The Oath Keeper

by Alaric Longward

  “You are an old man, Hraban,” Wandal said tiredly. “You should be dead. This revenge…look what happened to Thusnelda and Armin’s son.”

  I was silent.

  He shook his head. “They say Armin’s warlords swore to free her.”

  I nodded.

  “And since most of his warlords are dead,” Wandal said, staring at me, “I doubt she will be freed. Is she even alive?”

  “She is, I think,” I said. “Only Tiberius knows where Thusnelda and her son are.”

  “I hear,” Tudrus added, “that you swore the oath with the others.”

  I nodded. “I did.”

  “And have you—” Wandal said.

  I shifted in my saddle. “I have sent my brother to find her. She is hidden. If she is alive. You are right to fear for her.”

  “And will you—” Wandal pressed.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “They promised me, when I still worked with them, that I’d get to meet her. I do not know. I have other things to do right now.”

  “Freeing her would be a noble thing,” Wandal murmured. “But you rarely turn your head towards noble, selfless things.”

  I laughed softly and shook my head. “Ruining Rome is the best service I could do to all of Midgard.”

  “You do it for Midgard,” Wandal said, pretending joy. “Well, good!”

  I gave him a scathing look. “I’ll have my vengeance on Tiberius and the others. They have it coming. But Midgard is the beneficiary.”

  “His son,” Wandal wondered. “Is he a terrible man?”

  I rubbed my face and shrugged. “We are not friends. They are all bastards,” I told him. “Pompeia was right. That family is made from Hel’s own beasts. All beasts in human guides.”

  “Even their children?” Wandal asked.

  I cursed. “I don’t know.”

  “Antonia?”

  I cursed louder. “I hate them. I ask nothing of you, Wandal. You follow Decibalus. We will take the castra, and then you help him, your king, take Augusta. It is proper you serve a better man than I am. After all, he spares all the Roman children his army takes prisoners.” I spat. “Oh, I heard he does not take prisoners. And if he is anything like Blaesus, watch out.” We rode in silence for a moment, and then I managed to calm myself. “And if you have a feud against me, I will not try to dissuade you from taking your vengeance. I am exhausted. You can save Rome.”

  “Only Tiberius knows where Thusnelda is?” he asked. “Truly?”

  “Only he knows it, and Sejanus, no doubt,” I said. “Gochan is trying to find them. Has for a while now. I hope he is alive. Maybe he found a woman and got married.”

  Wandal snorted. “Not a bad choice, if he did.”

  “What’s inside the castra?” asked Tudrus. “Maximus is helping you? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

  I nodded. “I saw him this morning. Gernot set things up. Long ago. I have kept in touch. They have been paid, each ten gold. I am lucky Gernot made himself rich, eh?”

  “You are lucky he endures you,” Wandal said, and saw the strain on my face. “Oh, he doesn’t? No wonder. Maximus is there, a bought man?”

  “He is there,” I said. “And we’ll go in through the gates he will open. We will basically walk in. It is the tenth cohort that is holding it. Part of the Legio VII Claudia. New ones mixed with veterans. And some few hundred praetorians. Half marched out with the legion. A hundred Germani Guards, mostly guarding and scouting. The other Moesian legion will arrive in the morning. Drusus intends to lead it down on the Dacians then. Will be easy.”

  They looked unhappy.

  Killing Drusus would not be easy at all.

  Behind them, was marching a band of three hundred Dacian and Marcomanni mercenaries, and Tudrus had been placed at their head, and Wandal was obeyed him too.

  It felt sad, even after all that had happened, that I could not ride with them. Wandal said nothing further, as we marched, and my heart was aching from the distrust between us.

  But knew what I was.

  Never a Germani, always tempted by fates, gods, and my own greed.

  They were better off without me.

  In an hour, the troops swung west, slunk through woods, and there, at the edge of the woods, I saw a rider. He hailed us. His men slipped from the woods to him and had apparently kept him up to date on our progress. We had seen none of the men, Batavi all.

  It was Maximus and his men, out on patrol. Out to betray their masters.

  He saw me coming and shifted in his saddle.

  I stopped near him. He looked at me and then at Tudrus, who was seated on a finer horse than others. “You are the man to talk to?” he told Tudrus. “I have already spoke with Hraban.”

  He nodded. “Decibalus trusts me. You tell us what to do.”

  “We, it seems, are about to go home,” Maximus said darkly. “Our time in the Guard is over. We bring gifts. This camp. And Augusta. We can get you inside both. We’ll take the war chest too.” He frowned. “Wait, I know you.”

  “Tudrus,” I said tiredly. “Quadi king. Once. Deserter from the Guard, like the rest of us. Perhaps he’ll be a king again.”

  “No king,” Tudrus said sadly. “Just a warrior. How are you Maximus?”

  Maximus laughed stiffly. He shook his head. “I heard Chariovalda died.”

  I nodded and looked down. “I saw it. In the last battles. He died very well.”

  “I suppose you didn’t kill him?”

  I shook my head. Adalwulf had.

  He chuckled. “I reckon I had better not ask any further. And if there is an opening in the family rulership now, eh? I might go home. Let the Romans try to fuck with us up in Batavia. And now, for a while, I need to make some riches. I won’t go home poor.”

  “He is in there?” Wandal asked. “Drusus the Younger?”

  He nodded. “Waiting for the legion to arrive in the morning. They are still ten hours out.” He looked over our shoulders at the heaving mass of thousands. “A messenger came in, and Drusus didn’t look so happy. Was cursing. I suppose it is not important. In any case, the other legion is not here yet, and we will take the gate. Then, on to the praetorium.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Maximus.”

  He grinned as he turned his horse. “If there is one thing I have learnt though my years in the Guard, it is that you cannot trust anyone in that family we had guarded. Sejanus be damned. And he will be. This will not sit well with the Princeps. You were right about that. Let it all rot.”

  I smiled. “How many men did you have?”

  “Ninety-six,” he said. “Best men. And the praetorians have a hundred or two in the camp now, and the cohort, some six hundred, but they will be busy at the walls, thinking that is where they must go. It will be a butchery. And we must hurry.”

  Tudrus leaned down on his saddle, and a Dacian nodded as he spoke, going to convey orders. Men around us were getting restless, and then, Maximus raised his hand. “Be ready. Wish us luck.”

  I nodded. Tudrus was riding back and forth, as his men came to stand in lines behind him. They were fast and efficient, and their eyes gleamed with evil and greed, as they watched the castra’s shapes not too far.

  I watched Maximus ride with his men for the castra.

  “They have no guards out here?” Wandal wondered.

  Tudrus whistled softly, and when we looked, he nodded to a ditch right next to us. There, a pair of corpses, both with their heads twisted unnaturally to the side.

  Maximus was deeply committed.

  Behind us, hundreds of men were converging on the woods, no longer only those of Tudrus. There was chatter, there was noise, and there was jingle of armor, but the wind was on our faces and would not aid the enemy or warn it.

  The lights on the walls of the legion castra were burning forlornly, as if the place had been forgotten. There, guards would be stalking back and forth on the walls, and men would be huddling in their oiled cloaks. They would usually tear such a fort down before
leaving, but this time, they would be fighting a war nearby and had made it near permanent.

  Then, far in the Porta Principalis Dextra, the right gateway on the wall, a light shone. It waved around wildly.

  We heard shouts out there.

  “Ride!” Tudrus called out. “Ride like the wind! To the gates, and through them! Then, follow us!”

  We rode on a field of mud and sparse grass, and the night filled with the sound of our horses thundering like a storm for the Roman castra. Hundreds and hundreds of wild men, we surged forward, and the vallum of the castra grew high above us, the towers as well, and there was movement all along those walls. I saw men looking out, in the light of the Mani, and screaming warnings, though I could not hear them.

  I pulled my sword and then guided my horse for the gates.

  A trumpet began blowing, and the sound echoed across the land as they woke up the cohort in the castra.

  We rode hard, and then into the gateway, where men were still struggling, and many were dead.

  The gate guards had not died easily.

  A centurion was lying face down over a Germani Guard, his sword in the man’s gut, and two legionnaires had put down two guards with well thrown pila. Then, Maximus’s men had gotten the upper hand and had killed some ten men in and out of the area. There were rows of tents beyond, the leathery tents of the legionnaire squads. Some would be storage houses, other hospitals, and stables.

  The Via Principia opened before us, and the tents of the tribunes were arrayed to our right. At the end of the road, in the middle of the camp, I could see men rushing out of what was the Principalis, the small forum lit with torches. The Questorium, where supply officer conducted his business was also lit by lights, and guards were rushing around it, trying to see what was happening.

  Praetorium would be to the left of the Principalis, and we would take it all of it.

  I nodded at Tudrus, who rode past me, and pointed a sword at the tents far ahead. “Don’t stop for anything! We are here to kill a Roman commander. And this man, he has the best loot in his hall!”

  Nothing could have motivated the Dacians better.

  Their eyes were fixed with the mass of men around the central building, one of the few made of wood, and every man kicked their horse, and a wild ride of milling men surged down the road. We trampled down legionnaires. A half a century of terrified men stumbled from the direction of the granaries, surged to the road, and then we cut into them. The horses trampled them, rode them down, and spear and sword cut down to claim a young tribune and centurion who had been hovering near the tents. Men were trampling the tent rows when they could not fit into the road, others were riding in the night, cutting down men, and some men were falling to thrown pila. One such flew past my face, sunk to a fur-hatted Dacian’s side, and the man slumped on me in his saddle.

  I pushed him away and found his falx in my hand.

  I grinned and hung on to it, the long, forward curving killing blade familiar and warm in my hand.

  We were soon there, our eyes on the great wooden building, hastily erected in this temporary camp. I was sure it was built to give Drusus the Younger some comfort and luxury. His father would have slept amongst his men in the tents, but not so this man. His young child and wife were home, and the man was here to show Rome his ability in war; he would be terrified and pissing his pants this night.

  Hopefully, he would never piss again.

  Behind us, Decibalus was howling, his men spreading left and right to rip to the tents of the cohorts that were there, running for the granaries, stables, blacksmith, the baths, the barracks tents of all kinds. They would butcher the men in the hospital, and they would take each tower near the walls, one by one.

  The chaos of fighting amid tents would strip away all the discipline the legionnaires could usually rely on.

  Their howling was that of the wolves.

  And the lambs, the Romans, were screaming in horror.

  I kicked my horse into a greater speed and rode after Tudrus and his brother, after their men, all holding spears and hefting shields—wild haired, tattooed, armored here and there, with helmets and chainmail. I rode just behind them and felt my wounds were tiring me, making me weak, but I kept up.

  Before the Principalis, men were leaping from their saddles and jumping amongst praetorians who were rushing form the night to save their lord. One such, a man in dark armor, a centurion, was killing one of the Marcomanni, his blade deep in the man’s flesh. I jumped off my horse and hacked him in the neck, just under the helmet’s brim.

  The falx sliced through skin and into the bone.

  The man screamed and fell. I pushed past the men and rushed for the praetorium that was a separate building past the Principalis, my head swinging left and right. I saw Maximus, waving at me, his spear aimed at the praetorium’s walls ahead, and he led his men forward. I dashed after him, with ten ferocious Germani Guards around us, all grinning like they had shared a particularly good joke. One of them fell, a pila quivering in his flesh, another took an arrow in his shield, and ten legionnaires ran from the dark.

  Maximus roared, whirled, and smote down on one with his spatha.

  The blade struck terribly hard; it jarred into a helmet, through it, and broke.

  I hopped next to him, as Maximus pushed through and over the dying man for the next one, Woden whispering to me of death and rage. My falx chopped right and left, and men were left bleeding their lives out in the mud, often limbless. We were suddenly in a mad melee, chaotic and brutal, with praetorians rushing from the night to help their friends, and we were stopped just shy of the praetorium’s walls.

  And then I saw, over the heads of the desperate defenders, the praetorium’s front milling with panicked men. Scribes were running out. There were slaves, rushing to the darkness. A man, a medicus, I thought him, was running out, spilling his instruments, and then, with the legionnaires pressing all around us, I saw Drusus the Younger. The man’s stiff hair was sweaty, his face quivering with fright. He was cursing and pushing at his praetorians to the darkness.

  “Horse!” he was yelling. “My horse! Any horse!”

  The coward was leaving his troops.

  I cursed and let the battle rage take me. Desperation was the rage’s friend, and together, they drove me into a bloody butchery. I howled, hacked down a man, and whirled and attacked another. I killed that one, his skull in two pieces, then slashed into two men and pummeled my falx’s hilt to a face of an incredibly determined optio, a young bastard who was weaponless, but trying to grab me to him. He died, eyes rolling around in his head.

  I hacked, snarled, and sliced down a fat legionnaire, late to battle, and suddenly found myself without a foe, alone in the darkness, the battle behind me.

  I hopped around, shocked, and then saw Drusus jumping on a horse, not far at all, with few men around him.

  He kicked the horse.

  I was too late.

  I hissed and spat and saw a pila.

  I grasped it, lifted it, and ran forward. I tossed it hard, nearly cutting myself with the falx that was in my other hand, and still the weapon fell accurately, and the pila tore through the air to tear into the arm of Drusus. He howled, and two praetorians, both centurions, grasped his horse bridle, and rode for the Porta Praetorium.

  I ran forward and roared insults. “Come back, you whoreson! Come back!” I yelled.

  He rode away with the centurions and did not look back.

  I saw a scribe trying to pull himself up to a horse, and slashing around with the falx, I went forward.

  I hacked down a legionnaire and bashed into a weak line of them, their spears and swords stabbing at me far too late, and I pushed through them. Maximus joined me, roaring his insults at the young soldiers as he and his bloodied guards rolled over them brutally.

  I got to the scribe, who turned to look at me, and I rammed my falx to the man’s throat. I pushed him off and jumped on to the horse.

  “Hraban!” I heard Turdus calli
ng. “Stop!”

  I laughed and snarled and kicked the horse. It thundered after Drusus the Younger, and I saw him far, near the gates, which were being opened. I kicked the horse like mad, cursing it, and then saw guards turning, legionnaires, a dozen or so, trying to form their defensive line, listening to the rumble of Dacian attack across the castra, and they hesitated.

  They saw me but did not move.

  Woden or Lok, I did not know which one helped, or only plain luck, but I rode past them to the gateway. I rode hard, dodged a pila tossed by someone who had finally had the presence of mind to lob one at the unearthly monster, and hammered my falx on a skull of a young legionnaire blocking the open gate. He fell, howling and cursing.

  The horse forced its way through, and there, on a road east, for Augustum, I saw the bastard Drusus riding.

  I rode after him like a vengeful spirit.

  Tiberius’s whelp. The liar. The bastard.

  Tiberius could be hurt. Vipsania had been one way. His brother, once, yet another.

  His son, with Vipsania, the last way.

  Take the whelp away, and the dogs around him shall get brave. Take Drusus away, and Tiberius is a broken man. Sejanus will see young Tiberius Gemellus, Agrippina’s children he hates, and he will start thinking. Even Livia will not be able to stop him.

  And then, it is just a matter of time before I can see the chaos that follows.

  Tiberius and Sejanus would rip Roma apart.

  I kicked the horse and rode hard. I rode like the wind, and so did my foe.

  We rode for two hours, until I began gaining on them.

  One of the centurions seemed to say something, and then he stopped, pulling his sword.

  I snarled at him, and we rode together.

  I crashed past him, our swords ripping at each other.

  My luck was all spent back at the gate.

  My large blade cut to his arm, and half severed it. His slashed to the rump of my horse, and my horse fell, and I with it.

  I howled not with pain, but frustration as I fell. I rolled out of the way of the falling horse, lost my falx, got up, limping a bit, and went to the man, who was shaking his head, not fully conscious, trying to get up. I kicked him, pulled a gladius, and stabbed at his neck; he went quiet.