The Red Serpent

by Robert Low

  ‘Like I said, Dog. Don’t test me.’

  Dog got up, snatched his helmet and shook the grit out of it, then put it back on. By that time he had found a grin as well.

  ‘The temple will be there when we find it,’ he said.

  Two days later, they still hadn’t found it, and Manius had loped back in from their back trail to announce that he had seen riders. Kag flung up his hands.

  ‘Don’t these fucks give up?’

  ‘It is the blue-stone people all over again,’ Ugo growled, then looked at Dog. ‘Tell me this temple has nothing to do with blue stones or fire-starers, Dog.’

  ‘All I know of it,’ Dog answered, ‘is that it has a door on this side and a door on the other side.’

  All I know is, Drust thought wearily, that there is no sign of as much as a single stone of it.

  * * *

  Drust lay in the dust and peered through the scrub. It was the last hillock on the flat before the trail wound down behind him to the gorge and the wooden bridge that crossed it; the hill was no more than a nub beaten down by the wind and the hissing scythes of dust.

  There were grander cousins soaring all round, their flanks treacherous with scree and seemingly the bones of the world, stripped down to the colour of old cream – yet, between them, a tumble of eager water spilled and danced. This was a blasted place and now Drust knew why it was called the Land of No Return.

  The river had come from the north, down from the White Tiger, then turned west and scoured a way across their path. It was a good arrow-shot wide and deep enough to hide a Subura tenement, the steep slopes dazzling with a green that hid the ankle-breaking rocks and crevices. Kisa said it went on west to spill out onto the plain at the foot of the Wall, where engineers had made a ditch of it, all the way to the Hyrcanian Ocean.

  The same engineers, he said – the Divine Iskandr’s men, perhaps – had made the fortress here, which was now no more than a litter of broken walls that had guarded a stone bridge, long since tumbled into the gorge.

  There was a wooden one now, an affair of crude, twisted beams and split planks that didn’t look much younger. It was the only way to cross the river without travelling east and then north to where it was more easily fordable – or there was another bridge.

  They had staggered up the trail and over the bridge, driven by the promise that this was the last best hope of fighting off their pursuers; the hard pull of it had all but ended Stercorinus – Mule and Mouse had to take an arm each and haul him. Praeclarum did the same for the Empress and had tethered her to one wrist to lead her like a goat. At the last, the Empress had lost her strength and Ugo carried her. On the far side of the bridge, they took time to hang their heads and pant, take in water, sort out weapons.

  And cut the bridge – Drust screwed his head round to where the rhythmic thud of the axe bounced. He did not like the idea of big Ugo making a mistake and cutting through the last of the supports before he and Mule got back across.

  Mule squinted and muttered quietly in his ear. ‘A hundred. More, perhaps.’

  Drust cursed. They were all better served with weapons and armour than they’d ever been – even decent robes and boots – but none of that would help them against a hundred Persian horsemen, all bows and longswords and, no doubt, orders that would get them flayed if they came back empty-handed.

  A hundred men, Drust thought. More, perhaps – someone really wants us dead as much as they want the Empress. It will be for making that fortress burn as much as for the Empress fastened to Praeclarum. He wondered who would pay more – and ruthlessly quelled that thought. Handing her to the new Persians of Ardashir, King of Kings, would mean they’d never be able to go home.

  ‘Time,’ Mule said suddenly, and Drust jerked away from thinking, slithered backwards below the crest until he could stand, then levered himself up. Muscles screamed and he even felt the catch of pain in his ribs from where the legionary had slapped him in the harena at Dura. So long ago, he thought, that it seems almost a dream. A flash of lightning in a summer cloud; a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream, he thought, and remembered Bashto.

  They trotted back across the bridge, doubled-up awkwardly on the camel Mule called Blessed and would not give up. The bridge seemed disappointingly solid and Drust said as much to Ugo when he slid off the camel’s back.

  The big German could not answer for trying to breathe and was thumbing the edge of his axe mournfully. ‘This business will ruin the edge,’ he muttered.

  ‘It has to have an edge to be ruined,’ Kag answered, and Mouse offered to take over, but Ugo would not place the weapon in any hands but his own.

  Everyone had something to do, with steel or leather. Stercorinus sat on a stone with his battered sword across his knees. He was covered in dust like everyone else, but that did not account for all the grey in his face – nor all the grim, Drust thought.

  Ugo honed the edge of his long axe with a whetstone the length of his finger and fastened round his neck like an amulet; there was little of it left. Then he rolled his neck muscles and struck chips from the wood, squinted at the cut like a bird with a snail; Drust wanted to tell him to hurry, that they were close, but the tension was braided enough.

  Manius and Quintus had bows and a double handful of shafts culled from the dead at Iron Blade. Quintus had not shot in a long time and Kag was curious to see if he still could – no one doubted the skill of Manius, and yet again Drust watched the lean mavro from the deep desert of Numidia and wondered if he had shot Sib.

  Kag and Praeclarum offered sharp comments and nudging laughs which the two bowmen ignored; it was all whistling at fear, after all, and even the blind Empress sensed it, gibing against her tether and whimpering like a kitten.

  ‘Can we hurry this?’ Drust demanded, finally fretted too far and hearing Ugo stop yet again.

  Ugo did not speak, just wiped the sweat from his face, took out the whetstone and grated it down the edge.

  ‘Has to be just right and no more,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Just cut the last timbers and go,’ Praeclarum persisted. ‘Or are we fighting and dying here?’

  ‘They will go east and maybe even have to go north a way,’ Dog answered gently. ‘Those horses are not the bow-nosed little ponies from the Grass Sea – they are heavy horses for iron men and so it will take them time. Yet, if we let them, they will be back hagging us in a day, perhaps two.’

  ‘You know of another crossing then?’ Kisa asked querulously.

  ‘This river will grow narrower and scour less deep the further east and north you go. Eventually these Persians will find a place that will not risk too many hooves.’

  ‘We will not hold the bridge long,’ Kisa pointed, desperate with apprehension now, ‘with two bows. They will stand back and shoot us to ruin, then ride down those who are left.’

  Manius waved his curved bow and grinned darkly. ‘They have to ride across the bridge to get to us – and it is a long shot to send an arrow from there to here with any accuracy. I look forward to seeing who can do it.’

  Mouse patted the little Jew soothingly. ‘Stand behind me, if you like. Is there anything left to eat?’

  ‘It is a madness,’ Kisa said pleadingly to Drust. ‘There is no point to everyone dying. How do we snatch riches from that?’

  ‘Matters are said to a man a thousand times a day. If he is not persuaded, then he is blameless.’

  Stercorinus’s voice was a harsh shadow of what it had been and everyone looked at him, knowing this was his moment. He got up with a grunt and Kag clasped him wrist to wrist. As if he was headed off to the next taberna down the street, Drust thought, and watched as Quintus and Mule carefully dressed him in helmet and studs and metal. In the end Stercorinus blew out his cream-pale cheeks and nodded.

  He wore Dog’s fancy helmet, carried a round shield, a solid affair of wood and leather and metal boss, marked with a scarred picture of a winged lion on the outer leather. He wore a ring-coat but the padding for it was a wei
ght too far, so he had left it off. He walked stiffly and the sweat stood on him, while the eyes which rested briefly on Drust were bird-bright with fever.

  Drust moved to him and stuck out his hand, palm down to show the knuckles. One by one they all came; Kisa crept closer, just starting to see what was happening here, but stayed beyond the circle of them.

  ‘Brothers of the Sands,’ Drust said. ‘Forged in a ring.’

  ‘Brothers of the Sands,’ they echoed. ‘Forged in a ring.’

  Everyone growled agreement and Dog flung back his death-face to the blank sky and howled.

  ‘I was born a slave, thrown away as a slave, rescued as a slave and used as a slave,’ Stercorinus said hoarsely. ‘The Temple of Bel made me an executioner for those found guilty of transgressions against the god and most of those were Christians.’

  No one spoke, aware that this was a confession, a prayer, an epitaph. He bowed his head, looked at the curved sword. ‘I killed a lot of Christians, until one day there were too many and my arm failed. I was told to take a hundred of them to Emesa, where the Romans wanted them, so I did, feeling proud to be in charge of men and camels so that I did not feel like a slave. Glad not to be judged for my lack of skill.

  ‘When I got there, I saw the Christians were for the amphitheatre – the morning shows, which you know well. They took them and crucified them, upside down sometimes. A few they set on fire. The children they hung up by the heels so that starved wolves had to leap for their meal.’

  He stopped again. ‘I saw what I was then, a slave who killed slaves. I heard the god and I never returned to the Temple of Bel. I did what I was told and offered myself to the lanista and he agreed, but after three fights he sold me. To you. And you made me free.’

  He looked round them all; no one spoke. ‘You asked me what god spoke to me, telling me where I would die. I do not know. I think it may have been Bel, or the god of the Christians. He told me I would find my death under the eyes of a powerful woman, listening to the call of eagles.’

  He looked round at the high place, then smiled, turned and walked unsteadily off, limping out into the middle of the bridge towards a large pale stone placed there by Manius.

  ‘What is he doing?’ Kisa demanded, as Stercorinus stopped two paces back from the stone – a marker showing the range of archers shooting from the far side of the bridge; Drust hoped Manius had judged it right.

  ‘What is he doing?’ demanded Kisa in a higher pitch and no one bothered to answer him, for it was clear enough and you would think such a clever man would see it.

  He was dying and making the death a good one, like Horatius One-Eye. They waited in a silence broken only by the steady thunk-chunk of Ugo’s axe. When it stopped, the silence was broken once more, by the high, shrill cry of a hunting bird; they all looked up and then at each other while the black crucifix shape hung high up in the clear sky. It might have been an eagle, Drust thought, and his flesh goosed and chilled.

  The riders came up, all dust-shroud and muted jingle, stopping when they saw a lone man in the middle of the bridge and then trotting forward a little, unshipping their little curved bows. Drust did not want to watch but could not look away as Stercorinus set his shield and crouched low behind it.

  ‘We should run,’ Kisa began, and Kag slapped him hard enough to make him jump.

  ‘Quiet. A Brother of the Sand is sixing here.’

  The leading rider moved another few paces and there was a flicker at the edge of Drust’s vision as Quintus nocked, drew and released, all in the one breath. It hit the horse in the neck and sent it squealing and kicking. The rider went flying then hit the ground with a thump and a puff of dust. He did not get up for a long time.

  ‘By the balls of Mars Ultor,’ Kag said with wonder and admiration. One or two of the enemy, straining, shot arrows, but they were at the limit of their range and they plunked harmlessly short, or spiralled into the gorge. A lot of them shot at Stercorinus, but the shafts fell short an arm’s length from the pale stone.

  ‘Well marked, Manius,’ Mouse said, nodding.

  The riders milled, then one rode out and pulled his helmet off; they saw it was Bashto and Mule yelled out to him. Bashto raised one hand.

  ‘There is no need to die here,’ he shouted back, his voice a thin thread on the wind. ‘Give up the woman. Let us discuss surrender.’

  His voice was floated and faint. Drust looked at Manius and nodded, saw the dark smoke of the eyes and the feral gleam of his teeth.

  ‘We do not have the food or water to take you all prisoner,’ he shouted back. ‘And this woman is a citizen of Rome. Go back home and do what you always do – fight each other.’

  Even from a distance Drust could see Bashto’s suffused face.

  ‘These tribes here all hate each other,’ he bellowed. ‘But they say down with the Romans anyhow. Clear out, double quick, they say. And if Ardashir does not make you, his son Shapur will, or whoever comes after that. If it takes fifty times fifty hundred years they shall get rid of you all, all driven out of the desert and beyond. And then, yes, they will get back to fighting each other.’

  ‘Do a Sib on him,’ Drust said viciously and Manius winced at that, just as he shot. The arrow whipped out; Bashto screamed and fell off the horse, which bolted, but men ran to help him up and he rose, holding one cheek.

  Manius turned a slow head, a stare that promised slower death. Drust kept his face in it, but it was like thrusting it too close to a fire.

  ‘I should have asked Quintus,’ he said eventually, and Manius swept the roasting stare away and stalked off.

  ‘Are you trying to make an enemy of him?’ Kag hissed in his ear. Drust wanted to tell him it was too late for all that, but was sure Kag knew it.

  The riders got to the moment of charging, but slowly. First they tried darting runs to shoot arrows, galloping up, releasing a shaft and wheeling round to speed away, but everyone knew that was a trick for lighter men, not ones wearing all that armour and with horses whose fronts were covered in leather leaves and metal studs.

  The first of those who did it, though, took everyone by surprise; released two arrows and then had to rein in and wheel away, unscathed, or plunge on to the bridge itself, where turning would be harder. One arrow hissed past Stercorinus, the second staggered him when it slammed into his shield.

  The second one to attempt it had two arrows in his horse before he had released even one of his own, and Quintus claimed he had hit first; Manius said nothing, just nocked another shaft. It did not matter much since both arrows felled the horse in mid-run, pitching the rider between its ears so that he rolled over and over in a ball of dust before vanishing into the gorge with a despairing shriek.

  ‘Get Stercorinus back,’ Kisa said suddenly. ‘There is no reason for him to die here.’

  ‘Save his god,’ Kag answered.

  ‘He is dead already,’ Drust added gently. ‘The poison-fever is in him, so here he makes a good death and gives some time for others to escape.’

  ‘A warrior in the harena knows this,’ Dog growled. Kisa fell silent, gnawing a knuckle.

  The Empress heard his voice and, like every time he spoke, it drove fear into her so that she started to keen. Drust was sure the noises were growing stronger and that perhaps her throat was beginning to work again. Whether she could order the sounds in her head was another matter.

  He jerked his chin at Praeclarum, who took her tether and moved her away; the others began to move too, slowly, deliberately, shields slung and chivvying Blessed the camel with loud voices.

  The riders saw them move up the trail – as they were supposed to – and there was a moment of dancing dust and argument. Drust turned once and saw Bashto, wearing a spiked helmet with bright blue cloth round it, pointing and yelling, though he could not hear the words.

  He didn’t need to hear what Bashto shouted. What was it Kag had said? A man with a head full of old times, when Persia was great and before Iskandr came to ruin it. That was Bashto’
s truth, right there. Then he realised it hadn’t been Kag who had said it, but Manius.

  The riders obeyed Bashto eagerly, lurching forward, banging one another to be first onto the bridge, which was made to take loaded camels. You could get two of them side by side, if they did not mind their big feet being crushed; horses managed it well enough, even with fat stirrups and metal men on them.

  Quintus ran back, Manius close behind him, both nocking arrows. Out on the bridge, Stercorinus set himself behind his shield.

  An arrow from Manius slammed into a rider and rocked him in the saddle, but his studded leather was too strong for it. Quintus shot a horse in the chest, but the armour there was tough too, though the horse balked and stopped, then reared.

  The rider flew off, hit the railings with a splintering crash and went over with a falling shriek. The horse kicked and screamed, trying to turn, tangled the feet of the one next to it and sent it stumbling into the other side of the bridge. There was a crack and Drust thought the railings had broken completely, but a second arrow took the horse in the muzzle and it simply sank to its knees and trembled, blowing blood and making a thin, high wailing sound. It started to struggle to rise and could not.

  The rider, caught like a fly in a web, panicked and started to scramble off, but Stercorinus moved forward, stepped daintily between the flailing legs of the dying horse and slashed him once, twice, and then split his skull.

  ‘Ho,’ said Kag softly, ‘give that man the palm.’

  ‘The bridge is blocked,’ Kisa screamed, moving backwards and forwards. ‘Stercorinus can escape. He does not have to die here if someone goes and tells him.’

  No one answered and Drust felt Praeclarum’s eyes. The inevitability of it all was like the falling wall in Asaak.

  The riders only paused a moment to hear new, screamed orders, then flung themselves from their mounts. There was a long hundred of them at least, and even when some were left to hold the horses, there were enough to crowd onto the bridge and advance, shields up, long lances now long spears. The commander had ordered the rest of his force to wait, mounted, for Stercorinus to be killed and the horses butchered out of the way.