The shadows of the town were omnipresent. None could escape them, it seemed so that it appeared as though they might devour each and every house of the town of Tarentium. Oppressive and cruel, the shadows that lapped away from the earth upwards even as rain descended from the heavens, as though seeking to wash away the darkness that had befallen the town. None of the people took notice of the rain, as they stepped along, each of them pleased with themselves for what they had done so recently.

“This shan’t be right,” Whispered one of the few outsiders to another, a stout man in thick furs and Dorian hoplite armour.

“Never you mind what is right, just be quiet,” Snapped the other, his chin armed with a thick beard even as he was dressed in much the same style.

The two had journeyed across the length and breadth of Hyspania, doing the bidden of Punicia’s greatest generals. It was to the mind of Hamildar’s reason enough, never to question the orders they received.

The rite which they had invited to participate in, by one of the locals was one that Hamildar had not wished to participate in. Not that this meant he could refuse them, as a singular look into the eyes of the invitee had told him it was wiser to accept.

It was when they stood near to the tree near the center of the town that he once more, felt overwhelmed by unease. It was there that they were to press into a small hole in the middle of the dark bark of the tree.

“Hamildar, what is happening?” The other sell-sword demanded of him.

“I do not know Alexander,” He snapped impatiently, hardly glancing at the other man too struck by how everyone was staring at them expectantly.

The cold sweat that trailed down his back had no place doing so, and was a source of embarrassment for him. But even as the sentiment washed over him, he felt it wiped away by the colder hand of dread.

It happened that as several of the children were given over to the rite, he felt oddly as though he were waiting before the block himself or as though he were about to be nailed to the cross himself. It was ridiculous, he had attended countless rituals, and had nailed unnumbered dozens of men to too many crosses and yet this feeling would not be wiped away.

“I do not like this,” Alexander murmured to him.

By now, as the hours had ticked by, and as the wind had shifted icily, and the moon had disappeared Hamildar had no answer for him, he could only nod glumly.

“It is now time for the sacrifice,” The mayor of the town announced with a small smile on his bearded lips.

“Sacrifice? What sacrifice?” Hamildar queried of the mayor, his hand coming to rest where his sword was.

It was only as the crowd gathered nearer to him and his men that a strange thing happened, even as the mayor spoke; they noticed that their swords had disappeared. “Why we had in mind one that our god has not had ere, this moment.”

“Stay back- what? Where has my sword gone?” Hamildar asked stunned to find even the scabbard missing, with his men swift to notice much the same.

“Do something, Hamildar!” Some of his men shouted in a panic.

“Come now, why do you scream so, Hamildar?” The mayor demanded of the head of the sell-sword company that had entered the village. “Surely, you knew that this was expected of you?”

To which the sell-sword captain began to shout, “My sword! My sword! Where in Tanit’s name could it have gone?!”

And then all sounds, save the screams of the men who had served Punicia for years, were silenced forevermore…

II

In the years since the founding of the Res Publica, or ‘Public Thing’ as all men of Roma and the peninsula of Tirreinia knew it, there had been war, famine, plague and betrayal that have all rocked the city. In the years since Marcus Lievenus, had first joined the army in the hopes to defend his homeland from Punicia and her ravaging hordes, had seen much.

But never anything quite so unsettling as the manner in which the people, of the town of Tarentium at present looked upon him with.

“I do not much like these people, sir,” One of his men Sextus Tarallius grunted with a wary look all about them. “Even the children, stare.”

“Whatever do you mean? I do not see anything,” Marcus Punius haughtily, the son of a merchant with rather high aspirations he was always comporting himself foolishly. And it was always Sextus or Marcus who had to save him.

Inclined to agree with Sextus as they scouted out the small barbarian town, with its newly built Dorian styled housing, Marcus could not repress a shiver.

It was not that there was hatred in the eyes of the people, but rather a sort of exultation at the sight of them. Even the children seemed to express some measure of relief, at the vision of Scipione’s scouts pouring into the town, proclaiming that the village had been liberated.

“They do not appear terribly overjoyed to be liberated,” Sextus’s younger brother Titus remarked, a legionnaire, who was as tall and muscular as his sibling he was however the more impulsive of the two.

Considering the blonde man’s words, dark haired Marcus suppressing his own sense of repulsion towards the people of the town so as to take command, once more of his unit. They had been assigned a task by their general, and he would sooner perish than disappoint him. “Sextus, take three of the men, and scout out to the north of the village. Marcus you will search the village with the rest of the men, in search of any possible enemy sell-swords hiding in their midst.”

“Why must I take up that task? Let Sextus do it,” Whined Marcus Punius to the irritation of his superior officer.

A single look and the motion of reaching for the lash, tied to the back of the horse was enough to send the squealing pig along. Still the people stared.

Disconcerted despite himself, Marcus uneasily moved to examine the local shore, as he had also been ordered to do. The village was six days journey from the city of Nova Carthrago, and it was crucial that they scout it out, to determine if there was any hint of danger. This along with the knowledge that there had to be hidden troops, somewhere between the Fourth Legio Victoris and the city gave the Centurion a sense of urgency.

Searching by the sea, he took note of the waves, of the position of the clouds though he did not quite understand why this was so crucial to the general, he did these things. The tide in particular he noted, just as he reminded himself to return after dark to take into account the position of the moon.

It was as he trod along the coastline ignoring as best he could some of those villagers who continued to follow him with their gazes. The children in particular daunted and worried him. Children should not behave so calmly, and behave themselves so quietly.

In his home-town near to Rasenna, north-east of Roma children could always be heard or seen playing or racing about to this task or to a local grammar school. In his brief time in Roma, they could be seen doing much the same.

This was why the lack of activity and ongoing, exultation and anxiety of the children throughout the village chilled him so.

The sea once fully studied, was turned away from so that Marcus may return amongst the people of Tarentium. “I must speak with the mayor of the town, if you have one.”

The Mayor was sent for and was promptly presented to the Centurion, his bearded lips stretched out in a wide yellow grin. It was a smile every inch as false as most others that Marcus had seen, throughout the whole of the peninsula of Hyspania, since he had joined the General in the peninsular land.

“I should very much like to speak to you in return,” He replied smoothly with the sort of geniality that one might almost have thought genuine. If one was a fool that is.

And Marcus was no fool. Staring long and hard at the mayor, he was to ask of the man, whilst holding up his finding from the beach, “And what is this? This looks to be a Punician silver-coin? The sort they give over to their sell-swords.”

It was easily recognised also due in no small part, to how some legions were paid with the same sort of coinage. It was at times easier to seize Punician coins, and to pay the legions with them, or so the General had once explained to him.

The legions had not yet reached the village of Tarentium though, so that it could not be easily explained just how this particular coin had reached such a place.

Upon remarking upon this issue, the chieftain became nervous, and was to bluster and stutter, “Never you mind that, it must have come from that ship that sailed past, some weeks hence.”

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“What ship?” The keen interest in his voice silenced the mayor once more, this time the man realised that he oughtn’t have answered by making reference to a passing ship.

Swallowing audibly, as several of his people glared furiously at him, the Mayor grumbled into his beard. Aware that he had made an apparent mistake, he simply contented himself with glaring at the Centurion, who did not deign to glance at him once more.

The question of the ship was unlikely to be one that he was to receive a proper answer to. It was later with his men, as they rested in their tent just outside of the village that he spoke of it with them.

“Impossible,” Sextus retorted, “If there was any ship that sailed past this region, it would be one of Punicia’s fleet but somehow, it is doubtful that it sails still.”

This was consistent with Marcus’s own knowledge.

“What have you discovered?” He asked, changing the topic to their investigations.

“Only that there are no weapons or signs of Hamal’s army having sent any scouts or recruitment officers to this village,” the other Marcus answered with a frustrated shrug of his shoulders.

The lot of them in the middle of eating their supper, which consisted of dry rations and some simple wine they had stored in wineskins. The lot of them had to keep from wrinkling their noses as they devoured their few rations.

They could have accepted some of the food from the locals, but few were willing to accept, any that was on offer.

Inclined to believe his men, Marcus fell to brooding. Orders were orders, and this village awoke in his mind naught but suspicion and mistrust. Yet there was no further reason to stay, in spite of his desire to investigate and search out the whole of the village.

He was interrupted from his brooding and questioning into the nature of the village’s lack of suspicious behaviour, in spite of their peculiar behaviour. The interruption came in the form, of giggles and more than a dozen attractive young maidens.

Most of the men turned where they sat upon the ground, at the sight of the scantily clad maids who in some cases Marcus felt suspicious he had seen, with some of the men and children. Not that this truly mattered, to a number of his men nor did it matter a great deal to him.

What mattered most was how taken his men were with these women.

“I do not trust these women,” He grumbled beneath his breath, “They stared me down when I stood by yon beach.”

“What of it?” Sextus asked with a short chortle.

When one of them approached him also, her scantily clad slender body pressed against him, and full lips temptingly near as she danced about him.

The temptation to give in, swept over Marcus and he at last cast aside his worries over the village and the nagging sense of wrongness.

III

Sextus had now gone missing, as had Quintus and a number of the others. Quite where they had gone, was a mystery to Marcus.

All sense pointed to one of the villagers. Somehow this did not seem to fit with his judgement. It was as he regained consciousness and became aware of a scraping sound that Marcus was to become filled with panic.

Hearing muttering above him, with both voices very evidently feminine ones, he knew at once something had gone horribly wrong. Any other man might well have laughed, at being dragged along the ground or might have remained stricken with worry. But not Marcus.

Though it took him a moment to sooth his pounding head, and to figure out what he should do exactly, he soon weighed down upon the hands dragging him with his booted feet.

The women struggled a little more than prior to that moment, exchanged puzzled glances wherefore they looked down at him.

Such was the wroth that decorated his face, the rage that lit his eyes that the two of them, hardly older than he himself was took fright. Dropping his feet, they took fright and tempted as he was to pursue them, dagger in hand and bloodlust consuming his heart he did not.

Once more upon his feet, he was to after having rubbed at the back of his head, returned to the tent that the legates and he had erected. They had done so, with the notion that it was to stand as a fort against the local town and the tribe that inhabited it.

Upon his return, Marcus discovered it to be wholly emptied of men and women, the stench of their play made him wrinkle his nose, and his brow furrowed at the knowledge that his men had disappeared. The search for his missing sword did not take long, wherefore he heard a scream that brought a chill to his blood.

It was thence that he knew what had become of his men. And knew what it was that the two women who had dragged him, away from the tent had schemed.

Sword in hand, he tore a path from the tent in search of his men.

IV

The village heads as Marcus discovered, were in the midst of doing the unthinkable to his former patrol members; burning them at the stake. The table they had laid out, left little in the way of doubt that they might have further wickedness in mind, for those they had sacrificed to their wicked god.

Arriving in time, to discover Sextus, the last of those still alive and tied to a nearby marble statue as those who had been sacrificed before him were, as a torch neared the gathered hay and branches that had been laid there.

Quite why they were sacrificing people to the deformed ox-headed statue with stag horns, and the body of a man, was a mystery he did not much care to investigate or pause to analyse. Rather, he was more interested in destroying those who threatened his men. Or rather the last of his men, sword well in hand and rage blackening his vision so that when he arrived thither amongst them, he was to swing and slice at all around him.

The first of the men that he cut down which he recognised, happened to be one of the husbands of the women he had seen the night hitherto this early morning.

“Back, you demons from Tartarus!” He snapped at them, mad with rage and righteous hate, his sword quivering as he menaced those nearest, having severed the arm of one of the men at the elbow.

The man who had held the torch towards the statue, screaming and crying out was pulled back by his neighbours, who glared foul hatred in response to the Romalian who stood before them.

“You have no knowledge of what it is that you trifle with, Laevinus,” The mayor growled from where he stood, even as he backed away and Marcus cut down the bonds that bound Sextus to the statue.

“And I should hazard a guess that neither did the sell-swords of Punicia?” Marcus guessed at once, “The coin by the shore gave away what it was that you did to them.”

If he had hoped for some sort of sense of revulsion or shame, he was destined to be disappointed.

Shrugging his shoulders, the mayor of the village smiled a grin full of rotting teeth and malice, “And? What of it?”

That was reason enough to bellow, and leap at him to hew him down.

It was after the mayor’s last scream was torn from his lips, and his blood spilled and as the people backed away farther from the warrior that he came to notice an oddity about the locals. Most retained their sense of amusement, their eyes blackened beyond compare as they stared past Marcus.

Bewildered with his blood up, Marcus almost threw himself forward against them to continue the slaughter. It was Sextus though who saved him, by placing a hand upon his shoulder. “Sir, behind us!”

Confused, Marcus did as bidden to find to his utter shock the great bull statue, no longer quite so marble-white. Black in flesh, and with shining, glimmering eyes that seemed to stare through his very soul, the Centurion could only gape.

He might well have given himself over to despair in that moment, such was the shock that overwhelmed him in that moment.

Growling the beast sought to swipe at him, with claws that were no less sharp than the daggers still girded to his waist.

Backing away, as the people had, that route was soon blocked for him as he was pushed towards the beast by the locals. Rolling with the momentum, so that he was carried between the legs of the monster, even as it swiped at him tearing asunder a number of its own worshippers.

Unsheathing one of his many daggers, he was to attempt to sever the serpentine shaped tail that swung about behind the monster. Slashing at it with this dagger, he was startled when his blade shattered almost at once.

Prepared to swipe at it with his sword, he only just to say turned his blade away so that he took the blow from the tail to the chest. Knocked aside, he was sent flying through the air so that he hit one of the nearby huts with his air leaving his lungs.

His head spinning Marcus took a long moment, to regain his feet wherefore he was to bear witness to the death of Sextus.

Shouting out the name of Roma, the city and goddess that had birthed the greatest civilisation that lived, he was to throw himself against the beast who struck back against him. The claws of the beast cutting through the armour of the legionnaire, and the flesh and bones that lay beneath so that the soldier was dead ere the wind once more, beat against them.

Filled with horror Marcus was soon swept up by the force of his rage in the next seconds, wherefore he threw himself forward picking up the sword of his friend along the way.

The bellow of rage that was torn from his throat, as he charged swords swinging and thrusting at the beast that simply stepped back when necessary and at other times slashed back at him. Evading and ducking below the enormous arms of the beast.

It was only when he attempted to hew through one of those arms, and the result was that of another broken sword that Marcus slowed. Wearied, and panting he only now took notice of the various cuts, scraped and broken pieces of armour that he came to realise that he was only tiring himself.

Dodging another attempt to hew him down, he was however seized by the beast by the right arm, its crushing grasp made him scream even as he squirmed.

Lifted off his feet, he might well have panicked however little could the beast have known that, he was in reality ambidextrous. Underestimating, for it had slashed along his arm earlier shedding a great deal of blood so that it could be excused for thinking the limb by this time harmless. The sword he held with that arm, was that which had shattered against the fur of the demonic brute.

It was only as the rage was bled from him, and that the beast lifted him higher and higher that the Centurion realised what a stroke of fortune this was.

Acting on that thought, the moment it opened its mouth he struck out with his broken hilt-shard. Stabbing through the throat of the beast, who let loose the most hoarse and shrill shriek he had ever heard in all his years.

Dropped, Marcus struck the ground hard only to act quickly, having let go of his hilt-shard which had remained embedded in the back of the throat of the beast. Evading the flailing arms, he was to kick down upon the hilt with his foot, ere he lifted up his other blade – that of Sextus.

“There will be no rest, nor any mercy where you are bound beast!” He growled with all the hate he could muster. The sword bore down through the throat of the monster.

V

“What happened next?” General Scipione demanded of him, his fingers steepled together before him, his elbows upon the table in his pavilion.

Standing before the finest of Roma’s heroes, stiff as a corpse, yet weary as only the living can be Marcus replied to the blonde-man in his most respectful voice. “It fell dead, sir. Shortly thereafter, all of the people of the local region did so as well.”

“Really now? They must have sold some part of their souls to the demon,” Scipione murmured thoughtfully, “I had heard some talk of such rituals in Punicia and their colonies, or amongst their allies. Truly they are a wretched people.”

“I can only agree sir.”

“Outside of that you found naught but dust, and trees standing between the city of Nova Carthrago and our present position?” The general pressed urgently.

“Aye sir,” Marcus replied and there was much he wished to add. Much he might have said, regarding the losses he had suffered, how the half-devoured burnt remains continued to haunt his dreams. What was worse, was the vision of the desiccated reasons of those children whom had been sacrificed soul and body, to the beast.

But he did not say much more. He had no wish to, for there was neither a reason, nor any wish on his part to do so. Best let the darkest of nightmares fade into the very darkness that spawned them.