The Blood of Gods A Novel of Rome - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,7

and stabbing his short blade up between the man’s ribs. The leader collapsed like a punctured wineskin, falling onto his back with an echoing crash.

For a heartbeat, the bandits hesitated, shocked by the explosion of violence and death. Octavian had not stopped moving. He killed another gaping bandit with a backhand stroke against his throat, chopping into flesh. He’d set his feet well and brought the whole of his strength into the blow, so that it almost decapitated the man. The gladius was made for such work and the weight felt good in his hand.

The rest might have run then, if their way hadn’t been blocked by their own mules. Forced to stand, they fought with vicious intensity for desperate moments as the three Romans lunged and darted among them. All three had been trained from a young age. They were professional soldiers and the bandits were more used to frightening villagers who would not dare to raise a blade against them. They fought hard but uselessly, seeing their blades knocked away and then unable to stop the return blows cutting them. The small canyon was filled with grunting and gasping as the bandits were cut down in short, chopping blows. None of the Romans were armoured, but they stood close to one another, protecting their left sides as the swords rose and fell, with warm blood slipping off the warmer steel.

It was over in a dozen heartbeats and Octavian, Agrippa and Maecenas were alone and panting. Octavian and Agrippa were both bleeding from gashes on their arms, but they were unaware of the wounds, still grim-eyed with the violence.

‘We’ll take the heads back,’ Octavian said. ‘The woman’s husband will want to see them.’

‘All of them?’ Maecenas said. ‘One is enough, surely?’

Octavian looked at his friend, then reached out and gripped his shoulder.

‘You’ve done well,’ he said. ‘Thank you. But we can make a sack from their clothing. I want that village to know that Romans killed these men. They will remember – and I suspect they will break out the casks of their best wine and slaughter a couple of goats or pigs as well. You might even find a willing girl. Just take the heads.’

Maecenas grimaced. He’d spent his childhood with servants to attend to every whim, yet somehow Octavian had him working and sweating like a house slave. If his old tutors could see him, they would be standing in slack-jawed amazement.

‘The daughters have moustaches as thick as their fathers’,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps when it’s fully dark, but not before.’

With a scowl, he began the grisly work of cutting heads. Agrippa joined him, bringing his sword down in great hacking blows to break through bone.

Octavian knelt next to the body of the bandit leader, looking down into the glazed eyes for a moment. He nodded to himself, playing over the movements of the fight in his head and only then noticing the gash on his arm that was still bleeding heavily. At twenty years old, it was not the first time he’d been cut. It was just one more scar to add to the rest. He began to chop the head free, using the oily beard to hold it steady.

The horses were still there when they came back, parched and staggering, with their tongues swelling in their mouths. It was sunset by the time the three Romans reached the village, with two sopping red sacks that dribbled their contents with every step. The local men had returned angry and empty-handed, but the mood changed when Octavian opened the sacks onto the road, sending heads tumbling into the dust. The woman’s husband embraced and kissed him with tears in his eyes, breaking off only to dash the heads against the wall of his house, then crushing Octavian to him once more. There was no need to translate as they left the man and his children to their mourning.

The other villagers brought food and drinks from cool cellars, setting up rough tables in the evening air so that they could feast the young men. As Octavian had imagined, he and his friends could hardly move for good meat and a clear drink that tasted of aniseed. They drank with no thought for the morning, matching the local men cup for cup until the village swam and blurred before their eyes. Very few of the villagers could speak Roman, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Through a drunken haze, Octavian became aware that Maecenas was repeating a question to him. He