The Seven Hills by John Maddox Roberts Read Free Book Online

seemed like a place cursed by the gods. Their march from Carthage to Egypt, then down the Nile, had taken them only through cultivated land. The Nile Valley had been bordered by desert, but few of them had ridden out to see it. Now they had to cross this.
    From horseback, Titus Norbanus surveyed the prospect. Despite the heat, he wore his lion-mask helmet. Beneath the fanged upper jaw his face was fair, straight-lined and handsome. His eyes were intensely blue. The desert was daunting, but Alexander and his soldiers had faced worse. He felt that he and Alexander had much in common.
    "Fighting is one thing," Lentulus Niger said, "but this? Roman soldiers expect to fight. It's what they're best at. Not marching across sand and rock where the lizards have to take shelter from the sun."
    "We've never faced anything like this," Cato agreed.
    "Roman soldiers can do anything," Norbanus assured his subordinates. "Barbarians have lived here for generations. Can Romans not do anything barbarians can do?"
    "Little bands of wretched nomads scurrying from waterhole to waterhole with a few goats may be able to live here, after a fashion," Cato allowed. "But we have more than forty thousand men, plus all their animals. How are we going to make it through to the cultivated lands?"
    "We should have gone by sea," Niger said. "We could have commandeered the ships at Pelusium."
    "Carthage controls the sea," Norbanus said patiently. "Even preoccupied with Sicily, there are enough Carthagin ian warships prowling about to deal with some wallowing transports full of Roman soldiers. We would have to trust Greeks to handle the ships, and who can trust Greeks?"
    "Still," Niger said, "to undertake a march like this with out ships screening us and providing us with supplies as we go up the coast"—he made a gesture of futility—"it's court ing disaster."
    "Had we been able to march westward," Norbanus pointed out, "we would have done so. We discussed all this at our councils. Did you miss those discussions, Lentulus?"
    Niger fumed. "That was before we had a look at this place."
    Norbanus leaned on his saddle pommels. His subordi nates lacked vision. That was why some men led and others followed. Men who would lead must have vision. Men who would be truly great must have great vision. That was what separated men like Alexander and him from the common run of men.
    "For many centuries," he explained, "armies have crossed this desert to make war. Greeks, Syrians, Persians—they have all come this way to invade Egypt. The pharaohs crossed it the other way to take war to their enemies. None of them found this desert impassable."
    "Maybe it rained more then," Cato said.
    "And they went along the coast, supported by their ships," Niger maintained.
    "We are no one's inferior when it comes to planning and preparation," Norbanus said. "Before we begin, we will gather all the forage we can cut and bring it along on wag ons and on the backs of those smelly camels. We will bring water the same way, in bags. The men can carry all the rations they will require on their own backs. We can do this, and we will reach the other side in excellent shape. And we will march inland, away from the coast. I do not want to be observed by ships or seen from the coastal towns. I don't want anyone reporting to the shofet or to Queen Selene where we are."
    "Why the secrecy?" Niger wanted to know.
    "I like surprises," Norbanus said, smiling.
     
    Marcus Scipio studied the model with a critical eye. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before. He doubted that anyone had ever seen such a thing. If it resem bled anything else, it would have to be a bat, he decided. Its long, slender body was a framework of reeds thinner than arrow shafts, covered with a skin of parchment. Stretching from both sides were wings made of even thinner reeds, also covered with a skin of thinnest parchment. At its rear was a tail somewhat like a bird's.
    "Where are the feathers?" Marcus asked.
    "I tried