‘Fourteen years old, then. Not Master Marcus any more, but Marcus Valerius Aquila, a man. You’ll wear that tunic from now on, and your purple stripes will tell everyone that you’re the son of a senator. A man of influence, a man of breeding … and a target.’ He lifted the staff, tapping one of the tunic’s two crimson stripes where it ran up and over his right shoulder, the dusty iron tip leaving a dirty mark on the garment’s white cloth. ‘This will make you a mark for every thief and bandit that comes across you, and you’ll need to learn to defend yourself or risk having your dignity removed along with your purse.’
He’d shrugged, not seeing the point that his tutor was trying to make and impatient to start the afternoon’s lessons.
‘So teach me. Where are my weapons?’
The gladiator had shaken his head wryly, tossing the iron-shod staff and a helmet to his pupil before turning to pick up his own practice weapons.
‘Not today, Marcus. We have orders from your father that today your training is to change in recognition of your manhood. Until now we’ve concentrated on teaching you how to use a sword, on the techniques of fighting, and practising those disciplines until they have become automatic to you. From today we’re going to teach you how to fight.’ He’d settled behind the shield, staring over its rim at his bemused pupil. ‘This is where the classroom ends and the real schooling begins. And here’s your first lesson. I’m a robber, with my sword and shield, and all you have to defend yourself with is that stick. When I say the word “fight” you’d better be ready to put me on my back with my ears ringing, because that’s what I’m going to do to you if you can’t work out how to use the staff quickly enough.’
A dozen heartbeats later Marcus had found himself face down in the practice ground’s sand, his ribs aching and his nose bleeding, turning over to find the gladiator standing over him with the same sad smile and a hand outstretched to help him back to his feet.
‘That wasn’t easy for either of us. You don’t train a boy from the age of seven without gaining some fondness for the little bugger, but you’re not a boy any more, not since you put the ceremonial dagger to that goat’s throat yesterday. Now that I’ve made the point let’s go over that again, and see what you can learn from it. For a start, you’re holding the staff with your hands too wide apart …’
Shaking his head to clear his mind, he stooped and plucked the staff discarded by the dying barbarian from the flagstones, turning to face a trio of men charging at him from the right. Ducking low under the leading warrior’s swinging sword, he hooked the staff behind the man’s ankles and pulled it towards him sharply, wrenching his feet out from under him and sending his attacker crashing heavily to the stone floor with a grunt of expelled breath. The Roman spun away, planting the staff’s flat end squarely between another’s warrior’s eyes with enough force to stun him for a moment, finishing him off by slapping its other end across his throat with enough power to rupture his larynx. With two men on their backs, the first still struggling to get back to his feet after his heavy fall, Marcus focused on the last man left standing. The barbarian hacked down with his sword, cutting the raised staff into two halves and raising the weapon again in preparation for a killing stroke on the unarmed Roman’s head. Marcus saw his opening and took it, stepping in and ramming one of the cloven staff’s two sharp-edged halves up into the underside of the lunging warrior’s jaw, burying the jagged wooden edge deep in his head before turning to smash the other half across the back of the remaining barbarian’s head as he struggled to his knees.
Stooping to scoop up the hammer dropped by the man dying with the spatha buried in his side, he spun to face another warrior as the man screamed incoherently and ran at him with a battleaxe, swinging the heavy hammer up to clash with the axe blade as it swept towards him. The weapons met in a shower of sparks and the combatants spun apart, Marcus crouching low and sliding the hammer’s handle through his hand to extend its swing, smashing its heavy iron head into the axeman’s knee. With a loud crack of breaking bones the barbarian’s leg folded beneath him, sending him headlong with a shriek of agony as the Roman spun another full circle, smashing the hammer’s head into the wedge holding the gates closed and sending it flying across the courtyard.
With the weight of dozens of Tungrians pressing hard at them, the gates opened wide in seconds, admitting a tidal wave of angry soldiers who fanned out into the courtyard looking for someone to fight, leaving the half-dozen men killed or stunned by stones thrown down on to them from the palisade lying inert behind them. Julius shouted orders at the men around him, sending them hurrying to break into the buildings surrounding the courtyard in a search for anything with the potential to act as part of a barricade, intended to keep the inevitable barbarian counter-attack away from the gate long enough for the rest of the detachment to arrive, and turn the struggle into a one-sided contest.
Qadir stepped through the gates with an arrow nocked to his bow, barking a command to his Hamians as he chose his first mark, and sent an iron head up under the ribs of one of the men on the palisade. While Marcus stalked over to retrieve his swords from their resting places, the archers made short work of the men on the wall, leaving half a dozen dead and dying men slumped against the timber and the remainder lifeless across the courtyard’s flagstones. More barbarians lurked in the shadows to either side, unwilling to advance for fear of the Hamians’ arrows. Hearing his name shouted, Marcus turned away from the gate to find Julius pointing his sword at the two narrow roads leading away up the fortress’s steep slope from the gate, bellowing an order at his brother officer.
‘There’ll be more of the bastards coming down from farther up the hill soon enough, and we haven’t got our shields. Get your caltrops out and your men ready to defend the gate.’
Marcus nodded tersely, looking about him for his watch officer.
‘Cyclops, where are the men with the caltrops?’
The one-eyed veteran pointed out two men waiting to one side with large sacks held well away from them, the steel points protruding through the rough material glinting in the torchlight. Marcus pointed at the scanty barricade that presented a flimsy barrier to any barbarian attack that might be mustering farther up the fortress’s steep slope.
‘Get them laid out on the far side of the barricade, and quickly!’
Cyclops walked to the barricade behind his men, watching as the first of them lifted his sack to pour the contents over the flimsy barrier, and then froze, his head cocked.
‘What is it?’
The soldier turned back to him with a puzzled look.
‘Sounds like … men screaming?’
Marcus stood alongside him and listened, hearing faint echoes of sound from the streets farther up the massive hill. A man’s voice was raised in a shout of rage, and then, a second later, in a howl of pain and despair. Other voices were raised, some higher in pitch, angry shouts and screams of agony. Realisation hit him with a jolt of amazement, and he turned to Julius with an urgent wave to get his friend’s attention.
‘Something’s happening higher up the hill, something violent, and there’s no sign of any counter-attack! I’m going up there with a few men to find out what it is, you hold the line here and wait for the rest of the cohort!’
Not waiting for Julius’s reply, he vaulted the barricade, selecting Arminius, Qadir and a pair of archers to accompany him, and shaking his head in resigned amusement as Scarface gave him a dirty look and followed them across the piled-up furniture with his face set against any idea of his being sent back. The small party advanced cautiously up the steep and narrow street, their weapons held ready to fight if the expected threat materialised from the fortress’s shadows. In the buildings above them another scream rang out, the lingering, despairing sound of a man with cold iron in his guts and no hope of either rescue or release from his pain, and before the sound had time to fade a sudden glow sprang to life in one of the side streets to their right, accompanied by a noise that would stay with Marcus fo
r years to come, haunting his dreams with its otherworldly echo of damnation.
A burning figure staggered out into the road, a man blazing from head to foot with the bright yellow flame of a freshly lit lamp and howling at a pitch and volume that made the Tungrians stop and stare in horror. A woman’s figure followed the apparition from out of the buildings with a blazing torch, her face demonic in the rippling firelight as she pointed the torch, screaming incoherent abuse as the burning figure fell to his knees, holding his hands out in front of him as if unable to believe what was happening to him. In the light of his death throes half a dozen other fallen bodies became apparent, previously hidden in the street’s shadows.
‘Mercy?’
Marcus turned to find Qadir with an arrow nocked to his bow and drawn back, ready to loose into the blazing man’s body and release him from the torment that was racking him in convulsive shudders. Arminius put a hand over the arrow’s head and turned it aside, shaking his head in a manner that seemed almost contemplative as he watched the tribesman burn.
‘These men have in all likelihood made their captives’ lives a misery over the last few weeks. Who are we to deny them their retribution?’
The blazing figure fell slowly face first to the street’s cobbles, flames continuing to lick at his flesh even as their initial exuberance died away, and the woman lowered her torch, retreating back into the shadows as she caught sight of the Romans advancing up the hill towards her. The Tungrians walked on carefully, peeping warily down each side street before crossing to continue their climb, until they stood over the blackened corpse with their scarves held across their faces against the stink of scorched flesh. Looking about him, Marcus realised that they were being watched from the houses on both sides, the glinting of human eyes in the cracks between window frame and shutter betraying the presence of the fortress’s inhabitants. Raising both hands from the hilts of his swords he turned a slow full circle to display his open hands.
‘We mean you no harm. We have come to release you from the Selgovae warriors who have been tormenting you …’
‘Looks like they’ve done that for themselves to me.’
Ignoring the wide-eyed Scarface, he opened his mouth to continue, closing it again as a man stepped around the corner of the nearest building with an axe in one hand, the other knotted in the long hair of a struggling prisoner. The writhing barbarian was clutching at his groin, trying to stem the flow of blood from a horrific wound that seemed recently inflicted, to judge from the flow that was pulsing between his fingers. His captor’s entire body was blasted with blood, both fresh red arterial spray and older stains, dried black with exposure to the air, and one of his eyes was an empty socket with a deep cut in the cheek below it. Despite the man’s evident exhaustion, his stance as he contemptuously threw the mutilated man to the ground was unmistakable in its confidence and sheer muscular vitality.
‘Martos?’
As Marcus walked disbelievingly towards him the Votadini prince put the axe’s head down on the road in front of him and leaned wearily on its handle. The Roman stopped in front of his friend and stared in amazement at the thickly caked blood that painted him from head to foot.
‘How …?’
Martos looked up, his remaining good eye wide with the strain of whatever it was he’d done since leaving the detachment’s camp. When he spoke his voice was dull, as if his usual vitality had been drained from his body.
‘I climbed the south wall, Marcus. I climbed it a hundred times as a boy, so I thought why not do it one more time, eh? It nearly killed me, but I did it. Loose stones, fucking birds, but I made it …’ Holding up his right hand, he showed his friend the remains of his fingernails. ‘A small price to have paid, given what I found when I reached the top.’
His face slowly split into a wide grin, a triumphant smile that seemed to contain an edge of maniacal glee.
‘I knew you’d be making a move on the gate around dawn, so I hid myself until an hour ago and waited. And listened. Remember, I was born and brought up in this tiny little world, and I know every hiding place there is. I still fit a few of them too. So I waited, and listened, and I heard what these scum were saying about my wife and children, where they were keeping them and what they were doing to them. And when I judged the time had come, I left my hiding place and I went for the bastards. At first I just cut their throats, but when I found what was left of my family I realised that just killing them was too quick. So I started doing that …’ He pointed to the emasculated Selgovae, still writhing on the ground in front of him with both hands clutching his ruined crotch. ‘It seemed fitting.’
‘How many have you killed?’
The barbarian shrugged wearily.
‘Twenty? I didn’t ever stop to count.’ Marcus looked about him at the ruined bodies of the fallen Selgovae warriors, and Martos read his glance. ‘I stopped to free the warriors who were still here when the Selgovae took control. They were penned up in the great hall, kept under control by the threat of death and torture for their families. When I released them, and told them that the Selgovae were openly boasting about the number of women they’d violated, it seemed to give them an extra interest in ridding the Dinpaladyr of them. Any of them that are still alive won’t be breathing for very long. The women have been released, and they’ve got oil and flame to take their revenge with.’
Marcus frowned, looking about him.
‘We expected there to be hundreds more of them. Wasn’t Calgus supposed to have sent five hundred men to occupy this fortress?’
His friend smiled tiredly, waving a hand at the scattered corpses.
‘We seem to have been lucky, or perhaps the men that aren’t here were the ones with the luck. Their leader sent more than half of his force east the day before yesterday, with orders to bring back supplies of food to stock the fortress in readiness for a siege. They’re expected to return tomorrow. I’m sure that my people can find a fitting way to greet their return, given the way they’ve been treated over the last few weeks.’
By the time the cohorts had reached the fortress, what little was left of the Selgovae resistance had melted into a handful of terrified fugitives from the vengeful Votadini warriors and their incensed womenfolk. Leaving the bulk of his command outside the palisade wall, Scaurus walked though the massive gates with Tribune Laenas alongside him. A bodyguard of the 10th Century’s hulking axemen surrounded the two officers as they looked about them, noting the neat rows of barbarian corpses piled against the walls on either side. Marcus had escorted Martos down to the gate to get medical attention for his gaping eye socket, and the tribune winced as he caught sight of a bandage carrier cleaning out the cavity with a vinegar-soaked rag.
‘Centurions Corvus and Julius, my congratulations on your victory, although I’d say the prince here seems to have been the spark that ignited his people’s reassertion of their will.’
Martos angled his head round to look at the tribune, ignoring the soldier’s efforts to remove what little tissue was left clinging to his eye socket and speaking through teeth clenched at the vinegar’s bite. The removal of most of the blood from his face had revealed features bruised with exhaustion, but his remaining eye still burned with suppressed rage.
‘Once this man’s finished making my eyehole feel as if I’d got a red-hot dagger stuck through it I’ll walk you up the hill and introduce you to my tribe’s elders. They’re going to want to know what you intend, given that you’ve got enough soldiers camped outside their gates to level this fortress to the bare rock in a few days. And I might have a few words for them too …’
Scaurus nodded reflectively.
‘The thought had crossed my mind. You can be assured that the governor took a very dim view of your people’s decision to join the revolt, and that was before you massacred one of our cohorts and left their corpses burning on stakes for us to discover. Come along, that wound isn’t going to get any prettier, not even if my man here were to pack it with myrrh rather than slop
sour wine into it. Here, put this on, you’re making my men feel queasy.’
He untied the scarf from around his neck, passing the square of clean white linen to the barbarian and leaning close to whisper in his ear.
‘As it happens, I do have a small jar of the stuff in my war chest, cost me a bloody fortune. I can spare you a dab or two once this is done, it’s supposed to take away some of the pain, and prevent wounds going bad as well.’ He watched as Martos tied the scarf across his empty eye socket, nodding once the job was done. ‘That’s better, although it’s going to hurt a lot for the next few days, I’d say. Come along, then, let’s go and see what your elders have got to say for themselves …’
The party started climbing the hill’s steep slope, but Scaurus stopped after fifty paces to look at the bodies of the dead Selgovae. Almost every corpse had the same vicious wound inflicted in the groin area, some of them with the severed genitalia pushed into their dead faces’ mouths. The tribune shook his head soberly, turning back to face Martos.
‘Whatever it was these men did, I’d say they’re paying in the afterlife. These mutilations were inflicted while they were alive, I presume?’
Martos nodded impassively.
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