Noon, II.

It came out of nowhere, as swift as a lightning hit. He could not even feel the contact, not on his head or the floor as he succumbed. A brutal mace blow to the temple left him teetering on the precipice of consciousness. Maybe he was already dead, or about to die. He wanted to think and realize what was going on, but the only thing that existed to him was an otherworldy excruciating ringing in his whole skull and a dance of heavily distorted images. Images that his eyes were registering, but made little to no sense. A poor vision thanks to the narrow slit of his eyes, clouded with pain, but they were visions. Unable to move even an eyelid, he was captive to the unfolding nightmare before him.

Within the confines of the tent, Marcus’ once-proud entourage faced the merciless wrath of Parthian steel. The air resonated with the sickening symphony of slaughter as Roman blood soaked into the parched earth once more. Once he was standing alone, tired and alone; Marcus, stripped of his dignity, became the centerpiece of Parthian sadism.

As the housecarl lay there, almost incapacitated, he strained to make sense of the cruel tableau to no avail. Nothing was making sense, not the hellish ringing or what he was seeing. The Parthians, reveling in their malevolence, forcibly “adorned” Marcus to wear cheap jewelry, turning him into a puppet for their wicked amusement. The housecarl’s heart seethed with rage, his helplessness mirroring that of his master.

Amid the torment, Marcus’ voice, now a tortured roar, pierced the air. The Parthians, unrelenting in their brutality, taunted him with mocking waves of laughter that seemed to make the very air vibrate violently.

“Look at the mighty Roman, reduced to a puppet!” a voice jeered.

“Does your greed taste like molten gold, Roman whore?!” another mocked.

The housecarl, though battered and disoriented, found himself gritting his teeth as he bore witness to the degradation of his master. The Parthians, with sadistic glee, poured molten metal down Marcus’ throat, a grotesque display of power and vengeance.

Amidst the gruesome spectacle, Marcus managed to utter his last defiant words between tortured gasps, “Rome will remember this day.” The only noise he could make became one with a dying lion.

It was the roar of Marcus that echoed louder than the ringing in his head, seemingly taking priority and control of his body. With an abrupt surge of strength and a silent vow for revenge, he rose from the ground. Adrenaline alone was in charge now.

If he could stop and think, he could maybe write books on things he wanted to do: avenge, kill, yell… Alas, it was as if he was watching himself from afar now, and it was the latter of the three he managed to do as he started moving like an enraged bull. In the darkened tent, he hurled the table towards his attackers who were, in fact, just as surprised as he was. Cries of pain echoed in the tent as the table crumpled to the ground, taking whoever was unlucky enough to be there. Seizing the moment, the housecarl, his body driven by a primal instinct for survival, darted out of the tent, leaving behind the tortured cries and the putrid stench of molten metal. The pursuit of escape, fueled by fear and fury, guided his automatic but desperate flight from the tent of horrors.

Noon, III.

The housecarl, driven by a desperate yearning for escape, threw himself on a horse tethered nearby. His whole body trembling, he managed to mount the steed, hoping to gallop away from the woeful tableau that had stained the fabric of the battlefield.

Fate, however, had other plans. Some attackers were already out of the tent and were getting closer with every breath. By the time he managed to spur the horse, a Parthian guard, wielding a mace dripping with malevolence, lunged at the housecarl with sadistic intent. It would make sense if he was the same guard who knocked him out in the first place, he thought as he viewed himself from afar. But “whoever” was there was far beyond his senses right now. The brutal mace found its mark in the housecarl’s legs, and with a powerful swing, it collided with his right knee. The impact was so strong that it tore through flesh and bone, leaving only a fragile veneer of skin to hold together the remnants of his calf and foot.

In his torment, the horse, also experiencing palpable terror, let out a distressful neigh. Summoning a surge of strength, it retaliated against the Parthian assailant. A thunderous kick from the steed sent the attacker spiraling to a gruesome demise. Flying high enough that people do not land and keep breathing.

The housecarl, teetering on the precipice of unconsciousness, galloped over and alongside his fallen comrades. The agony from his mangled knee radiated through every fiber of his being. The battlefield, a canvas of despair, echoed with the anguished cries of the fallen, the stench of blood, and the lingering horror of Parthian atrocities.

As he wanted to glimpse back to see if he had a tail, the trotting noise of his gallant steed immediately ceased. Now silenced by a merciless crossbow bolt through its skull, it was as if someone extinguished the life of the beast under him. Yet another fall to the ground, but this time on where the battle took place. Now crazed by his pain all the more, sensing his proximity to the Parthian tent cast a pall over his senses, and the air was thick with the tangible despair of the fallen.

In this moment of profound suffering, the housecarl clung to the last vestiges of consciousness. Surrounded by the lifeless and the dying, he bore witness to the relentless brutality of war, each gasp of pain etching itself into the haunting tapestry of the battlefield. Right beside his countrymen, he was just a body and a horse more.