Taking the applause, Gurgallo stood huge on the dais in the great hall, enveloped in the complete fur of a fully-grown black bear he had killed himself. This man-mountain with his long-plaited hair and voluminous, drooping moustaches agreed to lead the rebellion to the relief of all the Druids, on one quietly spoken condition, to which the priests had hurriedly conceded. Once all was agreed, this appointed Warlord made his first declaration to these vassals this night and turned to the Celtic King he had recognised on his arrival.
“King Tasgetios of the Carnutes!” He pointed the man out in the crowd. “Stand majesty and receive your rewards!” Gurgallo growled and the Celtic King rose from his seat where he had been holding boastful court. The minor king looked proud if a little confused as he made his way through the crowd, to a smattering of applause from a few pockets here and there. Tasgetios was portly, grey around the hair and beard but strutted forward in an old and threadbare Elk skin jacket and the cross-laced boots of his tribe marked him out. He didn’t look so happy a moment later, when Gurgallo’s fierce countenance blazed an unexpected outrage at him and two burly men gripped his arms. Unused to such manhandling, Tasgetios struggled and became indignant but the loud condemnation from Gurgallo above him, silenced his protests.
“This maggot has been Caesar’s dog for many years and undermined all our efforts in the wars against the Romans!” Gurgallo’s accusation of treason in the Roman wars caused an instant uproar among these Kings, Chieftains and Tribal leaders. “It was you Tasgetios, you were the treacherous rat who caused the entrapment of my King and the slaughter of all my people almost three years ago!” He pointed directly at the prisoner, who at that moment looked nothing like a king. Tasgetios began to protest his innocence but Gurgallo shouted him down. “LIAR! I saw you with my own eyes, as I escaped that death-trap and with the bodies of my men strewn everywhere and there you stood at battle’s end, talking calmly with a Roman Centurion!” He roared at the man and Tasgetios paled amid the mounting uproar, the grip on his arms tightening ominously, as no one doubted Gurgallo’s word as an eye witness.
“We burn traitors do we not?” The Warlord roared the challenge and the response was explosive, as more rough hands grabbed the disgraced king and squealing like a gelded pig, he was hauled over to the roaring central fire.
Many hands grabbed Tasgetios now and ropes were lashed around wrists and ankles, before he was spread out like a starfish and carried face-down over to the fire, where he was slowly and deliberately burned alive. The stench of burning hair and Elk skin was appalling in such a packed space but that was soon overtaken by the sweeter smell of roasting flesh. Their victim bucked and twisted as he was scorched all over his wriggling body, his broken screaming cutting harshly through the roaring and laughing of the crowd.
It took Tasgetios almost half an hour to die screaming and thrashing against his restraints, as his ring of executioners would move him around, in and out of the flames to prolong the agony but inexorably, his burned and blackened head slumped downwards. Oblivious, his scorched face hung roasting in the flames and so his executioners dumped his body in the fire with a great cloud of sparks and walked away without a backward glance, reassembling before the dais and their satisfied, smiling Warlord.
Excerpt from Iron Blood & Sacrifice (The Sacking of Bidog)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0792M7VPC
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