The decurion watched as the men who would be carrying out the infiltration gathered their equipment from the cart’s flat, wooden bed, and prepared to march the last mile or so to the foot of the mountain that was their objective.
‘Remember Silus, wait until the hunter’s knee touches the mountains.’
The cavalryman saluted his tribune, then clapped Marcus on the shoulder.
‘Good luck, gentlemen. I’ll be back here as soon as I can.’
The raiding party went forward, behind the half-dozen Hamian scouts that Qadir had selected from among his best men, and by the time the sun was touching the mountains in the west they were squatting in the cover of the treeline below the valley’s southern rim. Marcus and Qadir eased forward to the forest’s edge, looking up at the forbidding beaked profile of the massive stone on the mountain’s crest that gave the valley beyond the peak its name.
‘There’s one of them. See, up on the ridgeline.’
Qadir nodded at the steep hill before them, and after a moment Marcus found the tiny figure silhouetted against the orange skyline.
‘Careless.’
Scaurus slid in alongside him to squint up at the mountain above them.
‘They’re bored. They’ve done nothing but stare at an empty landscape and push miners around for the last ten days, and they want to be away. Every one of Gerwulf’s men is busy wondering what he’s going to spend his share of the gold on. And let’s face it, if he gives them half of the stockpile to split between themselves then even the common soldiers are going to walk out of that valley with at least half a pound of gold apiece.’
Qadir smiled knowingly.
‘Think of your own men under such circumstances, Tribune. Half of them will be penniless before they’re even halfway back to Germania, the other half considerably richer than when the gold was shared out. It will divide them as nothing else could, and their discipline will fall to pieces in weeks.’
Scaurus shrugged.
‘Indeed. But look at it from Gerwulf’s perspective. He can’t run in any direction other than north, and he needs to get across the great plain without having a Sarmatae arrow land between his shoulder blades. Being the proud owner of enough gold to buy a tribe is useless if you’re not alive long enough to enjoy it. All he has to do is keep them together for less than a month, until he’s on safer ground, and then he can slip away with a few trusted men who he’ll make rich beyond anything they could ever have imagined in return for their loyalty. Now, let’s see if the boy can pick out where this mine entrance is, shall we?’
To the tribune’s great relief, Lupus pointed to a section of the mountainside beneath the Raven Head peak without any hesitation, and after a moment the sharpest-eyed of the scouts opined that he could see the dark hole of a tunnel entrance among the lengthening shadows. They waited until the sun was down, and the ground around them was dark, before slowly and silently making their way to the foot of the mountain. Scaurus gathered them around him, pointing up at the peak’s dark bulk looming over them and speaking softly in the night’s quiet.
‘The slope will be littered with rocks, so you must tread carefully and slowly as you climb. Lift your feet high, and bring them down gently, feeling for solid ground. This will make our ascent slower, but that will be better than one of us suffering a broken leg, or the guards above us being alerted. And if any of us does disturb a stone, then we must all simply stand still until any noise has died away, and anyone left on watch above us has lost interest.’
They set off up the slope behind him at a measured pace, but within a hundred paces it was clear that ascending the hillside in silence was going to be impossible, as every other footstep dislodged small stones which clicked and clattered their way down the slope in tiny cascades of sound. After a moment’s climb the tribune raised a hand, whispering a command back down the column.
‘Stop.’
Marcus moved forward to join Qadir at the column’s head, and both men listened intently for a moment before the Roman voiced an opinion.
‘Nothing. They’re either sounding the alarm very quietly or the idle buggers have given up for the night. Either way we have no choice but to push on.’
As they climbed higher up the mountainside the Raven Head loomed over them, its cruel profile outlined by the stars wheeling slowly across the night sky, and Scaurus called for Lupus to be sent up the column.
‘Take a careful look my lad, and tell me whether that picture looks right to you.’
The boy stared up at the distinctive rock for a moment before replying.
‘We should be up there.’
‘You’re sure?’
Lupus nodded at Arminius’s question.
‘Yes. The bird’s head is too far away.’
The German looked at Scaurus, his teeth a white slash in the darkness as he grinned.
‘Bright boy, isn’t he? Up we go then, and you tell me when it looks right to you, eh?’
The small party climbed on up the mountain until Lupus decided that they were in the right place. Qadir sent men out to left and right to broaden their search for the mine’s entrance, and the rest of the party huddled down into the protection of their cloaks from the wind blowing across the open mountainside.
‘Here!’
The whispered signal came from their left, and Scaurus led the party across the slope to where the man in question was squatting alongside a hole in the mountain barely large enough for a man to enter.
‘Is this it?’
Lupus nodded in reply to the tribune’s question.
‘Yes. See?’
He pointed to the grey outline of a bird’s head carved roughly into the stone by the entrance, barely visible in the moonlight, and Scaurus nodded.
‘The Raven’s Head. You’ve done well, young man.’
He gestured for the men carrying the bundles of torches they had liberated from the Apulum fortress stores to come forward.
‘Now we need fire. Martos?’
The Briton stepped a few paces into the tunnel’s pitch-black, taking out his flint and iron from the bag in which he carried them and arranging dry vegetation on the floor before him by touch. A few swift strokes of the flint were enough to spit sparks into the tinder, which flared briefly under the warrior prince’s gentle blowing. He suspended a torch over the flames, smiling happily as the pitch-soaked head took fire. Scaurus took the torch and pushed past him, advancing further into the tunnel to avoid the sudden flare of light being visible on the mountainside.
‘One torch for every three men, and the archers ready to shoot if we encounter any resistance. Centurion Corvus, lead off with Lupus if you will, but be ready to get down and leave the tunnel clear for the archers.’
Marcus advanced up the tunnel’s gentle slope with a torch held up to illuminate the rough-hewn rock walls, feeling the child’s hand holding on to his belt as he counted out the paces they were taking in his head. The torch’s light reached out fifty paces or so before them, but beyond that was only a circle of darkness which the Roman knew might harbour an enemy preparing to attack. The party’s muffled hobnails scraped roughly at the tunnel’s uneven floor through their lambskin covers, the faint noise multiplied by the bare walls to a faint, eerie rattle that preceded them into the mountain.
‘How far did you come down this way from the ladder before you reached open air?’
His whisper sounded hoarse, and the boy’s response was equally strained.
‘I don’t know, Centurion.’
They walked on, Marcus straining his eyes to the limits of the torch’s ruddy light, until when they had covered just less than three hundred paces he saw something poking up out of the rock floor. Squatting down, he turned and gestured to Arabus, who ghosted noiselessly to his side in the soft deerskin slippers he had donned at the tunnel’s entrance.
‘Scout forward and tell me what that is.’
The tracker was back quickly enough, his eyes glinting in the torchlight.
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��It is a ladder. It descends to a lower level, which is lit by small lamps. Better to leave the torches here, or risk being seen before we see?’
Marcus nodded. A swift discussion with Scaurus settled the matter — a pair of men would wait in the passage with the lit torches while the remainder of the party went forward to the ladder, each man holding an unlit brand. They found it just as the scout had described, the ladder apparently well maintained despite that level of the mine having fallen into disuse. Intriguingly, two long ropes were neatly coiled on the rock floor to either side of the ladder’s top-most rung, each with one end fed through a block and tackle. Both were tied to iron rings sunk into the passage wall. The tribune examined them closely by the light of a torch.
‘I’m no expert, but this looks like lifting gear to me. Lupus, were those ropes there the last time you came this way?’ The boy shook his head, and Scaurus exchanged meaningful glances with his officers. ‘Perhaps this way into the mine isn’t as disused as we might have imagined. Let’s continue onwards, shall we?’
Marcus was quick to be the first man to venture down the ladder, tucking an unlit torch into his belt and swinging his legs down onto the top most rungs. He climbed down with Lupus following, and found himself standing on another rock floor in the dim light of a pair of oil lamps.
‘Where now, lad?’
The child pondered for a moment, then pointed in the direction which by Marcus’s reckoning would take them deeper into the mountain.
‘I think that’s the way to the entrance.’
Waiting until the remaining eight men had reached the ladder’s bottom, Marcus led them off again, but had only covered thirty paces when the top of another ladder came into view.
‘What’s down there?’
Lupus stared down into the shaft.
‘At the bottom of that ladder there’s a big wheel that lifts water up to this level, to stop the mine filling up. There are men that turn it.’
The Roman turned back to Scaurus.
‘They may have information as to what’s happening in the valley. I’ll go down there and speak with them.’
He eased his body silently down the long climb, taking each rung slowly and patiently to avoid making any noise. At the bottom he paused for a moment before following a line of oil lamps towards the distant sound of running water, until he found himself at the corner of the passage where Lupus had told him that he and Mus had stopped to listen. Peering round the rock wall and into the cavern, he found a scene exactly as the boy had described it. A pair of men were rotating the waterwheel while two others rested off to one side, with no sign of anyone set to guard them. Marcus drew his gladius and stepped into the open space, standing still to avoid scaring the men into flight down one of the half-dozen passages that opened off the cavern. One of the resting men got to his feet and paced forward until he was close enough to see the Roman properly. He grunted and cast a meaningful stare at the sword, the look on his face telling Marcus very clearly that without its presence the situation would be very different.
‘Another soldier. But not it seems a German. Who are you, soldier?’
His voice lacked any edge of fear, and his stare was direct.
‘I am a centurion of the auxiliary cohorts that defended your valley from the Sarmatae.’
The miner nodded, his expression unchanged.
‘One of the men who left us to the tender mercies of these animals.’
Marcus tapped the blade of his gladius.
‘We have returned to deal with them.’
The other man raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘You don’t have enough strength to retake the valley, or why sneak back into the Ravenstone this way, rather than smashing through the gate and putting this Wolf and his men to the sword?’
Marcus nodded, conceding the point.
‘We are the point of the spear, sent forward to seek a victory by stealth where a more forceful approach might fail. We hope to liberate the miners, and turn them upon the Germans.’
The man shook his head emphatically.
‘A week ago, perhaps, but now the men of the valley are penned in at night, crowded into a single mine’s barracks, which has been surrounded by a wooden wall to keep them contained while the soldiers entertain themselves with the valley’s women. Every barrack’s door and window is barred from the outside, and you will not free them without fighting your way through the Wolf’s entire strength. You have done well even to come this far without the aid of a man that knows the mine’s passages.’
Marcus shrugged.
‘We have a child with us who came this way once before, in the company of another boy who used to tend the mine’s lamps.’
‘Mus?’ The labourer stepped forward with a hopeful expression. ‘You have word of the child?’
Marcus tipped his head in question.
‘Surely you know his fate? He was hidden by your mistress Theodora, but he was discovered and killed by Gerwulf’s men.’
The muscles in the labourer’s arms corded as his fists clenched, the scarred knuckles white with the force of his anger.
‘If I had known that the child was dead then I would have left this infernal place of toil and gone to take my revenge on his murderer. .’ His fists opened and clenched again, and he stared up at the cavern’s roof, invisible in the gloom. ‘I am Karsas, from the same village as the boy. He was all I had left. .’ He mastered his emotions, shaking his head in frustration. ‘You saw the body?’
Marcus nodded sadly.
‘The woman carried his corpse to the parade ground on which we were preparing to depart.’
Karsas stood in silence for a moment, and then stepped closer, ignoring the Roman’s sword.
‘Take me with you. I will have revenge for the child before I die.’
The Roman stared at him for a moment before shaking his head.
‘We cannot take you down into the valley. This is work for men who have been trained to use the shadows, not for one man seeking revenge. But you can assist us.’
The two men reclimbed the ladder to where the raiding party were awaiting Marcus’s return, and after a brief discussion the miner led them confidently down the passage with a torch in his hand. After walking for several hundred paces down the tunnel’s gentle slope he stopped, squatting down on his haunches and pointing down the rock tunnel.
‘We have come four hundred and fifty paces. Another fifty will put you within sight of the mine’s entrance. There are men posted to guard the tunnel, but they usually doze for the most part, and leave one man to watch. I have considered killing them to make our escape — if only there was somewhere to run to in these barren mountains.’
Scaurus patted him on the shoulder.
‘Thank you, Karsas. And if there is revenge to be taken when this is done, I swear that you will have your part of it, if I can find a way. Will you care for the boy here until we return, and keep him from harm? Whether we succeed or fail in this venture, the valley will be no place for him this night.’
Leaving Lupus with the miners, the party tiptoed the last short distance to the tunnel’s exit into the valley’s fresh air. Qadir nocked an arrow to his bow and slid forward to the front of the column, waiting until his eyes had adjusted to the moonlight before stepping out into the open with the slow, exaggerated steps of a hunting cat. Spotting a target, he raised the bow and pulled the arrow back until the string was nearly tight, jerking his head for Marcus to come forward past him. Pacing silently past his friend, the Roman saw a single figure sitting beside the embers of a small fire, his head nodding as he dozed, while two more men were rolled up in blankets at his feet. Raising his gladius ready to strike at the sleepers, he nodded briskly to his friend, and then stabbed the blade down into the sleeper furthest from him, opening the man’s throat with a flick of his wrist. As the Roman’s victim struggled in his tight wrappings, gargling blood from the horrendous wound, Qadir let his broad-bladed arrow fly into the dozing sentry’s chest with a c
rack of breaking bone. The sentry flopped bonelessly to the ground with the missile buried in his heart, his sightless eyes opened wide with the impact’s shock, and Marcus knelt to put the bloodied blade of his gladius to the other sleeper’s throat, reaching down to clamp a hand over his mouth.
‘If you make a sound without being told to speak I’ll cut your wind and leave you to gasp out your last. Do you hear me?’
The prostrate figure nodded, lying unnaturally still as he felt the sword’s fierce edge at his throat.
‘How many of you were standing guard here?’
The Roman removed his hand, tensing his sword arm to strike, but the terrified German’s voice was no more than a whisper.
‘Three.’
‘Are there any other men standing guard between here and the mining camp?’
The captive’s head shook.
‘How many men stand guard on the woman’s house?’
‘Four.’
‘And how many on the miner’s camp?’
‘I don’t know. .’ The German wriggled desperately as Marcus slipped the sword’s point under his chin, his words a gabbled rush. ‘Too many to count, at least a century!’
The Roman nodded, killing the man with a single efficient thrust of the gladius up under his jaw. He turned to find Scaurus nodding approval.
‘It’s no night for half measures.’ The tribune looked up at the cloudless nights’ blaze of stars. ‘As we agreed it then, you go to the miners’ camp and wait for the right moment, and I’ll lead my party to the villa. And who knows, if we get lucky enough, perhaps I’ll find Gerwulf unguarded, and take the head from this particular wolf.’
He led Arminius and two of the Hamians away down the valley’s steep slope, keeping to the shadows until Theodora’s villa appeared out of the gloom below them. The party watched the building from the cover of a stand of trees with a view over the courtyard’s wall, as a single sentry paced up and down the length of the house’s frontage.
‘One man at the front and presumably one man at the back.Which means there will be two more inside, if that German was telling us the truth.’ He turned to the Hamians. ‘Can you put that sentry down from here?’
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