Lann ignored them, bent at the waist and grunted with the effort, but he hauled Drust up, tearing off the man’s helmet as he did so. He grinned into the lolling face. Drust saw it, the eyes cold and red, the scar beside the nose, the blue skin marks. There was blood in the tangled beard and Drust thought – I did that. I drew blood. If he bleeds, he dies…
He felt the man’s massive hands clamp on either side of his head, then the wrenching pain of being lifted up – his neck felt as if it was stretching out and he could not feel the ground with his feet.
Kag saw what Lann intended and tried to get to it, but two warriors were in the way and Quintus was struggling with one of them while Dog weaved and slipped and stabbed. There were howls and clatters, shrieks and bellows like a slaughter yard.
Something smacked Kag’s cheek – blood, flesh, snow, he did not know. Quintus felt his face in a rictus of grin but his mind was full of light and his hands full of steel – crack, smack. Die, die, you rat-fuck… a spear came in at him, the face behind it ink-marked with whorls which no doubt meant power or glory. Quintus let the spear slide over one shoulder and then ruined the face with a back slash and a howl, cut off when the man’s blood splashed in his mouth.
Kag tottered and reeled, stabbed a man in the groin and then found himself on his knees in the wet, bloody slush, stabbed a man in the foot, rolled, slashed ankles and knew it was all going badly. Once you were down, you seldom got up in a fight…
Ugo had nothing but hands and the last of his strength. He let the mules loose, shouldered an enemy warrior to one side with a thump that racked white pain through him, then grabbed Kag by the scruff and hauled him up, ignoring the flowers of agony that caused.
‘Stay up, keep going forward…’
Sib was dancing and shrieking, his head buzzed with his own noise, his whole being vibrant with fear while he blocked and slashed, whimpering with the utter terror of knowing that it was inevitable, at some point sharp metal was going to enter him like rape.
Lann looked round and laughed at the shape of it, the screams, the clashing metal, then shook Drust like a dog with a rat while men slavered and roared and bled around him. He started to squeeze, wanting to feel it, the moment when his enemy’s skull splintered to ruin under his massive palms.
Drust was barely aware of it, but in the roaring tide that threatened to swamp him he heard a faint, distant cry.
‘Drust…’
This last bellow by Kag drowned out the crunch and the high, thin whine that came from Lann when the arrow went into the nape of his neck, through his tongue and out of his mouth. Drust saw it as a spurt of blackness that spat in his face and a vague shape that wavered as Lann stopped like one of the Flavian machines when the gears jammed.
Drust dropped from his numbed fists into a heap on the ground and the giant weaved, coughed blood from his mouth and nose and then toppled like a falling oak. There was a pause, an intake of breath, no longer than it took the snow of the giant’s collapse to puff into the air – then the warriors broke and ran.
There was a moment of whirling dark and light, then another when Drust felt like a great weight had lifted from him – the burden of living, he thought, with the one tiny part of himself that remained.
Then the light burst open like a great flower and he seemed to rise up into the face of Kag, streaked and etched and strained. Kag grinned and hefted the body of Lann to one side; behind him, Death loomed bloodily and grinned and spoke.
‘You got a missus,’ Dog said.
Chapter Thirteen
‘I heard your prayers,’ Drust said hoarsely, ‘though I don’t know which god to thank.’
‘Start smaller,’ Dog advised with a slanted grin and that left Drust squinting in bewilderment. Behind Kag, he saw Quintus holding up the tarnished, battered rig of phalerae, stripped from Lann’s body with the ring mail.
He gave an appreciative whistle and turned the harness this way and that. ‘Look at this. Awards up the cloaca – poor bastard, it didn’t save him, whoever he was. Nor that Lann.’
‘I wouldn’t weep too hard,’ Dog said. ‘A man this garlanded is a centurion of the 1st – whenever did one of those wear this rig on campaign? It was looted from some baggage and he is back in Eboracum, arguing with clerks to get them replaced so he can look regulation on pay parade.’
‘Weep for the cart driver who carried it,’ Sib added mournfully and folk laughed. It was a good sound.
‘What did you mean, start smaller?’ Drust demanded. He felt like a cart had driven over him, but he wanted up if nothing was broken and struggled to rise. Then he saw a familiar face that soused him with iced water.
She came forward and squatted beside him, offered him a beaker with something bitter in it.
‘Verrecunda,’ he said, and she looked blankly at him.
‘Who did you expect? You are in my house.’
Not dead, then. Drust looked at the beaker, then up into Verrecunda’s eyes, which mocked him.
‘You think I am poisoning you?’
He swallowed another mouthful. ‘I sent Manius to kill you and Necthan.’
She nodded. ‘He came. He warned us and then he left.’
The other woman said something sharp and Verrecunda ignored her. ‘That one is called Eithne and she is the Horned Queen of the Bull People – but you knew that. She is also the one whose folk drove mine to ruin, but she was a child then. She promises dire revenge for my part in her capture.’
‘You had no part in it,’ Drust managed weakly.
Verrecunda nodded. ‘She does not know that. I am Roman to her now.’
‘You had better flee, then,’ Drust said. He felt a warm glow through him and the aches and pains seemed to have faded. ‘Dog… Colm… will trade her to the Blue Faces, who will only release her for oath-sworn promises of peace or alliance.’
Verrecunda snorted. ‘She will never get free. Talorc will keep her close and bind the Bull People with her. He needs something because this has cost the Blue Faces dearly – too many prime men have been killed.’
Drust felt good enough to move upright and realised Verrecunda was right. They had gone through Blue Face warriors like shit through a goose – he almost laughed.
‘I fed you a potion which will dull the pain and break the fever. Eithne did the same for your big friend and I will give you more of it for when it wears off. He is worse off than you – something broke inside him and if it leaks more he will die. But he is strong – Eithne fears him because of what he did to the Father of the Woods. Did he really split its skull with an axe?’
‘Almost,’ Drust answered. The little room seemed busy with people and he saw Necthan waving his arms at Kag. Verrecunda followed his gaze and translated. ‘He is telling your man to leave off stripping the dead. Talorc is coming and will want the gear back; best not to make matters worse by robbing the dead.’
Drust told Kag, who set the phalerae rig down reluctantly. ‘This is Roman,’ he muttered.
‘It’s a tarnished pile of shite,’ Quintus corrected, grinning fiercely. ‘Even if the old owner could see it he wouldn’t want it back – he’ll get shiny new.’
The skin across the door parted, letting in a blast of icy light blotted by a shadow which moved down the steps and into the fire glow.
‘Men are coming. Fifteen, perhaps twenty. There are a deal of big war hats among them.’
Drust’s mouth went dry.
Manius.
His head reeled and he barely managed to get the name out. He remembered the arrow coming out of Lann’s mouth. Manius turned at the sound of his name and Drust saw that he was clean-shaven and wore a linen cap stained yellow; under it, he was sure, was also shaved. There were strange, shiny snakes along his jaw – half-healed scorching, Drust saw.
‘Our Manius can’t be burned,’ Dog announced. ‘Now all he needs is to defeat being bound, beaten, and killed by the sword.’
‘He can be burned,’ Verrecunda corrected. ‘I treated him for it.’
; ‘My hair went on fire,’ Manius explained matter-of-factly. ‘Beard too. Went into the snow and smothered it. Stayed there until everyone moved on.’
‘Thought you were dead.’
The voice was a sibilant whisper from Sib and Manius turned to him.
‘Fire came down between us. Good trick, that, little man. I should have waited until it was further out before I shot, though.’
Sib felt the roaring of demons, wondered if Manius was truly unaware of what he had tried to do or was waiting, taunting… that would all be part of a vengeful jnoun like him. In the end, all he knew, when he saw Dog’s skull grinning mockingly at him, was that now there were two.
‘You did not kill them,’ Drust blurted, and Manius stared levelly back at him.
‘I did not. I made sure no one else was sent.’
Drust held out a hand. ‘Get me up. I will be on my feet when Talorc comes.’
‘You will be on your knees more like,’ Dog offered. ‘And no good to anyone. I will speak to him, standing on two good legs and looking like a warrior.’
Drust’s snarl was sharper than anyone had seen before and Dog’s eyed widened a little. ‘As you pointed out before that fight, I lead here, not you. And with Lann at my feet I look more warrior now than you.’
Dog stepped back, spreading his arms, but no one missed the narrowing of his eyes. Leaning on Manius, Drust hirpled up the stair and out into the scarred snow of the garth.
Ugo was there, trying to look like a dangerous mountain, but he grinned when Drust limped up and straightened painfully.
‘Well, we might make one good man if they take the best bits.’
‘We need to stop taking on the worst beasts beyond the Wall,’ Drust agreed, and Kag shifted up beside him. Nearby, Necthan looked up from stripping the furs off a dead warrior.
‘Told you before,’ Kag growled. ‘We are the beasts beyond the Wall.’
The warriors rode up through the kicked spray of snow and Talorc was not hard to find in the midst of them. He looked at the dead with a face patched as old mutton; behind him, other heads turned and muttered, not keeping it from him either, for Drust saw him flinch now and then at what was said.
Behind he saw Julia Soaemias and the boy, swathed in furs and impassive; the boy looked at everything the way a curious unafraid bird does, cocking his head slightly. His mother simply looked haughty and straight ahead.
The Wanderer came forward, all pinched face and ferret. ‘It has been decided,’ he said, ‘to do the trade here and now. After it, we will go home.’
‘Who decided?’ Drust demanded. ‘Talorc? If so, tell him piss comes out his mouth and so it is best to avoid getting his words anywhere near my shoes.’
The Wanderer did it and Talorc’s face suffused – but he stayed silent and Drust knew then how the situation had changed. The Wanderer confirmed it.
‘You have won, Roman. Too many good men have died for Talorc’s plots and now the other war chiefs have forced him to accept this. They will hold to it.’
Dog tugged the leash and the woman stumbled forward. He grinned and indicated for them to bring mother and son to the fore.
They were dismounted and walked, slightly unsteadily, through the snow. When they got level, the woman turned and nodded to Drust.
‘Well done. To you all.’
Dog scowled at not being the sole beneficiary of the praise, but he threw the leash to the Wanderer and, with one last scornful scathing curse of eyes, the bound queen strode into the middle of the pack and was hoisted onto a horse.
The Wanderer grinned thoughtfully and nodded once to Dog. ‘You had best keep to your side of the Wall from now. We will look for you. Warriors will line up to test you.’
‘Not you, though,’ Dog answered scathingly, and then grinned that weapon of a face at the little man. The Wanderer seemed unaffected by the insult, simply offering a wan smile, one more crease in a face of ridges and troughs.
‘There are other ways,’ he said, and turned to spring onto a pony with an agility that made Drust wonder at how old he really was.
‘Come to the warm,’ Quintus said to Julia Soaemias and the boy. She looked at him, smiled sweetly and said: ‘Domina. Or Domina Julia. You may address my son as Varius or Sextus Varius. Or Heliogabalus, for he is the personification of the risen god.’
‘Sol Invictus,’ Dog said reverently.
‘Just so. Shall we go?’
They watched Quintus escort the woman and boy down into the mean hut and the warm.
‘Go where?’ Kag demanded.
‘Eboracum. Find this Kalutis, hand over the woman and boy, get the reward,’ Dog said. ‘Quiet and swift, for not all our enemies are on this side of the Walls.’
‘Who are our enemies?’ Drust demanded, and Dog frowned, then shrugged.
‘Anyone who comes with a sharp blade and a bad attitude. Same as always.’
‘Not good enough,’ Kag hissed. ‘You must know who you work for and who you work against, Dog.’
‘No more than you. Kalutis may tell more if you are interested, but he is a ptolemy and you can’t trust any of them. All that matters is that you have that letter and seal somewhere about you. Without it, we will not get anywhere.’
That, too, had been part of his plan, Drust realised. Dog was cunning, no doubt of it. And they were riding his luck, which was a bad thing – his name was not Dog because of what gamblers shouted – always put your stake on the dog. The dog was a dice gamer’s fantasy – two ones, thrown twice for a fabulous pot. Losing gamblers always went for it, that one great stroke to make Fortuna love them. More often than not, though, it betrayed them at the end.
That was how Dog had got his name.
* * *
Down in the red warmth of the fire-glowed hovel, Drust found a seat opposite Julia Soaemias and stared at her for a long moment, until she raised her eyes from watching her son laughing at the flames.
‘I am used to amorous looks but you are merely rude. Keep it up and I shall have much to explain to my husband.’
‘I would think you had more than enough there already,’ Drust retorted drily. ‘Such as where you have been for half a year.’
‘You are impertinent,’ she replied. Her eyes were green, he saw, and even with the frets of age at the corners, augmented by wood smoke and poor washing, she was stunning. She had endured what few Palatine woman could endure and he must remember that.
‘Lady,’ he began again, and she withered him with a cool look.
‘Domina,’ she corrected, and he bridled.
‘We are a long way from the Lupercal. Nor are we slaves to be reminded of our place. In case you need reminding of yours, we are the ones wading in blood to get you free.’
She drew the furs round her – expensive, he noted, and no doubt given by Talorc, who had not taken them back as he had the ponies they’d ridden on.
‘I have been weeks in hovels such as this, in the dark, without perfumes, face paints or even a decent wash in water anything better than tepid. I have daily been subjected to the barking of dogs as conversation and the sure knowledge that one or more of those savages would violate me. Or worse, my son.’
She broke off, then added: ‘Do not speak to me of sacrifice.’
Drust sucked in a calming breath or two and began again. ‘Forgive my clumsiness. The idea of speaking with a high-born such as yourself in a place such as this is strange. For us both, I think. Nevertheless, we have bled for you.’
‘The lot of the harena fighter, I’d have thought. You have bled for reward.’
‘Believe it or not… Domina… we have the highest respect here.’
Her eyes widened and grew amused. ‘I am relieved to hear it. I thought perhaps my slovenly condition and frightened demeanour had persuaded you I was some slave wench, easily cozened. Being unattractive is foreign to me.’
‘No doubt,’ Drust answered drily. ‘Hopefully we will have you back in a warm lake of perfumes before long. If we circumvent ou
r enemies.’
‘You have shown considerable resourcefulness thus far,’ she answered, and reached out a delicate hand, clean and white for all her arguments to the contrary, laying it gently on her son’s forearm. ‘Do not stir the embers so. You cause sparks.’
‘I was trying to see if Helios was there.’
‘Fire is fire and Helios is Helios. It is not the same. We have talked of this.’
‘We talk of many matters, Mother,’ he answered. ‘I cannot be expected to remember them all.’ There was a tart steeliness beneath the blandness that made Drust look a little harder. When the boy became aware of it, he smiled sweetly.
Drust took Julia Soaemias’s arm and drew her forcibly to one side. She looked astonished and outraged, then recovered herself when he spoke.
‘Listen, lady. I need to know who wants you dead and I need to know who wants you safe. Dog – Crixus, as you know him – claims ignorance. If we are to return you safely and all of us with you we need to know.’
She adjusted her furs. ‘You need to know only that Kalutis will reward you. As to who to avoid – everyone who is not him.’
Drust scrubbed his harsh stubble with frustration and grew desperate.
‘The boy…’ he began.
‘Varius,’ she interrupted.
‘Varius. It occurs that he is the image of Caracalla. Is there something in that?’
It hung and coiled in the air. She drew herself up haughtily. ‘Now you are beyond impertinent…’
He gripped her wrists in both his calloused, cold-split hands and saw her wince. ‘Listen closely, Domina. I do not care if you fuck your cousin all over the Hill and all his street-rat friends with him – there are Suburan whores who can claim the same and some of them are friends of mine. I need to know if that is The Hood’s son and whether he is the one seeking him out.’
She removed herself from his grip, firmly and gently.
‘I am married. My husband is governor of Numidia. My son is High Priest of the Temple of the Sun in Emesa. My mother is sister to the Empress. It would be best if this was not pursued, and for the service you are doing me I will be gracious and forget you spoke.’
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