Thunder of the Gods (17 page)

‘The Scorpion stores its user’s strength in these …’

Avidus pointed to the machine’s innards.

‘Torsion springs made from animal sinew. As you can see, the bow arms are inserted through them, and are gradually being forced back against the springs’ resistance. When the springs are stretched to the maximum safe extent, the bolt is placed into the channel.’

The soldier working the weapon’s crank stepped back, nodding to his comrade and shaking his aching arms. The other man placed a bolt gingerly into the channel that ran down the machine’s length, sighting carefully on the target.

‘Shoot!’

The waiting soldier pulled a trigger, loosing the bolt in a whip-crack explosion of motion. In an instant the missile was gone, spat across the gap between weapon and target faster than the eye could follow. It struck the armour with a metallic thump, drawing a chorus of appreciative mutterings from the Tungrians.

‘Reload!’

The big man bent to his task again, grunting with the effort as he turned the twin cranks as fast as he could. Sneaking a sideways glance at the Tenth Century’s men, Scaurus smiled to himself at the sight of their massive biceps twitching in sympathy as they imagined themselves working to wind the terrifying weapon. The Scorpion’s operator placed a second bolt into the mechanism, bending to crouch over the weapon, and a hush fell across the parade ground as the watching Tungrians realised what he was attempting to do. With a twang and a thump the bolt smashed the helmet from its resting place on the central post, throwing it back thirty paces to clatter off the wall of a barrack.

‘Cease shooting!’

Avidus blew the whistle again, and the same pair of men re-emerged from their cover of the barrack block, hurrying to collect the battered targets and carry them across to where legatus and first spear were waiting.

‘Look closely, gentlemen.’

The laminated armour was wrecked, a hole the size of a man’s thumb having been punched in the overlapping plates that would have been protecting the wearer’s stomach and back. The helmet was horribly deformed, the bolt that had smashed it almost flat stuck halfway through its thicker iron plate. The soldiers stared at it with expressions of fascination and horror as Scaurus held it up for them to see.

‘The man who was wearing this armour is dead. And so is the man behind him, most likely. The officer who was wearing this helmet is no more than a maimed corpse, with his head burst like a melon that’s fallen off the farmer’s cart. His fellow officers will be terrified to raise their heads for fear of stopping a bolt in the same manner once they see the state of him!’

He strolled across to the bolt thrower.

‘As I said, we have thirty of these beauties, which means we can kill between twenty-five and fifty of the enemy with every shot. But to make the most of this power we need two different types of men.’

He pointed at the Tenth Century’s hulking axe men.

‘Giants, like you, with the strength to make your weapon ready to fire in less than a dozen heartbeats, time after time.’

His gaze turned to the waiting Hamians.

‘And men like you, with the skill to put your shot where it will do the most damage, time after time.’

He grinned at their faces.

‘I know, it’s not what either of you would have expected. But believe me, soldiers, the combination of your brute strength and skill with the bow is going to make the sight of you the most terrifying thing our enemies have ever seen. And quite possibly the last …’

Timon was, by his own admission, having one of his less effective days. It was mid-afternoon, and not one of his half-dozen mules had set a hoof outside the small stable in which they were quartered while waiting for customers. Not so much as the shadow of a buyer had darkened the threshold, and the boy who kept the animals clean and well groomed was lying asleep in the hay, having brushed them so many times for the lack of anything more interesting to do that Timon had told him to stop for fear that he would wear the brush out and turn the day’s disappointment into a full-blooded commercial disaster.

Hearing voices in the street, the trader’s phenomenally sensitive hearing, attuned to the slightest sound of a customer, plucked the word ‘mule’ from the rumble of men’s voices. Darting for the door, he was just in time to find a group of three men, obviously military to judge from their haircuts, turning away from his shop front. One of them was speaking in Roman, a language in which any self-respecting Antioch mule trader made a point of being fluent.

‘No, let’s go back to the one round the corner. He seemed much keener to—’

Timon launched himself into the street with a hearty cry of welcome, taking the nearest man firmly by his arm, his tried and tested means of preventing potential customers from even considering leaving without at least perusing his stock.

‘My friends—’

His practised sales patter dried up abruptly as the man whose arm he was holding turned to stare at him with an expression that promised great pain were he not to release the limb promptly, an impression made all the more forbidding by the two deep scars that adorned his face, one running from his right cheekbone to the point of his chin, the other, shorter but deeper, scoring his nose and running across the first as it ran halfway to his earlobe. Raising his hands in apology, Timon bowed deeply, raising his gaze to find all three men staring at him.

‘We’re not your friends, mule man, although we might well be your customers, now that you’ve bothered to come out onto the street.’

The oldest of them, a stocky man with the face of someone who had tended to fight and lose in his younger days, waved a dismissive hand.

‘Come on lads, let’s go back to the dealer on the main street. He had some healthy-looking animals, and …’

Timon’s eyes widened in horror.

‘Honoured customers, I can only entreat you not to indulge in such an unwise course of action. Whilst it ill behoves me to speak ill of a member of my own profession, the honesty to which my father raised me – for my name is Timon, which in Greek means “honour” – forces me to warn you that my competitor of whom you speak offers a selection of animals which, compared to my own beasts, should hang their heads for shame.’

The three men stared back at him, their expressions dead pan.

‘And besides, I am offering a special discount today.’

The scar-faced man leaned forward.

‘Discount? How much discount?’

Timon groped for a number, and in that instant the oldest of the soldiers took the opening.

‘Ten per cent. Make it ten per cent and we might be interested. Otherwise we’ll be off round the corner.’

Wincing with the pain of having been taken halfway to his bottom price without so much as a protest that he was taking the bread from his children’s mouths, the trader swallowed his pride and smiled broadly.

‘Ten per cent it is! Come in, my fr— no, honoured customers, and feast your eyes on the best mules to be found in all of Antioch! Boy, the wine!’

A swift kick at the sleeping boy sent him scuttling for the cups and flask with a look of surprise that Timon chose to ignore. The three men raised their cups in salute and drained the wine in swift gulps, grinning at Timon’s poorly hidden discomfort as he poured them refills.

‘You’re a gentleman, Timon!’

He laughed nervously at the scar-faced soldier’s praise as the second cup went the way of the first.

‘I am always happy to share a drink with the men who protect us from the eastern barbarians.’

‘But you’re not drinking!’

He nodded weakly at the scarred man, wondering why it was that the soldier’s disfigured face worried him.

‘I do not drink when I am working. It would be …’

‘Fucking unwise!’

The burly man who had introduced himself as Morban slapped his comrade on the shoulder.

‘Leave him alone Jesus, and let’s have a proper look at these mules!’

Timon frowned.

‘You call your friend “Jesus”? He is a follower of the Nazarene?’

Morban laughed.

‘No mate, we call him Jesus because some nasty hairy men got lucky and carved a cross into his face, just like the one your god was killed on!’

Timon managed to keep a straight face.

‘The Christ was not a god, but the son of
the
God, Our Lord, the only God.’

Morban smiled tolerantly.

‘We follow Mithras my friend, but we’re not against other men’s beliefs. Now, do you want to sell us some mules or not?’

The salesman’s eyes narrowed.

‘More than one? How many?’

The soldier looked around the stable, nodding with pursed lips.

‘Your stock seems sound enough. How badly would you like to empty the stable? We’ve a long way to march, now that we’re retired and heading back north, and we’ll have a lot to carry. So tell me, Timon old son, how about you give us another five per cent discount to take them
all
off your hands?’

Fighting to avoid the stutter that afflicted him at moments of the greatest stress, Timon pulled at his lower lip.

‘Well …’

The soldiers turned to leave, and with a sudden flash of panic he found himself agreeing to the deal, despite the obvious damage that it would be doing to his reputation.

‘Don’t worry, friend. We won’t be telling anyone what we paid, and in return you can keep this sale to yourself. We’re not the only men taking their diplomas and saying goodbye to the legion, so if the price is right you can do some more business with us, just as long as it stays between us. Ourselves and some of our mates have got it in mind to try some trading between the border and here, make a nice little profit to retire properly on, but we don’t want anyone else stealing the idea, so if you want to sell more mules, you’ll keep it to yourself, right?’

‘Yes indeed. You can be assured of my discretion, noble sirs.’

Never one to beat around the bush where a potential sale might be staring him in the face, Timon felt sufficiently emboldened to enquire as to the sort of numbers the soldiers might be looking for, were more beasts to be required.

‘Forty? Fifty? Of course if you can’t deal with that sort of volume, no problem, we’ll just be on our way, but we’d need them by—’

‘You have assuredly come to the right place, my esteemed customers. I am more than capable of procuring you this volume of mules, and of the same high quality you see here!’

‘By tomorrow night.’

Timon swallowed, considering the lengths to which he might have to go to satisfy such a large order, pondered the potential illegality and then, considering the amount of money involved, put out his hand.

‘Fifty mules, at the price we have agreed for these six prime specimens, to be delivered to …’

‘The Third Legion’s fortress.’

‘I know it well. To be delivered to your fortress by dusk tomorrow evening.’

Assured at length that Timon was a man who could indeed cope with such an order, the soldiers enjoyed the remainder of his wine while precise arrangements were made to deliver the mules. They then made their way into the street a good deal more cheerfully than they had entered his premises. The trader leaned back against the door and wiped the sweat from his brow.

‘You see, boy? Was I not magnificent? I still have the gift …’

The boy shrugged, happy that his day was clearly about to end early given his master’s propensity for celebrating sales with wine and female company, but realised that the trader had fallen uncharacteristically silent.

‘And now I must leave you to close the shop, and feed and water the soldiers’ mules. I have to see a friend of mine with a business proposition.’

‘We’re looking for a man.’

The man to whom the statement had been addressed shrugged, staring back at the two men before him with knowing eyes. They had been waiting outside his premises when the doors were opened for business, which, given he owned a brothel whose staff routinely worked late into the night, was at a rather more relaxed time than the city’s more mundane businesses who raised their shutters soon after dawn. Their entry to his place of business had been respectful enough, but he was nonetheless grateful that his customary bodyguard was close to hand, the cold-eyed Syrian staring at them with just enough menace to make clear that they were tolerated rather than welcomed.

‘One man. In this city? I wish you joy with your search.’

He turned away, but the older of the two men spoke to his back, his tone unchanged despite the obvious brusque dismissal.

‘We already worked that one out, after a day spent drinking watery wine all over this city and getting precisely nowhere. So my Dacian mate here had the one and only good idea I’ve ever heard out of him, which brings us to you. See, this man only has one skill – he knows the roads to the east of the frontier as well as he knows the lines on his palm. And you’re known as a trader who employs men with that skill.’

‘You are soldiers. Am I right?’

Sanga nodded.

‘It’s that obvious?’

‘To a man with my experience. I have been trading in the lands beyond Rome’s borders for most of my life, and it has been a long life. I have seen many soldiers in my time, and they have a certain appearance. You have the haircuts, you have the muscles …’

He looked them up and down, staring intently at both men’s faces.

‘And you have the eyes. So this man you seek, he is a scout?’

‘Was. He left the empire’s service all of a sudden like, and he’s not been seen since he left the fortress at some place called Zeugma, heading for the city.’

The trader smiled.

‘That would make sense. He was part of your lost cohort? The news was never official, but
karawan
masters who have trodden the northern route to the Sea of the Persians speak of coming upon the site of a massacre, of hundreds of Roman corpses picked clean with their remains strewn across the desert.’

Sanga nodded silently.

‘So, this man made his escape before the Parthians fell upon your comrades, reported the matter to the men who hold the bridge over the Euphrates and then …?’