II

Lazarus lowered his sword down towards Krista's head, knowing that he would never truly strike her, but she simply raised her own wooden blade to block his attack.

"You have been practicing little one," Lazarus chuckled as she spun out to the side from underneath his blade and struck him against the thigh.

The skin on his leg tingled from where she had hit him. She was growing stronger, Lazarus thought with pride.

"I'm not little anymore," Krista chastised him as she took a step back and looked up at him, "I'm taller than my brother now."

Sensing that the session had drawn to a close, Lazarus stepped out of his fighting stance and gave a small bow, before he reached out and ruffled her hair, "You are still little to me."

For a moment Lazarus felt her soft hair beneath his palm before it disappeared. By the time he realised that she had ducked out from underneath his hand, Krista had raised her wooden sword and pressed the tip of it against his side playfully.

"Dead!" Krista laughed, her carefree voice infectious to all those who heard it.

Reaching down, Lazarus coiled an arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground until he was carrying under his arm, "Time for you to go home."

Lazarus ducked out the door of his hut and onto the street outside where the torches in the cradles now burned brightly against the dark night sky.

Krista sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, keeping a tight grip on her sword as she did so, "Can we practice again tomorrow?"

Lazarus barely heard her over the raucous which came from the next street but his focus was on the girl tucked under his arm that he paid no attention to the noise.

"Of course," Lazarus chuckled as he turned the corner and set her back on the ground, "You are my best pupil."

"I'm your only pupil," Krista reminded him with a smile and a nudge against his side.

Lazarus's lips had begun to stretch into another smile, it felt like he was always smiling when Krista was with him, when he glanced up and something at the end of the street caught his eye.

His brows drew together in confusion as his eyes took in the broken pottery that littered the street, the food that had been dropped in haste and the people that were running from doorways on either side of the street and filling the space in between.

Lazarus realised now that the people were not walking languidly like they did most nights but were running.

The noise he had heard was not the cheerful laughter he had assumed but terrified screams as men upon horseback came cantering down the street, the hooves of the beasts sounding like a war drum as they thundered against the cobbles.

They were not slowing down for the people in their path and that was when Lazarus saw the swords in their hands.

"Krista," Lazarus gripped her shoulders and pushed her towards the alley that led her home, away from the guards, "Go home now!"

Krista sensed that something was wrong and looked back at him, her eyes wide with fear, "But Lazarus-!"

"Now, Krista!" Lazarus shouted as the horses drew nearer.

He knew he should have gone with her but Krista was not far from home where they were and Ibicus would keep her safe, whereas Cardea and Patroclus had no one to protect them. He needed to find his family.

He waited there for as long as he could to see Krista turn and run down the alley, too small for a horse to go down, when one of the creatures cut in front of his path and he was knocked to the ground.

It could have been the horse itself or the boot of its rider which had knocked Lazarus to the ground, he did not know but he did not have the time to find out.

Scrambling to his feet, Lazarus did not look to see if he was being followed but turned and ran the way he had come.

He could not hear any hooves behind him but Lazarus kept running all the way to his home.

Charging inside, Lazarus knocked into the side of the table but he barely noticed the bowls that clattered around his ankles as he called Cardea and Patroclus's names, but his pleas were only met with silence.

He could not linger where they were not.

Heading back outside, Lazarus hurried up the street once more. Cardea had been at her sister's so that was where he must go.

His breathing was loud in his ears but it was not loud enough to drown out the sound of homes being destroyed, of children screaming as they were taken from their mother's arms or the sound of people dying.

Lazarus's feet pounded against the ground, his heart racing inside of his chest, as he reached the crossroads at the end of the street.

Glancing left and right, Lazarus froze as he saw great plumes of flame and smoke rising in the late night sky.

Buildings which had stood for longer than he had been alive were now being set a light, men and women running out of them screaming, cradling their heads to their chests for protection from the flames.

And those that had survived the flames ran out into the street only to be met with battalions of Roman soldiers.

Lazarus stood there for a moment and regarded the armour on their chests, the spears in their hands and the roman sigil on their shields as they marched down the street three men abreast and ten men deep.

"Lazarus!"

Lazarus snapped his head to the side as he heard his name being shouted.

"Praise the Gods, its Lazarus!"

To the side of the street, half crouched and half-standing, Orlandus was pressed up against the wall his skin charred black with smoke. His two guards nowhere to be seen.

Lazarus could only watch him as Orlandus tried to shuffle closer towards him for safety but his weight only forced him towards the ground, sweat covering his face like rain.

"It's Emperor Vespasian," Orlandus's voice seemed to scratch at his earlobes, "He's taking over my city! You have to help me Lazarus."

Lazarus frowned at Orlandus's words. Only a few hours previous, Orlandus had been at his home threatening him in front of Krista but now here he stood, weak and with a Roman army marching closer every second.

Soon even Lazarus would be caught up, and he still did not know where Cardea and Patroclus were.

Someone knocked against Lazarus's shoulder from behind him. Looking back he saw a young boy hurrying to get past him, his eyes wide with fear and reflecting the fire in the distance.

The boy raised his arm towards something behind Lazarus before he fled up the alleyway. More people were now passing Lazarus and he looked behind him to see the cavalry that had knocked him to the ground a few streets back.

"Lazarus?" Orlandus called weakly, his arm stretched out pleadingly, "Will you not help me?"

Lazarus's jaw clenched tightly as he made his decision fast and he took a step towards Orlandus, his arm outstretched. He could see Orlandus's eyes widen with relief when something barrelled into the side of Lazarus, carrying him up the street and away from Orlandus.

When he looked he saw that it was a crowd of people so packed together in their eagerness to escape that they formed an impenetrable wall.

Lazarus had to hurry to keep his feet underneath him or else he would be swallowed up and trampled to death. Looking back over the tops of heads that bobbed up and down like a wave, Lazarus saw the cavalry at the back guiding them slowly down the narrow street.

Up ahead the street narrowed and Lazarus knew that they so many people had no hope of passing through it without them becoming trapped.

Turning back to look ahead, Lazarus spied a small alleyway running off to the side. He knew that it ran to the baths and Cardea's sister, Dorothea, lived only a few minutes from the baths.

Pushing his way through the crowd until he was stood to the side of it, Lazarus allowed himself to be swept forward, his hands pressing against the wall until he found the opening which seemed to have disappeared from this angle.

Long moments dragged by in which Lazarus's chest started to constrict as the people were pressed together tighter than ever before, their voices wailing and shouting as they began to realise their situation.

It felt like they were going to be crushed to death, the line of cavalry at the back pushing them forward evermore, when Lazarus's hand fell through a gap giving his heart a small start.

Spotting a woman carrying a child close by to him, Lazarus grabbed her by the arm and pulled them into the alley with him

"Run," Lazarus gasped as he pushed them on, his shoulders almost brushing the walls of the tight space.

The woman cried as she ran with her son in her arms. Staying behind her, Lazarus looked back up the way he had come and saw the crowds passing by the opening like cattle.

A few people from the crowd that had been leaning against the wall for support dropped into the alley in surprise, their scared bodies lying on the ground for a few moments before they would scramble to their feet and run in the only direction they could.

When they reached Lazarus's back, slowed down by the woman in front, they would try to force their ways past but Lazarus was too big for them to slip past.

"Move, come on move it!" They shouted, pushing against Lazarus's shoulders in panic.

Lazarus ignored them and focused on the opening that came up fast.

"Wait!" he shouted, trying to reach for the woman's shoulder but his fingers brushed the fabric of her robes and she kept running.

She ran out of the alley and into the street, her head turning back and forth as she tried to think of where to go next, her arms wrapped around her child tightly.

Lazarus watched them with apprehension as the men behind pushed him forward, out of the alley and into the street.

The street was silent though not untouched by violence. Broken pots and piles of grain were scattered across the cobbles. Lazarus looked behind him and saw the dark smoke in the night sky, highlighted by small specks of orange flame.

They needed to hurry.

Lazarus began to turn his head when out of the silence he heard the protest of a horse being pulled tightly on its reins. His heart stopped for a moment when he saw a cluster of men atop horses further on up the street, their eyes turned on them.

"Go!" Lazarus ran towards the woman, about to push them out of the way, but he had barely taken a step when he heard the whoosh of arrows in flight, followed by the stampeding hooves of horses on cobbles.

The first arrow hit one of the men that had followed Lazarus, piercing through his thigh and throwing him to ground in a scream of agony.

The second arrow hit a wall and clattered down the street away from them. The third arrow skimmed Lazarus's shoulder as he ran cutting through his flesh before joining the ground. However the fourth arrow found its mark.

Lazarus sucked in his breath as he watched an arrow bury itself in the child's back until only the tip of the shaft was visible. A second later, Lazarus heard the impact of the blade against bone and he could only watch as the woman stumbled around on her feet for a moment, her eyes wandering unchecked, before she collapsed to the ground with her dead child in her arms.

He could see now that the arrow had gone straight through the child and pierced the woman's heart. There was hardly any blood and as they lay on the ground, wrapped in each other's arms, it could appear as if they were sleeping.

"We need to go!" The man grabbed Lazarus's arm and dragged him across the street, in front of the galloping horses, and down another side alley.

Lazarus's legs worked beneath him without him having to tell them to, the image of an arrow tying a mother and her child together stuck in his mind, and when he finally did look up he saw that he was passing the bath houses.

Cardea and Patroclus.

Lazarus steeled his jaw and focused on where he was going. Cutting through abandoned buildings and leaping through windows Lazarus and his companion, a slim man with a wirey physique, avoided the main streets with ease.

"Come with me," The man told Lazarus, his skin was dirty but beads of sweat had begun to make fresh trails down his face.

"I have to find my family," Lazarus panted.

The man did not say what he wanted to, that they were most likely dead, instead he reached out a hand and grasped Lazarus's forearm, "Good luck."

"And you." Lazarus watched him clamber out of a window and disappear down the deserted street; his figure only illuminated every few steps by the fire that still burned in torches.

Looking the other way, Lazarus could see Dorothea's hut, nestled in a cluster of similar huts. It stood almost forebodingly in the distance with no light or sound coming from inside.

Leaving the same way as the other man, Lazarus hurried across the cobbles layered with straw and dirt and pressed close to the walls of the huts.

Keeping quiet was impossible as Lazarus was eager to see his wife and child.

"Cardea? Patroclus?" Lazarus called as he neared the hut, no longer looking down the gaps between the huts as Dorothea's drew closer. He could almost taste Cardea's scent on his tongue, he was so close.

He was so close to holding her again and feeling their son safe in his arms.

"Patroclus?" Lazarus reached the hut. He peered in the window but except for a hearth burning low in the grate there was no sign that anyone had been there in a while.

Perhaps they had left, Lazarus thought.

"Cardea-" Lazarus walked around the front of the hut but froze when he saw the bodies that lay on the ground amongst the strands of straw which had been carried in off the street and from the farms.

His breathing was shaky as he stepped over the first body that lay face down in a pool of blood. It was a man and the back of his head appeared to be have been caved in.

Careful where to place his feet, Lazarus's heart began to beat rapidly in his chest as only a few steps later he was forced to navigate around another body. This time it was a woman lying on her side with her throat cut open, perhaps she had been the man's wife.

"Cardea?" Lazarus began to panic, shouting his wife's name as he turned in a circle, "Patroclus?"

"Car-" The breath left Lazarus's body when he saw the body of a woman on her side. He could not believe that it was her as he took a hesitant step forward.

Cardea had not been wearing blue when he had left her that morning, and her hair would have been braided back atop her head, not left to run free and drift in the wind like it was now. Cardea would not have-

Falling to his knees beside her body, Lazarus reached out a shaking hand and pulled back on her shoulder. The body dropped like a sack of potatoes against his knees, her head rolling to the side so that it faced him.

Dropping the wooden sword he had been unaware he was still carrying, Lazarus reached out and gripped her waist when he saw Cardea's eyes staring up at him, a small groan of disbelief leaving his lips.

No!

Lazarus tried to pull her against him, to let his body warm hers, perhaps there was still hope, but his fingers kept slipping on her robes. Crying, Lazarus lifted his hands and saw that his palms were covered in blood.

As he looked at his hands, something horrifying caught his eye behind Cardea's body. It appeared to be a bundle of cloth but when he looked closer he saw that it was the body of a small infant lying face down on the cold ground.

Lazarus saw the boy's black hair, matted with blood.

"Oh please, Jupiter no!"

Hurrying around Cardea's body, Lazarus pulled the boy's body into his lap, his hands smearing blood across his smooth skin.

"Please no," Lazarus sobbed quietly as he examined his son's body and saw that he appeared unharmed but he was deathly cold.

He could have been sleeping for all Lazarus knew, but he felt his head give way and saw the unnatural angle at which his neck lay.

Lazarus rested his head against Patroclus's unmoving chest as great sobs of pain tore their way out from deep inside his body and filled the air with his torment.

"I am sorry," Lazarus cried as he shifted Patroclus to lie against his arm and reached out his other to touch Cardea's hand, "I am so sorry. I was too late to save you."

Unable to contain his grief any longer, Lazarus threw his head back and screamed. He screamed until his throat ached, and then he screamed some more as he held his son's body tight against him.

He screamed until he could not scream any longer and then he sat with his hand inside Cardea's whilst he rocked back and forth with his son's limp body in his arms, praying that the Gods would give them back to him.