The Leopard Sword: Empire IV (10 page)

‘Which implies he has some good sources of information close to you?’

The prefect stared at his boots for a moment.

‘Yes, that thought had occurred to me, but whoever it is must be either terrified or utterly devoted to him. Someone with a family member taken hostage, perhaps, or just a loved one who’s an easy target. Don’t forget that a score of travellers pass through Tungrorum every day, on their way along the main road from Beech Forest to Mosa Ford. Any of them could be one of his people, sent to deal out the threats he’s made to ensure obedience from whoever it is he has close to me.’

He leaned back against the wall, shaking his head wearily.

‘Most of my men have family in the city, and every one of them presents an opportunity for threats and coercion to a man as ruthless as he is, so any one of them might be his agent, willing or not. The only answer that I can see is to find this Obduro and remove his head from his shoulders in the time-honoured fashion, and to do it in such a way as not to show the dice I’m rolling until they hit the table.’

The tribune stood and walked across to the map.

‘And given that I’m the commander of the only battle-experienced unit that’s available to help you, I think we’d better start coming up with ways to impose ourselves on this particular gang’s freedom of action. As you say, you’ve been reacting to him for the last few months, and searching for him without any result. I’m guessing that my fourteen hundred men have much more chance of finding him than your thirty.’

Caninus pointed at the forest’s dark mass, dominating the southern half of the map.

‘The only place to take the fight to him is in there. But be careful, Tribune. Arduenna has a justifiable reputation for being dangerous for the unprepared, especially at this time of year. It may be spring, but winter can return to the forest in an instant.’

He touched the amulet on his right wrist in a reflexive gesture, and Scaurus nodded solemnly.

‘I see you are a believer in Mithras Unconquered. I’d be grateful of a chance to worship alongside you, if the city has a temple? And you needn’t worry, colleague. I’m not going to set a single foot into that maze of trees without your advice to guide me. And now I’d better go and see how my men are progressing with their building work.’ He picked up his cloak and made to leave, but turned as he reached the door. ‘By the way, you mentioned that you were sent here from Fortress Bonna. Is that where you were raised?’

Caninus shook his head, pointing to the spot on the map that was Tungrorum.

‘No, Tribune, I’m a local boy, born and brought up here in the city. I travelled away from Tungrorum for several years in the imperial service, but when the chance came to return to my birthplace I jumped at it. Although, with hindsight, perhaps my decision would have been different had I known what I was stepping into.’

Scaurus nodded in sympathy.

‘Never go back, eh?’

The prefect shook his head slowly.

‘No, Tribune, it wasn’t the coming back that was the mistake. My error was in having any expectation of the place being as I’d left it.’

The squadron parted to either side of the road, their hoof beats muffled by the soft ground as they cantered quickly to the west, their shields and spears held ready to fight. For long, anxious moments they rode steadily forward into the murk, unsure of what they might confront at any second, and with every moment the tension mounted. Marcus was starting to believe that they had missed the bandits in the mist, when a sharp-eyed rider on the right-hand side of the road pointed at the fields and shouted a warning to his decurion. Almost invisible in the fog, the indistinct shape of a grain cart was just discernible, with the figures of several men gathered around its rear apparently attempting to free a wheel from the track’s thick mud. Marcus wheeled the big grey to face the bandits, swinging the spear’s head down from its upright carrying position. The horse needed no further encouragement once it saw the weapon’s wicked iron head drop into its field of vision, and it sprang forward across the field’s heavy clay soil toward the robbers at the gallop, clods of earth flying up in its wake.

Faced with a wall of cavalrymen charging down on them out of the mist the bandits wavered for a moment and then turned to run, their attempts to flee reduced to little better than a stagger by the field’s thick mud. Marcus picked a runner as the men scattered in all directions and rode him down, the cold iron blade stabbing brutally into the small of the man’s back and punching him to the ground with a grunt. Tearing the blade free Marcus turned the horse in search of another target. He heard a horse’s scream of distress and the sound of a rider hitting the ground hard, followed an instant later by a bellow of victory underlaid by a gurgling, agonised groan. Riding towards the noise he barely had time to react as a shaven-headed swordsman charged at him from out of the murk, a bloody blade held high and ready to strike at the horse’s long nose. Stabbing out with the spear, Marcus rammed the weapon’s iron head into the attacker’s face, sending him reeling into the mud with both hands clutching at his shattered, bleeding features.

Having kept his seat by clinging to the enraged animal’s neck, Marcus trotted the grey forward past another three grain carts, steering the horse around the bodies of dead and dying bandits. At the head of the short line of carts he found a tight knot of ten or so bandits in the middle of a circle of horsemen whose spears were lowered and ready to stab into them. Silus caught sight of him and rode over to speak face to face, keeping his voice low.

‘Not bad with only one man down. I’ve given orders for him to be placed in one of the wagons, and perhaps if he lives long enough your woman can work her healing magic on him. As to this sorry collection of cut-throats, what do you think? Should we kill them here, or take them back to Tungrorum?’

Marcus grimaced.

‘First things first, I’d say. We need to find out what they did with the carters, and where they were going with that grain. There may be more of them waiting for this lot to return, in which case . . .’

‘We could clean out that nest of snakes as well. Good idea.’ Silus turned to his men, bellowing an order to his deputy.

‘Double Pay! Disarm them and get them kneeling in a line beside that cart, hands tied behind their backs and their knees hobbled.’ He dismounted, and Marcus followed suit. ‘You do realise that getting information out of them is going to get unpleasant?’

The Roman nodded, preoccupied with sliding the tip of his dagger into a sack of grain and putting the grains that spilled from the small hole under his nose, recoiling slightly from their odour.

‘
Qadir!
’

The chosen man led his mount across the field, kicking at the cart’s wooden wheel to dislodge some of the mud clinging to his boots.

‘Centurion?’

Marcus offered the grain to him, then watched as the Hamian put his nose to the kernels and breathed in slowly. Grimacing, he took one and popped it in his mouth, chewing it briefly before spitting the fragments out with a look of disgust.

‘Tainted. Mould, I’d say. And with mouldy corn it’s a coin toss as to whether you can eat it safely or not, never mind the foul taste. Get it wrong and you’ll be sick for days, weak as a baby and rolling around in your own faeces. I’m surprised that any farmer would bother shipping this to Tungrorum. There’s no way that an experienced buyer is going to give them anything for it.’

Marcus nodded his head to the tethered captives.

‘And we may never know why they were bringing it to the city, unless one of these men can take us to any survivors of the robbery.’ His chosen man raised an eyebrow. ‘I know, it’s not very likely, but . . .’

He led the Hamian across to where Silus was waiting for him, sword drawn and face appropriately grim as he stared up and down the line of terrified-looking bandits.

‘Not so bloody brave now, are you? Well, I can make it worse for you, much worse. You’ve got a choice to make, you scum. You can either die here, nice and quick, or you can choose to tell us what we want to know.’

One of the bandits looked up at him, his face twisted in defiance.

‘What, and then you’ll let us go, will you?’

Silus smiled broadly at him, walking across to his side.

‘Excellent. There’s always one man that wants to go first.’ He nodded at the cavalryman standing in front of the line of kneeling men, and the soldier stepped forward, grabbed the defiant bandit’s hair and used it to pull his head down, baring his neck for the sword. Silus put his spatha on the exposed flesh, sawing the rough sharpened blade backwards and forwards, the sword’s weight exerting enough pressure on the skin to start a thin line of blood trickling down the helpless man’s throat.

‘Of course I’m not going to let you go, but at least you’ll get to survive today, and who knows, if you sing loudly enough perhaps the procurator will spare you for assisting us?’

‘Spare us? More likely he’ll—’

Silus whipped up the blade, taking a quick breath with the upstroke before hacking down into the exposed neck with enough power to partially sever the man’s head from his shoulders, then lifted the sword again to finish the job. The headless corpse toppled forward, blood still pumping from the stump of the dead man’s neck. It sprayed the soldier with a hot jet that made him drop the man’s head and fumble to wipe his eyes clean. Bending, Silus picked up the head by the hair, scowling at the man whose job it had been to hold it. He raised the bloody, mud-spattered trophy, giving the other bandits a good long look at their comrade. The faces reflected fear, hate, but mostly the numb realisation that they would face the same fate soon enough. Marcus watched from the side of the line, his thoughts racing as he considered the murder of the helpless prisoner.

‘So, one man wanted to die here, in this muddy field, with no one to spare him a coin for the ferryman. Does anyone else feel the same need to leave this life here and now? Or would any of you like to talk, and spare the rest of us having to go through this ritual until you’re all dead? No?’

He nodded to the soldier, who gripped the next man’s hair and turned his face away while the decurion braced himself with a two-handed grip on the weapon’s hilt and inhaled quickly. The sword rose and fell in one clean blow this time, and Silus nodded to himself.

‘It seems I’m getting the hang of this. Anyone want to talk? No? Very well.’

He stepped up to the next man down the line, raising the blade as the soldier once again took a grip of the victim’s hair. Tensing himself for the downstroke the decurion took another quick breath of air, but held off from delivering the fatal blow as the helpless man beneath his sword let out a creaking moan of desperation and audibly soiled himself. Silus grinned at the terrified bandit, wrinkling his nose at the sudden stench of terror.

‘Nobody wants to die on an empty stomach. Perhaps I’m not being fair.’ He looked sideways at the man on the far side of the first bandit to die, watching as the colour drained from his face. ‘After all, I started in the middle of the line; perhaps I should have chosen the man on the other side to go third.’ He beckoned to the soldier holding down the bandit’s head to raise it, allowing him to see the victim’s face. ‘What do you think? Fairer to go the other way for a bit?’ The captive goggled up at him wordlessly, almost unable to comprehend his desperate circumstances, and Silus stroked his chin as if deep in thought. ‘It does seem a bit lopsided.’

The decurion turned away from the bandit, beckoning his assistant to follow him, and the soldier released his grip on the prisoner’s hair. Reprieved, the helpless man fell forward into the mud and started to cry like a baby, watching as the decurion moved up the line. He gestured to the soldier, who grabbed his new victim’s copper-hued hair and dragged him forward, ready for the killing stroke. Silus lifted the sword, and stood over the man, waiting patiently for some reaction. After a moment his victim turned his head as much as he could, given the harsh grip on his hair, and snarled at his executioner.

‘Get it done!’

The decurion looked down at him with a gentle smile.

‘Now there’s a man with a pair of balls I can respect. You’re not going to shit yourself any time soon, are you? I can’t kill this man; he deserves a better exit than a quick hack in a muddy field. No, let’s go back to the other one.’

His original victim, still lying in the field’s cold mud, gave out a shrill squeal of horror.

‘No! No, not me! I’ll tell you anything you want to know!
Anything!
’

The redhead spat his anger into the soil.

‘Shut your mouth! There’re good men will die if you betray them, and we’re dead whatever happens, here or in some—’

Silus whirled around, hacking off his head in one swift movement before turning back to the weeping bandit with a tight smile.

‘No one likes to be interrupted when they’re speaking. You were saying . . .?’

When the legion column arrived on the scene, Tribune Belletor found Marcus and a handful of soldiers stacking the dead bandits by the roadside, the badly wounded Tungrian having been wrapped in his cloak and laid in the rearmost cart for transport back to the city.

‘What’s happened here, Centurion. Some sort of battle?’

Marcus briefed him on the short action, watching as the tribune looked about him at the carnage wrought upon the bandits with an expression of mixed horror and distaste. The senior officer’s glance chanced upon the three headless victims of Silus’s interrogation, and his face creased into an unhappy frown.

‘Those men appear to have been beheaded?’

Marcus nodded, his face impassive.

‘Field interrogation, Tribune. The remainder of the squadron is running the rest of the band to ground based on the information gained.’

‘That’s
not
acceptable, Centurion.’ He shook his head angrily, and Marcus waited for him to continue, wondering if the legion officer was a more humane man than his reputation indicated. ‘Look at their arms!’ Marcus realised that Belletor had spotted the slave brands on the dead men’s arms. ‘No, each of these men is someone’s property. My father farms a large estate in Italy, so I know the value of good slaves.’