De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica by Lucius Artorius Castus & Thomas Brookside

Author:Lucius Artorius Castus & Thomas Brookside
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Historic Classics
Published: 2009-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

For an interminable and excruciating time, there were nearly no further sounds but the moans and rattles of the corpse-dolls and the mutterings and sighs of the slaves. Unwilling to risk further defections or suicidal escapes, I ordered Radamyntos to shepherd the surviving slaves into the smallest cubiculum, which had a narrow doorway and a window so small that the iron grille that covered it was not much larger than the palm of a man’s hand. I was willing to abandon active defense of the outer doors and the other windows in order to keep the slaves under my eye. From this protected position, we prepared once more to attempt to wait out the night.

At first when the wick of a lamp would crackle, we would jump or start; when the sound of the shaking of the doors and shutters would wax louder, we would hold our breaths. But as the hours passed and our adversaries failed to force entrance and no further disturbances arose among the inmates of the house, our concern grew less and we grew more and more confident of our security. When the sky at last – at last – began to glow in the east as the banquet ended and the chariot prepared to return[95], we faced the dawn with something that came close to good cheer.

As the light grew from grey to bronze, I weighed in my mind the questions that would come with the morning. The deaths of Rufus and his wife had, at least, simplified my command situation. Had they lived, I would have been forced to make provision for their safety; after having sheltered here, I could not have simply abandoned citizens of their class. My return to the encampment would have been complicated by the need to escort them as they moved in the open. It was very likely that they would have insisted on moving the surviving members of their household as well. Their deaths meant that I could leave the household behind – other than the German, who I was now determined to extract – and this gained us an important tactical advantage: we could travel across open country, which I judged to be safer than the road. As far as we had seen, these creatures found their victims by sight and sound, like beasts of prey; we could better conceal ourselves at need in open country than exposed on the roadway. Leaving the remaining slaves to their fate meant that they would almost certainly be overcome and slain, and would swell the ranks of the walking dead, but I judged that a rapid return to the base was a priority next to which a few more or less of the creatures was no matter. If the curse were to fail with the full rising of the sun, or if the power of the druid was limited to the span of the festival first mentioned to me by Rufus, all of these questions would of course be rendered

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