Shadow and Dust

Shadow and Dust
Harry Sidebottom

A tense and brilliantly dramatic 30-page short story from the bestselling author of The Throne of the Caesars Series.This thrilling short story opens at the end of BLOOD AND STEEL and is the perfect trailer for Harry Sidebottom’s new novel FIRE AND SWORD.AD 238. When Gordian the Younger is brutally cut down at the battle of Carthage, his ally Phillyrio and a centurion from his army must make for the hills of northern Africa, to escape Maximinus’s army. But their enemy, led by Capelianus, is determined to hunt them down.

Copyright (#ue15a1bf6-749e-53c1-bd31-8c09cf26cf8d)

Harper

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Copyright © Harry Sidebottom 2016

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel Images (Soldiers); Shutterstock.com (http://shutterstock.com/) (dagger)

Harry Sidebottom asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

This short story is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007499977

Version: 2016-03-24

Pulvis et Umbra Sumus

Horace, Odes IV. 7

Table of Contents

Cover (#u7511667e-5563-573c-b8c8-be57746da797)

Title Page (#u931d80f2-2a88-5d82-80e0-9cfae3838754)

Copyright (#u38faa1d1-6874-5173-9442-7a88229a692d)

Dedication (#u1f5d7378-fa2a-5cb0-9dcf-3ef44089c27c)

Chapter I (#u32a4858d-5ed7-50d3-adb4-61953ede0bf8)

Chapter II (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter III (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter IV (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter V (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter VI (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter VII (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter VIII (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter IX (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter X (#litres_trial_promo)

Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Harry Sidebottom (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

I (#ue15a1bf6-749e-53c1-bd31-8c09cf26cf8d)

Carthage,

Ten Days after the Ides of March, AD238

Faraxen lay on the roof of the warehouse. The smell of fish from the ponds and the gutting sheds was strong in his nostrils.

Another centurion and Mauricius, the commander of the cavalry, were with Faraxen. They had left their helmets downstairs, where the other officers waited, and they had wrapped themselves in hooded cloaks whose colours were faded like the mudwalls of the compound. The roof was flat, and had a raised edge. If they made no sudden movements, the three men were near invisible from a distance.

Off to the south-east, to the left, beyond the aqueduct was the necropolis, and beyond the tombs stood the gates and walls of Carthage. The tall battlements were crowded with spectators. It was a gaudy throng, as if at a festival. Musicians and food vendors made their way among them. The townsfolk were fools, Faraxen thought. Fools because they treated the coming battle as if it were no more than a spectacle, just another trip to the amphitheatre or circus, some entertainment put on for their amusement. Their minds and bodies had been corrupted by peace and security, by the luxury and vice of the city. If the Gordiani lost today, the people of Carthage would find that war was more than a show.

Looking straight ahead, the plain immediately in front of the jumble of walls and buildings around the commercial fishponds was empty. The right flank of the army was some three hundred paces distant. The main body, a solid phalanx of infantry, stretched away from Faraxen, running parallel to the aqueduct, and facing west. Its left wing was anchored to the villa of Sextus far off in the south.

Over eight thousand men, another two thousand armed with bows and slings out in front. If you did not know war, it would be impressive.

It was more than a quarter of a century since Faraxen of the Mazices had left the mountains of Mauretania to join the army of Rome. In his six years with the auxiliary cavalry on the northern frontier, he had survived pitched battles in gloomy forests when the Emperor Caracalla campaigned against the Alamanni and the Carpi. Back here in Africa, during the next two decades patrolling the desert, rising up the ranks of the speculatores, he had come through innumerable skirmishes and raids. Faraxen knew war; what it took, and what it needed.

Gordian the Younger was a brave man. Faraxen had served under him at Ad Palmam and at the storm of Esuba. Gordian was not a stranger to war. The young Emperor was aware that less than two thousand of his army were real soldiers. The rest were a rabble from the backstreets of Carthage, a mob unaccustomed to the makeshift weapons put in their hands. Gordian had taken his place in the centre of the line. Gordian must know that if his stratagem failed, he would die along with thousands of those who followed him. The death of his father and co-Emperor, Gordian the Elder, who watched from the gates, would follow not long after. Faraxen himself would be unlikely to survive.

Faraxen’s dreams had not been good, not since the Gordiani had been proclaimed emperors, not since he had renounced his military oath to the Emperor Maximinus Thrax. Last night he had dreamt that he was again in Mauretania. He had been riding through the lowland winter pastures of his tribe, hunting ostrich. He had worn a loose, unbelted tunic, and carried three javelins and a shield, with a long knife strapped to his left forearm; the fitting weapons and dress of a warrior of the Mazices. He had been well-mounted, and had a fine hunting dog. With no need for a bridle or reins, he had controlled the horse with just a stick. Yet, no matter how good his horsemanship, no matter how he urged the charger on, time and again, the ostrich had eluded him. As it ran its huge feet had thrown up many stones. These had struck hard into his face, chest and arms. When darkness came, Faraxen had found himself bloodied and alone in a meadow, looking up at the lights burning up in the mountains.

It was not the moment to dwell on dreams, not with the enemy so close.