“There you are. I wondered what had happened to you,” Marius said as his friend made his way towards him down a less imposing street with smaller, somewhat ramshackle houses.
“It’s getting dark already, that’s strange,” Junius noted. “Maybe we should think about staying. Are there many people here?”
Marius nodded. “They speak Aramaic, but it’s a different dialect, so we’re having some issues communicating. There’s a whole community, but they’re wary and very poor.”
Junius wasn’t interested in the state of the people. “Have you told them that they’re now part of the Roman Empire?”
“I have, but it didn’t mean much. They’ve never heard of Rome. Food would mean more to them.” He sighed seeing Junius’s face. The army made you hard and it was no place for sentiment, but when you had little ones of your own in the towns that grew up around the forts, then you couldn’t help but have compassion for the plight of others. Junius didn’t have that; his heart was as hard as the steel of his sword. “Some men have gone to get us water and then they say we should be on our way and leave before nightfall.”
Junius had been surveying the rundown houses, but now turned back. “Do they say why?”
Marius shook his head. “No, but they were most insistent on it. I think we should.”
Junius raised his eyebrows and smiled in amusement. “I’m curious, Marius, when did the sun fry your brain? Why leave shelter and water to camp out in the desert?”
Marius sighed. His friend, like so many patricians, could become an arrogant, condescending bastard when he was annoyed.
Marius shuffled his feet, unwilling to speak of the irrational fears that had plagued him since before they’d even set foot in this place, then he remembered that Junius would also use sarcasm to mask his own doubts. He looked up and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the sun went behind the mountains and a grey twilight descended.
“Looks like we don’t have much choice now. I’m certainly not going back out into the desert in darkness,” Junius said looking around the city as the purple light deepened and the shadows lengthened.
“That was somewhat sudden,” Marius remarked as the temperature rapidly cooled and he felt the chilling bite in the breeze, which only moments before had been pleasantly cooling against his hot skin.
“The mountains will do that. Where are these people you were talking about?”
As if they’d heard him, the door of the nearest house opened and a number of shabbily dressed locals poured out and surrounded both men and began to pulling at their clothing and calling urgently to them. Marius could see that Junius was becoming annoyed and was fighting the urge to draw his sword as they chattered to him in their language and plucked at his tunic whilst pushing him towards the door of the nearest house.
“What are they saying?” he shouted above the noise.
“Something about getting inside,” Marius yelled back.
“But you said that they were telling us to leave?” Junius countered angrily as he tried to fend off the people.
“I’ll ask…” Marius began, but stopped when a screech sliced through the air. Instantly the hands dropped away and the insistent voices quieted, but both their horses panicked, then broke free from their tethers and bolted into the city.
“Please, you must come inside now,” an older woman said to him in the stillness.
“What’s that noise?” Marius demanded, ignoring her request.
The woman continued to plead with him, but visibly winced when the ungodly shriek echoed once again through the silent columns.
“Ask her what it is,” Junius demanded. He was alone again as the people who’d been surrounding him had scurried inside the houses. But the young Roman wasn’t scared, there was something physical he could deal with now, and he was ready to confront the cause of the unholy racket.
“I have, but she won’t say, only that we should go inside,” Marius explained then added, “Maybe we should?”
“Ask her again.”
Marius bit his lip and once again addressed the woman who was clearly worried. In return she reached for a cord at her throat and pulled it to reveal a strange stone. She clutched it tightly and told him that they should come inside and stay with them as the city was no place for strangers to be at night. Marius tried again, but she shook her head and covered her mouth with the stone amulet and whispered what seemed to be a prayer into it.
Hopelessly Marius looked back at Junius and shrugged. The young Roman glared at him, then drew his sword and strode off into the darkness. Marius watched him disappear, knowing that his duty was to follow, but everything was telling him not to. Junius was a good soldier and a fine officer, but he could never back away from a fight.
Next to him the woman said something and he turned back at her.
“I have to go with him,” he told her, gesturing after his commander. To his surprise, she didn’t protest any further but still clutching the amulet around her neck she muttered what he assumed was another prayer, then when she’d finished, she reached up and touched his forehead.
“May your gods protect you. We’ll look after your horses for a moon, after that, you won’t need them.” She waited a moment longer then with a last unhappy look she turned and went into the house.
As soon as she was inside, the door shut firmly behind her leaving Marius alone in the darkening city.