Arrows of Fury: Empire Volume Two (13 page)

‘You men are a disgrace, willing to allow the death of your commander to pass unpunished, and so I’m going to punish you collectively to the maximum extent I can without causing any loss of your fighting capability. As a result, the following punishments are effective immediately. First, you will all be fined an amount of pay equal to that which you have earned since Bassus’s murder. On top of that, no further pay will be issued until his killer volunteers himself for punishment.’ He waited for a moment, allowing the enormity of three months’ lost pay to sink in. ‘Second, if the killer is found, and justice granted to Prefect Bassus today, before the sun sets, I will commute that fine to one month’s pay. And lastly, if the prefect’s killer is not identified today, I will randomly select a man from each century for execution by his comrades. Execution which will be carried out without the use of any weapons other than your bare hands.’

He looked across their ranks, staring hard at faces whose gaze was locked firmly to the front, not daring to meet his eyes.

‘You choose. I’ve got no orders other than to scout this area for barbarians, so we can stay here as long as you like while the man I’m looking for makes his mind up to come forward, just as long as you’re all clear that every new day will start with each century choosing a soldier to be beaten to death … not to mention someone to do the dirty work. I’ll be in my tent …’

The quartermaster’s meaty hand made a loud thwack as he smacked it down on the counter. His pale eyes flicked between the two men on the other side of the desk, one hand distractedly smoothing his slicked-back hair.

‘Are you pair mad? You pitch up as if you own the place, and then you offer to relieve me of two centuries’ worth of equipment?’ He glared across the wooden expanse at Marcus and Qadir. ‘An officer fresh out of his napkin, and a chosen man in fancy dress with a bad suntan. Well, the pair of you can fuck right off.’

Marcus’s face hardened, his well-being of the previous evening already forgotten.

‘You’re making a big mistake, storeman, I …’

The quartermaster’s eyes widened.

‘Storeman. Fucking storeman!? I eat storemen for breakfast. I shit storemen when I go to the latrine. You, boy, do not call me a storeman, you piece of auxiliary shit.’

Qadir raised an eyebrow at the tirade, and then turned his head minutely as if only very slightly surprised as Marcus put a hand to his sword. A voice from behind them pulled his attention away from the scene of impending violence. It was Rufius, speaking from the shadow of the store’s doorway.

‘I wouldn’t if I were you, young Two Knives. I’ve known the big-mouthed idiot for longer than I care to remember and he’s been the same for all those years, all piss and vinegar just as long as there’s a nice wide counter between him and the men he’s robbing. There’s two ways we can do this. Either you can argue with him, show him your requisition all nice and official with all the right names and a pretty seal, and eventually jump the counter and offer him a new set of lumps in the time-honoured fashion, or I can simply remind him of one of life’s oldest rules. I suggest we try it my way first, and if that fails you can have another go at doing it your way. Now,
Storeman
Brocchus, let’s see how well you remember your old comrades, eh? Let me give you a clue. I retired from the legion after twenty-five years only eighteen months ago. No?’

Brocchus frowned with concentration, thrown off balance by the as yet unknown officer’s supreme confidence.

‘No? Here’s another clue. I was the best first spear ever to grace the parade ground at Yew Grove. No? I thought not, you never did recognise quality in either supplies or soldiers. One last clue, then. I never did tell anyone about you and that lady you used to see on the side, did I? Despite her being very close to a rather unpleasant centurion of our mutual acquaintance, a man who would bite your throat out if he ever even suspected you of diddling his woman.’

Brocchus recoiled from the counter with a look of combined amazement and horror. ‘
Tiberius Rufius?
But …’

Rufius walked out of the shadows, swept his helmet off and slapped it down on to the counter’s surface, a wolfish grin painted across his face.

‘I
know
! It’s the sheer delight of seeing me again. I heard you shouting the odds like a stallholder’s wife from outside and I thought, “Bugger me, it’s that old fool Brocchus giving out just like old times.”’

‘But you retired. I saw you go …’

Rufius grinned hugely, reaching across the counter to give the quartermaster’s cheek a painful tweak.

‘And now you see me back again, back in uniform … sorry, fancy dress … and having the best fun of my life. Yes, here I am again, with my mate here just out of his napkin and his over-tanned chosen man, and we’re here to rob your stores of everything and anything of value to the hundred and sixty men standing outside that door. Not your legion issue, of course, no, we’re looking for equipment fit for auxiliary
shit
, and I’m betting you’ve got enough hidden away back there for our purposes, given your love for squirrelling away anything and everything you might be able to sell.’ He grinned widely at the quartermaster’s amazed stare. ‘And do you know just how much you can do to stop me? Given that we’ve got a signed requisition from the Sixth’s legatus? A man who recently saw battle alongside myself and Napkin Boy here? And given that I know absolutely everything about your sordid little encounters with a certain officer’s wife? Encounters I’m sure you’d prefer never got back to him? Nothing, eh,
Storeman
? So, muster your work dodgers and let’s be about equipping a hundred and sixty brave men to go and stand between you and those nasty barbarians I’m sure you’ve heard so much about.’

The quartermaster paled, turned and fled back into the storehouse’s gloom, calling for his men. Rufius smirked after him, raising a self-satisfied eyebrow at Marcus and Qadir.

‘There you go, lads, definitive proof that it isn’t who you know
that matters, but who you know they’ve been shagging. Full infantry equipment for a double century of bow benders coming right up.’

If the 8th Century had made poor time the previous day, their progress with sore feet and their new burden of armour and weaponry made the previous efforts look sparkling. Qadir walked alongside Marcus as the Hamians struggled up a slight incline in the road from The Rock towards Cauldron Fort, sweat beading his brow from both the warmth of the day and the weight of his new equipment. Each man was now shod with the standard heavy-soled combat boots, the hobnails lazily rapping out their laboured progress.

‘This mail must be at least twice the weight of our previous shirts.’

Marcus smiled grimly back at him. ‘Not to mention the arming vest, which you’ll curse all day when it’s this warm – until it saves your delicate skin from being cut by the rings when they stop a blade. Anyway, that’s twenty pounds of heavy iron rings from neck to thigh, the best armour in the empire. Strong enough to stop arrow, sword or spear, just as long as a ring doesn’t break or a rivet pop, and flexible too. The first time you see combat with the blue-noses you’ll wish it was longer and thicker.’

‘Blue-noses?’

‘Yes. Our affectionate name for the tribes we’re fighting. They have a tendency to paint themselves up for battle.’ He raised an eyebrow at the Hamian’s disbelieving smile. ‘Oh, you can laugh now, but the first time you see a wall of screaming blue-painted lunatics charging at you you’ll not be quite so amused.’

‘I see. And the spear?’

‘Six pounds each. You should be carrying two, but we decided that one would be enough, given you still have your bows. Before you ask, the sword weighs three pounds, the shield twelve, the helmet five, and there’s another five pounds of kit on the carrying pole.’

‘And you fight in this? I can barely walk for the weight.’

Marcus nodded. ‘I know. The first week is the worst. Once your
men get used to the extra weight they’ll find they’ve grown muscle where there was little before. The …’

A scream from the century of Tungrians marching to their front snapped his attention to their ranks. A man had fallen out of the column, an arrow protruding from his thigh.

‘Buckets and boards!’ Dubnus’s voice rang out in the sudden shocked silence, stirring the stunned troops into a flurry of movement as shields were pulled from the troops’ backs, and helmets thrust over their heads. Marcus turned to his own men, his own order for increased protection dying in his throat. Qadir, his bow already in his hand, gestured with an open hand towards the distant treeline. ‘With your permission? Before they realise what we are?’

Marcus nodded blankly, unprepared for the sudden turn of events. ‘Be my guest.’

A half-dozen tribal bowmen were standing a few paces from the safety of the trees, ready to dart into their shelter just as they had during the outward march three days before. Nocking a wickedly barbed arrow to his weapon’s bowstring, the Hamian effortlessly pulled the bow back to the limit of its ability to store the energy he was forcing into its stressed wood-and-bone frame. He took a moment longer to compose his shot, breathing in and half releasing the breath before loosing the arrow in a long shallow arc. As the arrow punched into his first target he was already nocking a second missile, sending it after the first before the barbarian had completed his nerveless slump to the ground, dropping the man standing alongside his first victim even as he gaped at his fallen comrade without quite comprehending what was happening. A third man fell as he started to shout a warning, and a fourth as the remaining tribesmen turned to run, the Hamian loosing his arrows with a speed and accuracy unlike any that Marcus had seen before. Morban, standing alongside him, gaped in astonishment. His mouth hung open unnoticed as the big Syrian’s bow spat arrow after arrow at the now terrified barbarians.

Two men were left now, another shot dropping one of the pair as they sprinted for the trees in terror of the arrows that were
killing them in remorseless succession. The last man reached the treeline and darted behind the trunk of a massive oak, peeping back out at the watching troops. Morban roared his approval, shaking the century’s standard in triumph.

‘Five men dead in twenty heartbeats! Cocidius’s hairy nuts, but you’re …’

He fell silent as the Hamian chosen man nocked a last arrow, ignoring the standard-bearer’s noisy approval. Qadir waited for a long moment, holding another deep breath with his eye fixed on the distant tree, then loosed his last arrow just as the Briton looked out from his hiding place again, turning away to resling the weapon across his shoulder without any apparent interest in the shot’s success. For a moment nothing happened, but then the last of the tribesmen staggered from his hiding place behind the oak with the last arrow protruding from his neck, and fell full length to the ground. Qadir turned to Marcus and repeated his small bow of the previous morning, hands open wide at his side.

Julius ran down the road towards them, a broad smile on his face. ‘Bloody good work, that’ll make the stupid young bastards think twice before any of them try that again. Let’s get on the move again.’

Qadir inclined his head respectfully. ‘I would, with your permission, Centurion, prefer to retrieve my spent arrows. And some of those men may not be dead … I think I can see one of them moving.’

Julius clapped him on the arm, pointing to the forest’s edge, and the wounded barbarians. ‘You’re shit-hot with a bow, that’s clear enough, but you still have a lot to learn about war here on the frontier. Those men you just put down can lie there and bleed to death for all I care. They might all die where they fell, or one or two of them might well make it back to their village. Either works well enough for us, since either way the message gets round the locals in double-quick time. Your arrows will give them pause for thought, and that’s a price worth paying. Centurions, saddle your men up and get them moving!’

* * *

The exhausted Hamians trailed the other centuries on to The Hill’s parade ground late that afternoon, wearily forming up for review alongside the replacement Tungrians as Acting Prefect Frontinius marched down from the fort.

Morban nudged Qadir in the ribs, muttering from the side of his mouth. ‘Right, mate, that’s First Spear Sextus Frontinius, or ‘Uncle Sextus’ when he’s not within earshot. He’s a decent enough officer, straight enough, and doesn’t even mind being told when he’s wrong as long as you don’t rub it in. If he asks you a question don’t try to be clever, just answer him and then shut up. If he wants to know more he’ll ask you quick enough.’

Frontinius’s step was lively enough but the waiting officers saw the obvious stiffness in his gait and exchanged meaningful glances.

‘You can stop pulling faces at each other when you think I’m not looking. Yes, my bloody knee is still as stiff as a spear shaft and yes, it still hurts like buggery when I bend it first thing in the morning, and not much less at any other time. That’s the price you pay for offering an easy target when there are blue-nose archers within bowshot. All of which is of far less importance than exactly what you’ve brought back from Arab Town. “A double order of tunic lifters” was the term the officer of the guard used when he put his head round my office door five minutes ago … and it doesn’t look like he was far off the mark, for all the nice new armour they’re struggling to keep upright. So, who’s going to enlighten me?’

Julius stepped forward, snapping a crisp salute before walking across to his superior, leaning close enough that his words would be for the first spear’s ear alone.