* * * *
Flavius saw him shudder. So did the rest of the crowd. Like jackals attracted to an injured beast, they fixed their eyes on him. Flavius glanced from face to face. Flared nostrils, parted lips, shining eyes. They wagged their head knowingly to one another and readied their dirty little missiles. They would see that Marcus’ last moments were full of torment and mockery. With flung stones and vile words, they would claim his dog’s death as a bizarre victory for themselves.
Anger swept through him, and he longed for a sword. He had no weapon, only the pole sling he’d manufactured from the stolen purse and his walking staff. Last night, he’d used it to kill a bird perched in a tree. It had been a small meal, but he’d been pleased to discover that he hadn’t lost his skill. But it was a hunter’s or a marksman’s weapon, not something to turn against a mob.
He could turn his walking staff against them, perhaps, but there would not be the satisfaction of teaching them anything. Even if he’d had a gladius, he could not kill them all, but he could teach them the difference between tormenting a man in a cage and dying in a battle against a bared blade. Not that it would save Marcus. There would still be the rattle of stones against the iron bars of his prison and the small batterings of the ones that reached him. He would still hear their insults and mockery hurled along with the stones. His friend had stood strong all day, but now he would go down ignominiously. Flavius looked around him, sick with knowledge. He could not save Marcus.
He could not save Marcus from death. But, perhaps, he could save him from this particular death. He stooped for a stone, picked up a likely one, and retreated to the edge of the street. He’d have to work quickly. The crowd was already winging stones at Marcus. Most of them fell short, and even the missiles that struck had little power. He was satisfied to see that they fell back into the gathering crowd, striking some of the gawkers’ upturned faces.
In the shelter of a doorway, he considered the stone he’d chosen. Then he groped in the knotted rag at his waist, and found the wad of wax from the stolen purse. He jabbed himself on the serpent’s tooth as he took it out. The damnable thing was still sharp as ever, despite all the time it had festered inside his body.
He remembered too well the day he’d acquired it. He’d leaped, intending only to knock Marcus out of the way. He could still recall, in ghastly detail, how the serpent’s jaws had closed on his leg. He’d dangled, upside down, the pain from the stabbing teeth as sharp as the toxin from the creature’s mouth. Instantly, he’d felt the hot acid kiss of it and known he was poisoned. He’d been saved by the horse’s harness. The serpent’s teeth had passed completely through his leg; they grated on something, perhaps a buckle or bronze plate. He’d felt the snake’s fury as it clenched its teeth all the tighter. And then, as teeth ground against metal, he’d felt one break.
The snake had briefly loosened its grip just as Marcus leaped for him and seized him. He’d literally been torn from the jaws of death by his friend. “Leave me!” he’d gasped, knowing that he was dying, and he’d sunk into blackness.
When next he’d found light, all had changed. His leg was tightly bandaged, his swollen flesh rippling next to the wrapping, and fever burned him. Marcus had been crouched beside him. He looked up at the leaves of an oak tree against the evening sky and smelled pine needles. So Marcus had withdrawn from the snake. Had he given up his river crossing, then? He’d blinked dully, knowing that, for him, the fight was done. Whatever became of him now was in the hands of his friend and commander. Marcus had grinned at him, a wolf’s smile. “You’re awake then? Good. I want you to see, my friend. If you should die this night, I want you to know that I did not suffer your enemy to outlive you.
“Sit him up,” Marcus commanded someone, and, with a fine disregard for Flavius’ wishes, two men did just that. He realized dizzily that he was on a slight rise scarcely worthy to be called a foothill, looking down on the river valley. They were not, then, that far away from the snake’s territory. He felt queasy, and not just from the poison. Fear could do that to a man.
“What?” he managed, and with the word, felt that it was not just his leg, but his entire body that swelled with the venom.
“Give him water,” Marcus directed one of the men, but he didn’t even look toward Flavius. He was watching the river. Watching and waiting. “There,” he breathed. “There you are. We see you now.” He turned and shouted to someone behind them, “Do you mark him now? You can’t miss him. He’s as big as a city wall, and so shall we treat him. Take your best aim and let fly.”
One of the men held water in a cup to his mouth. Flavius tried to drink. His lips, his tongue, all parts of his mouth were stupid and swollen. He wet his tongue, choked, gasped in air, gulped water, and then managed to pull his face away from the offered cup. Someone, somewhere was beating a drum, a slow thwacking noise. It made no sense. As he pulled his face away from the cup, he heard the familiar thud and then deep vibration as a ballista launched a shot. Four others followed in succession. He knew them now, knew the deep thock-thock-thock as the bowstring was racheted back, and then the release, followed by the deep hum of vibrating leather. They were using shot, not bolts, and the men on the rise were shouting and leaping in excitement as each missile was launched. “That’s a hit!” someone shouted, and “Look at him thrash! Look at him thrash!” another replied.
Flavius forced his eyes wider and managed to focus them on the scene. Marcus had chosen to attack the snake with ballistae. The men on the weapons were working frantically, loading and cranking and adjusting each launch to target the writhing snake. Below, each heavy shot of stone either sent up a plume of brown water as it missed, or thudded harshly against the scaled back of the snake before splashing into the river. The snake was in the deep reeds, but from his vantage, Marcus could look down on him. He had glimpses of the broad scaled back and his lashing tail, but even when no part of the snake was visible, they could track him by the way he parted the reeds and sent brown tendrils of mud unfurling into the tan waters of the river.
“Can’t kill him,” Flavius said, but it came out as a muted mumble and no one paid him any heed. He caught only glimpses of the battle, for the men in front of him shouted and leaped and pounded one another with each successful hit on the snake. But Flavius knew snakes. He’d held them in his hands when he was a boy and knew how supple they were, how flexible their ribs. “Head,” he suggested, and then, from swollen lips, he shouted at Marcus, “Head. Skull!”
Had he heard him, or had he figured it out for himself? “Aim for his head. All of you. Focus your missiles on his head! Quickly, before he finds better cover or goes back deep into the river.”
His men complied, ratcheting and loading and raining a hail of rocks down on the snake below. Battered and confused, the creature turned first one way and then another, trying to elude its mysterious enemy. Its tail, Flavius saw, did not thrash so wildly as it had; perhaps one of the missiles had done some damage to its spine after all. Another hit, this one closer to the snake’s wedge-shaped head, and suddenly its movements slowed and became more labored. It more twisted than thrashed now; Flavius caught a glimpse of pale belly scales as the creature rolled in agony.
And then, the hit. Flavius knew the death blow when he saw it. The rock struck the snake’s head and stuck there, wedged into the animal’s skull. The twitches became ever slower; undeterred, the men on the ballistae continued to rain stone after stone down on the creature. Even after it was still, they assaulted it, pelting its yielding body over and over.