The Eagle's Vengeance (25 page)

Sanga’s tent party reported for their spell of guard duty four hourglasses after darkness had fallen, and were directed to their section of the marching camp’s perimeter by the ever irascible Quintus, the century’s chosen man and its acting centurion in Marcus’s absence.

‘You know the drill. Keep your mouths shut and your eyes and ears open. If you hear anything more exciting than a hedgehog grunting out a curler then you blow the fuckin’ whistle and wait for the rest of the century to reinforce you, right?’

While most of the cohort had the luxury of removing their boots and rolling themselves into their cloaks and blankets, the Fifth were dozing fitfully, fully equipped and with their weapons close to hand, ready to form the first line of resistance to any threat that might materialise out of the night’s stygian darkness. Sanga, the unofficial leader of the eight-man group who would be guarding a third of the camp’s perimeter, saluted the chosen man and watched him limp away into the camp’s interior.

‘Poor bastard. Without a centurion to take some of the load he’s on his feet every two hours to make sure the incoming guard climb out of their nice warm blankets and take their turn.’ He spat on the turf and shook his head. ‘I could almost feel sorry for the man. Almost …’

At his side Saratos grunted, reaching a hand up into the sleeve of his heavy chain-mail armour to scratch at his armpit.

‘Had hard day. His leg hurting a lot, from way he walking.’

Sanga shrugged, the gesture almost invisible in the starlight’s dim illumination.

‘Like I said, I could almost feel sorry for the bastard. Right then, my lads, just like it always is. Take up fifty-pace spacings down the turf wall, and use the marks chopped into the mud to tell you where your beat starts and stops. Keep walking, keep your eyes and ears open and shout for me if you see or hear anything you don’t like. Don’t put your helmets or their liners on unless you hear the stand-to being blown, or you won’t be able to hear the bluenoses sneaking up on you, and I don’t care how cold your delicate little ears get. Anyone I catch leaning on the wall will get a good fucking dig from this –’ he held up a scarred fist, and then lowered the hand to tap meaningfully at the hilt of his sword ‘– and anyone I find asleep won’t have to worry about being sentenced to death because I’ll already have sent you to meet the ferryman myself, right?’

The knot of men gathered about him nodded dourly and dispersed to their various points along the camp’s turf wall, as familiar with the routine of guard duty as they were with Sanga’s threats, which were more than idle. Saratos lingered for a moment, watching as the other men trudged away to their posts before turning back to Sanga.

‘We march fifteen miles today, north and then east. Tomorrow perhaps we march west back to gap in hills, then south back to yesterday camp, then go back to fort of Lazy Hill. Is a long march. You think Quintus can march so far?’

Sanga laughed softly in the darkness.

‘Old Quintus? He’s had trouble with that hip of his for years now, and every winter sees it get a little bit worse, but I’ll bet you a clipped sestertius to a freshly minted gold aureus he’ll go the distance tomorrow just fine. See the thing is, if he doesn’t manage to keep up with the blokes he’s shouting at he’s no more good as a chosen man than a wooden fire poker, at which point he’ll get offered his discharge without the option of refusal. And he’s got no more idea what to do if he ain’t a soldier than most of these dozy sods. Now get about your watch, old son, and don’t forget, mates or not, if I catch you leaning, I’ll give you a reaming!’

The Sarmatae recruit smiled to himself and turned away, pacing down the turf wall until he reached his allotted stretch of the camp’s defences, as far down the four-foot-high rampart as it was possible to march without turning the corner into the next tent party’s patrol area. Fighting off the urge to yawn, he started his beat, up and down the mud wall, stopping to stare out into the darkness every few paces, sweeping his adjusted vision across the landscape and cocking his head on one side to listen intently to the night’s incessant background noise for any sign of a disturbance that might indicate the presence of an enemy. Other than the wind’s gentle hiss through the trees beyond the marching camp’s walls there was little enough of any note other than the occasional disconsolate bark of a fox in the distance. Frowning at a tiny sound, almost more imagined than actually heard, he stared out into the darkness for a moment and then turned his head to look up the wall’s line to his right, the man patrolling that section of the camp’s defences lost in the gloom. As he swung round to look to his left, wondering if the sentry from the next tent party was perhaps enlivening his shift with a little sport, he was hit from behind by a pair of bodies, the wind driven from him by the impact.

Drawing breath to shout a warning, he felt a coarse piece of cloth being thrust into his mouth, reducing his protest to an inaudible murmur, and one of the men crouched over him stabbed a fist down into his temple, momentarily stunning him. Blinking furiously to clear the flashing lights from his vision, the Sarmatae felt himself being dragged across the grass and into the cover of a small tree that had been deemed too much of an effort to uproot from within the camp for the sake of one night. A hard voice whispered in his ear, its tone laden with menace.

‘Right, you fuckin’ know-all barbarian ballbag, I’m going to teach you what it means to respect the blokes what have been here a lot longer than you, eh, horse fucker?’

Coming to his senses Saratos recognised the harsh whisper as that of Horta, the soldier he had faced down that morning, his eyes narrowing as he recognised the dull silver line of a dagger in the man’s hand. Shaking his head again he tried to get his feet beneath him to push his body upright, only to have them kicked away by the knifeman’s comrade Sliga, who bent to mutter a warning with one hand squarely planted on the Sarmatae soldier’s face, the other brandishing a knife. He hissed a warning, flying spittle flecking Saratos’s cheeks.

‘No you fucking don’t! You can take your punishment like a good little boy!’

Taking the opportunity fleetingly presented to him with a feeling of incensed gratitude at the soldier’s mistake, Saratos spat out the cloth gag and snaked out his free hand to grab at the neckerchief intended to protect his captor’s neck from the edges of his mail’s iron rings, dragging the soldier’s face close to his own. Before the man could react he found his nose firmly gripped between Saratos’s teeth, with a sudden intense pain from which no amount of arm waving would free him. Tensing his arm to strike out with the dagger, he found his fist wrapped in the fingers of the Sarmatae’s free hand, pinning the weapon against his body, and after another hideously painful squeeze of the recruit’s jaws he found himself unceremoniously kicked away, as Saratos leapt to his feet with his assailant’s dagger in his hand.

‘You fucker, what you done to him!?’

Horta lunged with his knife, all thoughts of dealing out a private punishment lost in his rage as his mate whimpered on the ground, a hand clutching his bloody face. Saratos took the stabbing blow on the blade he’d torn from the other soldier’s grasp and pushed it wide, feinted with his free hand to distract the soldier and then stepped in to hammer his knee into his assailant’s testicles. Dropping his weapon, the agonised man staggered backwards and then sat down hard, clutching at his bruised manhood with a groan of agony.

‘What the
fuck
…?’

Sanga stared aghast at the fallen soldiers, his gaze turning to Saratos as the Sarmatae dropped the dagger next to his first victim.

‘They think funny to take me in the dark, cut me to teach me lesson.’

The older man looked at the helpless men with a curled lip.

‘You stupid pricks! I fuckin’ warned you what would happen if you tried to get smart with a bloke that grew up as a barbarian warrior while you were still playing knucklebones. Once you’re done with your crying I’ll take you back to your tent party and let your senior man see what mess he’s made of you both. Wouldn’t surprise me if he gives you another kicking for being too stupid to do the job properly …’

Horta staggered to his feet with both hands on his knees, the dagger still gripped in one of them and with an evil look on his face as he winced from the pain shooting through his groin.

‘This ain’t done, horse fucker, this ain’t finished, not by …’

Sanga snorted, then lifted his knee and smashed the hobnailed sole of his boot into the crouching soldier’s face. Horta went down as if he’d been hit with an axe handle, his cheek bleeding from the iron studs’ tearing impact. Reaching out to grip the fallen man by the ear he dragged him across to where his mate still squatted with both hands clutching his nose. Sanga examined the beaten soldier’s face in what little light there was, grimacing at the bloody marks where Saratos’s teeth had torn the skin.

‘That’ll scar up nicely. I suspect you’ll be going under the nickname “Nibbles” from now on, mainly because I’m going to make sure that everyone knows how your conk came by that interesting little decoration.’ Keeping his grip on the man’s ear he dragged him over to his semi-conscious tent mate, taking Horta’s ear in a similar grip and dragging their heads together. ‘You pair say this isn’t over? Well let me tell you something very clear now, it fuckin’ well
is
! The next time I catch either of you even looking at my man here funny then I’m going to tell him to do to you what he held back from doing a moment ago.’ He stared down at them with a pitying gaze, shaking his head slowly. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet, you morons? From what I saw when I got here, Saratos here could’ve stuck you both and walked away clean, given you was both stupid enough to come out here to attack him, but he was still willing to let you off with no worse than a few marks and a lesson you’d not forget. Only
you
pair of pricks –’ he wrenched Horta’s ear and pulled his face so close that he could whisper his warning and still be heard ‘– are too fuckin’ stupid to take a hint! So, no more hints. Next time you’ll be collecting on your contributions to the burial club, and if he won’t do the deed on the pair of you, I
will
! And I think you know what a bad mood I’ve been in ever since my old mate Scarface got nailed by the bloody barbarians in Dacia.’

He stood up, keeping a grip of both ears and dragging their owners into uncomfortable crouches.

‘Right then, let’s go and acquaint your senior man with the facts of this little disagreement, shall we? With any luck he’ll do the job for me …’

Marcus slid the last dozen paces to the slope’s foot to find Arminius and Lugos standing over the corpses of the men who had pursued them over the summit’s edge, their weapons black with fresh blood. Ram and Radu were behind them, their swords still sheathed.

‘Half of them were dead before they hit the ground, and the rest were too stunned to offer any resistance.’

A gleam of gold winked from the neck of one of the corpses, and Marcus bent forward to lift it off the dead man’s chest. It was a rope of thick gold links, heavy enough to raise his eyebrows.

‘Somebody was important.’

The Roman nodded at Drest’s comment, looking around to find the Thracian and Arabus close at hand.

‘Probably the leader of the men that were left behind to guard the fortress. I tripped him up there, when he was trying to take the eagle from me, and the mountain did the rest.’

In the distance a dog bayed, and an instant later half a dozen more responded with their own howls, the sound disquietingly alike to that of a wolf pack on the hunt. Gesturing to the scout Marcus pointed out into the darkness towards the river.

‘We need to go now, before whoever’s coming down the hill the long way gets here. Arabus, lead us away.’

Arabus stepped forward, his expression questioning.

‘I fear that if we use the same route by which we approached this place those hunters will beat us to the river. They must know the paths through the swamp better than we do, and they will undoubtedly move faster than us. I recall enough of the map the centurion showed us to take us away from here by a more southerly route, and hopefully avoid their net?’

The young centurion nodded his agreement.

‘We’re in your hands then. Just let me do one thing before we move on.’

He put the staff on which the eagle was still mounted onto the ground, then flashed out his spatha and hacked at the wooden pole, chopping it in two an inch from the point where the proud standard’s metal base met the wood. Sheathing the sword again he unwrapped the heavy wool strips from his boots, winding them around the eagle before dropping it into the cloak’s pouch alongside the golden bowl and the legatus’s head, then gestured to the tracker to proceed. Arabus uncoiled his rope, waiting until they were all holding on to its rough length before moving off.

‘Follow me, and from now no one talks unless necessary. Sound will carry a long way in this place.’

He led them away from the copse at a fast walk, prodding at the ground before him with his unstrung bow. Within moments the path they were following had turned from hard packed gravel to the rotting timber remains of a narrow wooden causeway, and then, with disquieting suddenness, to a carpet of soft waterlogged moss which squelched beneath their booted feet. He turned and whispered to Marcus, who was following him closely.

‘This was shown on the map as a patrol route, as I remember. It led to a river crossing point perhaps two miles from here. The Venicones have torn up the causeway to prevent it being used by an attacking force, but the ground ought to be firm enough for the most part.’

The dogs howled again, closer now and away to the raiding party’s right, and the sound of raised voices reached them across the swamp’s desolate waste. Arabus nodded knowingly.

‘You see, they’re making for the easy crossing. We would never have reached it before they ran us down.’

‘The
easy
crossing?’

‘Where we crossed earlier was the Dirty River’s narrowest point for miles, and close to The Fang. Where I’m leading us is much farther away, and when we get there the river will be at least twice as wide. We have avoided quick discovery at the cost of a less certain escape.’