Ruin and Rebirth Read online

  LEGION

  OF THE

  UNDEAD

  BOOK THREE

  RUIN

  AND

  REBIRTH

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual people, living or undead is coincidental.

  Copyright 2018 by Michael Whitehead. All Rights reserved

  By this author

  Legion of the Undead

  Legion of the Undead – Book Two – Rise and Fall

  Legion of the undead – Book Three – Ruin and Rebirth

  Also

  Seas of Blood

  Mersey Dark – The Templeton Novels – Book One

  Find the author on Facebook, Instagram and on his website

  With thanks to everyone who helped me with this book and the previous titles in this series. I appreciate you all more than you can know.

  Special thanks to my wife Michelle and my sons Morgan and Lucas who have been very understanding and patient.

  FOR MY MUM AND DAD

  Chapter One

  The riders that chased Vitus and his friends across the open fields had disappeared when the Risen had taken up the hunt. They were raiders, men desperate enough to rob and steal from other survivors. However, they were not yet so desperate that they had given up feeding and watering their horses, and killed them for the meat.

  The bandits had lost men in the pursuit of the companions, falling to well aimed arrows but they had been determined. They had kept up the hunt until they had been forced to decide whether their prey was valuable enough that they would compete for them against the Risen.

  Now the hunt was one of the living against the dead. It had been close but salvation appeared to be just up ahead.

  The farm was small, no more than a few fields of wheat that shone gold in the afternoon sun. The house itself was only big enough to contain a couple of rooms and it shared a yard with a one horse stable. A plough lay on its side in the yard, looking more like the skeleton of a long dead warhorse than a piece of equipment. Nothing moved on the farm, even the birds seemed to have deserted the area despite the chance of free grain.

  Hakor and Garic were the first to reach the door of the farm house, they skidded to a halt and tried the lock. The door swung open without resistance and they glanced inside without entering.

  A Risen, ancient looking with bent back and thin wisps of white hair on top of her head, leapt at the door from the shadows. Garic stepped back in panic, too close to his attacker to raise a defence. She latched on to him like a spider on a wall, both feet off the ground. She gnashed at his face as he brought a hand up and pushed at her forehead. Her flesh stank of rot and the skin on her forehead slipped a little under his hand, making him retch despite his panic.

  Her weight was ripped of him, and he watched as Hakor threw her away from him into the yard. She tumbled and recovered quickly, spinning around to come back at them. Garic had time to raise his sword and swung hard as she leaped back in to attack. The blade was almost snatched from his hand as he found his mark, catching the first six inches deep in her skull. There was a splitting, snapping sound and her head opened like a rotten egg. He kicked her body away from him, feeling his stomach lurch violently. Satisfied that the room was finally empty, they turned to await their companions with swords ready.

  Garic’s wife Atia was first through the door, carrying their son Tulius in her arms. She hurried past the two men, holding her son’s head to the crook of her neck. The boy was crying, sharing in the panic of the adults around him. She placed her son down in the corner of the room and shook his arms from around her neck. He reached up to her, wailing, not wanting to be left.

  From the belt of her tunic, she produced a long thin knife. Turning towards the door she readied herself to be the last line of defence between the undead and her son.

  Chin Lee was close on her heels, pulling his mother Handan by the hand, hurrying her along as best he could. As they reached the door he let her enter and turned to face the direction from which they had just come.

  At ten years old he was the youngest fighter of the group but had proven himself capable in almost every way. Quick witted and slow to panic he would make a great man one day, if he was allowed to live long enough.

  Lee turned to Garic and then Hakor as he readied his own weapon, nodding to both. They stepped forward, making a further line of defence, leaving the boy behind them in the doorway. They were becoming a well drilled force, small but efficient. They understood that space, or lack of it, could be the difference between living and dying. Each member of the group watched the back of another, leaving room to fight, or run if necessary.

  The rest of the party was a distance behind. Regulus was the slowest member of the group and was unable to manage more than a fast walk. He hobbled along using a long, wooden staff as an aid. Wearing his usual hooded cloak, it was impossible to tell there was only a fourteen year old boy beneath. The final four members had formed an honour guard in order to keep him safe from the dozens of pursuing dead.

  Vitus sidestepped a Risen as it leaped in to attack, it landed hard, missing its target. He put a heavy foot on the back as it hit the floor. Without hesitation he stabbed his gladius into the skull and stepped away, ready for another attack. It came almost immediately but he dealt with it in the same ruthless manner. A young child, no more than six or seven years old, came at him from the wheat. It made to leap but the side of its head was split by the edge of Vitus’ sword before he even left the ground.

  To either side Gallus and Tatius, the two legionaries that had been with Vitus since he had left Germania, fought with practised speed. They swung and retreated keeping formation with Vitus, the three of them making a formidable wall of death.

  They didn’t run because of Regulus, but each step was made in earnest. They were fighters but that meant they understood that each swing of the sword might be their last. An attack from behind or one too many foes at the same time, and they would be finished. That was the thought that kept them alert and alive.

  They had all seen Antonius fall in Mutina, brought down by something as simple as a slippery patch of moss. One minute he was the strongest among them, the next a piece of meat, torn apart by the jaws of the dead.

  Lucia stayed close to Regulus, sword ready to stave of any attack that might threaten her love. In the weeks since they had left Rome she had lived up to the promise with a blade that she had shown during the hours of practice at Praetor Domitius’ home. She stepped backwards, dividing her attention between the foe that chased them and the possibility of attack from the sides.

  A Risen ran out of the wheat, almost on top of them before they saw it. Lucia moved toward it, two swift steps and jabbed her blade into its face. She jumped to avoid its twisting body as momentum carried it forward, finally coming to rest beside her. Stepping back over its still form, she re-joined Regulus.

  Together the group moved towards the relative safety of the farm house. As they did, Garic saw movement off to the left, he motioned to Hakor to watch the door while he stepped forward to cut off the attack of a female Risen. She looked like she had been middle-aged and running to fat when she had died. As she ran, the weight around her middle shifted from side to side.

  Garic dropped to one knee as she approached, ripping his sword into one of her knees. The blow severed the leg and the woman’s bulk dropped hard to the ground, spraying up dirt and grit. She tried to get to her feet, seemingly unaware of her missing limb, falling back to the ground. Garic got to his feet and approached the struggling figure. She snapped her teeth at him from her prostrate position before he ended her unnatural afterlife.

  Turning back to the rest of the party, Garic saw the size of the opposing force. At leas
t two dozen Risen were swooping down on Vitus and his formation. They moved like a swarm of insects, rolling forward in a wave. He fought against the despair that had tried to find him since they had left Rome, the idea that this fight was already futile. He did not, however, have the luxury of surrendering until his wife and son no longer needed him.

  He jogged back toward his friends, a leaner and fitter man than the one that had left Rome. Weeks of walking on a limited diet had left him slimmer than he had been in years and with muscles that had eluded him even in his younger days. He had tightened the belt around his tunic more than once since they had set out.

  Vitus’s blade scythed out and cleaved a Risen up from the neck to the opposite ear. It ran a couple of steps before flopping to the dirt. They were now in the yard and almost to the door. As they reached the farm house, the three fighters stopped to give everyone time to get inside.

  After a final stand against two incoming foes, the door was closed and locked. Before they had time to look out of the shuttered windows they could hear the undead hitting the far side of the door.

  “I swear they are getting quicker,” Lucia said between heavy breathes. She was already looking around the room, seeing what was there, assessing any threat that might be hiding. She moved to the window and checked the shutter was secure and strong enough to protect them. The room was small and the party of eleven people made it feel even smaller. Everyone was breathing hard and covered in a sheen of sweat.

  She moved to the door that divided this room from a second, toward the back of the building. It was a small bedroom and like the main room it had a dusty, desiccated smell. This place hadn’t been occupied in many weeks. She glanced under the bed and behind the door, better safe than sorry.

  “Regulus,” she called quietly. Almost immediately she heard the soft, knocking of his cane on the stone floor of the farm house. He appeared in the doorway, looking pale and weak.

  “Lay down on here, you look worn out,” she said to him, it was not a request but not quite an order either. It was a measure of how weary he was that he chose not to argue, instead lying down on the bed without even taking off his belt. As his head touched the bed he was already moving towards a fitful sleep. He moaned and sounded like he might be trying to say something, but soon even this stopped. Lucia fussed over him for a while, removing his road dusty sandals and placing his sword close to his hand.

  The Risen would not get in here, he was safe for a time, but they had all learned that you never left your weapon out of reach. The weeks since leaving Rome had been a mixture of shock and bitter experience. They had never imagined just how bad life outside the city had become.

  Finally she leaned his staff against the end of the bed, where he could reach it. The cursed thing represented everything she wished she could fix for him. The wound he had sustained in Mutina, the operation that had left him so vulnerable and weak. She hated the thing so much.

  A desolate wasteland had moved into the space, once occupied by the richest and most powerful empire in the world. Fields of crops were rotting where they grew, cattle that had not fallen to the swarms of Risen had died of starvation and lack of water. They had taken the time to butcher and dry as much meat as possible, making camp for eight days while Garic worked his magic. Now, they each carried food enough for a few weeks. It wasn’t a great diet but it sustained them between finding places like the one in which they now found themselves.

  People had been snatched from their lives so quickly that very often they left behind full food stores or even fresh clothes. The party had become scavengers, living off the leavings of the dead. At first Lucia had been sickened by the idea, but after a few hungry nights early in their journey she had quickly learned not to care so much.

  They had moved up through Italy slowly, so very slowly. Each mile was a fight. They fought the Risen, hunger, weary legs and each other. This disparate group had been thrown together but they had not been friends before the Risen had come. They had moments when they could no longer see eye to eye on things and temper spilled over. Never serious, the arguments had a way of clearing the air and their friendship was strengthened by these exchanges rather than broken.

  Lucia slid the door closed behind her as she moved back into the other room. She could hear the Risen on the other side of the door. If the group stayed quiet, the dead would eventually move on, they always had before. It would just take patience. Nobody spoke, not just because the silence was necessary, but because there was nothing worth adding to what they already knew.

  Atia was moving around the small cooking area to one end of the room, she had laid Tulius down in the corner, on her cloak. He slept soundly, exhausted but undisturbed by the undead just feet away from his head. She was searching a small storage nook for anything that might not have spoiled but there was little of use. There was a large pottery urn with a lid that held water. It smelled stale but Gallus volunteered to taste a mouthful and declared it drinkable. After the dust of the road, it tasted better than any water Lucia had drunk in weeks.

  “We may as well get some rest,” Vitus said to the room in a whisper. “It looks like we might be here for a while.” As if to emphasise his point, there came a fresh round of banging from the far side of the door.

  “I’ll stand first watch,” Hakor said. He moved to the door and crouched down low, sitting on his haunches. Garic nodded to the big Egyptian in thanks. The two men were as firm friends as if they had known each other for years. It had in fact only been a matter of a couple of months but these two men, from such different backgrounds, had done something that brought men together much quicker than time. They had fought together, they had killed together and they had saved each other's lives.

  “Keep an eye out for our friends on the horses,” Vitus said to Hakor. “If they show themselves, wake me.”

  Hakor nodded silently and put his eye against a small crack of light around the edge of the door.

  Slowly the party found space on the floors and scant furniture. Each trapped in his or her own private misery. The time in Rome had been a hiatus, they knew that now, a time away from the reality of the world. They had been shielded from the death and pestilence the Risen had brought down on them.

  Lee, younger and fitter than the adults around him, sat staring into his own mind. His blank eyes seeing nothing but the thoughts in his head. Lucia caught his attention and beckoned him to come to her. He picked his way between the sleeping figures on the floor, careful not to disturb anyone.

  She sat with her back to the wall and as he sat next to her she lifted an arm so that he might rest his head against her. He blinked at her, gratitude etched on his young face and buried himself against her breast. She stroked his hair for a moment and felt his breathing slow as he began to fall asleep.

  She sat in the dusty half light that split the room through the cracks in the window shutters. Outside she could hear the Risen, even now they were losing interest. They were becoming stronger and faster, of that there was little doubt. They were also losing some of the killer instinct that had made them such a formidable enemy in Rome.

  It took less time than ever for them to forget the existence of human flesh. They would soon wander away from this place, unaware that a meal was no more than a single thickness of stone or wood away, something Lucia and her friends were learning to use to their advantage. Scuttling like rats from one hiding place to the next, they had become the intruder in a world of the dead.

  No longer were the Risen the abnormality, the freaks. They had become the dominant force of nature in this part of the world and for the living to survive they would have to accept that fact.

  In the other room Regulus stirred. Lucia wondered if she should get up and quiet him, through fear of reawakening the interest of the Risen. He soon silenced, but she could hear him moving fitfully on the bed. She knew he was still having dreams, or visions, but he had stopped talking about them. She knew what they were about because he had told her after they had left R
ome, but he hadn’t mentioned them since.

  Those visions were the reason that they were heading north, although Lucia didn’t know how many of the party were aware of that fact. Vitus, as their unelected leader, had made the decision but Lucia didn’t think he had explained why, to the rest of the group. They just understood that they were trying to get to Germania, it seemed to be enough. What else was there?

  Somewhere up ahead, in the dark pine forests of northern Germania, Regulus believed that the cause of all of this awaited him. The visions had convinced him that destiny had put him in the path of this giant undead swarm. She didn’t know if that was true but Regulus did, and that was enough for her. She hadn’t seen what he had seen, but she loved him and trusted him, that was enough. She would follow him into death if that was what he asked of her.

  Until that day she could still dream, couldn’t she? She would continue to wish for a future where they were allowed to grow old together, to love each other, free of the menace that now stalked their every waking moment. It wasn’t much to ask, yet it seemed the most impossible dream in the world.

  Chapter Two

  The sea was cutting large curves of spray against the jetty as the captain of the quadrireme manoeuvered close enough to the jetty to raise the oars and throw out ropes. Men were standing on the stone platform waiting to catch and tie them off, in order to secure the ship that held their emperor.

  The sun beat down on the Spanish coast, making the day hot despite the rough sea and wind. Otho held on to a rope to steady himself and watched the men work to land the craft safely. Set back from the jetty the small town of Ampurias awaited the arrival of the most powerful man in the world with quiet dignity.