by Tony Roberts
The next morning food was brought to him and left by the grille so all he had to do was the reach out and pull the rough wooden plate through, making sure the latticed wood didn’t dislodge the unappetizing mess. Casca had to eat with his fingers, transferring the partly liquid meal to his mouth with difficulty. Two guards watched him silently and Casca turned his back on them. A pox on them.
The cave went back a short way, rising up as it did, but then appeared to end in a series of jagged ledges. It went deeper off to the left but even with the deep shadows over in that corner, he could see the rock wall. Not even hill tribesmen would be stupid enough to leave a back way out of their cage.
Shortly after finishing the meal, three more men walked up to the grille and one barked at the guards to unlock the gate. As it swung open Casca got to his feet, wondering whether someone was going to come in or he had to go out.
“Come,” the man in charge barked, curtly gesturing to Casca.
With four men jabbing spear points into his back and arms it wasn’t likely he could overpower them and get away. There again, which way would he go, and could he outrun these hardy people whose back yard it was? It would be dumb to make an escape bid until he knew who these people were, where he was, how far it was to safety and in what direction it was. They were within the clouds; a mist drifted eerily through the camp, and visibility varied from moment to moment. Another good reason not to try anything this day.
People stood and watched him with fascination; young children with large wide dark eyes, mothers and daughters clutching one another in fear and awe at the sight of the scarred muscular man with eyes like high lakes, men warily turning their bodies to face him at all times.
They went uphill to the biggest building at the top of the rock canyon. Smoke spiraled up out of a hole in the steeply sloping roof, something that told Casca here they were used to snowfall. More guards stepped aside as Casca was prodded up the three wooden steps that led up to the entrance. He was led through into the huge hall that the entrance gave access to, and a balcony stood on three sides of this with stairs connecting it to the ground level.
A large man swathed in animal skins sat on a stout wooden chair at the far end of the hall, a man with a shock of ginger hair above a battered and weather beaten face. Casca stared hard at the hair. It was so unusual. He’d seen that coloring in some of the German tribes in the past, particularly the Goths and Marcomanni, but never in the Caucasus region. Legends said that King David of Israel was similarly blessed.
The man grunted as he guessed what Casca was looking at. “I am told that soldiers of Alexander the Great passed by here many years ago and copulated with some of the pretty young girls of this tribe before passing on. It is said that every few generations people like me wear this color as a reminder of that time.”
Casca shrugged. It was possible. Bloodlines threw up some really exotic people every so often. “Why am I here?”
“You know why,” the tribal leader snapped, standing up, throwing off the skin cloak which collapsed onto the back of his chieftain’s chair. “We are your jailers for the winter. Payment has been received.”
Casca waved an irritated hand. “I know that! I mean why am I here in this building?”
The chieftain planted his fists on his wide leather belt and looked down at Casca. He stood a good head above the Eternal Mercenary. “You look a tough type. We need someone to power our water wheel. The donkey that did the job died last week and our people have to haul the water up by hand. It’s hard work, I can tell you! You coming here is a blessing. Work hard and your imprisonment here can be more – comfortable.” He grinned a gap-toothed smile.
Casca grunted. “And if I refuse? It sounds like I’d have to do this daily!”
The chieftain laughed aloud, throwing his head back as he roared. The other tribesmen grinned. “Why,” the chief said, “you really have no choice, my strong friend. We have whips and other methods of persuasion. You’ll be tied to the wheel and made to power it. If you give me trouble you’ll spend the nights out there too. Agree voluntarily and you can spend the nights back in the cave.”
“Stick your bargain up your ass,” Casca snapped. “I’ve been colder. Anyway, you can’t maltreat me too much or you’ll find those who hired you as jailers won’t be best pleased. I know them, and they’ll come back with a lot of angry friends to wipe your little shit hole of a camp off the face of the land.”
The chief stepped forward, his mouth twisted in fury, slapping Casca across the face. Casca struck back, the suddenness of his boot swinging up and crashing into the chief’s left knee catching all by surprise. The chief screamed in pain and swung round, clutching his hurt knee. Three guards closed in on Casca, sending blows raining down on him from their spear butts. Casca crashed to the smelly floor, grunting in pain, but pleased he’d hit the asshole.
“Stop!” the chief gasped. He held onto a chair and stood wincing in pain as Casca was hauled back up. “For that you will be fixed to the wheel all winter. You will turn it constantly, supplying us with water. You will be beaten and whipped if you do not. Take him away!”
Casca was manhandled roughly out of the hall and forcefully taken across the clearing to a large wooden wheel fixed together with ropes at all junctions and joints, standing horizontally, affixed to a central pole that plunged down into a hole through the rock. The hole had been roughly hacked out some time in the distant past and was about the width of a man’s torso. Off to one side about twenty feet away the rocky floor of the canyon dropped down and here was a second, much lighter wheel, arranged vertically. Every ten feet or so were buckets of wood and leather affixed to it, and water dripped from these.
He couldn’t see how far down it went, but judging by the diameter and size, it must have been about twenty feet. The hole it plunged into wasn’t much wider than the wheel. He was roped to the first wheel and ordered to put his hands on a wooden spoke that stuck out from the main body. “You walk around, turning this wheel,” the man in charge of the guard detail said. “The shaft there turns the second wheel and brings water up from within the mountain to us.”
“What happens when it freezes in winter?” Casca demanded. It would be a waste of time trying to turn it if it froze.
“The waters never freeze. It is an underground spring. It is why we are here.”
“Well, good for you.” Casca was given a kick on the thigh and two men remained with him, one holding a spear, the second a whip made of knotted rope fixed to a wooden handle. With a grunt, Casca pushed and the wheel began to move, slowly. He dug his toes into the ground and the wheel creaked, protesting loudly. It began to move faster and the second wheel began rotating, the sound of dripping water increasing.
People came running, water skins, buckets and other vessels clutched in their arms. They stood in a line, waiting patiently while the wheel provided them with the valuable water. Casca grunted, head bowed. The poor donkey that had preceded him must have had no life except one of servitude tied to this wheel.
After twenty minutes he came to a halt, sweat dripping off his forehead, his legs and arms aching. The last of the people had gone. The guards grunted and allowed him to sit; the ropes allowed him that much freedom. His hands were tied together and ropes snaked from neck and wrists to the wheel. The cold mountain air soon caused the sweat to stop and freeze against his skin. Soon he had to cover up, shivering, as the cold mountain air chilled him. There were a couple of extremely smelly goatskins that were thrown to him and he wrapped them around him, not caring about the aroma.
He sat wrapped in his own world of thinking. Frustration and anger fought for supremacy. The thing he hated the most was to be at the mercy of anyone, and both the Brotherhood and these primitive mountain dwellers had him right by the short and curlies. So far since getting to Alexandria life had been one huge pile of shit, and things weren’t getting any better. It looked like he was to spend the worst part of the year high in the mountains of Armenia slaved to a damned water wheel providi
ng sustenance to the village, just like a beast of burden. And then once the spring arrived, or maybe not even then, the Brotherhood would turn up, take him back and escort him back to the army and point him in whatever direction they wanted and shout ‘fetch!’ expecting him to obey like a good little doggie.
Damn them all to hell and worse. Once he got his hands on that Spear – his spear – he’d start giving orders. Because as sure as hell, once those maniac Brotherhood morons got the Spear then Ayesha’s life wasn’t worth a copper coin. He pondered on matters further. The Spear had just got to be somewhere important and safe. The Persians wouldn’t go leaving it hanging around anywhere. So it was likely to be in Persia and in one of the main cities, one where the King lived at any time.
He shivered. Persia. He’d not been back there since that maniac Shapur II had him burned at the stake, thanks to another Brotherhood minion, Rasheed. It had given him an aversion to the place. How long was it? Three hundred years? Maybe the Persians deserved some payback too. All he needed was a sword in his hand, then he could get even with these tribesmen, the Brotherhood and the Persians. His mood was getting blacker and someone was going to get the short end of his temper when it broke.
The weather closed in over the next few days and snow blanketed the ground, covering every surface, Casca included. He woke and shook himself like a dog getting out of a river. The cold air knifed through his tunic and he kept the goatskins wrapped around him, even when he started trudging around the wheel. He didn’t need to work it that quickly to get the water flowing but it would get him warmed up before breakfast.
That was another sore point. Whatever they dished up was almost as bad as it looked. He guessed the cook, whoever he or she was, had been a jailer in a former life because this stuff was almost as bad as some of the fare he’d had to swallow during his many times in prison. In fact he was sure if they tried to dish this crap up in some old Roman dungeons there would’ve been a riot. At least the water was good; it was pure and clean and hadn’t tasted as if it had been through three pigs, a mule and a rancid whore before being given to him, like some had in the past.
As the winter dragged on, Casca became almost like a part of the wheel. His hair grew, as did his beard, and his trudging around the wheel wore a slight path so that he could go without opening his eyes. He did try to mutiny once, just to see the tribesmen’s reactions. They beat him and whipped him until he got up and resumed.
So he trudged on endlessly, round and round, like the mythical beast that devoured itself.
CHAPTER NINE
Winter had been hard, as Casca had expected. Winds had shrieked like banshees around him at times, and had covered him in shrouds of white death. Yet, he didn’t die, much to the villagers’ surprise. As his resistance to cold and the elements became more and more certain, the chieftain had taken more and more liberties with him, cutting down on the food, only allowing him water once a day and so on.
Casca’s temper bubbled under the surface. His eyes were fixed on the chief’s hut when his cycle turned him in that direction. He got to know the layout of everything and the routine. Men went out to hunt and bring back the catch, and the women prepared the meals. Spring was in the air but the Brotherhood had not yet appeared. Casca’d had enough.
“Get up. We need water.” One of the guards, someone Casca had learned was called Levrian, kicked him. Casca hadn’t made any trouble for weeks, months even, and the guards were sure his spirit had been broken.
Like hell.
Casca grumbled, as he always did, but his eyes slid to the ground as he placed his rope-swathed hands down to lever himself up. The guard’s feet were inches away, his spear butt resting next to them. Casca exploded into life.
He sprang up like a billowing fire, his head crashing into the chin of the unsuspecting guard. The man was literally sent up off his feet, and Casca lunged for and grabbed the spear as it began to topple. He was on his feet now and holding the spear awkwardly between his hands. The man he’d hit wasn’t getting up any time that week. Blood oozed out of his broken mouth and he’d probably bitten through his tongue.
The second guard shut his open mouth and grabbed his spear, ready to do something, but Casca lunged, gripping the spear awkwardly in his bound hands. The guard took the blade through the chest and screamed horribly. Casca gripped his spear for grim life. If he dropped it now it was all over. The rope around his throat bit into his Adam’s apple and he pulled hard on the spear, ripping it from the falling man. He stepped back and rapidly slid the spear down to the rope binding his hands loosely together.
Gripping the spear shaft in between his knees he feverishly sawed away on the edge of the spear’s blade, neatly severing the bond. Now free, he could at last hold the spear in one hand. Men were coming out of the nearest huts, alerted by the scream, and a couple correctly saw what had happened and went running towards the chief’s abode, yelling madly.
Not wasting a moment, Casca sliced through the rope that bound his left hand to the wheel, then the rope that held him by the neck to the wheel. Now he was armed and free. He checked the two men. One had a rudimentary sword. Picking up both this and the second spear, he walked rapidly down towards the gathering group of men. They were waiting for the chief who soon appeared, his face black as a thunderstorm.
“What are you waiting for?” he bellowed loudly to the men standing in a group below his steps. “Take him! I don’t care if you kill him!”
Casca heard it all and decided to play hard. Dropping the sword and one spear, he sucked in his breath deeply, aimed the spear at the leading man approaching him, and hurled the projectile with all his might. The tribesman took it straight through the gut and he collapsed to the ground, screaming horribly while the point stuck out of his back. Casca grabbed the second spear, aimed quickly again, and sent it flying through the air to impact in a second man’s chest. He staggered a few steps backwards before collapsing in a heap.
Now Casca had the sword in his hand and came at the tribesmen screaming. He had plenty to get even with them for, and he was not in any mood to be generous. The first man raised his sword to block what he thought was going to be the usual attack, but Casca changed his sweep halfway through, pivoted and brought the blade up from waist level past the clumsy parry and sent the wide blade up under the armpit, severing a couple of ribs as well as plenty of flesh. The man stared stupidly at Casca before keeling over, blood running down his ruined sheepskin jacket.
Not stopping for a moment, Casca kept on moving, the blade swing carrying on into the air, dripping blood. Two more tribesmen were closing in, carrying spears and clubs. Casca swung the sword, thinking briefly that it was fairly well balanced if a little old, and stepped aside as the one to his left thrust at him. The spear passed harmlessly to one side and Casca’s keen blade cut down into the luckless man’s neck, slicing deep into the junction of neck and shoulder. He fell like a stone, head almost severed, and the other tribesman had to move aside to avoid being knocked by the falling man.
The alarm was up by now and people came running from all directions, wide eyed in shock and anger. Casca decided there was nothing for it but to go for the jugular, so to speak. Roaring with all the release of his pent-up anger and frustration he could muster, he charged for the chieftain’s hall. Two tribesmen saw him coming and parted like the biblical Red Sea, not wanting to mess with the hairy, blood spattered beast that had already downed four of them and was likely to down more.
The chief saw the approaching Casca and turned, running into his hall. Casca snarled and battered a guard to the ground who tried to block his path, and a second man was left clutching his ruined belly after he made the mistake of getting too close.
Taking the three steps in one bound, Casca slashed down at the last man to try to block his entry, cutting him from throat to sternum. The sword blade made an obscene sucking noise as it was pulled forth from the dying man, and he was left on the threshold, a mass of spilled intestines and gore staining the wo
od.
Casca stepped into the hall, eyes wide and standing out from the tangled undergrowth of his matted sweaty hair and beard. “Where are you, you coward?” he roared.
“Here, now stand and face a man instead of those stupid goats,” the chief replied, stepping out of the shadows, holding a huge long-handled axe. “None have lived who have faced me. You will be just the latest to fall to the kiss of this mighty blade.”
“Aw, fuck you, you sterile ass,” Casca snapped. He didn’t wait for any more posturing or bragging, but sprang forward, sword raised high in both hands. The chief swung his axe up and the sound of the two weapons clashing rang out through the hall. Casca caught a glimpse of female forms gathering on the balcony to watch, but he didn’t really have time to see properly, for the chief was swinging again for a second go. Casca stepped forward. The axe had a longer reach than his sword but took longer to swing. Inside the swing of the axe, Casca now blocked the axe with his sword held vertically, and then rammed his elbow into the face of the chief. There came the sound of breaking teeth.
The chief staggered back and put one hand to his ruined mouth. Casca stepped forward silently. The chieftain spat blood onto the floor. “You’ll be sorry you did that,” he whispered thickly.
Casca said nothing. He had the huge lump outclassed, and both of them knew it. Behind him the tribesmen gathered in the doorway, too afraid to come in. The chieftain screamed and raised his axe, stepping forward to bring the axe down on Casca’s head. The Eternal Mercenary feinted to go one way, then span the other. The axe crashed into the floor, sending wood chippings flying. Casca slashed hard, two handed. The sword cut into the chieftain’s side, ripping through clothing, flesh and bone.
The huge man staggered aside, clutching his wound. The axe remained buried in the floor. Gasping in pain, the tribe’s leader grabbed for a sword hanging from the wall next to him and swung round, ready to use it. But Casca had seen the move and had stepped up close. The point of his sword sank into the chief’s stomach and Casca closed up so he was touching his adversary.