Praetorian: Blades of Antioch by Turney S.J.A

Author:Turney, S.J.A
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mulcahy Books
Published: 2021-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Rufinus pushed the door open, carefully, slowly. The room was exactly as he remembered, and Aprilis stood behind his desk, his back to the wall beside the window, giving him excellent vision in the dim room while the new arrivals were hampered by the blazing white square in the darkness. The only other light source was a brazier burned down to low embers close by and giving off only a dull reddish glow. Rufinus stepped inside just a single pace. Something was making his nerves tingle, and despite the sense of urgency from the men behind him, he felt that leaping into the fray would be a bad, and potentially even fatal, idea. He took another step as the shadowy gloom began to resolve slowly into vague shapes.

‘That is, I think, far enough,’ Aprilis said quietly. ‘I should have known from square one that you were traitors. Far too much interest in Silvanus, really. Still, this is as far as it goes. I heartily recommend that you send out a call to your men. They can surrender and be dealt with as prisoners of war, or they can run and see how far they get before my grasp closes, but this ridiculous assault is over.’

Rufinus took another step, testing the water. Just a tiny one, but as he did, there was a marginal movement in the figure beside the window, and now he realised that Aprilis was holding something in the darkness. He focused on that in the gloom and what he finally saw made his eyes widen. ‘Back, the rest of you. Back into the corridor.’

‘Why?’ Ioses asked. ‘What is it?’

‘Cheiroballistra. A handheld bolt thrower, loaded and cranked. And take a sniff. I don’t know about you, but I can smell pitch. A lot of pitch.’

As if to illustrate his point, at that very moment Aprilis dipped the weapon slightly into the brazier that glowed half-spent beside him. The iron-tipped bolt in the weapon, wrapped in linen wadding, burst into flame even as the weapon came back up to face Rufinus, the fire now illuminating Aprilis’ face from beneath in an eerie glow.

‘Very sharp. Just as I would expect from a fellow grain man. Unless you want every man and animal in that passage to learn the intense agony of pitch-fire, I recommend that you give the call to stand down.’

Rufinus ground his teeth. Even had he felt brave enough to pull off an attack, and if he considered for even a moment that there was a chance he could put Aprilis down before he fired, he couldn’t risk endangering Ioses, let alone the innocent soldiers and dogs with him. A thought struck him, and his head snapped round, a frown folding his brow. His suspicion was confirmed: Silvanus was no longer behind him as he had been all through the passages of the tower. Rufinus had thought the lack of input from the third frumentarius present to be odd and, as he turned back towards Aprilis, he had to force himself not to smile and give the game away.

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