Beasts Beyond the Wall

by Beasts Beyond the Wall (retail) (epub)

  ‘Time we were moving.’

  Drust looked up and had to focus out of his anger to see Kag, his look one of warning. He became aware that others had been watching and stood up.

  ‘Get them on the mules,’ he rasped. ‘Manius – move ahead and make sure of the land in front. Sib – watch our rear.’

  At the door, he turned and looked at Verrecunda; behind her, Necthan watched from the shadows.

  ‘Fortuna smile on you,’ he said, and managed one of his own. ‘I shall send no one back.’

  ‘Thank you for the blessings of your gods,’ she answered, ‘though I have my own and better ones. Even if you change your mind and send someone back, you will not find us here. It is a foolish prey who waits to be eaten.’

  He felt her eyes on his back a long way off from the squatting hut and even when nothing could be seen behind them save the trail they left, he felt her stare.

  It was not warming.

  * * *

  No one knew how he did it, but everyone agreed he did something. He stood like a small statue, arms outstretched, while his doting mother looked on and everyone fretted about the delay. Kag, as usual, was convinced they were being followed because they were leaving tracks. Ugo was just grateful for the rest, Sib at least knew where Dog and Manius were – both were watching the woman and boy.

  Drust had no idea what the boy said, even when he got close enough to hear the high, thin flute of his voice. It wasn’t Latin, nor even Syrian, for he had enough knowledge of it to know that. Older, he thought and wanted to shiver, but fought it, for it would do no good for folk to see him tremble at some boy invoking a god in a strange tongue.

  It was cold to be standing on white-patched heather and bracken which rolled away in ridges like a frozen ocean. The only sound apart from the boy was the guttural harshness of birds, black crosses against the pewter sky. Rooks or ravens, Drust thought, neither of whom are good omens.

  He saw a hare, too, darting into the tangled brown, heading for a rill that gurgled over stones, exultant at having been freed from ice.

  They had smashed their way up and over this land for a day and a half and there was still no sign of the Northern Wall, which they should have reached. But the land dipped and swelled, so you could lose all Rome in its folds, Drust thought, until you were pushing your face against the gate.

  The boy finished. His mother praised him and he beamed. Manius stamped his feet and glared; he did not like the sun worshippers, Drust saw.

  ‘Can we go?’

  Kag came loping up and Drust saw his face and sighed, knowing what he would say.

  ‘We are being followed.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No, really. On our arse, right now – about twenty on foot but running hard.’

  Drust felt his bowels melt. Talorc had found a way to persuade the other chiefs into one last throw of the dice. He said the name aloud, but Kag shook his head.

  ‘Not them. The others. The ones they raided for slaves – we fell over their trail, remember? Killed some who were raping.’

  He shrugged and frowned. ‘Or another tribe who watch the Wall.’

  ‘Fuck all their mothers,’ Sib spat. ‘Why is Rome even here? Leave these snarling rats to eat one another.’

  ‘They will stop fighting each other for one reason only – to fight Romans. We are Romans, so move,’ Drust advised. ‘Fast. Or be eaten.’

  They whipped and kicked the mules and stumbled over the clutching bracken and heather as fast as they could, until their breath rasped. There were more hidden tarns and sudden dips in this part than the rest of both Britannias, Drust spat out, picking himself out of a sodden patch and cursing because now he had wet feet to add to everything else.

  They were jogging now, but it was more stagger than run. Then, in a miracle the boy acknowledged with a high, thin shout and a clap of his hands, the sun broke through like a great golden coin and everyone stopped long enough to stare their astonishment to the sky.

  ‘That boy,’ Kag said on his way back to the rear to spy on their pursuers, ‘is gods-struck after all. Perhaps we should follow Dog’s lead.’

  Privately, looking at Dog’s raptured face, Drust thought the man too hagged to be sensible when it came to this woman and boy. Yet he had seen him gouging out the eyes of a man in the name of the dead Calvinus, and if worship of Helios kept that at bay, more power to the shiny god.

  The sky started to lighten and, by the time the heat was sweating smoke off them, it was blue, with the wheeling, raucous birds like sharp black crosses.

  ‘Ravens,’ Quintus said, pulling on the halter of the woman’s mule. ‘They are not happy birds.’

  ‘Rooks,’ Ugo said, lumbering heavily and trying to keep up. ‘They are rooks.’

  They had to stop, drooling and heads bent, hands on knees. A mule keeled over and Quintus went to it, started unlashing the pack.

  ‘Leave all that,’ Drust ordered. ‘We cannot carry it.’

  ‘Last of our gear,’ Quintus pointed out, but then grinned his grin, shrugged and did as he was told. He was soothing the mule before giving it iron when Manius came loping in, so silent and sudden that Sib failed to see him and recoiled with a yelp.

  Manius spared him a single look, then went to Drust. ‘Wall fort up ahead. Little one. A long run will take us there.’

  ‘Then let us run long,’ Drust said and started forward, smacking the rump of the boy’s mule. The boy sat it like a bag of spilled grain, staring at the sky and smiling.

  It was closer than that and Drust felt a swell of freshness that banished fatigue. We will make this after all, he thought exultantly. We will make this…

  Then he made the mistake of looking back to see Kag sprinting, hurdling tussocks of bracken as if he was in a foot race.

  ‘They are coming,’ he bawled. ‘The fuckers are coming at us.’

  No one argued; everyone simply tried to outrun Kag, kicking and beating the mules in a frenzy, lurching and staggering until they hit the rutted trail that led up to the Wall fort. It was a little signal tower, no more and the turf rampart stretched out on either side of it, twice the height of a man and made taller by a wooden stockade. There was a deep ditch thick with snow, where the last weathered ends of stakes stuck out like bristles on a frozen chin.

  There was not a single man to be seen.

  Manius was calling out as they came up, looking behind them constantly now. ‘Ho, there,’ he called. ‘Romans here. Open the gate.’

  Everyone joined in, roaring and bawling. The mules picked up on it and started braying and, at last, a helmeted head appeared at the top of the tower, truculent as a routed pig.

  ‘Ho yourself – what’s all the noise? This is Compitalia – have respect for the lares if not my head.’

  ‘Never mind celebrating your wine-soaked household gods – open the gate, you flap-sandalled, rat-fuck Army shit,’ yelled Kag. The helmet leaned arms on the stone tower crenellations and scowled.

  ‘Says who?’ he demanded, and Kag took a breath but was forestalled by the firm, clear voice of the woman.

  ‘Domina Julia Soaemias Bassianus, wife of the governor of Numidia, niece to the Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus Augustus. Open the gate at once or suffer the consequences.’

  The helmeted face stiffened, then squinted. He has seen the warriors coming up, Drust thought, and that means they are far too close.

  ‘Form,’ he said. ‘Pair brothers.’

  They formed, fell into their familiar fighting pairs and braced as the warriors came up, breathing hard after a long run but with shields and spears and drool from feral snarls. Behind Drust, there was a series of dull thuds and a grating scrape as the gates opened.

  ‘Get in, get in,’ yelled a voice and everyone crowded for the entrance. Quintus started ragging the stubborn mules to move, but the woman and boy had slid off them and were hurrying through.

  ‘Leave those, you arse,’ Drust shouted, and Quintus looked at the nearest of the stumbling
warriors, then gave a curse, threw the halter away and slid through the narrowing gate. It crashed shut and two men, helmets askew, manhandled the bar on it, then turned to where Drust and the others stood, hands on knees, sucking in breath in whoops. There was an echo of pounding on wood that somehow managed to convey frustrated fury.

  Somewhere, a commanding voice was shouting for a messenger. He would send one to the nearest large fort and warn them that some fool tribesmen were milling round the Wall, Drust realised. Then he heard him command the signal fires lit and that brought his head up.

  ‘We made it,’ Sib declared joyously. ‘We made it.’

  Drust was aware, suddenly, of Julia Soaemias standing in front of him and stopped to look back at her.

  ‘Well done, Drusus, and thank you.’

  ‘We are not out of it yet,’ he replied grimly. ‘The optio is lighting signal fires.’

  The woman did not know but everyone else did and had it confirmed when they went up to the top of the tower and looked out cautiously. The brackened plain to the north was stiff with men, two hundred and more – their pursuers had been mere scouts and they were prowling and howling insults.

  ‘Who the fuck are you lot?’

  The optio was called Caius Rogatus and he and his men were part of the 20th Valeria Victrix – 500 paces to the west was another signal tower, 500 paces to the east one similar. Beyond that was a bigger fort with a cohort in it, which was where the messenger had gone.

  Which left Rogatus with seven men to defend this entire length of the Northern Vallum.

  ‘But no one expects that, Domina,’ he said, in reverence now that he knew who she was and had inspected the creased, dirty but still inviolably sealed document plucked from Drust’s tunic. ‘We have lit signal fires and shall simply close ourselves up here in the tower.’

  ‘They will get in the ditch and scale the earthworks and stockade,’ the boy said and the optio smiled benevolently on him.

  ‘Clever lad. Yes they shall. Nothing we can do about that, and it’s because most of the Army is off in the north, waiting for spring. But these beasts won’t get far. The lads will round them up and then you can carry on. With an escort once things are clear, I am certain of it. My centurion will insist on it, I am sure…’

  There was a sudden series of sharp bangs on the northern door and everyone leaped at it. Rogatus snarled out some orders and four men went to the top of the tower, to make sure it was defended.

  ‘If they get on it,’ Kag muttered, ‘they can prise the hatch cover off…’

  ‘Have no fear, Domina,’ Rogatus enthused, ‘we are snug as lice… er… bugs here. And the rest of the lads will up before morning.’

  He had a man lead the boy and his mother to a corner of the tower, where no doubt his own bed was. Outside, a mule died with a series of braying screams and Quintus scowled.

  ‘I liked those mules. Survivors, like us. Deserved to make it to safety.’

  ‘Wouldn’t, though,’ Ugo said from where had slumped, grey-faced with pain. ‘So they aren’t survivors. Mules is like that. Dumb as greybacks in the Army.’

  A soldier scowled at him, not liking the greyback reference.

  Rogatus came back, wiping sweat from his face and listening to the thumps on the door. He did not look happy.

  ‘Good door, is it?’ demanded Dog and Rogatus looked from him to Drust and wiped away more sweat.

  ‘The door is. The jamb less so. We are supposed to be rebuilding in stone, so the lintel was due for replacement and…’

  He stopped. And you didn’t think it worth the effort to repair round the door, Drust thought bitterly. Just as no one thought it worth it to man this Wall properly, since the army was wintering to the north after spending all summer burning and killing.

  ‘The Army is up at the naval storehouses,’ the optio confirmed. ‘Twenty thousand and more – you’d think they could spare a couple for here, eh?’

  The naval storehouse – Horrea Classis – was where The Hood was squatting, brooding in the mess halls of the 2nd Augusta and a mob of detachments from every legion in the Empire, plotting what he and all the men under his command would have to do when the campaign season started. Same as last year and the year before, which had not won anything close to a victory, just a series of truces none of the tribals had any intention of prolonging.

  Now Severus himself was too ill to do the job, the optio confirmed, so young Antoninus was doing it for him. Geta was in Eboracum with his mother, the illustrious Julia Domna.

  The optio was effusive in telling Julia Soaemias this, worried about keeping the boy soothed from the howls and bangs outside – when the southern gate boomed like a drum, he expected squeals, but the boy simply nodded and said: ‘The beasts are over the Wall, Optio.’

  Rogatus was the one unnerved and moved away, ostensibly to organise matters, though there was nothing left to do but endure.

  ‘Not normal, that boy,’ Quintus pointed out to him, his grin bright in the darkness. The optio sweated and agreed.

  Drust went up to the tower roof, warned by one of the soldiers to keep low when he did it.

  ‘They have slings,’ he explained, at the foot of the ladder. ‘Turds want to drive us off the roof so they can climb up.’

  Up top was a moaning soldier with a dent in his helmet and blood coming out of his eyes. Two others were trying to manhandle him back down the trapdoor without straightening above waist height, so Kag and Drust helped and then crept to the edge of the crenellations. They could hear the smack of stones, see chips fly. Dominating the centre of the tower was a tripod brazier whose contents flared; there was a lot more smoke than flame.

  Drust risked a look to the south and saw the swarm of them, over the ditch, up the Wall and rampart and now spilled out beyond; the huddle of two or three buildings nearby smouldered. It was not good and Drust said so, but Kag shrugged.

  ‘The optio is right. Hunker down and keep them out until reinforcements arrive. They won’t be long because Domina Julia and her son are here. They’ll come sprinting up, mark me. All we have to do is keep the fuckers from getting in.’

  They both heard the pant and scrabble at the same time and looked up as a face came over the lip of the crenellations. It was sweat-gleamed and skin-marked where braided hair didn’t hide it. Kag struck like an adder’s fang, drove the gladius hard into one eye and listened to the falling shriek.

  ‘Cheeky bugger,’ he said amiably.

  Dog came up and Drust took the opportunity to go down; he was sure the attackers would think twice about scaling the walls in ones and twos now and that their confidence in not seeing anyone did not mean their sling stones had driven them off.

  Below, the dark was fetid with fear and blood; two men were down and only one was moving and making a deal of noise about having been smacked on the elbow. The other, Drust saw, was the one with the dented helmet.

  The woman was kneeling by him and the optio hastened to her.

  ‘Now, Domina, that’s no place for you…’

  ‘I am more used to treating abrasions on the knees of my son, but I can at least offer comfort,’ she replied, then smiled wanly. ‘I am not unused to blood. I am a priestess of Helios and the temple needs at least a chalice of it every day when I am there.’

  The optio hesitated, then gave up trying not to look grateful and hurried off, glancing at Drust as he did. There was a loud, rhythmic booming from the north door. The woman laughed wryly.

  ‘Here I am in Roman territory,’ she said, ‘and I am no further from a noisome dark with no bath than before.’

  ‘It will never be as you dream it now,’ Quintus declared, bustling past with a hammer and a length of timber. ‘Like women, baths are fickle.’

  ‘An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit,’ agreed Kag, coming up with another timber balk. ‘As old Pliny once said.’

  ‘Young Pliny,’ Julia Soaemias declared, then frowned. ‘What has happened? Why the timber
?’

  Kag’s eyebrows knotted. ‘Young? Are you sure? The timber is for the northern door. The lintel won’t hold.’

  ‘Young. The old one thought honey fell from the air and snakes leaped at you from trees – have they a ram then?’

  ‘They have, Domina,’ Quintus said, still grinning. ‘We will shore it up all the same.’

  They hurried off and Drust started to follow them but felt his sleeve tugged. He looked down into the hard stare and marvelled at how the eyes were cold as emeralds now.

  ‘If they break in, you must promise me they will not take my son or myself back with them.’

  Drust realised what she meant and blinked, his mouth dry, but he nodded. She let him go and he went off, relieved to be away and wondering whether he could do it if it came to the bit. Wondered, too, at the determination of the tribals to get in. He wasn’t the only one.

  ‘They have come for her,’ Dog said fiercely. ‘And the boy. Perhaps someone has told them how Talorc prized them and they seek revenge.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Sib said, just eyes and teeth in the dark. The boom of the door drowned them out, then everyone was bracing timbers and hammering back in turn. The optio danced with frustration.

  ‘That will only let them know the door is weak,’ he wailed.

  ‘They will know soon enough,’ Kag spat back, wrestling with a timber, ‘when the whole rotten fuck of a thing caves in.’

  There was a clatter as Manius half fell down the ladder from the trapdoor. He stood and blew out his cheeks, then shook his head.

  ‘Can’t get a shot off – too many stones. They will take the roof.’

  ‘Batten the trapdoor,’ Drust ordered and turned to the optio. ‘How is the lintel on that?’

  Rogatus nodded to one of his men, who helped him uncouple the wooden ladder. ‘No one likes rain leaking in,’ he said. ‘It is solid.’

  They put the ladder along a dark wall while the tower boomed and the north gate shuddered. Then the south gate was struck a hefty blow and everyone looked at each other. Rogatus licked dry lips and answered Drust’s unspoken question.