Killer

by David Drake

  The hunter painfully stretched and fumbled for his purse and towel. Lady Fortune, how Alexandros had grown! Was the lad really going to be twelve soon? No, he was going to be thirteen. He was growing tall—would be taller than Lycon—and his boyish body was beginning to fill out into a man's. He'd soon be after the girls, if he wasn't already. He had his father's lean muscles and his mother's lovely features—those would harden as he grew older and knew the sun and winds of wild lands beyond Rome's frontiers.

  Alexandros was still frozen in the doorway, gaping at him like a carp gasping for a floating crumb. "Well, what is it, boy? You've seen me in worse shape than this. Hurry on, now! We've got to get dressed and back to the compound."

  Alexandros would not meet his eyes. "Yes sir," he managed to stammer, and backed away through the curtain. Lycon sniffed. The boy must have taken his time in finding him; someone had already rubbed his young body with scented oils. Must have a girl already; maybe Zoe knew who she was.

  Lycon encountered Dolon as the hunter made for the changing room. "I was just coming for you," said the masseur. "A runner has just come for you from Gaius Vonones."

  "Yes, I know about that," Lycon said. "My son has already informed me."

  Dolon looked puzzled.

  Chapter Twenty

  Alexandros had little to say while Lycon urged him to hurry getting dressed and pushed him into Vonones' litter. That suited the hunter. Lycon knew he would need all the strength he could muster.

  Vonones was red-faced and bleary-eyed when he greeted Lycon, but the bustle of men and the raucous barking and baying of dogs were proof that the Armenian had put his morning hours to good use. "Well, you look hale and hearty again," he lied to Lycon.

  "And you look like you've had a restful night yourself," Lycon agreed sardonically. "What have you got?"

  "Five packs—maybe fifty dogs in all—from one place or another. They're nothing much to look at, but they'll kill."

  "Where's N'Sumu?" asked Lycon, glancing around.

  "Not back yet. He doesn't need to know about the dogs. Want to start without him?"

  Lycon considered it. "No, better wait. Why should he miss the party? And anyway, a word from him and we're naught but arena-bait."

  "Lycon," Vonones frowned, "We're likely to be dead—unpleasantly dead—no matter what happens."

  "Then a joke is all that's left to us," the hunter laughed harshly. "But you're right, and I'd better send Alexandros home. This is no hunt for him to earn first blood."

  "Alexandros? Is he here?"

  "Yes. You sent him to tell me things were ready, remember? I brought him back with me from the baths. Should have let him stay there and have fun with his friends, but I'm sure the boy wanted to see the hunt." Briefly Lycon regretted that he had not spent more time with his son, teaching him the ways of men. Well, he couldn't think about that now.

  "Well, I never sent him to you. I haven't even seen him today."

  "You were probably too busy to notice Alexandros hanging about," Lycon said. "He must have come on along with your runner when you sent him after me." Something was oddly wrong here, but Lycon did not have time to think about it.

  "That must be it," Vonones agreed uneasily. "Want to take a look at the dogs? Like I said . . ."

  Lycon shrugged. "They don't have to be hunters; all animals seem to hate its scent—even the tiger went after its spoor. I just want enough dogs to make up several large packs—large enough that the lizard-ape can't just turn and kill a few hounds and then disappear again. We'll split into groups if we lose its trail, but we'll keep the groups big enough to deal with the thing once it's run to earth.

  "We'll need plenty of lights for each potential group—five packs, would you say? Then we'll need nets and ropes—too close quarters for lassos, more's the pity. Archers won't be much use for the same reason, but short swords and boar spears—anything for close work will do. If we can track it, we can catch it, and once we manage to ensnare the lizard-ape, we can finish it."

  "Capture it," Vonones emphasized urgently. Quiet!" he added. "Here comes N'Sumu."

  "Let's get busy then."

  The dogs were nothing to brag about, but they would do. They would have to do. He was gambling on the likelihood that the lizard-ape would wait for nightfall to quit the sewers—it needed the darkness to cloak its movements, after all. With enough dogs and men he could track it down below—no matter how fast it fled, no matter how many side tunnels it tried to hide within. The lizard-ape was fast, but once cornered by the dogs, a dozen men with nets and weapons would prove more than its match at close quarters. Or so Lycon hoped.

  "Was that your boy?" N'Sumu joined them. He seemed to be in high good spirits, which grated on the overstretched nerves of Lycon and Vonones. "What a lovely lad. You must be very proud, Lycon."

  Was there a threat behind the kind words? Really, there was no doubt, whether the Egyptian meant to express it or not. Lycon said: "Alexandros isn't coming along with us on this. I'm sending him home."

  "No need. He was on his way out as I arrived." N'Sumu smiled. If the Egyptian was trying to be pleasant after this morning's show of force, Lycon decided he preferred him angry.

  "Well," said Lycon, "we're all here. Let's get on with it."

  "Got wagons to haul everything," Vonones told him, justifiably proud of the degree of organization he had managed. "Be lucky if we don't have a dead dog or two by the time we pick up the trail. I've tried to keep these packs separated as best I could, but most of the dogs have never worked together—they're still busy sniffing asses and sorting one another out."

  "Never mind, Vonones," Lycon reassured him. "They're good enough to go after the lizard-ape's scent. You know damn well that most of them will be dead meat once they find the thing." As we may well be.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It was dark, dank and stank, but the dogs had no problem in picking up the lizard-ape's scent. The major difficulty had been in holding the first group in check while the rest of the dogs were lowered into the sewer from the street above. It quickly became apparent to Lycon that the sheer number of men and hounds were going to pose a problem at the onset of the chase. He reluctantly gave the order for one group to remain at the entrance to the catch basin. They would only get in the way, and Lycon had a better use for their pack.

  "Release these." The beastcatcher pointed to one mass of straining hounds.

  "We'll never be able to keep up," N'Sumu protested, not unreasonably. The Egyptian was studying the brick arches of the sewer, seemingly oblivious of the stench of the filthy water that coursed sluggishly along its channel. He seemed also oblivious of the fact that he was out of reach of decent lantern light. Lycon thought about N'Sumu's strange eyes, then pushed that thought aside.

  "We can track the unleashed dogs with the rest of the pack," the hunter explained. "Just now we're too many, too noisy, too slow. The lizard-ape could keep its distance and lead us on a chase for a hundred miles of sewer, and we'd never catch a glimpse of it."

  "But the dogs might kill the sauropithecus if no one is there to pull them off!"

  "Come on, N'Sumu! You're our lizard-ape expert! You know damn well we'll be lucky to catch up with the dogs before your little pet turns and kills the lot of them!"

  "My pet? What do you mean, human!"

  "The Emperor's pet, then," Lycon retorted, too focussed to note N'Sumu's sudden anger. "And let's be after it."

  N'Sumu checked his panic. Just a chance expression, not a guess. Absurd to think that the Cora might have planted another agent here on this world. Or was it absurd? In any event this Lycon would be dead very shortly, one way or another.

  * * *

  The phile resubmerged. It had heard enough sounds of pursuit to be certain that its precautions—instinctive though they were—had not been needless. The bipeds had returned with their incredibly noisy quadruped stalkers. It seemed absurd that these creatures would place such reliance upon inferior material for this game, until the d
emonically gene-designed phile reconsidered the obvious shortcomings of the soft-fleshed bipeds on this world. Their pathetic slowness was plainly evident; their perceptual acuity was apparently no better, since they clearly relied upon other life-forms to extend the range of their senses. The phile, which understood non-phile life only as potential prey, felt contempt for such weakness as this reliance expressed. No wonder the gamemaster had brought in a more worthy opponent for the phile to destroy. The others were intended to serve as no more than a distraction; it was time they were removed.

  The phile knew the sewers well. It had come here first when it had entered this city many days ago. For a time the phile considered these underground tunnels as a possible lair, but their sudden flooding with heavy, unpredictable rains drove it to seek a more secure refuge in the tenement that the Opponent had made a holocaust for its young.

  The phile waited in the darkness as the pursuit loudly vanished into the tunnels, following a trail it had left hours before. It had discovered long before that the four-legged stalkers could not follow a trail through deep water. It was quite safe here in the main channel, rising from its depths only to take in a breath of air.

  Very soon it would be night outside.

  * * *

  A runner had managed to find Lycon at last, so the beastcatcher had in some measure been warned—although still he was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.

  The street seemed to be filled with dead men.

  "It came up out the catch basin at nightfall," Rebilus was able to tell him in small gasps and whispers. Lycon had left him in charge of the group of men stationed behind at the entrance to the sewers. Now Rebilus was the sole survivor, and from the bubbling gashes in his belly, he wasn't likely to see another dawn.

  "We'd all been sitting around," Rebilus whispered, too much in shock to realize the extent of his wounds. "You know, waiting to hear how things were going down below. Every now and then someone would climb back up and fill us in. Nothing much happening. Even the crowd that had been here at first had pretty well given it up."

  He shuddered and stared at his hands. So much blood staining the pavement . . . how could it all be his. It couldn't be, could it?

  "I'd gone over to the fountain for a drink of water," Rebilus said dully. "That's all I did." He seemed to be using his last strength to establish that the guilt for this massacre was not to be laid on his shoulders.

  "I bent down, and everything was fine. I looked back up, and that blue thing was already out of the hole. Piso and Liganus were closest, and they were already dead. It just shot up out of there, and its hands were moving too fast to see. It took their heads off on its way by, like it was nothing.

  "Then it was on us. I tried to get to my net, but it just came straight at me. I heard the others screaming as I went down. I guess I must have passed out for a while."

  He grunted as one of Vonones' men tightened the sodden bandages that attempted to hold the man's middle together. "It just was too fast," Rebilus muttered peevishly, and he seemed to fall asleep.

  Lycon sighed and straightened—none too steady himself after hours of slogging through a confusion of tunnels. This was worse than the scene on the grain barge. The lizard-ape had worked in haste, but in a span of only a few minutes it had killed or maimed more than twenty people here—many of them onlookers drawn by fatal curiosity to see what so many armed men were doing down in the sewers. No one here knew where the lizard-ape had gone after the slaughter.

  Night had fallen.

  "I told you the sauropithecus was clever," N'Sumu said. There almost seemed to be a note of gloating to his attitude.

  "Damn thing doubled back, let us chase after these worthless dogs across half of Rome." Vonones sounded too worried to snap back at N'Sumu, and Lycon was too exhausted.

  "We'll pick up its trail again from here," the hunter said wearily.

  "And chase it down into the sewers again," gibed N'Sumu. He seemed to be deliberately baiting Lycon.

  "You're in charge!" Lycon snarled, turning on the Egyptian. "You tell me what to do!" Perhaps he had held his bared blade a little too close to the strange priests throat, he thought afterward.

  "I did warn you," N'Sumu smiled. "Lacerta! Your men! Here!"

  The tribune had already stood scowling at the three men, trying to decide on a course of action that would not make him lose face again. The Imperial guard had seemed to materialize upon the scene of carnage an instant after the sauropithecus had disappeared.

  N'Sumu pointed a long finger at the hunter's chest. "Arrest this man. I will not tolerate insubordination!"

  Lycon lunged for the Egyptian, but the hulking German guards were already reaching for him. Something—a rock or a mailed fist—crashed against the back of Lycon's skull, and he pitched headlong onto the bloodied pavement. An instant later he was jerked back onto his feet, to dangle like an unstrung puppet between a pair of the giant Northmen.

  "I've waited for this, Greek!" sneered Lacerta. The tribune stepped close to drive a fist into the beastcatcher's belly. "Tie him behind your horse!" the tribune shouted to the pair of men holding Lycon.

  The Germans looked at one another, uncertain as to the precise intention of the order, but unwilling to become overly concerned about what some little Italian said—even an Italian with putative control over their lives. One guard shrugged; then both began to stride away toward the horse-holders beyond the circle of bodies.

  "Wait a minute!" said Vonones, stepping toward the tribune swiftly enough that another of the guards pinioned him from behind. Caught like a cricket in a spiderweb, the Armenian continued to shout: "That's not going to help anything! Without Lycon, we'll never catch the lizard-ape! Master N'Sumu, please tell them we need Lycon!"

  "Shall we take the merchant as well?" Lacerta asked pleasantly.

  "Not just yet," said N'Sumu in fluting, silvery Greek. "This one may yet prove useful to me—now that he knows the penalty for insubordination. Do with the beastcatcher as you please."

  Lacerta nodded, and the guards who had paused with Lycon between them now proceeded toward the horses again. "We'll take him to the Amphitheater," the tribune decided aloud. "The Greek won't be lonely there, because we'll soon find a nice cell for his family as well. They can all discuss what our lord and god is going to choose to do with them when he hears about this latest slaughter."

  The breath caught in Vonones' throat. The German holding him spun the animal dealer around and pushed him, hard, in the opposite direction from the retreating guard troop. The crowd had thinned enough that Vonones had no one to grip to prevent him from falling over one of the corpses lying ten feet away.

  Vonones staggered back to his feet, forcing down panic. He had to remain calm if he were to save himself, much less Lycon.

  N'Sumu smiled at him like a hungry shark.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It was probably mid-morning, but light in the cellars of the Flavian Amphitheater depended on lamps, not the sun.

  They had talked a little after Lycon's family was brought in, dragged in, and locked two cells away so that eight feet and a double set of bars separated the beastcatcher from them. Zoe quieted the children almost immediately, however. She had long experience of her husband in his present state: the utter torpor that followed total immersion, mental as well as physical, in a project until he had nothing left to give. Every night after he had played for the blood-mad crowds in the arena, he had collapsed this way . . . and Zoe knew he had done the same more recently in the field after the days he survived but only just. She could forget about that, however, because she had not seen him as she saw him now . . .

  Lycon rolled abruptly, bringing himself to full alertness though he still lay on the floor of the cell where he had been dropped. The concrete surface was slimy with various grades of filth, but the beastcatcher had been in worse places—and he had more important things on his mind, now, anyway.

  A single-wick lamp sat beside Zoe, lighting the left half
of her face which was suffused with enough concern for the whole. Lycon smiled mechanically, falsely—but the wish to reassure her was not false, and that counted for much at this juncture. "I—" he tried to say, but he croaked instead with the phlegm clogging his mouth.

  "Daddy's awake!" Perses squealed. "He's awake, Alexandros!"

  "We almost had that thing, my love," Lycon said in a normal voice and with a normal expression on his face—the face itself normal, because it was normal enough for it to be scratched and bruised in any of the lines of work Lycon had followed during his life. "We could have tracked it from there—and then that bastard N'Sumu screwed it up or . . . something."

  Zoe heard the words, but she could not fathom her husband's meaning. There was no need for her to understand the story, of course: the real point of it was that something had gone wrong but that he was all right, lucid now and healthy enough to discuss events without screaming in pain. The way he lay, ostensibly relaxed now but at full length on the concrete, his torso lifted by his left elbow and flat palm, belied the impression he was trying to give of being in reasonable condition.

  Aloud, Zoe said, "Alexandros has been reciting the Iliad to me, darling. It was so very clever of him to bring the volumes with him. Would—" the plump woman reached beside her without looking; her hand caught that of her older son and the two stepped together, side to side, as they both kept their eyes on Lycon "—would you like him to read to you, too? Because he does it so well."

  "Are we going to leave now, Daddy?" Perses demanded.

  "Not quite yet," the beastcatcher said with the touch of wry humor that made the truth speakable, "unless things are even worse than I think they are." He reached out with the hand that had braced him on the floor and caught one of the bars. "Up we go," he coaxed himself in an undertone, and it wasn't too bad. Herakles, he'd be fit for another try tonight just like the last one, if they could only find the lizard-ape again.