Fortress of Spears e-3

by Anthony Riches

  Cyrus glowered at him, his face twisted with repulsion and disgust.

  ‘Nothing to say, Roman? Perhaps we could pull your teeth and allow two men to fuck you from both ends, just to complete the picture for your friends over there. “Go to war with the Venicones”, they’ll tell each other for years to come, “and if the barbarian bastards catch you they’ll spit-roast you.” How about that?’

  Cyrus spat a bloody wad into the dirt at his feet, staring down at the barbarian chief.

  ‘Can I trust your word, Venicone?’

  Drust raised an eyebrow at the growled response, taken aback by the unexpectedness of the Roman’s retort.

  ‘Trust my word? Why would that matter to a man facing imminent death?’

  Cyrus grunted his answer from between gritted teeth, his voice pitched low to make the tribal chief lean closer.

  ‘Because, King of the Venicones, I have information that I will trade for a quick and honourable death. I know where something is. Something that you have lost, and which can still be retrieved if you know where to look for it. If, that is, you have the balls to turn aside from your flight to the north.’

  Drust’s eyes widened, and he stepped in close to the captive, whispering into the Roman’s ear.

  ‘Tell me exactly what it is that you’re talking about. If this is a trick I’m going to make you scream for mercy before you die.’

  Cyrus grinned back at him through his pain, happy with the realisation that he had the Venicone chief hanging on his next words.

  ‘You’re missing something, Drust, something important. One of our soldiers found your golden torc in a tent, on the battlefield of your camp. The man you had entrusted to look after it was dead, with an artillery bolt through his spine, and so this soldier took your pretty piece of jewellery for himself. He tried to sell it to an associate of mine, who came to me for money to help him make the purchase, and so I know where that soldier is heading at this very moment, with your precious torc in his pack.’ He spat another wad of bloody phlegm on to the ground at Drust’s feet before speaking again. ‘If you promise me, on your honour, to grant me a quick and honourable death, then I will tell you who that soldier was, and where he’s marching. And I’ll give you a clue to help you decide. His cohort has orders to march to the north, to a place close enough to this that you can be in battle with them inside two days. All you have to do is guarantee me an honourable death, and I’ll tell you where.’

  Arminius awoke from his temporary stupor to find Scarface sitting next to him under a clear blue sky, both of their horses contentedly cropping the grass where they were tethered a few feet away. He sat up with a gasp of pain, putting an exploratory hand to the lump on the back of his head, then looked about him, surveying the customary human detritus of any combat, hundreds of dead Selgovae lying where they had fallen, through pain-slitted eyes.

  ‘What the fuck? I remember hanging on to that bloody horse for grim life, but then…’

  Scarface snorted a laugh.

  ‘But then your “bloody horse” took a header, legs all over the bloody place, jumped back up and booted you in the nut. I might well have pissed myself laughing if I hadn’t been so busy fighting off half a dozen of the hairy bastards, having left my spear stuck in the seventh.’

  The German nodded, touching his head again as if to prove the story.

  ‘I was lucky not to get carved up, then?’

  ‘You were lucky that a certain young gentleman decided to hop off his own horse and fight the bloody Selgovae off you, that’s what you are, mate.’

  Arminius sank back on to the grass and closed his eyes.

  ‘I might have guessed. How did he fare in the fight?’

  ‘The centurion will be back soon enough; he went to get his arm bandaged, and make sure that Prince Martos is all right, given that he managed to avoid being skewered by this shower of donkey wallopers. He kept the long-haired fuckers off you long enough for these bowlegged bastards to get their shit in a pile and come to the rescue, him and that big Selgovae monster we spared yesterday. He collected a scratch and a couple of dents doing it, but I doubt it’s knocked any more sense into him.’

  Arminius got to his feet, his face taut with the pain in his head.

  ‘I’ll go and find him. And see who’s doing all that screaming.’

  He found Marcus sitting in a queue of men with light wounds waiting for a harassed bandage carrier to attend to them, and dropped to the turf next to him, ignoring the indignant looks of the men behind him.

  ‘Scarface told me I’d find you up here. Any nice scars in the making?’

  Marcus lifted the bandage covering his wound, revealing a foot-long slice up his left forearm, the blood that had welled from the open flesh already mostly clotted.

  ‘Nice. That’ll be a good one to show off to the ladies once it’s healed. Scarface said you got dented?’

  He took the proffered helmet and examined the crease hammered into its surface.

  ‘Impressive. And a good thing that whatever did this didn’t get through it.’ A noisy commotion from the small group of warriors who had been taken prisoner, held captive under the spears of the legion cohort, made him wince. ‘Mithras, but I wish that shouting would stop! What are they doing to the man?’

  Marcus lifted an eyebrow.

  ‘We took nineteen prisoners, including their leader Harn and both of his sons. I’d imagine the noise has something to do with what the Votadini would like to do to them.’

  The German caught the slight bitterness in his tone and nodded his understanding.

  ‘Martos and his volunteers waited all night in the vicus for their chance to encourage the Selgovae to run for it. I suppose they had plenty of time to listen to the inhabitants of Alauna being raped and killed. Alauna being a Votadini settlement, you’ll have remembered…’

  He slapped the Roman on the shoulder encouragingly.

  ‘I’ll go and have a look, you stay here and get that scratch sewn up.’

  He stood, rolling his head on his thick neck, and then leaned back down to speak quietly in the centurion’s ear.

  ‘And thank you for standing over me when I was helpless. I owe you a life.’

  He strode away towards the source of the noise. In the middle of a circle of variously amused, amazed and horrified cavalrymen, Martos’s warriors had erected a hasty tripod formed from the trunks of saplings felled from the copse behind which the cavalry detachment had taken shelter from view the previous evening. A group of his men had lashed a naked young Selgovae tribesman to the frame’s apex by his bound wrists, his feet tied together to prevent him from struggling and his feet barely touching the ground, requiring him to stand on tiptoe. When they stepped away, having gagged him to stop his shouts of protest, one man remained in place before the helpless prisoner, a long-bladed knife held in one hand. Scaurus and Martos were watching the preparations with apparent interest, while alongside them an older man was being restrained by a pair of burly legionaries. Catching sight of his master, the German strode across the space around the prisoner and stood before Scaurus with a slight bow. The tribune greeted him with a wry smile, returning the bow with a nod of his head.

  ‘You’ve recovered from your knock to the head, then, have you, Arminius?’

  He nodded gingerly.

  ‘Apart from a headache that may be with me until the day I die, yes, Tribune.’

  Scaurus shrugged, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Perhaps this is what will happen every time I order you on to horseback? You managed to end up on your backside the last time as well. Since the young centurion can clearly handle himself well enough to save both his own skin and yours, perhaps I should return you to your normal task of standing at my shoulder and glaring at anyone that comes near me?’

  The German bowed his head slightly.

  ‘I will, of course, accept any duty to which you choose to put me, but I should point out that I now owe your centurion a life.’

  ‘In whic
h case you’d best stay close to him a little longer, I suppose. I believe that your horse was unhurt in your accident, so perhaps you should reclaim it and prepare for our next move. And now, if you’ll excuse me…?’

  Arminius bowed again, watching as the tribune turned back to the barbarian being restrained by a pair of hefty soldiers beside him.

  ‘Have you seen enough of this to be sure I’m serious, Harn? I can’t say that I would enjoy having that young man tortured all that much, but then I’ve seen worse things done to my comrades over the years by men just like you, so please don’t imagine that it would trouble me in any way. And let’s not forget what we found when we searched the fort you’d just left in such a hurry.’ He looked at the fingernails of his left hand, nibbling at a rough edge before speaking again. ‘You know what treatment that boy will receive if I ask my ally Prince Martos here to let his man off the leash. In fact I’ll wager you know it better than most, given your master’s tolerance for his men’s brutality towards Romans, soldiers and civilians alike. Your man there will have his skin removed, one long strip at a time. Martos tells me that his man is an expert, and can keep his subject alive for up to a day while slowly but surely reducing him to a gibbering idiot with the pain of the whole thing. Or, of course, I can have your man there cut down and returned to his fellow prisoners. All that you have to do is swear to behave yourself, and provide me with just one little bit of help. Should you choose not to do so, I have quite a good supply of your men for these Votadini to play with. The same Votadini whose king your master Calgus murdered in cold blood, you will recall, and whose warriors were betrayed to us in order to remove the inconvenience they might have otherwise posed. I doubt they’re going to get bored of hearing the screams of a dying Selgovae any time soon. So, what will it be?’

  Harn stared at his feet for a long moment before raising his gaze to stare into the tribune’s eyes.

  ‘You’ll spare that man his life?’

  ‘Yes. I will personally take my sword and cut him down from where he’s hanging.’

  ‘And you’ll keep these Votadini dogs from torturing any of my men?’

  ‘If you keep your side of the deal, yes. It won’t be hard, since they want what I want just as badly as I do. But I think you ought to listen to what it is that I want before you agree too quickly. Your man there will keep while we discuss how you’re going to help us liberate Martos’s people from yours. It’s either that, or we’ll all spend an entertaining day watching him peel your young lad there down to a strip of raw meat. And we have a plentiful supply of salt, should simple skinning get too repetitive.’

  Rapax and Excingus swept into the hospital building in the middle of Felicia’s rounds that morning, brushing aside her assistant’s attempts to keep them from disturbing her. Excingus did the talking, while the praetorian stood impatiently in the background, tapping the floor with one foot in the manner of a man with a strong need to be elsewhere. The corn officer was insistent, despite the doctor’s protests that she had more than enough to keep her busy in the hospital.

  ‘I understand completely, madam, and I assure you that I wouldn’t be asking you to leave your patients if this wasn’t a matter of a man’s life. Of course, we can all go and see Tribune Paulus if that’s what’s needed, but in the time that will take, this centurion’s man will probably die…’

  He stood waiting, while Felicia stared at her feet for a moment.

  ‘He has a broken leg?’

  Excingus nodded quickly.

  ‘He slipped, jammed his foot into a gap between two rocks, then fell sideways. The sound it made was quite horrible. We didn’t dare to move him, given that we were so close to the fort and your medical skills.’

  She nodded decisively, turning to her orderly.

  ‘Very well. Julius, could you fetch my instruments, please? And my cloak. Bring your own too, you might be required.’

  Rapax stepped forward, shaking his head.

  ‘No need, lady, we’ll have all the men you need with us.’

  Felicia raised an eyebrow at him.

  ‘And your men are trained hospital orderlies, are they? I might well need some combination of a man’s strength and a medically trained mind to free your man’s leg. He’s coming with me.’

  The praetorian nodded his grudging assent, shooting a wry glance at his colleague.

  ‘As you wish, lady.’

  The party were mounted and on the road within minutes, the doctor and her orderly at the heart of a tight knot of riders who were waved through the fort’s north gate, the purpose of their haste already made clear to the guards. They rode up the steep hill towards the wall’s North Road gate in silence and were waved through the opened gateway with equal lack of ceremony. The party carried on up the road for another mile, until Rapax indicated a path that branched out into the open country.

  ‘He’s about half a mile down here.’

  The party rode down the narrow track single file, with Excingus leading and Rapax at the rear, until they rounded a bend and saw the distinctive figure of a praetorian sprawled in the grass beside the path. Felicia jumped down from her horse with Julius at her shoulder, unaware that Rapax was close behind them and had drawn his dagger from its sheath. As the doctor moved in to take stock of the casualty’s condition, he took a grip of Julius’s hair and pulled his head back savagely, opening up the orderly’s throat for a swift pass of the knife’s blade. Felicia turned back from the unharmed soldier with a look of puzzled annoyance that changed in an instant to horror as her orderly’s blood spurted across the grass, his body held upright only by Rapax’s powerful grip on his hair as his eyes rolled slowly upwards. The praetorian pushed his tottering victim to the ground, leaning down to wipe his blade on the dying man’s cloak before resheathing the dagger. Folding his arms, he stared back at the wide-eyed woman with a defiant glare, shaking his head slightly.

  ‘You would insist on bringing him with you.’

  Felicia’s look of horror slowly transformed into understanding, her face hardening as she realised how badly she’d misread the two centurions’ intentions.

  ‘You want to use me to get to Marcus.’

  Excingus nodded brightly over his brother officer’s shoulder, a faint smile wreathing his lips.

  ‘I told you she was clever enough to work it out on her own. Yes, my dear, we’re going to hunt down your fugitive boyfriend, and you’re going to provide us with the means of making sure he comes to justice quietly. Your Marcus Valerius Aquila has been evading justice with his barbarian friends up here for long enough, and with your invaluable help we’re going to put an end to his little game of hide-and-seek.’

  Felicia shook her head defiantly, her chin jutting with anger.

  ‘You’ll get no help from me! Marcus is innocent of any charge your masters might throw at his family to justify theft and murder, and I won’t be part of your evil!’

  The corn officer strolled forward until he was close enough to the white-faced, trembling woman to see the sheen of tears forming in her eyes. When he spoke his voice was softer than before, almost apologetic.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but you most certainly will. When the time comes you’ll beg for him to save you from the indignities you’re being subjected to. You’ll scream like a pig with a spear in its guts, and you’ll provide us with all the distraction we’ll need to do the job that should have been finished in Rome. Tie her wrists and put her back on the horse, we’re riding to the north.’

  ‘So now we march north and free the Dinpaladyr?’

  Tribune Scaurus nodded tersely, watching as the young Selgovae warrior was cut down from the hastily erected wooden frame from which he had been suspended.

  ‘Yes, Martos. Those are my orders, and now that you’ve terrified this Selgovae remnant into obedience for me we’ll strike as fast and hard as we can.’

  The Votadini prince stared across at the captives, now huddled under the spears of the legion cohort and watching with evident resen
tment as the two centuries of Tungrians moved among their dead, carrying out the grisly task to which the tribune had set them.

  ‘Obedience? From the Selgovae? I would rather trust a pack of wolves. These men will watch and wait for their chance to fight back and restore their lost honour. It would be better if we put them to the sword now.’

  Scaurus shook his head firmly.

  ‘No. With them I think we have a chance to get inside the gates of your tribal fortress. Without them we could be camped outside it for weeks, while the men Calgus sent to usurp you sit and laugh at us, praying to their gods for the snows to come early this year and abusing your people to their hearts’ content. The prisoners will live just as long as they serve us, and your job, Martos, is to watch them like a hawk and make sure that they do. And besides, I have another trick up my sleeve with regard to ensuring Harn’s total obedience.’

  Tribune Licinius sat in the quiet of his tent, the daily rations report from the cohort’s quartermaster unnoticed on the table in front of him, while his subconscious teased at the conundrum presented by the events of the previous night. Only minutes after their confrontation, Decurion Cyrus had marched out into the darkness beyond the temporary camp’s walls and simply vanished into thin air. Logic told him that his officer must have been taken by barbarian scouts, and yet the man’s behaviour just before his disappearance had been sufficiently strange to justify Licinius entertaining the possibility that he had chosen to disappear into the wilds for reasons that were as yet unclear. A shout from outside the tent snapped him out of his reverie, and another put him on his feet and out through the tent’s door. A soldier dashed up to him, saluting hastily and gasping out his message.

  ‘Tribune! The Venicones have got Decurion Cyrus!’

  He hurried to the camp’s eastern gate, pushing through the men gathered around the earth rampart to where a cluster of his officers stood watching the walls of the ruined Three Mountains fort in silence. A man’s body had been lashed to a wooden frame on the stone wall’s top surface, and a cluster of barbarians were gathered around him, staring out towards the Roman camp. As the tribune watched, his eyes slitted with anger, one of them cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed something made unintelligible by the distance. Looking about him, Licinius saw that his bodyguard, ever mindful of his safety, had gathered around him. He made a quick decision, turning to the dozen or so officers staring at the scene playing out in front of them.