The Eagle's Vengeance

by Anthony Riches

  ‘Run … faster.’

  The ruin of Gateway Fort loomed out of the mist, and the four men slowed from their exhausted jog to walking pace, staring about them at the building’s blackened timbers and shattered gates. Marcus looked around him for a moment, glancing back down the path as it disappeared away into the mist, the sounds of their pursuers’ progress now so loud that they could be no more than a moment behind the exhausted raiders.

  ‘They’ll know that we’ve taken shelter here, we’ve left enough of a blood trail that they’ll realise we can’t run much further. Normally you’d expect them to light torches and come in at the rush, but there’s nothing to burn for miles around, and those girls are hunters, not warriors. If I was the bastard leading them I’d send them into the fort in a pack to hunt us down in silence. One on one we’re more than a match for them, but if they mob us …’

  Arminius nodded, striding forward towards the fort.

  ‘So we split up and take a building each. That way we divide them up.’

  The others followed, looking about them as they passed through the open gateway. The fort’s buildings had all been burned out, but their stone shells were still standing, streaked with the droppings of birds nesting in the ruins’ less accessible places, and after a moment the German nodded to his companions and stalked away into the shadow to stand at the entrance of the hospital building with his sword drawn. Arabus pulled a handful of arrows from his quiver and jogged away up the fort’s main road until he was lost to view in the gloom beneath the far wall. Lugos shrugged and stalked away into the space between a pair of barrack blocks, leaving Marcus standing alone in the roadway. After a moment’s thought he turned and padded silently back to the gate, getting down onto his hands and knees before peering round the rotting, blackened timbers. At first he could see no more than the mist-swathed landscape, but as he watched an indistinct figure materialised out of the swirling curtain of droplets, a tall man with a cowl over his head and a long staff in one hand, his face riven by a long healed but evidently grievous wound. He stopped walking and stared hard at the gate, waving a hand forward and pointing at the fort.

  From the mist behind him another figure emerged from the grey to stand at his side, her body taking form as if she had been conjured out of the mist, and as Marcus watched she was flanked by another twenty or so of the female hunters, some equipped with swords and spears, a few armed with bows. The hunt’s master spoke again, and the archers ran swiftly away to his left, taking position facing the fort’s gateway and stringing their bows with swift, economical movements before nocking arrows to them. Risking the chance that one of them might spot him, Marcus kept his eyes fixed on the remaining hunters, watching as their master turned to face them with a gruff word of command. The women drew their blades, standing stock still for a moment, then paced forward slowly towards him with the first woman at their head, her heavily tattooed face unreadable in the pale grey light.

  ‘You do realise that no one’s ever going to believe this story?’

  Julius raised his head to look at Dubnus, a wry smile creasing his mask of exhaustion.

  ‘Agreed. And you do realise that I’m never going to give a shit? It’s enough for me that we managed to pull ourselves out of the trap that some clever bastard had set for us with the loss of so few men. And that fire will have scattered the Venicones all over the forest, which means that we’re safe enough from pursuit for the time being. It’s just a shame that Silus and his boys were stuck on the far side of it. The odds of our ever seeing them again can’t be all that good.’

  His friend nodded solemnly.

  ‘I’ll miss him, if he’s not managed to fight his way past them. There’s nothing like having your own tame cavalryman to bait, rather than having to wait all day for one of them to ride past.’ He stretched his back, staring down the line of the cohort’s weary soldiers where they sat and lay at the forest’s eastern edge. ‘So, what do you want to do about the Tenth?’

  The first spear shrugged.

  ‘They need a new centurion, that’s a certainty. Their Chosen’s a good enough man, but he’s not officer material. And they’re a difficult bunch of bastards to manage, ten years under Titus has them thinking they’re a cut above the rest of the cohort. Are you sure you can master them?’

  Dubnus raised a pained eyebrow.

  ‘This is me we’re talking about, Julius. Have you forgotten all that time when I was your chosen man?’

  His friend nodded, remembering the casual brutality the muscular soldier had brought to the role as his deputy, in the days before his promotion to centurion.

  ‘I don’t doubt your ability to take a century by the balls and make them do whatever it is you tell them, but there isn’t a man in the Tenth that doesn’t have half a head’s height advantage on you. If you try to cow them into obedience they’ll most likely spit you out looking a good deal less pretty than you do now, and since that isn’t saying much I’m a good deal more concerned with the impact on discipline that would have than any damage you might sustain.’

  Dubnus shrugged, flexing his meaty biceps and turning to look down the cohort’s column again.

  ‘I’d say we don’t have the luxury of discussion. Those men need someone to take a grip of their balls now, before they get any more time to brood on Titus’s death. And it has to be now, or they’ll get used to getting away with murder under their chosen and the problem will only be harder to deal with when we do confront it. And besides, what if we have to fight again?’

  Julius sighed, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘Agreed. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  The big man nodded, turning away and striding off down the column until he reached his own century, calling his chosen man to him. The former legionary stamped to attention and waited for his orders, his eyes widening as he heard what it was that his centurion had to say.

  ‘Well Titus, it’s your lucky day. I’m taking over the Tenth, now that the Bear’s gone to hunt with Cocidius. You’re in command of this shower until this is all over, so you’d better make a good enough job of it that I can recommend you get the crest across your helmet and a nice hard vine stick to beat your men with. Fuck it up and you’ll find yourself having to take orders from one of your mates, and I can assure you that that isn’t going to feel all that funny, no matter how much this lot will laugh at you behind your back. And don’t let them get away with any of that Habitus bullshit.’ He grinned broadly at the gaping chosen man, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Time for the truth. That story about old Centurion Habitus? It was just a story, something I dreamed up to make you lot feel guilty, and nothing more. So when the first of your mates that thinks he can use it to get an easier ride from you tries it on, you’d better ram it straight up his arse, or they’ll have you under their control rather than the other way around. Good luck!’

  Leaving the other man staring at his back, he marched on down the cohort’s length until he reached the rearmost century, taking in the sight of the Tenth’s hulking axe men lounging in the grass to either side of the road with a disapproving frown.

  ‘Canus, to me!’

  The chosen man appeared out of a group of soldiers, presenting himself with a look that told Dubnus everything that he needed to know about the man. He stepped in close to his new deputy and fixed him with a hard stare, couching his words in a matter-of-fact tone that left neither room nor opportunity for disagreement.

  ‘You can lose the attitude for a start. Give me one more look like that and I’ll rip your face off and wipe my arse with it! Got that?!’ The other man swallowed and nodded, and Dubnus knew in that second that he had the man. ‘Yes, I’m your new centurion. The Bear handed me the job, along with these …’ He raised Titus’s axe, allowing the dead centurion’s Cocidius amulet to swing on its bracelet of leather cord. ‘For some reason we’ll never know, he seemed to believe that you lot need the love and care that only a man with my reputation for handli
ng his men softly can provide. So start getting used to it, and while you’re doing it gather my boys round and I’ll give them the good news.’

  Canus turned away with a stony face, calling the century to gather round their new officer while the men of the Ninth Century who were just ahead of them in the cohort’s order of march watched curiously. Dubnus waited until they were arrayed about him in a half-circle before speaking.

  ‘How many men did we lose in the ambush, Chosen?’

  The chosen man, still smarting from Dubnus’s brisk treatment, spoke up at once.

  ‘Five soldiers and the best centurion in the cohort, Centurion!’

  The pioneers nodded at his words, their expressions still those of men deep in grief, their eyes for the most part fixed on the ground or the clouds above them, few of them meeting their new centurion’s eye. Dubnus stared about him with an undisguised look of disgust.

  ‘Look at you all! You look like men who’ve just buried a father who died in his sleep, rather than witnessed him being hacked to death by barbarians! There’s not one of you that has the look of a man who’s ready to shed blood in revenge!’

  Every man in the century was glaring at him now, their faces hardening as the insult sank in, and one of the bigger soldiers started to climb to his feet with a look of indignant anger.

  ‘Sit down!’ The pioneer hesitated for a second at the note of command, and Dubnus stepped towards him with his knuckles white around the shaft of his vine stick, his face contorted with genuine anger that left the soldier nowhere to go other than down onto his backside or up onto his feet. ‘Sit the fuck down, before I put you on your arse!’

  The big man sank slowly back down onto his haunches, and the centurion nodded his head slowly.

  ‘That’s better. I don’t want to be slapping my own men about, not when there are barbarians close to hand. Now, where was I?’

  He turned away for a moment, deliberately turning his back on the fuming pioneers, knowing that they were restrained from attacking him only by their deeply ingrained discipline. When he spun on his heel to face them the century gathered around him was still frozen in place, a dangerous animal temporarily restrained from attacking purely by the force of his personality.

  ‘You look like a gathering of women in mourning.’ He paused, allowing the further insult to sink in. ‘Well I’ve got news for you, girls. We are soldiers, and soldiers die! When we lose a brother in battle we should rejoice in the manner of his falling, and the number of the enemy he takes with him! If we sit around weeping at our loss we only weaken ourselves for the next time that we face an enemy, and bring the moment of our own death racing towards us! You all worship Cocidius, right?’

  He waved the amulet at them, drawing an angry growl of affirmation from several of the men facing him.

  ‘Well Cocidius doesn’t want you to piss and whine over Titus. Cocidius has Titus sitting at his feast table right now, with a mug of the good stuff in one hand, a roasted sheep’s leg in the other, his chin shining with grease, beer spilled down his best tunic and a pair of busty wenches under the table oiling up his cock and balls!’ A few faces creased into sad smiles at the memory of their former leader’s legendary ability to enter into the spirit of a celebratory feast. ‘And right now, brothers, Cocidius is lavishing the old bastard with praise for the glorious manner of his death! And so am I! The Bear lived like a man and died like a warrior, and if I make an equally glorious exit from this life then I’ll be more than content as the ferryman takes me across the river.’ The faces staring up at him were more thoughtful than angry now. ‘When we get back to civilisation I’ll be putting an altar to our fallen brother’s memory alongside the one that’s been purchased for that leathery old sod Scarface at Fort Habitus, an altar to his glorious death and the honour it did to our god!’

  He paused again, watching the soldiers nodding their agreement, knowing that he almost had them. Almost.

  ‘Now some of you are thinking that I’m not the right man to lead you. Thinking that I’m not big enough …’ He paused and smiled wryly to be voicing such a sentiment. ‘You’ll be telling each other that I’m not hard enough to lead the Tenth, the biggest, ugliest men in the cohort. That I’m not fit to carry the Bear’s axe.’ He looked about him again, jutting out his jaw defiantly and raising the dead centurion’s weapon above his head. ‘Well tough fucking shit! The Bear himself handed it to me, and his amulet to Cocidius, and told me to lead you to glory in his name! So here’s how it is, girls! I’m your centurion, at least until we get back on the other side of the wall and we’re not being chased around the landscape by a gang of angry tribesmen. Once we’re safe again you can decide whether you want to risk putting me to the challenge, and perhaps we’ll find out how many of you it takes to put me on my back. Perhaps. But for now, we’re at war, so it’s wartime rules until that happy day. Which means that any man who wants to challenge my authority can expect to find himself subject to wartime discipline. My fucking discipline. And if you think the Bear could be harsh, just try those boots on for size!’

  Arabus waited silently in the shadow of the fort’s northern wall, close to the burned-out shell of a barrack block with his nostrils filled with the scent of burnt pitch and timber. As he watched, his centurion stood and ran back from the southern gateway in a clatter of hobnails on cobbles, ducking into the ruin of the headquarters building just as the first of the hunters appeared in the square of grey light framed by the gate. Raising his waiting bow he leaned forward to put his lips to the tiny statue of his goddess Arduenna that he had lashed to its wooden stave, muttering a silent prayer.

  ‘Protector of my homeland, lend your exiled servant the gift of your keen eye and steady hand.’

  He loosed the first shot, his eyes narrowing fractionally as the woman who had been first through the gateway slumped back onto the cobbles with an audible grunt. Snatching up a second arrow he put it to the string with hands that seemed to move without conscious effort, releasing its feathered tail almost before the bow was fully drawn. A second of the oncoming hunters spun back against the wall next to her, a third staggering with an arrow in her thigh as they scattered to left and right, seeking shelter from the deadly hail of iron he was sending down the street’s hundred-pace length. For a long moment they were silent, huddling behind the cover of stone walls while he swept the ground before him with the fourth arrowhead, waiting for a target at which to send the missile. A head popped around the right-hand building at the end of the street, and without conscious effort the arrow was gone from his string, flashing past the tiny target with inches to spare. A return shot flicked past him without his ever having seen it, and without stopping to think the scout plucked the last two arrows from the ground before him and scuttled, bent low, across the street’s width to his right. The women shouted to each other as they saw the movement, and the scout cringed at the realisation of the mistake he had made in leaving the safety of the shadows in response to a lucky shot. Another arrow fizzed past his head with a whirr of flight feathers and bounced back from the wall behind him, the pock of its iron head on the stone like the ring of hammer on anvil in the ruined fort’s silence, and the scout dived into the cover of the building just as another pair of arrows whistled down the street, the barbarian archers snap-shooting at his indistinct figure.

  A fierce blow to his right leg tripped the scout, sending his body sprawling across the cobbles with his chin split to the bone by the impact, and as he rolled onto his back, his leg afire with sudden pain, he realised that one of the hastily loosed missiles had spitted the meat of his calf. Staggering back onto his good foot he half staggered and half hopped to the building’s first doorway, grimacing at the wound’s pain as he slunk inside to find the confined space of the centurion’s quarters that topped the run of eight-man rooms which composed most of the barrack block’s length. The room was dark and damp despite its lack of a roof, the officer’s quarter laid bare by the effects of looting and fire, stinking of burnt and r
otting wood and offering no hiding place from the pursuit that would doubtless be surging up the fort’s main street. The Tungrian nocked his last two arrows to the bow’s string and huddled into the room’s furthest corner, levelling their iron heads at the doorway and grimacing at the searing agony in his calf that reignited with every tiny movement. A slight scrape of leather on stone in the otherwise profound silence announced the presence of at least one hunter on the other side of the open doorway, and he pulled the bowstring slowly back until the weapon was two-thirds drawn, listening for any clue that the inevitable assault was upon him.

  Arminius watched in silence as Marcus retreated into the fort’s silent interior, waiting until the first of the barbarian hunters appeared in the gateway’s grey opening before barking a harsh challenge at them and stepping back into the hospital building before they could loose their arrows at his momentary target. Running down the building’s long corridor with his sword drawn he blew out a long breath of relief as he found the doctors’ office that was a standard feature of fortress hospitals across the empire, a small room halfway up the building’s run of four-man wards. In the corner of the office a short brick partition butted out from the wall that divided the office from the corridor, and he moved swiftly across the stone floor to look into the space it created. The heavy wooden doors were gone, as were the shelves that had once held the fort’s store of pain-killing drugs, kept safely locked away to prevent temptation overcoming any man with the desire to experience their numb bliss once more. Sliding his bulky body into the narrow hiding place, the German eased the point of his sword to rest on the floor and willed his breathing to slow, closing his eyes and feeling the thudding of his heart gradually decrease its tempo until it seemed that he had become one with the darkness around him.

  The faint sound of footsteps came from the corridor, two or three hunters at a guess, and he waited and listened as they approached the office, hearing one of them step into the small room and stop barely three paces from him. The pause stretched out until he tensed himself to leap forward and fight, certain that at any second the unseen searcher would realise that there was a blind spot in the room and take the single step forward that would reveal his presence. A stealthy footstep sounded, but the German stopped himself from springing out of the cupboard’s concealment by a hair’s breadth as he realised that the hunter had stepped out of the office, rather than further into it. Soft, cautious voices sounded in the corridor, the women clearly advancing further into the building, and Arminius poked his head warily round the cupboard’s edge to find the office empty.