Altar of Blood: Empire IX (15 page)

The two soldiers picked up their beers and strolled across to stand in front of the guide, who glanced up at them without any change to his vaguely disgusted expression. Heavily bearded, his hair a shaggy, greying mane tied up in a long plait, and with a seamed and lined face that told its own story of a life spent under the elements, his forehead bore a small but distinctive tattoo, a single rune in a blue so dark that it was almost purple. Dressed in a rough woollen tunic and leggings that had clearly seen better days, his feet, stuck out before him and crossed, were clad in heavy military hobnailed boots, which were by contrast in excellent condition. A long hunting knife and purse hung from his ornately decorated belt, and a stout wooden staff as tall as a man rested against the wall behind him, both of its ends shod in polished iron. When he spoke his voice belied the sour glare that was apparently his habitual expression, the words and phrasing hinting at a lively mind.

‘So you’re the men that are looking for a guide. A man that knows the land on the other side of the water like the skin on his own knuckles?’

Sanga nodded.

‘A month’s employment guaranteed at legion pay rates, and probably no more than a week’s actual work.’

The guide shook his head in astonishment.

‘A month’s pay for a week’s work? Where the fuck is it you want taking, across the Styx and past the three-headed dog?’ He raised a hand. ‘No, I don’t need to know and for that much money I doubt you’d tell me. I’m going to need half up front.’

Saratos laughed.

‘You get half money, then you not seen until we gone!’

Gunda grimaced up at him.

‘I want half money because if you’re willing to pay that much, and given the look of you two, there’s a decent chance you’ve got something really stupid in mind. So I want some money to spend before I leave, get some decent clothes and some nice new arrows for my bow.’

Sanga shook his head, and was about to speak when the guide’s stare switched to a point over the soldier’s shoulder. An angry voice behind them rasped threateningly, its owner clearly intent on the infliction of pain.

‘Well now, just like you said, here they are. They must either be very brave or very fucking stupid.’

The Tungrians turned, exchanging significant glances. Sanga smiled broadly at the half-dozen men arrayed between them and the tavern’s door. Three of them were the footpads who had attempted to rob them the previous evening, their faces dark with emergent bruises from the two soldiers’ fists and boots, one of them sporting a vicious pattern of hobnail marks across his cheek and broken nose. The other three were ubiquitous gang muscle, the same type they’d met in cities across the empire, their leader a red-headed bruiser with a long scar down through one eye socket, which held a milky, discoloured orb. A knife dangled in his right hand, and the men on either side were similarly equipped.

‘You two pricks are in deep shit. You hurt my friends here last night, it seems, friends who routinely pay me a share of their takings in return for which they’ve been promised my protection in the event that anything unpleasant should happen to them. And you two appear to have happened to them rather painfully, don’t you?’

He looked the two soldiers up and down, shrugging to demonstrate his lack of concern.

‘You’re clearly nasty bastards, which is why my friends here called for me before attempting their revenge. So, got anything to say before we break your arms and legs and cut you up?’

Sanga took a slow step forward, deliberately closing the gap between them with a deceptively languid, almost sleepy demeanour.

‘You’re probably a legion brat, aren’t you? Son of a retired soldier? Well you know those men that used to come round and drink with your daddy once they were all retired? Hard men who’d fought in the German War, with those dead eyes that scared you so much. Well, him and me …’ he gestured to the Dacian without ever taking his eyes off the thug, ‘we’re like that. Only worse. So here’s a promise, thimble dick. You raise a blade to me, I will make you eat it. If I were you I’d fuck off now, before this gets ugly, eh?’ He stared at the gang leader for a long moment, watching the doubt slowly creep into his eyes. ‘Except you can’t back down, can you? ’Cause if you do all the other bully boys’ll—’

And without warning he was in motion, pivoting on one leg to smash a hobnailed boot into his opponent’s kneecap, the redhead staggering backwards with a shriek of agony, clutching the brutalised joint with one hand and pointing at Sanga with the other.

‘Kill him!’

His fellow thugs came forward at the Tungrians with the eager, empty-eyed aggression of men freed of any restraint, the three men who had been beaten the previous evening crowding in behind them in search of revenge, knives raised and glinting in the tavern’s lamplight. Sanga snatched up a stool and swung it low, the wooden legs tangling with those of one of the gang members who was slower than his mates in stepping out of their arc. He fell to the floor, and before he could regain his footing the Briton swung the stool back, stunning him with a smashing blow of the heavy wooden seat. He stepped back from the fallen man with the stool held ready to strike again, his eyes glinting with calculation.

‘Still want to fight?’

For a moment it looked as if the remaining thugs would give up their cause, but then the biggest of the men who had come seeking revenge stepped forward, raising his own blade.

‘They only got lucky! We do this! Two on one! Get them down and shiv the cunts!’

Bolstered by his aggression the remaining men came forward in silence with their knives held ready to fight, only the harsh sound of their breathing and the scrape of their boot soles across the stone floor breaking the silence. Sanga exchanged a swift glance with his comrade, both men knowing that their opponents’ more cautious approach spelt potential disaster for them. Shooting a look back at Gunda he saw that the guide remained in his relaxed position, seated with his back against the wall, the iron-shod staff now lying across his knees ready for use if the fight threatened to spill over him but otherwise showing no sign of making a move. The German shrugged at him, eliciting a throaty chuckle from the thug closest to Sanga.

‘He knows to keep his fucking nose well out of it. No barbarian’s going to lift a finger to help you!’

He took a deep breath, clearly steeling himself to attack, and the Tungrians nodded to each other, stepping forward and taking the initiative. Saratos feinted at the man closest to him and then, as the thug danced back behind his knife blade, swivelled to intercept his comrade’s attack, grasping his outstretched knife hand and dragging the man’s arm down onto his sharply raised knee. The elbow broke with a sickening crunch of splintered bone, and with a howl of agony the crippled thief reeled out of the fight with his right arm flopping uselessly, leaving the Dacian one on one with the other man, whose ferocious grin had been replaced by a look of consternation.

Beside him Sanga simply stepped forward and shot a vicious straight punch into the closer of his assailants’ faces grinning savagely as the other man’s nose popped in a spray of blood, but as he stepped in again and pulled his fist back to smash deep into the thug’s belly, he tripped over a misaligned flagstone and staggered forward into the reeling bruiser’s arms. The last of the robbers saw his chance and slammed a vicious punch into his kidneys, his comrade wrapping brawny arms around Sanga’s body and momentarily pinioning him, roaring a blood-flecked command at his mate.

‘Do him!’

Casting about him, the other man grabbed a discarded knife from the floor, straightening up and stepping close to the helpless soldier with a snarl, raising the blade toward his throat. Sanga flexed his powerful shoulders, but the thug’s grasp was vice-like. Frantically struggling as the knife-wielding thief stepped in behind him, he launched a crunching headbutt into his captor’s damaged face, but the other man gritted his teeth against the pain and stood firm. His mate put the blade against the Tungrian’s throat and pulled his head back with a handful of hair, snarling in Sanga’s ear as his arm tensed to rip the sharp iron through windpipe and veins.

‘Time for you to—’

Then, with a distinct thud of wood on bone, and a startled grunt of pain, his grip on the Briton’s hair relaxed, and the knife clattered to the floor. Grinning ferociously at his would-be captor the soldier pulled his head back again and butted the thief once more, and again, further smashing his nose. Ramming his fists up across the staggering man’s chest, he crossed his arms and then forced them inexorably apart to break the hold that had rendered him temporarily helpless. As the thief staggered backwards his would-be victim delivered a single kick to his groin that doubled him over, vomiting across the floor with the sudden shooting pain. He turned to deal with his other assailant, only to find him slumped face down on the stone floor, unconscious.

A grunt of pain announced Saratos’s despatch of the last of the thugs, sending him sprawling across a table that promptly collapsed under his weight, his chin striking the bench behind it hard and snapping shut on his tongue. Those of the thugs who could still walk retreated haltingly toward the door clutching their injuries, their leader limping on his good leg and shaking a fist at Sanga.

‘You’ve not seen the last of us, you bastards!’

The soldier bent and retrieved a knife from the floor, raising it in warning.

‘You’re still here when I’ve had a word with our new guide there then I’ll make good on that threat to make you eat this. Your choice.’

He winked at Saratos and then turned back to the guide, who was sitting in the same place as if he’d never moved, nodding his appreciation.

‘I reckon you and that staff just about saved my life.’

Gunda shrugged.

‘No-one calls me barbarian and walks away clean. Now, half up front?’

The veteran grinned at him.

‘Half up front.’

‘I thought you might want to know, Governor …’

Albinus replied without looking up from the paperwork laid out before him, illuminated by the flickering light of half a dozen lamps.

‘Yes?’

The single word was laced with acid, a state of affairs with which the governor’s long-suffering secretary had become at first accustomed and then reluctantly resigned. He advanced into the office from his place in the doorway, adopting the slightly supplicatory stance that experience had taught him tended to defuse the cutting edge of his master’s temper.

‘I thought you might want to know that the Tungrians are on the move, Governor. From the look of their preparations I would expect them to march for Novaesium early tomorrow.’

Albinus looked up at him with a calculating expression.

‘Novaesium? Why Novaesium? Why not just cross the river here?’

The other man inclined his head in agreement.

‘Indeed sir, I find myself in total agreement with you, if …’

The governor’s temper was as volatile as ever, his voice rising as he scowled at the hapless secretary.

‘
If?
If bloody
what
, you half-wit? Stop talking in your damned riddles and get to the point!’

The secretary winced, bowing slightly once more.

‘If your colleague Tribune Scaurus has been charged with a task that requires him to engage with the Marsi tribe, then your surmise would be entirely correct. If, however, his mission requires him to enter Bructeri territory, perhaps to perform some kind of abduction …’

Albinus nodded slowly.

‘In that case he’d be far better off crossing further north.’

‘Indeed, Governor.’

‘At Novaesium, eh? Straight into Bructeri territory, more or less, and the minimum distance to be travelled to the tribal capital.’

He looked up knowingly.

‘You think they’ve been ordered to bring this priestess woman back with them, don’t you?’

The secretary allowed himself the merest hint of a shrug. Anything more expressive would probably have been deemed disrespectful.

‘It was my suspicion, Governor, especially as most of the questions that Tribune Scaurus and his officers asked were about the Bructeri, but …’

‘But what? Spit it out, man!’

‘Well sir, it’s just that most of their questions seemed to focus on the Bructeri capital. And the tribal treasury.’

Albinus sat back with a frown.

‘The treasury? Why the bloody treasury? Surely Scaurus has all the gold he could ever …’

He fell silent, staring hard at the far wall, then slapped his hand down on the desk before him with a loud crack that made the other man flinch.

‘Unless the young bastard has already spent his way through the gold he stole from me! Surely he couldn’t be planning to raid the Bructeri king’s personal fortune?’

His servant nodded slowly.

‘A deduction of some perception, Governor.’

‘Gods below, man!’ Albinus was out of his chair, aghast at the thought. ‘You think he intends to raid the treasury, and then make his escape with the Bructeri seer in the resulting chaos? It’d be enough to spark a full-scale war! The other tribes would be certain to rally to the Bructeri under that sort of provocation!’

The secretary shrugged again, more confidently this time.

‘The idea you postulate would seem to be a credible modus operandi for such a venture. Perhaps this man Scaurus’s instructions from Rome are simply to neutralise the potential for trouble that exists in the form of this Bructeri seer? An assassination, perhaps? And it could well be that he’s come to the conclusion that he might as well turn some profit from the whole thing. After all, given your belief that he uses the gold that he appropriated—’

‘Stole, more like!’

The secretary bowed his acquiescence with his master’s prejudice against Scaurus and his men.

‘Indeed, governor … if he uses the gold he
stole
to facilitate his clandestine activities against the throne, why wouldn’t he look to replenish his purse, given the opportunity?’

Albinus sat back in his chair, nodding slowly as a hard smile spread over his face.