Stripped bare and with his hands bound behind him, Lucius had no choice but to go wherever the two warriors led him. They were clad in mail and armed with swords, and he could tell by their manner that they were not common soldiers. They led him down the hill, through the massed camps of the tribal armies, where lounging Belgae warriors looked up with curiosity and then hatred as he passed by. Finally, he was led through the gates of the oppidum, the streets of which were crowded with peasants gazing at the burning statue atop the distant hill. It was an inferno now, bathing the thatched roofs of the Nervii huts in an orange glow. The screams had long since stopped, replaced by the roar of the frenzied crowd. They had sacrificed their enemies to their gods. The blood price had been paid.
They were now ready to face Caesar’s army.
XVI
They had spent a day and a night tracking the unknown riders. Now, on the morning of the second day, as they continued their trek north through the overgrown countryside, Divitiacus and Adalbert came upon a new set of tracks that merged with those they had been following. They were following at least six horsemen now. The forest grew ever thicker and they came upon mosquito-ridden marshes through which they dared not steer their horses, lest some patch of quicksand take them under. Around midday, they encountered a dense, deep hedge, as high as two men and as impenetrable as any fortress palisade. The giant barrier ran for miles and miles in either direction, forcing any man or beast to go around. The Aeduan chieftain and the scout saw that the tracks of their prey had turned at this point and now ran along the edge of one of the hedge barrier. They followed the tracks for several miles without problem before the tracks suddenly disappeared, as if the gods had sent a whirlwind to snatch the six riders from the face of the earth.
Divitiacus had seldom visited these lands, but he knew enough about them from the tales told of the Nervii and their strange ways. They were a proud and intensely paranoid people, always suspicious of foreigners and their corrupting influences. Legend had it that the mass of maze-like, living barriers was planted and cultivated by the ancient inhabitants of these woods to stave off invaders. If one wished to enter the heart of the Nervii lands, one must do so using the few roads available. Any invading army, such as Caesar’s, would have to stretch out over several miles if it wanted to make any speed at all. Such boundaries also rendered cavalry nearly useless.
There were, of course, secret paths through the Nervii heartland, the locations of which were known only to a choice few. Some said that there were entire networks of roads and paths running through the seemingly impassable wilderness, all well-maintained and wide-enough to convey entire armies, including wagon trains, with great speed.
Thus, Divitiacus was not too surprised, when, after a few moments of searching, he found a spot in the hedge where vines had been carefully draped to conceal a large opening. The tracks continued through this passage and the two Aedui followed them deeper into the dense wood, the floor of which had not seen direct sunlight in many ages. The enormous oaks looked down on them like giant sentinels, suspicious of the newcomers passing beneath their intertwined boughs.
“The tracks go on and on, my lord,” Adalbert said bleakly. “How long shall we? We are already deep in enemy territory. I suspect these forest paths are watched.”
“Very likely,” Divitiacus nodded. “How far ahead of us are they?”
“Half a day. Maybe more.”
“I believe these Romans have met up with a band of Nervii and are heading for the big Nervii oppidum north of the Sabis,” Divitiacus said it more for his own benefit than for Adalbert’s.
“Perhaps, my lord,” the scout replied, uncertainly.
Divitiacus cursed inwardly in frustration. Adalbert was right. If they continued on they would most certainly be discovered. The further north they went, the more likely they would be spotted. It was his own concerns that had driven them this far. If Valens’s men were making a deal with the Nervii, then he could only assume the Roman senate was behind it. Were they attempting to undermine Caesar’s authority in the province? If the Nervii were to be the favored tribe with the Roman senate, and if Caesar was somehow removed from his position, what would that mean for the Aedui, who had spent the last several years subjugating many lesser tribes under the approving eye of the proconsul? But, it seemed now, that all of that was out of his control.
Divitiacus was about to turn his horse about and head back when he saw Adalbert’s hand shoot up in a motion for him to be silent. The Aeduan chieftain instantly brought his mount to a halt and listened as the scout indicated. There were voices coming from the trees up ahead, not of alarm, but of men in casual conversation. Someone was coming up the path from the other direction.
Divitiacus gestured for Adalbert to follow him, and both men guided their mounts quietly off the path and behind a patch of brush. There, they dismounted.
“Your bow,” Divitiacus whispered to the scout, who quickly retrieved the four-foot bow from his saddle, along with a quiver full of arrows. Within moments, Adalbert had the bow strung, and a feathered shaft notched and ready.
They did not have to wait long before three riders came into view. The lead rider was several paces out ahead of the other two who were riding abreast. The man in the lead was a Nervii warrior, wearing a spherical bronze helmet. An iron-tipped lance rested loosely across his horse’s neck and dipped rhythmically with the gait of his mount. The men behind were Roman. They were two of the nobles from Senator Valens’s staff, and they were dressed as Divitiacus had seen them before, in black cloaks and bronze breastplates. The two men chatted as they rode, quite at ease. The Nervii warrior was obviously their guide, and was presumably leading them back out of the Nervii heartland. He was no more alert than the others and was too busy fingering his nose and swatting at a cluster of buzzing flies to notice anything, let alone the two hidden Aeduans.
“The horse of the Nervii first,” Divitiacus whispered. “Understood?”
Adalbert nodded, and then drew back the bow and took aim. The straining wood creaked as he brought the feathers to his ear. Then, he released, and the arrow sailed through a gap in the trees and buried itself in the neck of the Nervii warrior’s horse. The beast instantly went into violent convulsions, kicking wildly with its back legs as its perplexed rider cried out in horror. Finally, the man’s hand slipped from the reins and he flew from the saddle, crashing violently into the rock-hard trunk of an ancient tree. The man’s neck jerked back on impact, snapping it like a twig.
The two Romans, not having seen the arrow, concerned themselves with keeping their own mounts clear of the kicking horse until it finally galloped off back down the track. As the horse ran past the two men, one of them saw the arrow protruding from its neck, and was about to raise the alarm to his companion, when a feathered shaft suddenly appeared protruding from his bare thigh. Adalbert’s second arrow had been aimed at the Roman’s horse, but the horse had moved at the last instant. The man shrieked in pain as he tried to remove the barbed point from his leg, but this seemed only to increase the flow of blood. Unconsciously pulling on the reins, the man sent his horse into a spin. The other Roman, realizing they were under attack, drew his sword, ignoring his struggling companion, and scanned the woods for any sign of their attackers.