‘Exactly. Blessed peace, and straightforward soldiering for the most part, only broken by the occasional grumbling every time one of my soldiers catches sight of you in front of the Fifth.’
He raised his voice for the last comment, making sure the men behind could hear him, and Marcus raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.
‘Really? I’d have thought even Scarface would have got over his disappointment at not having to soldier under the tender mercies of my chosen man by now.’
Marching in his usual place a few ranks behind his former and present centurions, the soldier Scarface kept a dignified silence, although he muttered a quiet aside to his mate Sanga once the two men had returned to their conversation about whatever it was that centurions discussed.
‘Cruel, that was. Very cruel.’
Sanga shrugged minutely under the weight of his spears, shield, helmet, mail shirt and pack pole, his head thrown back to suck in the cold mountain air.
‘So perhaps now you’ll be happy to let “Two Knives” take care of his own life, eh, without your having to run round after him all the time?’
Scarface’s gaze remained locked on the back of Marcus’s head.
‘Not right that we shouldn’t be allowed to go with him to the Fifth, not right at all . . .’
Sanga shook his head in disgust and fell silent, concentrating on carrying half his own body weight up the road’s unremitting incline while his tent mate grumbled away to himself.
Qadir looked out at the mountains to either side for a moment before speaking again, his face creased in a gentle smile.
‘At least this far from Britannia there’s little danger of anyone having even heard the name Marcus Valerius Aquila. We may not be happy at having been sent east, but at least you’ll be able to stop worrying about any further attempt to apprehend you, eh Centurion Corvus?’
Marcus nodded, his face softening at the thought.
‘It had crossed my mind. Although I’m also forced to conclude that I’m exchanging the chance to be free from pursuit for the likelihood that I’m taking my wife and child into a war. I don’t think we’ve been sent all this way east just to make the numbers up.’ Hearing the heavy thud of hoofs on the road’s grass verge he turned to see a handful of horsemen cantering up the long column of soldiers. ‘And as if to prove me right, it seems that our mounted squadron is about to be allowed off their rope.’
The leading rider reined his horse in alongside the pair, grinning down at them with undisguised glee from beneath his crested decurion’s helmet, whose polished face mask was raised to allow him a full field of view.
‘Greetings brothers! The time has come for the “First Tungrian Horse” to prove its value once more. After weeks of nothing better than plodding along coughing up the dust raised by your flat feet, we are ordered to scout forward up the road as far as the turn for the mine. The tribune suspects that this country may harbour any number of barbarian scouts, and so bids me ride out to give them the opportunity for some practice with their bows. Since I have permission to seek your participation in this perilous mission, purely in order to improve the odds of my survival by providing the enemy with a wider variety of suitable targets, I’ve taken the liberty of saddling your usual mounts for the trip. Will you give both your feet and noses a rest by accompanying us on our ride?’
Marcus looked at Qadir, the Hamian’s response a shrug of feigned disinterest. Looking up at the grinning decurion, the Roman raised an eyebrow.
‘It’s tempting, Silus, although it appears that you’ve saddled that monster Bonehead for me once again, despite your repeated accusations that the poor animal lacks the appropriate discipline for a cavalry horse. And is that the tribune’s man Arminius I can see towards the back of your scouting party, clinging to his horse’s mane as if it were a handle made of iron?’
The big German, mounted on a heavily built animal judged to be the only beast in the cohort’s cavalry detachment capable of carrying his weight without breaking down, scowled at Marcus from the party’s rear.
‘I can hear you, Centurion, and whilst nothing would make me happier than getting down from this animal now and never remounting a horse in all my remaining years, you know the blood debt I owe you. When my master gives these men leave to take you into harm’s way, I have no choice but to accompany them alongside you.’
Silus grimaced, leaning down from his saddle to speak in Marcus’s ear.
‘Between you and I, even that big bugger Colossus is starting to look a bit resentful at having to carry all that weight around. It’s a good thing your man Lugos doesn’t have a hankering to follow you into the shit quite so eagerly, or we’d no horses left standing inside a week. So, will you join us, or are you minded to give your German an excuse to dismount?’
Marcus shrugged up at Silus, holding out a hand.
‘Very well, Decurion, since I have no option but to respect Arminius’s example, I presume you stopped at the medical wagon to pester my wife for my helmet?’
The horseman grinned even wider, raising his left hand from behind his mount’s side to display the masked cavalry helmet Marcus had purchased in Tungrorum for the purposes of deceiving the followers of the bandit leader Obduro, much to Felicia’s disgust when she had discovered the price he’d paid for its fine workmanship. The Roman took off his centurion’s helmet and passed it to Qadir with a wink.
‘Can you think of a soldier who might be sufficiently careful to be entrusted with this? I’ll take his shield and one of his spears in return.’
The Hamian nodded, dropping back a few ranks and handing the crested helmet to the soldier Scarface, taking one of his spears and helping him to pull the shield from its place strapped to his back.
‘There you go, soldier, you’re trusted with the centurion’s helmet until he comes back from scouting with the cavalry.’
Scarface took the additional burden with a solemn nod, ignoring the guffaws of the men around him, and watched as Marcus and Qadir mounted the horses Silus had saddled for them and rode away up the road’s gentle slope.
‘Perhaps carrying that lump of iron for the next few hours will teach you to wind your bloody neck in . . .’ Sanga fell silent when he realised that his comrade wasn’t listening to a word he was saying, but staring down at the helmet with an expression of pride. ‘And then again perhaps not . . .’
The horsemen rode forward for a mile or so on the road’s hard surface, their horses’ hoofs clattering loudly in the silence that hung over the wooded hills to either side. Silus looked back down the road to be sure they were sufficiently well ahead of the marching column of infantrymen, and then waved a hand at the wooded slopes.
‘Time to get off the road and make a bit less noise, gentlemen, we’re sticking out like tits on a bull as it is. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary.’
The horsemen separated into two parties, each half a dozen strong, and rode their horses onto the strips of cleared ground on either side of the road before reining them in to a walk so that their hoofs would be almost silent in the long grass. Qadir steered his beast alongside Marcus’s big grey, the graceful chestnut mare’s finely drawn lines a stark contrast to the warhorse, while Arminius’s mount fell in behind them at the German’s urging. The three men talked quietly as the patrol ghosted forward up the road’s margins, until Arminius suddenly frowned and wrinkled his nose.
‘Do you smell that?’
Marcus inhaled deeply, discerning the very slightest edge of a familiar aroma on the air.
‘Woodsmoke. And burning fat.’
Qadir nodded, waving a hand to Silus and putting a finger to his nose as Marcus bent to pull his shield from the grey’s flank. As the decurion nodded his understanding an arrow flicked out of the trees fifty paces to their front, snapping past the Roman’s head with a whistle of flight feathers. Flicking down the helmet’s polished face mask he spurred the grey into action, dropping his spear from the vertical carrying position to point for
ward, knowing that the sight of its long blade would be enough to spark the big horse’s customary berserk charge. A second arrow flew from the trees, its flight a blur of motion that ended with a clang as the missile’s iron head glanced from his facemask’s many-layered protection. The impact’s force knocked his head to one side, momentarily blurring his vision. Raising the shield across his body the Roman rose in the saddle by tensing his thigh muscles against the grey’s flanks, hefting the spear in readiness to throw. The hidden bowman loosed another shot, aiming for horse rather than rider this time, and Marcus felt the beast shudder with the blow, but the animal’s pace was unaffected as it thundered towards the archer’s hiding place. Rising to run rather than stand his ground for a final shot, the enemy scout presented Marcus with a fleeting target as the grey hammered past the spot from which the tribesman had watched the horsemen approach, but his hurled spear flew past the fleeing archer with a venomous power born of his anger at his horse’s wound and missed by an arm’s length.
Pulling the grey up he raised a leg over the saddle’s horns to slide from the horse’s back, landing on his feet and drawing hislong sword as he strode furiously into the trees behind his raised shield, acutely aware that the layered board’s protection was largely illusory against a bow at such short range. In front of him the scout was still dodging through the trees, but seeming to stagger slightly as he ran, one side of his body sagging as if he were a puppet with a string missing. He abruptly stopped running, staggering to a halt and standing still for a moment, swaying on his feet, one hand clenching and unclenching around the shaft of an arrow that dangled unnoticed at his side. Marcus stepped in close, his eyes narrowed in anticipation of a further ambush, raising the long bladed spatha to make the easy kill even as he wondered at such suicidal behaviour. The enemy scout turned, his feet dragging through the fallen pine needles like a sleepwalker’s, and the look on his face stayed the Roman’s hand as he stared with horrified fascination. Momentarily considering the masked centurion before him with empty, glassy eyes, his mouth hanging open to release a thin stream of bloody spittle, the barbarian slowly raised the arrow he was holding until it was in front of his face and emitted a high pitched moan of distress. Marcus watched in wonder as he realised that his intended victim’s legs were shaking hard enough to make his whole body shudder uncontrollably. With a long groaning exhalation of his fear and despair, the archer toppled backward onto the forest’s needle-strewn floor and lay twitching, soiling his breeches as he shook spasmodically.
Bending to examine the seemingly helpless man more closely, the young centurion held his sword ready to strike as he pushed the barbarian onto his back with a booted foot. The scout’s eyes were pinned wide, their pupils shrunk to the size of tiny dots as he stared sightlessly up at the Roman, and the arrow spilled from his nerveless hand, the shaft’s last fingernail length painted a deep and ruddy red. Bending closer to look at something that caught his eye on the man’s arm, Marcus heard the faintest of noises, the creak of a bow being drawn back, and used the split second’s warning to thrust his shield forward toward the tiny fragment of sound. An arrow slammed into the board with enough power to punch clean through the layers of wood and linen, only stopping when the heavy iron head impacted on his mail shirt’s iron rings with a hard rap. A powerful stench of something rotting filled Marcus’s nostrils, and he rolled away from the spot into the shelter of a tree, calling out to Silus: ‘There’s another one here! Flank him!’
The Tungrian troopers advanced into the trees to either side, shouting to each other as they sought to trap the second archer in an enveloping movement, but in a scatter of twigs the man was up and running to Marcus’s right faster than the dismounted Tungrians could follow. As the Roman watched through the trees, his ambusher vaulted onto a waiting horse and bolted for the road, looking to make his escape before the Tungrians could remount. Pushing up the cavalry helmet’s facemask and fighting his way back out of the undergrowth, Marcus almost blundered into Qadir as the Hamian coolly nocked an arrow to his heavy framed hunting bow and pulled the missile back until its flight feathers were level with his ear. Qadir waited patiently as the scout’s horse crashed through the undergrowth towards the road, allowing a slow exhalation of breath to trickle from his lips as he readied himself for the shot. Bursting from the trees, the rider whipped his mount to a gallop, crouching low over the animal’s neck to present a smaller target, and for a moment Marcus wondered if his friend might hold back the shot for fear of hitting the horse. Qadir leaned forward a fraction, his eyes narrowing in concentration, then loosed the arrow and lowered the weapon, making no attempt to reach for another. Struck cleanly in the square of his back the barbarian scout arched convulsively, toppling over his horse’s hindquarters and smashing down hard onto the road’s cobbled surface.
Walking forward with his shield raised against any further attempt at ambush, his nose wrinkling at the fetid smell from the bone arrowhead still poking through a long split in the wooden board, Marcus watched the trees to either side warily. Reaching the fallen rider he prodded the man’s arm with a toe, sliding it away from the long knife sheathed on the man’s belt.
‘No need. He’s as good as dead.’ Glancing up, he found Silus approaching with a look of disgust. ‘It’s a shame. I’d like to have shared a few quiet moments with him to discuss this . . .’
The decurion reached out and broke the shaft of the arrow stuck through Marcus’s shield, pulling out the barbed head and sniffing at it. Pulling a face, he held the offending missile at arm’s length and called for an empty feed sack.
‘Poisoned?’
The cavalryman nodded grimly at Marcus’s question, wrapping the arrowhead in several layers of sacking before snapping it from the shaft and knotting the little package closed.
‘Here, it’ll be a souvenir for you. Just don’t cut yourself with it.’ He kicked the dying man hard in the head, his face white with anger. ‘No, let the fucker lie here and die as slowly as he likes. And if you’ve got any problem with that, you’d better go back and see the state your horse is in.’
Marcus started guiltily and hurried back to where the big grey lay rigid on the verge with its legs sticking stiffly out from its body, trembling violently and rolling its eyes in terror while Arminius and Qadir stood over it, turning to greet Marcus with shaking heads. A single arrow protruded from the horse’s right shoulder, its shaft painted the same deep red as the one in the dying archer’s open hand. A froth of foam was trailing from the animal’s open mouth, every shallow exhalation of breath accompanied by a soft groan as the arrow’s poison tore at the horse’s innards. Shaking his head in sorrow Marcus squatted beside the horse’s head, stroking the long face gently as he pulled a hunting knife from its place on his belt. The blade was almost supernaturally sharp, one of a dozen he had paid a swordsmith to forge and edge with metal from the Damascus steel sword he’d taken from the bandit Obduro in Tungrorum. To his brother officers’ great delight he had given them all one of the resulting blades, although whether he had managed to neutralise the evil he had sensed in the sword from his first touch of its hilt by doing so, or simply distributed it more widely, he was unable to tell. Tracing a hand down the horse’s throat he put the knife to the beast’s sweat-slickened neck and made a single fast cut, opening the veins hidden beneath the twitching flesh and staring down with a sad smile as a stream of hot blood poured out onto the ground.
‘Farewell, Bonehead. You were a good mount.’
Waiting until the horse’s eyes closed he stood, wiping and sheathing the knife with a regretful sigh.
‘Properly done, brother. We’ll make a cavalryman of you yet.’ Silus turned away from the dead animal, shaking his head at the waiting troopers standing around him. ‘We won’t be eating horse tonight, not unless you lot want to risk meat with enough poison in it to knock this big sod over in less than a hundred heartbeats.’
Marcus walked into the trees and found the spot where the first archer was stret
ched out in his death agonies, cutting his throat with a single expert pass of the knife’s fearsome blade and picking up the quiver of arrows that lay beside him. Bending close to the corpse, he saw that the mark on the man’s arm which had drawn his attention briefly during the fight was a scratch, the skin discoloured around the small wound. He went back to the spot on the road where the scout was slowly expiring under Qadir’s impassive stare.
‘Kill him. He’s not going to give us anything that’s not already obvious from their presence here, and if I’ll do it for a horse then I owe him the same dignity.’ He handed the Hamian the quiver, waving a hand at the dying man before them. ‘You’d better collect his arrows as well. They may come in handy, and I’d rather not leave them lying about here. And watch out for the ones with the red paint, the slightest puncture will kill a man, from the looks of it.’
He walked on up the road’s gentle slope until he reached the place where the dying man’s mount had come to a halt after its rider had toppled from the saddle. The horse was cropping contentedly at the verge’s grass without any apparent concern, and the Roman walked slowly towards it, speaking soft words of reassurance as he advanced with unhurried care until he was within touching distance of the beast. Reaching out slowly and carefully he took hold of the horse’s reins, stroking its flank and blowing in its ear.
‘Here. Give her this.’
Silus tossed the Roman an apple, wrinkled from a long time in the store but still tasty enough, and the horse took it off his palm with an eagerness that had the other horsemen snorting with laughter. Silus whistled at his pay and a half, and the soldier threw him another apple with a resigned look.
‘They think I’m soft on the horses, and in truth they’re right, but how can any man resist that?’ The animal was nudging at Marcus with its snout, nostrils flaring at the prospect of another treat, and the decurion held out the apple before standing back for a proper look at his comrade’s new mount. ‘She’s nothing fancy, not a looker, but I’ll bet you good money that beast will run all day and get by on a few mouthfuls of grass when she has to. What will you call her, since the previous owner didn’t have time to discuss the finer details?’
The Wolf's Gold: Empire V Page 3