The Leopard sword e-4

by Anthony Riches

  Albanus’s house trembled, and the sound of a powerful explosion reached the two men through the thick walls. The door opened and one of Obduro’s men put his head round it.

  ‘A mighty flash to the south, my lord, close to the walls!’

  The bandit leader nodded, waving the man back to his post. He turned back to Albanus with a wry smile.

  ‘As I was saying, I expect that Petrus will have reclaimed your share of the fraud from the Tungrians by now, and my next stop will be the collection of that rather large sum of money, less the commission we agreed in advance. After that all that remains for me to do is to retrieve my own share from its hiding place, and the stage will be set for my disappearance into history. Once I’m across the Mosa and into the forest the entire Rhenus garrison won’t be able to find me. I’ll quietly re-emerge somewhere to the south with a few picked men and enough wealth to deal with any difficult questions. You did hide my money as instructed, I hope? Your family in Rome really are most horribly vulnerable to a man possessed of as few scruples as myself.’

  Albanus nodded frantically, putting up his hands in a feeble gesture of self-defence.

  ‘It’s all there, just as you instructed!’

  Obduro nodded his approval, drawing his sword with a loud rasp of metal in the silent house.

  Good. Now, then, let’s get this over with. If you behave yourself I’ll make sure it’s as quick and painless as I can.’

  The former procurator shrank away from him, babbling helplessly at the sight of the sword’s dappled steel.

  ‘There’s really no need for this. I can assure you that I won’t talk! There must be something I have that you want!’

  Obduro lowered the face mask over his features, its emotionless face regarding the trembling Albanus with a pitiless gaze. He spoke again, his voice rendered flat and hollow behind the thick sheet of hammered metal.

  ‘But of course you have something I want. Something only you can give me.’

  ‘Anything, just name it! I’ll give you anything if you-’

  Obduro stepped forward and rammed the point of his sword up into the gabbling procurator’s throat, twisting the blade as he withdrew it to release the stream of gore that flowed down his victim’s tunic. Choking on the blood running down his throat, the dying man sank to his knees, staring up mutely at his murderer.

  ‘And there it is. Your silence, Albanus. That’s all I came for.’

  He turned away, calling to his men as he left the house.

  ‘That rather loud bang sounded like it might have been a problem, if it was what I suspect it was, so I’m advancing our schedule. You, run to the Blue Boar and tell Petrus that I’m coming for the late procurator’s money. Go!’

  Marcus and Arabus looked up at the city’s wall from the banks of the River Worm, and the Roman walked forward to the point where wall and river met. In the moon’s dim light he could see the stark lines of the heavy metal gate that filled the perfectly hemispherical arch through which the river flowed on into Tungrorum. He shook his head at the tracker, pointing at the impassable archway.

  ‘The guard must have closed it when the gates were closed on the tribune’s orders. I can’t see how-’

  A loud clanking noise from the other side of the wall made them both start with surprise, and Marcus flattened himself against the wall, gesturing to the tracker to do the same. Slowly, an inch at a time, the heavy iron gate was being lifted out of the water by whatever mechanism was working on it, until a rattling of chains indicated that whoever had raised it was securing it in place. The two men waited in perfect silence, listening intently as a man’s footsteps padded softly along the footpath that ran alongside the river, halting for a moment as whoever it was stopped to duck under the gate’s iron frame. Marcus eased the eagle-pommelled gladius out of its scabbard in a slow slither of polished iron, careful not to make a sound as the unknown man’s steps drew closer. A figure appeared only a few paces from the crouching Roman, his dark silhouette obscuring the lowest stars in the cloudless night sky as he stepped out of the arch and stopped to look across the empty ground beyond the city’s wall, breathing out a soft, slow sigh of relief. Marcus struck before the exhalation of breath was finished, rising quickly and sweeping the man’s feet out from under him with a swift kick, then pouncing on him as he hit the ground with a painful grunt. For an instant his captive tensed to struggle, but the cold touch of Marcus’s sword at his throat froze him into immobility.

  Arabus stepped out of the wall’s shadow, his face a mask of hatred in the moonlight, and Tornach gaped up at the two men with poorly disguised dismay. Marcus spoke quietly to the tracker, glancing through the river gate.

  ‘Arabus, check inside the gate to see if he brought any friends with him.’ While the tracker padded off reluctantly into the shadows, the Roman looked down at Prefect Caninus’s deputy and shook his head in disgust. ‘Yes, it is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it? You send out a man with orders to kill an interfering outsider, and the next thing you know the pair of them have you at sword point. And you can be grateful that it’s me holding the blade to your throat and not your man there. I showed him your sacrificial altar in the fortress on the hill, and he was quick enough to spot his son’s belt hanging from it. If I leave you to his mercies you’ll last either no more than a few heartbeats or no less than a few thousand, depending on whether he wants to take his revenge quickly or slowly. Either way I’d say you’re not very likely to see the dawn.’ Arabus came out of the shadows, and shook his head. ‘You’re on your own, then, are you, with nobody to come to your aid? Although why you’d be opening such an out-of-the-way exit from the city is a little hard to understand…’ He paused, as if in thought, then nodded knowingly. ‘Unless of course you’re readying an exit for Obduro, a quiet and unwatched way out for a few men carrying heavy boxes, eh? Perhaps your master’s less interested in the grain than he’d have us believe, and more interested in a rather large sum of money that he’s got hidden in the city. The only thing I don’t know is exactly where it’s hidden.’

  He waited in silence, holding the gladius to Tornach’s throat and watching as fear and uncertainty mounted in the other man’s eyes.

  ‘What do you want?’

  He smiled down at his captive.

  ‘What do I want? From you? Nothing at all. I’ve got what I need. I can bring my soldiers here and wait for your master to blunder into our arms. I just thought we’d share a few moments together before I let this embittered man behind me loose on you. After all, you set him to kill me, so the least I can do is enjoy the irony of the fact that it’ll be his knife ending your life, don’t you think?’

  Tornach looked over the Roman’s shoulder at his tracker, quailing at the look in Arabus’s eyes.

  ‘Let me live. Let me live and I’ll give you Obduro, and the gold.’

  Marcus spoke without taking his eyes off the prostrate man.

  ‘How’s that, Arabus? You let Tornach here live, and in return you get a chance for revenge with his master?’

  The tracker thought for a moment, then nodded and reached into his pack, which he’d left in the wall’s shadow. He stepped forward with a length of rope, and bent to wrap it around Tornach’s ankles before speaking gruffly to his former superior.

  ‘Wrists.’

  The bandit shook his head.

  ‘I can’t stay here! Obduro will-’

  A twitch of Marcus’s gladius silenced him.

  ‘Obduro will what? Kill me and then make his escape from the city via this convenient little hole as planned? Find you here, and kill you as the price for your treachery? Quite possibly. So you’d better hope I pull off the apparently impossible feat of defeating him man to man, hadn’t you? Hold up your wrists before I grow bored and save him the trouble of having to kill you!’ Tornach glowered up at him as Arabus tied his wrists together with the rope that was securing his ankles, rendering him utterly helpless. ‘That’s better, now there’s no risk of you overpowering Arabus her
e while the pair of you wait to see who comes through this arch when it’s all done with.’ He reached for the helmet bag and his heavy leather-covered round shield, hefting its weight and looking down at the helpless bandit. ‘And since your immediate safety from his revenge depends on my success, you might want to tell me where he is. The rest I can manage for myself.’

  Tornach grimaced at him with a vindictive smile.

  ‘He was on his way to deal with the procurator, then to collect his share of Albanus’s grain take from Petrus. After that he had only one more stop to make: the place where his share of the fraud is hidden. I’ll tell you where it is, but you’d be better running now, while you have the chance. That shield won’t protect you from his blade.’

  Marcus nodded back down at him, his attention already focused on the city waiting beyond the arch’s dark hole.

  ‘Possibly so. But I might have a thing or two to teach Obduro about deception.’

  ‘Open your door, Petrus, before I’m forced to open it for you!’

  After a moment’s pause a window on the building’s third floor opened, and the gang leader leaned out, addressing the men in the street in almost conversational tones.

  ‘Obduro! I’d bow my respect to you if I were down there with you. I simply marvel at your audacity in walking into the city like a conquering general.’

  The masked man looked up at him, beckoning him down with the fingers of his right hand.

  ‘So come down and make your bow, Petrus, and while you’re at it you can hand over the money I told you to take from the Tungrians.’

  Petrus’s reply was heavy with irony, and he spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘Nothing could have made me happier, Obduro, if only it were possible. Unfortunately word has reached me that the centurion in charge of the gold seems to have decided that it would be safer in the grain store. Your men will very shortly be discovering it for themselves, unless that loud noise we heard just now was bad news for them. And you… So I think I’ll stay up here, if it’s all the same to you. I suspect that my reward for failure might well involve iron, rather than gold.’

  Obduro stood in silence for a moment, absorbing the news Petrus had related, before replying in a voice that was harder than before.

  ‘I could burn you out, Petrus.’

  The gang leader shrugged again.

  ‘Yes, you could. You could send your men to break in and set fire to my establishment, but I give you fair warning that it’s a solid old thing, this brothel, and I’ve added to its security since I bought it, in the event that I might need a bolt-hole if everything went wrong. Getting in might not be as simple as you imagine. And you might want to be aware that my men on the roof tell me they can see torches coming up the road from the west. A lot of torches. So you might want to be about the rest of your business and away, before a vengeful Roman tribune arrives and separates that helmet from the rest of you, with your head still in it. Just a thought.’

  Obduro thought again, then turned away, calling back over his shoulder.

  ‘You’d best sleep with an eye open from now on, Petrus. A man with as much money as I’ll be taking with me can buy a lot of assassins!’

  The gang leader watched him lead his men away, then called back softly into the room behind him to the leader of the heavily built and well-armed enforcers he had gathered to his side once the Tungrians had left the city.

  ‘Quickly, away down that bitch’s hidden staircase and follow him, but do it invisibly or it’ll be you paying the price of failure. We’ll wait until he’s opened the vault, then step in and take his profits. I’ll not be threatened with death in my own city and then let him get away with enough gold to buy a full century of hired killers.’

  The leading Tungrian centuries deployed into line half a mile from the blazing grain store, the ground before them lit by the fire still burning on the store’s south-western side. As prefect and first spear waited in silence for the remainder of the cohort to complete their manoeuvre from column into line, another tongue of fire leapt skywards, further lightening the ground before them, followed a moment later by another huge explosion that slapped at the soldiers’ ears.

  ‘Whoever’s in command in there seems to be using his head well enough.’

  Frontinius nodded dourly at the tribune’s comment, his seamed face ruddy in the light cast by the store’s blazing fires.

  ‘Indeed, if it’s still attached to his shoulders. And anyone within a hundred paces of that explosion won’t be hearing anything for a while.’ He looked about him, searching for the raised century standards that indicated that his centuries were in line and ready to advance. ‘The First Cohort’s ready, Tribune. I was going to wait for the second and third lines to be formed, but given what’s happening over there I suggest we get moving before Obduro’s men recover from their nasty surprise and make a run for it.’ Scaurus gestured his assent, his attention still held by the twin conflagrations before them. Frontinius pushed his way back through the first century’s line, bellowing an order at the closest centurion of the Second Cohort, whose line was still only half formed as each of its centuries split from the line of march to either side. ‘We’re attacking now. Follow us in once your line’s complete!’ He stepped back to his own front rank, pointing to his trumpeter. ‘Sound the advance to battle!’

  At the trumpet call, its notes repeated by each century’s trumpeter, the Tungrians stepped forward holding their spears ready to strike, then they walked steadily towards the wrecked grain store. A man wearing the mail armour of an auxiliary soldier ran towards them out of the smoke, then, seeing the line of advancing soldiers coming at him out of the night, he turned and fled in the other direction, screaming a warning to his fellow Treveri. A spear arced out from the Tungrian line and took him between the shoulder blades, its heavy iron head punching through the mail’s rings and dropping him to the ground. As the line went forward the soldiers marched over debris thrown out from the explosions; at first it was scattered single bricks and splinters of wood, but as they drew closer the wreckage thickened until it was almost a carpet of rubble.

  ‘They’re falling back! Do you think we should pursue? Or should we let them go and round them up later?’

  Frontinius shook his head.

  ‘Now’s the time to deal with them, not when whoever’s managed to get away has had time to sort themselves out. Otherwise we’ll be digging them out in ones and twos for the next six months.’

  Scaurus nodded his agreement.

  ‘You’d better set your dogs loose, then; they’re not going to stand and fight.’

  At the first notes of the signal for general pursuit the cohort’s line shivered and broke, men streaming forward, eager to kill, the weariness of their long march forgotten in the promise of monetary reward for the capture of bandits. They went forward in teams of two and three men, all focused on finding those bandits too stunned or stubborn to have run for the shelter of the night. Tribune and first spear walked past a surrendering Treveri auxiliary dressed in the tattered remnants of his uniform, Frontinius ostentatiously ignoring the heated debate between the two soldiers standing over him as to just whose captive he was. The grain store gates opened, and First Spear Sergius stepped through them to greet the two officers with a broad smile. Scaurus shook his hand, slapping the legion officer on the shoulder.

  ‘You seem to have done a very effective job of seeing off Obduro’s men, First Spear, even if you have reduced an imperial grain store to rubble and burned half its contents.’

  Sergius saluted, then tapped his ear, shouting his response.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tribune, but I can’t hear a thing! That second explosion seems to have taken my hearing! Sorry about the damage, but we do seem to have seen off the bandits! Mind you, I can’t take much credit for beating them; the trick of setting fire to the grain dust was all your centurion’s idea!’

  Scaurus nodded his understanding, speaking quietly to his first spear.


  ‘That will doubtless suit Tribune Belletor very nicely when the account for this destruction is tallied up. Ah, and speaking of Centurion Julius…’

  The big man was hobbling towards them with a spear shaft for a support, his face wearing the same slightly baffled expression as Sergius’s. At that moment, with all eyes focused elsewhere, the two soldiers and their captive Treveri mutineer passed within a few feet of the officers, the Tungrians still bickering as to which of them had captured the man. Momentarily ignored, and not yet restrained by anything more than the threat of his captors’ swords, he snatched at the fleeting opportunity, grabbing up a spear from the ground and lunging forward, aiming the weapon’s blade squarely at Scaurus’s back with a berserk scream of incoherent rage. The only man to react quickly enough was Frontinius, stepping forward empty-handed to defend his superior. Grabbing at the spear’s head he pulled hard at it, his eyes widening as the bandit, rather than fighting him for control of the weapon, and as the soldiers around him stepped in with their swords raised to strike, thrust the spear through his mail and deep into his chest. A stab to the back felled the bandit, and another to the back of his neck killed him instantly, but as the first spear sagged to the debris-strewn ground it was clear that the damage was already done.

  Obduro walked quickly down the temple’s steps with a torch held in his right hand, grimacing at the moisture coating the ceiling and walls of the tunnel-like staircase.

  ‘Two of you, down here now! There’s a heavy weight to move.’ He advanced on the altar, sizing up the massive stone frieze as a pair of heavily built men, clearly selected for their strength, came down the steps and joined him in contemplating the ornately carved slab of rock. He waved a hand at the altar.