“Bastard!” Vorenus panted.
“You’re the whore’s get, not me!” Pullo retorted. They fought back-to-back, raving at each other all the while. By then the rest of the Romans were reaching the Namdaleni, and the pressure on the two of them eased.
Trapped, outnumbered, pelted by javelins, the islanders began surrendering one after the other. But Grus, mortified at falling into the ambush, came rushing at Marcus on foot; his horse was down, hamstrung by a gladius. “Yield yourself!” the Roman called.
“To the ice with you!” Grus shouted, almost crying with age and chagrin. The tribune raised his shield against a whirlwind attack. Grus must have been drawing on the same furious energy that powered Vorenus and Pullo; he struck and struck and struck, as if driven by clockwork. He paid no thought to defense. More than once he left himself open to a killing blow, but Marcus held back. The little battle was already won, and the Namdalener officer might be worth more as prisoner than corpse.
Gaius Philippus bent, found a stone of good hand-filling size. He let fly at close range; the rock clanked off the side of grus’ conical helmet. The Namdalener staggered, dropped his guard. Marcus and the senior centurion wrestled him to the ground and disarmed him. “Nice throw,” the tribune said.
“I saw you didn’t want to kill him.”
Ras Simokattes looked in confusion from the two officers to where Pullo and Vorenus were accepting their comrades’ praise. “What are you foreigners, anyway?” he asked Scaurus. “Here you two go out of your way to keep from letting the air out of this one—” He nudged Grus with his foot. “—while that pair yonder’s a couple of bloodthirsty madmen.”
The tribune glanced over to the two rival legionaries. Junius Blaesus was congratulating them now. Marcus frowned; the junior centurion seemed unable to see past the obvious, something the tribune had noticed before. He turned back to Simokattes. “Bide a moment, Ras. You’ll see what we are.” Then, to the Romans: “Pullo, Vorenus—over here, if you would.”
The troopers exchanged apprehensive looks. They broke away at once from their mates, came to attention before Scaurus. “I hope your rivalry is done,” he said mildly. “Now each of you has saved the other; that should be plenty to put you at quits.” He spoke Videssian, for the chief herdsman’s benefit.
“Yes, sir,” they said together, and actually sounded as if they meant it.
“To say it was bravely done would be to waste words. I’m glad the both of you came through alive.”
“Thank you, sir,” Pullo said, smiling; Vorenus relaxed with him.
“No one said at ease, you!” Gaius Philippus rasped. The legionaries stiffened. The apprehension returned to their faces.
“Both of you are fined a week’s pay for breaking ranks in the charge,” Scaurus went on, no longer mild. “Not only do you endanger yourselves by bringing your feud along to combat, you also gamble with your comrades’ safety. Never again—d’you understand me?”
“Aye, sir,” they answered, both very low.
“What were you playing at?” Gaius Philippus demanded. “You might as well have been a couple of Gauls over there.” That was his worst condemnation for disorderly soldiers; Vorenus flushed, while Pullo shuffled his feet like a small, naughty boy. Both were a far cry from the ferocious warriors of a few minutes before. When Scaurus dismissed them, they went quietly back to their comrades.
“Well, what are we, Ras?” the tribune asked Simokattes.
“A pack of bastards, if you want to know,” Grus said from the ground.
“Quiet, you,” Gaius Philippus said.
Simokattes had watched in disbelief as the Romans took their dressing-down; he had never known soldiers trained to such obedience. He scratched his head, rubbed at a leathery cheek. “Damned if I could tell you, but I’m glad you’re not against me.”
“Bah!” said Grus.
Isolated in the southeastern hills, Marcus longed for news of the wider world, but had all but given up hope of having any when an imperial messenger, a dapper, foxy-faced little man, made his way through the Namdaleni and was scooped up by a Khatrisher patrol. “Karbeas Antakinos, I’m called,” he said when they brought him to the tribune. His sharp eyes flicked round the legionary camp, missing nothing.
“Good to see you, good to see you,” Marcus said, pumping his hand.
“Very good to be here, let me tell you,” the courier said. His speech had the quick, staccato rhythm of the capital. “The ride was hellish—damned Gamblers all over the lot.” He used the Videssians’ insulting nickname for the men of the Duchy, who returned the favor by calling the imperials Cocksures. The Roman swallowed a sigh; he had no patience for the bickering between Phos’ sects.
He also remembered Drax’ gift for treachery. “Let me have your bona fides,” he said to Antakinos.
“Yes indeed.” The Videssian rubbed his hands together briskly. “I was to ask you his Imperial Majesty’s opinion of hot-tempered women.”
Scaurus relaxed; Thorisin had used that recognition signal before. “That they’re great fun, but wearing.”
“Has a point, does he?” Antakinos chuckled. He had an easy laugh that went well with his resonant tenor. “I remember a girl named Panthia—but that’s another story. To business: how do you stand here?”
“It’s stalemate, for now. The islanders don’t go poking their noses into these hills any more, not after a couple of little lessons we taught them, but I can’t get loose, either. There’s too many of them down here. Can Gavras draw them off?”
The messenger grimaced. “Not a prayer. He just led two regiments to Opsikion, opposite the Duchy, to fight off a Namdalener landing there.”
“Bloody wonderful,” Gaius Philippus said. “I suppose we might have known it was coming.”
“Aye,” Antakinos said. “Phos be praised it’s only freebooters and not the Duke. Speaking of which, pirates from the Duchy have shown up off the westlands, too. Three days before I set out, Leimmokheir came into port after chasing four of them away and sinking a fifth. And you can be sure more than those are lurking about.”
“By the gods,” Scaurus said, dismayed into Latin. He returned to the imperial tongue. “You’re telling me, then, that we are as great a force as the Avtokrator has left.”
“In essence, yes,” the courier agreed unhappily. “In truth, I’ll be glad to tell him how strong you are. After the, ah, misfortune at the Sangarios, he feared all of Zigabenos’ army had been destroyed or turned traitor with its general.” Damn the great count Drax, Marcus thought, while Antakinos finished, “But you do not have the look of defeated men to you.”
“I should hope not,” Gaius Philippus snorted.
Laon Pakhymer walked up in time to hear the last exchange. “No indeed,” he said, eyes twinkling, “for your men fear you worse than Drax. All he can do is kill them.” The senior centurion snorted again, but did not seem displeased.
“You traveled through the lands the islanders hold,” Marcus said to Antakinos. “How are the folk there taking to their rule?”
“Interesting question.” Antakinos eyed him with respect. “Thinking of stirring them up, maybe? His Majesty said you were a tricksy one. Well, here’s how it is: out in the countryside they’d take kindly to roasting Gamblers over a slow fire, the peasants ’cause they steal and the nobles because some of their number have been dispossessed to give their estates to men from the Duchy.” The messenger pursed his lips. “The towns, I fear, are the other way round. Drax takes tribute from ’em, aye, but less than they paid Videssos—and the townsfolk count on the Namdaleni to protect them from the Yezda.”
Laon Pakhymer shook his head very slightly, but Antakinos noticed and raised a curious eyebrow. To Scaurus’ relief, the Khatrisher did not explain himself. That ploy still made the tribune’s hackles rise.
“Well, what if there’s more of the sods coming by than we thought when we laid the ambush?” The speaker was a tall, lanky farmer in rough homespun and a thick leather jerkin. H
e clutched his boar spear uncertainly.
Gaius Philippus held onto his patience with both hands. These raw Videssian recruits had neither Roman discipline nor the impetuosity of the Spaniards Sertorius had forged into so dangerous a guerilla army. But all the two hundred or so men hunkered down around him were volunteers, either refugees from the lowlands or hillmen who wanted more of soldiering than squabbling with the noble a couple of valleys over.
The senior centurion said to his listeners, “You don’t need me to answer a question like that. Who’ll tell him?” A score of hands rose, Ras Simokattes’ first. Gaius Philippus pretended not to see Zonaras’ chief herdsman. “You, there—yes, you with the gray streak in your hair.”
The man stood, clasped his hands behind his back and dipped his head, as if to some half-forgotten childhood teacher. “If there’s too many, we stay in hiding,” he said diffidently. A light hunting bow was at his feet.
“That’s the way of it!” Gaius Philippus approved. “And don’t be ashamed to do it, either. Unless the odds are all with you, don’t get gay with the islanders. They have better gear than you and they know what to do with it, too. Just like me.” He grinned a lazy grin.
Watching the lesson, Marcus saw the veteran’s would-be marauders sober as they remembered his demonstration of a couple of days before. In full panoply, he had invited any four of his pupils to come at him with the hand-weapons they had. The fight did not last long. Reversing his pilum, he knocked the wind out of one assailant, ducked the scythe-stroke of another and broke the spearshaft over his head. Whirling, he let the third Videssian’s club whack into his shield, then hit him under the chin with the scutum’s metal-faced edge. Even as the man sank, Gaius Philippus was drawing his sword and sidling toward his last foe, who carried a short pike. The fellow was brave enough, rushing forward to jab at the Roman, but Gaius Philippus, graceful as a dancer, stepped inside the thrust and tapped him on the chest with his sword. Two men unconscious, one helpless on the ground, the fourth white-faced and shaking—not bad, for a minute’s work.
A good dozen men slipped out of camp that night.
But for the ones who stayed, the senior centurion was proving a better teacher than Scaurus had expected. In fact, he showed a zest for the assignment he did not always bring to his ordinary duties. Like any job, those had become largely routine as the years went by. The new role seemed to take him back to his youth, and he plunged into it with more enthusiasm than the tribune had seen from him since they knew each other.
The veteran was saying, “Make your strike, do as much mischief as you can, and get away fast. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to ditch your weapons.” That would have been blasphemous advice to give to full-time soldiers. But to guerillas, it made sense. “Without ’em, who’s to know who you are?”
“And when they chase us?” someone asked.
“Scatter, of course. And if you get out of sight for a minute or two, you can stop running. Just bend down in a field and pull weeds like you belonged there. They’ll ride past you every time.” Gaius Philippus’ smile was altogether without the cynical cast it usually bore. “You can have a lot of fun at this business.”
Marcus dug a finger into his ear. The senior centurion, as hardened a professional as ever lived, calling soldiering fun? Reliving one’s youth was all very well, but from Gaius Philippus that seemed like second childhood.
Ruelm Ranulf’s son was pleased with himself as he and his squad of Namdaleni rode south toward the hills where resistance still simmered against his liege lord Drax. Not for a moment did he think of himself as subject to any Emperor Zigabenos. That piece of play-acting was for the Videssians to chew on.
He paused to light a torch. Twilight was almost gone, but he wanted to keep moving. With luck, he could join Bailli by midnight. That was what pleased him; when he’d set out from Kyzikos, he had expected to be on the road another day, but the ford over the Arandos that gaffer had shown him saved hours skirting the bank looking for a bridge and then doubling back. He touched his wallet. It had been well worth the goldpiece, and the old man looked as though he hadn’t seen many lately.
A moth flew in tight circles round his torch. The night was warm and very still; he could hear the faint whirr of its wings. A bat swooped out of the blackness, snatched the bug, and was gone almost before he was sure he’d seen it.
“Damned flittermouse,” he said, making the sun-sign on his breast to ward off the evil omen. His men did the same. The Namdaleni called bats “Skotos’ chickens,” for without the dark god’s help, how could they see to fly so unerringly by night?
As the hills came nearer, stands of brush and shadowy clumps of trees grew more common than they had been north of the Arandos. That rich low plain was the most intensively farmed and most productive land Ruelm had ever seen. By the austere standards of the duchy, even this was plenty fine enough.
A lapwing piped in the undergrowth to the side of the roads. “Pee-wit!” it said, following the call with a long whistle. Ruelm was mildly surprised to hear a day bird so long after dusk. Then the first arrow whispered out of the night, and the knight behind him swore in startlement and pain as it stuck in his calf.
For a second Ruelm sat frozen—no enemies were supposed to be here. The Romans and the Videssian and Khatrisher ragtag and bobtail clinging to their skirts had been driven well up into the hills.
Another arrow hissed past his face, so close a rough feather of the fletching tickled his cheek. Suddenly he was soldier again. He threw the torch as far as he could—whoever these night-runners were, no sense lighting a target for them. He was drawing his sword as they broke cover and rushed.
He slashed out blindly, still half dazzled by the torchlight, felt the blade bite. Behind him, the trooper who was first wounded yelled as he was dragged from the saddle; his cry cut off abruptly. Others replaced it—backcountry Videssian voices shouting in mixed triumph and, he would have taken oath, fear.
The darkness gave the savage little fight a nightmare quality. Whirling his horse round to go to the aid of his men, Ruelm saw his foes as shifting black shadows, impossible to count, almost impossible to strike.
“Drax!” he shouted, and tasted sour fear in his mouth when only two men answered.
A hand pulled at his thigh. He kicked at his assailant; though his boot met only air, the man skipped back. He roweled his horse’s flank with his spurs. The gelding reared, whinnying. Well-trained as a warhorse, it lashed out with iron-shod hooves. A man’s skull shattered like a smashed melon; a bit of brain, warm, wet, and sticky, splashed on Ruelm’s forehead, just below his helmet.
Then, with a great scream, the gelding foundered. As he kicked free of the stirrups, Ruelm heard a Videssian cry, “Hamstrung, by Phos!” Boots and bare feet scuffed in the dirt of the roadway as more came running up like so many jackals.
The islander lit rolling and started to scramble to his feet, but a club smashed against the chain-mail neckguard that hung from his helm. Stunned, he fell to his knees and then to his belly. His sword was torn away; greedy hands ripped at the fastenings of his hauberk. He groaned and tried to reach for his dagger. “ ’Ware!” someone shouted. “He’s not done yet!”
A harsh chuckle. “We’ll fix that!” Still dazed, he felt rough fingers grope under his chin, jerk his head back. “Jist like a sheep,” the Videssian said. The knife stung, but not for long.
Accompanied by Sittas Zonaras and Gaius Philippus, Scaurus walked toward the truce-site Bailli of Ecrisi had suggested. “Here, Minucius,” the tribune said, pausing, “this is close enough for you and your squad.” The young underofficer saluted; they were a good bowshot away from where Bailli and a pair of his lieutenants were waiting. A double handful of dismounted Namdaleni lounged on the ground a similar distance north of their leaders.
“Hello, islander,” Scaurus called as he came up. “What do we need to talk about?”
But Bailli was not the suave, self-assured officer who had delivered Drax’ proclamation a few
weeks before. “You scum,” he snarled, his neck corded with fury. “For two coppers I’d stake you out for the crows. I thought you a man of honor.” He spat at the Roman’s feet.
“If I’m not, why risk a parley with me? We’re enemies, true, but there’s no need to hate each other.”
“Go howl, you and your pretty talk,” Bailli said. “We took you and yours for honest mercenaries, men who’d do their best for him who pays them, aye, but not stoop to such foulness as you’re wading in. Murders in the night, tavern stabbings, maimed horses, thefts to drive a man mad—”
“Why blame us?” Marcus asked. “First off, you know we Romans don’t war like that—as I say, you must, or you’d not be here talking with me. And second, even if we did, we couldn’t, for it’s you who pinned us back in these hills.”
“Seems someone in the flatlands isn’t fond of you,” Gaius Philippus said, as casually as if remarking on the weather.
Bailli was near the bursting point. “All right! All right! Loose your stupid peasants, if that’s how you care to play this game. We’ll root them out if we have to chip down every tree and burn every cottage from here back to the city. And then we’ll come back to deal with you, and you’ll wish for what we gave your cowardly skulkers.”
Gaius Philippus said nothing, but an eyebrow twitched. To Bailli it could have meant anything; to Marcus, it showed he was not worried by the threat.
“Will there be anything more, Bailli?” the tribune asked.
“Just this,” the Namdalener officer said heavily. “At the Sangarios you fought your men as well as you could and as cleanly, too. Then afterwards in the talks over your exchange scheme, you were gracious even when they did not turn out as you wanted. So why this?”
The honest perplexity in his voice deserved a straight answer. Marcus thought for a moment, then said, “ ‘Doing me best,’ as you call it, is all very well, but it’s not my job. My job is to hold things together, and one way or another I intend to do it.”
Legion of Videssos Page 22