Beasts From the Dark

by Beasts from the Dark (retail) (epub)

  Everyone was silent and Kag seemed a little ashamed of his outburst. He spat.

  ‘Now,’ he said, looking at Manius, ‘how far away are you – can you lead us to Praeclarum?’

  Chapter Eight

  The passing of centuries had created this sacred grove, the huge oaks clawing ever skywards, growing in power and girth until they touched, fused like pouring stone, the opus caementicium that built the Empire. Now the trunks were bloated into buttresses big as those in any basilica, while the branches above formed snaking bridges a hundred feet and more over their heads.

  At some point there had been fire, deliberate or accidental, and now there were blackened caves, charred chambers and holes looking like mere shadows in the blue-green dim under a canopy boiling like a thunderhead. Yet they could hide anything, including the nailed-up skulls of the dead, as Dog discovered.

  ‘This one is nailed up through the eyes,’ he said, pointing it out. ‘A statement, do you think? On sending spies out into the Dark?’

  ‘Just two handy holes for nails,’ Kag growled back and nodded to the crouching Manius; Dog acknowledged it and tossed the blackened skull casually away.

  ‘What of it, Manius?’ he asked. ‘Can you find a way to Praeclarum?’

  ‘How did you avoid these… horrors?’ Kisa interrupted before Manius could speak, then drew back as the mavro turned his head; it looked as if he had no eyes at all, just sockets like the skull Dog had thrown away. Waiting to be nailed, Kisa thought wildly, and suddenly became aware of the fly-buzzing dead he stood among.

  ‘I found the Colour,’ Manius said. ‘I found my father. He wore a collar made from the mane of a lion he had killed himself with his bare hands – he had the mark of a single claw swipe to prove it.’

  ‘Right,’ Kag said hesitantly.

  ‘I wore no such collar, though I wanted one. I had a kirtle of leopard and javelins suited to my size and I knew I would kill a lion, this day or the next. I knew the secrets of every wadi, every oasis, of the vulture and the hyena, the spoor of eland, the fewmet of giraffe. I slept with the smell of sand and the wheel of stars… all of it making a pigment I could recognise anywhere. I knew the Colour of my land.’

  He stopped and bowed his head, a mercy for Kisa. ‘Then the Romans came and made me a slave…’

  Drust laid a hand on the matted braids of his hair. ‘Slave no longer. Brother of the Sand. Lead us to Praeclarum.’

  Manius uncoiled, nodded and loped off. They watched him go and then started to follow, though Kag and Drust exchanged looks on the nature of Manius and did not need to say a word for both of them to hear the long-dead Sib speak fearfully about jnoun and how Manius should never be allowed out of the desert into the world.

  Other people had different concerns.

  ‘I hate trees,’ Quintus muttered fearfully.

  ‘You hate everything that isn’t a taberna in Rome,’ Kag pointed out. ‘Squint a little – doesn’t this remind you of night on any street down Subura? The insulae? The shadows? The pillars of the Basilica?’

  ‘What it reminds me of,’ Kisa said firmly, ‘is the need to get out of it before those… creatures… come back.’

  They kept moving, stiff and sore, while the fat, morbid trees gave way to straight-growing mountain ash, tall pillars that were spaced like those in a ceremonial portico; the light splintered down in a dapple that was a balm of relief.

  When they found themselves sliding out to sparser woodland, where the light was stronger and bathed clearings in sunshine, they stopped and crouched, sweating and panting. Distantly, a horn blared which brought heads up; Kisa whimpered. Dog had him rebind his wound, which was leaking fresh blood.

  ‘Do not worry, little Jew,’ Ugo declared firmly. ‘That has nothing to do with Cernunnos or these death warriors. That’s a good Roman horn.’

  It was the cornicen blowing orders. Antyllus was on the march south to the gates of the fortress at Biriciana, where he expected to be let in one way or the other.

  ‘When he is opposed,’ Drust added as he laid all this out, ‘he will know it’s all up with him. He will then send word to his little fortress here…’

  He did not need to add what the word would order; they all nodded and hefted weapons, then Dog put his splayed hand out, face down, and one by one the others added to it until they had a circle.

  ‘Brothers of the Sand,’ Drust said, ‘forged in a ring.’

  ‘There are men,’ said a voice, and instantly the ring broke. Manius flitted back, turned his head and pointed south. ‘Six or seven. Moving quickly.’

  They were a last patrol from Antyllus’s fortress, scurrying back across the ravaged fields before night fell; no one who was not drunk or addled or us wanted to be out in the night, surrounded by the Dark, as Kag laconically pointed out.

  But the scurriers were hurrying shadows that could be followed, and they did, right up until they were close to the ruined walls. Far too close, as Sow scathingly observed. ‘Have they no sentries at all?’

  ‘Let us hope not,’ Kag whispered back.

  They squatted in the brush and scrub of what had once been fields, listening to the night birds call and hoping what they heard were really birds; around them the blackness pressed and the Dark with it, the trees seeming to lean in. Manius slithered in and spoke in low whispers only to Drust – but no one missed the way he jerked now and then, as if gaffed. When he ceased speaking, he simply stopped, squatting and silent as a shade.

  Drust told the others what Manius had found. ‘There are many men to defend the place – Antyllus has taken a strong force to wave at Castra Biriciana, but he has left enough to hold this. The foragers don’t want to spend a single second longer beyond the walls they have, so they made an opening on this side. It is no more than a slit in a tumbled wall, Manius says, with a wicker barrier stuck in it which the foragers remove and replace each time they go through.’

  ‘Horsemen,’ Sow said with disgust. ‘They have no idea of making a marching camp.’

  ‘Fortuna smiles on us, then,’ Kag declared, and Dog nodded agreement.

  Drust took a breath and let it out, long and slow as if it pained him. When he spoke his voice was low and hoarse.

  ‘We must get to her quickly and get her out. Quick and silent because once someone hammers on an alarm iron the place will boil; they fear the Dark and will be all edge and panic. We will not last long.’

  Manius was sure the foragers’ slit-gate came out in one of the courtyard shelters, where wood was stacked for fires. There would be shadow and cover enough initially, but then they’d have to get across the yard to the tall tower itself, whose door was no doubt guarded. Here Drust looked at Manius and simply said, ‘arrow’. Manius managed a manic grin, his teeth bright in the dim.

  ‘I will not be far away,’ he declared and that brought some tense chuckles.

  ‘What then?’ Kisa wanted to know and everyone told him almost at once.

  ‘We run.’

  There was little time to spare, Drust thought, as he fought panic. Antyllus would parade in front of the castra walls, waiting for shouts of approval when those inside saw his new purple cloak. If there were jeers instead, he would expect Drust and his men to open the gate, and when that didn’t happen he would curse and send a runner back to the tower to carry out his threat and kill Praeclarum. Drust and the others would need to pluck Praeclarum from her prison and then run for it – though Drust had not said it aloud, everyone knew they’d have to go back through the Dark.

  So they moved swiftly, goaded by what they had to do and who it was for. Even as they did, the rain started in slow, fat drips, warm as blood. Then the wind rose a little and rushed the trees; when the distant grumble of thunder rolled out, Ugo stood proud, stretched his arms out to either side and raised his head to the sky.

  ‘Wōðanaz,’ he called, and Dog slapped his big shoulder angrily.

  ‘If you call that out again, giant of the Germanies, I will shove one of those road-makers up
your nethers.’

  ‘What part of silent did you miss, you stupidus,’ Kag added savagely and Ugo subsided guiltily, loping along at the back.

  The rain came down like a mist by the time they crept up to the lee of the old walls, unseen and unchallenged. By then the thunder was louder and stabbed with flashes; in the shelter of the lean-to it drummed. The Brothers crouched, hearts stuttering and blinking at each lighthouse blast of lightning.

  The inside of the fortress was no more a comfort than the view from outside, where it was all a shadow of tall walls and gates. Daylight would reveal the truth of ruin and crumble, but the garrison had repaired a deal of it with timber and it looked solid and grim; in the stark light of one flash, Drust saw something hanging from the tower and everyone squinted to try and make it out. No one could, but it seemed sinister and Drust did not want to think on what it might be, though he had to fight the urge to run and find out.

  There was no sign of anyone, guards or otherwise.

  ‘They won’t like to roll out of their shelters unless the roof is falling,’ Kag assured the others. ‘A good time to make a dash for the tower. Can you see a guard, Manius?’

  ‘I have him. I am far away.’

  ‘Then fucking get closer, you mammet.’

  There was another flash, a brief, blinding image, starker than daylight, of Manius and his full-stretched bow. There was a dull thrum and then they heard him exhale.

  ‘Did you get him?’

  ‘Do you hear him yell?’ Manius countered mildly.

  ‘Move,’ Drust ordered, because there was no choice, because the thing hanging on the tower walls was still there and it filled him with dread.

  They were halfway across the yard, moving like a dog pack, when a flower of flame blossomed on the gatehouse to their left, making them all crouch. There was a larger flare, of a more powerful brazier being lit, and like a chain, others went off all round the walls.

  ‘Did you think it would be so easy, you bitch-ticks?’

  The voice boomed out from the top of the gatehouse, the figure no more than a black shadow outlined against the red flames. Kag gave a weary curse and Manius spun and shot but no one knew if it was even close.

  ‘Run for it,’ Drust bawled and sprinted in a mad lumbering run for the tower they had been heading towards. As he started forward, he heard shouts, and arrows clattered and zipped; one plucked his tattered cloak as he lurched into the tower doorway, following Dog. As the sky split with light, he had a frozen moment that showed a man on the gatehouse roof; there were more, armed and milling in the yard.

  Dog struck and cursed, bellowing like a balls-cut bull. Two more armed men spun away from him, one clutching an arm – Drust stepped in and slashed him to bloody ruin and then followed on; the others piled on through the doorway, Sow high-stepping like a goosed priestess as an arrow whicked between his feet.

  Quintus was punching steel into a body on the ground and Drust saw the doorway could not be barred. ‘Up,’ he ordered and led the way round a wind of stairs, and then had to flatten against the wall as a figure rolled and screamed down it like a boulder, ribboning blood behind him. He plunged on and found Dog panting and watching the steps above; ahead, more armed men were coming down on them. The place was too narrow for such a fight.

  ‘Steel to the front,’ Dog growled and Drust heard the burst of shouting and the clang of metal below them – more men were coming in the door.

  ‘Sharps to the back,’ he said – and Dog yelled a warning that made him jerk his head back. There was a dull clang and the world went red and reeled madly; Drust felt sick and sat down on the worn stones, hearing Dog curse.

  Then, as if a dirty pool suddenly sucked itself to the sides, his mind went clear. He saw Dog heft his shield, just as another spear arced down and clattered off it. The shaft of one had hit him in the head, bouncing off his helmet and skittering down the steps. Somewhere, in the midst of those snarling men at the top of the stairs, Drust saw a figure in a white light.

  ‘Praeclarum,’ he said and embraced her; she was like a glowing mist, the world slowed to a thick light, and he had all the time in the world to move forward, feeling the savagery, the frenzy, the rising tide of it carrying him on as if he was the point of a thrown spear.

  They were slow, so slow. Drust cut and crouched, ducked and leaned on the narrow steps, easily avoided every painful lethargy of stab. Then he reaped them and every one that fell fed him with more desire to do it again. And again. And again… all the way up the curve of stairs.

  No place to escape, he roared at one as he cut the throat from him. No way to run but up and I am coming there and death laughs with me…

  It was not their tongue he roared in, but they understood and he felt them tumble behind him like scree down a slope and it was magnificent; he turned at the top and looked down on new faces, vaguely remembered. ‘Good,’ he told them, ‘it is good you come to me to die…’

  Then the world fell on his head and the white light went out like a pinched candle. He felt like a king, before falling.

  * * *

  Drust was sick and trembling weak, but he was alive and knew where he was – top of a tower, the one they had charged into and stunned the ambushers, the one where he had…

  ‘Killed everyone.’

  Quintus shoved his grin into the light and squinted, took Drust by the chin and turned him this way and that; a ball of blood-pain seemed to roll from one side to the other inside his head and he felt sicker than ever.

  ‘Don’t… I will vomit.’

  ‘You’ll live,’ Kisa said grimly over Quintus’s shoulder and then grinned. ‘Eight men you killed and it had to be a good blow to stop you falling on everyone left. That is a god-gift you have, but it does not know when to leave off.’

  ‘Did I… hurt anyone of ours?’

  ‘You did not, only by the blessings of Mars Ultor – but I had to whack you to be sure of it.’ He looked contrite and afraid. ‘Sorry,’ he added.

  Drust ignored him and tried to stand, felt hands gripping him and a voice said, ‘Hold him steady.’

  ‘Praeclarum…’

  ‘Below,’ Kag said, his face looming in front of Drust and wavering slightly, as if seen through water. ‘I’ll help you. The fort’s medicus is there – we managed to keep him alive.’

  ‘Good trick that, sprinting for the tower,’ Dog added. ‘It’s put their ambush out of joint.’

  ‘How did they know we were coming?’ Ugo wanted to know and Drust could have told him easily enough if his mouth worked as it should have. No spy, just the cunning of a man like Antyllus, who played two moves ahead of most other people – and yet gambled like a drunk.

  The room beneath was fetid with fever-stink. Quintus was outside, watching the stairs, and the medicus was crouched like a whipped dog, staring fearfully round, his face sheened with sweat and blood-dyed by torchlight.

  But Praeclarum was all of it, a blanket-wrapped figure on a swathe of barely clean straw. She stirred when he went to her, her eyelids fluttered like bees on a flower.

  ‘I have lost our baby.’

  ‘Hush,’ Drust managed, though it sounded hollow and empty. He had stood on the last step outside the doorway, roaring defiance, red with other people’s blood; the thought of what he might have done inside if he had not been stopped made him feel sicker than ever. He saw her move slightly and wince, and turned to the medicus. ‘What have you treated her with?’

  He bobbed his head and spat it out as if it was a report.

  ‘Anis, wolfsbane – the one that isn’t venomous – centaury, fox clote, vervain. All good for wounds and bruises, but not in quantity for a woman in child—’

  He stopped, took a deeper breath and ploughed on into the morass. ‘Since she lost the child, white willow to kill the pain – and some chervil to promote rest. She has birthing fever and has lost a deal of blood besides.’

  ‘How long since the child was… lost?’ Drust demanded, seeing Praeclarum’s eyel
ids close, seeing how she fought to keep them open.

  ‘Six days,’ the medicus said and shook his head bitterly. ‘I said she should be taken to Biriciana, but Antyllus wanted her here.’

  So we would come for her if we proved false to him, Drust thought. He had expected it – but not the mad rush we made right to the heart of his trap.

  He laid a hand on her raggled sweat-spiked hair; she was a tallow flame in a wet wind, every ragged draw of breath into her only serving to make him wince, each exhale leaking like blood.

  ‘If you hope to escape here,’ the medicus added quietly, ‘she will not survive the journey.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Quintus demanded from the doorway.

  ‘Frontinus,’ the medicus replied. ‘Gaius Fabius Frontinus.’

  ‘Well, Frontinus, when we escape,’ Quintus said, ‘you will be coming with us to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

  ‘I have no medicines left,’ the man answered miserably. ‘Antyllus made sure of it. In the event you achieved the miracle of Fortuna and lifted her from here, he wanted her dead. If you doubt it, see who hangs on the tower wall.’

  ‘Who?’ Quintus demanded sourly.

  ‘Mus, the one you hit with the ladle. He failed Antyllus, made him look less and was throat-slit for it. Hung on the tower as a warning.’

  ‘No Army punishment that,’ Drust managed, to take his mind off Praeclarum’s breathing. ‘I am sorry it ended badly for him – there will be others who feel the same, I am sure.’

  The medicus looked sharply back. ‘A few. Not enough. We have all cut our ties here. The only way back is to be the favoured of an Emperor. He rode out covered in purple to make sure of that.’