Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  ‘Are there no more challengers for the Beast? No man who believes he can be the hero of the day, and win a handful of Roman silver?’

  He looked about him in apparent disgust.

  ‘No? Very well, I can see we’re going to have to raise the stakes! Not five silver coins for the successful challenger! Not ten silver coins! The man who can put the champion down and keep him down will win a Roman gold aureus!’

  He raised a hand to display the coin, provoking a flurry of excitement in the watching crowd, looking around at them in simulated frustration.

  ‘Is nobody else here tempted to try their luck?’

  Sanga looked at Cotta with an expression the older man knew from experience.

  ‘So, that big lump wanders up to whoever’s stupid enough to face him inside the circle, takes a punch or two, which he barely notices, then puts the poor unfortunate to sleep with a slap or two? Or at least that’s all that’s happened so far.’

  ‘You’re not thinking …?’

  Sanga grinned.

  ‘’Course I am. How else are we going to get under this lot’s skin, eh? The man who puts him on his back and wins the gold is going to be famous for the rest of the night, and therefore the object of admiration and quite possibly lust. Some of which may rub off on his mates.’

  ‘And you think that you—’

  The Briton barked a cynical laugh.

  ‘Me? Fuck no! I’m not that stupid! But I know a man who is …’

  They looked around at Saratos, who shrugged and looked over at the brawler with an untroubled expression.

  ‘He a big man. Fall hard, slow to get up.’

  Cotta looked at the Beast, then back at Saratos with a sceptical expression.

  ‘You’re sure you want to fight him?’

  The Dacian nodded, turning to Morban.

  ‘You give me price of entry. I win fight, I keep gold—’

  He raised a hand to pre-empt the avaricious standard bearer’s protest.

  ‘You want gold, you fight. I win, I keep gold. You gamble, like you always is, make good money.’

  He paused to allow Cotta the time to work it out. The older man grimaced at him disbelievingly.

  ‘And you really reckon you can win?’

  ‘Give coin. We soon find out.’

  The veteran nodded, turning to the man beside him.

  ‘Right Morban, this is what you do best. Go down there and skin that white-haired old bastard alive.’

  Stripping to the waist to reveal a sinewy, hard-muscled frame that was the product of years of soldiering since his capture by the Tungrians, the Dacian stretched and warmed his muscles in the company of Sanga, nodding as his friend talked incessantly at him, encouraging and cajoling him and plying him with advice as to how he could best fight the massive German. After a few minutes he declared himself ready and made his way down to the fighting ring with Morban walking behind him in imperious fashion, attended by Arminius as his translator, ignoring the muttered comments and dirty looks that he was getting. The giant’s trainer spat a stream of German at them, then nodded as Arminius told him what it was that the Dacian intended.

  ‘He says that Roman money is as welcome as any other, although for you the price will be higher. Two denarii.’

  ‘Two denarii? The greedy bastard’s only been charging these hairy-arsed fuckers a bronze apiece and he wants two silvers out of me!’

  The German shrugged at him, understanding the Tungrian’s outrage despite lacking any apparent ability with Latin, and then grinned as Arminius translated his response.

  ‘He says you’ll understand that he’s likely to be taxed harder by the tribe’s chief for allowing a Roman to fight in the pit. And he wonders if you really think this streak of piss and gristle will provide any more sport for the crowd than his oldest daughter could?’

  Saratos stayed stony-faced, staring at the far wall with the look of a man whose mind was elsewhere, and Morban nodded slowly.

  ‘Tell him that I’m open to a side bet if he feels so sure of his man.’

  The German grinned hugely, having got the reaction his insult was intended to draw, nodding vigorously without waiting for Arminius to translate. Morban fished into his purse, making a show of poking around in it before pulling out a gold aureus. Arminius translated the startled trainer’s response with the ghost of a smile.

  ‘He says you must be fucking mad, or that’s the closest I can get to what he actually said. He’ll cover you at two for one, given the size of your stake, which he will hold for you until the result is clear.’

  Morban winked at the trainer and flicked the coin towards him, nodding as the other man took it out of the air with expert fingers.

  ‘Tell him he just accepted the worst bet of his life.’

  He turned away, calling back to Arminius over the crowd’s renewed baying as Saratos stepped into the ring, his face still vacant and apparently lacking any interest in the coming bout.

  ‘And stay close to him, I don’t want him trying to do a runner with my money when the big man goes down.’

  He turned back to look at the expression on the German’s face.

  ‘You might not speak Latin, but you understood that well enough, didn’t you, you wrinkled old fart?’

  The trainer scowled at him, spitting a string of instructions and warnings at his fighter as the giant stepped into the ring to face the waiting Dacian, instructions that were clearly being ignored as the massive redhead clenched his fists and inflated his chest to issue his usual roared challenge, throwing back his head and bellowing defiance at the sky above. At the instant he looked up, Saratos moved, sprinting forward with the urgency of a man who knew that this was his best and quite probably his only opportunity to take control of the fight, covering the five paces between them before his opponent’s bellow had exhausted itself.

  The German’s gaze snapped down onto him as he belatedly realised what was happening, but before he had time to react his opponent was upon him. Rather than strike what would almost certainly have been an ineffectual blow at the big man’s stomach or face, Saratos lunged feet first into a sliding tackle that entangled his legs with the giant’s, then twisted his body violently to topple the ponderous German. Hitting the ground hard, his opponent grunted with the unexpected impact, flailing his arms in an attempt to push himself upright, but the Dacian was swifter to react. Thrusting his body into the air, he slammed a braced elbow down into the momentarily helpless German’s sternum with his full weight behind it and then, as the breath left the big man’s lungs in an explosive rush, swung the same arm’s fist down in a hammer blow to his crotch with the speed and skill of a seasoned street fighter. Rolling away he readied himself to strike again, waited for his groaning opponent to get halfway to his feet and then turned swiftly through a full circle to deliver a back-fisted blow to a spot just behind his left ear. His eyes rolling up as he lost consciousness, the German slumped back onto the dirt floor in a boneless flop that betrayed his sudden and complete loss of consciousness.

  For a moment the crowd gathered around the fighting pit was silent, and in that instant before they had the chance to turn ugly at the shock of the champion being defeated by a Roman, Arminius took his chance, bellowing at them in their shared language.

  ‘The Dacian wins! Free beer for every man here to celebrate!’

  Taking the German’s trainer firmly by the arm, his knife out and pricking the man’s ribs beneath the cover of his cloak, he dragged the older man alongside him and set off downhill, repeating the cry as the crowd regained their wits and stared at him in amazement.

  ‘Free beer! Follow me!’

  Torn between the prospect of violence and alcohol, the Germans wavered momentarily, then as one man surged after Arminius and his captive while Morban stared at them in horror.

  ‘Free?’

  Saratos strolled over to him, still breathing hard from his violent exertions, crooking a finger to lead the horrified standard bearer back over to th
e corpse-like form of the defeated giant.

  ‘Is not to worry. I watch them before, see, and more than one time I see trainer check that this belt still good. Make me wonder what is point of belt when rope better in fight, give less for enemy to grip. We look, yes?’

  Sanga and Cotta had joined them, the pit now completely deserted by the men streaming back toward the settlement’s centre.

  ‘Let’s see if your guess was right, eh?’

  He unbuckled the German’s belt, pulling it free and hefting the thick strip of leather in one hand.

  ‘I’d like to have seen the cow that gave its life to provide leather this heavy!’

  He turned the belt over, using a fingernail to dig into what looked like a coating of hide glue, probing its reverse in search of something not immediately evident.

  ‘What the—’

  Morban fell silent as the soldier grinned triumphantly.

  ‘Got you!’

  Sliding the nail into a long cut in the leather’s surface he peeled back a layer of hide to reveal a string of circular depressions that had been painstakingly scraped into the belt beneath that thin layer.

  ‘Must be a dozen of them. Right now this one’s owner thinks he’s spending our winnings to buy beer for anyone that can drink it, and all the time he’s counting on this being here when this lump wakes up. Thinking all is not lost.’

  Morban reached out a hand for the belt.

  ‘But it fucking well is! That’s my stake, and my winnings!’

  Cotta put out a hand to stop him, taking the belt from Sanga and fastening it about his own waist.

  ‘The tribune’s winnings, given you were betting with his gold, and, more to the point, safe. And we’re not done getting our “edge” yet, so that small fortune is best kept hidden. And now we’d best go and see how a German tribe behaves when provided with unlimited free beer!’

  The Tungrians went forward at the same cautious pace for the rest of the morning, stopped for a brief rest when the sun, or what could be seen of it through the trees’ thick canopy, was at its highest point, and then resumed their slow, patient march through the forest.

  ‘I swear this is worse than a thirty-miler. At least you can get your head back and get stuck into a proper distance, but this …’

  Qadir, having joined Marcus at the front of the column, nodded, his head turning slowly from side to side as he scanned the forest before them. His voice was soft as he replied.

  ‘For myself I have to say that this method of progress is entirely more suited to my abilities than your constant emphasis on charging around the countryside with your boots on fire. It does a man’s spirit good to …’

  His eyes abruptly narrowed, the bow’s wooden frame creaking as he drew back the arrow that was already nocked to its string, pausing for an instant with the missile’s fletching barely touching his ear, then releasing the string and reaching for another arrow. Marcus looked frantically for a target for his own bow, but the forest was silent, the only movement the stirring of the trees’ higher branches by the wind.

  ‘A man, on the path.’

  The Hamian’s quiet comment was all it took to break the moment’s spell, and the heavy cloak of lassitude that had settled over Marcus fell away with the rush of blood as he hurried forward in a half-crouch with his bow still ready to shoot, Dubnus at his heels with his axe in one hand and a sword in the other. They found Qadir’s target a hundred paces up the track, a roughly dressed man whose knuckles were white around the grip of a bow, leaning against a tree while his life blood pumped out around the shaft of the Hamian’s arrow. He looked up at the Romans with eyes already glassy with his impending death and reached out an imploring hand, too badly shocked even to know what had happened to him.

  ‘I doubt he even saw us.’

  Marcus put the borrowed bow aside and drew his gladius, swiftly and efficiently putting the point to the stricken German’s chest and pushing it between two ribs to stop the dying man’s heart just as the head of the detachment’s column reached the scene.

  ‘He was alone then.’

  Marcus nodded at Scaurus’s question.

  ‘If he’d been accompanied we’d have spotted anyone else as they ran. The question is what do we do with him?’

  ‘Bury him deep.’ They turned to find Gunda looking down at the dead man dispassionately. ‘If you leave him to lie in the open the animals will tear him to pieces quickly enough, but the bones will be scattered, and the risk of another hunter finding them is too great. This man needs simply to disappear. He will be missed, of course, but it is not unknown for hunters to travel deep into the forest in search of game for days at a time.’

  Dubnus took over, issuing a swift order to Angar, who selected four of his axemen, leading them as they picked up the body and carried it away from the path.

  ‘They will find a quiet spot and bury him deep enough to keep his body safe from the wild beasts, then follow us down the path.’

  Scaurus turned to Qadir.

  ‘A pair of your archers to watch over them might be a good precaution, Centurion.’

  He pointed down the path’s track to the north.

  ‘Gunda, how much farther must we walk to be close enough to Thusila to effect the next part of our plan?’

  The guide thought for a moment.

  ‘Another two miles.’

  ‘In which case, gentlemen, I suggest we get back on the move, but with the same caution as before. I want to be in position by nightfall, but I don’t want to risk discovery now we’ve got so close.’

  As the evening sun dipped towards the horizon, a party of twenty armed and armoured legionaries made their way along the Rhenus fleet’s quayside in column, two-men wide, a centurion at their head and another half-dozen men in formal togas bringing up the rear, followed in turn by a solitary figure dressed in the full ceremonial armour of a Roman senator. Ordering the column to halt alongside the fleet’s flagship, the centurion shouted to the men manning the vessel’s rail to fetch their commanding officer. Summoned to the vessel’s side, Varus’s cousin found himself looking down at governor Clodius Albinus, accompanied by his full official retinue of lictors, each with his bundle of rods and axes held across his body in an ostentatious display of power that he very much doubted was anything but intentional.

  ‘Greetings, Prefect.’

  The naval officer inclined his head.

  ‘Governor.’

  Albinus looked up and down the dock at the sailors loading baskets of food and sheaves of arrows onto the decks of the three ships that had been pulled down the slope from their storage sheds into the water of the basin and were now arrayed alongside the provisioning quay.

  ‘It looks to me, Prefect, as if you’re making preparations to sail.’

  The naval officer considered the question for a moment before making a reply.

  ‘Indeed, Governor. I plan to take three ships on a routine patrol as far down the river as Novaesium, poking about on the eastern bank as usual to make sure that the Germans are behaving themselves.’

  Albinus smiled thinly.

  ‘A good defence never sleeps, eh Prefect? It’s heartening to see that we have alert and diligent officers such as yourselves in my German fleet. Indeed I share your interest so deeply that I thought I’d come along for the ride. When do you plan to sail?’

  ‘At first light, Governor. Our preparations are more or less complete.’

  The older man nodded, already very well aware of the ships’ state of readiness, having taken steps to determine the prefect’s most likely next steps the previous day, when their role in the Tungrians’ insertion into Bructeri territory had become plain.

  ‘In which case I’ll come on board now. A night of some slight discomfort will be a small price to pay for the professional satisfaction to be had from patrolling the empire’s borders with a renowned officer such as yourself.’ He smiled at the prefect again, clearly enjoying himself. ‘Obviously my lictors will have to accompany me, a
nd my private bodyguard, but we’ll do our best to keep out of your way. Perhaps you could redistribute your marines around the other ships, just to make a little room for us?’

  The prefect inclined his head in agreement, his smile of acquiescence as thin as the governor’s apparent good humour.

  ‘Of course, Governor. It will be an absolute privilege to have you along for the ride.’

  ‘I had no idea this lot could drink so fast!’

  Morban looked around the crowded tavern with growing alarm, watching the delighted tribesmen swigging their beer with the dedicated abandon of men who saw their chance to achieve oblivion without having to spend so much as a single coin. But if he was dismayed at the frantic pace with which the rapidly growing band of drinkers had been consuming the tavern’s supplies throughout the afternoon, all recognising that either beer or the money to pay for it might well run out at any moment, his consternation was nothing in the face of the German trainer’s abject misery as the contents of his purse went down their throats. To the Tungrians’ surprise, clearly unable to tolerate the injustice of the situation in silence, he suddenly burst into a tirade directed at Cotta, his Latin all but fluent.

  ‘What are you bastards playing at? You beat my boy, I would have paid out the prize and settled the wager! But this?’

  Sanga leaned in close, his conspiratorial wink doing nothing to ease the man’s anxiety, pointing at the belt around Cotta’s waist, almost hidden under the fold of his tunic.