Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  ‘We’re taking a handful of archers, the meekest of my axemen and a selection of the most undependable characters in the cohort. Not to mention a retired centurion who’s old enough to be my father and who, rumour has it, once killed an emperor with his bare hands, and a boy with less than fourteen summers behind him. If we’re going to take part in some sort of mounted purse-cutting competition then we’re well looked after …’

  ‘Where we’re going, Centurion, we’re going to need every skill you see before you.’

  The burly Briton turned and saluted his superior, clearly unabashed.

  ‘Wouldn’t we be better off taking every man we’ve got, sir, if it’s going to be that risky?’

  Scaurus shook his head with a grim smile.

  ‘I’ve told you before that where we’re going a couple of cohorts wouldn’t do any more than get the attention of the locals, and given what we’re going to do, I think that the ability to blend into the landscape is going to be our best defence.’

  Dubnus nodded with pursed lips, looking along the line of men.

  ‘I can’t argue with that. If we have to fight our way out of any more trouble than a few underfed tribal hunters it’s going to get ugly faster than Sanga went through his back pay when Cotta told him he was coming along with us.’

  He turned to Scaurus.

  ‘We will be travelling through the German forest, Tribune, and not going anywhere near the swamps and marshes that Cotta keeps going on about?’

  The officer laughed.

  ‘No matter how many times I tell that man he refuses to believe me. The land on the far bank of the Rhine is much like that to the west, farmland where the soil’s good enough, forest on the hills and yes, along the rivers’ courses, some boggy ground, which of course, without proper estate management, hasn’t been dealt with the way it has to the south of the Rhenus. There’s a good deal of it in the north of the tribe’s territory, but we’ll not be going anywhere near that.’

  ‘Ah, but what about the mists, eh Tribune? Thick, impenetrable mists so murky a man can’t see his own hand in front of his face.’

  The three men turned to find Cotta behind them, dressed for the road and ready to march.

  ‘The lands on the far side of the Rhenus are no more or less prone to mist and fog than the German provinces on the western bank. You need to put whatever nonsense you’ve been reading out of your head. Who was it again?’

  ‘Tacitus.’

  The tribune grinned at the veteran officer.

  ‘Ah yes, Cornelius Tacitus. A great man of letters he may well have been, even if his understanding of military matters seems to have been sadly lacking, but I suspect that were we granted the ability to communicate with the good senator’s spirit, we would discover that he never actually did any of his research first hand. Germania may well bristle with forests and reek with swamps, but don’t expect the place to be some sort of sunless underworld, or the men we’re going up against to be anything more than men, with the same strengths and weaknesses we all have.’

  Cotta shrugged.

  ‘I’ll wait and see, Tribune. But one thing’s fairly clear to me about the men who live on the other side of the Rhenus.’

  Scaurus tipped his head to one side in silent question, and the older man turned to look at the men of the detachment.

  ‘There’s going to be more of them than us. A lot more.’

  June AD 186

  ‘Well, they’re about as well trained as they’re ever going to be. Although just how well these new tactics of yours are going to work is another question, Tribune.’

  The detachment had ridden north at a rate of thirty to forty miles a day, twice the speed that could have been achieved on foot, but it wasn’t the pains of adjusting to long days in the saddle that had troubled the Tungrians, nor, after a period of adjustment, the mismatched nature of their collective military skills. The relationship between the archers and their counterparts from the pioneer century had soon settled down to the predictable state of cordial enmity, albeit that the disparity in their size and skills had not been allowed to get in the way of the exercises that Scaurus had ordered Dubnus to put them through each evening before dinner, in the time when digging out a marching fort would normally have been the order of the day. As a sign of things to come, the tribune made a point of camping next to wooded land wherever possible, to make the training that he was driving his men through all the more real.

  The routine that had quickly been dubbed ‘the crescent’ saw each archer paired with an axeman, the former advancing out into the trees from their starting point, spread out in an arc covering slightly more than a half-circle with their bows held ready as if to shoot, while their burly partners advanced with somewhat less stealth close behind each of them. Ordered to advance swiftly but without losing vigilance to their immediate front, their orders were to simulate a bow shot upon spotting whichever one of the officers had vanished into the undergrowth in the moments before, while their backs were turned. Upon hearing the sonorous twang of the released string, while the bowman in question was to go to ground, ready to shoot again, the men on either side were ordered to close up, tripling the number of arrows that could be put into the target if it still remained a threat. While that little game had first baffled the detachment’s men, and then simply become a tedious evening routine the point of which they found it hard to define, the purpose of the other exercise that they were drilled through late in every day’s progress towards Germania, was entirely evident. Spaced at five-pace intervals down whatever forest path could be found, the soldiers were ordered to move forward at a speed that made the slow march look like a headlong charge, while their officers dropped twigs and pebbles in their path and listened intently to their progress. Initial muffled curses and loud cracks as their feet encountered the simulated and barely visible detritus that would be likely to litter a forest path soon gave way to utter silence and a renewed focus on avoiding the traps, as centurions pounced on each offender and informed them in vehement whispers that they had just been awarded the task of filling in the latrine trench next morning.

  Scaurus finished his mouthful of stew before responding to Dubnus’s comment.

  ‘Well Centurion, whether all this practice will ever be of any value is indeed to be seen. At least we’ve got them accustomed to having a proper look at the ground beneath their feet before they put their boots down.’

  Dubnus nodded as he chewed a mouthful of his dinner, conceding the point as Scaurus continued.

  ‘And they seem remarkably well adjusted to each other’s different abilities. Only today I heard one of your men refer to his archer companion in the crescent exercise as a “goat-punching faggot”, in response to which Qadir’s man was generous enough to bestow upon him the titles “oaf”, “simpleton” and, for good measure and after a moment’s thought, “arsehole”. I would have mentioned it to you earlier if it weren’t for the fact that they were actually both smiling at the time.’

  Dubnus swallowed his last mouthful of stew and licked the spoon clean.

  ‘Qadir’s boys like having big men around, it reminds them of their husbands.’

  The Hamian nodded from his side of the fire.

  ‘This is true. And your men are appreciative of having an extra pair of hands for when the counting progresses past ten.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Scaurus stood, handing his bowl to Arminius. ‘So we’ve all learned to get along, our practice exercises have made us all very good at walking through the forest without making much more sound then a charging boar, and we’re very nearly at our destination. For once I feel a small degree of optimism with regard to our chances of actually surviving the next few days.’

  He walked away, and Arminius found himself the object of several pointed stares. Opening his hands with a frown he barked a question at the centurions.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This crescent thing …’ Dubnus stood, stepping closer to the German. ‘If anybody knows, you’l
l know. So tell me, just between you and me, eh? What the fuck is it supposed to be?’

  The German laughed tersely.

  ‘I discover information, Dubnus, when my master chooses to discuss that information in front of me, and at no other time. And on the subject of this particular exercise he has remained stubbornly silent. From which I deduce that he does not wish me, and therefore you, to know what it is he has in mind. And now, if you’ll excuse me …’

  He walked away to the stream close to which the detachment was camped, leaving Dubnus and Qadir looking at each other none the wiser. Cotta shifted his position, adjusting the lie of his back against the tree he was sitting against.

  ‘Isn’t it time you blew that blasted horn, Dubnus? How’s anyone going to know they should be rolled up in their blanket without you waking up that half of the camp that’s already asleep?

  The Briton nodded.

  ‘A good reminder Cotta, thank you.’ He walked away to the tent he shared with Marcus and Varus, ducking back out with a bull’s horn in one hand. ‘You’ll thank me one day, when we’re scattered in some gloomy German forest and this sound is all we have to bring us back together, blown by lungs that have been trained to the peak of perfection.’

  He put the horn to his lips, dragged in a lungful of air and then blew with all his strength. A mournful note blared out across the landscape, eliciting the customary barrage of abuse from those of the detachment’s men who had already been asleep or dozing, while those who had worked the centurion’s night-time routine in with their own promptly turned over and closed their eyes. After a moment a plaintive voice shouted out into the night, disguised by the adoption of a higher pitch than the speaker usually spoke with.

  ‘Centurion?’

  Dubnus smiled to himself, putting his hands on his hips and calling out a reply.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you know who this is?’

  Shaking his head in amusement the Briton nodded.

  ‘Yes, Sanga, I know who it is.’

  Silence fell for a moment, broken only by the titters of the men around Sanga and his own bitter profanity.

  ‘In that case … well blown sir!’

  ‘Fuck you too, Sanga. Now get some sleep. You’ll need to be up bright and early if you’re going to get that latrine filled in before breakfast.’

  ‘There it is, the river Rhenus.’

  The road had reached the top of a long, shallow climb, opening up a vista that the Tungrians had ridden a thousand miles to see. They stared down at the river’s silver ribbon as it snaked through the countryside below them, Cotta nodding appreciatively as his gaze tracked the Rhenus from the southern horizon to the point at which it vanished from view to the north.

  ‘Now that’s a river.’

  Lugos shook his head, his voice a bass growl.

  ‘I sail Euphrates. That a river.’

  Cotta grinned at him.

  ‘That may be so, Lugos my friend, but I seem to recall that while you were sailing on that mighty river you got an arrow in your leg, and another soon after just to make sure you never forgot the first one! Seems to me like maybe rivers aren’t your best means of travel!’

  Scaurus pointed to a ship that was crawling slowly upstream to the south.

  ‘It might not be as wide as the Euphrates, but it’s certainly wide enough to act as a natural frontier for the empire in combination with the river fleet. That ship will almost certainly have sailed from the fleet base south of Claudius’s Colony, which is where we’re heading.’ He spurred his beast to walk on. ‘Come, gentlemen, I have no desire to approach a frontier city after dark, whether in times of peace or not. It would only take one jumpy centurion and a lucky bolt-thrower shot to ruin a man’s entire day.’

  The guard centurion commanding the city’s southern gate snapped off a crisp salute to Scaurus as soon as the tribune had identified himself, calling for one of the twin doorways that controlled entrance to the legion’s base to be opened. He was immaculately dressed, his mail and boots gleaming with the evident application of a great deal of polishing, his beard neatly trimmed, and those of his men who were in evidence were equally smartly turned out.

  ‘You’re expected, Tribune, you and your men. If you follow my chosen man he’ll take you to the bridge fort, and show you where the stables are. Our prefect’s allocated a spare barrack to you, not that space is hard to come by with half the cohort away in Britannia. Oh, and the governor asked to be informed as soon as you arrive sir, so I expect you’ll be receiving an invitation to his residence once you’ve had time to bathe and put on your best uniform.’

  Scaurus nodded with a faint smile.

  ‘He’s keen on appearances, the governor?’

  The centurion nodded briskly.

  ‘Exceptionally keen, Tribune.’

  He looked as if there was more he might have ventured, but chose instead to indicate his second in command, waiting for the Tungrians by the twin gateways.

  ‘Festus will take you to your barrack, and show you where to draw rations for yourselves and the horses.’

  He watched as the Tungrians marched away, clicking his fingers to summon his runner.

  ‘Give my regards to Decurion Dolfus, and tell him they’re here. You’ll find him at the cavalry barracks. Go!’

  The detachment followed the chosen man down a long wide street, turning right once they were past the open expanse of a large forum and exiting the city by another gate. A wooden bridge stretched out before them, crossing the river’s wide expanse on a series of twenty or so stone pillars, and on the far bank the familiar shape of a cohort-sized fortress dominated the otherwise empty landscape, its walls surrounded by a three-sided moat filled with water from the Rhenus which itself provided the fourth side of its defence. Walking alongside the chosen man, Dubnus looked down the bridge’s length at the forested land on the eastern side of the river, empty apart from the stoutly constructed fort.

  ‘I expected the other bank to be built up, with a city of this size on our side, or at least farmed.’

  The other man shook his head.

  ‘That’s the buffer zone. Tribes ain’t allowed to build there, nor farm. Military land …’

  He fell silent, and the centurion looked about himself in interest as they strode out onto the bridge, watching as a flat-bottomed warship approached the bridge from their left, its sail and oars driving it upstream against the river’s flow.

  ‘How the fuck are they going to get that under this?’

  The chosen man grinned at Sanga’s bemused question.

  ‘Everyone asks that the first time they see a ship go under the bridge.’

  The detachment’s progress slowed to a dawdle as every man stared in unashamed amazement at the oncoming warship, its crew seemingly unconcerned with the impending disaster that loomed ever more likely with every foot the vessel progressed toward the bridge, the sail and mast looming over the heavy structure. Finally, when all hope of avoiding a collision between immovable stone and the warship’s delicate mast seemed lost, the captain barked out a series of commands that saw the billowing sail swiftly furled. Then, less than twenty paces from the bridge, heavy wooden pins were struck from the mast’s base, allowing it to pivot down on a massive metal hinge and lie flat against the deck, lowered into place by sailors straining at heavy ropes to prevent it crashing down.

  ‘Fuck me …’

  The chosen man grinned at Dubnus with the confidence of a man who had seen it all before.

  ‘They do it all the time, going up and down the river, and as far as we can tell they all have some sort of obsession with lowering the mast at the last possible moment. Only a few months ago one of them got it wrong and waited just a moment too long. Took his mast clean off and tore a hole the size of a mule in the ship’s deck. Our trumpeter was on duty, and the first spear told him to sound the retreat as loud as he could.’

  Nodding in recognition of yet another scarcely believable feat, the Briton waved his men on
.

  ‘Get moving! Has none of you ever seen a warship with a collapsible mast before?’

  Crossing the bridge they marched into the fort, finding themselves housed in a barrack of the usual design, a long run of rooms designed to house an eight-man tent party with an officer’s room at one end of the building.

  ‘I suggest we put five men into each room and the officers can share the last two.’ The tribune turned to Arminius and pointed toward the block’s far end.

  ‘We’ll take the centurion’s room. I’ll need you to unpack my bronze and get it polished, make sure my best tunic’s clean and put a shine on my boots that would bring tears to a senior centurion’s eyes. I’m going to sweat the dirt out of my skin, and I’m going to take my officers with me, since these two young gentlemen …’ he indicated Marcus and Varus ‘… will doubtless be included in the governor’s invitation if only to assuage his curiosity. And since we’ll need Dubnus to act as a decoy for all the wretched thieves that breed in all frontier cities, Qadir and Cotta might as well come along too.’

  The German nodded.

  ‘Yes Tribune.’ His eyes narrowed as he spotted Lupus easing back through the Tungrian ranks. ‘No you don’t, boy! Your centurion needs his boots polished, and I’m sure Centurion Varus would appreciate a similar service. Just because you’re a soldier now you’re not getting out of your duties that easily!’

  Qadir hung his tunic on a wooden peg, placing his boots neatly beneath the garment and looking around the empty changing room with an expression that was almost fond.

  ‘A proper military bathhouse. I’ve not seen one of these for a while.’

  Dubnus shot him a dubious glance, eyeing the attendants with suspicion.

  ‘I’ll be happy if I never see one again. Every time I set foot in these bloody places I end up losing something to the light-fingered bastards that run them.’

  ‘Which is why I suggested that we leave everything of value under the watchful eye of your men and walked here with nothing more than our tunics, belts and boots.’