The reek of terror and of ancient seabeds evaporated with the mists. Someone caught the wandering pack beast and silenced its bells. In this waste, their release from fear seemed almost obscene.
The beast coughed once and toppled, as if only the sound of its bells had kept it alive that long. With the mists gone, they could indeed see clearly. All along their path, camels and horses were lying as if whatever had shaken the earth had stolen their lives from them.
Near them, all about, were their masters—untidy bundles of travel-worn robes. And all of them were dead too.
15
A final wisp of mist faded, taking with it the incongruous reek of brine. Desert wind tugged Quintus forward. For a moment, he inhaled the scents of this dry place as if they were fine incense: dry stone, salt, and the sweat of fearful men and laboring beasts. Then, as the wind urged him forward, his talisman jolted. No stench of plague or rot, but death was there. Fare forward.
Quintus strode into a field of corpses.
Bells tinkled on the harnesses of dead horses and camels as the wind tugged at saddle cloths and the robes of the dead merchants and guards. For the caravan was dead, the little world made up of Parthians, Syrians, Jews, Persians, men of the Ch'in, and guides from the perimeters of the desert blotted out. The journey had leached color and texture from those robes: Display and finery were for towns. But even beyond the drabness of the old robes that men might wear in the waste, these bodies seemed drained of natural color.
Ssu-ma Chao gestured. "Within bow-shot of the Stone Tower," he muttered.
It would have to be a very long bow-shot, nevertheless.
"That would take quite an archer," Lucilius shot out with a barbed tongue. Predictable that he would be the one to point that out.
A soldier laughed at the retort. Other laughter rose in the ranks. Hysteria of a sort, born of relief, could be as deadly a thing as panic, Quintus knew.
"Quiet!" A crack of Rufus's vinestaff reinforced the order, bringing the laughter to a quick stop.
"That will not work, sir," said Ganesha. He had picked his way over to the man who had laughed.
"You show no respect to the dead, younger brother," he spoke softly. "Or to yourself or your comrades."
"Burial detail, sir?" Rufus asked as crisply as if organizing camp for a night.
However, Quintus truly was not commander here— had the centurion forgotten? It was Ssu-ma Chao who ruled, little as the man looked as if he were in any shape to give orders. The line of march had broken. Men were leading beasts to the rear, lest they panic and bolt with what remained of their supplies.
Reason? Quintus knew his men better than that— hard-headed peasant stock. They did have discipline: they had loyalty; they had customs—customs that had been violated at Carrhae, when the Romans had fled, leaving the dead and wounded untended behind them. But they were Romans, not a rabble, and if they had cheated death once again, well and good. If not, they each owed a death, and it were better to die as Romans.
Grandsire, do you see? Be proud of me. The familiar appeal echoed in Quintus's heart. Always before it had brought him only doubt. This time, the doubt was gone. He might walk a grim path, but he walked it as a Roman and a man of whom his grandsire could be proud.
Rufus sketched a tactful salute to Lucilius, then gestured for the men nearest him to unpack their shovels and start digging. "Come on, lads. Respect the dead. We can at least cover their faces, see they've got coins for the Boatman. You'd want someone to do that for you...."
We may yet need it.
Every impulse in Quintus's body urged him to fly. He looked over at Ssu-ma Chao, who stood motionless. Then he compelled himself to step toward the bodies. He stooped to tug the headcloth of the nearest man decently over his face. He had been a merchant of some standing, judging by the excellent quality of his robes, even if they were battered by rough travel. The leather of his weapons harness was finely tooled, while his ornaments and the hilt of his sword ... no sword? It had been taken.
The merchant did not look as if he had died in pain— but he looked old, far older than any man had a right to be if he chose to take these caravan routes. Old and drained, as if the sun had leached him dry for months, instead of just the time Quintus knew it had taken for the entire caravan to die. At his touch, the corpse seemed to shiver in on itself. Quintus would not have been surprised if it had turned to dust. He shuddered and turned over the next body.
"It does not matter," Arsaces cut in. "Soon enough, the sand will come and bury these men, as it has buried countless caravans and towns." He tried to sound offhand, but one hand fumbled for the blue amulet he wore beneath his robes.
What was this death that left a caravan stark in the sand, stole its weapons, but did not touch its wares—and what was that?
"This one's unarmed!" Quintus shouted. "Check to see if the others..."
"All the weapons are gone. Even broken arrows," Rufus was first to obey.
Down the line, Arsaces rummaged in the beasts' packs. One toppled, spilling wrappings of cloth. The Persian recoiled. Running from pack animal to pack animal, he tore open the saddlebags reserved for the costliest goods, spilling spices and glass onto the sands as he went. A waste: They dared not burden themselves with such luxuries.
"By the flame, nothing's been touched!" the Persian exclaimed. His voice shook. Not to loot when there was a chance...
"This one isn't armed either!" Lucilius shouted, which reassured Quintus not at all. The tribune turned from one prone figure to another, who had died, seemingly, when his horse fell and now lay half-hidden beneath it. A caravan was a small army. Merchants needed men able and willing to fight. Edepol, had this been a caravan of old men?
"They might carry gems on their persons," Arsaces's battered boots cracked through the salt crust upon the grit. He seemed as reluctant as Quintus felt to investigate. "An entire caravan struck dead, no signs of plague or bandits or even blood and—Mithras aid us!"
As Arsaces spoke, the tribune knelt by the dead merchant's body. Be a man. Battlefield loot—no, this was no true battlefield, and these were not the enemy. He compelled himself to touch the body but not to rob. Under his fingers the corpse seemed to collapse in on itself, like a wineskin that has been drained, but has retained its fullness until a careless hand brushes it.
Oaths and prayers rose as others of the Romans and the Ch'in made the same gruesome discovery almost all at once. This caravan of the dead seemed to be a caravan in which all had died at once—seemingly of old age. Even the bodies dressed as young men dress—apprentices, guards, slim forms that might have been favored sons making their first desert crossings—looked as ancient as some mummy cast up out of a dune.
And when they were touched, they crumpled.
From behind the Romans rose commands screamed out in Ch'in. Ssu-ma Chao's voice cracked up toward hysteria. Arsaces laid a hand on Quintus's arm.
"He wants us to leave now. It is a day's march to the Stone Tower and..."
Quintus squinted toward the sun. Already it had sunk low in the direction that he dearly wished to go, as if a fire barred the Romans from their home. So, was this the prelude to Carrhae all over again—the brutal forced march to a field of slaughter, followed by other, equally harsh demands?
The Ch'in commander's voice rose to a scream. The best thing for that one, Quintus thought, would be silence. For him; for the Ch'in soldiers; and for the Romans especially. Ssu-ma Chao had eased the terms of the Romans' captivity. He had ordered their arms returned. They owed him—more than somewhat. But they still had the Eagle to regain if they could. What he gave with one hand, he could take back with the other—aye, and their lives with their privileges, should he meet up with others of his race.