Enemies No More: a story of love, loss and rescue

"Countless times we had faced death in battle. Our troops were often outnumbered, our leaders weak, the enemy fearsome, the weather foul, the footing treacherous. Death was always about to call our name. But in those battles, we depended upon the person near us to protect us. Our own strength and valor would save us. The battlefield was a circumscribed world far from Rome and if we fell, no one in our families would be deprived of life, only us. Now the battlefield was a stone's throw from our homes and if we fell, our families went down also.... I remembered how Julia had once saved Lucius and how he now sought to save her. I thought how Julia had once saved him and now was about to destroy him. As I drank the wine, I grew more certain this battle would be one we should not expect to survive. We were in a land with no signposts, no scouts to tell us the way ahead. We were alone. All was unseen, as dark as the wine I drank, undiluted and overwhelming my senses. Then, as the light faded and evening came on, I looked out at the street and saw a black horse being lead down the street, by the arbor. For a moment, I thought the horse that died on the road was alive. It stopped and turned and looked at me briefly. Its eyes seemed to glow ruby red in the twilight. Its nostrils flared as it took in my smell and calculated my demise. Its handler was familiar. In the shadows, he turned to see what the horse was regarding. It was the tax collector from the road. He looked at me and perhaps smiled, a small gesture that seemed serpentine in the gathering shadows. The horse looked fixedly, unmoving, assessing. It stared and the its lips moved back from its teeth. They shone in the twilight and seemed a smile. Finally, the horse or the man snorted and they moved on, the man's blood red hand holding the bridle. In the cold I shuddered. I drank more deeply, draining another tankard quickly. My thoughts turned back to Nero's garden and in the gathering night, as the tavern owner went about lighting torches, I thought I saw faces in the fires, as the torches became crosses and the victims were faces I knew all too well. Their mouths moved, perhaps speaking, perhaps crying out. And I heard the terrified screams of ten thousand people clinging helplessly to marble statues." Can one warrior defeat an empire? The year is 68. The Roman empire teeters on chaos as civil war looms. Nero pursues the followers of the one called Christ while restless legions plan revolt. Lucius, the disillusioned warrior, and Tychon, his crippled brother, leave the battlefields of Judea on a quest to rescue Lucius' wife from Nero's murderous rampage. Lucius arrests scores of Christian believers and their leaders, and sets out to deliver them to Nero's fiery crucifixions to deliver his beloved Julia. He has fought for the Empire in the cold and wet battlefields of Britannia and Gaul and the barren desert of Judea. Now he must fight against the Empire as it seeks to imprison and kill his wife, who has converted to this new religion. Amid the storms and cataclysms that erupt during his journey, he wonders if he can surrender these kindly people to certain death. And can his brother's growing love for one of the young women in chains survive the violence ahead? From the sunny cities of Ephesus and Corinth to the filthy, treacherous streets of Rome, long buried hatreds resurface and vie with newfound hope and love for each of the brothers. The prisoners include the most important leaders of the infant religion: Timothy, Barnabas, Lydia, Apollos as well as Claudia Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate. At Rome, Lucius learns he is not just the pursuer but also the pursued. An infamous figure from the past seeks Lucius' death, even as his Christian prisoners seek his redemption. The battle is underway, for his family and for his soul.