Beasts Beyond the Wall

by Beasts Beyond the Wall (retail) (epub)

  ‘In here?’ Sib shouted, and everyone winced as his voice shrieked round the stones like nails on slate.

  ‘Now and then,’ Dog admitted, but the reactions to that were shredded by a yelp from Quintus; he had gone ahead and come out into a wide circle of stone, broken into large canals. When the others came up, he pointed to what had made him cry out.

  It was the timbers of a ship, lying half in the silt like a dead beast with all its ribs showing. All round it was a litter of spars and ropes, a fallen mast.

  ‘It’s a two-decker,’ Kag said, staring in wonder. ‘A two-decker – down here?’

  ‘It’s not a real one – look at the bottom,’ Ugo declared. ‘It is flat. Not enough water in the Flavian for keel.’

  He was right. It was one of the ancient naumachae ships, flat-bottomed replicas of warships, and this was where they had lain, waiting for the crews to come from above and then sailing out. They stared round at the ramshackle litter of walkways and half-fallen timbers that marked where the sailors would come down; the grilled entrances spilled in the faint light Sib had spotted.

  The wide archways where the boats had sailed into the flooded harena were blocked off by the same carefully laid stone blocks, no doubt brick-finished on the far side. Higher up, above where the water would flow, had been left alone. It meant…

  ‘They are coming through from up there,’ Quintus said as the first grindings began. The old grilles were being forced open and, behind, they could hear the echoes of men arriving up the tunnel.

  ‘Gods above and below,’ Sib moaned. ‘We are trapped.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Dog snarled. ‘Save your breath for running.’

  ‘Get to the far tunnel – it is narrow. We can fight better there.’

  They obeyed and Drust led them, leaping old timbers and sloshing through shallow water. Behind, he heard the blare of a cornicen, a great echoing blast; Ugo stopped and turned, his face etched with frown. Drust slapped him hard on the arm as he ran past.

  ‘Move. That’s not your big Bull, Ugo. That’s a lot of little ones.’

  Above, they all heard the grille open with a screech, then it suddenly flew down at them, wrenched out and flung away to spiral into the silt with a dull thud.

  The Urbans spilled out and balked; no one had been here in a long, wood-rotting time and they realised that as soon as the walkway sagged, then started to sway and splinter. One panicked, tried to get back and threw another off; he fell with a long, mournful wail, hit the wet ground with the sound of a pile of tin kettles thrown in mud.

  ‘Jupiter’s salty balls,’ Kag gasped, ‘the gods are hurling enemies at us now.’

  They almost made it without a fight, lumbering up in a lung-searing gasp to where the tunnel entrance they needed loomed like a welcoming mouth.

  Then the first of the Urbans dropped off the walkway and came at them, forcing them to turn and fight.

  Drust and Kag went left, Quintus and Dog went right. Sib kept running for the tunnel and Ugo and Manius ran with him a little way then turned. No one other than Dog had anything but a pole with a blade and a hook on it, so the Urbans came up hard and fast; somewhere up on the walkway a frantic optio was yelling for them to form.

  He knows, Drust thought, his mind suddenly cold and slowed. Formed shield to shield they can take us. One on one – we can kill them. It is what we do…

  The Urbans rushed in, shouting to bolster their courage, shields up, swords ready to stab. They had the gladius, Drust saw, because it would be better in the narrow passages in and around the Flavian and the streets outside…

  The Urban who came at Drust was a young lad, eyes wide, jaw dropped and crouching behind his shield, trying to shrink even smaller because now he saw what he had run at. Like a dog chasing a galloping horse, he had gripped it by one fetlock and, in the moment before it reacted, knew just how badly he had fucked up.

  He skidded to a halt rather than crash forward, even though he saw a man with a long pole in one hand and a torch in the other. No shield, no armour – but he had been told Spartacus was here, and what if this was him? Or the one next to him, the one armed with a pick…

  Dog slammed his shield with the butt, swung the pick hard and wood splintered – then Dog had another to face and Drust stepped in, his pole-blade cut down by half and swung overarm.

  The whole of it slammed into the lad’s young, frightened face, framed by helmet and half hidden by shield. Flesh burst apart and blood flew, pit-patting into Drust’s cheeks. The lad howled and Drust wrenched the pole-blade free, for the impact had driven the hook in to snag the boy’s mouth like a gaffed fish.

  He made unearthly noises when his jaw was torn off and his tongue flapped. He was still making them when he fell and another man stepped into his place, lunging out with an inexpert stab. Drust twisted sideways, collided with another Urban attempting to flank him – the impact rocked the soldier on to his arse and flung Drust backwards, staggering.

  He saw Dog, skull-snarling at an Urban as his pickaxe slashed once, twice. Then he dropped it, dived for the ground and the fallen gladius that lay there, rolled in a flurry of wet silt and came up like the risen dead, howling.

  Drust had other worries, with enemies closing in on his right and front; he shied away from a flicker behind his right shoulder, almost took a sword from the front, which raked along the side of his head – he felt it pink his ear.

  The flicker was Kag; the Urbans washed away from him like ripples from a stone in a pool. Drust heard Ugo bellowing: ‘Fall back, fall back.’

  He risked a quick glance, saw Ugo and Manius ready, the big man with what seemed to be part of a ship’s mast, the other with a pole-blade in one hand and a torch in the other.

  ‘Back,’ he yelled, ducking sideways to avoid a stab, and lashed out with the gore-spraying pole-blade. When his opponent leaped back, he took the chance and dropped the shaft, scooping up Dog’s discarded pick. The feel of it in his hand made him snarl, his teeth clenched hard enough it seemed they would break.

  He backed off a few steps, making sure Kag and Dog were with him. They backed off a few more and the optio was down at ground level now, screaming for his men to form up, form up. Calling them whoresons. Stupidus. Every curse he could find.

  They realised their mistake and started to do it; the attacks slackened and Drust ended the last of it by shoving his torch in a face. He did not stay to watch the hair flare up, nor hear the shrieks from a man with hot embers up his nose, in his mouth and eyes.

  He ran back, past Ugo and Quintus into the tunnel mouth. Then he turned, panting, and yelled at that pair to leave off and move.

  Quintus, grinning madly, trotted easily back. Ugo, roaring out challenges, finally heaved the timber up above his head with both hands and hurled it; the forming wall of shields broke apart with loud shouts and yelps of pain.

  Then he lumbered back to where Drust waited; the rest were already moving into the shadows of the tunnel.

  ‘There is a palace rat among them,’ he growled as he shouldered Drust to one side to get up the tunnel. ‘I saw him. The one from Eboracum who wanted us fucked up the arse.’

  Drust paused and stared back to where the lights flickered mad dancers on the high arches and distant walls bounced shrieks of fear and pain.

  A Praetorian. The one who called himself Macrinus, who was The Hood’s man.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They moved fast and hard for a long way until the tunnel opened up into yet another wide circle of vaulted barrel arches. Cautiously, they crept out, looking round in the bloody light of torches. No grilles or daylight-spewing holes here, Drust thought. Nothing but shadows and blocked-off entrances. Good…

  They sank down to check one another over; Drust knew he bled and that there was a lot of it, but Kag took a look, soaked a neck cloth in some scummy water from a puddle and wiped hard enough to make Drust wince.

  ‘Notched an ear is all,’ he said. He had a slice along one arm, Dog had one on his forearm.<
br />
  ‘We will live, then,’ Quintus declared cheerfully. ‘I could do with a drink to celebrate.’

  It was ironic; there was water and the threat of it but nothing anyone would swallow who had sense. Besides, as Sib declared fearfully, there were beasts living in it.

  ‘What beasts?’ demanded Ugo, and Sib glanced up round.

  ‘I heard splashings. And there are tales of monsters down here.’

  ‘Giant rats,’ Drust offered wryly, and those who remembered Plancus’s tale laughed.

  ‘No, no,’ Ugo said seriously. ‘I heard this. Sometimes they put beasts into the naumachae – river lizards from Aegyptus and those big sea cows. A few went missing when it was drained. Some say they are down here still.’

  ‘Living on what?’ Dog scorned. ‘Giant rats?’

  He cocked his head, listening, then shook it. ‘We have to move.’

  ‘Why?’ Kag asked. ‘What are you hoping to hear?’

  ‘Hoping not to hear men coming up behind,’ Manius declared softly, but Dog shook his head.

  ‘Hoping not to hear the horns of the closing ceremony,’ he said. ‘When the Flavian is empty, they will open the sluices to scour the sewers free of the day’s shit. And the overspill goes here.’

  ‘Fuck me with Neptune’s sacred fork, Dog,’ Kag declared wearily. ‘You are too miserly with vital information.’

  ‘Would you not have come if you had known?’

  There was no answer to it and Drust ended the squabble over it. ‘Move,’ he said. ‘Look for a marker to the Divine Trajan.’

  They filtered on up the tunnel, following the swaying rat-eye of the torch Drust held up, with Kag in the rear, turning now and then to listen, then hurrying on to catch up with the bobbing, fading light. Shadows danced wildly on the walls.

  They came to two more areas where the tunnel splayed out into an oval channel around a central block of stone with no seeming purpose, though everyone had a thought on it. In the end, it was simply attributed to the aquarii, those endless wandering gangs who patrolled, inspected and cleaned. Drust had no worries about meeting any here; this part, the outflow from the Flavian, had been closed off long since.

  In the third area, Sib had taken the lead and came scuttling back, his torch waving wildly and dangerously as he spoke, and turned to look fearfully over his shoulder at the same time.

  ‘There’s someone up ahead,’ he hissed. ‘A woman.’

  Quintus gave a soft laugh but everyone else looked to their weapons and Kag growled: ‘I would not unfetter your cock just yet – have you thought what sort of a woman inhabits the dark of a pit like this?’

  Everyone had, and Quintus lost his grin. They crept forward, Drust taking the torch because Sib was trembling so much he risked setting hair on fire, not necessarily his own.

  ‘The mavro was right,’ Manius breathed, peering out, and Sib glared at him.

  ‘My eyes are as good as yours,’ he spat back. ‘Go speak to her – she is probably closer to your kin that anyone else here. Jnoun…’

  ‘You will call me demon once too often,’ Manius said flatly. ‘Then you may find the truth.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Drust said, and walked out into the oval area, torch held high. Everyone else crouched and held their breath, watching the clear figure of a small woman in a stola. She watched them, holding one hand high in the air, as if about to hurl some spell.

  Drust walked casually up to her, right up, climbed the plinth and leaned casually against her, one elbow on her head.

  ‘Make your honours to Venus Cloacina,’ he said, loud enough to boom his voice round the space and make them wince. Shamefaced, they trooped out.

  ‘I knew all the time,’ Ugo lied, but everyone was prowling round to examine the object, a balustrade of rusted iron circling the statue. Up close, the statue was worn and the nose was missing, the upraised hand held something that might have been flowers and there was a thin stone pillar with a time-worn bird caught in flight on it.

  ‘Flowers and birds,’ Quintus noted, ‘all symbols of Venus. Never seen any shrine to Cloacina before, though.’

  ‘Not much worshipped these days,’ Kag admitted, ‘but she is the symbol of purity and filth, so where better to raise her up than here.’

  ‘Raised by the engineers,’ Dog said, signalling to Drust to bring the torch. He pointed to a plaque near a grille in the right-hand wall and they squinted at it. It was streaked with green stains and the inscription was mostly lost, save for the words Aqua Traiana. Even Dog could work that out.

  ‘This is us,’ Dog said, and studied the grille. Peering beyond it, he saw only the faint outline of more brick, another arched tunnel. The grille itself was buried deep in silt, but Dog pointed out the way the bars of it vanished into a slit at the top.

  ‘It raises up,’ he said. ‘Probably to allow the engineer gangs in and out. Ugo…’

  Ugo tried. They all tried, but the grille stayed stubbornly shut and half buried. They struck it hard a few times and found the rust on it was only a veneer – underneath, the iron seemed solid. The noise of it, though, the great bell clangs that echoed up and down and around, made them all determined not to do it again.

  ‘We will summon them to us,’ Sib said, as if no one had worked that out.

  ‘We will have to dig it out,’ Ugo said, and everyone looked at one another. Drust handed the torch to Dog and hefted the pick.

  ‘Just as well I did not leave this behind, then,’ he said and handed it to Ugo. ‘You first, giant of the Germanies.’

  Ugo spat on his hands and got down to it, the thunk of the tool and the odd accidental slam on the iron making everyone clench until the rhythm of it eased on the nerves.

  ‘Thank fuck for Trajan,’ Kag said, sitting on the plinth and wiping the sweat from his face with a rag. Quintus scratched his beard, dug out the itching culprit and cracked it between the broken nails of finger and thumb.

  ‘Hardly fair on the Divine Domitian,’ he said, leaning on the goddess. ‘I mean, it was him who started it so the Flavian would get finished. It was only blessed and official during the time of Trajan.’

  ‘Always someone trying to steal Jove’s thunder,’ Kag agreed. ‘And take your hand off the arse of Cloacina – it does not surprise me that you would feel up a goddess, even a stone one, but I don’t want your whoreson behaviour to get me sixed. If we get out of here at all, stay clear of me lest I get smacked by the thunderbolt meant for you.’

  ‘When,’ Quintus said, stressing the word, ‘we get out of here, I will take myself to a part of the City where the women are not stone and don’t object to being felt up.’

  ‘Then you will die soon after,’ Manius said, ‘since that means old haunts and they will find you, double quick.’

  Quintus scrubbed his beard, not liking the truth of it and yet forced to throw his plans in a discarded heap.

  ‘Where will we go?’ Sib asked. ‘We have no coin – what happened to those manumissions, Dog?’

  ‘The copper? I rolled them up and sold them to a smith for melting.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Kag declared miserably. ‘That was all we got out of this mess and now you have thrown it away for a sestertius.’

  ‘Several, as it happens,’ Dog admitted cheerfully. ‘Helped fund my way through Gaul and Apulia and everywhere else so I could get to you lot and free you. Thank me later.’

  ‘Besides,’ Drust offered, ‘those copper squares were just the ones you get for framing on the wall. The truth is registered on the Hill; we are citizens and freedmen.’

  He hefted out the pouch Plancus had handed to him. ‘And our old boss hasn’t forgotten us.’

  When he opened it, even he was surprised by the gleam of gold; everyone crowded to look, fixed by the shine of it.

  ‘Three apiece,’ Drust noted, ‘and from the time of the Divine Vespasianus, not those clunkers of old Severus.’

  ‘Unclipped,’ Ugo noted, with a practised eye. ‘The boss is generous, right enough. Lot of good dri
nk in three gold pieces.’

  ‘Well, hand mine over, then,’ Quintus said, sticking out a hand and hopping down from Cloacina.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Drust said, picking out a stone among the golden eggs and holding it up. Everyone squinted at it, puzzled. It was a stamped pewter token.

  ‘It’s a token,’ Drust said, ‘one of those giving access to the boss’s grain stores.’

  ‘He only has one such,’ Sib pointed out. ‘In Lepcis Magna…’

  His voice trailed off and everyone groaned. Kag spat sideways. Drust scooped the coins and token back into the pouch and the light seemed to dim a little.

  ‘Servilius Structus wants us to go to Lepcis Magna?’ Ugo asked. ‘Why?’

  Drust did not know, nor care overly much. It was a direction and with the stipend for it, same as they had been handed before every enterprise, and he said as much.

  ‘We are the Procuratores,’ he added, looking round them all. ‘Did you have better places to go?’

  ‘Away from all this,’ Quintus muttered. ‘I plan to head for the Den. No one can get you in the Den.’

  ‘You think that?’ Drust declared, ‘If so, Fortuna walk with you.’

  ‘Fortuna will cut your balls off,’ Dog said. ‘Staying in Rome? You might as well hurl yourself into Father Tiber and drown. I favour Emesa and will go there – but Lepcis Magna is a fair stepping stone to the right part of the world, so I will take the bounty of Servilius Structus and be grateful for strength in numbers.’

  ‘Me also,’ Ugo declared, slapping his chest. Drust fixed him with a jaundiced eye.

  ‘Then why have you stopped digging us out?’

  Ugo went back to it with even more frantic viciousness than before and Drust went with him, to provide the light. He was happier than he had been for a long time and all of it was from knowing that they would be together for a little longer. Dog saw it and laughed.

  ‘This is the only familia you have. All those years as a slave in the harena have left you with nothing else.’

  ‘You have a mother and brother, of course,’ Drust snapped back. ‘A wife waiting with something tasty in the kitchen and tastier in the bedroom. Friends who are not dead.’