of spears at Macer. In seconds, blood gushed from five wounds on his

body. He grasped the shafts and pulled out the points. A barbarian ran

close and hurled his spear, striking Macer in the throat. Slowly he

toppled over from the loss of blood and dropped into the dust. The

barbarian women rushed in like a pack of mad wolves and stoned him to

pulp.

Only a high sandstone bluff separated the Romans from the river's edge.

Beyond, it seemed that the sky had suddenly turned from blue to orange.

Then a column of smoke rolled upward, black and heavy, and the wind

brought the smell of burning wood.

Shock gripped Venator, quickly replaced with despair.

"The ships!" he shouted. "The barbarians are attacking the ships!"

The bloodied slaves panicked and made a suicidal dash for the river. The

barbarians rushed in from the flanks and viciously assaulted them.

Several of the slaves threw down their arms in surrender and were

slaughtered. The rest tried to make a fight of it from behind a grove

of small trees, but their pursuers cut them down to a man. The dust of

the sage land became their shroud, the dry brush their sepulcher.

Severus and his surviving legionaries fought their way to the summit of

the bluff and suddenly halted, oblivious to the murderous onslaught

raging around them, and stared in stunned fascination at the disaster

below.

Pillars of fire rose and merged into a coil of smoke that unwound and

reached upward like a serpent. The fleet, their only hope of escape,

was burning along the river's edge. The enormous grain ships they had

commandeered in Egypt were being incinerated under great sheets of

rolling flame.

Venator pushed his way through the front rank and stood beside Severus.

The centurion was silent; blood and sweat stained his tunic and armor.

He gazed in frustration at the sea of flame and smoke, seeing the

blazing sails disintegrate in a maelstrom of sparks, the dreadful

reality of defeat branded in his eyes.

The ships had been anchored on the shoreline and lay naked and exposed.

A force of barbarians had engulfed the small body of seamen and torched

everything that could burn. Only a small merchant ship had escaped the

conflagration, its crew somehow beating off their attackers. Four

seamen were struggling to raise the sails while several of their

shipmates strained at the oars in their struggle to reach the safety of

deep water.

Venator tasted the falling soot and the bitterness of calamity in his

mouth. Even the sky itself seemed red to him. He stood there in

helpless rage. The faith he had placed in his carefully executed plan

to safeguard the priceless knowledge of the past died in his heart.

A hand was laid on his shoulder and he turned and stared into the

strange expression of cold amusement on Severus's face.

"I had always hoped to die," said the centurion, "drunk on good wine

while lying on a good woman."