by Barry Sadler
Ortius liked the look of the man before him, a strong looking rascal and one you could not easily scare.
"Good enough. As a courtesy to a castaway, you will be my guest. Just don't start any trouble and we'll make port tomorrow. We lost some way in the night and the damned winds have shifted again; my oarsmen could barely keep their own against it and we couldn't set sails until just before dawn. Now, I have duties to attend to, make yourself comfortable and perhaps we'll talk later. I used to have some shipmates who worked out of Pireaus, perhaps you'll know them." The bandy-legged barrel chested little Sicilian laughed at the memory. "Remind me to tell you about the whorehouse in the south of the village where a Greek whore tried to castrate me for short changing her."
Casca laughed; the scar running from his left eye to his cheek seemed to tingle.
The day turned bright and clear as they tacked first to port and starboard working against the cross angles of the wind as the sea miles dropped steadily behind. Casca spent the rest of the day cleaning his weapons, wiping the salt from his blade and honing down the edge of his double-edged dagger he kept in his leggings. During his years in the north countries, he had grown used to having them on and continued to wear them.
He looked out seaward back across the distance he had come on the Viking longship, wending its way to the safety of the Keep at Helsfjord. "Another part of my life gone. . . Wassail, Olaf Glamson, take my ships home, and if your father lives, tell him I still walk this earth – though I believe he would know it anyway, that great ugly bear of a man. The wheel of life turned again."
In the flickering waters, for a moment, he saw the face of Shiu Lao Tze, the sage from the lands of far Khitai, who had taught him the way of open-hand fighting. Automatically, he turned his head to face the East. "Khitai, perhaps it's time for me to see the lands beyond the Indus."
"Sail off the starboard," the lookouts cried.
Instantly, every head turned to see what vessel was approaching. Unable to make her out, the captain cried up to the lookout perched on top of the single mast, can you make her out?" "Aye, Captain. I will wager my bonus she's a Saxon; the cut of her sails tell me that and the wind is with her. She'll be on us in less than an hour."
The captain spit, "Saxons, damn them all to the bowels of the darkest pit in hades. One more day and we would have made port. Keep your eye on her and tell me if she changes her course. All hands on deck, prepare for boarders!"
The crew rushed to the weapons rack taking out their personal preferences from pikes to axes. Several had bows but not enough; with enough archers, they probably would be able to keep the raider at a distance until nightfall and lose them in the fogs that always came to the coast of this land when the dark settled.
"A good crew, no panic," thought Casca as he watched the look of grim determination set in on the faces of the crew and slaves alike.
The slaves too took up weapons, Ortius having made all his slaves a bargain: "serve me for three years and you will be given your letter of manumission." This bargain had been to his benefit in the past and was one of the reasons that he had so little trouble. From his slaves' part, they knew the captain would keep his word and it would still be better to be an oar slave than to be taken by those long-haired bearded devils called Saxons. It was said they ate the hearts of their prisoners and sacrificed them to their terrible gods.
Casca moved to the side of the captain. "Sir, have you ever fought the Saxons before?"
Ortius looked Casca in the face and saw a change that sent a shiver over him. "No, but I have talked to those that have and they are wild animals. This day we win, or die."
Casca grunted, fingering his sword hilt. "I've fought them several times. They are poor archers, but when it comes to close quarters, they are the best axe men on the face of the earth. Most carry two or more throwing axes which they can throw in unison to keep their enemies undercover for a moment while they rush and throw themselves like a pack of dogs onto their opponents, using a combination of axes and lances. The bastards are tough, Captain. But I have beaten them before and have no intention of losing this time either."
The Saxon ship was in sight now, closing fast. The faces of her wild crew became rapidly discernible, wild men with long flowing hair blowing to the front from the wind behind, their mustaches and beards giving them an even wilder look under the horned helmets and conical steel caps. Across the water, battle cries could be heard as they worked themselves into a killer frenzy.
Ortius ordered the cooking fire extinguished and all hands to stand by to repel boarders. The fat trader was no match for the swift raider. But Ortius was no coward and donned a breastplate of antique armor he had picked up in Bithynia. Casca recalled when it had been the newest style among the wealthy young nobles of the Eques, the Cavalry.
Casca placed himself, watching carefully for the spot where the two vessels would join and the raiders would toss their grappling hooks to tie them together in an umbilical cord of death.
As they neared the raider, Casca thought one wild looking bastard looked vaguely familiar but underneath all that hair it was difficult to tell. As the Romans said, "All barbarians look alike." All thoughts of the past months fled. The basic soldier in Casca came to the fore. As his pulse rate increased, he took short sharp breaths, pumping oxygen into his system automatically. He began to call out orders, commanding the sailors nearest the side to get ready and duck on his order.
Ortius looked at him and, seeing a man who knew his business, said nothing, just nodding in agreement for the others to follow Casca's lead. The captain knew ships, but this was different. In Casca, he recognized a professional and in this instant he made the decision to turn the order of the battle over to this stranger from the sea.
"Do as the soldier orders,” he bellowed, loud enough for the Saxons less than a hundred yards away to hear.
The sailors huddled together instinctively, and Casca roared at them to separate to make smaller targets for the wave of axes that would come.
The Saxon ship began to close alongside the trader. Their leader stood in the bow, a massively built man with blond-grey flowing hair and mustache, axe held high. With his downward stroke, the Saxons rose to throw. Casca waiting for this moment, cried out to the sailors to fall flat on their faces; the sheer force of his order made most of them hit the deck like they had been pole-axed. Those too late to obey had their skulls and chests laid open by the wave of thrown axes that raced across the small distance separating the two ships. As the axes were thrown, so were the grappling hooks and before the death cry of the stricken sailors could really begin, the Saxons were hauling the two ships side by side, the wood giving a strange muffled shriek as they dragged together. The Saxons crowded at the side, standing on the railing, ready to leap aboard the trader.
In their eagerness, two fell into the water between the ships and were mashed into a mass of jelly when the waves brought them back together again, leaving only a red stain on each ship to show that here had been two men who were no more.
"Up and at them!" The command stirred the defenders and they rose in time to catch the Saxons at their most vulnerable point when they were attempting the crossing from their ship to the trader. Normally the barrage of thrown axes would have given them the necessary seconds to make an uncontested assault, but now they faced desperate men with pikes in their hands and murder in their hearts.
The Saxons were stopped. But only for a moment. Then the leader of the enemy ship threw himself across the gap, landing on board. He began striking down sailors left and right, caving in skulls and chests, as he cleared an area through which the rest of his band eagerly followed.
The seamen were no match in close combat for the ferocity of the German pirates and were easily being forced back. More and more Saxons rushed into the bridgehead created by their leader, Skoldbjorn, who was slicing down all who opposed him, bellowing for Thor to give him strength to kill all who dared to stand in front of his axe, which was red and dripping w
ith the lifeblood of the sailors. His whirling attack came to a sudden stop as his axe was knocked back with enough force that it left his arm and hand tingling.
Casca pushed him back using a combination of sword and dagger; thrust, jab, strike high, then low. Casca dodged a blow to the head that would have split him to the chest and whirled low to the deck pivoting in a tight circle, slicing the hamstring muscles of a Saxon who came close. Then, raising himself under the guard of the leader, they locked, the Saxon's axe barring Casca's Gladius Iberius, while his other hand held the dagger away from his stomach where it was only millimeters away from opening him up like a gutted fish.
They broke away and locked again, two strong men face to face; again they broke, then whirled around each other like madmen, striking, parrying, sparks leaping when their blades met. The force of their combat brought the rest of the fighting to a stand-still. The protagonists from the two ships separated, keeping a wary eye on each other while the two in the center of the deck met again and again like charging bulls. They grappled, faces touching.
The Saxon spoke between clenched teeth, "Who are you? I have seen you before."
They broke again and Casca made a deep lunging attack that changed in mid-stroke to a swipe to the gut, leaving a thin line of red across the Saxon's muscled belly.
"I am the man who is going to kill you, barbarian. I am Casca, the Roman."
The Saxon stumbled back, nearly falling over a pile of ropes. "Casca from Helsfjord, the Walker?" Terror slipped into his voice and for the first time courage began to slip away from him. "You're dead. You sailed to the ends of the earth."
Casca struck a blow that numbed his own arm to the shoulder and knocked the horned helmet off the Saxon's head.
"I'm back."
The Saxon countered, forcing Casca back. They separated, each gasping trying to catch his breath. “You must be over sixty. My father, Hegsten, fought you at the field of Runes over thirty years ago."
Remembrance flashed. "Yes, Saxon dog and whore, I only chopped the left arm off the sire, I am going to kill the pup." Casca sliced down in a long stroke that forced the axe up high to counter; as the steel from the blade and the axe met, Casca gave a strange sliding movement obliquely that turned his opponent half around unable to use his free hand. Then Casca's dagger slid to the hilt between the striated muscles of the abdomen, sinking deep within, the point of the blade puncturing the great artery running along the spine, letting the Saxon's lifeblood flow into his abdominal cavity.
Pulling the Saxon to him and holding his opponent like a lover, Casca plunged the blade deeper into him, moving the hilt from side to side, severing organs. The death glaze was already creeping over the Saxon's eyes, fogging them.
Through blood-flecked lips he whispered, "You are he. The Walker."
He died shuddering, his last act to raise his head back, throat cords standing out from the strain, then drew his last breath. "Odin." The name of his god echoed across the water.
Casca raised his body, grunting with the strain and tossed the carcass over the side. The raiders were still, silent, shocked. Their leader had fallen.
Sensing this was the moment, Casca cried out to the crew, "Kill! Kill! "He rushed the stunned barbarians like a whirlwind, his blade and dagger doing bloody work. The crew hesitated but a moment and then followed cheering.
The Saxons broke. Their leader dead, their courage left them. They fled back to their ship across lines, leaping the span separating the two ships. Several fell into the waters, but none gave them aid.
The trader crew cut the lines of the grappling hooks mooring them together and the ships parted, Ortius' crew cheering.
The Saxons backed water to get away from what they had thought to be easy pickings, instead proving to be a shark; several of which were already tugging at the bodies in the water, taking the living along with the dead.
Ortius quickly resumed command. "Back to your post and oars, you miserable sea lice. Clear the Saxon scum from my decks and send them to their brothers to feed the hungry ones below."
The battle was over.
Casca, as usual, after a fight, felt drained, his limbs trembling, not only from physical exhaustion, but from the emotional release as well. Breathing deeply, he gulped down air. "It is over." Ortius slapped him on the back. "By Poseidon's green sea beard! It was a lucky day when we found you bobbing like a cork. You have made a friend this day, Casca Longinus, and never let it be said that Ortius, the ship's master, forgets a debt. When we make port I am going to buy the ten best whores in town and see if they can kill you. By Jupiter's brass balls man, I never saw such fight in all my life!"
Chapter Three - DUBRAE
No further incidents interrupted the journey of the trader to the safe port of Dubrae from which on a clear day the coast of Gaul could almost be seen across the channel. The crew was in good spirits; their valor increased with each retelling of the battle and had multiplied several fold by the time the city came into view as a light colored speck on the hills behind.
There were enough souvenirs left behind by the Saxons so that everyone on board had a trophy to attest to his courage: helmets with horns, swords, and enough of those terrible throwing axes so that even each slave had at least one.
Ortius, pleased at the way the oar-slaves had fought alongside his freedmen, knocked a year off his deal with them and several were to be given their letters of manumission as soon as a magistrate could be found to witness and document the releases.
The trader slipped into port under a fair wind, passing several others on their way out, carrying cargos of tin and wool to the Empire and beyond. Like all ports, this one had its own particular blend of the odors of fish and garbage. The town itself was set upon a small group of hills that faced the channel. The immediate area around the port was lined with docks and piers along with a tannery and several warehouses, adding their scents to the already pungent atmosphere.
In this area also were the places for sailors and their like: wine ships and inns along with an undetermined number of whorehouses catering – for the right price – to all tastes. The homes and businesses near the hillsides were for the upper classes. Several villas had obviously been built in the Roman style; here the captains of the ships found amusement.
Ortius gave his men their unloading orders. Then, accompanied by Casca, left to present his papers to the port authority. There he declared his cargo and paid his duty, accidentally dropping a purse of silver denarii as they left, to insure the amount and kind of cargo he declared were not too closely looked at by the customs officials.
Taking Casca by the arm, he guided him through the labyrinth of streets and alleys, past shops and vendors, eating stalls and racks of drying fish.
“Well, my over-muscled friend, before we do anything else, we have to get you into some decent clothes; these rags you are wearing would embarrass a Dacian goatherder, though you have the smell to go with the description."
Stopping at a shuttered door, he pounded upon it for admittance. "Open up, you hooked robber of decent seafaring men, let us in to see the rags you try to pass off as clothes!" Ortius kicked away a short-haired dog which sniffed tentatively and then raised its leg, over Ortius' shin. Yelping, it raced down the street before completing an act of defilement.
After hours of haggling, Ortius grumbling and clucking over prices, Casca's clothes finally met his friend's approval: a short tunic of plain blue wool spun locally and a cloak of burgundy from Gaul, along with a broad belt of Spanish leather, set with large brass studs. A new set of caligulae, Roman style military boots that laced up to the calves, finished his wardrobe. Adjusting the strap of his scabbard, so that his sword hung properly. Casca looked at the effect in a polished bronze mirror and was not displeased by what he saw.
"By Mithra, I'm still a pretty good looking rascal." Three other tunics would be delivered later to the combination inn and whorehouse Ortius had selected as their domicile while in Dubrae.
Leading the
Roman along through the streets like a ship hauling a dingy behind it, the bandy-legged Sicilian kept up a rambling discourse on the faults and merits of ladies of pleasure at the Inn of Paetius the Greek.
Laughing, they reached the entrance of the two-storied structure. Nudging Casca in the ribs, Ortius whispered, "Watch out for Paetius, he's the most notorious faggot in the country, but for all that is a good fellow who has clean rooms and doesn't water the wine to excess; he charges only slightly more than his wares are worth, but most important – he has the cleanest girls in town, so you won't have to worry about leaving here with a touch of the pox." Bursting into the smoky interior, the barrel chested sailor pushed his way through the crowd bellowing, "Wine for my man. We have been raping and ravaging since dawn. . . wine do you hear . . . when we had some spare time we killed a hundred Saxons . . . wine! Ortius the great is here, accompanied by one almost as handsome and brave!"
The crowd roared with laughter. Obviously Ortius was well known and liked. A massive figure swept down upon them; Casca prepared himself for a fight. The huge man reached Ortius first, swept him up into his arms raising him a foot off the wooden floor, kissing the struggling Sicilian on both cheeks as fat tears ran down the cheeks of Paetius the Greek.
Paetius was six-foot-six and close to three hundred pounds, most of it muscle. His finely sculptured face had an aquiline nose which seemed too small sitting on top of the mass of meat. several knife scars were visible on his neck and arms, attesting to the fact that here was one hell of a pansy.
Squirming out of the giant's grasp, Ortius checked his rib cage and then introduced Casca to the Greek, who immediately performed an identical assault on Casca much to his chagrin, but as the man was obviously so good natured, it was hard to take offense, at least until Paetius pinched him on the ass. But the Greek set him free before Casca could respond.
Paetius lisped in a girlish voice, "Ortius, I have been so worried about you, those horrible barbarians have been attacking almost everything that floats; it's been terrible for business. But, enough of my troubles, "he said, wiping a tear of joy from his eye, "at least now I know another of my chicks has come home safely." Calling to his tavern wenches, he threw three sailors from their seats to make room for Ortius and Casca. Ignoring their complaints, he silenced them with a stern upheld forefinger and they meekly acquiesced.
