Fists of Iron: Barbarian of Rome Chronicles Volume Two Read Online Free Page B

shouted, striking the prone slave a second and third time, the blows much harder. Bits of ragged flesh dangled in strips from the end of the rod but the slave did not move. Maccalus raised his arm again. “I’ll teach you to obey me, you filth. I’ll fucking strip you to the bone!”
    “The Gaul’s dead,” the words were spoken slowly, the Latin heavily accented. Maccalus lowered his hand and turned to face the slave who spoke. It was the Dacian.
    Maccallus recognised him immediately. Big, although stooped from his time in the cramped mines, and he stood out from the other wretches. His long hair was black beneath the stone dust, hacked straight above heavy brows. His dark eyes were deep set above a flat broken nose and high cheek bones, and framed by tattooed shapes that looked like beasts. A heavy jaw was framed by a thick tangled beard. He’d lowered his face rag in order to speak.
    The Dacian was renowned throughout the mining community as an exception, having survived in the sulphurous hole in the earth for three years when slaves rarely survived longer than one. Maccalus and his fellow guards had often puzzled how the Dacian had maintained his vigour when others had withered and died around him, the mine’s brutal regime breaking even the strongest. An unflinching worker, his brutish strength and vicious temper had dissuaded even the most evil tempered of the mine’s convicted killers and rogues from provoking him. Just prior to the recent Parilia Festival a notorious felon from Capua had been found dead one morning. His throat had been crushed. The Dacian was the only suspect, but even when the other miners’ meagre rations were temporarily stopped, no one dared identify the killer, so great was their fear.
    “You dare to speak,” Maccalus spat out the words. His rod still raised he gauged the distance to strike the insolent Dacian.
    The blow was never delivered. The fire in the Dacian’s eyes and the tightly balled fists at his side told Maccalus that the Dacian would not meekly accept the rod. He hesitated, feeling his bowels churn. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Canio had risen to his feet, hand on his sword hilt. Both of them knew that the Dacian was a killer.
    Tense moments passed and then Maccalus pointed with his rod, firstly towards the Dacian and then to the unmoving Gaul, instructing, “Get rid of this filth down the shaft.” Not taking his eyes off the Dacian he bent and unfastened the Gaul’s iron collar. Wary, he took a step back.
    Without hesitation the Dacian hefted the Gaul’s body onto his broad shoulder. Striding to the end of the tunnel, he shrugged off the body into the shaft’s gaping darkness. He fell back in line.
    Maccalus breathed out, relieved. “Get moving to the face,” he barked the order.
    Watching the slaves shuffle into the awaiting gallery, he sensed Canio at his side.
    “More food for the rats,” said Canio, in an attempt to ease the tension of the encounter. “The mine has grown some large bastards by the size of the wounds on the bodies that have turned up.” He shivered as he spoke, his revulsion obvious when he referred to the mine’s ever present vermin.
    “So I’ve heard,” said Maccalus, his voice tight, eyes still focused on the back of the Dacian as he disappeared into the gloom.
    “Forget the bastard,” Canio advised, nudging him on the arm. “The mine will eventually finish him off…it always does. The gods only know how that evil bastard has lasted this long. Come, let’s get a drink, my throat’s as dry as a camel’s arse.”
    Maccalus nodded, accepting his companion’s advice, feeling his anger drain away, and his fear too.
     
    Drilgisa leaned back against the tunnel wall, feeling a dull pain where the back of his head touched the stone. He reached back and rubbed the thick scar beneath the hair – a token of his first battle and a reminder of the accuracy of Rome’s sling men.
    He wiped the fine layer of stone dust from the