Altar of Blood: Empire IX (29 page)

‘You have dreamed that as well?’

She laughed at him, her green eyes seeming to sparkle.

‘No, Centurion, but I can read a man. Your tribune is made from stronger iron than most, and he will stay in that saddle, no matter how painful the ride, until he passes out from loss of blood. When next we stop you will persuade him to allow me a short time to apply a bandage, and that will enable him to stay in the saddle for a good time longer than if he continues bleeding from an unstaunched wound.’

Varus stared at her again, then nodded brusquely and dropped back to encourage the runners. After another mile of riding they reached the point where the path crossed the main trail, and Scaurus reined his horse in, looking to the north hopefully.

‘No sign of Marcus and Dubnus. I’d hoped they would be here by now.’

The centurion looked at his thigh, dark with drying blood from the wound hidden beneath his chain mail.

‘The woman wants to bandage your wound. And I think she’s ri—’

Scaurus shook his head brusquely.

‘There’s no time.’

Gerhild climbed down from her mount, the tone of her voice making the words something between encouragement and a direct command.

‘On the contrary, Tribune, you have more than sufficient time for me to dress the wound. Your men won’t be done with burning the Hand of Wodanaz for a while yet. Now get off that horse and have these men help you out of your mail so that I can make sure you don’t succumb to its effects. How else am I going to ensure that you fulfil your destiny?’

‘Bring me that torch.’

Two of the Hamians had busied themselves with flint and iron while Dubnus’s axemen were busy trussing the priest up so tightly that he was completely unable to move, and manoeuvring him onto the firewood that now covered the altar to a depth of three feet. The priest’s outrage had long since become simple terror in the face of his impending immolation, and his eyes followed the Briton’s movements as he took a burning brand from them and approached, holding up the blazing torch for the German to see. Reaching out, he stripped the crude woollen gag from the helpless priest’s mouth, waiting in obdurate silence as the doomed man babbled a stream of invective, curses and entreaties at him. At length, raising a finger to silence the captive’s abuse, he spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘You murdered our soldiers. Men who had never harmed you or your tribe were tortured, maimed and then cut open while they were still alive, the beating hearts ripped from their bodies.’ He paused, lifting the torch to shoulder height. ‘And now you pay. Roman justice has been delivered. Feel to free to shout that fact at the sky as you burn. The more of your people who hear you, the better.’

Pushing the brand into the heart of the kindling he waited for a moment while the twigs and leaves took light, then walked around to the other side of the altar and repeated the process. Leaving the brand in place he reached for the saw, pulling his arm back to hurl it far into the forest.

‘Don’t throw it away.’

The Briton turned to find Marcus with his hand out to take the evil little tool.

‘
This?
You want to keep something that’s killed so many men?’

His friend nodded, reaching out to take the cold metal from his hand.

‘Yes. Don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t tell you.’

Dubnus shrugged and turned back to the now frantic priest, wriggling and writhing fruitlessly against his bonds.

‘Now it comes down to it I find I have no desperate need to watch this bastard fry. Do you?’

Marcus shook his head and turned away.

‘No. Knowing that he’ll burn is enough for me.’

Calling to the soldiers who were standing watching the helpless priest’s fruitless struggles, as the flames from the kindling began to play on the wood on which he lay, Dubnus led them from the grove while Marcus paused for a moment at the clearing’s entrance and locked eyes with the helpless torturer. With a sudden burst of fire the stacked timber underneath his head ignited, the flames catching his greasy hair and burning it away in a sudden gout of flame that provoked a falsetto scream of agony from the priest, his entire body straining hopelessly against the bonds that would secure his body until their destruction by the hungry flames. The Roman turned away and followed his comrades up the path without a backward glance.

Amalric and Gernot found Thusila much as they had left it, both men dismounting outside the king’s hall and hurrying inside while the men of the king’s household waited alongside their beasts. Amalric ran to check his family while Gernot strode swiftly to the treasury only to find it secure and under a redoubled guard, the previous sentry’s body and the bloody evidence of his murder having been removed in their absence. Frowning, he retraced his steps to find the king standing outside the hall.

‘They’re safe?’

Amalric nodded tersely.

‘Nobody has seen neither hide nor hair of the Romans since we rode out.’

The two men looked at each other for a moment before the king spoke.

‘Five Romans entered our land yesterday, but only two of them came here. They warned us of a plot to rob our treasury, provoked us to lock up a ragbag collection of idiots and former soldiers who may or may not have had any connection with them, and then stole the tribe’s eagle in the middle of the night. They made a run for the Roman bridge fort and led us away chasing shadows, while the other three freed the same men their comrades had incriminated and escaped into the forest, presumably with my eagle.’

Gernot looked at his king with a growing light of certainty in his eyes as Amalric continued.

‘One group of two men to distract us with their claims of a threat to our treasury, and then to steal the eagle. Although it puzzles me that the man guarding the treasury didn’t raise an alarm before he was killed.’

The noble nodded, grim-faced.

‘And another party of three, who entered the city during the night, received the eagle from the thieves, freed the Roman captives, and then used the distraction caused by the theft to do … what?’

They looked at each other for a moment, Amalric slowly shaking his head as if to dispel an idea that had just occurred to him.

‘Surely not.’

He stared out over the forested hill that rose to the city’s east. Gernot followed his gaze, his eyes narrowing as he realised the conclusion to which the king had suddenly sprung.

‘You don’t think …?’

The king pointed a finger at the trees, his eyes widening in horror.

‘Look!’

A thin plume of black smoke was rising through the forest halfway up the hill, thickening as they watched, as the fire’s grip of whatever it was burning intensified. A sudden piercing shriek rent the morning’s calm, audible despite the distance over which it had carried, the sound of a man undergoing mortal torment, and Amalric started.

‘Is that …?’

Gernot turned to the closest of his men.

‘Summon the men of the city! The enemy are in the forest!’

‘Did you hear that?’

Dubnus nodded grimly at the question, his chest heaving from the mile they had already run since leaving the sacred grove to reach the main track. A horn was sounding off to the north and west, its brazen note rendered thin and insubstantial by distance, but its meaning was no less clear for being distant. After a moment another blaring note joined the first, their urgent sound clearly a call to arms for the Bructeri tribesmen within earshot.

‘Horns. And horns means that they’ve woken up to the fact we’re out here, most likely.’ He turned to the men of their small party.
‘Run!’

They had covered the best part of another mile when the axeman bringing up the rear called out a warning, turning and setting himself for combat while he took great whooping breaths to steady his trembling frame. Shrugging his shield’s strap off his shoulder, he lifted the oval board into the fighting position, glaring over its hide-clad rim at the horseman whose appearance had prompted him to turn and fight, his axe held ready to strike while his fellows hurried to his side. Nocking arrows, the Hamians looked at Marcus for the order to shoot, but the rider, having taken a swift look at them from the vantage point of a rise in the ground, had already wheeled his horse about and disappeared. Dubnus shook his head in disappointment.

‘Gone to fetch his mates. Which means we’ll be thigh deep in the bastards before long. Keep moving!’ They ran again, Marcus blowing his horn in the agreed signal for the rejoin every five hundred paces. Behind them the sound of horses, at first distant and almost unreal in the absence of a visible presence, quickly grew louder.

‘We’ll be fighting in a moment! Archers, take position to shoot and get your breath back! Axes, to me!’

The detachment stopped running at the burly Briton’s command, the Hamians dividing their numbers either side of the track and taking up positions with clear shots back the way they had come, sucking in air to calm their heaving chests while each man pushed his arrows’ iron heads into the ground next to a tree behind which they could take shelter from any return shots. The Tenth Century men stepped into a wall of shields, two on either side of their centurion, blocking the path with their armoured bulk.

In a flurry of hoof beats the Bructeri were visible, half a dozen riders crouching low over their horse’s backs as they galloped at the waiting Tungrians.

‘Loose!’

The archers let their first arrows fly, dropping the leading horseman’s mount and hurling its rider into the undergrowth, the horses behind the fallen beast balking as it kicked and writhed before them.

‘Again!’

Another volley of missiles found targets along the struggling riders, picking one from his saddle with arrows in his chest and throat, another stepping off his mount as it staggered sideways into the forest and collapsed with feathered shafts protruding from its broad chest. The remaining tribesmen took flight, the unhorsed man grabbing onto the last horse’s saddle and running alongside it with exaggerated strides. The Hamians looked to their officers, but Dubnus shook his head.

‘We’re going to need every arrow if we’re going to get back to the river! Prepare to move!’

Dubnus detached himself from his men and walked across to his friend.

‘That was just the hotheads, right?’

The Roman nodded.

‘From what Morban was telling us about the state they were in last night I’d imagine they’re still trying to slap some sense into the city’s warriors, and doubtless their king felt he had to do
something
. That was probably just a roll of the dice aimed at finding out if we could be ridden down without much effort.’

Dubnus grinned humourlessly.

‘Well, they know the answer to that one, sure enough. Let’s get out of here before the rest of them come for a try at dealing with us the hard way.’

Gernot turned away from the horsemen who had returned from the first abortive foray against the intruders with a grim face.

‘Romans. Archers, and brutes with axes, from what they saw. Horsemen aren’t going to be enough, not without any more room to manoeuvre, and the forest paths are just too narrow.’

Amalric nodded tersely, his face a mask of fury.

‘They have the eagle, our sacred grove is burning, and if what I fear was their true purpose in worming their way into my kingdom, my seer may be their captive! I want these men’s corpses nailed to the trees around our sacred grove and their heads thrown over the walls of Novaesium, to remind the Romans who rules on this side of the river! Make it happen, Gernot, and spend whatever lives are necessary to deal with these thieving animals!’

The noble bowed and turned away to the city’s warriors, many of them still half asleep from their celebrations of the previous night, issuing a flurry of orders.

‘Two spearmen to every horseman! Spearmen, you will hold the horse’s saddle and run alongside. Nobody drops out! If you have to puke, then puke, but keep running or you’ll have me to deal with!’ He looked around at his men with a forbidding expression. ‘Horsemen, no faster than a trot to ensure the spearmen can hang on. There’s no need for us to ride any faster, these intruders aren’t going anywhere with the river at their backs.’

He waited while the foot soldiers paired up with riders, each man readying himself for the run through the forest with one hand clutching the horse’s saddle straps and the other holding onto his spear and shield for grim death, each of them clearly praying not to lose their grip and fall under the hoofs of the animals behind. It soon became clear that there were over a dozen horsemen either without any spearmen at all, or only a single man.

‘You, and you, go and find riders who need another man. You riders without spearmen, dismount and come here.’

‘What do you intend?’

He turned to find the king at his shoulder.

‘A dozen men won’t be sufficient to kill these Romans, but it will be enough to stop them running, and force them to defend themselves while we cover the distance between us. And who can tell how the gods might favour such a gamble, or the men who undertake it?’

Amalric thought for a moment and then nodded.

‘I will speak to them.’ He waited until the riders had gathered, then addressed them directly. ‘Men of the king’s household, you are indeed fortunate to have the chance to strike a first blow at these intruders, and to help speed the rescue of the most precious prize of war our tribe possesses. You will ride forward ahead of our main body, and as fast as you can safely travel, you will find the Romans and you will offer them battle. Hold them in place for me, and I will bring your brothers in arms to the fight to stamp them flat for having the temerity to attack us here, in our home. Ride before us, find these Romans, and teach them what it is to incur the rage of the Bructeri!’

‘What happened to the tribune?’

Marcus and Dubnus’s party had rejoined that led by the tribune moments before, only to find Scaurus stripped of his armour and tunic, and lying flat on his back while the woman who had been the target of their mission treated a wound in his side. Dubnus had stalked away to organise their defence of the clearing where the two paths met, arraying his men along its southern side to maximise the archers’ shooting time if an attack started while they were held static by Scaurus’s treatment. Arminius tapped Lupus on the shoulder and pointed to the clearing’s western edge.