BooksBarbecue
Back The Legion Save as PDF
Chapters (43)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. By Simon Scarrow
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgements
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. CHAPTER EIGHT
  14. CHAPTER NINE
  15. CHAPTER TEN
  16. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  17. CHAPTER TWELVE
  18. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  23. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  24. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  42. EPILOGUE
  43. AUTHOR’S NOTE

‘He - Ajax - told me to give you a message.’ The man smiled weakly. ‘He said to tell you that he’s fucked you before, and now he’s fucked you again, and he’ll fuck you for as long as he lives.’

Macro stared at the dying man for a moment, his mind and heart filling with blind rage. The torch dropped from his hand and he snatched out his sword before he even realised that he had done so. With a cry of hatred and anger that tore at his throat, Macro raised the blade and smashed it down on the other man’s head so brutally that skin, skull and brains exploded into one gory welter as the edge of his sword cleaved the man’s skull from the top of his cranium right down to his jaw. Macro yanked his sword free and raised it to strike again, his lips curled back in a savage snarl, but the man was quite dead.

Macro’s sword hung, poised over the body, blood dripping from its edge. He breathed in and out through his nose, his nostrils flaring. Slowly reason returned to him and he backed away from the body. He took one look round the cave in the hope of seeing something, some clue, that would reveal the presence of Ajax, but there was nothing. Macro turned back to the entrance to the chamber and called up to Hamedes.

‘Lower me the rope. It’s all over. We’re done here.’

‘And Ajax?’

‘Ajax?’ Macro shook his head. ‘Not here. It’s like he just vanished . . .’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

‘Will he live?’ asked Cato.

The surgeon did not answer immediately but sat still on his stool beside the legate’s bed and considered his patient. Outside, dawn was breaking and the bucinas were rousing the men in the camp at Karnak. Macro and Cato stood to one side of the surgeon, sand and dust griming their faces. They had returned from the far bank, with the two Roman casualties, during the early hours. Aurelius had been carried down to the river on a stretcher fashioned from two cavalry lances and some cloaks. As soon as the boat crossed to the landing platform, the legate was rushed up to the infirmary while the archer went to have his wounded arm cleaned and dressed.

It took an hour for the surgeon to set the legate’s broken limbs as well as he could and then splint them. The head wound was a more complicated affair and the blood had to be carefully washed away before the wound could be cleaned and examined. Aurelius lay on his side, his body tightly packed with bolsters so that he did not move. His breathing was ragged and Cato could see that the back of his head was badly misshapen beneath a thin linen dressing through which the blood was slowly seeping.