Caros was uneasy with the breeze which swung from the east to the south erratically. Though unlikely, he feared it would carry their scent to the raiders or any horses they might have. Already he could hear barked laughter punctuated by shrill whoops.
Rappo led them under a tangled mess of thorny brush that grew over long fallen tree. It would have been impossible but for the trail already forged by boar and other wildlife. Dragging himself out from under the snagging thorns, Caros settled alongside Rappo and peered downhill. Between the long stalks of yellowed grass before him and the scattered trees ahead, he could make out the hill-warriors capering around their fire.
“The wagon is closer to the rode.” Rappo pointed with his chin.
Maleric and Neugen joined them, moving silently but for
the brush of leather on thorn.
The sun was still a hand’s breadth from the western hills and its glare was in their eyes so they had to squint to see the enemy.
After a long moment of deep breathing, Maleric nodded thoughtfully.
“They are not properly drunk, yet, but if we hurled ourselves out the trees at them, they are apt to shit themselves. We might kill them all before they could find their blades let alone lift them.”
Caros pushed his right hand forward, finger extended, pointing.
“We would be seen. Mark the shadows beneath that rock; a sentry sits there.” He shifted his hand. “See that tree? Another paces there.” A heartbeat later a hill-warrior appeared, wrapped in furs, a heavy spear in the crook of his arm.
Neugen hissed. “With the sun so strong on this slope, even without the sentries, they would spot us before we made twenty paces.”
Caros was forced to agree.
“In the morning the sun will be behind us. They will be cold and red-eyed. That is when we strike.”
Rappo turned his head, his eyes slits.
“Some of their captives are women. By morning they may be dead.”
“We attack in the morning.” Caros repeated. “I will take the sentry in the shadows of the rocks. Maleric, take the one pacing beyond the tree.”
Neugen glared downhill. “Rappo and I will charge them from here once you have cut them down. I like it.”
Caros began to back up, keeping his head low lest one of the sentries spot him moving. An upwelling of laughter and whoops from the hill riders was followed by a terrified wail. He froze. The wail was joined by another and became screams of gut churning fear. His companions were as frozen as he was. Every man’s jaw clenched as tight as their knuckles. Maleric hissed and closed a hand around Rappo’s upper arm.
“This changes nothing.” Caros murmured. “Except that tomorrow any bastard that does not die quickly on our blades will die screaming.”
He beckoned to the others and crawled away under the deadfall until beyond sight of the camp and could stand. The hooting and hollering of the hill-warriors followed them back as did the sounds of women been used badly.
They made no fire and sat in tense silence broken only by the rasp of whetstones over their blades. With darkness settling, they rolled themselves in their cloaks and travel blankets, swords at hand. The distant sounds of pain and terror continued long into the night, keeping Caros from sleep and turning his blood to vinegar.
When he did wake, it was to a silent darkness. No moon lit the land and the stars glowed only feebly. He heard a first tentative bird call. Day was coming.
He rose and shook each man by the foot, waking them all in silence. They strapped on their helmets and cinched the leather straps of their armour tight.
When they were dressed, they stood close, breaking bread which they swallowed down with vinegar water.
With the first hints of dawn all around them and darkness washed by pale light, Caros led them to the hill-warriors’ camp.
Neugen and Rappo settled to their knees beyond the fallen tree, their weapons ready in their hands.
Caros looked to Maleric and caught the gleam in the other’s eye.
“When I have killed the sentry, I will signal with the hoot of an owl. Do the same.”
He turned to Neugen and Rappo.
“Come forward when you hear our signals. The moment the sun lifts over the hill, we fall upon the rest.” Caros turned into the dark and began to circle to the right of the rock formation where he expected the hill-warrior sentry.
Along the way, he murmured to Runeovex. “Lend to my arm your power and to my eye your sharp sight. Today I would kill those you defile the honor of the spear.”
He smelled the hill-warrior when he was still a dozen paces from the rocks. Fouler than even the stink of a bear’s den, thick with moldering fur and sharp with the tang of blood and shite.
Caros’ lip twisted between a grimace and a snarl as his fingers curled tighter around the hilt of his sword. He had opted to use his falcata rather than his short knife and had his shield tied across his back, freeing his left hand.
Now he paused, his nostrils quivering at the stink that hung around him. He could see nothing of the sentry in the deep shadows about the rocks. Hunched low to prevent his body being silhouetted against the growing dawn at his back, he extended his left leg and placed his foot down gently, testing for twigs or loose stone. A wet slap and sudden grunt broke the stillness. Caros tensed and turned his head toward the sound. Edging forward another step, he saw a pale leg in the gloom at the base of the largest rock just as he smelled the reek of lust and blood. Setting his teeth, he went closer.
The sentry dozed on his haunches, his chin lifting futilely before nodding forward with a half-snore. At his feet, a woman whimpered and scuffed a foot through the dirt, like a drowsy hound dreaming. The sentry stirred enough to slap the back of his hand across the woman’s cheek before rolling his neck and sucking his knuckles, unaware of Caros hunched within arm’s reach. The hill-warrior yawned, enveloping Caros in the stench of rotting gums. The man’s eyes cleared; the first rays of the sun reflected in them just as they settled on Caros.
He went to thrust his blade into the man’s exposed throat and at the last changed his mind and thumped the hilt of the sword into his forehead. The hill-warrior’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed onto his back. Caros stepped over the woman and dropped a knee onto the man’s chest with a rattle of snapping ribs. He slammed the heavy bronze hilt into the man’s skull above his ear. He breathed still, but would not wake for half a day at least.
Caros hooted softly three times as agreed. On the ground, the woman’s breathing changed and he heard an intake of breath. Quickly, he clamped his hand tightly over her mouth.
“I am here to free you.” He whispered urgently before he realizing that his grip was causing her to writhe even more.
An owl call sounded as he struggled to hold the woman and keep her quiet. In despair, he knocked her cold with his sword hilt, using far less force than he had on the hill-warrior. She slumped senseless and Caros lifted his hand from her mouth. In the growing light the cause of her pain became evident. Her lips were split and her gums bloody. Heart hammering, he gently pulled her lower lip down and hissed. Sick with horror, he staggered upright and saw the extent of the injuries to the rest of her body.
Bread and vinegar bolted from between his lips and splashed his feet. Blinking hard, Caros wiped his mouth. Lifting his blade, he placed the point over the woman’s chest. He turned to the east, seeking the day’s first rays as he leaned on his blade, invoking Runeovex. Flesh and bone parted and a warm breath fled past his cheek.
The others grinned with relief when he joined them on the edge of the clearing the hill-warriors occupied. Shoulder to shoulder, they watched as the rising sun threw their shadows ahead of them.
Caros twisted his left arm into his shield strap, lifted his bloodied sword and then swept it down.
The sun seared crimson across the heavens and the four men leaped from the trees, war cries on their lips and blades ready to paint the land a similar hue.
The hill-warriors rose in pani
c, shedding dew laden furs and yelling their fright at the four warriors twenty paces from them and crashing closer with every cry.
Caros roared at a knot of four who had just staggered to their feet, eyes and mouths gaping. His blade rose and swung as he smashed shield first into their midst. Its keen edge clove through the shoulder of a warrior too addled to dodge it. He bludgeoned the edge of his shield into the bridge of another’s crooked nose, sending the man sprawling. One of the four turned to flee and Caros whipped his blade across the coward’s buttocks, hamstringing him so all he could do was try dragging himself to safety. The remaining man, ropey with lean muscles, jabbed at Caros with a hunting spear. The spearhead was tarnished green with verdigris, but was no less lethal. Caros turned it away with his shield edge, leaving the crouching warrior open. He swung a vicious kick at the warrior’s groin, missed and instead drove his heavy sandal into the other’s gut.
The man gagged and fell back, arms wind milling, face turning red. Caros sprang at him with a roar and smashed the man’s face back with his shield.
Spitting teeth and howling like a djinn, the hill-warrior scrambled through dry leaves on his hands and knees, his spear long forgotten.
Panting with battle rage, Caros stamped on his neck, pinning him to the dirt and snarled at the writhing murderer beneath his heel.
“What you have done in the dark, I will visit upon you under this day’s sun.”
He whipped his blade down. Once. Twice. Cutting through the tendons at the man’s heels, turning him at once into a helpless cripple.
Maleric was roaring, his great sword a shining arc that scattered bloody gouts from the throats of the fur-wrapped killers.
Neugen snarled as he feinted and drove his blade through a warrior with a skeletal face further marred by pus-filled craters.
Rappo was downhill, a sword in one hand and a spear the other. Circling a bleeding warrior, the Masulian’s face was twisted in cold fury. His spear darted out, punching a hole in the man’s gut. Again and a new wound bloomed in his thigh.
Caros bellowed a warning as three warriors ran at Rappo. He leaped the cold campfire and scattered furs, and sprinted at the three warriors who turned, wide eyed at his war cry.
With their spears batted aside like stalks of grass, they scattered before Caros.
“Rappo! Guard your back!”
The Masulian twisted and threw his spear at one of the
fleeing hill-warriors, taking him just above his belt. The man dropped, screaming and thrashing.
Neugen ran past with Maleric close behind. Half the hill-warriors were dead or shrieking from ghastly wounds leaving only a handful fleeing towards the wagon and the road.
Caros raced down the hill after his companions in pursuit of the survivors. A hill-warrior burst from behind the wagon as Caros passed and swung a gnarled club at his head.
Throwing himself aside, Caros rolled to his feet in time to catch the second swing on his shield. The blow rang through his elbow and shoulder, but Caros laughed and jammed his blade into the clubman’s hip. Pulled the blade free, he next swung his shield’s edge into the man’s screaming mouth. The clubman dropped to his knees, his arms raised in terror to cover his bloody face and head. Caros smacked the flat of his blade across the side of the man’s head, splitting skin and dropping him senseless to the ground.
Spinning in a tight circle, he saw Rappo spear the last fleeing hill-warrior. Maleric and Neugen were blinking like owls as they stared around them.
“None escaped?”
The man that lay at his feet heaved, spitting sour yellow bile from his bloody mouth. Caros kicked him savagely in the groin.
“I saw none get beyond our blades, Caros.”
Rappo pressed a blade to the throat of the man he had already speared, pinning him to the ground.
Caros hawked and spat on the hill-warrior sobbing on the ground.
“Bind the ones that are still breathing.”
Neugen and Maleric joined him, chests rising and falling in time to the racing over their hearts.
“I saw one of the captives.” His voice shook and he had to try three times to sheath his sword. “There is no death too barbarous for these creatures.”
Maleric grabbed the man Rappo guarded by the ankle and dragged him to the hill-warriors’ cold campfire where he dumped him. He tried to get to his feet and was rewarded with a kick in the ribs that dropped him groaning to the ground.
The others quickly did the same with the remaining hill-warriors, dragging the living to the center of the clearing. There were eight. Two were pierced through the chest and each panted breath sounded like squelching footfalls. They would be dead soon. The others were all bloodied and bruised, some glassy eyed others looking for escape.
“We are agreed then? They perish in agony?”
Only Maleric frowned, but his nod was given.
“Then we will bind them to the wagon and send them on their way with fire.”
One of the captive hill-warriors clearly understood the Greek patois. The creature warbled in fright and like a corned beast, sprang from the ground, seeking escape. He chose to flee past Rappo, whose light frame offered a lesser obstacle.
The hill-warrior snarled as he leaped at Rappo and from within his furs he drew a short blade. It flashed at the startled Masulian who ducked and shrank back.
Caros drew his blade as did Maleric and both men dove at Rappo’s attacker who sliced his blade at Rappo’s throat.
A gout of blood sprayed both their faces and Rappo gasped and tumbled away from the hill-warrior who ran over the Masulian’s body.
He ran a handful of paces before coming to an abrupt stop. Maleric was on him, blade up and swinging.
The hill-warrior turned, jaw hanging and from his eye protruded the feather fletching of an arrow. A gaping wound in his throat showed where another arrow had passed through.
Rappo rose to his knees and wiped blood from his face and eyes in time to see Maleric lift the hill-warrior’s head from his shoulders with a single stroke of his sword.
Warriors flowed from the trees, tall men with long decorated beards, the muscles of their bare torsos glistening with bear grease. They bore swords and spears too. The naked edges of their weapons were all around Caros and his companions in a heartbeat.
A rider rode from the shadows beneath the trees and into the sunlight, a bow held across his knees, a grip of arrows in a fist, ready to be used in a moment.
The rider was a graybeard. More he was a champion and a war leader. His thick gray beard was plaited with rings and bones. Beyond that striking badge of rank and honor, the man’s face was gaunt, skin tight over cheekbones, flesh loose and discolored beneath eyes over which thick grey eyebrows hung like lichen on a branch.
“Find the women and children!”
The man roared in a voice thick with rage. He flicked a scant glance at Caros before circling the wagon.
Warriors were already searching, turning over sleeping furs, and bolts of linen and bundles of wool thrown from the wagon by the hill-warriors.
“Here! I have Anastia and Ginna!”
A warrior pulled two young women from beneath the hide that had covered them. Their hands and feet were bound and they bore purple welts on their faces. The Celtiberi warriors cheered, but it was ragged for they knew the gods would not have allowed all the women to be spared.
A pair of warriors rounded the rock formation uphill from the clearing. A heartbeat later, a raw cry of anger lifted the hair on Caros’ neck. Celtiberi warriors paused where they searched and growled their shared grief.
The graybeard raked his heels along his mount’s flanks and rode to the rocks where he pulled up. He stared at the body the two warriors carried between them and then lifted his bow to the sky and cursed.
Maleric and Neugen spat hastily, fearful of such anger directed at the gods.
They found four women and two children still alive. The two dead women were bundled in flax and laid on the wagon. W
hen this was done, the graybeard slid from his mount and walked to where Caros and the others stood fenced by Celtiberi blades.
“I am Mardlux son of Crunulvoix of the Celtiberi.” His eyes flicked over each and settled on Caros. “Who are you and why are you in our land?”
“Greetings. I am Caros of the Bastetani. I and my companions travel to the lands of the Vascon who are our friends.” He waved at the wounded hill-warriors. “We found these bastards last night and attacked them at sunrise.” Looking at the wagon, Caros continued. “It is good you came when you did. We were planning to burn these creatures on that.”
The graybeard Celtiberi lifted one bushy eyebrow which hung there for a moment.
“Burn the wagon? What of the spoils?”
Caros lifted his shoulders and opened his palms.
“We have no desire to take the belongings others have worked for and paid for in blood.”
Mardlux considered Caros with a wintery stare before sniffing and casting his gaze on the hill-warriors. His cold stare became the heat of forged metal and they wilted under it. While still glaring at the hill-warriors, he spoke to Caros.
“You have our thanks. There are not many who would have risked attacking a band of this size with just four spears.”
Turning to a heavyset young warrior, the Celtiberi graybeard spoke in his tongue before grunting and looking back at Caros.
“This is not a good season for strangers in our lands. As a sign of gratitude I will spare your lives and this warrior will guide you north. His name is Azmulox. He speaks some Greek.”
“Thank you.” Caros knew the Celtiberi were jealous of their lands and there were many tales of people who had never returned from the region. Mardlux fingered a string of bones laced into his beard.
“You are friends of the Vascon? You a Bastetani?” Before Caros could respond he went on. “You have many strange friends. This one who the hill-warrior nearly slew has skin of a hue I have seen few times.” The graybeard lifted his chin to stare at Maleric. “And you are from the north? A Gaul, yes?”
Howl of Blades Page 13