Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  ‘Get him out of the way!’

  A pair of warriors edged forward and took hold of the fallen rider’s clothing, dragging him clear of the injured horse, and the noble drew his sword, raising it in readiness to strike and waiting patiently for the right moment. The animal’s struggles against the pain of whatever had caused it to stumble gradually calmed, and finally, shivering violently, it stood still with one hoof raised from the track’s wooden surface. Pulling the sword back until it was almost behind him the noble struck, hacking a fearsome gash into the stricken horse’s neck and stepping back as it staggered, blood gushing from the wound, sinking to its knees as consciousness faded from its brain.

  ‘Quickly, get it off the track before it collapses!’

  A dozen men rushed to join him, and their collective push toppled the trembling animal over the path’s edge and into the knee-deep marsh water, where it lay twitching in an expanding cloud of its blood. Gernot leaned over to examine the foot that it had been favouring, reaching out and pulling at a hard metal object embedded in the centre of the hoof’s underside. Turning, he held it up to Amalric with the bloodiest of its four points uppermost.

  ‘A caltrop. It seems that our quarry isn’t ready to be overtaken that easily after all.’

  The king looked down at the pointed device in disbelief for a moment, then shook his head.

  ‘No matter. One horse makes no difference either way, so nothing is changed.’

  Gernot flicked a glance at his men, many of whom were eyeing the corpse of the dead horse’s rider with evident dismay. He walked across to the king’s horse, craning his neck to look into Amalric’s eyes.

  ‘You’re sure, my King? There will be more traps like this. More men will die.’

  The younger man looked down at him for a moment, then took the caltrop from his fingers, holding it up in plain view of the men of his household.

  ‘Gernot warns me that there will be more of these. Look upon it, my brothers, and consider its nature as a weapon. Invisible until it strikes, murderous to man and horse, and easier to make than an arrowhead. If we ride on from this point it is likely that some of you will have your horses felled by these, assuming that our enemy has more of them. And so I ask you to choose whether you wish to ride on, or whether you will take the easier option, and turn your horses south, admitting defeat.’

  He was silent for a moment, allowing time for his men to digest the awful choice.

  ‘For myself there is no choice, but for each of you all that binds you to me are a few words that you spoke before the altar of Wodanaz when my father died, and I succeeded him on the tribe’s throne.’

  ‘A vow is a vow, my King!’

  Amalric nodded, raising a hand in recognition of the outraged shout from somewhere near the back of his men.

  ‘Trust me, my brothers, I have vowed to have these Romans’ heads nailed to my roof beams, or else to die trying. And so I will be riding at the head of our column from now, taking as much risk as any other man. Who will ride with me? I will say again, any man who wishes may be released from his oath without fear of censure or punishment. Service of this nature must be given freely or not at all! Who will ride with me?’

  A roar from his men and a thicket of spear heads punching at the air was his answer, and Amalric looked down at Gernot with a sad smile.

  ‘I’ve just condemned who knows how many of them to die and they love me for it.’ He tossed the caltrop into the water at the track’s side. ‘Have the dead man’s body placed at the path side and we’ll bury him with dignity when we return with the heads of the bastards who killed him. And then take your saddle, Gernot, we have Romans to hunt!’

  ‘He’s waking up. Let’s try to get him upright.’

  The Tungrians had been a dozen miles north of Aliso when disaster struck. Husam, riding near the head of the column, felt his horse stumble momentarily and then, just as he had thought the beast had regained its footing, found himself momentarily in the air before hitting the edge of the wooden causeway with a sickening crack. On coming to he had found several worried men gathered over him, their expressions becoming still darker with his frenzied reaction to their attempts to lift him.

  ‘No! In the name of the goddess no!’

  Two of the men standing over him were pushed aside, making way for the woman Gerhild who squatted next to him and ran her hands along the length of his twisted leg. She looked up at Scaurus and made to stand up, but Husam whipped out a hand and gripped her arm with the wide-eyed strength of a man in severe pain.

  ‘Tell me.’

  She looked down at him until his grip loosened.

  ‘Your leg is broken. You cannot ride and you cannot walk.’

  He digested her statement in silence for a moment, then looked up at Scaurus, speaking with teeth gritted against the pain in his thigh.

  ‘You must leave me, Tribune, or I will be the death of you all. I ask only that you stand me up and put a bow in my hand, and I will send a dozen of these Bructeri to the underworld before me.’

  The tribune nodded.

  ‘As you wish. But given that we have no time to spare I warn you that it will be painful in the extreme.’

  Cotta squatted down next to him, taking one hand and holding out a piece of wood taken from his pack.

  ‘Put this in your mouth and bite down.’

  The Hamian opened his mouth and allowed the wooden dowel to settle against his back teeth, then nodded curtly. Pulling him to his feet as gently as they could, the men around him winced as he shrieked with the pain as the ends of his broken thigh bone grated together. Scaurus looked into the Hamian’s eyes and nodded to himself.

  ‘Hold him up. Arminius, fetch the vial.’

  The big German nodded and turned away to his pack, returning with a small and solidly made green glass bottle whose stopper was sealed over with a heavy blob of wax and then wired for good measure. He raised a questioning eyebrow to his master, who nodded tiredly.

  ‘Open it. If we don’t use it now then we may never get the chance to do so.’

  Stripping away wire and wax, Arminius pulled the stopper with delicate care, putting his nose to the bottle’s neck.

  ‘It smells sweet enough.’

  Scaurus laughed.

  ‘It tastes sweet enough too, especially once the contents have had time to take effect. Take a mouthful.’

  The Hamian drank, licking at the residue that stuck to his lips.

  ‘It tastes like honey.’

  ‘It is honey mixed with wine, but with the addition of the milk of the poppy. I have given you sufficient to dull the pain, but not enough to completely remove it, as that would cause you to sleep. Now, we need to get you tied to something so that you can stay upright for long enough to make your arrows count.’

  Cotta pointed to a sapling growing alongside the track.

  ‘There? He’ll have a clear view of the track.’

  Scaurus nodded.

  ‘Fetch rope. Husam, what is the distance of your best bow shot?’

  The Hamian thought for a moment, lifting his head to look at the nearby trees for some indication of wind direction.

  ‘Two hundred paces.’

  Scaurus called after Cotta.

  ‘And have the remaining caltrops laid out from two hundred paces back down the track.’

  Biting down on the wooden stick again, the Hamian grimaced and shuddered while they manhandled him over to the young tree, then lashed his injured leg to its bole to enable him to stand upright on his remaining good limb.

  ‘There. That should keep you standing long enough to put a few shafts into the air. Here, give me that stick.’ Cotta extracted the wooden dowel from his mouth and then tossed it aside. ‘Munir, come over here and sort your comrade out with his bow. And be quick about it, we need to be away.’

  Scaurus stepped forward and took the stricken archer’s hand, looking into his eyes with an expression of sadness verging on tears, and Husam laughed tersely, flinching at the
pain in his leg.

  ‘You can stop that.’ Scaurus raised an eyebrow, but the archer shook his head dismissively. ‘You heard me, Tribune. No sadness, not now. I’m going to die cleanly, and quickly, instead of suffering for hours and then dying from the barbarous attentions of the Bructeri. I always knew that following your eagle would get me killed at some point, and all I ever wanted was for it to be a man’s death, fitting for the service of the Deasura. So ride away now, before the Germans get here, and think of the harvest I’ll reap from them as they come up that road. Now …’

  He turned to Munir, who was waiting behind the officer.

  ‘Give me my bow.’ He took the weapon from the empty-eyed watch officer, hastily restrung with a dry string to replace its predecessor, which had been soaked by its fall into the marsh, and tested its draw with a critical expression. ‘Perfect. Give me some arrows and I’ll be ready.’

  ‘I’m staying with you.’

  Husam laughed.

  ‘No you’re not, my friend, because not only does the tribune have too much sense to let you throw your life away that cheaply, but I’m not letting you either. I’m your superior, and I’m telling you to give me some arrows, two quivers full, then get on your horse and get out of here.’ Munir stared at him with eyes that were filling with tears. ‘And you can stop that too, because I’m giving you a job to do that’ll be a good deal harder than just standing here and putting some arrows into a hapless bunch of barbarians, right? At some point in the next day or two you may get a chance to put a shaft into Qadir, and when you get that chance you must send the arrow on its way with the Deasura’s name on your lips in the hope that she will greet him into the afterlife despite his increasing lack of regard for her. Give him a merciful death, Munir, and when the time comes remember me and do not hesitate! Now be on your way, and leave me to commune with the goddess.’

  His friend put a quiver of arrows over each of the Hamian’s shoulders, making small adjustments to their positioning until the feathered shafts fell perfectly to hand, then kissed him on both cheeks and was gone, splashing across the submerged timbers to join the waiting horsemen. Husam saluted, lifting his bow in a gesture of defiance against the fates, and held it there while he watched them trot away to the north in showers of spray, as their horses’ hoofs scattered the standing water in all directions. Lowering the bow he stared at it in bleak silence for a moment and then exhaled in a long, slow breath.

  ‘Let us make ready.’

  Licking a finger, he held it up to gauge the wind’s strength and direction, smiling as he realised that it was at his back, a gentle breeze that would nonetheless help his shots achieve their best possible distance. Expertly plucking an arrow from the quiver, he put it to the weapon’s string, lifting the bow to its optimum elevation. Drawing the string back to its maximum extent, forcing the power of his broad shoulders into the weapon, he loosed the arrow and watched intently as it first climbed to the height of its brief arc and then fell back to earth to impact the wooden track in a brief splash of water almost too distant to be visible, the white flight feathers no more than a dot in the landscape before him but nevertheless sufficient to give him an indication of the range at which he could begin to punish the oncoming horsemen. Relaxing for a moment he closed his eyes, imagining the carved statues of Atargatis, the goddess that the Hamians called the Deasura, the deity worshipped by every man serving under Qadir’s command.

  ‘Deasura, light of my life, I am about to undertake my last feat of arms, crippled and in agony, but still capable of putting the fear of your vengeance into the hearts of the unbelievers. Grant me the strength to wield my bow with the skill of my long practice, and the grace to accept my death when that time comes. Make my ending glorious, I humbly pray, and grant me the boon of a quick and honourable exit from this life. Do not allow your faithful servant to suffer the indignity of torture or mutilation, but rather allow me to enter the underworld entire and ready to serve you in whatever is to follow.’

  He stood in silence for a moment longer and then spoke again, this time with less certainty and in something close to a pleading note.

  ‘So much for my pleas for your favour. Now I must plead on the behalf of another man, my friend Qadir. I know that of late he has been less … attentive to your service than before. This is not from any lack of love and respect for you, but because he has seen and done many things that a man should perhaps not have to endure in the past few years. I know that he has become troubled by the taking of life, and I fear that he has become weary of this world. Please, I entreat you, provide him with the strength to master this weakness and return to his full powers as both a man and a soldier. I know that he will love you for it, and redouble his efforts to serve you as you demand and deserve.’

  He opened his eyes, looking down the track’s length and finding it still empty.

  ‘It seems that I will have something of a wait before the time for my glorious death is at hand.’ Closing his eyes, he pondered for a moment before speaking again. ‘Forgive me, Deasura, for troubling you one last time. I speak on the behalf of a man for whom I have much fondness, an unbeliever, it is true, but a good-hearted man none the less, and another who has undergone more than his share of fate’s insults and injuries. If you see fit, visit your bounteous favour on Centurion Aquila, and grant him some measure of peace from the furies that haunt him. I know that your favour would help him to return to his former self.’

  He fell silent and opened his eyes, looking up into the empty sky.

  ‘Enough. A man should greet his death with more dignity than to beg for assistance, even for a friend.’

  Reaching down to the quiver with fingers that needed no instruction, he strung another arrow, tipping his head from side to side and back to front to warm the muscles that he needed to work perfectly one last time, stretching out his right arm and waggling the fingers in preparation for the feats of dexterity that would shortly be demanded of them, then looked down the track to see a minute speck of darkness on the horizon.

  ‘Well it’s about time. Come on then, you unenlightened barbarian scum. I’m ready when you are.’

  Amalric rode in silence, brooding on the three horses that had fallen to caltrops since their initial loss. Two of the riders had emerged from their falls with nothing worse than minor injuries, but the third had broken his arm on hitting the track’s wooden beams, and had been left propped against a tree with the promise that he would be picked up on their return southward. All three animals had been put out of their agony by Gernot, but each fresh casualty had consumed enough time for their quarry to have re-established a good half-mile or so of the lead that he was attempting to haul in by means of his calculated gamble with their pace. With each of the first two losses Gernot had urged him to surrender his place at the head of the column to a man whose loss would be less keenly felt, and each time he had dismissed the idea out of hand, so that at the third stop the noble had not raised the idea, but simply fixed his king with a lingering, piercing stare that spoke eloquently as to his concerns.

  Staring intently down the track he almost missed the small fleck of white feathers as he rode past it, registering it out of the corner of his eye as it vanished beneath the hoofs of the leading riders. Just as he realised what it was that he had seen, a high-pitched scream of equine pain sounded from behind him.

  ‘This is the place your father named in his message to the king of the Angrivarii?’

  Sigimund’s oldest son grunted, nodding dourly.

  ‘He told them we would be here by the middle of the day.’

  Tiro looked about him, finding only an empty landscape above which clouds scudded slowly past.

  ‘Well if they’re here they’re doing a remarkable job of staying concealed.’ He turned to Varus and Dubnus with a raised eyebrow. ‘It seems my message to the Angrivarii has gone astray, but one of the main tenets of the men I work for is to get the job done, no matter what the circumstances throw in our way. Doubtless the ma
n sent to deliver my request for safe passage to the locals is lying at the bottom of some ditch or other with a broken neck, with the message still tucked away about his person. So, we have a choice, gentlemen, to wait here until the Angrivarii do arrive, which of course might be a very long wait, or just to continue on our way without their assistance. Or their permission …’

  Dubnus nodded slowly.

  ‘And if they find us on their land without having granted that permission?’

  The older man pulled a wry face.

  ‘That depends on who does the finding. The tribe are still nominally our friends, but the discovery of Romans on their land unbidden might well result in our deaths before any sort of agreement could be reached.’

  ‘And the same can be said of the tribune and his party?’

  ‘Doubly so, for they have the Bructeri witch with them. My entire plan depended on our being able to recruit the Angrivarii to our cause, but without their co-operation there are several ways this can go bad.’

  The Briton turned in his saddle to look at Varus.

  ‘It seems to me that our only real option is to press on, find our brothers and bring them back here. Any other course of action seems likely to result in their capture and likely death.’

  Tiro leaned back in his saddle, playing a hard stare on the centurion.

  ‘You’re more of a pragmatist than I’d expected, Prince of the Brigantes. Very well, since you’ve done my arguing for me, we’ll risk the wrath of the Angrivarii and ride for the place I told Dolfus to meet us. I assume that you gentlemen will wait here for us?’

  Husam watched the oncoming horsemen intently, the arrow nocked to his bowstring drawn and ready to shoot, gauging the balance between the urge to shoot with the Bructeri inside his longest range and the need to make every arrow count. A horse screamed, and the arrow seemed to spring away from the bow’s string of its own volition, so swift was his reaction, aimed at the point in the enemy’s column where chaos had erupted. With the first missile in the air he continued shooting for all he was worth, lofting shaft after shaft at the oncoming pack of horsemen, a target so densely packed that he knew that putting an arrow into their midst was likely to result in a hit. A horse had fallen just behind the horsemen’s front rank, presumably to a carefully placed caltrop, and the ensuing chaos behind the fallen beast and those its fall had balked in turn was preventing most of the riders from either escaping from beneath the rain of arrows or attacking down the road. A rider whose horse had avoided the chaos put his head down and charged his mount forward, and Husam lowered his bow a little and put an arrow into the man’s mount, cursing as the shaft struck deep into the beast’s chest rather than hitting the man in its saddle. Killed in mid-gallop the horse simply ploughed into the track’s shallow standing water, its rider managing to stay in the saddle long enough that when the beast’s dead momentum was almost spent he was able to step off his mount and take shelter behind its massive bulk, safe from the Hamian’s arrows.