We retraced our steps through the maze of tunnels, carrying stolen secrets and the weight of what we had wrought. It was a longer journey out; exhaustion tugged at our limbs, and we bore an injured comrade on a makeshift sling. Still, we moved quickly, urgently, like a vein of smoke threading back through cracks in the earth. Above us, the muffled roar of battle was shifting in tone. I could make out faint echoes of shouting that were less organised more panic-stricken. No doubt word was spreading among the Carthaginians that something was amiss. Perhaps messengers had found the generals' bunker—perhaps not yet. Either way, their cohesion would falter. The legions at the walls would sense it soon and press the advantage.
Our path led us up through an ancient aqueduct shaft. The Greeks had cut it centuries ago, lining it with brick, now slick with moss. We ascended one by one, climbing iron rungs that groaned softly. Halfway up, I paused on the ladder and closed my eyes, catching my breath. Through a narrow vent to the surface, the cool night air wafted down, carrying with it the smell of smoke, blood, and something distinctly sweet—the perfume of crushed wild olives and charred timber. Agrigentum was burning in places. The city I had known first as Akragas in another era was seeing yet another violent dawn. The layers of its history weighed on me then: Greek tyrants, Carthaginian governors, now Roman conquerors. How many wars had washed over these stones? How many times had these tunnels echoed with the last breaths of the dying? Too many for any mortal count. And I, cursed soul that I was, had been here before in one form or another—if not in body, then in memory.
Images flickered through my mind as I clung to the ladder. I recalled reading of the great Sicilian wars of old, battles I almost felt as if I had witnessed. I could smell the ghost of burnt offerings at the long-abandoned Temple of Zeus above, and the salt tang of the sea breeze drifting from the distant harbor. Agrigentum's very dust was a sediment of tragedies. Now I had added my own dark stroke to its saga: two more shades to wander its underworld halls. Would anyone remember their names centuries hence? Or would they only whisper of the faceless terror that butchered them unseen?
A hand touched my boot, jolting me from my reverie. Kesseph, just below, murmured, "All well, Tenebris?" He was checking why I'd halted. I realised I had been still a beat too long.
"Yes," I whispered back. My voice floated oddly in the shaft, flat and hollow. I resumed climbing. "Onward."
At last, we emerged outside the city walls through a dry drainage culvert hidden behind thorny scrub. Night had fully fallen; the stars themselves were veiled by a haze of smoke. In the distance, toward Agrigentum's main gates, I could hear horns blaring—Roman horns. Victorious shouts in Latin carried over the wind. The southern gate was taken; even from here I could see the glint of Roman torches moving atop a section of wall that had been held by Carthage earlier. The timing had aligned almost perfectly. With their leadership decapitated from within, the defenders' lines must have buckled. The eagle standards of the Republic would be flying inside Agrigentum's streets by sunrise.
We slipped like wraiths back into our own lines, which had advanced to the breached walls. Fellow Romans gave us wide-eyed looks as we passed—our armour and cloaks smeared with grime and blood, the dark insignia of the eclipsed sun on our shields unmistakable. The Umbra Cohors. Many signaled the war salute or bowed their heads with uneasy respect, but none dared speak to us. We were heroes, perhaps, but of a sort best kept at arm's length. I caught snatches of their whispers after we passed: "They've been under the ground, look…", "Jupiter's mercy, are those our men or spirits?", "…told you he'd come back alive…"
Back at our perimeter, I gave the order to disperse and tend to the wounded. The men nodded and filtered away into the shadows of our tents, leaving only Kesseph and me standing beneath the tattered banner of the Umbra. The banner bore no proud animal or thunderbolt like other cohorts, only a circle of black cloth on a field of gray—the symbol of the devouring eclipse. It hung limply now in the still night air.
Kesseph set down the satchel of captured maps at my feet. We stood a moment in silence, listening to the distant victory cries and final clashes echoing from the conquered city. The moon had risen pale and swollen above Agrigentum's silhouette. Its light spilled over the ruins of battle: heaps of smoking rubble, collapsed siege engines, and sprawled bodies on the plain. Crows were already gathering in hungry flocks, black against the moon.
"You should report to Ruso, or the Consul, before dawn," Kesseph said quietly. He was one of the few who would break silence around me without being spoken to first. His voice was weary but held a note of pride. "They'll want to hear of our success. And these maps… they could turn the tide in all Sicily."
I nodded absently. "I will. In a few hours." My gaze was fixed on Agrigentum. Fires glimmered here and there in the city—torches of Roman patrols, no doubt, securing the streets. Somewhere in that maze of stone and history, Laelia would be scribbling down the account of this day by lamplight, her quill scratching away in that secret journal of hers. Perhaps she'd wonder if I survived the tunnels. She would know soon enough; news of our strike would spread quickly among command.
Kesseph studied me for a long moment. I could feel his eyes on the side of my face. We had fought back-to-back in slaughter and shared countless hard nights, and he had earned the right to speak freely. "We lost three tonight," he said in a low tone. "Lucius, Pavo… and the young one, Sextus. Good soldiers."
"Good men," I corrected softly. In my mind, I saw each of their faces as they had been before the mission—laughing at some joke over their stew, or sharpening their swords by firelight with steady, nervous hands. I force those memories to stay sharp; I never wanted the dead to fade into mere numbers. "We'll see them properly honoured." We both knew no songs would be sung for those who died in secret, but within our own ranks we would remember. I felt the familiar heaviness settle in my chest—a sensation I had lived with for longer than anyone could guess. The weight of surviving when others did not. Always surviving, whispered a bitter voice inside me. Surviving, no matter the cost. That is my curse.
"You're hurt," Kesseph said suddenly, touching my arm. Only then did I notice the warm trickle under my sleeve. During the duel, Hasdrubal's blade had nicked me high on the left arm, cutting through a joint in my armor. A thin gash, not deep at all, but it had bled freely down to my wrist. In the haze of action, I hadn't even felt it. Now the area throbbed dully.
"It's nothing," I said. Already the bleeding had slowed. The wound would close long before dawn; by tomorrow there might not even be a scar. I tore a strip from a fallen Carthaginian's cloak we'd carried back and bound it tightly around the cut to hide it. Kesseph frowned but said nothing more. He had seen enough of my inexplicable endurance not to press the issue. Still, I caught the glint of concern in his eyes.
"There will be other battles," he ventured after a pause, almost in a sigh. "Hannibal will send another army, or the city militias will resist… Sicily is not won yet. We should let the men rest while they can."
"Yes," I agreed, though my mind was far from thoughts of rest. Truth be told, I dreaded the quiet moments after the fighting ended. In combat I found focus, purpose—however grim. But in stillness, the questions came. And tonight, the questions swirled like a maelstrom in my head.
Kesseph clasped my shoulder briefly. "Try to get some sleep yourself, brother," he said, using that fraternal term he'd adopted long ago for me. "I'll stand first watch." Then he left me alone, melting into the darkness with the others. Ever loyal, ever watchful. Perhaps the only true friend I had in this world. I watched his silhouette disappear among the tents.
Alone under the moon, I inhaled the scents of victory and ruin. Smoke, blood, salt, dust… and underneath, something like decay—maybe from the catacombs still clinging to my nostrils. The sweetness of the olive groves had burned off, replaced by war's stench. Agrigentum had fallen; the Roman camp behind me was beginning to buzz with celebratory whoops and the relieved laughter of men who lived to see another dawn. Yet here I stood, feeling not triumph but a hollow fatigue clear to my bones.
I picked up one of the captured scrolls that protruded from the satchel and unrolled it slowly on a flat rock. It was a hand-drawn map of Sicily, annotated with Carthaginian positions and supply depots. To any Roman general, this information would be invaluable. To me, it was expected—a logical complement to victory. But as I stared at the ink lines tracing the coasts and hills, I found myself searching the margins for something else… as if the map might also contain the answers to the riddles life had posed me. Answers to my curse. Of course, there were none. Only battle plans and scribbled notes about grain shipments. I let the parchment roll closed.