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If pleasure were an abyss, it didn’t have a bottoh the dark heat and dancing light, lost to herself, found again in his arh the clih the tre to free her hands so she could touch him, but he had her wrists pinned and held her there, at the s around his hips and thrust back at hiainst hihtened around hi hi hiht
Chapter 20
Matthias knew the greatest pleasure of his life in Jessa’s arh at first it took so, and permitted him to worship her with all the passion he felt As soon as he spilled his seed into her, he felt the glow of life beginning This day, this very first tiiven her his son
He opened his eyes to look upon her face, and instead saw the wilderness around hilassy with ice, stood as sentries and witnesses to what a few ently shrouding dozens of bodies where they had fallen Barbarians cut to pieces by blows fro the finest blades in the world Romans impaled on sharpened stakes and pierced by hundreds of hastily made arrows
Matthias didn’t have to count the dead He knew the name of every Roman whose body littered the ancient battlefield But he could not be here The gods would not be so cruel as to tear him from his lover’s arms and send him to this place He did not believe his eyes, not until he saw the lone, hunched figure of one of the fallen rise, stu for the throat of every Rodom of the dead
Tanicus peered at him from across the field, but Matthias knew he didn’t see him Still he tried to call out to hian to fly out of the forest But Tanicus keptwhite clouds in the still air, the blood fros with thin red streaks
Once more Matthias stood frozen in time, unable to move or do more than watch as the arrows came and struck the Ro out of their hiding places, and one who stood taller and strode with a different pace
The courier from Judea, the one who had been a centurion, now dressed in the furs and wools of Rome’s enemy
The courier went to Tanicus, who had been driven to his knees He lifted his fur-wrapped sandal and kicked the Roestured, and his creatures surrounded the Ro him of his cuirass and braces while the courier drew his sword "Have no fear I will give you a proper burning, and send you with your e as the traitor braced his foot against the strong neck of the fallen Roman and drove his sword into Tanicus’s chest Then he sahat the dying soldier could not: a border patrol charging toward the battlefield fro with fear, and tried to pull his sword froth, Tanicus reached up, grasping the blade with both hands, holding it in place
Out of time, the traitor barked orders to his one did Tanicus release the blade, his gashed hands falling on either side of his body, the bloody palms open to the sun
Matthias tried to close his eyes, but so would not permit it The patrol went into the woods after the barbarians, and the field becaain The sun raced across the sky, following theht settled over the battlefield Then two hands twitched, curled, and reached up to grasp the traitor’s blade a second ti it as a brace to push himself up He tore at his under tunic, and watched ide eyes as the wound in the center of his chest stopped bleeding and began to seal itself Still holding the blade, the Roered to his feet
Tanicus knelt by the body of one large Roman, rested his hand on the man’s chest, and led under his body He did the sa himself in their cloaks before he used a saddle blanket that had fallen to the ground to wrap up the sword He had to take it with him, for it was the only real proof he had that the courier fro his people to their ene toward the trail leading up into the mountains Matthias knew, as the Roman did, that the border patrol’s cah pass through the an to fall as Tanicus walked up the trail He pulled the cloaks tighter around himself and covered his head, but the storh places Soon the Ro ice, his head down, his arm clamped around the bundle that held the sword
He never heard the snow above hiulfed his legs The massive drift knocked him off his feet and pushed him into the boulders on the opposite side of the pass, where he disappeared under tons of ice and rock