The Leopard sword e-4

by Anthony Riches

  Tribune Belletor, who had walked up to the group while the first spear had delivered Scaurus’s orders, stepped forward with a serious look on his face as the centurions dispersed back to their men.

  ‘Colleague, I fear my horse has gone lame.’

  Scaurus nodded, his expression unreadable in the twilight.

  ‘As I thought it might. It’s been favouring one foot for most of the day.’

  Frontinius realised that Belletor’s voice lacked its usual bombast, and folded his arms in expectation of what was coming.

  ‘So I’m clearly going to have to walk. Perhaps you could reduce the pace a little? I doubt I’ll be able to…’

  Scaurus shook his head, reinforcing the almost invisible gesture with an extravagant sweep of his hand.

  ‘Absolutely not. You’ve got men depending on us to push through the pain and come to their rescue before it’s too late, and I’ll not be jeopardising their chances because you’ve neglected your own physical conditioning. Keep up for as long as you can, and if you have to drop out keep a tent party with you for safety, but don’t expect the column to stop.’ He turned away from the glowering Belletor and beckoned Frontinius closer, waving his thanks as a soldier with a newly lit torch stepped near to illuminate their discussion.

  ‘Time to be on our way, First Spear. I wish you good fortune in the battle to come. Perhaps this time you might stay behind the line of your men? You know as well as I do just how confused a fight can get at night, and I’d hate to lose you to one of their spears, much less one of our own.’

  Frontinius chuckled dourly.

  ‘I’ll stay close to you, Tribune, but for exactly the same reason. Someone has to make sure none of these idiots puts his iron through you by mistake.’

  The two men clasped arms, nodding at each other in recognition of the risk they were about to take in throwing their men into the confusion of a night battle. Frontinius turned away and tapped his trumpeter on the arm.

  ‘Sound the advance! Let’s go and see just how good Obduro’s Treveri are in the dark.’

  ‘First Spear!’

  Sergius ran up the steps onto the grain store’s wall in response to the summons, staring out onto darkened ground between store and city. Barely a hundred men were left of the original cohort strength that had been at Obduro’s back as he’d confronted the defenders moments before, their ranks illuminated by torches.

  ‘Where are the rest of them?’

  ‘That’s why I called you, sir! The rest of them have split to either side of the store.’

  The first spear turned back to the men waiting behind the wall with lit torches, and barked an urgent command.

  ‘They’re going to come over the rooftops. Get ready to kill them as they hit the ground!’ The legionaries and soldiers spread out, their spears held ready to strike, but after a few moments’ wait it became apparent that the expected threat wasn’t materialising. Sergius stalked across the store’s empty interior, waving both his own chosen man and Julius’s to him. Julius, who had been sitting on the ground outside Felicia’s improvised surgery with his wounded leg stretched out straight, climbed awkwardly to his feet and hobbled across to join them, using a spear shaft as a makeshift support for the weakened limb. He grimaced at Sergius, who nodded his head to recognise their shared understanding.

  ‘Smart boys. They know we’re waiting for them so they’re going to hack their way into one of the granaries and then fight their way out as a group. Get your lads to listen quietly and you’ll soon find out where they’re working at the walls.’

  The soldiers spread out throughout the store, opening the individual granary doors and listening for any sign that the bandits were attempting to dig their way through the thick brick walls. A man standing outside a granary on the store’s western side waved his torch up and down to attract the officers’ attention, and Sergius ran across to the spot, followed by his hobbling Tungrian colleague. The sound of men hacking at the granary’s exterior brickwork was clear enough with the wide wooden doors unbarred and opened, and the two centurions exchanged a significant glance. Sergius gestured a tent party men forward, pointing into the store.

  ‘As we discussed it, get your shoes and belt order off, and get in there. And remember, the second they put a hole in the wall you get out and make sure you leave the doors open. After that all you’ve got to do is run for your lives…’

  ‘It seems we’ve lost your colleague already, Tribune.’

  Scaurus turned his head to look back down the column’s length, following the first spear’s pointing hand to see a small cluster of torches falling behind the last legion century. He laughed bitterly through the pain of the stitch that was torturing his stomach, his face contorted by the stabbing pain.

  ‘I’ve a fair idea how he’s feeling.’

  Frontinius patted his labouring tribune on the shoulder.

  ‘You’ll get through it. And you have to; they’re all watching you

  …’

  A voice from behind them spoke over the din of the soldiers’ hobnailed boots rapping on the road’s rough surface.

  ‘Which side of your body hurts, sir?’

  Scaurus looked back at the men following him, finding in their faces the same agony he was enduring. In the wavering torchlight he saw that one of them, a twenty-year veteran from the look of him, had his eyebrows raised in question.

  ‘It’s in my right side.’

  Even the words hurt, and for a moment he found himself wrestling with the thought of falling out of the line of march, the prospect of blessed relief from the pain mixed with the certainty that the column would disintegrate into chaos were he to stop marching. The hard-faced veteran smiled encouragingly at him, nodding his head vigorously, and while the tribune knew that his first spear would be poised to intervene, and tell the soldier to mind his own business, Frontinius was clearly holding back his instinctive retort.

  ‘I gets the same thing every time we marches this quick! If you breathe out hard as your left boot hits the road it’ll go away soon enough.’

  Scaurus nodded at the soldier, consciously exhaling as instructed, and after a hundred paces he found the nagging pain was starting to diminish, only slightly at first, but then more swiftly, as the soldier’s trick took greater effect. Able to speak without agony again he turned to Frontinius with a growing sense of relief that the overwhelming urge to stop marching had passed.

  ‘I don’t know what difference it makes, but that man’s trick seems to have worked.’

  The first spear pointed forward into the darkness beyond the small circle of illumination cast by the column’s torches. As they crested a shallow ridge the city had come into view, still two miles distant but clear enough through the clear night air; the watch fires burning on its high walls were flickering pinpricks of light. Beneath the walls a cluster of lights were gathered around the spot where he estimated the grain store must stand, and the tribune’s mouth tightened as he realised the depth of Obduro’s ambition.

  ‘You were right, First Spear. I can only curse myself for throwing the entire force west to chase shadows while leaving the city unprotected.’

  Frontinius grunted, his attention fixed on the scene before them.

  ‘Not entirely undefended, Tribune. We’ll have to hope that Sergius and Julius can give a good account of themselves.’

  Tornach pulled the last of the three climbers over the city wall’s parapet, then led them down the stone stairs that took them to the city’s west gate. Mounting the steps built on either side of the gate, two men on each side, they lifted the higher of the two weighty bracing bars that prevented the heavy doors from opening, dropping the wooden beam to the ground before repeating the action with the other. Dragging the beams away from the gateway they heaved the doors open, then stepped back to allow their leader to enter the city. Walking slowly into the city at the head of half a dozen men, Obduro stared about him with evident satisfaction.

  ‘Close the gate!’ He wa
ited while the bracing bars were dropped back into place, securing the entrance and isolating the city from any external aid. ‘And so I return. If only I had the time I could make this excrescence of a city into a name that would echo down the ages for the terror of my revenge.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘The horror that we could visit upon this place, given a day and a night in which to celebrate our worship of the goddess. The streets would run with the blood of these unbelievers.’ Reaching for the cavalry helmet, he pulled it down onto his head and lowered the face mask. ‘No matter. While the inhabitants of this cesspit cower in their houses we have business to conduct. Let’s see just how pleased our colleague Albanus is to be liberated from his captivity, shall we?’ He turned and spoke quietly to Tornach while his deputy stared into the face mask’s impassivity. ‘And you, my brother, you have excelled in your actions, sending that fool Scaurus away on a fruitless chase to the west and opening the city for our entry. The time is coming when we’ll have no more need for deception and deceit, when we can openly rule the forest in the goddess’s name, but I need one more thing from you. Go and prepare our exit from the city while I gather the prize that will set us free from this empire and its restrictions.’

  Marcus and Arabus stood together a mile from the city, watching the lights swarming around the grain store from the vantage point where the Roman had watched for Qadir’s signal earlier that day. Their ride from the bandit fortress had been uneventful, and the duty centurion at Mosa Ford had allowed them across the bridge once Marcus’s identity had been proven, albeit with looks of undisguised enmity at the tracker sitting behind the centurion.

  ‘You want to watch that one; he’ll slit your throat and-’

  Marcus had overridden his warning with an uncharacteristic lack of patience.

  ‘I’ve no time to bandy words with you, Centurion. There are hundreds of bandits attacking Tungrorum and my place is there, not listening to your prejudices, no matter how well founded they might be. And you might want to consider the sturdiness of your gate, and your men. This is their most likely escape route back into the forest, I’d say.’

  Night had fallen by the time they had reached the spot from which they were now watching the attack on the city, and all that Marcus could see were the bandits’ torches clustered around the grain store.

  ‘Just as he planned it. A diversionary attack to keep the defenders pinned down, and with the possibility of capturing enough grain to keep them fed for months, while Obduro himself attends to the main business of the night. All of the gates will be shut and barred, and whichever way he gets in isn’t going to stay open once he’s inside. We’ll just have to hope that the only other way in is still open.’

  ‘That’s close enough.’

  Sergius put a hand on the arm of the soldier standing next to him, restraining the man’s urge to move nearer to see what was happening inside the granary. Dimly lit by the flickering light of the soldier’s torch, the men inside were working frantically, half of them slitting the grain bags and upending them onto the stone floor in streams of golden corn, while others threw handfuls of the grain up into the air. The enclosed space was already thick with a fog of choking dust, and the soldiers were starting to labour at their task, slowing down as exertion and the effect on their lungs began to tell in fits of violent coughing, despite the scarves tied across their mouths.

  ‘Is that sufficient, do you think?’

  Julius stared hard at the scene for a moment.

  ‘Send fresh men in. We need to get as much dust into the air as we can if this is going to work.’

  The work party staggered out into the fresh air at Sergius’s command. They were wraithlike figures, their skin and clothing coated in white dust and their bodies wracked by heaving coughs. The first spear ordered another tent party into the store, and had the stricken soldiers dragged clear. One of them got to his feet and addressed his centurion, his voice a wheezing whisper.

  ‘Won’t be long… First Spear… I could hear… their voices… through what’s left… of the wall.’

  Sergius patted him on the shoulder and turned back to the soldier who was waiting behind him with a spear gripped in one hand, a rag tied about its iron head.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  The legionary nodded, bracing his massive body at his centurion’s question.

  ‘Yes, First Spear, the legionary is ready as instructed!’

  Sergius smiled wryly back at him.

  ‘Good. Now relax. You’re the best man in the century with a thrown spear. You know it, your fellow soldiers know it, and, most importantly, I’m convinced of it. All I need from you is one very simple thing, something I’ve seen you do a thousand times in weapons drill. I need you to put your spear through the doorway of that granary, clean through it and into the building, mind you. If you can do that for me I’ll make you an immune, and you’ll never have to clean out the latrines again. Does that sound good to you?’

  The young legionary nodded eagerly, but his face clouded with a question.

  ‘What if I miss?’

  Sergius shook his head with a grim smile.

  ‘Not likely! I’ve not seen you miss a man-sized target at twenty paces in all the months we’ve been practising with the thrown spear, so once the enemy are inside that granary all you have to do is pick one of them and put your spear into him. Julius’s fire water will do the rest. Speaking of which, I think it’s time to ready the spear.’

  Julius’s chosen man stepped forward with the jar of naphtha, liberally soaking the spear’s rag adornment with the pungent fluid. The young legionary held it away from his body, wiping a tear from his eyes as the naphtha’s acrid fumes evaporated into the night air. A shout from the men in the granary caught their attention, and a moment later the labouring legionaries erupted through the door, two of them dragging one of their fellow soldiers between them.

  ‘They’ve broken through the wall!’

  Julius took the torch from the man next to him.

  ‘Hold out the spear!’

  He waited for the legionary to level his weapon, then played the torch’s flame delicately at the rag’s trailing edge. In an instant the wool was burning fiercely, and the big legionary eyed it warily, his confidence draining away at the thought of actually throwing the fire weapon. Sergius slapped him on the shoulder and barked an order.

  ‘ Ready spears! ’

  The ingrained routine of a thousand training sessions took over, and the spearman braced himself to throw, placing his left foot forward and pulling the weapon back until the blazing rag was within inches of his face.

  ‘ Throw! ’

  He lunged forward one big pace, slinging the spear at the granary’s doorway just as a bandit appeared out of the thick dust to stand in the opening, his sword held ready to fight. The spear spitted him straight through, and the rag’s flame was extinguished in an instant as it plunged through the hapless man’s body. Screaming in agony at the pain of his wound he staggered back into the granary, leaving the defenders staring in horror at the failure of their plan. Behind the dying man the hole through which the bandits were pouring into the granary suddenly flared with light, as a man with a blazing torch stepped up to the breach, the brand’s fiery light turning the grain dust into a red fog. Ducking into the cover of his shield Sergius bellowed a command at his uncomprehending legionaries.

  ‘ Shields! Get behind your shields! ’

  10

  ‘Well met, Procurator. I’ll wager you hadn’t expected to see me again.’ Wiping the dappled blade of his sword free of the blood of the lone city guard who had been set to ensure that the disgraced procurator didn’t attempt to escape, Obduro stepped into Albanus’s house with an appreciative whistle. ‘I have to say that you’re clearly a man who knows how to live, Albanus. Look at all this…’ He waved a hand at the furnishings. ‘Opulence, that’s the only word for it.’ He put a hand to the helmet’s face mask and lifted it away. ‘It’s a horrible thing to wear for any length of
time, you know, but it does make such an excellent disguise. All that time we were doing business and you never had a clue how I was getting into the city past the guards and the prefect’s men. And now you know!’

  He grinned at the look on the procurator’s face, and Albanus spluttered his amazement.

  ‘But you’re…’

  Albanus stepped back against the wall, his face suddenly white with fear, and the bandit leader’s grin broadened.

  ‘Just worked it out, have you? That if I’ve shown you my face then I’m not likely to let you live? Clever boy, Albanus, even if you are somewhat late in reaching the conclusion. I know that Scaurus took your share of the profits from our little venture, although I expect that my man Petrus will have recovered it by now.’

  Julius’s shouted command snapped the watching soldiers out of their momentary dismay, and Sergius crouched into the cover of the shield he’d borrowed from his chosen man, snatching one last glance into the granary as the torchbearer stepped through the roughly hewn hole and into the cloud of dust. With a roaring explosion that made the watching soldiers stagger back a pace, the burning dust tore the solidly built granary to pieces like the hand of a vengeful god, sending a fireball into the night air that lit up the grain store’s compound like a momentary flash of daylight. Something hit Sergius’s shield hard, cracking the layered wooden board, and the spear thrower crouching next to him was smashed aside by a flying brick. When the first spear turned round to look at the man he realised that his soldier was already dead, his head bashed in by the massive impact. For a moment the senior centurion was as stunned as the men around him, and he stared out at a scene of devastation that was hard to comprehend. Where the granary had stood there remained only a gaping wound in the otherwise uninterrupted run of brickwork, and the ground around him was littered with bricks, roof tiles and the corpses of several of his men who had been too slow in taking shelter. Shaking his head to clear it, Sergius drew his sword and pointed it at the gaping hole in the row of granaries, but the command for his men to storm the shattered granary died in his throat at the sight of a thirty-foot-high column of fire raging out of the ruin.