The Leopard Sword: Empire IV (40 page)

‘You are in the presence of Arduenna herself, Roman, closer than any non-believer has ever come and left with his life.’ The confusing image within the copse resolved itself as if cued by Arabus’s words, and Marcus realised that he was looking at a man-sized representation of the goddess. ‘I may owe you my life, and you may be the means by which I take my revenge, if you can prove that I have been so horribly wronged, but you must show her the proper respect or you
will
pay the price for failing to do so.’

The Roman nodded, averting his eyes and muttering a swift prayer to Mithras for the god’s protection, and Arabus tugged at his sleeve, drawing him away from the sacred grove with the impatience of a man whose divided loyalties were being sorely tested. Climbing behind the tracker up the shadow-dappled slope, Marcus realised that each of the copses to either side of their path was similarly deified, the trees’ branches woven around statues of Arduenna. Sometimes the goddess was standing, sometimes she was mounted on a charging boar, but every one of the statues showed her wielding her bow. Remembering the sudden onset of the snow that had frustrated the Tungrians’ efforts to penetrate the forest, he shivered and silently mouthed another entreaty to Mithras before following Arabus towards the slope’s crest. He made barely ten paces progress before glancing into another thicket and, with a sick lurch of his stomach, discerning a pile of bones scattered around the statue’s feet. In a moment Arabus was at his side again, his face hard.

‘Sacrifice. Men taken in the course of their raids, those they don’t kill out of hand, are led here with the promise of being brought to the goddess, and joining in her eternal glory. It is a cruel lie. Obduro leaves them bound and helpless, their arms lashed to branches from different trees to suspend them before the goddess, and they die while she watches, sending her creatures to feed upon their corpses.’ He shook his head, his gaze averted from the evidence of the sacrificial victims. ‘Sometimes even upon their living bodies. And every sacrifice to her strengthens Obduro’s cause with Arduenna.’ A note of impatience entered his voice. ‘Now come, and pay no further heed to the goddess. My presence will protect you, for I am her devout follower, but she watches us nevertheless.’

Following his guide’s example, Marcus got down onto his hands and knees, then slid onto his belly as they crested the ridge. He whistled quietly as the view afforded by its elevation was revealed, drawing an exasperated glance and a whispered admonishment from the tracker.

‘I swear to Arduenna that the only way you would ever catch a boar would be if it were to fall out of a tree onto your stupid Roman head.’

Marcus nodded distractedly, staring out at the bandit fortress in wonder. The wooden palisade was surrounded on all sides by a slope that fell away from the hill’s flat summit at a steep angle, forming a natural defence around the stronghold.

‘Look at that. With a single cohort I could hold that position against a full legion.’

Arabus stared out at the fort with pride in his eyes.

‘It has been a place of worship and refuge for our tribe for as long as we have lived in the forest, or so the stories tell us. Obduro led his band here several years ago, and set up an altar to the goddess inside his wooden walls.’

‘I’ve seen it. He sacrifices men upon it, and drinks their blood.’ The tracker’s eyes clouded at his harsh tone, and Marcus patted him on the shoulder, rolling onto his back and reaching into the leather bag that he had carried up the slope. ‘You did well in bringing me here, and I will prove to you the truth in my words, but first we have to get inside that palisade. It’s time for me to take the lead, and to find out if my acting skills are sufficient to the task.’

‘Petrus! The soldiers are on the move! They’re marching out of the city!’

With a complacent smile the gang leader turned to the man framed in the Blue Boar’s door, nodding to the men waiting around him.

‘What did I tell you? I
knew
Obduro wouldn’t be sitting back and waiting for them to get bored and piss off of their own accord. And while the army’s away, we can have all the fun we like, starting with the retrieval of all that lovely gold they took from Albanus.’ He stood up and pointed to one of his lieutenants. ‘He’ll have left the money behind with a few men to look after it, and to watch each other in case temptation overcomes any of them. You, send men out and find them,
quickly
. I want to know where that gold is before they get any clever ideas about going to ground with it. And you two . . .’ The doormen standing on either side of Annia nodded, straightening their backs. ‘You can take her upstairs and make sure she doesn’t get any ideas about making a run for it. Who knows, that day you’ve been waiting for all these years might just have arrived. All that time spent watching her fuck other men for money but never getting any yourselves might just be at an end . . . Have the hourglass ready.’ He sat down again to await further news, grinning at the horrified looks that Annia was giving him as Slap and Stab dragged her away up the stairs. ‘And if life really is kind, it’ll be that arsehole centurion who’s been left behind to guard the gold. We’ll soon see where his loyalties lie, won’t we?’

Julius watched impassively from the city walls as his cohort marched out from the city and headed away down the road to the west at the forced-march pace, the sound of Clodius’s bellowed orders floating back on the breeze until first sound and then sight of the marching men was denied to him by the distance being covered by the fast-moving soldiers. The man standing alongside him, a veteran of twenty years’ service with whom he had long dispensed with all formality in private, stared after them and nodded approvingly.

‘Not bad. The Badger might make a half-decent first spear one day.’

The centurion grunted reluctant agreement with his chosen man’s comment, turning away from the view down the road to stare out at the sprawling grain store. The legion cohort’s double-strength 1st century was standing guard on the depot, whose gates were firmly shut, under the command of the cohort’s first spear. Scaurus had taken him aside as the Tungrians made their last preparations to march, as the cohort’s centurions and their chosen men had examined each man’s boots and equipment for any sign of defect or negligence that might result in one of them falling out of the crippling fast line of march. Ignoring the bellowing of an incensed chosen man less than a dozen paces away, as the assistant centurion launched into a tirade questioning whether the soldier in question had ever actually learned the art of tying his bootlaces, then provided him with an incentive to perfection by means of forcibly introducing his brass knobbed pole to the soldier’s toes whilst screaming invective into his terrified face, the tribune had muttered final, quiet instructions.

‘Tribune Belletor has chosen to leave his First Century behind to guard the grain store, which is good in one respect.’

Julius had nodded.

‘It’s his double-strength century.’

Scaurus’s frown had spoken volumes as to his opinion of the decision.

‘The decision wasn’t anything to do with the unit’s size, if I guess right, but more an unsubtle dig at his first spear for such open cooperation with Sextus Frontinius. He may come to regret the decision, if he faces Obduro’s fighters across a battlefield without his senior centurion to put some iron in his men’s backs. And I’m sure we can trust Sergius to stand guard over the grain store, but I have my doubts that his men will stand firm in the event that any serious threat comes up the road, so you’ll need to keep an eye on them.’

Julius had raised an eyebrow, his face otherwise imperturbable.

‘What threat do you think we might expect, Tribune, other than the city’s gangs trying to take advantage?’

Scaurus had shaken his head, looking across his cohort’s waiting ranks.

‘In theory? Nothing at all. In practice . . . I don’t know. This man Obduro seems to be the very model of cunning and deceit. I won’t be happy until we have his head perched on a spearhead, and all this nonsense put behind us. Just be sure to keep your guard up.’

Now, deciding that he’d reflected on the conversation for long enough, Julius made his decision and turned back to his chosen man, pointing down at the grain store.

‘Those children won’t stand up to a sustained assault, and they’re babysitting enough grain to feed the bandits well into next year. Choose five tent parties and get yourself down there, will you Quintus? Give Sergius my regards and tell him I sent you to put some backbone into his men. I’ll come down for a look myself later on, once we’ve had time to see what the gangs are going to do now that they think the gold’s unguarded.’

The first sign of interest in the Tungrian headquarters came less than an hour after the 1st Cohort’s departure. A pair of hard-faced men strolled down the street past the main entrance, their eyes lingering on the four soldiers standing guard around the doorway in full armour, while Julius’s watch officer, a squat plug of a man whose face bore three recent scars as testament to his front-rank status, stood with his hands on the hilts of his sword and dagger. He spat into the road behind them, creasing his face into a sneer of disdain.

‘That’s right, keep fucking walking! If you’re planning on coming back for the gold you’d better bring some friends. That money belongs to my boss, and he’d tear me a new arsehole if I were to lose it.’

The gang scouts walked on without looking back, and the watch officer watched them turn the corner before ducking back into the headquarters. He found Julius in the chapel of the standards, staring pensively at the chests containing the money he’d extorted from the various money lenders with whom Procurator Albanus had invested it.

‘Not thinking of doing a bunk with it, are you, sir?’ He grinned into the centurion’s look of resigned amusement, knowing that his proven worth in a fight gave him licence to indulge in a share of the banter routinely exchanged between Julius and his officer colleagues. ‘Only, if you are, you’re going to need some strong lads to carry that lot.’

He nodded to the chests, massively heavy both from their construction and the weight of gold they contained. Julius shook his head and smiled wryly.

‘I think not. That money belongs to my boss, and he’d—’

‘Tear you a new arsehole if you were to lose it? You heard that gentle warning, then, did you, sir?’

‘I did, Pugio, and hopefully so did the rest of the city. If all we have to do today is stand here and stare at those chests then I’ll be the happiest man in the whole of Tungrorum.’

A soldier put his head round the chapel’s door, his voice urgent.

‘More of them, Centurion, coming up the street from both ends.’

Julius turned away from the money, then barked a string of orders at his men before strolling out into the street, enjoying the warmth after the chill of the chapel’s cold stone floor. He stood to one side as a wave of armed and armoured soldiers washed out of the headquarters’ entrance, moving in disciplined silence to form two lines ten paces apart across the narrow street, one to either side of the doorway. The watch officer picked up his shield from beside the door and then shoved his way into the line, rolling his head in a brief circle as if to loosen his neck ready for combat. Drawing his spatha he bellowed an order.

‘
Swords!
’

The soldiers laid down their spears and unsheathed their blades, raising their shields and dressing their line in automatic preparation for the bloody combat that had invariably followed the watch officer’s command over the preceding months. A score or so gang members advanced from both ends of the road until they were almost nose to nose with the Tungrian soldiers, then they stopped, each of them picking one of the auxiliary troops and staring hard into his opponent’s eyes in a calculated attempt to browbeat the building’s defenders. Pugio waited for a moment until a perfect silence had settled on the two groups, then he snapped his head forward and smashed the brow guard of his helmet into the face of the man attempting to intimidate him, sending the thug reeling backwards with his nose torn and broken. The man’s comrades growled in anger, but not one of them made any move in the face of their opponents’ sword points, each one backed up by a soldier whose face betrayed his willingness to kill. Petrus stepped forward from the mass and pushed two of the gang’s front rank aside, approaching the Tungrian line with both hands held up, open and empty, and nodding to Julius with the manner of a man addressing an equal.

‘Centurion. Before this scene descends into an ugly brawl, perhaps you and I might speak as men? There really isn’t any need for
violence
.’

Julius stared at him for a moment, then nodded to Pugio.

‘Let him through.’

The Tungrian rank parted sufficiently for the gang leader to pass between the watch officer and the man next to him, and Petrus nodded to Julius with an apparent confidence that narrowed the centurion’s eyes in calculation. Dropping his hand to the handle of his dagger, the Tungrian stepped in close and put his face inches from the gang leader’s.

‘So why shouldn’t I gut you here and now, Petrus, given that you’re in open defiance of your house arrest? What brings you to sniff around us when you know full well what I told you I’d do if you set foot outside the whorehouse?’

The other man laughed softly, shaking his head.

‘That’s an easy one. There’s enough gold in there to make a man the master of this entire city, I’ve heard, and all of it stolen from the people of this province by a man imposed on us from Rome. And we want it back.’

Julius smiled humourlessly back at him, shaking his own head in turn.

‘Nice try. That money wasn’t stolen from the people, because it never belonged to them. It belongs to the emperor, and I’m going to make sure he gets it back.’

Petrus raised an eyebrow, lifting his arms and looking about him in a theatrical manner.

‘You are, are you? How many men do you have, Centurion. Thirty? Forty? I can bring two hundred of my bruisers here, and a mob of townsmen as well, if I tell them the right story. Do you think you can stand against five hundred gold-crazed men, or a thousand?’