Caros caught the eyes of the mute rider and shoved a second jug his way.
Brocchus set his half-drained jug down, but kept his hand fixed around it. He licked his lips at the sight of a platter of meat being passed through the guests and snatched a piece. One of the young women returned with a spitted waterfowl and with a teasing smile, made the man lunge for it. He tore into the meat and gave her a wide smile, fat dripping from his chin.
Neugen staggered over to lean on Caros’ shoulder, his breath sour.
“Greetings! Eat well, travelers! It is the wedding night of my niece… or is he a cousin?” He slurred, defeated by the ale he had consumed.
Caros leaned towards Brocchus. “Speak freely friend. I fought in Hannibal’s army at Sagunt and he and I are known to one another. Tell me of his war? Has he burned Rome?”
“Yes.” Caros’ eyes widened and Brocchus started again. “No, I mean there has been a great battle. The Barca and his army, fresh from battling the man-beasts that inhabit the mountains in the north, faced Rome’s finest warriors.”
Drawn as moths to a lamp, people began to gather in a tight circle about the man who raised his voice for them. “The Romans drew their blades and charged the center of the Barca lines all spit-mad and full of vinegar. Hannibal had placed his newest allies in the center, the Boii and Insubres.”
Maleric, on hearing his people named, shoved his way forward. Brocchus winked at the Gaul with a smile. “The Gauls are known for their fierceness and unflinching bravery and Hannibal’s wisdom was shown to all. While the Romans pushed forward, committed to throwing themselves on the blades of the Gauls, the rest of the Barca warriors circled, cut down the Roman allies and surrounded the legions.” He raised his jug and it was quickly refilled. “The Roman general fled, leaving behind most of his army, some thirty thousand, lying dead on the field.” He lifted his jug above his head. “To the Barca! To Hannibal!”
There was an enthusiastic response from the listeners and ale splashed from overfull jugs and sank down thirsty throats.
The tale as told by Brocchus was no doubt embellished with each retelling and probably very unlike what had truly happened, but Caros listened intently, wondering how soon Hannibal might destroy Rome and return to Iberia. He would surely give Caros the opportunity to speak the truth and clear the charges against him.
The revelers returned to their dancing and loving, leaving Caros to question the Celtiberi traveler.
“This is a true tale? Hannibal defeating the Roman army and such numbers killed?” Caros asked.
Brocchus spat an olive pit into the muddied straw at his feet.
“Who knows? The only certainty is Hannibal has arrived in Italia and fought the Romans in a battle.”
“So you do not know if the Boii fight on Hannibal’s side?” Maleric rumbled, his fists balled tight.
“I just tell what I heard.” Brocchus hiccupped and burped. The horse buyer’s eyes were swimming and his words slurring. Not surprising since he had downed a good quantity of potent ale since arriving. “Do you know of any herds, good herds, that I might buy. I have little desire to try outspend the Romans.”
Caros gestured south.
“Speak to a trader named Marc in Baria. It is four days to the south. Mention me to him.” Caros held up his hands. “He might not be able to help, but he usually has a way of finding what you need and he is honest.”
Brocchus reeled and clutched his fellow traveler’s arms for support, a sickly smile signaling the man was heartbeats away from oblivion for the night.
Caros had begun to worry about the people Brocchus had heard the news of the battle from.
“Who told you of Hannibal’s victory? You said men from Qart Hadasht, yes?”
Zerbero, the mute, stepped forward and caught Brocchus as he began to fall, eyes rolling in his head and froth drooling from his mouth.
Caros shook his head. The man had downed jugs of the potent barley ale in quick succession. It was little wonder his limbs were like wet rope. He looked at Zerbero. He had lost his tongue not his hearing.
“How many men were there from Qart Hadasht?”
The silent man kicked a dog aside and laid Brocchus in its place beneath a bench.
Looking at Caros, he signaled with his fingers some fifty men.
Caros remembered Brocchus saying he had heard the news the previous night.
“Where were they riding to? Tagilit?”
Zerbero spread his hands and shook his head.
Caros wrestled with his fears. Could these be men sent from Qart Hadasht to capture him? If so, why had they not arrived with Brocchus and Zerbero?
He resolved that there would be no more excuses. It was time to leave Tagilit. Maleric had staggered off with the woman he had been spending the evening with and Neugen was sitting splay-legged against a near wall, eyes half closed as he hummed along with the women singing an ancient song of love.
He shook his head and thought it unlikely they would be able to ride for a day or two while Neugen and Maleric recovered their health after the ale they had consumed.
He strolled through building and ducked through the low door into the kitchen yard. Rappo waved. He had become close with a young cook. No beauty, she had instead a smile and a way that made her attractive all the same. She was singing some tune as she scrubbed a cauldron clean with handfuls of yellow sand. She stilled as Caros walked over.
“Still working on Beaugissa’s gift I see.” Caros remarked with a warm smile.
Rappo flinched and looked at the woman. “No that is another. This one is promised to...”
Caros almost laughed aloud at Rappo’s embarrassment.
“Ah! I see.” He cleared his throat. “Tomorrow you and I need to make the horses ready and pack all the dry goods.”
Rappo nodded slowly, his eyes on his fingers as he deftly wove the supple leather into intricate patterns.
“The horses are well. I have been exercising them every morning.” His voice was low.
“Yes. I should have helped with that.” Caros looked at the woman who watched him silently, her hands in constant motion, suddenly melancholic. “I will see you in the morning then.”
Rappo called to him as he was about to duck through the doorway.
“How many days before we ride, Caros?”
“Two or three. Neugen will be sick from ale for at least that time.” He tried a grin, but Rappo was already looking at the woman.
Caros backed out of sight, his heart both warmed and saddened by the love his young friend had found.
Skirting a group of graybeards and their women still drinking and laughing at old tales, Caros made for the beehive dwelling he had rented for the winter.
Batting aside the leather curtain that served as the door, Caros threw off his cloak and sat heavily on his cot, the packed wool and straw settling beneath his weight. Unstrapping his sandals, he rose to tie the bottom of the leather curtain to prevent its flapping in the night breeze.
That done, he fell onto his back on the cot and dragged a blanket across his midriff. Sleep slipped away from him, slithering like an eel just out of reach. His thoughts skipped from his anger at being unjustly accused to worrying about Beaugissa’s reaction to his arrival in her home village.
He roused slowly, tongue like a wad of old leather and feet wet from a leak in the thatch. He snorted his annoyance when the curtain shifted and opened an eye, listening carefully. A thud rose from beyond the curtain, sounding through the stone and timber of his room.
He rose onto an elbow and kicked the twisted blanket off his legs, awake now. The sound came again, accompanied by a cry. Caros muttered an invocation to Runeovex, god of war, and slid from his cot. His hand closed on the hilt of his sword unerringly and gripping the scabbard, he drew the heavy blade with a soft hiss.
The curtain was greased leather and Caros set his back to the stone wall before moving it slowly. Peering into the pre-dawn darkness, he sensed movement. The crunch of a pebble. The
whisper of leather.
The evening breeze had dwindled in the night and now moved a thick mist sluggishly. The mist swirled denser before rising on the breeze to reveal the outline of a figure crouched beside a wall.
A frenzied scraping from nearby was silenced by a hissed curse. Caros recognized the sound of violence and sensed the shades of death closing above him. He would have spat, but for the noise it would have made. Assassins were out hunting and drawn to them, like vultures of the spirit world, would be the shades of those that celebrated murder.
Somewhere close by a person was being killed and Caros hesitated, his hair bristling and heart pounding. Maleric laid his head on a cot in the dwelling behind Caros’. Neugen slept in his home two streets over. Rappo slept in the room beyond the man standing so still in the dark.
Caros imagined assassins following the young Masulian and the young woman from the kitchens back to his room. Caros worked his fingers around the hilt of his blade. They would question him to find where Caros slept and if that failed, they would probably begin searching in an ever-widening circle from where Rappo died.
Caros lifted the curtain a half-hand’s width more and slipped through, his shoulder rasping against it, as loud a cleared throat.
He led with his left forearm, thrusting with his powerful thighs to launch himself across the narrow street at the dark form stationed there.
The straight line of a blade, pale as the mist, lifted from beside the man’s thigh, its point centered to take Caros in the chest.
His elbow slammed into the killer’s collar bone, his forearm crushing into a bristled throat. Caros felt the man’s blade slide past his hip as he drove him backwards into the stone and mud wall at his back. The impact drove the breath from the man’s chest in a rattling wheeze, his throat crushed by Caros’ muscular arm. Birds erupted from the thatching as plaster and straw rained on the two men.
Even in the dark, Caros saw the man’s eyes bulge as he strangled under his weight. From within the hut, came gruff curses followed by a bloodied gurgle.
“Rappo!” Caros roared as he punched his sword deep into the guts of the man he held tight, feeling his blade bite into the plaster of the wall. “Rappo!” He kicked at the heavy curtain and a sword slashed down, its keen edge aimed at his bare ankle. The curtain wrapped about the blade before it could bite and Caros hacked, chopping through the wrist of the hidden attacker who dropped his blade and fell back into the room.
Caros sensed the mist move and spun, dropping to his knee and swinging his broad blade up to cover his head. A spear slashed through the air and glanced off the flat of his blade, striking blinding sparks. More shapes moved in the dark on both ends of the street. They moved together silently, cutting off his escape in either direction.
Qart Hadasht had sent its warriors for him and they had found Caros unprepared.
Chapter 10
Maleric had thought himself too spent to keep awake. He lay with his limbs entwined with those of the Bastetani woman, Anuncia, feeling her heartbeat slow and her breath grow deeper. His back stung where she had raked him with her nails, his hips throbbed where here her fists had beaten at him. Sweat cooled on his chest in the breeze that found its way in from beyond the shutters and his drowsing veered to wakefulness. He did not mind. He knew she would not balk at more lovemaking if he woke her.
A hiss and scrape carried on the breeze. Anuncia chose that moment to begin snoring, but not before Maleric heard something more that turned him cold. Not just his skin, but his very blood. He dragged his arm from under her shoulder, cursing and thrashing his legs free of hers. Even as he did, a dull thud rose from beyond his room followed by Caros’ voice raised in fury.
Anuncia yelped as she fell from the cot, pulling the matted furs with her. Someone slammed into the curtained entrance and the pole from which it hung, tore from its brackets above the door, draping him and his spear in heavy leather.
Maleric sprang at the shrouded figure struggling to throw off the curtain and planted a solid kick where he guessed the man’s sack hung.
The leather curtain absorbed most of the impact, but an agonized grunt signaled he had stalled the attacker for a moment.
“Maleric!” Anuncia called urgently. “Your sword!”
He turned and snatched the heavy blade from her.
“Run the moment I get outside.”
He drew his blade and spun back to the attacker. Starlight silhouetted the man in the mist, his spear rising as he stepped over the curtain.
Maleric threw the scabbard, striking him on the left shoulder and as the spearman reacted, he hacked his sword at the man’s knee. The blade opened up the flesh, cutting to the bone which snapped under the impact.
Pulling the blade back up under his right shoulder, Maleric plunged it forward as the man dropped his spear and toppled towards him.
The blade pierced him where his shoulder curved towards his neck and carried deep into the man’s chest.
A gout of warm blood drenched Maleric’s legs, spewing from the man’s mouth.
Maleric roared with glee, the blood scent lifting his fighting spirit and warming him like no fire ever could.
He pulled the blade free and jumped the dying man’s convulsing body, tucking his head low and bending forward to clear the low doorway.
Neugen rose from the half-size cot he had fallen asleep in, his bladder throbbing. His wife had refused to allow him beneath the covers they shared, claiming he stank of sour ale and he had been forced to use the cot he had built for their child when it grew older. His feet were numb from the cold until he kicked his toe on the wooden chock that anchored the bottom of the door curtain.
Eyes streaming with pain, he staggered outside, fumbling to free himself before he wet his smallclothes. With a gasp, he managed it and stood swaying as his stream splashed mud from the street onto his shins. A cold shiver passed through him, rattling him awake.
Mist, part natural and part smoke, drifted between the dark buildings. Above him stars glittered like so many rock crystals.
His stream pattered and started, finally slaking off. He shook off and tucked himself away, staggering a step as he did so, the ale he had drunk that night still at work. Sniffing under his tunic, he wondered if his wife would allow him beneath their covers.
Clad in only the cloth wrapped around his loins, he lifted his chin and listened, eyes half shut. A heartbeat passed in silence and then came the sound of a sandal slipping on wet stones followed by a soft thump. Wood on flesh.
Neugen’s eyes opened wide and the hair on his neck rose. He remained motionless, knowing he had heard the tread of a warrior and a spear shaft striking a leg when a foot slipped in the dark.
The mist was denser to his right where the ground fell away and the streets narrowed between close set beehive huts. He could see nothing, but he could sense the creak of leather and rustle of thick tunics and cloaks.
He stepped backwards, the cold rock and plaster of his home against his back. Sliding a step to the side he ducked into the doorway and took two paces to where his sword and helmet were kept on a shelf just beneath the thatching. He drew the blade.
“Neugen.” Her voice was low, cautious.
“Get under the cot.” His words were low, barely a breath between his lips.
He fumbled the next step, brushing a stool which scraped on the hard-packed dirt floor. Sweating, he breathed a curse and edged to the shuttered window, bent and collected his shield.
“They have come?”
“Quiet!”
His voice was louder than he had intended. Stepping towards the doorway, heart hammering, he reached for the curtain and heard a frantic shout. Caros. He closed his eyes and sent an invocation to Runeovex.
The still night was gone when he burst from the hut. Shadows leapt at him from his left and thrust at him from his right. He gasped as a flash of white-hot agony seared his gut and struck down with his sword, splintering the spear shaft with a jar that ran up his arm to his shou
lder.
A blow to his shield knocked him into a spearman on his right. His sword was pointed at the ground and he lifted it a scant hand’s breadth and cut down into the man’s thigh. Slamming his head forward, he felt his opponent’s nose give. As more figures moved in the mist down the street, Neugen turned on the man that had struck from his left. He slipped and the stabbed man’s elbow cracked into his head. Stumbling, eyes bursting with lights, he fell back against the wall of his home, expecting to feel the bite of sharp iron.
A soft grunt escaped the second figure which half turned, dropping a spear and clutching at an arrow embedded low in his back.
Neugen snarled and pushed away from the wall, his sword biting into the attacker’s neck. He ripped it through skin and sinew and swept it high, blood splattering his face. Chopped down, the heavy blade clove through the man’s bronze helmet and deep into his skull.
Panting, Neugen jerked the sword free as the man fell at his feet with a pitiful shriek that died away with his death throes.
A slim figure leapt from a low wall into the street, landing with no sound on the mud slick paving.
“Neugen! Come! Caros and Maleric are fighting for their lives.”
“Rappo? How…?”
“Come!” The Masulian was already sprinting away down the street.
Neugen bent double, his jaws straining wide as he threw up a skinfull of sour smelling liquid. Wiping his chin and streaming eyes, he started after his young companion.
Caros scrambled into the dark interior of the hut determined to finish off the man whose severed hand lay in the doorway. He was greeted at once by the harsh wheezing of someone in extreme pain. Wary of striking out and perhaps hitting Rappo, he sidled closer to the panting. From the street, leather soled sandals and boots slapped on stone, echoing loudly in the tight confines of Rappo’s room.
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