Howl of Blades

by J Glenn Bauer

  Lorea clambered off Artur’s knee and came to stand before him, her face serious and a little frightened. The girls loved Neugen who spoiled them and they especially liked to visit with Rappo who made them little clay horses. Maleric kept his distance and Caros wondered at the drawn look in the big Gaul’s eye when he watched them. With Caros, they were reserved, exchanging only polite greetings.

  “Mata says the mark on your head means you are a champion. Does it hurt?”

  Alaia came to stand beside her sister, her expression as tentative as her young sibling’s. Caros brushed his fingers over the scar and a burning sensation accompanied the touch.

  “It does not.” He smiled. “Are you afraid of it?”

  The sisters looked at one another, daring each other to admit it. Lorea cocked her head to one side.

  “It looks like a night crawler that has drowned in the well bucket. May I touch it?”

  Caros leaned forward to allow the girl to lay her palm gingerly on the scar. Her little hand cover no more than half the old wound.

  “It is so warm! Feel, Alaia!”

  Alaia touched the scar even more hesitantly.

  Lorea removed her hand and wiped it on her grubby chiton.

  “Did you kill the warrior who wounded you?”

  “I did not, but I know who was responsible.”

  The girls stepped back and again it was Lorea who spoke.

  “You will kill him. Mata says she has seen no stronger warrior nor braver.” The little girl’s eyes widened in alarm and she looked at Artur. “Except for Tata who is the very best of them all.” Neugen and Rappo arrived, diverting the sisters’ attention.

  Artur kneading his boney thighs.

  “The little cubs do not have claws but by the gods their knees and elbows are weapons enough.”

  The following morning, Caros and Neugen rode to Iruna to purchase provisions for the trip to the coast.

  Returning not long before sunset, they were surprised to see torches waving among the trees of the forest beyond the village walls. Villagers were also in evidence along the course of the river that ran through the shallow valley.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Neugen sat higher and pointed up the valley towards the higher mountains.

  “There are riders out there as well. They must be searching for someone.”

  The two men urged their tired mounts into a canter, trailing the pair of pack horses behind them.

  Within the village walls the streets were deserted. They untied the packs from the horses and rubbed them down. That task done, they walked to the center of the village without seeing a soul. The squall of an infant turned them and Caros quickly located the curtain from behind which the cries emanated. Scratching on it, he called to the occupants.

  “It is only I, Caros. We have just returned from Iruna. What has happened?”

  “Caros?” There was some mumbling between two or more women before the curtain was unhooked to reveal a young mother suckling a babe. The woman’s Greek was limited, but the message she managed to convey chilled him and Neugen.

  “Lorea is missing.”

  “What of Alaia?”

  The mother turned the infant and shoved her other nipple into its mouth before it could object.

  “Alaia? She be safe, yes.” Her words ran to pure Vascon, losing the men. Caros was about to step away when from the mountains came a mournful call that slowly grew louder. The mother staggered in fear. “Gaueko!”

  The women in the hut squealed in fright and the mother stepped back, quickly fastening the leather curtain tight over the doorway.

  “We will take the horses and help search.” Caros was already running for the horse yard. As he ran, he snatched up one of the unlit torches set at intervals along the way.

  Hurling themselves onto their mounts, they raked their flanks with their heels and clattered at speed from the village gates.

  The wolf call came again, a drawn-out cry that had the searching villagers racing for the safety of their walls. The sun was out of sight beyond the western hills and light was draining rapidly from the valley. Neugen cursed in frustration.

  “It will be dark in moments! How are we to find her?”

  “You are the best tracker I know.” Caros reassured his friend. An idea came to him as he spoke. “Follow me.” He raced his mount east, using the fading daylight to trace the path he and Beaugissa had ridden a few days earlier.

  “Caros! We need to stop and light torches before one of the horses breaks a leg!”

  Cursing at the delay, Caros reined in and pulled his flint from his inner pocket. The torch was well wrapped and had been soaked with oil or grease. Caros struck a good spark and watched in dismay as it faded and died on the torch. After the third, he lost his patience.

  “This is not working! The oil must have leeched out.”

  Neugen fared no better and threw his torch aside.

  “Easier to light the torch from a fire.” He looked at Caros. “Better yet, come back at first light.”

  “We light a fire.” Caros groped for dry brush, snapping thin branches and shredding them to build a mound the size of his fist. “The Gauls whose child almost drowned were near here. They looked as desperate as any people I ever saw. They may have taken Lorea.”

  Neugen wrinkled his nose and readied his stone over the tinder. With a practiced flick, he struck the stone with the back of his short knife, sending a bright spark arcing into the tinder. Caros blew gently through pursed lips, feeding the spark enough air to fan a tiny flame which Neugen quickly fed with slivers of bark.

  Shortly, they had a little fire and the men fed it a handful of larger branches.

  “Caros, why would desperate people take a young girl, especially after you saved their daughter? Also this is a fair way from the village. It is more likely she wondered too far and found herself lost.” His eyes narrowed as he thought of other possibilities including wolves.

  “Beaugissa said the Vascon kill their men and take the women and children. If that is so, perhaps the Gauls want to steal back some of what they have lost.” He grabbed his torch and thrust it into the dancing flames. It smoked furiously before bursting alight with a soft whoosh.

  Hoofbeats caught both men by surprise and they spun about. Caros blinked rapidly, unable to see into the night after staring at the flames of the fire. He raised his torch high and drew his sword.

  “Caros! It is us.” Rappo called a moment before he appeared in the circle of light. “We saw the fire.”

  Beaugissa appeared from the dark and slid from her mount to run to Caros. He thrust the torch into Rappo’s hand and caught her. She was breathless and wore a veil of tears in her eyes.

  “My baby, Caros. Lorea! She is missing. We have looked everywhere.”

  Her tears soaked into his tunic and lay cold on his chest.

  “How long has she been missing?”

  “Since after midday. Alaia noticed, but said nothing until I called for Lorea to wash her chiton.”

  Caros gripped Beaugissa’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length.

  “Where is Artur?”

  “He went still further north, past Long Song. Maleric is with him.”

  “Neugen and I are going to where we saved the girl from the river.”

  Beaugissa’s face went blank before a fiery rage lit her eyes and twisted her forehead.

  “If it was them…”

  Caros drew her close.

  “We do not know if they took her, but I will find them and if they did I will bring her back to you” He folded her into a tight embrace. “Go home and tomorrow I will return.”

  The long song continued through the night and at the first hint of dawn’s stealthy approach, Caros rolled to his feet with a growl.

  “I have never heard so many wolves before. There is danger in the air.” His hair stood on end as he spoke and his fist opened and closed on the hilt of his sword.

  Neugen sat up slowly, a hand
to his still healing wound. He hawked and gobbed into the ash of the fire they had made late the previous night after riding as close as they could to the meadow.

  “You are not wrong, old friend. I smell it and it has the stink of death.”

  Caros stared into the gray dark of pre-dawn. The horses had been as unsettled as the men and were tethered downwind. He lifted his head and breathed deeply.

  “I smell it too. It is a wonder we did not smell it before.”

  “The wind changes direction here at sunrise and blows from the north.” Neugen rose and kicked dirt over the ashes of their campfire.

  Their path was the breeze. Following the scent of corruption, they rode a stade before coming to the same shallow river Caros had saved the child from.

  They quickly discovered the first body thanks to a pair of rival male foxes fighting over it. The carrion eaters fled before the men saw them, leaving the remains of a woman dressed in stiff rawhide lying beneath a tree which had toppled.

  In the somber gray of dawn, the woman’s face looked serene. From her throat down, she had ceased to be human and was simply food. Maggots crawled through the little left in the cavity below her ribs. It was clear though that her throat had been opened by a blade.

  “She has been dead no more than three days. No birds have touched her or her eyes would be gone.”

  “This is not one of the women we saw, but she must be of their clan or kin.” Caros shook his head. “The birds have been busy elsewhere.”

  Neugen turned, seeking more bodies.

  “Feasting on the flesh of her kin.”

  Caros swallowed, almost overpowered by a sense of catastrophe.

  “These people never took Lorea. Their killers did.” His skin prickled and he heaved.

  “By the gods! Are you ill?”

  Neugen stepped away from him in alarm. It was not unknown for shades of the dead to possess the living.

  Caros staggered towards his horse.

  “I have been a fool and brought death to the village. We must warn Beaugissa and Artur!”

  Chapter 14

  Warrior sat in circles, their voices low and hands busy. Honing blades. Scraping away rust. Sewing rents. As they worked, they kept a wary eye on their leader. Their fear of arbitrary punishment for the slightest misstep as sharp as their blades. The day was early still, the sun not yet a hand’s breadth above the horizon. There was every likelihood one or more of their number would feel the wrath of the warrior in the black tunic.

  Berenger was waiting and watching. He and his column had passed Iruna on the Bastetani’s trail and arrived in the area two days previously. Now, just as he became sure of which village the Bastetani was hiding away in, the villagers had begun frantically searching the countryside.

  He clenched his teeth and muttered another obscenity. He had the blades to overrun the village, but it was within a half day’s ride of Iruna. He could not risk a column of angry Vascon pursuing him. Qart Hadasht was far from this place and he had not made many friends among the Celtiberi while tracking the Bastetani.

  Ibon approached him, face unreadable.

  “One of the men that lay beneath the walls last night heard the sentries speak of a missing girl.”

  So that was what they were searching for. Berenger grunted. He had warned the warriors of the column not to molest the villagers. The Bastetani was close and if even a whisper reached him that a column of strange warriors was nearby, he would be sure to take flight again.

  “No doubt one of ours took her. Do you know who?”

  Ibon gave what might have been a smile and pointed at a skulking warrior, a big rawboned man with fists like clubs.

  “Ferugan the Olcades. He was in the trees above the village. Another warrior claims to have seen a girl near there yesterday while the villagers slept.”

  “Ferugan!”

  The Olcades warrior immediately began sweating on hearing his name called. His companions shrank away from him, their faces turned to their tasks as he rose and sauntered over, trying hard to walk casually.

  “Since you were watching the village from the trees above it, can you tell me why the villagers keep searching there?”

  “No. I… no. They are searching everywhere are they not?”

  Berenger’s eyes drifted to the armour hanging from the man’s massive hand.

  “What is wrong with your armour?”

  “A broken link is all. I have it here though.” He dug it out of an inner pocket.

  Berenger’s hand closed on the warrior’s and he twisted it about until the man’s fingers were forced open. There on his greasy palm lay a bronze link. A strand of long fine hair caught in the dried blood, trembled as Berenger inhaled.

  “Did I not say you were to leave the villagers unharmed?”

  “She found the link and I feared if she took it back to her kin they might know we were here. You said none were to see us.”

  “So you killed her.” Berenger released the warrior’s hand. “Pass me your armour.” The warrior hesitated, reading the expression in Berenger’s eyes. “Now.” The word promised such violence that the hapless warrior complied.

  Berenger hefted the weighty arrangement of bronze shield discs and chain. His first blow struck the warrior’s left elbow, snapping bone and lacerating flesh. Even as the Olcades warrior open his mouth to cry out, Berenger lashed the armor lower, breaking the man’s left shin and sending him flailing to the forest floor. Berenger watched him writhe in agony and begin to crawl away, gibbering like an idiot, blood soiling the dirt as he passed. The other warriors of the column were on their feet, watching silently.

  “The villagers have not yet opened the gates. They are afraid of some curse or warning carried in the wolf howls we heard last night.”

  Ibon paid no attention to the warrior sobbing at their feet, instead he watched the Olcades’ companions, measuring them.

  Berenger smiled and dropped the bloodied shield discs carelessly onto the whimpering man.

  “Then we attack as soon as they crack the gates.” He turned his attention to his warriors. “Be sure they do not see you until they have the gates opened.” Pointing at Ferugun the Olcades, he shook his head. “Follow my instructions unless you want to suffer as he does.”

  Rappo climbed a rough wooden ladder to the narrow walkway on the wall of stacked rocks. There, he leaned his arms on the wooden palisade of sharpened spikes fixed into the top of the wall and gazed eastwards, one hand shielding his eyes.

  “Well?”

  Maleric was in a black mood with the disappearance of Lorea. It was not improved when the villagers refused to open the gates before sunrise. Now the sun was up and the village warriors were only just strapping on their sandals.

  “Nothing to the east. It is too early for Caros and Neugen to return.”

  Rappo, who adored the sisters, was in a desolate frame of mind. He wanted to be out the gate and searching for the girl, Lorea. He had no faith in the ability of the villagers to mark the tracks that the child might have left. He looked north, his gaze sweeping past the wooded hill to the west of the village where a hawk was being pressed by a pair of stubborn jays.

  The north was where Gauls, wolves and other beasts, only hinted at by the villagers, came from.

  Maleric called again, but Rappo had turned back to the west, his attention on the hawk which was still in place while the jays were nowhere to be seen. He frowned at the oddity, knowing that jays would not stop attacking a raptor until it had moved on. Unless something else had frightened them.

  “Come, Rappo. Beaugissa is on her way. It is time to go find the girl.”

  Rappo looked down to see Beaugissa with a horse blanket across her shoulders and a bridle swinging at her side.

  “Maleric, I think there is someone in the woods.”

  Beaugissa arrived at the gates, her face drawn and eyes dark. She nodded to Maleric and signaled to a warrior guarding the gates to open them.

  The horses, including Rappo�
�s pony, were in the fields directly outside the gates. The hawk veered from its course abruptly, its outstretched wings now flapping to lift itself away from the hillside. A glint of sun on armour flashed momentarily between the trees and Rappo caught his breath. The others were already through the gates, heading for the horses.

  Rappo cupped his hands around his mouth and gave vent to a piercing war cry which stopped the Vascon warriors in their tracks.

  Maleric and Beaugissa did not hesitate. He whipped his sword from its sheath with a hissing rasp while Beaugissa began running for the gates, spreading Rappo’s warning.

  “To the walls! We are ambushed!”

  The Vascon warriors were still thinking of the night past, filled with the howl of wolves. They blinked and gaped first at Beaugissa and then in alarm at Maleric wielding his sword.

  A low rumble sounded and built rapidly from the west of the village.

  Rappo, still watching from the walls, gasped as a column of mounted warriors galloped into view, making hard along the unmanned village walls for the open gates facing east.

  The Vascon, both inside the village and beyond the gate, were slowly beginning to react. Those inside the walls snatched up their shields and spears. Women wailed and ran after infants stumbling between the legs of warriors.

  Those men beyond the walls were the wealthier of the villagers and able to afford horses. They numbered just six and carried only their spears. Maleric, already halfway back to the gates, bellowed to the sentries to begin closing them. He could already feel the oncoming tide of horsemen through his pounding sandals. A quick look over his shoulder confirmed his fears. The Vascon had split; two following him and the rest running for their horses.

  “Run, Maleric! They are about to come around the wall!” Rappo shouted to be heard over the growing thunder of horse hooves and chaotic scramble of Vascon villagers.

  Beaugissa pulled up at the gates, her chest heaving and she ripped a spear from a sentry’s grasp.