Wounds of Honour: Empire I

by Anthony Riches

  ‘He’s armed!’

  Bracing himself against the saddle’s projecting horns, and clamping his feet to the horse’s flanks, he pulled the beast towards the man on the right, flinching as something flicked past his head with a vicious whirr. The arrow’s passage was close enough for him to feel the wind of its passing. The men to his front spurred their own horses forward, but his burst of speed caught them by surprise, closing the gap before they could manoeuvre to meet him as they might have wished. Punching out with the shield at the man to his left, he felt the jar of a heavy sword blow-hammer his left arm into numbness. His own weapon, the point thrust forward towards the centre of the other horseman’s indistinct mass as they came together, rang with contact on metal. The sword’s hilt moved in his hand as the blade struck something softer. The pain of the wound was enough to make the horseman wheel his mount away with a shout of anger, leaving a gap through which Marcus’s steed burst with its gathered momentum, too swift for the other man to get in a second attack.

  He rode for his life now, crouching low to avoid any more arrows, looking back for any sign of his pursuers in the greyness behind him. A frantic clatter of hoofs behind convinced him to keep the horse at the gallop, angry shouts lending urgency to his efforts. The shield fell from his numb left hand, its layered wood and leather deeply scarred by the sword-blow. Without its protection the blade would almost certainly have taken his arm off.

  The horse was starting to pant heavily with the exertion when a figure appeared out of the dawn’s murk at the roadside. In a second Marcus pivoted his mount to put the new threat on his right-hand side, within his sword’s striking arc. He pulled the blade back for the sweeping cut he’d been taught up on the wooden practice horse in the villa’s sunny courtyard almost a decade before, high above the rooftops and fume of the city.

  ‘Marcus!’

  He allowed the weapon to drop from its slashing path, pulling the panting horse up with a hard pull at the reins.

  ‘Rufius?!’

  He jumped down from the saddle, following the older man’s frantic beckoning to bring the horse into the deeper shadow of a small copse that crept close to the road’s edge. The animal, unimpressed by the events of the previous minutes, baulked at moving into the trees’ threatening gloom. Marcus dug his feet in and pulled, and for a second it looked as if they might succeed in finding cover, but the horse’s resistance had removed the slight time gap between him and his pursuers. The two horsemen who had attempted to block his path before rode out of the darkness, as the two men hesitated between fight and flight into the trees. Marcus grabbed for his saddlebag, releasing the horse’s bridle as his hand gripped the oiled cloth, allowing it to bolt into the darkness. Tossing the bag aside, he dropped into a wide-legged fighting stance with the cavalry sword extended, ready to fight. Rufius stepped to his side, unsheathing his shorter infantry sword and lifting a round gladiator’s shield from the ground where he had let it fall. The horsemen slowed their advance and crowded in closer, leaning out of their saddles with swords held ready to strike down at the two men.

  At the last moment something flew past Marcus’s head, thudding into the nearer man’s chest and pitching him prone on to the dark road. A moment later a spear arced out of the trees, forcing the other rider to twist in his saddle in desperate evasion, his horse hesitating as the trees’ shadow loomed. As the rider wrestled with his mount’s reins a powerful figure stepped swiftly past an amazed Marcus, swinging a heavy sword in a single brutal blow at the animal’s legs. With an awful scream the animal fell to its knees, hurling its rider untidily on to the ground, where the horse’s assailant finished him with an efficient thrust to the throat. Another blow silenced the animal’s agony in a steaming flow of its blood. The silent attacker stepped back into the trees, vanishing wraith-like into their dark shelter.

  The third rider trotted slowly out of the slowly departing night, an arrow ready to loose from his taut bow. The arrow’s point arced slowly across the bloodied scene in search of a target. Marcus shrank back towards the trees, Rufius pulling him into the shield’s inadequate protection, but the archer saw their movement while they were still a good ten feet from the deeper shadows. Straightening in his saddle, he swung the bow to bear on them, bending the bow the last few inches before loosing its arrow. With a berserk howl their rescuer broke from the trees again at a dead run, throwing himself into a forward roll as the mounted archer loosed the arrow at him in a split-second reaction. As the rider’s left hand plucked another arrow from his quiver his attacker rolled out of his dive and sprang forward with his sword, gutting the horse with a single turning thrust. The rider went down under his screaming, dying mount, trapped beneath its dead weight. The massive figure stepped over the dying animal’s trembling neck, lifting his sword for the final kill.

  ‘Dubnus! No!’

  The sword froze in mid-strike, and then withdrew. Tiberius Rufius strode across to the man, slapping him on the back in congratulation.

  ‘Excellent work, man, worthy of celebration by mighty Mars himself! What a sacrifice you have made to him! Marcus, come and renew your acquaintanceship with my good friend Dubnus!’

  Marcus walked across the road to where Rufius and his companion stood over the fallen horse and rider. The other man turned to face him, one hand exploring the muscle of his forearm, and the arrow shaft that protruded from it.

  ‘The Tungrian ... ?’

  ‘Indeed it is. And isn’t he magnificent? I told you that this was a man who knew how to fight, but I had no idea that he would be so good!’

  Marcus looked into the Briton’s eyes, seeing there a wary expression, but one lacking the hostility he’d noted there previously.

  ‘You’re wounded.’

  Dubnus shrugged impassively.

  ‘It didn’t hit anything important, or there’d be more blood.’

  He grasped the arrow and adjusted his big fingers experimentally around its shaft, taking a steadying breath. A swift push tore the arrow’s head, narrow but evilly barbed, through the undamaged skin at the back of his arm, the arrow protruding from both sides of the limb. The Briton growled at the pain, a rivulet of blood snaking down his arm to drip from the spread fingers. With a casual twist of the shaft, the arrow broke into two easily removable halves.

  ‘I wiped ... the point ... with my shit ...’

  All three turned to look at the fallen horseman, panting for breath as the injuries inflicted by his dead horse’s weight tightened their grip on his life. Dubnus laughed at him, pulling a bloody finger across his throat.

  ‘You’re a dead man, I’ve already killed you. I can clean this wound, use herbs and maggots to remove any poison, but your leg is broken. Badly broken, probably bleeding inside. I’ve seen it happen before, takes an hour or so. Perhaps I should help you to die?’

  ‘Fuck you ... blue-nose.’

  His eyes found Marcus, widening with recognition.

  ‘You ... traitor ...’

  Marcus stepped forward, the long cavalry sword still hanging from one hand.

  ‘You were sent to kill me.’

  ‘Would’ve ... been easy ... except for him ... keep looking ... over your shoulder ... no hiding place ... for you.’

  Rufius gently pushed Marcus to one side.

  ‘Dubnus, do what you must to make your wound safe for travel. We have to be away from here in ten minutes, no more. Take him with you.’

  He squatted down next to the trapped horseman.

  ‘I need a few minutes with my friend here ...’

  He waited until the Briton had shepherded Marcus away before slipping an ornately handled dagger from its sheath, and addressing the fallen rider in a quiet conversational tone.

  ‘Yes, we’re old friends all right. I’m the “officer” you were shouting for those blue-noses to kill yesterday on the North Road. And in fact for a long time I was an officer, and a good one too. I spent several very nasty years patrolling the Tava valley, up past the northern wall, befo
re you idlers gave up our hard-won ground and moved back south to old Hadrian’s Wall. One of the things I learnt to do with complete expertise during my time in that forsaken place was to persuade the local tribesmen we captured to tell us the things they didn’t want to tell us. And now, before you die, I’m going to share that skill with you. So, where shall we begin ... ?’

  Dubnus dropped a heavy hand on Marcus’s shoulder, pulling him farther away from the scene.

  ‘You don’t want to see that. Stay here and watch my pack.’

  He drew his sword and walked to the closest of the fallen horses, pausing to wrest his throwing axe from the chest of his first victim before turning to the man’s horse. Practical necessity overrode any qualms he might have felt about either the man’s death or the use he was about to make of the dead horse. From the moment he’d agreed to do what the former officer had asked of him he’d been working out how to make good their escape, once the Roman was safe from the threat of murder. The veteran officer had disturbed his sleep earlier that night with the request, one that had made him laugh out loud with its audacity once his irritation at being awakened before the dawn call had worn off.

  He’d stopped laughing when a bag full of gold had landed on the bed in front of him. The former officer, it seemed, was determined to have his help, and was willing to pay handsomely. It was enough money, Tiberius Rufius had told him, to buy every man in his cohort a decent coat of mail. He’d stopped laughing all right, but the look on his face had made it clear enough to the veteran centurion that he wasn’t going to pick the money up from where it had landed, at least not without a good reason. Which Rufius had proceeded, with a half-smile that signalled how well he understood the Briton, to matter-of-factly provide.

  His task complete, Dubnus returned to find Marcus waiting where he had left him. He stuffed the carefully wrapped bundle into his pack and then led the way deeper into the copse, searching in the half-light until he found what he was looking for. The plant glistened in the grey light.

  ‘Woundwort. Good.’

  He ripped a handful of the plant away from its stem, squeezing it hard in a straining fist until a milky fluid dribbled from between his fingers on to the arrow punctures, then reached into his pack, hidden at the foot of a tree, for a strip of cloth.

  ‘The juice will help to stop the bleeding. Help me to tie it.’

  Dubnus wound the cloth around his bulky forearm and allowed Marcus to knot it. A slow red stain seeped through the layers.

  ‘Tighter ... good.’

  A shrill scream made Marcus start. The soldier shrugged, regarding the temporary bandage with a professional scrutiny from beneath his heavy eyebrows, a slight smile crossing his face.

  ‘He’ll talk soon, that German. It’s inevitable. Our friend Rufius will offer him either a quick death or a slow one. Any man that runs from a fight before it is lost will take the easy way out when there’s a knife probing the root of his cock.’

  A flush of anger ripped through Marcus’s body, part reaction, part frustration at the uncontrolled spiral of events, and part hot burning disgust at what Rufius was doing to the fallen rider. Spinning, he thrust his face into the soldier’s, snarling his anger into its indifference.

  ‘Why did you come here? Why save me? You hate Romans!’

  ‘You’re an outlaw now. The German called you a traitor. You’re not one of them any more.’

  The simple reversal of judgement infuriated Marcus, as much for the smug simplicity of its verdict as its perpetuation of the injustice done to his family.

  ‘I am not a traitor!’

  Dubnus pointed into the darkness, to where the screams had sounded.

  ‘German or not, he’s a Roman. A cavalryman. One of their elite. Why was he hunting you? He must think you are a traitor.’

  The Briton watched Marcus as he frowned at the simple verdict, attempting to gauge the man’s mettle, whether he would stand up to the rigours of the coming days. He’d wondered whether the Roman would even be able to make effective use of the weapons they’d hidden for him by the roadside, after they had slipped out of the fort through a hidden door concealed in the wall. The thick oak door had answered the first of his objections, as to how they were going to get out of the fortress without word getting back to Titus. It was faced in stone to match the walls around it, with heavy stone slabs inside the wall poised ready to fall and block the tiny entry if small wedges restraining them were knocked away. He would never have known it was there if he hadn’t been guided to its precise location.

  ‘It’s designed to allow troops to get out and attack besiegers, or messengers to leave in secret,’ Tiberius Rufius had told him as they forded the river between the fortress and its town on carefully placed stepping stones that lay beneath the river’s slow-moving surface. ‘But it’s a good thing it hasn’t rained hard for a week or so, or the river would be trying a lot harder to pull us off this little bridge.’

  They had skirted the town and headed down the road to the two-mile marker, while he hefted his spear and thought darkly about what he was going to do to the German cavalryman if he got the chance. Tiberius Rufius had made the connection for him, pointing out that the man shouting orders to kill him over the din of their little battle could not have been a tribesman with an accent like that. It had been all the bait needed to get the big Briton off his bed and into his mail coat, intended murder in his heart, revenge for the man he’d lost the previous day.

  In the event, seeing the Asturian decurion trapped beneath his horse had put out the fire of his bloodlust in an instant. Knowing that the man was doomed to die in agony, his leg shattered under the horse’s massive dead weight, had been enough for him. He had still smiled to himself when the screaming started, though. A man made his choice and lived with the outcome.

  Tiberius Rufius appeared out of the dawn’s murk, wiping his dagger with a tuft of grass pulled from the roadside.

  ‘Well, at least that was easier than it might have been. We must leave this place, and quickly. Dubnus, we need to make good speed, but be well away from the road before the first patrols get this far. Lead us, if you will.’

  The Briton nodded, turning away towards the indistinct hillside above them and picking up his pack pole and spears.

  ‘Come.’

  For a wounded man he made good time, grinding across the hard winter ground at a pace that had Marcus breathless inside ten minutes, their path climbing steadily up and away from the road. He glanced back at Rufius, bringing up the rear with an alert eye to all sides, to find that he was striding out without any sign of trouble. Returning his energy to putting one boot in front of the other time after time after time, he concentrated on the Briton’s muscular back. Weeks of travel, by sea and on horseback, had done little to help his fitness. After about fifteen minutes of increasing physical torture Dubnus stepped off the line of their march, leading them into the shade of a small huddle of trees. A patch of scorched earth in the middle of the tiny grove showed where a fire had burned quite recently. Dawn had come and gone, and the first glint of sun was edging the horizon. Below them the road was still, trees along its verges casting stripes of dark shadow across the landscape. The Briton gestured down towards the road.

  ‘This is a good place to camp, the fire shows as much. A moving man is easily seen from here in the dusk or dawn, his shadow will stretch across the land. It is a good defence for us, but will make us vulnerable if we move any farther until the sun gets higher. We’ll have to wait here until the sun clears the horizon.’

  Marcus stood with his head back, sucking in the cold morning air with his eyes closed. Somewhere in the gloom a crow cawed hoarsely, echoing his mood. Dubnus prodded him in the stomach.

  ‘You’re soft. A soldier has to march all day, then dig out a camp before eating or sleeping.’

  Marcus opened his eyes and grimaced in return, looking up at the Briton’s relaxed posture. Only the slight rise of steam from his skin in the half-light gave any hint of his
recent exertion.

  ‘I am a soldier ... I’ve just been without real exercise for too long.’

  Rufius raised a sympathetic smile, almost hidden in the dawn’s meagre light.

  ‘If it helps, my legs ache too. It’s been too long since I had to cover country at that pace, but Dubnus has got us away safely, and that’s what counts. Now, let’s talk, you and I. Dubnus, do me a favour and keep watch.’

  The Briton took the hint, moving quietly away to the edge of the small copse to watch the road below their hiding place. Tiberius Rufius took Marcus by the arm, pulling him down into a conspiratorial squat. The Roman huddled into his cloak, shivering as the sweat cooled on his body.

  ‘You met with the legatus, I presume?’

  Marcus snorted, his lip curling.

  ‘The legatus? Yes, he had me thrown to those wolves.’

  Tiberius Rufius nodded his head.

  ‘Indeed he did, and he no choice in doing so. Calidius Sollemnis did no more than he had to in order to be sure that he looked the model servant of Rome. In all truth it was his tribune Perennis who set the Asturians on you, the same way that he ordered the attack on us yesterday. I would have been sure of that even if our deceased Asturian friend back down there hadn’t just confirmed it. Forget the carefully posed interview, consider what else has happened in the last few hours. The legatus had a trusted centurion pick you up from the inn and stay with you all the way to the gate. Without that safeguard it’s likely that you would have been conveniently knifed before getting anywhere near your horse. Sollemnis also had me leave you the weapons that saved you from the Asturians, and wait for you down the road at a place where we might escape into the forest and evade pursuit. He knows what Perennis is capable of, and he took every step possible to fend off the man’s efforts to have you killed.’