The bull-like figure staggered erect and swung again in blind pain. The hammer connected solidly with Julius’s head with a dull crack, and he collapsed. Blood pooled slowly from his nose and ears as the fight went on around him.

CHAPTER 5

Brutus took a deep breath of clean mountain air as he looked back at their pursuers. With Greece spread out below them and the slopes covered with tiny purple blooms lifting a rich scent into the wind, it seemed wrong to be dwelling on death and revenge. Yet, as Renius had predicted, the group of riders contained at least one good tracker, and over the last five days they had remained doggedly on their trail despite a number of attempts to lose them.

Renius sat on a mossy rock nearby with his shoulder stump exposed, rubbing grease into the scarred flesh, as he did every morning. Brutus felt guilty each time he saw it, remembering the fight in the training yard of Julius’s estate. He thought he could even remember the blow that had severed the nerves of the arm, but there was no calling it back after all this time. Though the flesh had formed a pink pad of callus, raw patches would appear that needed to be salved. The only real relief came when Renius was forced to leave the leather cap off and let the air get to the skin, but he hated the curious looks it brought and shoved the cap back on whenever he could.

“They’re getting closer,” Brutus said. He didn’t need to explain; the five men following had been in both their thoughts ever since first sighting them.

The sun-hammered beauty of the mountains concealed a poor soil that attracted few farmers. The only signs of life were the small figures of the hunters making their slow way up. Brutus knew they could not stay ahead of horses for much longer, and as soon as they reached the plains below, the Romans would be run down and killed. Both of them were approaching exhaustion and the last of the dry food had gone that morning.

Brutus eyed the vegetation that clung to life on the craggy slopes, wondering if any of it was edible. He’d heard of soldiers eating the singing crickets that haunted each tuft and clump of grass, but it wouldn’t be worth it to catch one at a time. They couldn’t go another day without food, and their waterskins were less than half full. Gold coins still filled his belt pouch, but the nearest Roman city was more than a hundred miles away across the Thessaly plain and they’d never make it. The future looked bleak unless Renius could come up with an idea, but the old gladiator was silent, apparently content to while away an hour rubbing his stump. As Brutus watched, Renius pulled one of the dark flowers and squeezed its juice onto the hairy pad that hung from his shoulder. The old gladiator was always testing herbs for their soothing effect, but as usual, he sniffed with disappointment and let the broken petals fall out of his good hand.