The Leopard Sword

by Anthony Riches

  The big man stepped forward a pace and lifted the bow to aim at Marcus’s face, closing the range to make sure of his kill.

  ‘And you were stupid enough to come back. I told Obduro that we should never have released you, but he has to indulge his need for the theatrical with these messages he insists on sending back to Tungrorum.’ Marcus raised his hands and stepped back, darting a glance at Arabus who was still kneeling behind the stone altar in silent grief, hidden from Grumo’s view. The tracker seemed frozen in his place, his stare vacant as he continued to hold the leather belt in both hands. The bandit matched the Roman’s step back with a move forward, advancing until his hip was almost touching the altar’s corner.

  ‘Backing away isn’t going to help you. I’m going to put this arrow into you, and then I’m going to hoist you onto this altar and give your life to the goddess.’

  Marcus stepped back again, praying that Grumo would hold his temper for long enough.

  ‘Like all those others you’ve murdered on that stone? Just kill me cleanly!’

  Grumo laughed harshly and stepped forward again, aiming the bow at the Roman’s thigh.

  ‘Ah yes, that hit a nerve, did it? Yes, just like all those poor fools. I’ll put an arrow in your leg to stop you from running, then open your throat and let your life drain out onto the altar. You can be a sacrifice to the goddess, another of the unworthy for her to chastise in the afterlife. I’d like to think that she pursues unbelievers like you through the endless forest with her whip and bow, tormenting you the way that Rome has tormented us, but whatever it is that happens on the other side of the stone, you’ll know soon enough, won’t you?’

  He took up the bowstring’s last few inches of tension, ready to shoot the arrow through Marcus’s thigh. The Roman feigned a stumble and fell to the ground, crawling backwards with his heels and elbows, and raising his voice to ensure Arabus could hear him.

  ‘They’re not all unbelievers though, are they? The tracker’s boy, he was innocent of any crime against Arduenna!’

  Grumo stepped closer again, and the arrow’s iron head weaved from side to side as he sought an aiming point that would cripple his retreating victim.

  ‘Arduenna demands blood! Any blood! Roman, Tungrian, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s shed from a living man and fit to offer! And the tracker’s boy was a believer, a fine sacrif—’

  With an incoherent scream Arabus came to violent life, rising from his hiding place behind the altar and leaping onto its stone surface, his body suddenly coursing with rage as the enormity of what he was hearing finally penetrated his grief. Grumo twisted his body and reflexively loosed the arrow at him, but the tracker was already in mid-air with his teeth bared in a snarl, and the missile flicked harmlessly past his ear. He jumped onto the bandit’s back and wrapped his strong legs around the big man’s waist, forcing the fingers of his left hand into his victim’s eye sockets and dragging his head back, forcing a bellow of pain from the giant as he dropped the bow and raised his hands in an attempt to throw his assailant over his shoulder. Arabus raised his son’s knife in his right hand, the blade rusted from exposure to the rain but still sharp enough to slice through flesh, and screamed a single word at the top of his voice.

  ‘Arduenna!’

  He rammed the ochre-flecked bar of iron clean through Grumo’s neck, its point protruding from the flesh in a spray of blood, then he jumped down from the reeling man’s back, raising a hand to Marcus as the Roman went for his sword.

  ‘Leave him! Let him die in the same way that my boy went to the goddess!’

  Marcus nodded, sheathing his sword and picking up the bow, nocking an arrow to its string. As he lay prostrate on his back, Grumo’s mouth was opening and closing soundlessly, his breathing a rattling, bubbling rasp. Arabus joined Marcus and stared down at his victim with a hard face, kicking him hard in the side to get his faltering attention. His voice was still choked with grief, but when he spoke his words were implacable.

  ‘When you’re dead I’m going to cut you up and scatter your remains in the forest for the pigs, all but your head. That I will keep close to me, to make sure that nobody can reunite it with the rest of you. And for as long as I have it, you will spend forever in the Otherworld awaiting your rebirth. Waiting in vain.’

  Marcus nodded, patting the wet-faced tracker on the shoulder.

  ‘Stay here, then, and take this in case any more of them appear.’ He handed Arabus the bow. ‘I’ll have a quiet look around, and see what I can find.’

  He drew the patterned sword again, stealthily easing his way down the stone stairs into Obduro’s underground lair with slow, silent steps, listening intently for any sound that might betray the presence of a bandit waiting to ambush him. The dungeon was lit by crackling torches, as had been the case during his previous visit, and his soft footfalls were lost in the hiss of burning pine resin. Having proven the underground room to be empty he was about to turn and leave when a faint line of shadow down one wall caught his attention. Frowning in unconscious puzzlement he slipped the sword’s point into a hair-thin gap, gently levering open a concealed wooden door whose surface was painted to resemble the stone around it. The room beyond was in darkness, and he pulled a torch from the wall before entering it, starting at the sight revealed by the brand’s light. A set of four shackles secured to the rock wall by short chains was holding the dead man’s body in a kneeling position, as if the corpse was caught in a never-ending act of obeisance to whatever deity the man had followed in life. Marcus knelt before the corpse, holding up the torch and examining the walls and floor before taking one of the hands and staring at it intently. A scrape of leather on rock made him turn, to find Arabus standing silently behind him in the doorway, Grumo’s head held by the hair in one hand.

  ‘We should leave. Arduenna will forgive me for what we’ve done here, but the longer we stay the more we risk her fury. Obduro may return at any time and find us caught like animals in a wooden cage.’

  Marcus shook his head, handing the tracker the torch and gesturing to the corpse.

  ‘We need to go, and quickly, but not because there’s any danger of his returning. He’s led his entire army out, as you thought, but I doubt they’re hunting a grain convoy. It seems to me he has a far greater prize in mind.’

  9

  ‘Mithras, but my back hurts. And I thought I was fit.’

  Clodius glanced across at his tribune, grinning wryly at the look of gritty determination on Scaurus’s face.

  ‘It’s one thing to keep up with the men when we’re moving at the campaign pace, sir, but it’s charging along at the forced march that sorts the men from the boys. You’re keeping up well enough.’

  Scaurus smiled tightly back at him.

  ‘Only because I’m not carrying anything like the weight your men are burdened with. How in Hades are the Hamians keeping it up?’

  Clodius grunted.

  ‘That’s easy enough to explain. The first spear made the decision to keep them in the Ninth Century, but to distribute them through the tent parties rather than let them form their own groupings.’ Scaurus nodded, his thoughtful look telling the centurion that he already understood the point he was making. ‘Exactly. They’re surrounded by big strong country boys, farm horses to their racing ponies, and in the space of a few months they have become Tungrians. For every struggling archer there are two or three big lads who won’t let them fall by the wayside, so they’ll encourage them along, kick them along and even carry their kit for them if necessary. It’s not the Hamians that are worrying me, Tribune, it’s the legionaries. Should we drop down the column and see how they’re doing?’

  Scaurus nodded and stepped out of the line of march, allowing his pace to slow to a normal walk, knowing that if he were to stop altogether the effort required to get his body moving again would be agonising. Clodius walked alongside him as the First Cohort’s long column ground past them like a monstrous armoured snake, the soldiers’ heads tipped back to allo
w them to suck in the day’s warm air. As each century’s centurion passed he saluted the two men with his vine stick, and Scaurus quickly realised that the sight of their commanding officers straightened backs and stiffened resolve, his men’s faces hardening against the march’s agony. After a few moments Titus’s men, the last of the four Tungrian centuries, marched steadily past with their heavy axes held over their shoulders, then the head of the legion cohort came into view behind them.

  ‘That’s not good.’

  The tribune shook his head in agreement with his centurion’s softly voiced opinion. The legionaries marching behind the Tungrians were already looking like beaten men, trudging along with stooped shoulders and with only a semblance of the Tungrians’ tightly ordered ranks. Scaurus’s eyes narrowed at the apparent state of the legionaries.

  ‘The bloody fool would leave his first spear behind to teach him a lesson for getting friendly with us, and now he’s got no one with the balls to step up and do the man’s job for him. And there’s as much hope of Tribune Belletor instilling any determination into this lot as there is of him getting off his horse and showing them a good example. Colleague, how do we find you?’

  He shouted the comment to Belletor as he rode into earshot, and the legion tribune waved a lazy hand in reply.

  ‘We’re well enough, Tribune.’ He smiled down at the two men from the height of his saddle, raising a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Enjoying your walk, are you?’

  Scaurus nodded, grinning grimly in reply as he forced his aching body back up to the forced-march pace.

  ‘I wouldn’t say the word “enjoying” would be the first one that springs to mind, but it’s tolerable, thank you. And an officer soon gains some measure of the pain his commands inflict on his men when he goes about his business on foot. You really will have to try it some day. Perhaps even today, if the way your horse is nodding its head is any clue. Come along, Centurion, we’d better work our way back to the front of the column. Our men will hammer away the miles at this pace all day if we don’t stop them for the rest halt.’

  First Spear Frontinius took a quick glance at the sun’s low position in the afternoon sky as his centurions gathered about him.

  ‘Here’s the thing, brothers. We’ve been marching for the best part of the day, and we must have covered a good fifteen miles, and yet there’s no sign of the grain convoy we’re supposed to be meeting. We have two choices: either to grind away to the west until it gets too dark to march, then set up camp and wait for them to arrive, or to turn round and head back to Tungrorum. We won’t be back in the city before darkness falls, but we brought a cart full of torches with us for exactly that eventuality, and a bit of night marching will be good practice. So I’ve decided to turn the column around and head back to the east.’ The men around him nodded their agreement. ‘Does anyone have a different view?’ There was silence. ‘Very well, get back to your centuries and get them turned round and ready to march. Just to make it interesting, we’ll start off at the forced-march pace and see how long we can keep them going that quickly.’

  One of the 2nd Cohort centurions, a man Frontinius had known since they were both recruits, remained behind as the other officers dispersed to their commands.

  ‘At the forced march, Sextus? Is there something you’re not telling us?’

  The first spear shrugged, a look of unease on his face.

  ‘Nothing I can put a finger on. I just know that I’ll be a lot happier when we’ve got this many men back to the city. I might have been wrong to only leave five centuries to guard the walls . . .’

  A shout from the eastern end of the column snatched their attention, and the two officers turned to see a party of horsemen, thirty-strong, riding swiftly down the road from the city towards them. Ignoring the customary hail of abuse from the infantrymen, their leader trotted his horse down the column to Frontinius’s position, jumping down to salute briskly, and the first spear raised an eyebrow in greeting.

  ‘Decurion Silus. I presume you’ve not been sent galloping all the way down here just to give your animals a run out?’

  The cavalryman shook his head, holding out a message tablet.

  ‘First Spear, a message from Tribune Scaurus. The bandits are in the field, and looking to take you from behind without warning from the sound of it. You’re ordered to reverse your march and make all speed to join up with the tribune. He’s coming west with the rest of the First Cohort.’

  The first spear took the tablet, nodding to his brother officer.

  ‘There you go, that’s what’s been bothering me all day.’ A thought occurred to him, and he swung back to the decurion with a questioning look. ‘Silus, did you actually get eyes on these bandits as you came west?’

  The decurion shook his head dourly.

  ‘No sir, nothing at all.’

  ‘So they might as easily have got round you to the east, and the tribune for that matter, and be moving on Tungrorum. Either way we need to head east at the double! Trumpeter, sound the advance at forced-march pace.’ As the horn brayed out the command for the column to start moving, Frontinius fastened the buckle on his helmet to make it tighter, winking at his friend. ‘Come on, then. It’ll be just like the old days, when that sour-faced old sod Catus used to beat us up and down the military road for a full day at the forced pace, and then expected an hour’s spear and sword drill in the dark at the end of it. You might even think he had a point, with hindsight.’

  The late-afternoon sun was warming the walls of the Tungrorum grain store as Julius strode the short distance from the city’s south-western gate at the head of his century. He stopped in front of the store’s gate, waiting patiently until a familiar face appeared on the wall above him.

  ‘Centurion Julius! I thought you had orders to remain in the city and keep the procurator’s gold safe from prying eyes and sticky fingers?’

  He grinned back up at the legion cohort’s first spear, gesturing to the cart behind him, a tent party of his century’s soldiers in place of the horses that would usually have pulled the transport. Felicia was sitting alongside the boxes of coin, and she climbed down from her perch to fuss over the cohort’s wounded, who were following behind in a second cart.

  ‘I had a short but meaningful chat with Petrus that convinced me that we needed to move before he bottled us up in the headquarters building. He’s got a hard-on for this money, and I can’t see him taking disappointment quietly. So here we are, with a cart full of gold and nowhere else to go. Can we come and join you?’

  Sergius smiled, shaking his head.

  ‘So you bring me a few dozen soldiers and so much gold that half the city would happily tear us limb from limb to get their hands on it?’ He looked up at the sky as if questioning the gods, then turned back to his men inside the grain store’s compound. ‘Open the gate!’

  The Tungrians ran their heavy load through the hastily opened gates, and Sergius climbed down to meet them, taking Julius’s offered hand with a broad smile.

  ‘Gold or no gold, it’s good to have you in here with us.’ He bowed to Felicia. ‘You are especially welcome, madam. In the event of an attack I fear that a lot of my men will be wounded.’ He turned back to Julius, waving a hand at the store’s massive, empty expanse. ‘One century of men to hold a facility the size of a legion bathhouse . . .? Your tribune may be a good man, but I think he’s allowed his balls to overrule his head on this occasion.’

  Julius nodded.

  ‘We’ll just have to pray that the gods really have seen fit to send Obduro away to the west, because if he turns up here I can’t see you and I holding this place for very long against the equivalent of a full cohort.’ He unbuckled his helmet and pulled it off, grimacing at the sweat-stained arming cap nesting inside it. ‘And now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ve an errand to run in the city. You, soldier, help me out of this mail and make sure it doesn’t touch the ground once I’m out of it. I don’t want it covered in dust.’

  Sergius watched in bemusement as
his colleague unbuckled his belt and handed it to one of his men, then bent over and struggled out of his armour, dropping the heavy mail shirt into the soldier’s waiting hands.

  ‘You’re going back into Tungrorum in just your tunic? Is that wise? And why would you take such a . . .’

  He fell silent as Julius fixed him with an implacable gaze.

  ‘A woman I loved a long time ago is being used as a bargaining counter by the local gang leader, who also happens to be our good friend Petrus. If I make any attempt to rescue her by force of arms I’ll have to cut my way through a hundred or so of his men, and more than likely as many of the locals as he can bribe or threaten into my path. It’ll be a bloodbath. I’ll lose more than a few men, and at the end of it I’ll most likely find her with her throat cut.’ He fastened the belt about his lean waist, leaving his sword in the soldier’s arms and taking only his fighting knife. ‘One man on his own though, that’s a different prospect. I can move quickly and quietly, come at them from an unexpected direction, and I have one nice little advantage that they don’t know about. I’ll be back within the hour, but if I’m not you’ll just have to forget me. Focus on keeping this place secure. And for what it’s worth, I’d be most worried about those granaries. The front wall’s easy enough to defend, but they could pick any point along either of the long sides and break through the wall, given long enough, and with the numbers we’ve got it’d be damned difficult to stop them.’ He looked about him. ‘Have you got any archers?’

  Sergius shook his head.

  ‘No. Prefect Belletor doesn’t believe in encouraging the use of any but the standard issue weapons. You?’

  ‘No, our archers are all concentrated in one century. I’ll see what I can do while I’m inside the walls. I’ve got an idea that might allow us to keep Obduro’s men at bay for a while, even if it is a bit risky. It would help if you had a fire burning by the time I’m back, and some torches ready to go. There’s a stack of them on the cart.’