by Barry Sadler
His reluctant companion had been of a like mind and took the first ship at the loading dock, a fat over-aged trader with a single mast that was already far overloaded with human cargo. Casca had everything he owned on his back and was a little surprised when the Gothic officer handed him a pack. From the feel and shape of it, Casca knew that Alaric had planned on his departure before their conversation on the walls. Inside were various items of weaponry including his sword and a set of barbarian armor consisting of a well-used breastplate and a simple cone shaped helmet with a nose guard. Casca approved. The armor wasn't nearly as valuable as those of the praetorians, but where he was going, it would probably be wiser not to wear the colors and armor of Rome. This was the day of the barbarians and the world of Rome had shrunk severely.
The captain of the trader started to voice his protest at being forced to take aboard a passenger for no charge, but after the Gothic officer dangled him by his heels, head first, off the dock for a couple of minutes, the captain quickly became more reasonable. One thing about barbarians, Casca decided, was that they tended to settle arguments with as little bother as possible, believing in the direct approach to a problem.
Casca forced his way on board ignoring the captain's dirty, if soggy, glances. He really didn't care what anyone thought. He was drained emotionally. Rome was dying. He knew it had to come sometime but it was still a shock to witness the first enemy occupation of the Imperial City.
The captain of the trader was finishing the last of his haggling with the head of a family of merchants who now carried all they owned on their backs. In Rome they had left their fine home and gardens behind with all their furnishings. They were in abject terror of the rough hairy barbarians that stabled their horses in the Senate. Casca caught a look at the merchant's wife and daughter and thought the man had little to worry about as far as his women being molested by the savages.
It was shortly before midnight when the trader set oars to row past the tide and out onto the open waters. Casca picked a place near the stern and looked back. In the clear sky there was a glow on the eastern horizon. The fires in Rome were still burning. He felt a coldness in him that came not from the sea mist. It was a chilling of the spirit. If this were not the last chapter of Rome, he knew the final one could not be very far away.
He wished Vergix well and for the most part the same for Alaric and his dream, but he didn't think the world was ready for a joining of the two cultures just yet. Perhaps one day it would be. Then Alaric's hopes for a new vital civilization could become reality.
He was still in the same place when sunrise came huddled in the stern, his cloak wrapped about his shoulders, squatting on a coiled length of hawser. The decks were packed to overflowing with people. He thought them fools. Where could most of them go? The world didn't belong to Rome any longer. Most of them would end up as slaves for the new masters. Even Spain was feeling the presence of the tribes who had moved over the Pyrenees into the warmer lands of Iberia. There was nothing to stop them; perhaps there shouldn't be.
The captain started to approach his uninvited guest a couple of times to see if he couldn't get some form of payment from him, but changed his mind when the gray blue eyes looked at him as if he were already a dead man. He left Casca alone. The slow wallowing tub made port at Messilia four days later and off loaded its cargo of terrified humanity. Casca walked the gangplank to dry land, leaving the refugees to their own devices. He stopped only to buy a few items he would need a cooking pot of copper, a few strips of smoked meat and a spear. The merchants were driving the prices up, for since the influx of refugees, they were able to sell their wares for whatever they wished. Casca, however, paid them what he thought the items were worth, silencing any protest by touching the hilt of his sword. That combined with his barbarian dress was enough to put a halt to any objections.
Once his acquisitions were secured in his pack, he left the walls of Messilia, not caring which road he took as long as it didn't lead to Rome. Here in southern Gaul the barbarian presence wasn't very evident. There were still some cities that had an uneasy truce with the tribesmen and Roman officials still administered the laws in their reduced domains.
The next few years found Casca's feet taking him from one country to another Spain to Africa and back. It was easy to find employment; there were always those who had need of a strong sword to protect their goods. Empires might fall, but the business of commerce would always go on. The barbarians more so than the Romans had need of many items they couldn't make for themselves. Casca spent most of this time protecting those cargoes for a few coppers a day.
He was returning from a caravan trip to Hippo Regius when he heard Alaric had died of a sickness. He wondered what would become of Rome now. Alaric had become the shield of Rome. He had left most administrators in place to run the business of government. He even left the Romans an emperor in whose name he commanded what remained of the Roman legions. Alaric had been master of Italia but refused to claim the crown of the Caesars. Now that he was dead, who would take his place?
Casca decided that it didn't make any difference; what would be would be. He was tired of it all. He turned to the north toward the Rhine, heading against the flow of the migrating tribes. He was letting his instincts lead him even as he was ferried across the river barrier which had separated the barbarians from Roman Gaul for hundreds of years. He was going back to the northlands, drawn, as some birds unconsciously were, to take wing and return to some distant place to rest before it was time to fly again.
To any casual observer, he appeared to be no more than just another of the thousands of wanderers that were looking for work with their swords. The ragged furs and clothes he wore made it unlikely that any would try to rob him. He had nothing of value on him save some coins, and his sword, and any who watched knew that the price of getting their hands on the blade would be more than the piece of steel was worth.
Casca's beard had grown full, covering his face; a robe of bearskin draped over his shoulders reached nearly to the knees. His tunic was almost worn out with age and wear. The blue dye had long since faded to washed-out spots of color that were lost under a coating of grime and sweat. He wore loose fitting trousers, the legs of which were wrapped with bands of leather around his calves. His once fine Spanish leather boots had holes in them which he patched roughly with strips of boiled leather.
On his back was a round shield of hide with an iron boss in the center. Strung over his shoulder he carried a small bow of the style favored by the tribes of Scythia and a quiver full of iron tipped hunting arrows. On his other shoulder he carried the remnants of the pack Alaric had given him. In his hand was a boar spear of fair steel, suitable for beast or man.
He was the same as any other mercenary. Though where he was now it would sometimes be days before he saw any sign of other human life.
The forests and plains had been drained of most of their people in the great migrations of the last twenty years. Entire tribes had left their native lands and crossed either the Rhine or the Elbe seeking warmer and richer lands to plunder and take for their own.
He spoke little when he did meet someone, and then it was only to get information about the lands ahead. He was going ever farther north. He wanted no part of the Empire and its new masters. The bitterness in his soul made his feet turn to the one place he had ever known peace.
Helsfjord waited for him. Helsfjord, where he had once been master and had buried the woman he loved. Perhaps his memory still lived there, though it had been so long ago that he was sure if his name did live, it was only as a distant half believed legend. But it was the closest thing he had ever known to home, so there he would go.
On his trek there was no shortage of food to be had, for with the emptying of the lands, the animals had returned in strength. There were deer and bears in abundance along with smaller game which made it easy to keep his stomach filled, even if his mouth rarely tasted or cared what he put into it.
Finally he began to recogni
ze landmarks and knew he was near. The first time he had come this way was with Glam, son of Halfdan the Ganger at his side. The memory was good. Then it had been in the dead of winter when they came to the edge of the mount and looked down on Helsfjord and the fort of Ragnar, whom he later killed.
Glam had been a giant of a man with a heart as big as his body and courage to match. The time they had spent together had been one of the few good memories he had known in his long years of wandering.
When next he hunted, he killed a deer and built a fire under an oak tree to burn part of the still warm flesh as an offering to the shade of his long dead friend.
The silence of the forests seemed to give him a sense of peace. The empty lands were what he needed. It gave him time to let his mind heal from the centuries of pain and slaughter. The leaves were just beginning to turn, adding a touch of red and gold to the green. The chill of the nights said it was time for the beasts of the woods to prepare for the long dark winter of the northlands.
With the turning of the leaves came also the mists which rose from the marshes and rich earth to swirl around one's feet and knees. In the morning it would rise to the tops of the trees so thick that a man could barely see his next step.
There were legends in many of the northlands that said it was foolhardy for one to venture out when the mists were on the earth, for something unspeakably evil lived in them.
Casca didn't believe the legends for he had been in the wet ground fogs many times, and the people of Helsfjord paid little attention to the legends either. But to the north of them, the barbarians, who would not hesitate to attack a force five times their number, would stay in their log houses when the fog came, keeping close to their fires.
He pushed the useless tale out of his thoughts and went on until he came at last to the same rise where he had first stood with Glam and looked down at the sheltered cove set in the rocks facing a stony beach.
There was Helsfjord. When he looked out to see the Hold, it was covered from his eyes by the morning sea fog which had come in with the tide. But he knew it was there and started the climb down. Anticipation and anxiety about what his welcome would be bothered him. Part of him wished to be remembered and welcomed, but he knew that he must let the past lie dead and just come to them as a wanderer seeking the rights of hospitality.
The silence came to him first, as he made out gray walls of native stone in the fog. At this hour there should have been the sounds of men and women going about their daily chores: forges being worked, the voices of children driving their cattle and sheep out to the fields.
There was nothing, only the rustle of the wind whispering over the stones. He moved his sword grip to a handier position. Slowly he approached the walls. He could just make out the gate as the fog was lifting, being burned off by the autumn sun.
Standing still, he waited, listening, watching as the fog rose ever higher, until the parapets on the ramparts were clearly visible. There was nothing. No hail from the walls to ask his name or business. No warriors on guard to protect those within its stone walls. Nothing but the silence of the wind. Unslinging his shield, he put it on his left arm, then moved carefully to the entrance, watching the slit holes cut out for archers.
As he neared the gate, one of them swung open by itself, creaking heavily on hinges that needed oiling. There was a heaviness to the feeling that emanated from the Hold. It wasn't alive.
Before he entered, he knew there would be nothing for him at this place. It also had gone to the past along with everyone he had ever known or loved.
Inside the walls, the story was clear and its message an old one. The signs of fire were still on the walls where the wood buildings and storerooms had been put to the torch.
He wandered from room to room. The place had been picked clean. There was nothing left but broken pots and useless items that no one would bother to haul off.
Inside the hall where he had killed Ragnar were signs that a fight had taken place. Lying in the wreckage under a blanket of long rotted straw was a broken sword. The metal of its blade had deep pits in it where the blood of its victim had eaten away at the iron, leaving the mark of the dead on it.
The first room he went to up the stairs was that of Lida, daughter of Ragnar and his own wife. This was where they had lived and loved. It had shared the same fate as the rest of the Hold; even the beds had been taken away for their new owners to sleep and love in.
There was nothing here save memories and ghosts, but at least some of the ghosts were ones he had loved. He would stay here alone until time's remorseless efforts forced him to leave.
Wandering through the dungeons and lower storerooms, he found a few things which would help him through the long coming winter. The raiders hadn't found everything. In one of the cells below, a door had been covered by a fallen beam concealing it from casual view. But he knew it was there, for this had been his home, and the room was near the cell where Ragnar had put him to starve to death.
In the room he found kegs of ale and beer and a couple of earthenware jugs with wine still in them. Also there were the things needed for daily life: lines and hooks for fishing, robes for warmth, and some odds and ends which he would need.
In one corner he found a small silver medallion that had been covered by a basket of woven reeds. Picking it up from the dust, he wiped off the face of it until he could make out what was on it ... a serpent winding around the edge of the medallion encircling a jaguar in its coils.
He began to laugh; the sound startled him for a moment. It had been so long since a sound of that nature had come from his lips. The serpent and the jaguar. The Quetza and Teypeytal. Gods of the Teotec.
He had often wondered if Olaf Glamsson had made it back home. The last he had seem of them were the red sails of their dragon ships disappearing over the horizon, as he tried to keep afloat after being washed overboard. But here he had evidence that they had made it back from the lands of smoking mountains and pyramids where priests and kings wore the feathers of rare birds and sacrificed the living hearts of men and women to their gods.
He chuckled in his isolation. Gods. He had been a god then, and now he too had returned to ... what? Still chuckling, he hauled a keg of beer and one of the jugs of wine up to the hall and set them aside for later. First he would need to find food. Cursing himself for forgetting and having to make a second trip down into the dungeons for the fishing line and hooks, he went back for them and returned to the hall.
He found a chair in reasonable shape, set it back on its legs, and placed himself where he had sat before. At the head of the long table he and Lida had passed down judgments for their people. Their people. Perhaps there were still some who lived in the valley.... But he was tired; he would rest this day and on the morrow go to see if there were any left.
He spent that night in the chair wrapped in his furs. He didn't build a fire; it was too early for that. There might be some out there in the forests who would not welcome a stranger. He was stiff and his muscles ached when he pulled himself out of his slumber. He was thankful that no ghosts or memories had come to haunt his sleep.
He cleansed him mouth with a pull from one of the kegs of beer, then spat it out on the floor after rinsing off his gums to rid them of the night film. He fed on a piece of venison that was the last of his supply of food.
Gathering his weapons, leaving the rest of his gear behind, he went out of the Hold into the countryside where the valley had once been dotted with villages that had paid him fealty. There was no one there. Only empty ruins that time had not yet covered up.
It took him a couple of trips to haul back the grain and the few other items he had found in the deserted huts and houses. A brass pot, a bucket, some scraps of rope. Not much, but then he didn't need much. He was to be as alone as if he were a castaway on some far distant deserted island where no ships ever sailed.
The next weeks he spent gathering the food he would need for the long winter. The cove gave him fresh fish which he brought to
the smokehouse to cure or hung in strips to dry. The forests provided venison and bear. Some of the meat he smoked, but when the nights became colder, he knew he could just leave the meat outside where the cold would keep it fresh for him.
The days grew shorter and the leaves fell from the trees, leaving them stark and bare to increasing winds that came in from the North Sea. He worked at gathering supplies, watching the skies turn ever darker until there were no more than three or four hours of true daylight before night fell.
The first lone chunks of ice started to drift with the tide into the cove as overhead flights of birds were heading south, some as far as Africa. The birds he looked for the most were the swans. Their wings gave strong graceful sweeps as they sailed through the skies.
Then came the quiet. The sounds of living creatures were gone. Those left were deep in their winter sleep. Those that could not sleep through the long dark would be the hunters, but he hadn't heard the cry of wolves yet.
For now he was alone with the creaking of the doors in the Hold or a low moaning when the sea wind found openings in the windows and halls. He took to walking the dark passages at night looking here and there for what he didn't know. At times he would start to laugh for no apparent reason, as if he knew some great joke on himself.
The only room he fixed at all was the one he had shared with Lida, where he put a rough cot and a single chair to sit in by the fire. It would have taken too much effort to heat the great hall by himself and he didn't need it anyway. Lida's room was enough. There, in the dark, watching the fire flicker, tossing off small sparks to wink and fade, he felt close to her. Several times he caught himself just before he started to ask her something, then would remember she was long dead.