The Rebels' Assault by David Grimstone

Author:David Grimstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2010-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IV

EXECUTION!

Afternoon arrived in southern Campania, though it failed to herald the arrival of even the slightest breeze. An unbearable heat haze had forced the land into submission. Guards cooked in their armor without a word of complaint as their miserable masters were fanned with giant palm leaves, and a restlessness gripped those who were eager to be distracted.

A deathly silence came over the merchant crowd as Slavious Doom appeared at the entrance to the Suvius Tower and began the long climb to the base of the scaffold. Drin Hain trailed after the overlord, his black cloak billowing out behind him. Following the pair at a respectful distance was a small party of guards, and each one was dragging their own hooded prisoner.

As Argon, Teo, and Gladius progressed along the scaffold, they could hear the shouts and jeers of the crowd all around them. Though the hoods prevented them from seeing the crowd or the scene that lay before them, the slaves were more consumed by their own fears than the thought of the eager, overfed faces that would be gathered all around the courtyard, baying for their blood. Argon thought of his impending death in the cages that were undoubtedly ranged beneath the scaffold, Teo thought of the pit over which he would frantically struggle when the hangman’s noose was placed around his neck, and Gladius could think only of Drin Hain raising a curved sword and striking him down without the slightest flinch of mercy.

Far above the slaves, the courtyard, and the scaffold itself, Ruma—the only slave whose head had not been covered with a cloth sack—surveyed the scene from the very top of the Suvius Tower. His mind was galloping furiously, taking in the surrounding buildings, the guards at his side, the chains around him, and the rising noise from the distant courtyard as his friends were sent toward their doom. He looked down and squinted at the scaffold: His friends were being separated.

Ruma’s gaze shifted back to his chains as several of the guards departed, leaving a single large brute behind—presumably the one who’d been given the task of throwing him over the edge.

The chains, he thought, his eyes following the links to a stout ring that was wedged in the stone floor of the tower. You need a plan, Ruma, and you need one NOW.

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