Beasts Beyond the Wall

by Beasts Beyond the Wall (retail) (epub)

  He came roaring at Drust, who clutched a sword and a great deal of sweating fear. The spear came up and round in a wide sweep, but it sliced air; Drust skipped sideways, away from the shielded side.

  The big warrior moved fast, but something slammed him sideways and then did it again; Drust saw two arrows in the square shield and the warrior shook them free with a curse. Drust promised Manius a gift, took his chance, darted in and slashed; the warrior howled as his leg buckled; blood flushed out into the fancy designs of his wool trousers.

  He came back from it swiftly, knowing he was worse off than before – no shield, slowed to a limp. No way to win save to finish it, so he came in hard and hurled the spear.

  Drust fell and rolled, came up spitting cold snow and wet with the spear bouncing and wriggling like a mad snake beyond him. He had time to glance at it before the warrior was on him, his fist full of a long, bright sword.

  It came up and came down like a wall. Never block, Drust thought wildly; he heard Sophon bellow it from down the corridor of years. The bigger, stronger man will break your wrist or beat you down or break your blade even if you manage to hold him. Turn your wrist – so. Slide it sideways – so…

  It was all too late. The blade came down on Drust like a wall and he heard the steel ring; he staggered and his arm seemed to have vanished, yet when he looked in panic it was there and the sword was in it – there just didn’t seem to be anything he could do with it.

  The warrior gave a loud grunt of delighted triumph and bored in for the kill. Drust ducked, spun and reached out his one good hand as he went sailing along the man’s side. His fist closed on the horn of the helmet and he wrenched and fell and rolled.

  There was a crack and a thump. He rolled over, winded and wet with slush. The warrior was down and looking back over his own shoulder. Never wear a silly hat, Drust thought. And if you must, never tie it down so that someone can wrestle you like a cow and break your silly neck.

  He lay, the cold seeping into him and it seemed he was there a long time, but it was only long enough for Ugo to boot him savagely in the ribs as he moved on; Drust took the hint, rolled over to his hands and knees and got up.

  Metal shrieked, wood splintered. Ugo, his hair flying round his face, whirled the axe and had no proper room for it, so that the shaft slapped a man in the upper arm – it was enough to make him yell and fly backwards.

  Quintus, roaring and grinning, cut and stabbed, snapping back the head of a man who thought he had been swift and clever until he took the hilt of a second sword in what remained of his teeth. He went over on his arse, spitting blood and rolling away from Quintus, who came at him in a flurry of blows.

  Drust had his own concerns – he twisted sideways to avoid a spear thrust, kept going and crashed into the owner, turned, slashed, felt the blade scoring down wood, stumbled to his knees. He saw a foot and stabbed it in the instep; the man howled and hopped until Ugo’s axe crushed ribs and life.

  Manius was trying to get out to where he could use the bow, but men were on him and Kag was too busy – for a moment Drust thought Manius was gone, but that curved dagger lashed and hissed. Quintus stopped his mad chopping and looked up, his face spotted with blood, then he grinned like some bloody funeral mask and leaped on one of Manius’s attackers.

  Drust tried to join in, found himself alongside Manius while the outnumbered attacker backed off, his face wild, his mouth open and wet; he held his blade in two hands and his hair was a tangle of wet snakes. Manius moved like silk in a breeze, there was a sharp ping of sound, like ice shifting in heat, then Drust felt something pattering on him, thought it was rain on his face until he saw the man let slip his sword and clap his hands to the bloody froth spouting from his throat like water from a burst pipe.

  They were running and now it was a slaughter. A man broke from the ruck and leaped on a pony.

  ‘Manius…’ Drust yelled.

  The man with the ripped throat was down, frantically trying to keep his life inside and gug-gugging while he did it. Ugo loped up and turned to where Drust stood, soaked with cold and sweat and someone else’s blood.

  ‘Missio?’ he demanded. Kag gave him a curse and moved in, slashing, as the warriors who had thrown down their weapons yelled and tried to move away. They died on their knees and bellies, cut to bloody fret.

  ‘I have told you before,’ Drust said to Ugo, feeling sick and breathless. ‘This isn’t the sands.’

  ‘There’s no rule-maker with a stick,’ Kag added, panting with the exertion of hacking men to pats. ‘Just kill the fucks.’

  Ugo casually chopped the throat-cut one, taking off most of the top of his head in a careless, uncaring strike, then leaned on his axe, pointedly wiping the clotted gore off the blade. ‘You have no feeling for the way of it,’ he said sadly. Drust was more concerned about the rider and couldn’t see anything of him – but Manius loped up and nodded. Drust got up, feeling a rush of relief.

  ‘Well,’ Sib said, wide-eyed with it all. ‘Well.’

  Drust sometimes forgot that the Numidian wasn’t a true fighter but a horse coper. He had handled himself well enough, though.

  ‘Nice touch with the helmet,’ Kag said to Drust, eyeing the warrior with the broken neck. ‘You didn’t need to let it get to that, though. Could have taken him out if you had applied yourself.’

  ‘He hadn’t rehearsed it,’ Quintus said, grinning, and Drust bridled.

  ‘I fought some real fights,’ he started, but the lie in it stopped his mouth. They gave themselves a long moment of breathing and enjoying the sensation, the exultation that came with survival. Then came the sickness that always followed and Drust’s was slathered with what had to be done now.

  ‘Collect them up. Put them on their ponies and take them with us when we go,’ he said. ‘Bury them and all their gear some way from here.’

  They saw the need and wearily got down to it. The ponies snorted and stamped at the blood smell and the old man and the woman helped lash the bodies. The woman offered a pack of dried cooked meat and filled an empty skin with Falernum. Then she stood, cradling the heavy amphora in her arms like a child.

  ‘A day north and west,’ she said to Drust and looked at the sky. ‘If you get no weather you should be there as night falls. You keep towards that range of hills until you come to a river – the Smoothing Stone they call it. You won’t miss it. Follow it – the Blue Face territory starts at where you find the river and they are settled midway along the length of it.’

  He nodded. ‘After Brigus left you told her we would be coming,’ he said and, with only a slight pause, she waggled her head, that sign that could be yes and no and was always an admittance of guilt for something.

  ‘What did she say?

  ‘She is afraid. For the boy more than herself.’

  ‘Will she come with us?’

  ‘She may. It may not be possible,’ she said. Even if this Roman woman had Dog the slave fucking her in her unwilling arse nightly, he thought, she will not come meekly with us. Because we represent folk who will do even worse to her.

  Verrecunda seemed to sense… something. Cleared her throat and took a breath.

  ‘Do not harm the boy,’ she said vehemently. ‘He is perfect.’

  She moved away from him and he was disconcerted by her; he turned away and found Manius looking at him out of a dark, flat stare like the entrance to the abyss. He nodded and did not need to say more.

  They moved out, and when they’d been travelling a few minutes, Manius stopped, turned his mule and loped it back.

  ‘Where is he going?’ demanded Ugo.

  ‘Forgot an arrow,’ Quintus said, knowing the truth. He was grinning his big grin, fixing it on his face like a shield against thought.

  By the time they found the hollow with its skeletal trees and had started to scraping out the mulch, Manius came loping in again.

  ‘Just in time,’ Sib growled, wrestling one of the corpses off the pony. Kag, grim-faced as ever when it came to this
, held the mount steady for Ugo to slam the pony’s forehead with the reverse side of his axe. One by one the ponies died and were dragged into the shallow hole.

  Then Ugo, wiping the gore off his hands with clean snow, squinted at the horizon where they had come from. It took him a moment to get to it, then he stared at Manius and shook his head.

  ‘Fuck’ he said bitterly. Sib’s face grew hard and colder than the crusted slush when he worked it out. Kag turned away in disgust.

  ‘I liked the old man,’ he said wearily and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  They gathered up the mules and plodded on into the grimming day.

  Chapter Seven

  It was intempesta nox, the dead of night when no one should be awake. This was when your soul was closest to Dis and even sentries pacing walls would sooner forget their spear than a warding amulet.

  The cold was surely sent by Dis, Drust thought. It slid like mating snakes round his ankles and legs and up even to the sanctum of his fork; he would have to move soon or stiffen and die. But it was fighting with crushing weariness for possession of his body as well as his soul; he struggled against it, battled it hard with the great bell ringing blades of unanswered questions – who had sent them here? Brigus was State – yet which part of it sent the woman and her child here and which part now wanted them back? Why had Dog been involved?

  It was the epitome of futility. The known world ceased to exist and there was nothing beyond the cold Land of Darkness that held any meaning. His head dropped, but he slept in fits and starts and then thought of his mother. It was all that talk from Verrecunda, he thought.

  He remembered her face and was pleased that he still could, knowing that year on year it faded like a poor wall painting. Once it had been everything that was beauty, comfort, safety, love.

  She came silently in the night when she could, smelled of peaches and taught him the tongue. Taught him that he was a slave and what that meant.

  ‘How do you stop being a slave?’ he had once asked her and she had kissed him, her face large, her eyes bright as stars.

  ‘You remember. You remember the tongue. You remember me. You remember me speaking of freedom. You never forget.’

  He became aware of someone settling in the dark beside him and hoped whoever it was had not heard him; he was sure he had whimpered or cried or both. It was Kag.

  ‘You awake?’

  ‘Now,’ he said, and Kag grunted apologies.

  ‘Cold,’ he said, but that wasn’t what chewed him out of sleep and Drust knew it.

  ‘This woman,’ Kag began. Drust waited.

  ‘This woman.’

  ‘You said that,’ Drust answered, feeling the cold and the sleep and wondering, dully, if one was the other. He knew that’s how true cold worked…

  ‘He means – what about this woman?’

  The new voice was rheumed but strong, with a laugh in it still. Quintus came up and squatted, so it looked as if they all sat round a fire that wasn’t there.

  ‘You are supposed to be on watch,’ Kag growled, and Quintus shrugged.

  ‘Manius went out an hour ago. Sib is watching. Only Ugo sleeps. So we speak of this woman and her kid and what we have learned and what we do not know.’

  ‘What don’t we know?’ Drust asked, puzzled now. He remembering the poignancy of his mother; it was all just dreaming, he thought. That’s all.

  ‘We don’t know where she is or how she is,’ Quintus said. ‘It seems she will scream. That makes a difference.’

  ‘We don’t know who she is, more the point,’ Kag growled.

  ‘We don’t know who sent her here and who wants her back is more the point,’ Drust said, and that silenced them. Kag blew out a smoke of cold sigh.

  ‘We do not even know her name,’ he muttered morosely.

  ‘Julia,’ Drust said, and Quintus, to whom the names of women meant little, blew on his hands.

  ‘If you believe the woman at the hut,’ he said.

  ‘Why would she lie?’ Kag demanded.

  ‘We could ask her,’ Quintus said in mock surprise. ‘Oh no, wait – Manius saw to that.’

  Kag scowled. ‘I liked the old man.’

  Drust lost patience. ‘Enough on the old woman and man,’ he snapped. ‘It was necessary and Manius did it on orders.’

  No one spoke and Drust was grateful for the fire that had been shoved into him, but it was already fading. He looked at the sky, felt the sword’s-edge breeze and wished for the faint dim blue that marked a dawn.

  ‘Who sent us?’ Quintus demanded. ‘Really. Kalutis is the man of Servilius Structus, but even he did not bother hiding the fact that he had no idea who would claim the woman and child once we’d brought them back to Eboracum. Julius Yahya works for someone else, someone high-born.’

  ‘Julia Domna,’ Kag replied firmly. ‘Has to be.’

  ‘The Empress? Why would she go to all this trouble for a slave, even a valued household one? Money and the promise of citizenship for six people – is any slave worth that, even one with a kid in tow?’

  ‘Who else could it be?’ Drust muttered, having worried at it for too long. ‘The woman at the hut…’

  ‘Verrecunda,’ Quintus interrupted savagely. ‘She was called Verrecunda.’

  Drust paused, but ignored the stroke, partly because he did not want to provoke and partly because it was a solid blow, well delivered, and he had no reply.

  ‘Verrecunda,’ he said, ‘told us this woman was a slave. One of those pampered ones taken more as hostage than slave.’

  ‘Like our mothers,’ Quintus said thoughtfully.

  Kag laughed. ‘Well, in point she did not say that. Just the name Julia – we have conjured everything else up like one of Ugo’s shamans. And that is how this Verrecunda works, I saw. All that business about our mothers – I never knew my old ma, but I was given to know that she worked fields somewhere. Hardly pampered. Nor was she some chieftain’s daughter.’

  He broke off and held up both hands. ‘I know, I know – we all claim we were better blood than we are. Everyone who gets harena between their toes swears he is a prince in his own lands. But lads – all of us, the sons of queens?’

  He looked round, daring the silence. Then he shook his head.

  ‘Quintus is a Suburan rat whose mother was a whore in the Wolf’s Den and worked for Servilius Structus,’ he went on savagely. ‘No hostaged queen there, is there?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Quintus replied, but he grinned all the same.

  ‘So the woman lied?’

  The bass rumble heralded Ugo, and Kag sighed. ‘Now we have most of a set.’

  ‘Yes, mountain of the Germanies,’ Quintus chuckled, ‘the woman lied.’

  ‘Verrecunda,’ Kag added. ‘Her name was Verrecunda.’

  Ugo stared from one to the other, scowling at why they were chuckling and wondering if he was the butt of another joke. He was, he knew, quite a lot of the time, and he knew he was not foolish but it irritated him that he could never quite work out if he was being cozened or not.

  ‘If she lied about such a matter,’ he said, preferring to ignore everything else, ‘then what else did she lie about?’

  ‘The very question,’ Kag declared moodily. ‘Brigus perhaps.’

  ‘He is dead,’ Drust said. ‘He went to find this woman, presumably returned to the Wall and was never seen again.’

  ‘We should have asked Necthan some questions about Brigus,’ he added, half to himself. The old man had had a sly look about him most of the time…

  ‘Too fucking late now,’ said a voice, and a shadow loomed; Quintus made a grunt of annoyance.

  ‘You are supposed to be on watch,’ he said. Sib crouched and glared, shivering.

  ‘Since everyone is awake, it would seem better if one of you took the watch and let those who would sleep, sleep.’

  ‘It is your watch,’ Ugo pointed out.

  ‘Is this the Army, then?’ Sib snapped back.

  ‘If it was you would be r
unning a line of men with cudgels and righteous annoyance,’ Drust said, and Sib gave a wave of one hand, as if to apologise and acknowledge the transgression.

  ‘I am on watch,’ he said. ‘So much so that I saw Manius coming in. He will be here soon.’

  When he came in, the man radiated heat so that they all felt it, shifted a little closer to absorb some of it. He had been travelling hard and brought news that made everyone forget the cold.

  There were fires and men sitting round them, Manius told them. No more than a long walk from here. Armed men with faces he had thought eaten by shadows or disease until he realised they were all skin-marked. Around twenty of them, all cheerful with food and flames.

  ‘Blue Faces,’ Kag said. ‘Hunting us.’

  Manius shook his head and told them of the others, the women bound and guarded, the driven sheep and hauled cattle. It was a raiding party, out in the depths of winter when no raiders usually moved.

  ‘Raids are the same everywhere,’ Ugo agreed. ‘Winter is hard enough without what little you have being stolen and what shelter you need burned round your ears. There will be agreements on it. Understandings now broken.’

  Manius nodded. ‘I watched the chasers, too. Same number, perhaps a few more and not so far behind. I do not know what people they belong to, but they are vengeful for the raid and on the trail of the Blue Faces. It is my reckoning the Blue Faces will have to push to reach the shelter of their own fortress before the chasers give up.’

  ‘We should follow these Blue Faces,’ Drust said. ‘Carefully and unseen. They will show us the way to this woman and her child.’

  ‘In case the woman at the hut lied,’ Ugo declared.

  ‘Verrecunda,’ said three voices, then stopped.

  ‘It seems the woman, this Julia, if that is her name, will not come willingly,’ Ugo said and shook his head. ‘We are not rescuers here.’

  Sib looked from one to the other, then at Manius.

  ‘We might have brought the woman in the hut along with us, to calm or help,’ he said bitterly. ‘But she will hardly be of use now, eh? Her name was Verrecunda, in case you did not know.’