Fists of Iron: Barbarian of Rome Chronicles Volume Two Read Online Free PDF Page B

been poor, and, when his father who was a fisherman was drowned in a great storm at sea, his mother had sold him to a house of whores in a city named Alexandria after a great conqueror. Following his father’s death, his mother had been unable to feed her three sons, and Mensah was the youngest. He was twelve summers old when he entered the house of whores, and he was quick to learn the skills that pleased some men. Later, the owner had later fallen on hard times and sold off all his whores to the highest bidder. The following spring he’d arrived on Roman shores. Unfortunately for Mensah, his company of slaves were sold as one group to the sulphur mines at Solfatara.
    Their time together had been special to Drilgisa. The awful reality of complete isolation from the outside world was softened by Mensah’s nearness and their ability to talk to each other. Mensah taught him many things about the Roman world and the Romans themselves. It was the first time that Drilgisa had cared for another person in any way since his mother died, and even those early memories were muddied by the cruel years that followed under his father’s brutal hand.
    He’d known early on that Mensah was weak and that he’d not last long without sustenance, without meat. He clearly remembered the times that he’d coaxed the youth to sample small pieces of flesh. Mensah was unable to do it.
    He recalled how later Mensah had tried to hide from him the blood he wretched up, but the signs were clear to Drilgisa, he’d seen them so often. The little weight he carried fell from him, and his dark eyes sank deep into his head. His once olive skin took on a grey pallor, and towards the end he could barely lift his sack of rubble onto his back.
    Then one morning Mensah did not come and Drilgisa knew that he would not see him again. Mensah’s death left him with an aching sense of loss, an empty feeling that sat alongside the cold bitterness that already lived in his heart.
    Letting out a great sigh, Drilgisa took out the sharpened stone from his loin cloth. Twisting his body half around he scratched a fresh mark on the wall below the forest of marks already there.
     
    The sun was a hazy, red orb in the sky, just setting as Drilgisa viewed the horizon.
    Not used to the light he squinted at his surroundings. He’d not viewed the world in sun-light since his arrival at the mines, with his trips to the surface always being at night. His eyes rebelled, squeezing out moisture that ran down his face. He licked his cracked lips welcoming the tears, tasting the saltiness and the dirt. He looked all around.
    For many leagues in every direction the vegetation had been was killed off by the poisonous smoke and vapours from the mine’s smelters, and the whole countryside was blotched and scabrous. To Drilgisa it appeared as if the land itself was diseased and dying. It was the forbidding place of bad dreams.
    The guard who’d escorted him to the surface unfastened his hand irons. A second guard drew near and briskly ordered him to strip and wash his body, using a clean pale of water and a stiff horse brush. Already puzzled by his trip to the surface, he began to feel increasingly perturbed as he went about his ablutions.
    The encrusted grime came away in grey lumps as he scrubbed his body. When he began to scrub his face one of the guards waved him to stop. With a small, sharp blade the guard proceeded to cut the beard from his face. He felt the blade cut his flesh as the guard yanked away stiff clumps, before hacking off his long matted hair in a similar manner. He shivered in the evening air, savouring each breath that was so different to the stifling filth he breathed under the earth.
    Trimming complete, the guard dosed his head and shoulders with the water left in the pale. He was then handed a coarse rag to dry himself, and a fairly clean loin-cloth to change into. A cold breeze washed over him as he changed, causing little bumps to rise up on his balls. It felt