Howl of Blades

by J Glenn Bauer

  Caros gave thanks to his gods that Beaugissa had not suffered such wounds and that Maleric’s death had been quick and honorable.

  Beaugissa shook, from her knees to her shoulders as a young man staggered in a circle, his lower jaw mangled flesh and splintered bone.

  Caros caught her arm.

  “That is not him. Beaugissa, that is not Rappo.”

  The Masulian heard him and stared sightlessly into the sky, a plea gurgling through the froth that dribbled from his mangled mouth.

  Beaugissa gave a cry and turned away, her shoulders slumped.

  Caros led her on, passing men that stared at them with open hostility. They were strangers among these warriors from Africa. Men who had breathed the stink of death for days and now witnessed kin and clan cut down.

  A horse screamed and a warrior cried out, the beast’s pain echoed in his cry. Masulians were dressing the wounds their horses had suffered with the same urgency they showed to their wounded kin.

  The clamor of battle grew louder, the steady beat of hooves, the crash of armour and the ever-present cries of anger and pain.

  Caros drew back on the reins and stopped to watch as a block of Romans fractured. Their shields, weighted down with spent spears, were cast aside as they turned to flee into the lake. Mercilessly, the Masulians pursued them even there. Launched at speed from their galloping mounts, the Masulian spears were not turned except by the best of armour. They punched man after man backwards into water churned to a bloody scum.

  Legionaries tore at the leather laces holding their armour close about their bodies and were speared as they struggled with the swollen leather. Their fellows tried wading beyond range of the spears while still wearing iron and leather; splashing vainly until they weakened and went under.

  A clutch of legionaries broke from the shallows, discarding their weapons to run faster. Bands of horsemen resting at distance came to life and in a swallow’s heartbeat were whooping and racing down the luckless men.

  One, his hair pale like summer straw, ran faster and harder, outdistancing his fellows who died one after the other at his back.

  Belatedly, Caros realized the straw-haired legionary was trying to reach them. He was no more than twenty strides from them when the last legionary between him and the horsemen was struck down by a spear, crashing to the ground at his heels. A limp hand batted the straw-haired legionary’s ankle, tripping him. He stumbled to a knee, but was up and running in a flash, not looking back but staring into Caros’ eyes, his lips moving, entreating.

  Beaugissa urged her mount forward, sword flashing and eyes pools of dark anger.

  The shrieking Masulians rode past the legionary, lashing his back with the shafts of their spears.

  Caros grunted as the legionary stumbled under the blows yet remained on his feet. Ten paces from Beaugissa he slowed, his eyes dancing between her sword and her face. Chest rising and falling, hair plastered to his forehead, he stopped before her and stood in mute appeal.

  The Masulians rode in circles around them, anticipating the death blow. She raised her sword and danced her mount sideways towards the legionary who stood unmoving. The blade stood stark against the blue sky for long breaths and then shook as her breathing grew ragged. The Masulians jeered and cursed, circling closer, the sweat of their mounts filling the air.

  About to lower her blade, a rider lashed the legionary across the cheek, splattering blood across her face and causing her horse to rear. She blazed in sudden fury and struck the rider’s mount across the muzzle with the flat of her blade.

  Caros snarled and turned his horse to cover her as she screamed at the Masulians who had gone ominously silent. With hooded eyes, they made the circle larger and their hands worked fresh spears from their quivers.

  The legionary rose from his knee, the gash across his face swollen and bloody.

  “I am sorry. I brought this on you.”

  He turned and strode from them, shoulders straight until spears streaked through the air and pierced his chest, knocking him to the unforgiving ground where he convulsed as more spears struck him. A rider broke from the rest and with his eyes on Beaugissa, had his pony rear up and come down on the legionary’s head with flailing hooves. Again and again, until the straw-colored hair was a matted carpet of gore.

  Beaugissa was silent, her sword slack in her hand. The Masulian were not done and already had fresh spears in their hands. They knew now that Beaugissa was a woman and the knowledge tainted their thoughts. Caros lifted his shield and blinked, startled to find tears were running down his cheeks.

  Beaugissa turned to him and looked at his sword, her meaning clear. Caros dipped his chin, his heart on fire. She let her blade fall and turned her face as he raised his falcata, his eyes fixed on the pale skin of her neck where it showed through her dark hair.

  “Caros! Caros of the Bastetani! What is the Claw of the Lion doing in this djinn-infested shithole?”

  Caros swayed. He shut his eyes and lowered his sword. Fists clenched in the mane of his horse, his stomach turned and bile spewed from his mouth. He could still feel the press of the sword hilt in his palm, the blade parting the air and the snap of skin and bone as it bit.

  There was a commotion among the Masulians; shouting, the slap of spears shafts on flesh, and sobbing.

  His head was the weight of a mountain and a god squeezed tight his neck so that it took all he had to turn his face. Beaugissa sat as still as a carving on her mount, her lips apart and cheeks awash with tears.

  “They have Rappo.” Her words were in Vascon and meaningless to him for a long moment.

  A shadow fell across his arms. A horse nickered a greeting to his mount and the fingertips of a brown hand tapped his forearm.

  “Caros? There is much anger here, but I have spoken and you will not be harmed. Caros, it is I, Aksel. I have a friend of yours here.”

  Caros clutched the amulet that hung at his throat and choked out his response.

  “We were looking for Rappo. You are alive? You both live!”

  Rappo, wearing a tunic stained black with blood, rode his pony between Caros and Beaugissa, his face gray and eyes brimming with pain.

  They clutched him, arms circling his thin shoulders and faces pressed to his.

  When they pulled apart, Beaugissa with much reluctance, he sighed.

  “Neugen… has he?”

  “He is injured and in the hands of a witch, but alive.”

  “Where did you go, Rappo?”

  “I killed Maleric. He was my teacher and…” The young Masulian hiccupped. “I sought my people. I needed to hear the words of my people, my own kin.”

  Beaugissa rubbed crusted blood from his cheek and kissed him there.

  “Any of us companions would die for the other, Rappo. You would have done the same for Maleric as would I.”

  Caros cupped a hand about Rappo’s neck and drew him close.

  “You made him proud. I saw it in his face when you stood at his side in battle.” Caros smiled. “I think if he had to choose a reason to die, dying to protect a friend would have been first in his heart.”

  The bloody battle was over before the sun melted into night. The dead stretched from the western shores of the lake to the hills that rose ten stades over to the east.

  Hannibal’s army of ill and starved mercenaries and Gauls had prevailed against the well-fed legionaries and allied warriors. Thousands of the enemy had perished including the enemy of the Gauls, Flaminius. Thousands had surrendered too and there would be slave silver for all Hannibal’s warriors.

  There were no celebrations. Warriors courageous in battle, wanted nothing but to flee the field before nightfall and escape the shades of the many dead.

  Hannibal’s officer found Caros slumped beside Neugen, feeding dried horseshit into the flames of a pitiful fire.

  “The general wants to see you.” The man glanced nervously at the healer, his eyes widening at her necklace of tiny skulls.

  With an agonized groan,
Caros rose and limped through the dark after the hurrying officer.

  Hannibal sat with a silent warrior beside a fire burning within a stump of a tree. He did not rise or even smile when Caros walked into the dim firelight. With a flick of a finger he bade him sit.

  Caros did so, too weary to argue.

  “My commanders think the Romans are defeated. They think I should lead us into the very streets of Rome itself.”

  Caros rubbed his temples, seeing behind his right eye the lurking monster that stalked him. A legacy of his wound.

  “There were very few that survived today. Their butchered bodies poison the lake itself. Your commanders may be right.”

  Hannibal fell silent for so long, Caros thought he was asleep. At last he spoke again.

  “They are not.” He lifted a skin from between his feet and offered it to Caros.

  It was wine. Like the evening sun on a hillside, it poured smoothly over his tongue and warmed his chest. He swallowed and passed the skin back to Hannibal, licking a residue of sweetness from his chapped lips.

  “I have no part in these battles of yours, Hannibal. I know only that your brother deprives my people of their food and homes. The general you tasked with keeping the Romans from our lands, Hanno, was weak and a Latin scraped his brains from his skull and took a shit in it.” The silent warrior drew his blade and stood.

  Hannibal’s teeth gleamed orange when he spoke.

  “Hanno. Yes, he deserved such an end. My brother, Hasdrubal, wants to spend his life in between the thighs of women. If there was ever a woman that suckled wine, Hasdrubal would sell all Carthage to wed her.”

  “Yet I must see a good friend die here because I am accused of being a traitor.” Caros’ eyes shone with a light all of their own. “A Bastetani heart beats in my chest, son of Hamilcar Barca. I heard you swore on your father’s body, to be a true friend to my people. Was I mistaken?”

  Hannibal drew a scroll from within his cloak and offered it to Caros.

  “It is dark. What does it say?”

  “Your honor is restored. Neither my brother nor any of his commissars will trouble you again.”

  Caros rubbed the scroll with his thumb, felt the unbroken seal.

  “This began with Barca administrators appointing Turdetani tax collectors. What of the Bastetani? What recompense do they receive?”

  Hannibal rose slowly to his feet, his limbs trembling from a day of battle.

  “Your people are exempt from taxes for the next five harvests. In return, you must agree to lead them in the fight against those legions that infest the lands north of the Ebro in Iberia.”

  “You agreed?” Beaugissa’s expression was unreadable in the meagre glow of dying embers.

  Caros tapped the scroll Hannibal had given him against his left palm.

  “Of course. My people pay no taxes for five successive harvests. That will give them time enough to recover much of what they lost and grow strong again.”

  Beaugissa leaned close to him, her breath sweet on his neck.

  “You will continue to fight the Romans? You will lead the Bastetani against them?”

  Caros smiled at the fierce glow deep in her eyes and eased her chin up with his forefinger so that his lips brushed hers.

  On the ridge above the fields of dead, a wolf sat, eyes yellow in the moonlight. Throwing back its head, it issued a drawn-out cry that twisted through the shades of the dead. In the dark, warriors shivered to hear that howl and gripped their blades tighter.

  The End

  Glossary

  Places

  ArretiumTown in Etruria (Italy)

  BariaBastetani port

  EmpúriesPort in north west Iberia

  Fufluna (Populonia)Etruscan port

  Iruna (Pamplona)Principle Vascon town

  KyrnosCorsica

  Lake TrasimeneFreshwater lake in Italy

  MalpassoEtruscan village

  MassiliaGreek-Gallic port city

  TagilitPrinciple Bastetani town

  Trebia (Battle of)River in Italy

  Qart Hadasht (Cartagena)Principle Carthaginian town

  Objects/terms

  Amphora - A clay jar with a narrow neck was used to store wine and oil.

  Braccae - Trousers commonly worn by Gauls.

  Balearic - From the Balearic Islands.

  Carpetani - Iberian tribe.

  Celtiberi - Iberian tribe.

  Centurion - Roman military rank similar to sergeant

  Chiton - Dress worn by women from 750-30 BC.

  Commissar - Carthaginian official or recruiting officer.

  Djinn - African term for demon.

  Endovex - Iberian god of health.

  Falcata - Sickle-shaped Iberian sword.

  Gaueko - Night (death) in the form of a wolf.

  Graybeard - Veteran, chieftain or leading man.

  Hill-warrior - Outcasts and bandits.

  Inland Sea - The Mediterranean.

  Leading man/woman - Chieftain.

  Maniple - Roman unit of 120 legionaries.

  Mata - Mother.

  Olcades - Iberian tribe.

  Prosca - Water and vinegar mix.

  Runeovex - God of war and secrets.

  Shade - Spirit or souls

  Smallclothes – underwear/loincloth.

  Stade - Ancient (Geek) measurement circa 185 meters.

  Stater - A (Greek) coin used across the Mediterranean.

  Tata - Father.

  Tarbelli - Gallic tribe.

  Tribune - Roman officer similar to 1st lieutenant.

  Turdetani - Iberian tribe.

  Ilerget - Iberian tribe.

  Vascon - Iberian tribe.

  Characters

  CarosBastetani warrior

  BeaugissaVascon woman

  MalericBoii Gaul

  NeugenBastetani warrior

  RappoMasulian warrior

  AlaiaBeaugissa’s eldest daughter

  AhiromCarthaginian commissar

  AlcousesBastetani Elder

  Asril Tax collector

  AnunciaBastetani woman

  AustusBastetani sentry

  AzmuloxCeltiberi warrior

  BrocchusCeltiberi horse dealer

  CarosBastetani warrior

  DilnBastetani graybeard

  DucariusInsubres champion

  Ferugan Olcades mercenary

  FlaminiusRoman consul

  GateanuxLeading man of Tagilit

  GlaphuxLocal drunk

  Hannibal BarcaCarthaginian General

  HelnTavern keeper in Tagilit

  HurricBoii warrior

  KnurladVascon warrior

  Larth Insubres warrior

  LoreaBeaugissa’s daughter

  MaharbalCommander of cavalry

  MardluxCeltiberi graybeard

  TyrtaeusMercenary from Utica

  TelmoTarbelli warrior

  UstBoii warrior

  ZantaliusShip’s captain

  ZerberoCeltiberi bodyguard

  Historical note

  Howl of Blades is a work of fiction and Caros and his companions are fictional. The 2nd Punic War did happen and beginning in Iberia (Hispania/Spain), spread to Italia (Italy), Sicily and Africa.

  Howl of Blades is set in that period of the war when Hannibal has left Iberian territory to take the war to Rome. The Iberian tribes never allowed the Barca regime to grow complacent and were constantly on the verge of an uprising or at war with one another. One of their most common pretexts for rebellion were the taxes and levies of men they were compelled to provide.

  The tribes named all existed and the Bastetani and Turdetani had been working with the Barcas since Hasdrubal the Fair’s rule ten years earlier.

  Greek influence was deeply rooted throughout the western Mediterranean and Greek city-states existed in Iberia and Italy. Much as pidgin English became the lingua franca across large swathes of Africa in the last century and is a growing language in West Africa today, I have used a pidgin Greek to
enable the diverse people in Sons of Iberia to communicate with one another.

  Etruria still existed at the time of the 2nd Punic War, but the Etruscans had been subservient to Rome for the previous four decades after hundreds of years of war.

  The Battle of Trasimene takes place in territory that was once part of Etruria. Hannibal had counted heavily on raising support from the local populations that had for so long been oppressed by Rome. His victory at Trebia the previous winter had gone a long way to bringing the Gallic tribes of the Cisalpine; the Ligurians, Insubres and Boii over to his side. These people brought with them a hunger for vengeance for the defeats and humiliations visited on them by the Romans and one Roman in particular, Flaminius. Gaius Flaminius had a long history of war with the Gauls and had sacked Milan, the primary Insubres city in 222, just five years earlier.

  It is surely no coincidence then that the Insubres warriors were positioned to confront the Roman consul and his knights during the battle. Nor that it was Ducarius, an Insubres noble, who killed the consul.

  A little-known fact detailed by Livy in Ab urbe condita, 22.5.8 is that a mighty earthquake struck Italia during the battle; demolishing buildings, turning streams, causing tsunamis and pulling down mountainsides. Despite the magnitude of the quake, the fighting was so intense that the combatants did not notice the ground shaking beneath their sandals.

  Author’s note

  Thank you for choosing to read Howl of Blades. I hope it has been as exciting to read as it was to write.

  Since I do not solicit readers for email addresses and send newsletters, this is a quick update on what’s happened and my plans.

  Those of you who follow me on social media will know I took to boat-life in 2018 and now live on the waterways of England. Writing onboard Weybourne has proven to be exhilarating now that I have overcome all the many pleasant distractions.

  As I sit here blowing on my fingers and typing, the April sun is rising on a misty canal in rural Wiltshire, the dawn chorus is well underway and it is even odds on who will go past the window first; canoeist, jogger or cyclist. I expect mother duck and her clutch of thirteen energized chicks to come by soon, followed by a progression of various narrow boats and barges. See what I mean about distractions?