The Wolf's Gold: Empire V

by Anthony Riches

  The German pulled a face, but made no comment.

  ‘Is everyone clear as to their part? We have to get the timing right if this is going to work.’

  Silus stood up and saluted.

  ‘Yes Tribune, we know our part. I’m going to supervise the loading of the cart, and make sure the load’s rainproof. You wouldn’t want all of that shouting at the fortress’s stores officer to have been wasted.’

  Scaurus nodded his approval and the decurion went on his way with a smile at the memory of his tribune’s incandescent anger when the Apulum fortress’s storeman had robustly denied being in possession of any of the equipment the party needed. Having reduced the soldier to terrified silence with a violent outburst that questioned both his parentage and his desire to see the next dawn, the tribune had waved his men forward into the stores in search of their requirements. Marcus had walked back down the stores’ length a few moments later with a satisfied smile.

  ‘It’s all there. Rope, rations, torches – lots of torches – and more than enough lambskin for our boots.’

  The storeman had been aghast as the equipment was carried past him, but Scaurus’s rebuttal of his argument had left him floundering for a response.

  ‘But that won’t leave enough torches to light the fortress!’

  ‘In which case you’d better spend some of that gold you’ve been creaming off the top all these years and buy some more, hadn’t you, because I’m taking these. And I’ll need a cart to carry it all. Quickly now!’

  Satisfied that everyone knew what was expected of them, the tribune dismissed his men, calling to Marcus to stay behind with him for a moment. The younger man turned his back to the iron stove’s glowing metal, enjoying the warmth after a day in the cold winter’s air, and waited for the tribune to speak. Scaurus rubbed wearily at his face with a hand before speaking.

  ‘Earlier today I suddenly remembered a question that I’ve been meaning to ask you for several days, but which I keep forgetting given everything else that’s been going on. After the battle on the frozen lake, you went across the ice to gather shields from Belletor’s cohort, to replace the ones that had been trampled to pieces on the ice. You had to walk through the men who had made a run for it across the lake, and were ridden down by the Sarmatae.’

  Marcus nodded slowly, recalling the lake’s bitter cold through his fur-wrapped feet as he had walked reluctantly towards the scatter of bodies littering the ice.

  ‘Julius sent me across the lake for shields so that I could look for Carius Sigilis. He knew that the tribune and I had established a friendship of sorts, as much as a man of that seniority ever can with a common centurion.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There’s little enough to tell. The men on the lake were all dead, either killed instantly or taken by blood loss and the cold quickly enough that I doubt any of them suffered for very long.’

  ‘And Sigilis?’

  ‘He had a spear wound in his side, deep into his stomach, and another in his neck. He bled to death.’

  Scaurus got up, standing alongside his centurion and extending his hands to the stove’s warmth.

  ‘I watched you, Marcus. You went from body to body looking for him, and then when you found him you were crouched over his corpse for a good deal more time than it takes to ascertain that he was dead.’

  Marcus nodded.

  ‘True. He’d written a last message on the ice with his own blood, the words barely readable but clear enough if a man knew what he was looking at.’

  ‘Was it “The Emperor’s Knives” by any chance?’

  ‘He told you, didn’t he?’

  The tribune gave him a slow, sad smile, his admonishment no more than gentle amusement.

  ‘Well of course he did, you fool. When you refused to listen to what he was trying to tell you, he decided that letting me in on the secret was the best way to ensure that you learned the truth about your father’s death, even if he were to die in battle. He respected you, Centurion, he saw qualities in you that he yearned to find in himself, and while he very much wanted to be part of whatever revenge you take for Senator Aquila’s death, he knew there was a risk he wouldn’t survive the campaign. So he told me the story of the men who killed your father.’

  ‘I’m going to kill them all, if I ever get to Rome.’

  Scaurus pursed his lips.

  ‘Taking on men with that sort of power will be insanely dangerous. You might catch one of them unprepared, but after that the others will know you’re coming, and they’ll be the most dangerous prey you’ll ever hunt. You’ll need the support of someone powerful, if you ever manage to get to Rome, more powerful than I’ll ever be, even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and stop Gerwulf running away with enough gold to buy a provincial city.’

  Marcus reached into his purse, pulling out a heavy gold pendant.

  ‘This was on the ice beside his last words. The Sarmatae didn’t have time to dismount and rob them of their possessions.’

  ‘And he left it there for you? It carries a heavy burden, Centurion, the responsibility of telling his father how he died. A man like that won’t want to hear that his son was killed as he ran from the enemy, which leaves you with a difficult decision to make. Do you tell him the truth and risk his anger, or would it be better to sweeten the pill with a lie in order to gain his support? I don’t envy you the choice.’

  10

  Silus led the squadron away from Apulum at dawn the next morning, their route forking away from the road that ran on southwest towards the Danubius and climbing northwest into the mountains, the same road the Tungrians had used to reach the Ravenstone valley weeks before. After a dozen miles he conferred briefly with Scaurus before leading the horsemen off the road, and into the mountains that rose to their right-hand side. They rode slowly and cautiously up into one of the high valleys, eventually dismounting and leaving their horses with Silus’s men as the sun dipped to a finger’s width above the peaks to the west.

  The decurion watched as the men who would be carrying out the infiltration gathered their equipment from the cart’s flat, wooden bed, and prepared to march the last mile or so to the foot of the mountain that was their objective.

  ‘Remember Silus, wait until the hunter’s knee touches the mountains.’

  The cavalryman saluted his tribune, then clapped Marcus on the shoulder.

  ‘Good luck, gentlemen. I’ll be back here as soon as I can.’

  The raiding party went forward, behind the half-dozen Hamian scouts that Qadir had selected from among his best men, and by the time the sun was touching the mountains in the west they were squatting in the cover of the treeline below the valley’s southern rim. Marcus and Qadir eased forward to the forest’s edge, looking up at the forbidding beaked profile of the massive stone on the mountain’s crest that gave the valley beyond the peak its name.

  ‘There’s one of them. See, up on the ridgeline.’

  Qadir nodded at the steep hill before them, and after a moment Marcus found the tiny figure silhouetted against the orange skyline.

  ‘Careless.’

  Scaurus slid in alongside him to squint up at the mountain above them.

  ‘They’re bored. They’ve done nothing but stare at an empty landscape and push miners around for the last ten days, and they want to be away. Every one of Gerwulf’s men is busy wondering what he’s going to spend his share of the gold on. And let’s face it, if he gives them half of the stockpile to split between themselves then even the common soldiers are going to walk out of that valley with at least half a pound of gold apiece.’

  Qadir smiled knowingly.

  ‘Think of your own men under such circumstances, Tribune. Half of them will be penniless before they’re even halfway back to Germania, the other half considerably richer than when the gold was shared out. It will divide them as nothing else could, and their discipline will fall to pieces in weeks.’

  Scaurus shrugged.

  ‘Indeed. But look at it fr
om Gerwulf’s perspective. He can’t run in any direction other than north, and he needs to get across the great plain without having a Sarmatae arrow land between his shoulder blades. Being the proud owner of enough gold to buy a tribe is useless if you’re not alive long enough to enjoy it. All he has to do is keep them together for less than a month, until he’s on safer ground, and then he can slip away with a few trusted men who he’ll make rich beyond anything they could ever have imagined in return for their loyalty. Now, let’s see if the boy can pick out where this mine entrance is, shall we?’

  To the tribune’s great relief, Lupus pointed to a section of the mountainside beneath the Raven Head peak without any hesitation, and after a moment the sharpest-eyed of the scouts opined that he could see the dark hole of a tunnel entrance among the lengthening shadows. They waited until the sun was down, and the ground around them was dark, before slowly and silently making their way to the foot of the mountain. Scaurus gathered them around him, pointing up at the peak’s dark bulk looming over them and speaking softly in the night’s quiet.

  ‘The slope will be littered with rocks, so you must tread carefully and slowly as you climb. Lift your feet high, and bring them down gently, feeling for solid ground. This will make our ascent slower, but that will be better than one of us suffering a broken leg, or the guards above us being alerted. And if any of us does disturb a stone, then we must all simply stand still until any noise has died away, and anyone left on watch above us has lost interest.’

  They set off up the slope behind him at a measured pace, but within a hundred paces it was clear that ascending the hillside in silence was going to be impossible, as every other footstep dislodged small stones which clicked and clattered their way down the slope in tiny cascades of sound. After a moment’s climb the tribune raised a hand, whispering a command back down the column.

  ‘Stop.’

  Marcus moved forward to join Qadir at the column’s head, and both men listened intently for a moment before the Roman voiced an opinion.

  ‘Nothing. They’re either sounding the alarm very quietly or the idle buggers have given up for the night. Either way we have no choice but to push on.’

  As they climbed higher up the mountainside the Raven Head loomed over them, its cruel profile outlined by the stars wheeling slowly across the night sky, and Scaurus called for Lupus to be sent up the column.

  ‘Take a careful look my lad, and tell me whether that picture looks right to you.’

  The boy stared up at the distinctive rock for a moment before replying.

  ‘We should be up there.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Lupus nodded at Arminius’s question.

  ‘Yes. The bird’s head is too far away.’

  The German looked at Scaurus, his teeth a white slash in the darkness as he grinned.

  ‘Bright boy, isn’t he? Up we go then, and you tell me when it looks right to you, eh?’

  The small party climbed on up the mountain until Lupus decided that they were in the right place. Qadir sent men out to left and right to broaden their search for the mine’s entrance, and the rest of the party huddled down into the protection of their cloaks from the wind blowing across the open mountainside.

  ‘Here!’

  The whispered signal came from their left, and Scaurus led the party across the slope to where the man in question was squatting alongside a hole in the mountain barely large enough for a man to enter.

  ‘Is this it?’

  Lupus nodded in reply to the tribune’s question.

  ‘Yes. See?’

  He pointed to the grey outline of a bird’s head carved roughly into the stone by the entrance, barely visible in the moonlight, and Scaurus nodded.

  ‘The Raven’s Head. You’ve done well, young man.’

  He gestured for the men carrying the bundles of torches they had liberated from the Apulum fortress stores to come forward.

  ‘Now we need fire. Martos?’

  The Briton stepped a few paces into the tunnel’s pitch-black, taking out his flint and iron from the bag in which he carried them and arranging dry vegetation on the floor before him by touch. A few swift strokes of the flint were enough to spit sparks into the tinder, which flared briefly under the warrior prince’s gentle blowing. He suspended a torch over the flames, smiling happily as the pitch-soaked head took fire. Scaurus took the torch and pushed past him, advancing further into the tunnel to avoid the sudden flare of light being visible on the mountainside.

  ‘One torch for every three men, and the archers ready to shoot if we encounter any resistance. Centurion Corvus, lead off with Lupus if you will, but be ready to get down and leave the tunnel clear for the archers.’

  Marcus advanced up the tunnel’s gentle slope with a torch held up to illuminate the rough-hewn rock walls, feeling the child’s hand holding on to his belt as he counted out the paces they were taking in his head. The torch’s light reached out fifty paces or so before them, but beyond that was only a circle of darkness which the Roman knew might harbour an enemy preparing to attack. The party’s muffled hobnails scraped roughly at the tunnel’s uneven floor through their lambskin covers, the faint noise multiplied by the bare walls to a faint, eerie rattle that preceded them into the mountain.

  ‘How far did you come down this way from the ladder before you reached open air?’

  His whisper sounded hoarse, and the boy’s response was equally strained.

  ‘I don’t know, Centurion.’

  They walked on, Marcus straining his eyes to the limits of the torch’s ruddy light, until when they had covered just less than three hundred paces he saw something poking up out of the rock floor. Squatting down, he turned and gestured to Arabus, who ghosted noiselessly to his side in the soft deerskin slippers he had donned at the tunnel’s entrance.

  ‘Scout forward and tell me what that is.’

  The tracker was back quickly enough, his eyes glinting in the torchlight.

  ‘It is a ladder. It descends to a lower level, which is lit by small lamps. Better to leave the torches here, or risk being seen before we see?’

  Marcus nodded. A swift discussion with Scaurus settled the matter – a pair of men would wait in the passage with the lit torches while the remainder of the party went forward to the ladder, each man holding an unlit brand. They found it just as the scout had described, the ladder apparently well maintained despite that level of the mine having fallen into disuse. Intriguingly, two long ropes were neatly coiled on the rock floor to either side of the ladder’s top-most rung, each with one end fed through a block and tackle. Both were tied to iron rings sunk into the passage wall. The tribune examined them closely by the light of a torch.

  ‘I’m no expert, but this looks like lifting gear to me. Lupus, were those ropes there the last time you came this way?’ The boy shook his head, and Scaurus exchanged meaningful glances with his officers. ‘Perhaps this way into the mine isn’t as disused as we might have imagined. Let’s continue onwards, shall we?’

  Marcus was quick to be the first man to venture down the ladder, tucking an unlit torch into his belt and swinging his legs down onto the top most rungs. He climbed down with Lupus following, and found himself standing on another rock floor in the dim light of a pair of oil lamps.

  ‘Where now, lad?’

  The child pondered for a moment, then pointed in the direction which by Marcus’s reckoning would take them deeper into the mountain.

  ‘I think that’s the way to the entrance.’

  Waiting until the remaining eight men had reached the ladder’s bottom, Marcus led them off again, but had only covered thirty paces when the top of another ladder came into view.

  ‘What’s down there?’

  Lupus stared down into the shaft.

  ‘At the bottom of that ladder there’s a big wheel that lifts water up to this level, to stop the mine filling up. There are men that turn it.’

  The Roman turned back to Scaurus.

  ‘T
hey may have information as to what’s happening in the valley. I’ll go down there and speak with them.’

  He eased his body silently down the long climb, taking each rung slowly and patiently to avoid making any noise. At the bottom he paused for a moment before following a line of oil lamps towards the distant sound of running water, until he found himself at the corner of the passage where Lupus had told him that he and Mus had stopped to listen. Peering round the rock wall and into the cavern, he found a scene exactly as the boy had described it. A pair of men were rotating the waterwheel while two others rested off to one side, with no sign of anyone set to guard them. Marcus drew his gladius and stepped into the open space, standing still to avoid scaring the men into flight down one of the half-dozen passages that opened off the cavern. One of the resting men got to his feet and paced forward until he was close enough to see the Roman properly. He grunted and cast a meaningful stare at the sword, the look on his face telling Marcus very clearly that without its presence the situation would be very different.

  ‘Another soldier. But not it seems a German. Who are you, soldier?’

  His voice lacked any edge of fear, and his stare was direct.

  ‘I am a centurion of the auxiliary cohorts that defended your valley from the Sarmatae.’

  The miner nodded, his expression unchanged.