The Leopard Sword: Empire IV (29 page)

Marcus realised that the bandit leader was speaking as much to his own men as to his captive, and he looked about with a genuine interest. When he spoke, he pitched his voice low and soft, forcing Obduro to lean closer to hear his words, momentarily blocking the sunlight that was making the Roman squint at him through half-closed eyes.

‘I’ve seen stronger walls fall.’

Obduro leaned back, a chuckle rattling out from behind the shining mask.

‘I’m sure you have, Centurion, but I’d bet good money that they fell with the assistance of a push from inside, eh? No man here would be foolish enough to consider such betrayal, not given his likely swift reward by wood and nails once the fight was over. I believe the penalty for brigandage is still prompt execution, carried out without exception?’

He turned to the encircling warriors, raising his voice to be heard.

‘The centurion here believes these walls can be toppled, but I think we know the truth of the matter, you men and I. First they have to find us. Then they have to reach this hill in a fit condition to fight. And then they have to batter in our gates, or come over our walls, and do so in the teeth of our resistance. And our teeth are very sharp! The goddess clearly favours us, as she demonstrated yesterday as soon as the first of the unbelievers set foot in the forest. We are too well hidden, too well protected, and too well defended for their efforts to end in anything other than slaughter and defeat.’ The bandits stood in silence, their gazes locked on Marcus, and Obduro turned back to face him. ‘Let us get to the point, shall we? I spared you, Valerius Aquila, in the hope that you will choose to join with us against a common enemy. You have suffered as great an injustice as any man here, and I would be honoured to have you stand alongside me. What is your answer?’

Marcus shook his head with an expression of polite regret, wondering as he did so how the apparently ruthless bandit leader might react to his rejection.

‘Thank you for your offer. I am, however, forced to decline your generosity. I cannot accept the offer of service against my own people.’ He paused for a moment, compelled to shoot a glance at Obduro’s shining face mask despite the futility of seeking any reaction. ‘I still serve the empire.’

Obduro turned away, shaking his helmeted head in disappointment.

‘A shame. I had hopes of you, Valerius Aquila. No matter, you can still serve as a messenger. So take this message back to Tungrorum! Your spears may have done for every other bandit in this entire province, but it would take a legion and more to dig us out of this place, and even then at a grievous cost in dead soldiers. And before I have you escorted to the edge of the forest, let me show you one more thing. Bring me his weapons!’ A man came forward with Marcus’s swords, and Obduro waited while he strapped the belt about him and hung the weapons’ baldricks over his shoulders. ‘You have a long sword of local manufacture, I hear, a fine weapon for which you paid a high price. May I see it?’

Marcus drew the pattern-welded spatha, conscious of the spear points waiting within inches of his back, and handed it hilt first to Obduro. The bandit leader tested the weapon’s balance and peered closely at its dappled blade, nodding his appreciation.

‘A fine weapon indeed, and worth every moment of the smith’s labour. I would call it the finest sword I had ever seen, were it not in the shadow of this . . .’ He handed Marcus the spatha and waited until it was sheathed, then drew his own blade and presented the hilt to his captive. ‘Be mindful that my men will kill you if you so much as look at me in the wrong way while you hold this weapon. They have seen the havoc that it can wreak upon the best-armed men.’

Marcus gingerly accepted the sword, holding it with one hand on the hilt and the blade resting across his arm, admiring the workmanship but frowning at the weapon’s metal, a darker shade of grey than any sword he had seen previously, its entire length dappled with a pattern so dark as to be almost black. Obduro chuckled.

‘Let me spare you the trouble of asking the question. You look at the sword and you wonder from what manner of iron it has been wrought. The answer is that even I do not know for certain, although the man from whom I took it boasted that it had been forged in Damascus, in the distant east, with iron brought along trade routes which run far beyond the empire’s frontiers. He called it his “Leopard Sword”, and claimed that it had magical properties bestowed upon it by the gods.’ The masked man laughed darkly. ‘As to whether it is so blessed is not clear to me, but whatever divine properties it may possess clearly did not extend to the man from whom I took it. Such a blade may make an expert swordsman unassailable, but he was nothing of the sort. But in the hands of a master, like myself . . .’

He held out a hand for the weapon, and Marcus handed it back to him with a final long stare at the marvellously patterned blade. Wielding the sword with a flourish, Obduro called out a command to his men, three of whom stepped forward to face him with their shields raised, drawing their swords and slapping the blades against the brass shield edgings in a challenge to fight. Reaching out to take a small round shield the bandit leader sidestepped towards his practice partners, allowing them to edge around him until he was surrounded on three sides. Speaking over his shoulder to Marcus he hefted the sword, ready to fight.

‘Even the best swordsman would consider this situation a challenge worthy of his years of practice, but even now this blade gives me such an unfair advantage that were this a real fight these men would already be standing corpses, even if they did not yet know it. They have orders to fight me as they would a real opponent, and they know that I will not harm them if I can avoid doing so . . . a fair test of a swordsman’s prowess, I think you’ll agree.’

He lunged towards the man waiting before him, inducing a quick defensive back step from his opponent, then turned quickly and attacked the bandit behind him and to his right, striking hard at his opponent’s sword and, to Marcus’s amazement, effortlessly cleaving the blade in two and dropping a foot of pointed iron into the melting snow. Backhanding the blade back across the hapless bandit’s body, he hacked the man’s shield in two with a slicing cut that seemed to rip cleanly through the layered board and its brass rim as if it were no thicker than paper. As the disarmed bandit stepped back, raising his hands in surrender, the other two stamped in, seeing their chance to best their leader before he turned on either of them to repeat the trick, but Obduro was too quick for them, ducking under one swinging blow and hooking the man’s back foot with his own leg to dump him on the ground, then raising the mottled blade to drive it down through the length of the other’s shield from top to bottom, splitting it in two to leave him defenceless. The bandit screamed out a curse and dropped his sword, clutching at the hand that had been gripping the shield’s horizontal handle as a thick stream of blood gushed from between his fingers, and Marcus realised that the fearsome blade had hacked a deep cut into his hand between the middle knuckles. The last man put up his sword, unwilling to suffer a similar wound, and Obduro shrugged, looking at his weapon’s blade and wiping the blood from it with a rag before dropping it back into its scabbard.

‘Sometimes it is necessary to make a small sacrifice to demonstrate a point. He will be well cared for. And you see my point? In the hands of an average swordsman this weapon is formidable, whereas in mine it is given speed and purpose that make it invincible. This demonstration was for your benefit, Centurion Aquila, to ensure that you don’t get any ideas about attempting to find this place and seeking to use your undoubted skills upon me once you are healed. We may be equally blessed with the ability to throw iron around, but even the beautiful workmanship of your blade would be no match for this.’ He held the darkly dappled sword up to the light, turning his masked face to stare up at it. ‘And now it is time for you to perform the purpose for which I have spared you, Valerius Aquila. Go and tell your tribune that on this occasion he would be well advised to leave us alone. Your welcome here is now at an end, and the next time I see you I will be looking down the blade of my Leopard Sword at a standing corpse. Grumo.’

He nodded to the big man standing alongside Marcus, and as the Roman turned to see what he meant the bandit’s huge fist smashed into his jaw, dropping him to the ground with his face on fire with pain. A pair of boots stepped into his field of view as he knelt in the snow, and without looking up he knew that Obduro had moved to stand over him.

‘Forgive me, Valerius Aquila, for this last indignity. I can hardly release a man whose skill at arms is the match of my own without taking some small step to remove him from the forces ranged against me, can I?’

Blindfolded once more, and little better than semi-conscious, Marcus was led out of the bandit encampment and down the hill, then out into the forest. The big man walked him in silence, speaking only to communicate changes of direction, and after what seemed an age of half walking and half staggering, he muttered a single word of command.

‘Stop.’

The faint tang of wood smoke was in the air, carried on the breeze, and in the forest’s deep silence the Roman wondered whether he could hear, at the very edge of his battered senses, men’s voices barking orders. While he stood still, unsure as to whether Obduro’s command that he was to be kept alive was to be obeyed, he sensed the bandit moving around him. The big man gripped his injured jaw with one hand, its hold so fierce that it was all Marcus could do to stop himself groaning with the pain, and tore the blindfold away with the other. Keeping a tight hold of his prisoner’s face Grumo leaned close to him, his sour breath warm on the Roman’s skin in the morning’s chill. Swaying, and struggling to focus on the looming shadow, part blinded by the sudden sunlight and blinking fruitlessly against the effects of the blow he’d received, the Roman stared back at him, completely defenceless.

‘Look at you.’ The big man hawked and spat at his prisoner’s feet. ‘The mighty Roman conqueror? I could do you with my eating knife. If I didn’t know the chief would find out I’d butcher you here, and leave you for the pigs. You killed three of my men yesterday, and the next time I see you I won’t be waiting for anyone’s permission to finish the job.’ He released his hold on Marcus’s jaw, putting the flat of his hand on the Roman’s forehead and sending him staggering away to land on his back in the melting snow. ‘Away with you! Come back any time . . .’ He turned away, calling a final comment over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be waiting!’

The three cohorts had crossed the river in an orderly fashion, the first men across spreading out in centuries to provide security for those following, although in truth the soldiers were more interested in soaking up the morning’s sunshine than in any unlikely threat, now that they were back on friendly ground. The remaining force on the river’s southern bank had been reduced in strength in an orderly manner under Frontinius’s close control, the withdrawal of each century from the line defending the bridge’s southern end being matched by a contraction of the bridgehead, until at length there were only two centuries left.

‘Take your men across first, Dubnus. Julius and I will follow once your last man’s on the bridge.’

Dubnus saluted the first spear, turning away and barking orders at his chosen man and watch officer.

‘Move your arses, Eighth Century! By tent party, get across that bridge and reform! Smartly, mind you, you’ve got an audience!’

He stalked away towards the river, upbraiding his men for the state of their dress with a vehemence that brought a grim smile to Julius’s face.

‘It sounds like our colleague is about as happy as I feel this morning, sunshine or no bloody sunshine.’

Frontinius grunted his agreement, sweeping the trees around the clearing’s scene of devastation with one last, long stare, then he turned to watch as the 8th Century started to cross the river.

‘We might have been lucky only to have lost two men, you know. It looks to me as if they knew we were coming.’

Julius nodded morosely.

‘But to have lost Marcus of all men. Someone will have to tell his w—’

A man in the front rank of his 5th Century interrupted with a hoarse shout, pointing out into the trees.

‘Man coming in! Looks like one of ours!’

Both officers spun to follow his pointing arm, and Julius’s jaw dropped at the sight of a bedraggled centurion struggling out of the trees. He ran for the clearing’s edge, waving his men forward.

‘
On me!
’

The century sprinted forward in his wake, splitting to either side of the exhausted Marcus as he collapsed into Julius’s arms. Frontinius limped up behind them, bellowing for them to form a line and staring into the trees for any sign of pursuit.

‘Get some shields around him!’

With the 5th Century covering them, Frontinius and Julius lifted their semi-conscious comrade between them and walked him towards the bridge, exchanging unhappy glances as he tottered on his dragging feet despite their support. Julius eyed the river’s width uncertainly, giving Marcus’s bruised face and slitted eyes an appraising stare.

‘He’ll not make the crossing unaided, and if he falls in we’ll lose him.’

Frontinius shook his head.

‘He won’t need to. Look.’

Lugos had cast his war hammer aside and was striding across the bridge, a determined look on his face. He strode up to the two officers and looked down at Marcus, who lifted a weary hand in greeting. Without saying a word the Selgovae warrior bent to examine the Roman’s face, his hands surprisingly gentle as he touched the bruised jaw. Shaking his head he waved the two centurions aside, then squatted onto his haunches in front of Marcus, put his shoulder into the exhausted man’s stomach and straightened his legs, hoisting the Roman and his equipment into the air like a tired infant at bedtime. He turned back towards the bridge without a word, and Frontinius watched him step onto the submerged bridge with exaggerated care, speaking to Julius without taking his eyes off the giant warrior and his burden.