He breathed deeply. “Greetings!”
The Masulians wheeled their ponies and trotted away.
Dubgetious urged his mount after them. It was a good deal taller than theirs and no doubt better suited to a long ride through hills and valleys. There was no fear of losing them, on the contrary, if the message was so cursed important, why not give him scouts with sturdier mounts?
With the column long distant, Dubgetious began to suspect sorcery. He pushed his mount hard in the wake of dust left by the pair of Masulians, but no matter how hard he did, they remained ahead of him. The insides of his knees chaffed, his buttocks ached, and cramps threatened to spasm in his thighs. He had a single waterskin, and that was already half empty. Although late in the year, the heat was still intense, sapping up his strength.
The Masulians pulled further ahead and he feared they were leading him into the wilderness to be found and gutted by some aggrieved tribesman. The gods alone knew there were many of them in this land. He glanced at his light-coloured tunic, bright in the lowering sun and the red stitching of the Barca crest glowing bloody. Any keen-eyed warrior watching from the hills around would know him for what he was at once. He pressed his mount with renewed urgency to close on the pair of scouts who had disappeared into broken, hilly country.
Following their path into the tree line, tall trees swayed above and he found himself on a narrow path alongside a gorge. Water splashed out of sight beneath the growth that hid the stream. His horse whinnied, and he focused on the path, trying to see into the growing gloom ahead. Movement on his right nearly sent him screaming from his mount’s back and into the gorge. Holding back his terror, he squinted into the shadows and saw one of the Masulians pacing him.
“Where the curses did you go?” Dubgetious wanted to bellow at the rider, but kept his voice to a hiss, afraid that a shout would echo far down the gorge and alert enemy warriors.
The Masulian eyed him for a heartbeat and then gestured to him to follow. The man turned his mount uphill and disappeared within a stride. Dubgetious gaped. How did he do that? Heart pounding, he spat and made a gesture to Endovex to guard his shade from malicious spirits, certain these two were possessed. He turned his horse and leaned low to avoid the branches that hung over the narrow path left by mouflon and deer. Rounding a large tree, he wiped his face, trying desperately to rid his eyelids of a spiderweb that had brushed over him. His mount stopped and he almost toppled from its back in surprise. Cursing furiously under his breath, he saw the reason. The two Masulians were stretched out on their cloaks at the base of a large lichen-covered boulder. They eyed him in silent disdain before laying back on the cloaks and closing their eyes.
Dubgetious glared at them, but pressed his lips together and resolved to ride harder the following day. He slid from his mount and despite his best efforts at silence, he grunted in pain when his feet touched the ground and both legs cramped. He glared at the Masulians, certain he had heard a smothered laugh.
Chapter 7
The path of the army was not difficult to follow. While there were many lesser trails made by small columns of warriors scouting or foraging, the trail left by the core of the Barca army had scarred the land. The ground was rutted by numerous wagon wheels, the banks of streams had been churned muddy and whole groves of trees had been felled.
“They have their heart set on someplace in the north.” Tascux grunted, pointing with his chin to where the trail crossed a saddle in a range of hills that ran roughly east to west. He ran his fingers through his greased beard, catching a louse and cracking it between his teeth. He was a warrior with many seasons at his back and had often raided Oretani settlements far into the north.
Lyda rinsed her mouth with a draught from her waterskin, savouring the tart strength of the watered vinegar.
“The hills mark the land of the Oretani which you know well. What draws them that way?” She asked him for she had never ridden north.
“Some few towns and villages. Perhaps even Castulo.” The Bastetani warrior looked over his shoulder, marking the progress of the four riders accompanying them. “The Herb Queen slows us.” He took the opportunity to slide from his mount and let loose a stream of urine beside the path.
“She has suffered as have we both. Us all.” Lyda responded, flexing her back to release the kinks that settled in her muscles more easily as she aged. She wondered if the Barca would dare to strike for Castulo. It was the Oretani’s chief city and Lyda knew with certainty that the Oretani would fight hard to keep it.
Tascux wiped his hands on his tunic. “I am ready for death and more than ready to kill the Barca’s Spears, but what will she do?”
Lyda shook her head. “Runeovex will find a use for her. You know of the Oretani leading man, Orissus. Can this Barca army overcome him?”
For the first time in the two days they had been following the Barca army, Tascux face showed a trace of the emotions hidden within.
“You know my wife was Oretani?” Lyda nodded. “You know how I came to be the lucky bastard she chose?”
She gritted her teeth. Tascux had found his wife’s body among the dead. Her death had been a hard one, her head having been hacked from her shoulders with a blunted blade.
“Twelve of us stood outside her village gates shaking our spears, hungry for their bounty. Four times a champion from among their warriors came out to fight one of ours. The fourth was a beast. A giant seeded by Orco, god of rock and mountain himself.” Tascux lifted himself onto his mount’s back. “We drew lots and it was my fortune that put me chest to chest with this giant. I was so afraid I could not decide if I should shit or piss myself.” His eyes grew pale. “So, I set my spear and cursed his kin and clan.”
“You slew him of course?” Lyda’s patience was thin, but she knew this could be the only time the old warrior would tell this tale.
“For all his size, he was hairless. Not a hair. Bald, no beard, not even eyebrows. Can you believe that?” Tascux shook his head. “He thrust his spear faster than an adder strikes, but I was faster still. We circled and tried to blood our blades in one another but were too well matched. He tried to anger me with curses. I tried getting the sun in his eyes. Nothing made any difference.” He took a draught and gauged the distance of the other four riders. “We fought like that while the shadows shortened, and the sun grew fierce above us. The Oretani were jeering us from their walls and my companions were cursing me. You know how I killed him?”
“The sun addled his mind and you gutted him?”
Tascux pursed his lips. “I asked him which mother hen shat out the egg that was his head.” He slapped his thigh, sending flies buzzing. “Their great champion lost his mind alright. He went purple with rage and charged me. Tripped on a frayed sandal strap and I put my spear in his eye faster than shit sinks.”
“And you won your wife?”
He gave Lyda a puzzled look. “The bald warrior was my wife’s promised. She sprang from the wall and took up his blade. I was still trying to pull my spear out of his eye.” He lifted his hands from his lap and turned them palm up. “I had to hold her off with just my hands. Even so, she nearly had my throat with her teeth.” He nodded as the other riders closed. “It was a grand spectacle and two of my companions used it to steal over their walls and take the best of the Oretani mounts out the back gate. The Oretani went berserk and blamed the girl even as she was struggling to kill me.”
Lyda’s chin dipped. “Your tale has power. It is well that you have held it close all these seasons.” Lyda turned the words in her mind. How could she battle a giant and win her son?
The following day, they reached the hills and saw a sight that stopped them short. Their ascent into the hills on the Barca army’s trail had warmed them after a shivering night wrapped in cloaks and huddled around a small fire. Now they felt a cold more chilling than any winter night at the sight that screamed at them in silent blood.
“So many.” Cenos, a warrior woman of middling years muttered.
&
nbsp; The rest stared, appalled at the number of dead left to be feasted upon by the multitudes of carrion birds. Of them, only Lyda and Tascux remained unmoved.
Outrage growing, Cenos cursed. “Why did they not send them on their way to the ancestors?”
Lyda clicked her tongue and her mount began the descent. “The Barca cares not for the lives of the warriors, only on capturing his next prize.”
“We should gather villagers and build pyres or the shades of these dead will never cross Saur’s domain.” Cenos’ voice rose.
Lyda saw where the Oretani had fallen while facing the enemy and the scattered corpses of the enemy that had attacked up the hill. She turned to track the flight of the Oretani warriors by the bodies that stretched to the woods overlooking the battleground. The dead were numerous, too numerous even for the carrion birds to consume and many had bloated and turned a foul blackened colour.
A breeze lifted, blowing from the north and the stench of death made their eyes water and guts heave. They spat to ward off the shades of these dead warriors and tucked their faces beneath their tunics to escape the stench and flies.
Tascux kicked his mount forward and turned east, passing Lyda without a word. The others paused at her side, unsure whom to follow.
“He rides upwind to escape the stink.” The Herb Queen spoke, showing no concern for the smell.
Lyda nodded and set off with the others after Tascux. Crossing the right of the battleground, they passed among the fallen Greek mercenaries and the Oretani that had faced them before they escaped the stink of corruption.
Skirting the great swath of dead, they carried on to the tree line and regained the trail of Hamilcar Barca’s army. Cenos looked back and her cry alerted the others whose spears were raised even as they whirled their mounts to face the pounding hooves that raced towards them. Two score riders on ponies were hurtling from the western edge of the battlefield.
“There are too many to fight!” Lyda yelled, turning her mount away.
They fled into the trees, hanging low over their mounts’ withers to avoid whipping branches, seeking the fastest routes through the trees and thick undergrowth. Crossing a stony watercourse, dry at this time of the year, they raced up a slope before veering north to avoid an impenetrable wall of thorn. Behind them rose spine chilling ululations foreign to the land.
“By the gods, there is no way through that!” Audoti snarled.
“Keep riding. We have a good lead.” Lyda encouraged him and the others. “There!” She spotted a break in the thorns and rode through it, finding herself nearing the top of a small hill whose reverse slope was steep and rocky. Lyda heard the enemy in front of them before she saw them.
“What in Orco’s name is that sound?” Cenos cried.
They all listened to the unearthly trumpeting, eyes wide.
Tascux brandished his spear and pointed. “There walks a demon.”
Lyda blinked in disbelief. Creatures the size of boulders were stalking the trail that crossed before them. Gray in colour, with large ears that fanned out alongside their heads from which extended a snake-like arm and a pair of blade length tusks, they were a horror to behold. Then she saw the single rider seated upon the neck of each beast and she knew what they were.
“They are not demons, but a creature of war from a far land.” Lyda called to the others who were backing their horses up, ready to face the overwhelming number of riders at their backs rather than demons such as these.
Tascux glared down the hill. “They have seen us.” He looked at Lyda. “Can they be killed?”
She nodded, uncertainly. “Not by us and not today. Now we run.”
Again they urged their horses east while behind them enemy riders followed, seeking to blood themselves on the small band.
The wind whipped at their faces, growing stronger with each passing moment, heralding a coming storm, the first of the autumn. A flash of fire streaked through the sky followed three heartbeats later by a crash of thunder. The gods were watching.
They veered further east and Tascux edged past Lyda.
“I know this land! There is a good place to lose these bastards ahead, but we must be out of their sight to do so!”
Lyda nodded and felt the first spit of rain sting her cheek. She glanced over her shoulder at her companions. The Herb Queen had fallen behind by five or more lengths and was clearly struggling to remain astride her mount. She cursed and pulled her mount around, allowing Cenos, Eppa and Audoti to pass her. She caught the Herb Queen’s mount by its bridle and hauled her mount close, pulling both to a halt.
“What are you doing?” A thunderclap almost drowned out the Herb Queen’s words.
“Saving you!” Lyda swung from her mount up behind the Herb Queen and grabbed the reins from her. Savagely, she dug her heels into the animal’s flanks and started it forward under a rising gale as the storm closed on them.
Tascux was waiting ahead, his mount lathered and tossing its head at every crack of thunder.
“Up there! Go!” He pointed up a steep path that snaked its way to the top of a flat-topped hill.
Lyda gritted her teeth and clenched her knees to hold her seat, instructing the Herb Queen to do likewise. The rain was falling harder and she knew the steep path would soon be impossible to ride. Already the mount was having to claw and scrabble for grip on the wet surface.
Only when she reached the top, rain streaming from her hair and down her tunic, running in torrents beneath the hooves of the mount, did she look back. The sun still shone from the west, painting the scene beneath her in vivid relief against the backdrop of storm clouds.
Tascux had dismounted and sent his mount up the slope. He had remained a third of the way up, perched on a flat rock, like a lynx prepared to fall on his prey. That prey was now coming. Of the two score riders that had pursued them, only three had been close enough to see them cut back up this goat path. None had remained to signal the route to their companions.
The enemy riders’ mounts seemed to have no difficulty climbing the steep path and very soon the first rider came up alongside the ledge on which Tascux waited, spear poised.
Even as thunder boomed above and around them, the Bastetani warrior plunged his spear into the man’s shoulder directly beneath his ear. The spearhead, sparkling in the sunlight disappeared into the man and then emerged, drawing a spray of blood with it. Tascux spun on the ball of his left foot and hurled the heavy spear at the third of the enemy riders. Lyda heard the impact of the spear from her position on the hill, a deep hollow thwack that tumbled the warrior from his mount with no cry ever rising to his lips.
The surviving rider screamed a war cry that was drowned out by the hammering of the gods above and then he was hurling his own spear.
Tascux was already airborne, his short knife raised. He dropped on the remaining warrior and both flew from sight into the thick brush beside the track.
Cenos gasped and Audoti, the remaining male warrior in Lyda’s little company, cursed and slipped from his mount.
“Hold!” Lyda barked.
Audoti spat. “He may still live!”
“He may, but if you charge down there, the enemy will see you.” She gestured with her chin to where the remaining enemy riders now appeared, casting fruitlessly for signs of their passage in the muddied ground. The rain had washed away their tracks, but there were three riderless ponies strung out along the goat path. At any moment one of the riders might notice them or the ponies could retreat down the hillside and then the enemy would know where to hunt for them.
Chapter 8
“We should ride now.” Hissed Cenos, although there was little chance of her voice carrying above the wind and thunderclaps.
Lyda was torn. Cenos was right and the enemy’s riderless mounts had seen the riders below. The pony furthest down the steep path turned in an agitated circle, spraying brilliant plumes of rain from its shaggy mane. Audoti’s hope that Tascux had survived the leap onto the last enemy rider and the fall down the
steep slope was slight, but Lyda also held that hope. Tascux may well be alive and if he was, he would surely be injured. They had a Herb Queen who could save him. Unless they fled.
“We will wait.” She spoke, her voice firm. She slid from the Herb Queen’s mount and regained her own horse’s trailing reins, passing them to the Herb Queen.
Cenos spat and turned her mount away while Audoti nodded in approval. Lyda respected the tall, lean warrior almost as much as Tascux.
“Audoti, if the enemy come up the slope, can we hold them?”
The warrior’s lip lifted at the corner in a sneer. “They would need to have wings to come off that path and at us. We can hold.”
“How long do we wait?” The Herb Queen asked.
“Until nightfall if we have to. We will search for Tascux then and pray to Runeovex in the meantime to keep watch over his spear follower.” She glanced to where Cenos was hobbling her mount in the lee of a jagged rock. “Take the mounts to Cenos.”
Eppa sprang from her mount and passed the reins to the Herb Queen along with those of Audoti’s horse.
The warrior woman carried her spear and a short sword was sheathed under her right arm. She was almost as tall as Audoti and had broad shoulders, capable of holding her own when wrestling her companions during celebrations. The woman was there because her young son had been killed during the attack on their village, ridden down in the narrow alleys into which he had fled. Her husband had crossed the land of Saur two summers earlier. She crept to the lip of the rise and peered down from behind the cover of thick brush.
“They have left three of their number at the foot of the trail.” She turned to Lyda and Audoti. “They will see the ponies.”
Lyda crept up between Audoti and Eppa, laying on the wet rock and icy mud. The ponies were making their way down the trail and in just a few more paces would clear a large, bushy tree, the only reason they had not yet been seen.
Rise of the Spears Page 5
