“Stiger.”
The merchant froze. His eyes widened. Then he rapidly recovered. Trex bowed very respectfully, then bustled around to the other side of his wagon to see to the order. Stiger watched him disappear.
“You should have been a merchant, Stiger,” Bruta grunted in amusement.
“Corporal Varus,” Stiger snapped, ignoring Bruta and turning to the corporal.
“Sir?” Varus said, clearly surprised that he was being addressed.
“Have the men fall in and the mules hitched up,” Stiger ordered. “We will leave as soon as my wine is delivered.”
“Yes, sir.” Varus saluted. He glanced briefly over at the supply captain and then back to Stiger before he turned to go.
“Leaving us?” Bruta asked, a surprised and mocking expression on his face. “So soon?”
“Yes, sir.” Stiger turned back to the supply officer.
“Without your supplies?”
“I will report that I was unable to obtain the supplies the Seventh and the Tenth companies require to continue operations.”
Bruta paused mid-drink and turned slowly to look over at the lieutenant. The man’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Stiger continued in a bored tone. “Captain Cethegus might not say anything, sir, but I am quite confident that Captain Lepidus will file a complaint.” Stiger shrugged as if it were no concern of his.
Stiger knew the captain of the Tenth would be furious. Unlike Stiger’s own captain, Lepidus was a stern, no-nonsense officer. He would either make the trip himself to see Bruta or would indeed put in a complaint. If that happened, command would likely wish to know why the supply captain had denied the properly requisitioned supplies. Stiger did not think it would get that far. He was betting Bruta would not allow it.
“Well then, I believe our business here is concluded. Good day, sir.” Stiger snapped a smart salute and turned to Varus.
The corporal had stopped to watch the exchange and was looking on his lieutenant with a funny, almost amused expression.
“Wait,” Bruta barked harshly, standing and pushing his stool back with a leg. It toppled over in the dry dirt. “You don’t threaten me, you little shit, even if you are a Stiger.”
Stiger turned back to Bruta with an innocent look. “I am truly sorry that you think that, sir. I assure you that was not my intention. I make no threats.”
Bruta took a step toward him, hands flexing in anger. The man was not wearing his armor. He had on only his service tunic, and unlike many of the legion’s frontline officers, he was overweight and going soft. This was likely the result of eating well, a perk of being in the supply branch.
Safe behind the walls of the depot, Bruta was also unarmed. Stiger, on the other hand, wore his segmented armor. He was armed with his short sword and dagger. Despite that, the supply officer towered over him, and Stiger questioned himself for a moment. Then he ground his teeth. The man was a petty bully, and Stiger had tired of his game. He was determined to see this through.
He stepped closer to Bruta, into the man’s personal space. Jaw clenched, he was unafraid.
Stiger’s father had paid some of the best tutors the empire had to teach his son how to fight. Though fresh to his posting and still unsure of himself, Stiger was in perfect shape. He was confident in his ability to defend himself, both armed and unarmed, especially against a soft supply-type like Bruta. His hand came to rest casually on the pommel of his sword.
“I am a Stiger, and I will report as I have said I would.” Stiger allowed some of the anger he was feeling to seep into his tone. “I assure you, sir, I make no threats.”
“You little shit,” Bruta breathed. Stiger did not back down. He was unsure whether it would shortly come to blows, but he had taken enough grief from men like Bruta. However, beating a senior officer insensible would not advance his career. Stiger was beginning to regret his decision somewhat. Though he had to admit to himself that it felt good to goad this disagreeable man to anger.
Bruta glanced quickly over toward the officer he had been drinking with. The prefect, who outranked both of them, simply looked on but said nothing. Though likely from an influential family, the man’s tunic was cut from inferior quality. He was probably of the equestrian class and had more sense than Bruta.
“Very well…” Bruta exhaled when it became clear the other officer would not back him up. He seemed to deflate. Stiger smelled the onion mixed with cheap wine on the man’s breath.
The supply officer turned away and shouted for the overseer of the slaves, who had been sleeping nearby in the shade from a pile of stacked crates.
Bruta quivered with anger. “You will have your supplies, you bastard.”
“Thank you, sir.” Stiger saluted and restrained himself from smiling. He had won. It had been a minor victory, but it felt good nonetheless. He found Varus eying him with a trace of a grin. The corporal wisely said nothing as they made their way back to their wagons. Stiger noticed that the prefect’s eyes followed him as he walked off.
“Make sure my wine arrives before we leave,” Stiger said to the corporal.
“Yes, sir,” Varus replied neutrally.
Two hours past noon, Stiger had his twelve heavy wagons fully loaded. The teamsters, all hired civilian contractors, looked on with bored expressions as Stiger’s two files of legionaries formed up. One file, Corporal Varus’s, would march to the front of the supply column, and the other, Corporal Durus’s, to the rear, with a few men floating about the middle.
Sitting astride his horse, Stiger swatted at a fly as he waited impatiently for Corporal Varus, the senior corporal, to get the men organized. It seemed as if things were taking longer than they should. Seven Levels, Stiger thought with frustration, everything the army did took longer than it should. The men were moving slowly, and it infuriated him. Stiger stifled the urge to yell at Varus and instead forced himself to project the calm countenance of an officer in control.
In the sweltering heat of the afternoon, Stiger found even that difficult. He was hot, uncomfortable, and cooking in his armor. There was no breeze, only waves of heat that rolled down from above. The sooner they got moving, the sooner he would have some relief.
“All ready, sir,” Varus reported finally.
“FOORWAAARD,” Stiger hollered without a second’s hesitation. “MAAAARCH.”
Shields in their canvas coverings, short spears resting on shoulders, and helmets hanging from ties about their necks, the legionaries to the front of the column started moving, armor chinking and jangling. A few moments later, the lead wagon, with a snap of the teamster’s whip and a braying of the mules, followed by an ungodly rattle, trundled forward.
“Join your file,” Stiger said to Varus, who dutifully saluted and left at a jog. Stiger watched the corporal go and felt relief. He had difficulty tolerating the man’s presence. Varus was big, even for a legionary. The corporal was brutish and uncouth. Though he could write and manipulate numbers, a requirement of his rank, he was fairly uneducated. Stiger found Varus dull and boorish company, certainly not fit for a proper conversation. Like the rest of the men, the mere presence of the corporal irritated Stiger immensely.
“Hup, my beauties,” the teamster in the second wagon called loudly to his drowsing mules. A crack of the whip followed. “Hup now, hup.”
The covered wagon, neatly stacked and piled high with supplies of all sorts, rattled forward, following the first. Stiger watched and waited with barely concealed patience. He hated supply escort duty, but it was what had been assigned to him. He had to see the duty through. There was no avoiding it. After the sixth wagon started rumbling out of the supply depot, he nudged his horse forward and into a walk. A bored-looking auxiliary guarding the gate offered a weak salute, which Stiger sullenly returned.
Stiger pulled his horse off of the dirt road and onto the grass. The supply depot had been constructed alongside the main road going north and into Rivan territory, in a grass-covered prairie that rolled with gentle hills.
The depot sat atop one of the larger ones, tall enough that it provided a fairly good field of view in all directions.
To the north, Stiger could see a dark tree line in the distance. This marked the beginning of a small forest through which they would need to pass before the prairie continued for a number of miles farther. Then they would enter another wooded area. The North seemed replete with small forested patches. Stiger let out a slow, unhappy breath. At least the trees would provide some relief from the baking sun.
Stiger’s horse whinnied, eager to be off. He patted his mount affectionately. Nomad was a good, solid animal. The horse was a parting gift from his father, and one of the few things that Stiger was grateful for from the old man. His commission in the legions was another gift from his father, who had paid the price to buy his son a lieutenant’s commission. Though he could easily have afforded a captaincy, Stiger’s father had started out his military service as a lieutenant and felt that was where his son’s career should also begin. At first, Stiger had been elated with his rank. Then he’d arrived to take up his duties with the Third and been assigned to Seventh company.
Almost immediately, his fellow officers made it plain they disdained him for who he was, his father’s son. They took every petty opportunity to snub him, acting as if they could barely tolerate his mere presence. Frequently, they played the game of pretending that he did not even exist. Senior officers were worse, demanding more from him duty-wise than other lieutenants. It was all very ungentlemanly and bothered him to distraction. This led Stiger, whenever possible, to actively avoid the company of his peers. The injustice of it pained him greatly.
Stiger’s father had once been a great general, one of the more accomplished military leaders the empire had ever put in command of a field army. Stiger’s family had been proud, powerful, and above reproach. That had lasted until the elder Stiger had backed the wrong son and the losing side in a civil war over succession to the throne. It had cost the family greatly and seen his father confined to his estate outside of Mal’Zeel, a prisoner in all but name these past five years. As punishment, many of the family estates and lands around the empire had been confiscated, but through some miracle, the family had managed to hang onto their senatorial seat. Stiger’s older brother, his father’s firstborn, now served in that capacity.
With no lands or titles to inherit, the younger Stiger had turned to the military, as his father once had. But where his father had been accepted and welcomed as a noble from a great house, Ben Stiger was shunned and cut out of camp society.
Stiger gripped the reins tightly with irritation. He found it terribly humiliating. It was so unfair. He was being judged on his father’s merit and not his own. He slapped the palm of his hand on his thigh as Nomad continued to walk alongside the tail end of a wagon. All he wanted was to serve and win glory for himself and his house.
Upon joining the Third, Stiger had expected constant action and excitement. There was a war on. Instead, he suffered through boredom and a tedious existence that continually tested and frustrated him. Life in the legion was exceedingly boring, made worse by the attitude of his fellow officers.
Captain Cethegus was the worst. He seemed to resent Stiger even more than the rest. The captain was also a recent appointment. From the moment Stiger had arrived, the captain had not hesitated to let his feelings of disgust be known about having Stiger serve as his second-in-command. Cethegus had handed over to Stiger every shit job there was, including supply train escort duty.
The senior officers of the camp usually rotated the duty amongst the junior officers, but Stiger seemed to get stuck with it more often than not. There was nothing he could do about it, and so Stiger had privately resolved to do his duty to the best of his ability, no matter what injustice was heaped upon him. There would come a time, he vowed, that would see him treated for his ability and the glory he achieved on the battlefield. He would not be treated for who his father was. Each night, before he turned in, Stiger made a point to pray to the High Father, asking for the great god’s assistance in sustaining him during this difficult time.
Stiger’s mind drifted as they continued up the dry and dusty road that was little more than a track. They passed through the small forest he had seen from a distance, and beyond. The dirt road was nothing like the paved solid roads of the empire. Abandoned farm fields lined both sides of the road. They had become depressingly familiar, and though it had been many weeks, the barren fields still bore evidence of the scorch-and-burn tactics the Rivan army had employed as it pulled back before the might of Third Legion, stopping only long enough to occasionally counter-punch and offer battle.
A small, mean hut just off of the road to his left had been burned, leaving only a charred shell of rounded stakes and blackened foundation stones. What Stiger took to be a modest planting patch had also been scorched by fire. The enemy had burned everything for miles around. They had also driven their own people from their homes and marched them north. Nothing of value had been left behind, only desolation.
Once the war ended, life would return. These burnt and charred fields would be replanted. Before long, the empire would send imperial land agents and speculators. Soon thereafter, settlers would follow. It would only be a matter of time before this land became a new imperial province.
Stiger walked his horse around a large rut in the road. Even this sad track would be converted into an imperial road. As it had in other places, the empire would bring civilization, order, and law to these lands. A rich province filled with villages, towns, and cities would grow from the newfound order. Third Legion led that noble effort, and Stiger was proud to be part of it.
The Rivan were a determined foe, perhaps the most serious the empire had faced in centuries. Upon imperial decree, the legions had crossed the border in retaliation for repeated Rivan raids into the border provinces of the empire. The Third Legion was the empire’s vanguard and spear point for the much larger imperial army, aimed at putting this dangerous enemy down. Four additional legions had been gathered. Now that the fighting season had arrived, they would soon follow the Third’s advance north.
In the weeks and months ahead, Stiger understood keenly there was bound to be the opportunity to win glory. Thus, he would begin the hard work of wiping the stain from his name. The men of the Seventh, as foul, uncouth, and uneducated as they were, would help him achieve that. In Stiger’s eye, they were no different than any other tool at his disposal.
The wagon Stiger was riding next to suddenly ground to a halt. He looked over at the teamster with an unhappy scowl, and then ahead. All of the wagons to the front had also stopped. They had entered another small forest, and the road bent around to the right and out of sight. Stiger could not see the cause. He spurred his horse forward and galloped up to the front. When he rounded the bend, Stiger pulled Nomad to a stop. Several hundred head of cattle were blocking much of the road ahead. Just beyond the cattle was a small river, which the road crossed in a narrow and shallow ford.
Drovers, along with as many as a dozen slaves, were busy beating the herd across the river. They yelled, called, and with long reed switches smacked the behinds and sides of the animals in an effort to move them across. Under the heat of the baking sun, the cattle desired nothing more than to drink when they reached the water’s edge and seemed quite immoveable.
Stiger spared an exasperated glance up at the heavens and then down at the corporal, who was striding over. It seemed everything was conspiring to slow him down, which would not go over well with Captain Cethegus.
“Sir,” Varus saluted, “cattle for the Third.”
“I can see that,” Stiger said irritably. “Do you suppose we can move them aside?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” Varus replied with a wary look at his lieutenant, almost as if he expected Stiger to give such an order.
“I suppose not,” Stiger said, studying this side of the river as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. With the trees pressing in on both
sides of the road, there was no room to move the wagons around the herd.
Stiger knew from repeated crossings of this river that the ford itself was quite narrow. On the other side of the river, the terrain opened up. It looked as if the opposite bank had at one time in the distant past been cultivated. There were the remains of a small barn—only the stone foundation and a couple of walls. The rest of the structure had collapsed in upon itself. The ruin was overgrown with brush, several young saplings sprouting from inside the decaying walls.
“Orders, sir?” Varus shifted uncomfortably in the heat. He, like the rest of the men and Stiger, was baking in his armor.
“Stand the men down,” Stiger said, resigned to fate. “Might as well have them eat their rations and refill canteens.”
“Ah, yes, sir,” Varus said, and Stiger sensed the man seemed a little uncomfortable.
“You have something to say?” Stiger asked, looking down on the corporal from his horse. This was the first time he had been assigned Varus’s file to help with escort duty. The other file was led by Corporal Durus, whom Stiger could stand less than Varus. “Say it, man.”
“We are in enemy territory, sir,” Varus said. “I recommend we set a watch and bring as many of the wagons up and together as possible in the event of trouble.”
“The Rivan have retreated north,” Stiger said.
“Their army has, sir,” Varus said. Stiger noticed the corporal’s careful tone. “They would only need a handful of men to strike at our supply trains.”
Though he was in a sour mood, Stiger nodded slightly. What Varus said made sense. His military tutors had mentioned time and again that good officers listened to their sergeants and corporals. Uneducated and uncouth though he may be, there was no doubt in Stiger’s mind that Varus knew his business of soldiering. If Varus was concerned, then perhaps Stiger should be as well.
Stiger glanced back down the road, narrowing his eyes against the brightness of the sun. There was just enough room along the road to double up the wagons side by side.
The Tiger’s Wrath (Chronicles of An Imperial Legionary Officer Book 5) Page 46
