Chapter 29

Syrakousa, Sicilia

Ky relaxed in the center of the room, eyes closed, his mind focused inward. It wasn’t sleep, precisely, but it allowed more of his processes to shut down and the nanos swimming through his body to do more of the work they needed to do cleaning his system of the standard degradation of time, which allowed his age to extend so much beyond that of a human life span in this time.

As it did every time he entered his rest state, he thought to Lucilla. She had her own nanos which, thanks to Sophus’s ingenious extension of the limited technological equipment available to them, still operated even though the couple remained thousands of miles apart for months at a time.

The question that always came to him in moments like this was, how long could her nanos keep the rigors of time away from her? What would her life span be? Now that he’d found her, found these feelings, he couldn’t imagine ever losing her, and yet the fact that he would live for probably another one to two hundred years meant that, eventually, she would leave him.

It was worse for Sophus who, although sentient, had no body of its own that would give it a sense of the passing of time. It was along for the ride, forced to experience its death without ever changing what it saw as its own being. Would Sophus be able to keep his flesh going after he passed? Continue existing in his lifeless husk? It was impossible to know. No one had ever had an AI in a body for so long, let alone a sentient one. They were in uncharted waters.

He was just about to fall down the rabbit hole of his thoughts, when the noise of a distant commotion somewhere in the city pushed its way into his consciousness, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to the present. Even with the increased pickups and filtering, it was hard to work out exactly what the sounds were.

And then sounds suddenly erupted outside of the house he was staying in. Shouts in the street. Dozens of sandaled feet striking hard-packed earth, followed by a crash of wood, sending Ky propelling upward. By the time the first alarm was shouted, Ky was already jumping down the stairs, landing with a hard thud on the first floor.

His men acted fast, already engaging the first few men through the door, but the surprise had been almost complete. Ky could hear a guard outside in combat, meaning they’d isolated the door guards, swarming the building to get their men inside.

His men were trying to form up, protect the stairs and their charge, whose sudden appearance hadn’t yet registered. Ky knew Carus, on the far left, would be furious for what he was about to do, and he didn’t care. Leaping over his men in a forward lunge, Ky landed in front of them and rolled into a fighting stance, forcing everyone, friend and attacker alike, to freeze in place for a moment, surprised by his sudden appearance.

A moment was all Ky needed.

With superhuman speed, his blade whipped out and caught an enemy off guard, slashing across an exposed throat, sending the man crumpling to the floor. Two more went down almost as fast, with a fourth mortally wounded by the time his compatriots finally got their senses about them enough to begin responding, with the first enemy blade making its way toward Ky, almost in slow motion, as Sophus identified and began plotting all of the potential tracks across his vision.

Ky spun, parrying a blow from one of the attackers and feinted left before striking right, catching a man in an exposed thigh as he lunged forward, Ky’s blade going in just far enough to sever the artery before pulling back and whipping around to block another attack.

“Consul,” Carus finally shouted, seeing the man he was supposed to protect in front of him. “Protect the Consul.”

His men tried to surround him, put their bodies were between him and danger. Ky knew they meant well, but his greatest asset was his mobility, his ability to dodge and parry attacks at lightning speed.

“Give me room,” Ky shouted as he dispatched another man. “Surround the door.”

The door was the key. With each man Ky killed, another came through. They had to staunch the flow of enemy and regain control of the situation, or some of his men would die. Already, Firminus was bleeding, an arm hanging limp where a sword had cut deep into the muscle. If this went on much longer, he’d lose even more of his precious guards.

And then, as suddenly as the attack began it ended, with men falling and no more coming through the door to replace them. This was the only place the fighting had stopped, however. The noise in the city continued to grow, a building crescendo of shouts, screams, and curses.

Ky rushed outside, hurdling over the bodies of the fallen enemy, almost certainly the “missing” Carthaginian soldiers by the look of them. On either side of the door were two legionaries, placed there to guard the building. The sight of Carthaginians lying near their bodies proclaimed that they didn’t go down without a fight.

Fires raged unchecked, the flames casting an eerie orange glow over the city. Screams and the sounds of metal clashing sounded from every direction, signaling how widespread the fighting was. From one of the side streets, a wounded legionary stumbled out, clutching his side.

“Consul,” he gasped, his face contorted in pain. “The Carthaginians ... they’re everywhere. They came out of nowhere.”

“Are you alright?” Ky asked, grabbing him, helping hold the man up.

“I’m fine. We ... fought our way here, to you. The others...”

“I understand. You did your duty. Where were you when they attacked? Do you know how many?”

“Five blocks over, manning an intersection. I don’t know how many, but they came from every direction. Hundreds, maybe. It was quiet and then ... they were there, attacking. Cutting us down.”

“Go inside, rest. You’ve done enough.”

“No,” the man said, stepping away from Ky’s arm and standing on his own, pain etched into his face. “I can fight.”

Ky wanted to order the man to go rest, but he knew he’d do the same in the man’s place. He wouldn’t take his honor from him now.

“You’re a good man,” Ky said, before turning to one of his lictores. “Pacatianus. Take this man and any other legionaries you can find. Make your way to the front gate and out to Auspex’s legion on the plains. I’m sure he’s seen the fighting and will be on his way into the city, but help guide him. I want his legion to establish a perimeter around the gate and push out from there. We need a zone of control and safety for our wounded. They must have been in some of the houses, and there might be more. He isn’t to push to another block until he’s cleared all the houses inside his perimeter. He is to move slowly, checking everything before moving forward. He’s to value security over speed. If the Carthaginians are smart, they planned for our second legion, and have another trap ready. I don’t want him falling into it.”

“Understood, Consul,” Pacatianus said, saluting.

Ky clapped the wounded legionary on his shoulder, before turning his attention to Carus and the few legionaries that had started to gather, all coming to the same conclusion as the other man had. The Carthaginians were probably rallying either here or at the headquarters Bomilcar had set up a few blocks away.

“The rest of you, with me. We’ll assemble every legionary we can find and establish a perimeter around this building. I want to fight towards Bomilcar, who is almost certainly doing the same. From there, we will expand out and connect with whatever zone Auspex has carved out. We are retaking this city, block by block.”

Before any of the remaining men could start moving to follow his orders, a shout from behind alerted him to a new threat. Another group of Carthaginians, perhaps thirty strong, emerged from a side alley, charging towards them with swords drawn.

The legionaries reacted instantly, their training taking over. They quickly arranged themselves into a loose formation, each man covering his neighbor’s vulnerable side.

The Carthaginians crashed into them like a tidal wave. Ky parried a vicious thrust, countering with a lightning-fast stab into the man’s chest. Next to him, Carus fought like a man possessed, cutting down two men almost as fast as Ky could have.

“Consul! We must fall back to a more defensible position!”

“Fall back to Bomilcar’s position,” Ky ordered.

It seemed impossible that the enemy had enough men to attack like this all over the city, which meant the real thrust was here, against him. The other attacks were probably diversions. If that was true, it was likely Bomilcar’s command post was also being hit hard, and he could not afford to lose the general.

A Carthaginian soldier lunged at him with a spear. Ky sidestepped the thrust and grabbed the spear shaft. Wrenching it from the man’s grasp, he spun it and with a swift motion, drove the spear point through the soldier’s chest, then kicked him off the blade.

“Consul, watch out!” Carus shouted, rushing forward to intercept a Carthaginian who had slipped past Ky’s guard.

Carus’s sword cleaved the man’s skull in two, spraying bone and brain matter across the cobblestones. Ky nodded his thanks, then turned to face the next attacker.

Step by step, the legionaries fought their way to the square, leaving a trail of Carthaginian corpses in their wake. Occasionally a single or maybe a pair of legionaries would see them and join up. Slowly, the odds evened and then shifted, until the Britannians were no longer the outnumbered ones.

And then they were there, at Bomilcar’s command post. Much as Ky had expected, it was surrounded by Carthaginians, with the bodies of a dozen legionaries scattered around in front of the building. Bomilcar stood behind a wall of men who were fighting valiantly, a more sensible plan for him, considering his lack of enhanced abilities.

“Help them,” Ky called out to the legionaries with him. “We’ll finish this.”

Ky redoubled his attack on the few Carthaginians left assaulting them as all but his lictore turned and charged the men attacking Bomilcar’s command post. As if on cue, the remainder of Ky’s lictores appeared, looking bloodied and tired, but intact. Their sudden attack finally turned the tide, giving everyone around the command post a slight breather.

The battle wasn’t over yet, however. He could still hear screams and shouts coming from across the city.

“You found us,” Ky said to Sellic, grabbing the man’s blood-smeared arm.

“We followed the bodies,” Sellic said, indicating the trail of dead Carthaginians that led back to the house Ky had quartered himself in.

“Good. Help Carus and Bomilcar. We’re establishing a front here. There should be enough of us.”

More and more legionaries were appearing, either from the direction of Ky’s living quarters or headed directly for the command post. They were good men, and all doing what they needed to do.

The men, now bolstered, fought with renewed vigor, pushing the enemy back from the command post, creating a bubble that slowly expanded. As they advanced, they encountered pockets of resistance, Carthaginians emerging from side streets and alleyways to engage them in brief, bloody skirmishes. Each time, the Britannians pushed them back, their numbers growing as they rescued beleaguered legionaries and added them to their ranks.