Last of the Ninth by Stephen Bennett
Can the dead hold sway in the realm of the living? In second century Rome a legion five-thousand strong has been annihilated in circumstances that are more than mysterious. Vanished with them is an operative of the Imperial Secret Service who holds the secrets of a deadly conspiracy. Decimus Malorix, “the Emperor’s assassin” journeys eastward to track down the missing agent. Led on his journey by the ghosts of a dark present and a darker past, he moves inexorably toward a final confrontation with the Reaper, the terrible spectre that haunts the last survivors of Rome’s infamous Spanish Legion. This is a novel about one man’s redemption and the dichotomy between scepticism and belief.