Grumo laughed harshly and stepped forward again, aiming the bow at the Roman’s thigh.
‘Ah yes, that hit a nerve, did it? Yes, just like all those poor fools. I’ll put an arrow in your leg to stop you from running, then open your throat and let your life drain out onto the altar. You can be a sacrifice to the goddess, another of the unworthy for her to chastise in the afterlife. I’d like to think that she pursues unbelievers like you through the endless forest with her whip and bow, tormenting you the way that Rome has tormented us, but whatever it is that happens on the other side of the stone, you’ll know soon enough, won’t you?’
He took up the bowstring’s last few inches of tension, ready to shoot the arrow through Marcus’s thigh. The Roman feigned a stumble and fell to the ground, crawling backwards with his heels and elbows, and raising his voice to ensure Arabus could hear him.
‘They’re not all unbelievers though, are they? The tracker’s boy, he was innocent of any crime against Arduenna!’
Grumo stepped closer again, and the arrow’s iron head weaved from side to side as he sought an aiming point that would cripple his retreating victim.
‘Arduenna demands blood! Any blood! Roman, Tungrian, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s shed from a living man and fit to offer! And the tracker’s boy was a believer, a fine sacrif-’
With an incoherent scream Arabus came to violent life, rising from his hiding place behind the altar and leaping onto its stone surface, his body suddenly coursing with rage as the enormity of what he was hearing finally penetrated his grief. Grumo twisted his body and reflexively loosed the arrow at him, but the tracker was already in mid-air with his teeth bared in a snarl, and the missile flicked harmlessly past his ear. He jumped onto the bandit’s back and wrapped his strong legs around the big man’s waist, forcing the fingers of his left hand into his victim’s eye sockets and dragging his head back, forcing a bellow of pain from the giant as he dropped the bow and raised his hands in an attempt to throw his assailant over his shoulder. Arabus raised his son’s knife in his right hand, the blade rusted from exposure to the rain but still sharp enough to slice through flesh, and screamed a single word at the top of his voice.
‘ Arduenna! ’
He rammed the ochre-flecked bar of iron clean through Grumo’s neck, its point protruding from the flesh in a spray of blood, then he jumped down from the reeling man’s back, raising a hand to Marcus as the Roman went for his sword.
‘Leave him! Let him die in the same way that my boy went to the goddess!’
Marcus nodded, sheathing his sword and picking up the bow, nocking an arrow to its string. As he lay prostrate on his back, Grumo’s mouth was opening and closing soundlessly, his breathing a rattling, bubbling rasp. Arabus joined Marcus and stared down at his victim with a hard face, kicking him hard in the side to get his faltering attention. His voice was still choked with grief, but when he spoke his words were implacable.
‘When you’re dead I’m going to cut you up and scatter your remains in the forest for the pigs, all but your head. That I will keep close to me, to make sure that nobody can reunite it with the rest of you. And for as long as I have it, you will spend forever in the Otherworld awaiting your rebirth. Waiting in vain.’
Marcus nodded, patting the wet-faced tracker on the shoulder.
‘Stay here, then, and take this in case any more of them appear.’ He handed Arabus the bow. ‘I’ll have a quiet look around, and see what I can find.’
He drew the patterned sword again, stealthily easing his way down the stone stairs into Obduro’s underground lair with slow, silent steps, listening intently for any sound that might betray the presence of a bandit waiting to ambush him. The dungeon was lit by crackling torches, as had been the case during his previous visit, and his soft footfalls were lost in the hiss of burning pine resin. Having proven the underground room to be empty he was about to turn and leave when a faint line of shadow down one wall caught his attention. Frowning in unconscious puzzlement he slipped the sword’s point into a hair-thin gap, gently levering open a concealed wooden door whose surface was painted to resemble the stone around it. The room beyond was in darkness, and he pulled a torch from the wall before entering it, starting at the sight revealed by the brand’s light. A set of four shackles secured to the rock wall by short chains was holding the dead man’s body in a kneeling position, as if the corpse was caught in a never-ending act of obeisance to whatever deity the man had followed in life. Marcus knelt before the corpse, holding up the torch and examining the walls and floor before taking one of the hands and staring at it intently. A scrape of leather on rock made him turn, to find Arabus standing silently behind him in the doorway, Grumo’s head held by the hair in one hand.
‘We should leave. Arduenna will forgive me for what we’ve done here, but the longer we stay the more we risk her fury. Obduro may return at any time and find us caught like animals in a wooden cage.’
Marcus shook his head, handing the tracker the torch and gesturing to the corpse.
‘We need to go, and quickly, but not because there’s any danger of his returning. He’s led his entire army out, as you thought, but I doubt they’re hunting a grain convoy. It seems to me he has a far greater prize in mind.’
9
‘Mithras, but my back hurts. And I thought I was fit.’
Clodius glanced across at his tribune, grinning wryly at the look of gritty determination on Scaurus’s face.
‘It’s one thing to keep up with the men when we’re moving at the campaign pace, sir, but it’s charging along at the forced march that sorts the men from the boys. You’re keeping up well enough.’
Scaurus smiled tightly back at him.
‘Only because I’m not carrying anything like the weight your men are burdened with. How in Hades are the Hamians keeping it up?’
Clodius grunted.
‘That’s easy enough to explain. The first spear made the decision to keep them in the Ninth Century, but to distribute them through the tent parties rather than let them form their own groupings.’ Scaurus nodded, his thoughtful look telling the centurion that he already understood the point he was making. ‘Exactly. They’re surrounded by big strong country boys, farm horses to their racing ponies, and in the space of a few months they have become Tungrians. For every struggling archer there are two or three big lads who won’t let them fall by the wayside, so they’ll encourage them along, kick them along and even carry their kit for them if necessary. It’s not the Hamians that are worrying me, Tribune, it’s the legionaries. Should we drop down the column and see how they’re doing?’
Scaurus nodded and stepped out of the line of march, allowing his pace to slow to a normal walk, knowing that if he were to stop altogether the effort required to get his body moving again would be agonising. Clodius walked alongside him as the First Cohort’s long column ground past them like a monstrous armoured snake, the soldiers’ heads tipped back to allow them to suck in the day’s warm air. As each century’s centurion passed he saluted the two men with his vine stick, and Scaurus quickly realised that the sight of their commanding officers straightened backs and stiffened resolve, his men’s faces hardening against the march’s agony. After a few moments Titus’s men, the last of the four Tungrian centuries, marched steadily past with their heavy axes held over their shoulders, then the head of the legion cohort came into view behind them.
‘That’s not good.’
The tribune shook his head in agreement with his centurion’s softly voiced opinion. The legionaries marching behind the Tungrians were already looking like beaten men, trudging along with stooped shoulders and with only a semblance of the Tungrians’ tightly ordered ranks. Scaurus’s eyes narrowed at the apparent state of the legionaries.