Rome was not built in a day, but it surely fell in one.
Siege and terror spread throughout the city. Consciousness ebbs through her thinly, she grows aware of the hardened earth beneath her cheek and flaming heat licking across her cheeks, thick heady smoke invading her lungs, charring it.
River begins to cough, struggling to blink past the haze of tears clouding her vision. The dullness that fills her hearing clears and with it comes piercing incongruous cries and high pitching wails. Something - someone - is pushing on her shoulder with forceful violence, urging her to wake.
Dull throbbing phantoms along her temple and she groans, tentatively touching only to pull away with dark smudged fingertips. River angles her head slowly, faltering at the feel of something weighted on her neck, the clinking of metal.
A collar and chain. She notices the women and girls then, each huddled amongst each other like sheep, petrified eyes widened in horror, reflecting flames which lick at their homes like it means to play.
It burns the grasses bleached yellow by the autumn sun. Scorch marks appear, the heat is so intense that all moisture is driver sky-bound. The walls light and the smell of burning cedar blows clear over the valley.
River flinches at the sound of guttural growls, the sharp whistling sounds that drown out male voices - screams.
Her heart drums against her sternum, fingers digging into the dry earth as large dark silhouettes phantom in violent blurs across the city. The beasts cut down their men without hesitance, claws rip bellies open, lungs and hearts. Jaws clamp down on exposed throats tearing at tracheas with ease.
Blood spills on the earth, stealing warmth that wicks into the cold night air. The air is closed with the iron-salt smell of their deaths.
River gazes in horrid hypnotism as men and boys fall beneath the wrath of shifting darkness that holds creatures. Like shadows, she tries to digest the bloody images, painting them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity.
When the final man falls, a silence pervades the city like the stench of blood and corrosive ash. Beside her, River hears the soft weeping of women whose sons lay gaping and wheezing for final breaths, husbands quartered into sizes of unfamiliarity - and few girls who dared fight back.
Every man in the city lay dead that night, fighting at the borders or on the city square. Those who are too old to fight are dragged out of their houses and butchered in the street.
The attack had been swift. It was all over in a matter of hours. By the time the shadows lengthened across the square, the square was piled high with corpses. The creatures disappeared into the forest and resurfaced heartbeats later as men.
Men. River stares in a numbing daze at the tall, powerful mortals that stride past the trees with bare ritual marked torsos and clothed skin that shifts with each step, revealing long powerful legs. These are not men, she reasons, forcing down the caustic bile that bites at her throat.
The creatures move with eased practice. They carry corpses and toss pile them high at the centre, searching houses and gardens where the wounded might have tried to hide. When there are no men left to kill, the looting begins.
Men, like columns of red ants, pass goods from hand to hand, heaping them up close to the borders, ready to carry them. When space falls short, they drag corpses to one side of the marketplace, stacking them against the walls of the citadel.
Dogs drooling ropes of slobber begin sniffing around the dead, their lean, angular, black shadows knife-edged on the white stone. Crows come flying in, squabbling as they settle on roofs and walls, lining every door and window frame like black snow. Noisy, to begin with, then quiet. Waiting.
The looting grows more organized as men begin to drag heavy loads out of the buildings - carved furniture, bales of rich cloth, tapestries, armour, tripods, cooking cauldrons, barrels of wine and grain.
Now and then, the creatures would sit down and rest, sleek sheen of perspiration glowing on bronzed skin, muscles shifting restlessly as they reach for wine and swig it directly from the jug. They wipe their mouth on the back of their bloodstained hands, getting steadily and determinedly drunk.
More and more often, as the sky starts to fade, their predatorial gazes slant towards the herd of women huddled in circles with chains around their necks and shackles binding wrists. River’s scalp prickles as their stares linger, darkening with each passing second.
One captain moved from group to group, urging the men onto their feet again, and gradually they succeeded. A few final swigs and they were back at work.
River watches them strip houses and temples of wealth that generations of her people had worked hard to create, their actions so good at it, so practised. The image is similar to a swarm of locusts that settle onto a harvest field; not leaving an ear of single corn behind. Helplessness evades her as the city - her home - is stripped bare.
As the sun sets so does the weeping of other women wane to weak sniffles. They clutch each other, red-rimmed eyes hollowly staring, far too gripped by grief and fear to speak with each other.
Gradually, the looting stops - there was nothing left to take - and the drinking begins in earnest. Several huge vats are wheeled onto the square and jugs pass from man to man.
One man, towering at six foot eight, breaks from the group with a determined, somewhat derisive stare whilst approaching the women. River feels the girl beside her shift, pressing into each other as though the effort would make them one, invisible. It does not.
“You,” the man barks, pointing at a girl and curling his finger, “come.” River hears the wail that tumbles heart in her chest, she turns her head slightly, noting the girl being pried away from a woman’s arms. Even in terror, she remains stunning, skin like marble and hair flecked with gold as though granted the rights by Helios himself. The chief’s daughter, admired by most if not all.
The man’s patience frays its limits and he stoops low, grabbing the serpent chain and viciously yanking her forward. He remains impervious to her nails which rip at his forearms, dragging her towards a circle of men who watch on wickedly passing a wineskin amongst themselves.
The air grows heavy with the foreknowledge of what is to happen.
River sees their hands reach for the thin rope that holds their pants together as the girl is thrown onto the ground, her sobs sharply cut off as one man grabs a fistful of her golden hair, snapping her head back.
River drops her gaze at the sounds of her cries growing muffled - stuffed, then choking. They take turns between her, sharing a wine jug, passing it good-naturedly from hand to hand while waiting their turn. The rape does not falter, skin slapping on skin, grunts and groans, banter and laughter, sleek noises.
The girl’s two brothers - twelve, thirteen years old perhaps - lie wounded and dying a few yards from her. They die watching the defiling of their sister, and when the activity is complete, their breaths grow still.
River inhales a shallow breath, pushing down the lump of bile that wrings her belly and rushes up to her throat. Night falls, and darkness grows absolute, broken by the raging bonfire created at the centre. The smell of charred flesh permeates the atmosphere.
“Rise!” Obediently they begin to rise unsteadily, legs painfully numb from disuse.
River searches the crowd of faces for her friend as they form a line up outside the huts for inspection. Two men, who never speak except to each other, walk along the line of women, pulling down a lip here, a lower eyelid there, prodding bellies, squeezing breasts, thrusting their hands between their legs.
River realizes then that they were being assessed for distribution.
The first group of females, healthy and glowing, are led towards the bonfire where a small makeshift platform had been placed. River hears the shouts and indulgent whistles follow closely.
“The second group,” Fear swills through her like sour drinks as she walks behind another, head lowered, eyes focused on the ornate buckles of her dusty sandals.
Whoops of appreciation and terrible shouts echo around; what they would have liked to do to her and all the other village whores.
“Do not think of your previous life,” one man says as the first girl steps onto the stage dolefully.
The men bark at her ankles like rabid dogs, nipping at her heels. “That’s all over now—you’ll only make yourself miserable if you start brooding about it. Forget! This is your life now.”
Forget. Her duty lay out in front of her, as simple and clear as a bowl of water.
River shuts her eyes as her turn arrives. Bright light shines orange on her closed lids stained here and there with drifting bands of purple. Suddenly, the crowd’s shouts rose an intonation but it was not directed at her - another presence had stepped out of the shadows, languidly approaching the platform where River stood.
She feels something shift before her and seconds later, a hand grabs at her chin. The callous touch is like water from the sea, a freshness against skin, capricious. A cold chill runs down the length of her spine. The flesh that presses against her is, she knows, no more similar to her own than dust is to fire.
The grip is firm as he twists the young girl’s head from the left to right and back again. Through it all, River remains passive and compliant. Beneath shut lids, she feels his eyes focused and unmoving throughout the scrutiny. Always the same pressure against her skin, strong and firm.
Finally, the grip on her chin loosens as the figure steps back.
River’s eyes remain shut, but she hears the voice lay his final claim;
“She’ll do.”
Immediately, two guards appear by River’s side and, tugging at the shackles that bind her wrists, take her to his hut. River blinks downcast, fixating on her sandals as they walk across a low field, sounds of banter fading in the distant background.His building is separated from the rest, privacy. Much to her surprise, it is a substantial building, with a veranda on two sides and steps leading up to the main door. River is taking through a large hall and into an equally large room at the back. Despite the size, the furniture is sparse - single large bed, a divan set against one wall, a study table with a seat and two thick leather-bound books stacked neatly beside a candle.Wordlessly the men unchain her and step out of the room, shutting it behind. River stills at the centre, uncertain stare drifting from one corner to the next.Alone, she thinks.Shaking with cold and shock, she moves to sit on the bed’s foot but catches herself, realizing
River startles awake then stills as jarring pain shoots up the back of her neck. She hisses, raising a tentative hand to her now sore neck then the skull, rubbing it in gentle soothing circles. A moment passes as she adjusts to the unfamiliar room she currently lay in.The divan she had passed out on, now the current source of all her muscle aches, is stiff beneath her body. She exhales softly, face scrunching at the putrid scent of her breath and body odour. For a heartbeat, everything seems normal, and she is close to rising with chores listing themselves in her mind habitually.Mistress needed her morning herbal tea then linen washed, rosemary-scented candles lit and the curtains are drawn to allow light dissolve the musty darkness that blanketed during the night -- River halts.All thoughts in her mind scatter like dry leaves during a whirlwind, her attention drifts across the unfamiliar room that takes shape. She draws in a shallow, measured breath as reali
Hadrius.River did not know the extent of power in which his name held. The simple murmur of that word set both men and women apart from, avoiding the girl much like a plague.As though his name had been branded across her forehead, each place she walked the women scattered from her path like dry leaves.Something was terribly wrong with their reaction, River realizes, yet no one dared tell her the reason.Twice she tried approaching two girls, bent over a cauldron stirring thick chunks of stew for the men’s dinner. One girl glanced up, as though sensing an unwanted presence, then her eyes widened to saucers and she scurried away. The other simply hunched over the pot and played pretend, feigning she was not there.It unnerved River, their reactions. Something bitter and hot swirled in her belly each time she stepped out of his tent. Not that she minded for isolation had always been her preference, still…River blows out a breat
There is a silence.The evening darkens in the room. Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows creep in from the corners. The colours fade wearily out of things.Hadrius is motionless, strangely staring at the naked mortal that stands before him. A girl, he had not noticed before, with the slight formation of hectic spots of red burning on her cheeks - he simply stares with vague indifference, so much so his expression would be no different whilst regarding a fly on the wall.She seems hardly eighteen years of age, with a little flower-like face, a small Greek head with messy plaited coils of dark-brown hair, feverish eyes that burn hazel wells of amethyst caution, lips that are like the petals of a rose.The woman behind Hadrius stirs, and slips like a ghost between him and the door, nimbly making her way to the bed. The girl seems disturbed by the sudden presence, dropping her head sharply whilst reaching for the towel on the bed. Her small hands b
Little clouds that, like ravelling skeins of glossy white silk, are drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the autumn sky. The scent of a thunderstorm and snow drifts by closely.As River walks through the camp, she looks at the common women, noticing a split lip here, a bruise there. One girl, young and otherwise pretty, had a star-burst scar on her forehead where a spear butt had struck. Her stare lingers on their faces long enough to feel an ice finger touch her heart.She wonders if Hadrius would be as callous and brutal as the men. She expects nothing short of such violence, yet hopes she would not surpass his limits. He held the power in their relationship and should he wake up one day and decide to whip her bloody, neither man nor woman would bat an eyelash at his actions.River licks her teeth and grits her teeth at the possibility of such a thing happening; she is a slave and mistakes are bound to happen, a spill of wine here, the crease of cloth the
Leaves crunch beneath Hadrius’ bare feet.He moves with agile ease, in hand he carries the limp body of the woman he had murdered amidst fucking her.His eyes idly scan the campsite, seeking men who sat outside their huts or around the fire speaking in low tones, sharpening their battle swords or simply dozing with chins tucked on their chests.Hadrius steps past the treeline, walking deeper and deeper still. The woman in his arms sways lifelessly, eyes dimmed like the onset of glaucoma and staring at the twilight sky. The trees rise all around forming a thick canopy of leaves that block out the moonlight, allowing only faint slants of white that cut across his bare back and ponytail that sways with elegant laziness, the silver barbells pierced horizontally on his nipples glimmer wickedly.He ducks beneath a low branch and straightens as the trees slowly part, revealing a partial clearing where his second-in-command currently stands, nude, arms cros
River wakes before the crack of dawn - her body seemingly unable to capture a full night’s rest as she had tossed and turned on the hardened divan. She lays on her back, staring at the wall, hyper aware of the cold morning air that filters through partially opened windows, skimming over her sweat drenched skin.Goosebumps rise.She sighs and rubs her eyes while slowly pushing herself into an upright position. Automatically, her eyes slant towards the large figure that remains still beneath a thin silk sheet. Hadrius is motionless, save for the slight rise and fall of his chest. He lies on his back, one arm cast over his eyes, the other resting over his bandaged torso.She studies his form, realizing then just how large the man is -- it seems the queen sized bed is not sufficient for his bare foot peeks just about the edge. She traces the curve of tribal markings along the sole of his foot, wrapping around each toe, and wonders why he seems so intent on cov
Each footfall of River’s shot panic up her knee, stabbing her heart with a pained intensity. Fear expands within her, threatening to break her skin. She struggles and fails to maintain each measured inhale.Anita walks beside her in a manner of submissiveness, head lowered to the floor, a shawl wrapped around her head to hide the formation of new bruises that map her skin. Odin had done that to her, River realized, horrified. Her stomach cartwheels at the prospect of what he might do to her.“What does he want with me?” River finally manages to speak, a strange touch of pain in her voice. She glances sideways at Anita whose gait is monotonous and holds a slight limp to it, each footfall causes her to wince in mild discomfort. “Anita-”“Just count to ten,” the girl whispers in finality, though she does not look up, “count to ten and it will be all over. Or think of your family… or something other than…