Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (28 page)

The tribune had to laugh at his impudence. “Not quite.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. You expect my lads to earn what they got at Kyzikos, then? Aye, do you; I can see it in your eyes. What is it this time?”

Marcus told him. He tugged at his unkempt beard as he considered. “Yes, that could happen, if we have a proper guide riding with us.”

“I’ll see to it Simokattes gets you one.”

“All right, you’re on. Three days from now, you said?” At Scaurus’ nod, the Khatrisher remarked, “The problem, as I see it, will be not biting off too big a chunk.”

“Exactly.” As usual, the tribune thought, Pakhymer had a keen sense of what was required—and not much inclination to use it. The Khatrisher examined another grape. He shook his head sadly. “Not round enough,” he said, and ate it. “Care for one?” He laughed when Marcus pretended not to hear.

Scaurus thought the fat green bush he was crouching behind was wild parsley. Whatever it was, its little pale yellow flowers were pungent enough to make his eyes water. He bit down hard on his upper lip to keep from sneezing. Nothing was happening yet, but if he started he did not think he could stop, and it would be soon now.

Half a dozen Khatrishers entered the valley, spurring their little ponies for all they were worth. Now and again one would turn to fire at the men of the Duchy close behind.

The Namdalener leader was a stocky youngster named Grus. Though young, he had learned caution; he ordered his double squadron to halt and craned his neck to study the canyon walls. But Ras Simokattes and Gaius Philippus had set their trap well. Though Junius Blaesus’ maniple lay in wait for the islanders to advance, no telltale glint of sun off steel, no untoward motion gave them away. Grus whooped and waved his men on.

Hand clutching sword, Marcus waited until all the Namdaleni, even the rear guard, had entered the valley. He nodded to the buccinator beside him. The cornet blared, a single long note. With cries of “Gavras!” legionaries leaped from behind shrubs and tree trunks and stands of brush and dashed down the steep-sloping canyon walls at the islanders.

The two knights of the rear guard brutally jerked their horses round and started up the valley again—not cowardice but sense, to bring help to their mates. A
pilum
thudded into the belly of one beast. It crashed to the ground, screaming, and rolled over its rider. The other horseman was nearly at the mouth of the canyon when three legionaries pulled him out of the saddle.

Grus, cursing, tried to pull his men into a circle. But one Roman came rushing down toward them, far ahead of his comrades. It was Titus Pullo; he bellowed, “Come on, Vorenus! We’ll see which of us is the better man!” Another legionary bolted out of the pack; Lucius Vorenus was pounding after his rival and swearing at the top of his lungs.

Pullo cast his
pilum
at very long range, but his throw was true; a Namdalener on the fringe of Grus’ milling circle took the javelin in his thigh. He screamed and fell from his horse. Pullo darted forward to finish him off and strip his corpse, but a pair of islanders covered their
wounded comrade. One of them rammed his own heavy lance clean through the thick wood and leather of the Roman’s
scutum
. The iron point caught the buckle of his sword belt and twisted it to one side; when he reached for the
gladius
he grabbed only air. The Namdaleni rained sword strokes on him. He went over on his back to get the most use from his fouled shield.

Then Lucius Vorenus, in a berserk fury Viridovix might have envied, was on the islanders, screaming, “Get off him, you pimps, you dogs, you bleeding vultures! He’s a fig-sucker, but even a fig-sucking Roman’s worth the lot of you!” He killed the Namdalener who had thrust his spear at Pullo, beating the man’s light kite-shaped shield aside with his own heavier one and then stabbing him in the side at the join in his shirt and mail.

The second islander and one of his countrymen, perhaps thinking Pullo dead and out of the fight, turned all their attention to Vorenus, who was hard-pressed to defend himself. But Pullo was far from dead. Having finally managed to draw his sword, he cast aside his worthless
scutum
, scrambled to his feet, and jabbed the
gladius
into a horse’s rump. Blood spurting, the beast bucketed away, its rider clinging to its neck and trying in vain to bring it under control.

“Bastard!” Vorenus panted.

“You’re the whore’s get, not me!” Pullo retorted. They fought back-to-back, raving at each other all the while. By then the rest of the Romans were reaching the Namdaleni, and the pressure on the two of them eased.

Trapped, outnumbered, pelted by javelins, the islanders began surrendering one after the other. But Grus, mortified at falling into the ambush, came rushing at Marcus on foot; his horse was down, hamstrung by a
gladius
. “Yield yourself!” the Roman called.

“To the ice with you!” Grus shouted, almost crying with rage and chagrin. The tribune raised his shield against a whirlwind attack. Grus must have been drawing on the same furious energy that powered Vorenus and Pullo; he struck and struck and struck, as if driven by clockwork. He paid no thought to defense. More than once he left himself open to a killing blow, but Marcus held back. The little battle was already won, and the Namdalener officer might be worth more as prisoner than corpse.

Gaius Philippus bent, found a stone of good hand-filling size. He let fly at close range; the rock clanked off the side of grus’ conical helmet. The Namdalener staggered, dropped his guard. Marcus and the senior centurion wrestled him to the ground and disarmed him. “Nice throw,” the tribune said.

“I saw you didn’t want to kill him.”

Ras Simokattes looked in confusion from the two officers to where Pullo and Vorenus were accepting their comrades’ praise. “What are you foreigners, anyway?” he asked Scaurus. “Here you two go out of your way to keep from letting the air out of this one—” He nudged Grus with his foot. “—while that pair yonder’s a couple of bloodthirsty madmen.”

The tribune glanced over to the two rival legionaries. Junius Blaesus was congratulating them now. Marcus frowned; the junior centurion seemed unable to see past the obvious, something the tribune had noticed before. He turned back to Simokattes. “Bide a moment, Ras. You’ll see what we are.” Then, to the Romans: “Pullo, Vorenus—over here, if you would.”

The troopers exchanged apprehensive looks. They broke away at once from their mates, came to attention before Scaurus. “I hope your rivalry is done,” he said mildly. “Now each of you has saved the other; that should be plenty to put you at quits.” He spoke Videssian, for the chief herdsman’s benefit.

“Yes, sir,” they said together, and actually sounded as if they meant it.

“To say it was bravely done would be to waste words. I’m glad the both of you came through alive.”

“Thank you, sir,” Pullo said, smiling; Vorenus relaxed with him.

“No one said at ease, you!” Gaius Philippus rasped. The legionaries stiffened. The apprehension returned to their faces.

“Both of you are fined a week’s pay for breaking ranks in the charge,” Scaurus went on, no longer mild. “Not only do you endanger yourselves by bringing your feud along to combat, you also gamble with your comrades’ safety. Never again—d’you understand me?”

“Aye, sir,” they answered, both very low.

“What were you playing at?” Gaius Philippus demanded. “You might as well have been a couple of Gauls over there.” That was his worst condemnation for disorderly soldiers; Vorenus flushed, while Pullo shuffled
his feet like a small, naughty boy. Both were a far cry from the ferocious warriors of a few minutes before. When Scaurus dismissed them, they went quietly back to their comrades.

“Well, what are we, Ras?” the tribune asked Simokattes.

“A pack of bastards, if you want to know,” Grus said from the ground.

“Quiet, you,” Gaius Philippus said.

Simokattes had watched in disbelief as the Romans took their dressing-down; he had never known soldiers trained to such obedience. He scratched his head, rubbed at a leathery cheek. “Damned if I could tell you, but I’m glad you’re not against me.”

“Bah!” said Grus.

Isolated in the southeastern hills, Marcus longed for news of the wider world, but had all but given up hope of having any when an imperial messenger, a dapper, foxy-faced little man, made his way through the Namdaleni and was scooped up by a Khatrisher patrol. “Karbeas Antakinos, I’m called,” he said when they brought him to the tribune. His sharp eyes flicked round the legionary camp, missing nothing.

“Good to see you, good to see you,” Marcus said, pumping his hand.

“Very good to be here, let me tell you,” the courier said. His speech had the quick, staccato rhythm of the capital. “The ride was hellish—damned Gamblers all over the lot.” He used the Videssians’ insulting nickname for the men of the Duchy, who returned the favor by calling the imperials Cocksures. The Roman swallowed a sigh; he had no patience for the bickering between Phos’ sects.

He also remembered Drax’ gift for treachery. “Let me have your bona fides,” he said to Antakinos.

“Yes indeed.” The Videssian rubbed his hands together briskly. “I was to ask you his Imperial Majesty’s opinion of hot-tempered women.”

Scaurus relaxed; Thorisin had used that recognition signal before. “That they’re great fun, but wearing.”

“Has a point, does he?” Antakinos chuckled. He had an easy laugh that went well with his resonant tenor. “I remember a girl named Panthia—but that’s another story. To business: how do you stand here?”

“It’s stalemate, for now. The islanders don’t go poking their noses
into these hills any more, not after a couple of little lessons we taught them, but I can’t get loose, either. There’s too many of them down here. Can Gavras draw them off?”

The messenger grimaced. “Not a prayer. He just led two regiments to Opsikion, opposite the Duchy, to fight off a Namdalener landing there.”

“Bloody wonderful,” Gaius Philippus said. “I suppose we might have known it was coming.”

“Aye,” Antakinos said. “Phos be praised it’s only freebooters and not the Duke. Speaking of which, pirates from the Duchy have shown up off the westlands, too. Three days before I set out, Leimmokheir came into port after chasing four of them away and sinking a fifth. And you can be sure more than those are lurking about.”

“By the gods,” Scaurus said, dismayed into Latin. He returned to the imperial tongue. “You’re telling me, then, that we are as great a force as the Avtokrator has left.”

“In essence, yes,” the courier agreed unhappily. “In truth, I’ll be glad to tell him how strong you are. After the, ah, misfortune at the Sangarios, he feared all of Zigabenos’ army had been destroyed or turned traitor with its general.” Damn the great count Drax, Marcus thought, while Antakinos finished, “But you do not have the look of defeated men to you.”

“I should hope not,” Gaius Philippus snorted.

Laon Pakhymer walked up in time to hear the last exchange. “No indeed,” he said, eyes twinkling, “for your men fear you worse than Drax. All he can do is kill them.” The senior centurion snorted again, but did not seem displeased.

“You traveled through the lands the islanders hold,” Marcus said to Antakinos. “How are the folk there taking to their rule?”

“Interesting question.” Antakinos eyed him with respect. “Thinking of stirring them up, maybe? His Majesty said you were a tricksy one. Well, here’s how it is: out in the countryside they’d take kindly to roasting Gamblers over a slow fire, the peasants ’cause they steal and the nobles because some of their number have been dispossessed to give their estates to men from the Duchy.” The messenger pursed his lips. “The towns, I fear, are the other way round. Drax takes tribute from ’em, aye, but less than they paid Videssos—and the townsfolk count on the Namdaleni to protect them from the Yezda.”

Laon Pakhymer shook his head very slightly, but Antakinos noticed and raised a curious eyebrow. To Scaurus’ relief, the Khatrisher did not explain himself. That ploy still made the tribune’s hackles rise.

“Well, what if there’s more of the sods coming by than we thought when we laid the ambush?” The speaker was a tall, lanky farmer in rough homespun and a thick leather jerkin. He clutched his boar spear uncertainly.

Gaius Philippus held onto his patience with both hands. These raw Videssian recruits had neither Roman discipline nor the impetuosity of the Spaniards Sertorius had forged into so dangerous a guerilla army. But all the two hundred or so men hunkered down around him were volunteers, either refugees from the lowlands or hillmen who wanted more of soldiering than squabbling with the noble a couple of valleys over.

The senior centurion said to his listeners, “You don’t need me to answer a question like that. Who’ll tell him?” A score of hands rose, Ras Simokattes’ first. Gaius Philippus pretended not to see Zonaras’ chief herdsman. “You, there—yes, you with the gray streak in your hair.”

The man stood, clasped his hands behind his back and dipped his head, as if to some half-forgotten childhood teacher. “If there’s too many, we stay in hiding,” he said diffidently. A light hunting bow was at his feet.