The Oath Breaker: A Novel of Germania and Rome (Hraban Chronicles Book 1)

by Alaric Longward

  I disliked him. His manner was imperious, speaking like a master to a dog. Odo did not want me near Ishild, and so I slapped him with that bit of knowledge. 'Then we are done, yes, and you wish me far from your sister. We shall see.'

  His ugly face shuddered in anger. 'You are right. I do not want the blood of Woden near the hallowed blood of my family.'

  'He has a name?' I asked. 'This god of yours, the one who humped you lot to this world, and abandoned you to this ridiculous quest.'

  'Yes, he has a name,' he said, but did not utter it. 'You will serve us. You will find a girl.'

  'Cannot get girls on your own, right?'

  His eyes turned to me, baleful. 'Being the harbinger of Ragnarök does not imply you have to have all your limbs while we work together, disbeliever and foul thing of Woden. I can have you blinded and truly maimed, and it will work just as well. I warn you, touch Ishild and you will lose precious parts you would rather keep. You will get us a girl from a certain grove of the gods, and then you will stay far from us. Mother does not want to hurt you, but I do.'

  Angered by yet another person trying to push me around, I swiftly grabbed his hair and pulled him close, though he was not surprised or afraid. 'I do believe in gods, turd. I do not believe in your prophecy. And threaten me again, and I will nail you to a tree though it would surely wither with the poison that runs in your veins.'

  He hissed. 'I shall remember that threat, Hraban, one day, when there are no more duties between us, worm.'

  Nihta rode up, and I let go of Odo, gazing at him balefully.

  We rode in silence, and followed the river on the north bank for two long days. The afternoon of the second day saw a brightening sky, and it cheered our somber mood. The warrior Nihta, after he dried out, turned out to be a jovial man, even when stripped of his precious finery. He dressed himself in plain Germani clothes, hiding his gear on a packhorse. He teased me gently, calling me a backwoods peasant, and I called him a Roman eunuch, though I scarcely knew what one was, save from what Marcus had briefly explained to me. The ludicrous stories he told me made me laugh, yet I consumed them hungrily. He told of the many riches of the known world, the great oppida of the Gauls, and the marble laden Roman towns of the south. I wondered why Marcus had told me so little of them. Perhaps they were too commonplace for him. Most of all, I loved his stories of mighty harbors of the seas.

  'The ships, boy, they are many in the ports of the Roman Sea. All kinds of ships. Warships with banks of oars, war machines, high as trees, and sailors of all colors. Triemes, and even quadriremes. Some even bigger.'

  'You lie,' I told him.

  'You would die of fright, Hraban, if you saw one of those ships in your silly little river. The fat tubs full of money and wondrous trade goods, slow rowboats with sails fill the seas. Some are taken by the sudden storms, horrible winds blowing them to the jagged rocks, the sea sucking them down like an amorous lover sucking on a fine tit. There are pirates who disguise themselves as friendly traders while scouting which ships are leaving the unsuspecting port, bloody murderers who rob and sink a boat in an hour of bloody orgy like an army of ants swarming over a leg of mutton.' He laughed as if it was the funniest thing in the world. 'These great places. They pack anything and everything you could imagine, bringing goods from all over the known world and some from the unknown parts. There is silk from so far away we cannot imagine, and people who look truly, truly different from us, yet strong in numbers and skills in war. There is wine, all kinds of wine, like Falernian, the stuff from Pompeii in the south, and Greek Chian, and the excellent stuff from Hispania, Cerentanum …'

  I stared at him, blinking my eyes. 'I'm happy with some simple millet for my dinner.'

  He sighed at me, apparently at a loss with my admittedly faked humility.

  'Peasant,' he spat. 'That is what you are. You have Mercury, their god of coin and commerce looking over the harbors, though judging from the many conflagrations and an uncouth horde of thieves in the filthy harbor districts, I think Mercury likes a bit of proper chaos. I come back to the fine wine, which …'

  I snorted. 'Sweet mead or bitter ale is better than the weak piss.' I had never tasted wine.

  Nihta looked at him in concern. 'Is it possible you drank from a rancid pisspot, and now are against this most subtle of drinks?'

  I considered it, and we laughed, save for Odo.

  Nihta continued, 'There are animals you have never seen, food you cannot imagine. And the smell, boy—' He wrinkled his nose. 'The smell of a harbor is like unwashed loincloth, but much stronger, like the nasty loincloth was strapped on your face. All the dead things of the sea, and unwashed men and women. It is quite overwhelming. There are so many taverns with wild names, and wild women as ferocious as the scarred cats in the alleyways. You can easily lose everything you have, no matter if it's day or night. No sane guards go near the places unless they are overdriven by a suicidal sense of duty.' He was waving his hands in excitement, and I was grinning. 'You should see it, certainly, to understand.' His voice grew quiet. 'You should.'

  Odo snorted. 'Or, we should avoid their evil ways, and stick to our proper gods.'

  Nihta glanced at him and grinned. 'Yes, we could do that, priest. We could if we were not busy killing each other, and thus giving the Romans a fine opportunity to come here. And here they are, not likely to go away. Hard to ignore the enemy who wishes to grab your home and wife, eh? We are not like them, and you have not seen them at war, and their unyielding strength. They are hardy people, and very proud. Quick to anger, slow to forget, and more impossible to grind down by a few victories. One should not underestimate them,' he said, looking off into the distance. 'Or their gods.'

  Odo just stared ahead, and we all thought he would leave it at that, but he did not. Eventually, he spat on the ground. 'Yea. They are good at war, and have endless appetites. They gorge themselves with the stolen goods of others, and their gods are weak because their people worship stinking money and excess luxury, perverse joy over stoic pain, fornication over fidelity, and the beast that eats too much—Rugii, bursts. Fornication is ever the mark of a dwindling people. Once, they were more like us, but it is our time to change the world. One way or the other.'

  Nihta looked at him in surprise. 'How did you know I am a Rugii? My tribe lives nowhere near here. And where are you from, I wonder?'

  I spat. 'Theirs is some kind of a mad clan, bent on slaying the gods, weeping and bothering others with their cursed omens. They claim kinship to a nameless god, and hope for the world to end in a flood.'

  Nihta laughed. 'I have seen the like. We called them actors in Rome.'

  Odo eyed us, his watery eyes blinking from one to another. 'Hraban is right to call us a clan, but the only ones to weep in our hallowed cave are the ones we capture. Gulldrum is no place for the weak.'

  'Gulldrum?' I sneered. 'A cave, a nasty hole in the ground? Like a reeking badger hole.'

  'It is the place where our god last stood in Midgard. Holy place. Perhaps you will see it one day, Hraban. There is a root there, and rusty nails.' Odo's voice was harsh, and I felt chills in my spine despite myself. 'I know your accent, Rugii, that is how. Why did you leave them?'

  Nihta looked ahead. 'The treacherous Semnones put their heels on our necks. My family resisted. We lost. I left. Simple.'

  Odo laughed hollowly. 'That might be so. Yet there is more to it, is there not? You went to the Romans. Not willingly though.' Nihta was looking at Odo in simmering fury, but Odo continued, 'I could say I can see your sad past, which I, of course, could, but I need not go through the trouble. You have an obvious brand, Rugii. On your shoulder.'

  Nihta frowned and involuntarily glanced at his left shoulder. It was covered with a tunic.

  'Yes, that one,' Odo said balefully. 'It still burns, does it not? The branding. I saw it the day you arrived. Just for a second, but it is there. It says FUG, Rugii. You wish to tell us what that means?'

  Nihta was quiet, like a cornered animal, dangero
us, saying nothing, his eyes promising pain.

  Odo continued, unheeding the warning signs, 'Fine, do not tell us. I will. It is a Roman brand, made with red-hot iron, and given exclusively to foolish slaves who run away. The brand is usually put on a forehead. Why did they not put it in your forehead after you tried to run?' Odo snickered. 'Did you look too good for your jewel-laden mistress? Or to the master? I am guessing you were not a field slave, pretty one, were you?'

  Nihta placed a sword at Odo's chest. 'You are extremely perceptive for a whore son out of the shit-filled backwoods. Yes, I was a slave when I was young, very young. Sold to Romans by the Chauci of the north when I was stealing their cows to feed myself. Yes, I was made a creature of a beautiful and terrible villa for a powerful man, a gray-souled Roman, and his depraved wife in the lands of the Ubii. And I did run. I ran far, but I was captured by the Gauls of the Sequani.' His eyes were feverish. 'I fought, I killed, I lost, and when I was brought back, I was punished.' He trembled in hate and shame. The lithe and strong warrior was just a human, no matter his great skills and high rank. 'I ran again, and found service with the Batavii, and finally, with the famous guards.'

  Odo looked at him in distaste. 'How one has the nerve to survive after being raped by his masters, is beyond me.'

  Nihta sneered, the sword trembling with desire to plunge into Odo's heart. 'It takes courage to survive and fight again. Something our people would do well to understand. Foolish pride sends you to Hel.'

  We noticed a dozen riders staring at us as they emerged from the woods ahead.

  It was a group of men, riding on shaggy horses, their beards long and unruly, some adorned with haphazard leather armor, all with large, brown-painted shields on their back. Some were carrying large spears, but most grasped the usual framae. A few had bows and arrows, their feathers very gray in the manner of the Chatti.

  A young man with lively eyes and a long hawk nose rode in front with a very noble bearing, and his men, ten in all, stopped in front of us, looking at us inquisitively, having seen the squabble. He threw his legs over the horse and dropped to the ground, his heavy, dirty hair hanging lank on his forehead, short beard jutting. He threw the reins to a fat, brutally ugly man on his right who grunted incoherently, and kept his hand on a sharp, functional axe.

  Nihta bowed as they approached, his eyes calculating and judging the newcomers. 'We hail the warriors of the Chatti.'

  I glanced at Nihta. They were indeed Chatti, the mighty tribe who are still to this day the terror of all the people living next to these warriors. They were not of the Suebi; they wore their hair extremely long, and their foreheads covered until they had killed a man. They made war brutally, being the most organized of our peoples, going to war with trains of supplies for extended campaigns and planned keen strategies and clever tactics with the utmost care.

  'I am Adgandestrius,' said the leader. 'Son of Lord Ebbe, the war king of the Chatti for this year.'

  'Your father is the war king? Who do you war against?' asked Nihta carefully. I knew he was afraid it would be the Marcomanni and the Quadi. It would not be uncommon.

  'Bastards of the Cherusci and the Hermanduri in the east. Matticati are with them this year, and we are partly in the middle. No war with the Marcomanni this year,' the Chatti told us happily, but then he grunted, eyeing Nihta's sword. 'A Roman weapon, that.'

  'Yes, it is,' Nihta said, hesitantly.

  Adgandestrius clearly desired the weapon.

  'Peace, friends,' said a fat, finely dressed man with a matted beard as he guided his horse from behind the Chatti. He inspected Odo, and Odo answered in kind though with great hostility and much alarm. 'Adalfuns the Crafter, at your service,' said the man, and my eyes opened wide. 'I believe these men are on their way to Hard Hill. Same as I was, adeling, when you offered to escort me.'

  Adgandestrius smiled sheepishly as he dismissed all notions of taking the gladius. 'Indeed, we are taking words of peace to the Hard Hill, as we have no wish to wage war with the Marcomanni this year.'

  The man holding the adeling's horse stared at me. Only me. He had a shaggy pair of large dogs that did the same.

  'Well met, young adeling,' Nihta said.

  The prince smiled benignly. 'Adalfuns here is a friend, and I have no problem to escort him, but who are you?'

  'I have known young Adgandestrius since he pissed on my shoes at the oppidum of Mattium,' the crafter said happily, smiling crookedly.

  'I was drinking for the very first time then, Adalfuns! Forgive me already!' Adgandestrius answered with mock anger, not slighted at all.

  Men laughed at their adeling, and I could not help but join them.

  'But my question stands. Who is he?' The adeling pointed a finger at me.

  'Marcomanni noble,' Nihta said. 'Recently left with no family. I am escorting him to his grandfather. The vitka,' Nihta nodded at Odo, 'tagged along. Ignore him. He has a reputation of trying to seduce men into unholy acts of pleasure.'

  Odo reddened in anger, but kept his mouth shut, his eyes shining with rage.

  They laughed politely, though careful not to offer insult. Vitka, no matter what his preferences and ways, was a holy man. Nihta was taking risks by mocking him, but Nihta was not entirely a Germani, and his humor was ill-placed.

  Adgandestrius nodded. 'Matticati have some warriors in the hills. Can the boy use a spear?'

  'I killed my first man not long ago,' I said proudly. 'A Vangione.'

  'Vangione?' asked the fat warrior with hounds. 'You don't say? I heard of a Vangione attack, though only on one unlucky village. Perhaps two. They were, I hear, looking for this criminal Maroboodus.'

  We were silent. The fat man continued to watch me. I did not say anything more, but I knew Nihta was cursing under his breath. Odo smiled silently.

  Finally, Adgandestrius nodded. 'Join us then, and we shall go together to Hard Hill and take you to your Balderich.'

  Nihta looked at the savage Chatti in alarm. The adeling knew we were to meet Balderich, though Nihta had not said the great chief was a relative of mine.

  The Chatti knew who I was.

  We travelled to the unknown west, mirroring the calmly flowing Moenus River that separated us from the dominions of Balderich. We were close to Hard Hill as we camped for the night, and next evening, we would be there, unless the river crossing proved difficult. The insistent rain was bothering us as we combed down our impatient animals.

  The Chatti prepared simple food, and we sat as comrades around the welcoming fire. Adalfuns the Crafter, the man Hulderic had trusted on the matter of the prophecy, was silent, though he looked at me with a keen glint in his deep, judgmental eyes. Adgandestrius wanted me to recite over and over the tale of the horrific battle. The tale grew larger and more terrible in each telling. Their eyes went dark at the dramatic event of Maroboodus's desperate charge and the bloody death of his family.

  The fat warrior was stroking his dozing dogs. He enjoyed my stories. He thumbed at Adgandestrius. 'This is better than hearing our young lord tell of fair Albine, his cursed cousin. He is bereft of dowry, and we cannot hear another lament from his rotten mouth. So, why didn't they give you a spear and shield for such great feats?' He did not mock me; he was just interested.

  I shrugged and looked unhappy. I fixed a squint at the fat man, and he smiled back wickedly, stroking a sleeping hound.

  'What is your name again?' I asked. 'You never said it.'

  He placed a thumb on his chest, spat and laughed. 'Hands, that is what they call me. You do, too. I hunt men, and they say none can escape my hands. Hence the name. They are right. My real name is Sigfried, but you call me Hands.' He flashed me a rotten-toothed smile, and I answered it. He certainly did not look like the young hero Sigfried Hagano had described.

  Gods, I missed Hagano.

  I shrugged at him, despite the shiver running down my spine at his cold stare. There was a brief increase in the rain, and we looked at each other in the dark drizzle. He had an easygoing mann
er, yet there was something animal-like in him. I bet the fat man was the last thing many a hunted man saw. I was sure he was not interested in feeding a live prisoner, only on delivering proof of success.

  'I had no man speak for me. I hope Grandfather will give me my deserved due when we reach Hard Hill,' I said, and brightened. Such a thing was indeed possible, but I was flirting with treason, so I shut up.

  Hands was looking at me carefully, a smile playing on his lips. He was a dangerous man. The rest of the wet evening they drank sweet mead and sour ale, ate well on tender hare meat, and shared everything with us, except the obvious truth—they were looking for us.

  I slept near the horses, and while trekking to my bedding, I spied Adalfuns sitting nearby, carving a block of wood with a tiny, deft blade. I went to him. 'Lord …'

  He laughed. 'I am no lord. Just a simple crafter. Wood, and stone, sometimes, that is what I govern. No men, no family. Not anymore. But you are, Hraban, a damnable nuisance.'

  I nodded, ignoring his words. 'You are surely the most talented crafter in the world. We hear of your carvings for the Cherusci and the far people. Fabulous treasures. Something Hulderic always wanted. They would have been the wonder of ages, long, carved benches and the sturdiest of tables made by you. Though, never mine.' I sulked.

  He put down the block of wood and looked at me under his eyebrows. He was deeply tanned, and had a tick on his eye as he studied me.

  He shook the piece of wood at me. 'A father is a fine thing. Worth freely given oaths and even love, but only if he returns the favor. Do not dwell on the impossible. Your hair is not so rare in our lands to justify what he is thinking. It is his weakness that sets you apart. So deal with it. I have other issues with you.' He poked me in the chest, as if unsure where I sat, and I wondered if he could see whom he was talking with.

  I eyed him warily. 'How do you know about the issues I have with Maroboodus? And about the prophecy? Do you know about Tear and him?' I thumbed at Odo.