There were no good omens, Drust thought. The village burned, but badly because it was too wet. It smouldered and smoked, blew choking reek this way and that.
‘I am sorry for Sow,’ Ugo said mournfully, not taking his eyes off the curve of stair. ‘A good man and a strong heart.’
‘It was until a dagger burst it,’ Kisa noted moodily. He stopped, clouded like haar on a sea. ‘Culleo will be ashamed of himself, if he has the capability at all.’
‘Ho the tower!’
It was called in Latin. Drust looked at Ugo and levered himself away from Praeclarum, wiping his hands together. He climbed the rickety ladder to the tower top, where faces looked at him expectantly.
‘Now it begins,’ he said, then went to the nearest merlon.
‘Ho yourself.’
It was Erco, the little headman of the village called Lupinus, bulked out in leather and metal and with men on either side with bows and the arrows nocked in them.
‘You seem to be here and there and everywhere,’ Drust called out, keeping his own head down. ‘But I am not surprised you favour these beast men – you sent us to them to be killed.’
‘Not enough of you died,’ Erco replied savagely. ‘You should come down. It is wet and you have nowhere to go.’
‘As if you had planned it,’ Drust answered. ‘But you did not see this. Some matters a treacherous Druid cannot foretell, though they are thick with perverted magics.’
Erco scowled. ‘Druid? There’s no Druid in this. There is, however, the Lord of the Forest.’
Drust heard the warriors hoom deep in the back of their throats, a hackle-raising drone that made everyone look around to make sure men were not clawing up over the rim of the tower. Drust saw the tall horned figure step forward and raise his arms, chanting. His was the full head of a stag, horned tines and all, not some matted hair worked with twigs and branches. Even when they knew it was no more than a beast-head on human shoulders it still chilled.
‘We’ve already killed a few of those fakers,’ Drust called out.
‘Not this one. This is the Lord of the Forest. Come down, otherwise he will come and scour you out.’
‘You may dream of it,’ Drust answered. ‘I am happy enough here.’
‘Throw down your weapons,’ Erco persisted.
Dog loomed tall, standing in dangerous view of the bowmen. ‘Come and take them if you think you are strong enough.’
Kag dragged him down, scowling. ‘Nicely done.’
‘Some old Greek said it first,’ Dog admitted. ‘I saw a play about it once, as part of the Games in Corinth.’
‘Spartan,’ Kag corrected. ‘King Leonidas to the Persians at the Hot Gates. They were slaughtered to a man.’
‘Last chance,’ Erco bawled. ‘Come down, or men will come up and make you.’
Drust laughed. ‘Tell your hairy horned faker that I came into this world kicking and screaming and covered in someone else’s blood. I will go out the same way. I hope you lead, you treacherer, because I want you to be first to die.’
There was a growl from Ugo and a loud boom of laughter from Quintus. Dog nodded and spread his hands. ‘That takes the palm, for sure. Did a Spartan say that, Kag?’
‘A gladiator said that,’ Kisa answered before Kag could speak, and it astonished everyone else to silence. ‘Personally, I prefer to believe the sayings of my god, who makes good out of the storms that devastate your life.’
‘This is because you are old,’ Ugo growled. ‘Like Dog here, who has to piss in the middle of the night.’
‘I do,’ Dog agreed solemnly, ‘but so do you. I know this because I can hear your knees creak when you are rising.’
Drust drew his cloak tighter at a sudden rogue breeze, smiling as he sent them both down to the doorway. It was good to be home among old friends.
They came ahead, under a shower of stones and arrows, carrying makeshift ladders of crosspieces lashed to a single long trunk. There were, Drust had to admit, a deal more of them than he had thought, and he remembered how hard they’d been to kill.
Ugo was on the stairs and Drust heard him roaring about ‘Donar’ and ‘Mars Ultor’. Drust was looking to where the nearest ladder would land when arrows skittered and spat off the crenellations; Kag yelped and ducked.
The beast men of the Dark swarmed up to the walls and flung up their ladders; a few started climbing the stones, which were rough enough to permit it – there was even a curl of ivy up one side to help them – and Drust moved to where a hand slapped on the top of the wall and a festering wolf-face looked over.
The man was looking down to find his next foothold, pulling the mask to one side to see better; then became aware of the presence above him and glanced up, his mouth open in a bearded face, his skin cap askew and the sweat sheening his weather-brown brow.
Drust brought the gladius down; the man shrieked and hurled himself backwards before it landed, and all Drust did was blow chips from the stone as the man fell, shouting and flailing. An arrow clattered close to Drust’s head in reply.
He walked along the wall, ignoring the scatter of arrows, shot high and blind to drop onto the tower top – it was not any leader-strut he did either, he really did not care. He burned with the fire of anger at them, all the treachery and hate, the fickleness of Fortuna and the curse of Fama, if indeed she was a goddess at all.
He stopped, put a foot against a ladder and pushed. It went out, then sideways, while he listened to their falling screams.
Men shrieked and bellowed; a spear twittered like a bird as it sped past, lobbed up from below. Someone clawed up onto the wall and Drust walked to him, casual as a stroll down a path, and gave him iron, the gladiator’s final stroke, straight down through the flesh between neck and shoulder, rammed through to the heart. There was a crunch of sound and the man yelped, jerked away from it and fell back over the wall.
Another figure slithered over, sprang to his feet and flung a short spear which Drust avoided. Dog had gone below to help Ugo, but Kag hacked another warrior two-handed with a long spatha, then found time to shunt sideways and bundle the latest climber off his feet. Drust gave the man no more chances, ran forward and slashed like a woman with a skillet gone past reasonable argument. Left, right and left again, the keen edge staggering the man with each cut so that he reeled backwards; his rough-woven shirt, his wolfskin coat and his paunch flushed and he fell against the merlons, trying for breath that would not be sucked in. Drust shoved him, smelling the high, sharp stink of mouse piss; the man went over, flailing and silent.
On the other side, Quintus whirled on his heel and planted a blow in the back of a man and the blood streaks flew. Kag, blood all over his face and beard, smashed a man with his shoulder and then moved after him, repeating and repeating it until the man finally went out and over the edge.
There were too many. Drust knew it, even as he saw that they were as before, men dosed with some potion, used to fighting a wolf but not a pack and certainly not trained ring fighters. They had no armour save pelts and no weapons beyond axes, little spears and bows.
They had numbers. Numbers would do it.
The next warrior over the lip of stone was not alone and he was not like the others. He had a face matted with hair, but that was his mask, it seemed. He had no helmet, just wild hair like a bush, was big enough to loom like a rock over Drust. Kag made to block his way; the warrior slammed him with the butt of a long axe and Kag went backwards, falling on his arse. He was up in an eyeblink, but now he had warriors of his own to fight.
Drust thought of her, languishing in the darkness below him, hearing the shouts and the screams and waiting for some beast man to come at her. He went for the axe-giant, yelling. The man backed off, slashed once, slashed twice, making Drust rear away in turn, then he bored in. Drust caught the strike with the sword – and was back on the Ludus training ground, being taught how to fight a man with an axe.
‘You’ll get them from time to time,’ the lanista said, strolling up an
d down while Marius stood opposite, playing the mad Gaul to the hilt with growls and gnashing up a froth. ‘Crowds love a mad German with a big axe – but listen up. Rule one – never block an axe strike with a sword. Never.’
The mad German whirled his wrist and the blade spun out of Drust’s hand, casual as if a baby had lost a toy. The German had no mask, but there was a wolfish look to the eyes that blazed out of all that hair; a quick look over his shoulder told them both that more men were coming up, but he did not want help to kill Drust, all the same. That was for him alone…
‘Here’s what you do,’ the lanista had said, and then stepped sideways as Marius bored in, a light, easy movement of his whole body, like a dancer avoiding a bull. Then he struck with his wooden stave and Marius yelped, dropped the axe and sucked his fingers.
The axe-giant came at Drust, all fast feet and hands; he felt the wind of the axe, heard the hiss of it, tried to move sideways, light as a dancer, and collided with someone else, fell on his arse like a tiro and watched death rear above him. The axe went up like the hammer of Dis and the big warrior started a long bellow of triumph.
There was a birdwing whirr of sound and the man yelped and staggered. Manius did not bother nocking a second arrow, but stepped forward – light as a dancer, Drust saw dully – and slammed it in the bewildered eye of the axe-giant. The big man reeled away, but he seemed more angry than in pain, pawing at the arrow through his neck, then the ruin of his eye. Kag, fresh from killing his own man, saw it and lashed out a vicious kick that took the axe-giant in the belly; the man made a noise like a dying sheep and vanished over the edge of the tower.
‘Fuck you,’ Kag said wearily, and dragged Drust up. ‘Try and stay off your arse, Brother.’
Drust tore free of him and scrabbled for his sword. Quintus was slumped in a corner, panting and being sick alternately. There was the sound of a horn and Kag blew snot from one nostril.
‘More of them,’ he grunted. Quintus levered himself up, wobbling a little, still grinning his wide, mad grin.
‘Fight to the finger…’
Drust looked at the bodies on the tower roof and bent to tug one to the edge, smelling the iron stink of blood and that mouse-piss reek. They bleed after all, he thought; Kag helped him roll the body off the tower.
They did three more, then Ugo’s wild, bloody face appeared out of the trapdoor.
‘Horns,’ he said gleefully.
‘We heard,’ Quintus answered. ‘Only you are happy at hearing more enemies.’
‘Not enemies,’ Ugo said. ‘Listen closely.’
The horns blew again, regular blasts that raked up memories. Kag slapped one thigh and laughed.
‘The Army is here,’ he said. ‘That’s them being told how to form up.’
They saw them through the trees, trotting off the road and slotting into place like some cunning toy, with their standards and their cornicen and their centurions. The Army had come, following what was left of Antyllus’s failed rebellion, to make sure none of it was left to further stain the Empire.
‘The Third,’ Quintus called out, then ducked as an arrow flicked close to his head. ‘Jupiter’s hairy cock – that was close.’
‘These woodlice will make a fist of it and fight the greybacks, it seems,’ Kag said. ‘More fool them.’
Drust eyed the Army ranks appraisingly. There were vexallation standards from a dozen different units, mostly the Third Italica. Antoniniana it was called now, an honour by Caracalla after it had fought for him against the Alemanni. It had fought for Elagabalus too, against the Dacii and the Helvetii and the Suebi, and any other tree-huggers they were pointed at.
They were good, though not the power they’d once been. Even from where he stood Drust could see the men wearing ring-coats, the ones still clinging to the banded armour of old, the egg shields and spears. The lack of archers. The lack of horse. No artillery at all.
The smoke from the festering fires that seemed reluctant to burst into flame drifted like funeral feathers, blocking his view. On the other side, the man with the antlered head waved his arms, pointing with some club or staff.
‘They are going to make a fight of it,’ Kag repeated sullenly, and then winced as an arrow dropped and shattered on the stones next to him. ‘Those bowmen might do a bit of damage.’
‘They are not bowmen.’ Manius looked at them all, one by one. ‘I am a bowman. I have the Colour of this place. I am here and I am far away.’
Then he rose up in full view and stepped right up onto the edge of the crenellations, nocking an arrow as he did so.
‘Get down, you mad bastard,’ Quintus yelled, but Manius balanced like a bull-leaper, drew and shot without seeming to take aim.
They watched the flight of it, a drop shot which seemed the length of the back run of the Circus Maximus, a long, arcing flight that slammed into the antlered man, just below the nose of the mask. He went backwards as if hauled by a rope, flailed once and was still.
There was a silence so profound it seemed like a shriek. In the pause, Kag saw Manius step down, casual as an easy smile. Out beyond their sight came the shouts of ‘Roma Invicta!’.
No one spoke, but they kept their eyes on Manius as he coiled back up in a corner and stared at the sky. Drust looked at Kag, who shook his head. Then Drust went down the ladder to Praeclarum.
Frontinus was there, had managed to make more light, which let Drust see his face, set and grim and miserable when he shook his head in wordless answer to Drust’s unspoken question.
He fumbled back to where Praeclarum was, knowing now that Dis Pater had claimed her. He came in bloody, with a gladius in his hand and the reek of fight on him, but she looked at him like he was a messenger from the gods.
‘I thought you had gone,’ she said and her voice was like a small animal. He knelt, cradled her head, and she looked at him and whimpered like something in a trap.
‘I’m afraid.’
‘I know, lady.’
He pulled her up and into him, his grip tight. It was a strange feeling in this dark with the tease of a bright day, the last she would ever know, with no sun, no clouds and no future in it. The lips Drust touched were dry and cracked, yet they flickered on his. Her hands fluttered on his arm.
‘You should stop hating yourself for what you are. Hating all those who are not. Yours is a noble profession.’
‘The fuck we are,’ he replied softly. ‘We are the dregs of society, no more to be considered than old tree stumps. The most pathetic people who ever fell out of Pluto’s arse. Know why? Because we let the likes of Rome pen us up, steal our dignity and our future.’
‘You are not some barbarian from beyond the frontier. You are Roman. You know no other way.’
‘It’s a fucked-up situation, wife, that no amount of gods or drink can solve. The only faith left to us is one another and we knew that a score of years ago.’
‘I will be gone soon. I am sorry I cannot come with you further… but don’t leave me here just yet. Not yet…’
Not yet. She was a strong woman still and would take a long time dying…
‘Wife,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to fear now. I am here.’
She sighed a little. He waited until the Army stormed in – about an hour. She still sucked in one ragged breath after another, but it was reflex, no more. She wanted to fall but the habit of life was too ingrained and she was gladiator to the end. When it came, he was smoothing her matted tangle of hair; she stirred a little, smiled the way she must have done when she had been a girl and her ma brushed her hair.
Then life stole out of her.
Chapter Ten
Rome, weeks later
They came down the Flaminia and into the City by the gate under the Capitoline, the escort troops beating aside the grain carts and stone carts and all the other four-wheeled transport anxious to make the gate before daylight stopped them.
A few enterprising two-wheelers filled with farm produce had no worries about the law on big four-wheel
ed carts in a daylight Rome, but they were also jostled aside and made their irritation known until the escort growled at them.
Those who had given up the race and parked themselves off the road, near the wine and sausage sellers, watched with faces as grim and sullen as the oxen they had unshackled while Drust and the others crunched past. The carts, they saw, were heavy timber, with sliding doors on either side open to show the iron bars and the men slumped inside. They were beast cages, but those in them were men.
‘Close those,’ demanded Rutilus, ‘they are exciting too much attention.’
‘It’s hot,’ Kag countered. ‘If you shut them in, they will just need water sooner and they haven’t had that for hours, since you insisted on making the gate before daylight.’
‘Close the shutters and we’ll have to stop and water them,’ Ugo agreed, ‘or they will die.’
The commander of the escort troops looked from one to the other. He was called Rutilus because of his washed-out sandy hair and beard, though ‘red’ was hardly the colour it brought to mind. He had a face browned by weather, incongruously pale blue eyes, and wore the centurion’s transverse helmet crest like a twisted cockscomb.
‘You mistake me,’ he growled back. ‘I do not give a fuck for them. Close the shutters.’
‘Leave them open.’
Drust’s voice sounded strange, even to him. He hadn’t used it much on the whole journey from the north, through the mountains, down the west coast to Ariminum, and now to here. He had sat on the side seat of the middle cart, hugging the urn with his wife’s remains, hugging his memories of her; Rutilus and the rest of the escort thought him crazed at best, so his actual speaking came as a surprise that clamped Rutilus’s mouth tight.
‘They are not permitted to die,’ Drust went on, flat and cold, ‘until the harena says so.’
Rutilus started to argue, then saw the one they called Dog arrive at the wheel of the cart, throwing back his hood and his veil to offer a death grin. Rutilus knew it was only a horrendous skin-mark the man had, but it always chilled him to the bone when he looked on it.
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