Reign of Iron (35 page)

“Why not?”

Spring raised an eyebrow and realisation dawned on Ragnall’s handsome face. He’d been taught a lot on the Island of Angels, and he was a good-looking man, but he was not bright.

“All right, but you know what I mean. And Ferrandus and Tertius will be protecting you.”

“Fat lot of good they were when he came before.” She looked at the two guards. They’d heard their names mentioned and she guessed they guessed what she was talking about, because they looked suitably abashed.

“They’ll kill Quintus rather than let him past next time. He threatened Tertius’ family before. That’s why they let him pass.”

“So what’s different now?”

“I’ve told them to kill Quintus if he won’t go away and that Caesar himself will protect them and their families if they do.”

“Is that true?”

“Probably.”

“Well, I still think it’s a stupid idea to chain me up. I swear I won’t try to escape. Why would I?”

Ragnall looked at Spring. She tried to give him her most innocent, trustworthy look.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head, then, in Latin: “Ferrandus, chain her. Ankle to the bed frame. Make sure there’s no way for her to escape.”

Ferrandus nodded and stepped towards her, chain rattling.

J
agganoch walked along the middle of the walled town’s central street, keeping his footsteps silent, and listening. There was a raised walkway on the side of the road for pedestrians to keep the road free for carts, but men like Jagganoch walked down the middle of the road, always. Had there been any carts, they would have had to make way for him.

The town was deserted when they found it, but who knew what demons dwelt on this island on the edge of the world? A thousand imps might spill from side roads any moment, slavering for his fine African flesh, far superior to any they would have tasted before.

It didn’t look like a home to demons, though. It was all rather mundane. The huts lining the road were stout, large and well-built. The crafters had been proud of their work and had finished it well, without feeling the need for the frivolous embellishment and childish sculptures with which the prissy Romans encrusted every building. In fact, the prosperous little town was not dissimilar to his Yonkari homeland, far away across many lands, two seas and the great ocean of sand.

Already he preferred this land to Italy. The countryside around Pompey’s estate near Rome had two types of dwelling: giant stone ranches, homes to one family and its staff and slaves, and dilapidated shit-stinking hovels of impoverished Italians, apparently driven from their lands by the richer families. The poverty had offended him. The poor were more productive if one allowed them a modicum of dignity, his father had explained once, and Jagganoch agreed. Common people were the same as animals. If you kept your peasants healthy, well fed and comfortable, they behaved better, worked harder and didn’t stink of shit. The Romans were too stupid to realise this. Instead of using their wealth to make their poor more productive, they built their walls higher and planted gardens so they didn’t have to see or smell the vile creatures.

He looked up. The village might not be unusual, but here at the edge of the world the sky was much lower. The god Sobek had made the earth on the reverse side of his curved, round shield when he laid it down after defeating all the other gods. So in the land of the Yonkari, which was the centre of the world, the sky was at its highest. In Italy the sky was lower and here, right on the fringe, it was only a few hundred feet above his head. He’d seen skies this colour in Africa, but never this low. A lesser man might have been oppressed. Not Jagganoch. He shook his fist at it and resolved to travel further, to where the sky met the land. Whatever British gods were looking down from that low sky, Sobek had already beaten them once and he would do again if they dared to impede Jagganoch.

There was a great crash behind him, but he didn’t turn. It was the elephants clearing huts for a place to sleep. The beasts would be ill-humoured tomorrow. They always were when he cut their rations. Caesar had promised that there would be plenty to eat in the villages of Britain, but this town’s storage sheds had been as empty as its huts. As if to confirm his concerns, Bandonda trumpeted. He was angry, and hungry.

They’d brought enough fodder for only two days, or four days on half-rations, as he’d ordered. Caesar had told him to stay south, away from the legions, until he was summoned. But nobody told Jagganoch what to do and certainly nobody summoned him. The next day he’d walk his elephants north, find the legions and demand supplies. If they did not accede, they would see what angry and hungry elephants could do, especially elephants that had been trained by many generations of Yonkari elephant wranglers to eat human flesh.

His father had told him to obey Pompey and Pompey had handed his command to Caesar. He’d done what the Romans had told him to so far, but in his heart he felt that he could obey only orders that came directly from his father, and his father was a long way away, across many lands, two seas and the great ocean of sand. Here there was nobody to command him.

Another elephant trumpeted and at the same time there was a noise ahead and to the right – a footstep. He held his pace and didn’t turn. Imps and demons were surely not meticulous enough to use the cover of noise when tracking their prey. No, this was a human. Just one, he thought, and light. A woman or a young man. He gripped the knob of his wooden club harder. The weapon had been carved from a branch of the hardest wood, its head polished, its shaft whittled down to a pole and fired until it was stronger than iron. It was more than a weapon; right now it was a walking and investigation cane, used to help his stride and poke anything that he didn’t want to touch – dog shit, for example, to see how long the town had been deserted. It could also be thrown a long distance, and used as a straightforward club. Jagganoch was superbly skilled with it. Many times revengeful Romans, their kin killed by his elephants, had run at him with swords, expecting to find easy victory against a man with a stick. Instead they had found easy death.

He was close enough to hear his stalker’s breathing now. It was a woman. No matter. He was as happy to kill a woman as a man. He passed the alley that she thought concealed her and heard a small excited intake of breath – he knew that sound, it was the noise of a top predator. He made it himself before a kill; lions did the same before they charged their prey. The woman would be on him in moments. She was in for a surprise.

Chamanca slipped behind the hut as the bronze-helmeted Africa walked past. He was a fine-looking man. He was a good deal slimmer than Atlas, but the lion skin over his shoulder left one of his arms and part of his torso bare, so she could see his excellently defined muscles rippling over each other under their covering of velvety, dark brown skin.

As well as the lion’s pelt he was wearing a legionary’s leather skirt and sandals, but instead of a sword he had a long mace. He was carrying it like a walking cane, but she could tell from the wear around its shaft that it was used as a club.

She wasn’t meant to attack and, up to now, she hadn’t been tempted to, because her own mace, sword and teeth would have been little use against the gigantic war beasts. She’d seen elephants in Iberia and been impressed, but these were much bigger. They were going to be a problem.

But it made all the sense in the world to kill this man, who appeared to be the leader and had made the mistake of walking off on his own. He looked like he was full of delicious blood, too. That was a bonus.

He passed and she padded out after him, silently. He did look formidable – lithe and strong – and she considered stabbing him in the spine to immobilise him. But where would the fun be in that? She leapt.

F
elix walked among the massacred Britons. The sharp stink from their eviscerated stomachs was eye-watering. He knew it would have disgusted most people, but he sniffed deep and shuddered with pleasure. He liked a number of smells that others found unpleasant – rotting flesh, unwashed men and women, stale urine – but his favourite was freshly spilled guts.

He found four more dead Celermen, meaning that he’d lost eight on the landing – nearly a quarter of them. He was surprised and upset that so many had died. More surprisingly, another Maximan had been killed in the mêlée. One of the Maidunites had rammed a sword through the gap in the armpit and into his heart. Well done, Felix thought. The killer had identified another weak spot in the armour that the captive Elann would have to strengthen.

So he was down to twenty-seven Celermen and eighteen Maximen, not even five hundred paces from the shore and they’d met only a fraction of the British army. On the bright side, Felix considered, since this lot had killed two Maximen and eight Celermen where the entire Usipete and Tengoterry army had killed precisely none, he guessed that this had been Lowa’s elite force, the equivalent of Zadar’s Fifty, and his little squad had destroyed it. Yes, he’d lost ten men in the process, which was too many, but it was unlikely that they’d have to face such skilled soldiers again. Next time he’d have the Maximen attack first, arms raised to protect their eye slits, followed by the Celermen, and he shouldn’t lose another one. The lesson on the beach had been expensive but valuable.

The next problem was that they’d killed all the magic fuel, save for the seven crew members from the ship. It wasn’t the end of the world; it just meant they’d have to find a village within an hour or so, before the life-force of these latest victims wore off.

As Felix pondered all this, Bistan came striding through the gore. “One got away!” he announced cheerily. “A woman on a horse. Another woman held up one of the Celermen so long that her friend escaped.”

“Mars!” cursed Felix. “How— Actually, never mind.” It was good that one of them had escaped to tell the rest of the British about his legion. Hopefully they’d be terrified into surrender.

He looked about for a living horse. There was none, so in the end he left the crew, two Maximen and two Celermen guarding the ship, climbed up on Gub’s shoulders and told the rest of his legion to run behind them, westwards along the coast. In every part of every country he’d ever been to, there had always been coastal villages so they were bound to come upon one soon.

Bouncing along on Gub’s shoulders was exhilarating, like running with a pack of hunting animals. The sun was lowering behind them, stretching their shadows longer as they ran across the alien land. Over the sea to their right, the evening rays cast a delicate blue, tending to rust.

But soon he began to worry. They hadn’t seen a soul. The crops were gone from the fields and there was no fruit on the trees. When they did come upon a village it was deserted, not so much as a chicken scratching the barren dirt, the grain sheds open and empty.

The second village was tucked into a rocky crevice by the sea. By the time they strode down its steep but neat cobbled street, it was dark, they were a good ten miles from the ship and the power gained from the Maidunites had worn from all the Celermen and Maximen except Bistan. Gub had begun to struggle under Felix’s weight and in the end the druid had dismounted to trudge along with the rest of them.

“And my energy will be gone soon, boss,” the head Celerman cheerily reported to Felix. “I can feel it ebbing out … yeah, I think it’s gone now, actually. What do you want to do?”

“Search the village again!” he shouted. Surely there were a couple of stubborn old people hiding in a hovel?

“There’s nobody here, boss, we’ve looked.”

“All right, tell everyone to muster. We’ll walk back to the ship. But you won’t.”

“Where will I go?”

“Head south-east. If you find an opportunity to fuel yourself, take it. Find Caesar. Tell him where we are and that we require expendable men.”

“OK!” Bistan ran off to do as he was bidden.

J
agganoch felt the ground shift under the woman’s weight and heard her breathe as if she’d been shouting. She leapt and he dropped, tossed up his slender club, caught it by the handle and spun. If it had smashed her ribs, as intended, that would have been that, but somehow she melted round his strike, landed and jabbed a hard little fist at his face. He rolled with the blow and swept his club back, catching her calves and sweeping her off her feet. She fell back, sprang on her hands and leapt in a backward somersault. Her speed and athleticism was impressive.

She crossed her hands over her torso and uncrossed them in a flourish, unsheathing a ball-mace and a sword. Her teeth were filed to points. She was small in stature and dressed like the serving wench at an orgy, yet she radiated power. For the first time in a fight since he’d been a child, Jagganoch took a step back.

“You’re quick,” she said.

“You’re quicker.”

“I am.”

“But I am stronger,” he smiled.

“I doubt it.”

“Iberian, by your accent?”

“Clever man.”

“You are also beautiful.”

“I am,” she agreed.

“Perhaps we should make love instead of fighting?”

She grinned and shook her head. “I am flattered but no thank you. I already have one African. You are superfluous and will be culled.”

All the time Jagganoch was looking for a moment of distraction, a way in, but there was none. The Iberian was bouncing on her heels, poised like a riled snake.

Jagganoch smiled. “I had not expected to find interesting opposition on this island.”

“There are plenty more like me. Thousands.”

“Then where are they? Why am I able to take this town unmolested?”

“We’re luring you all in for the kill.”

“It is I who will be killing today.”

Jagganoch swung his club.

Chamanca lifted her sword to meet the blow, but it was more powerful than she’d thought possible. Her sword was whacked from her grip and sent spinning. She swung her mace, intending to press him back and catch the sword as it fell, but he brought up his club handle hard, very hard, and she had to leap back to avoid it. He jumped back, too, and the sword clattered onto the road.