitting streams of blood; her hair, now stained crimson, spread out from her head like some ghastly bloom.
Yosef pulled the cup with which he had shared wine with Vespasian from his bag and walked steadily towards the pool’s edge, holding his staff horizontally before him, as if warding off the druids on the far side. They began a deep chanting and the turbulence in the water increased; the body undulated on the raging surface and then, as Yosef knelt by the water’s edge, it was forcibly sucked under. The turbulence ceased and the waters calmed; Yosef dipped his cup in the steaming pool and filled it. The druidical chanting continued and Vespasian felt all their eyes burning into him. Yosef rose to his feet and planted his staff in the soft ground at the pool’s edge; he held the full cup towards the druids, bringing out his personalised Wheel of Taranis. He intoned a prayer loudly in his own tongue, his words rising over the druids’ chant; they increased their volume and Yosef did likewise.
An explosion of water erupted from the centre of the pool; drops from the spray splashed onto Vespasian’s face. They were hot and he closed his eyes and wiped them away. When he opened them again he choked on a stifled scream: the girl stood upright in the middle of the pool, her feet just below the surface, and her eyes, which should have stared lifelessly, rolled in their sockets. Words came out of her mouth; deep guttural words unintelligible to Vespasian, but he did not need to understand them to comprehend that this was the voice of a malevolent goddess. His knees weakened and sweat streamed down his face; his breath steamed from his mouth in short puffs and he felt a fear that he knew he would not be able to control. He wanted to turn and run but the sheer horror of the sight transfixed him as the small child’s body, now the manifestation of Sullis, glided through the steam towards Yosef, issuing dark sounds full of malice. And yet, the visible proof of the existence of the goddess fed his faith in all gods and with chattering teeth he whispered a prayer to Mars, knowing that he would be heard, imploring him to aid Yosef in his struggle with the monstrosity.
Yosef kept up his prayer as the ghoulish entity neared him; the druids’ chanting intensified as if it had become a battle of wills.
Yosef released his Wheel of Taranis and pulled his staff out of the ground; Sullis was now no more than three paces from him. Her mouth twitched unnaturally as she uttered her filth, blood seeping from her, her eyes turning uncontrollably; her arms remained at her side, limp and swaying. Yosef pointed his staff at her so that the tip touched her blood-streaked chest; she stopped.
Vespasian shook with fear and cold in spite of the heat emanating from the goddess’s spring; he was vaguely aware of Magnus next to him muttering prayers to every god that he could think of, even Yosef’s. Cogidubnus had raised his Wheel of Taranis and was beseeching the god to strike down this apparition with cleansing lightning.
Sullis pushed against the staff; Yosef’s arm was rigid but the pressure of the goddess made it shake. Slowly and inexorably it was forced back and Sullis closed on him. He kept up his prayer, almost shouting, his voice insistent, whilst holding his brimming cup before him, its water now cooled and no longer steaming. His gaze was fixed on those unnatural eyes that only a short while before had stared in terror at the world for what should have been the last time.
Yosef’s arm continued to be driven back by a force incommensurate with the size of the body applying it; and yet he did not flinch. He continued shouting into the ghastly face. Vespasian felt that he was ordering her to leave; the same words were being constantly repeated whilst the goddess rumbled her refusal. Behind her the druids chanted on, their eyes all fixed on Vespasian and with cold realisation he understood that they were willing Sullis on towards him; only Yosef stood in her way and he seemed to be weakening.