Rise of the Spears Read online

  Rise of the Spears

  a prequel to

  Sons of Iberia

  by

  J. Glenn Bauer

  Copyright © 2018 J. Glenn Bauer

  J. Glenn Bauer has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work

  First published 2018 by Bauer Photography and Media

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Brief Historical Note

  Also by J. Glenn Bauer

  About Myself

  Prologue

  In a land of sun-ripened scents, fire, and sand, spears rose high in salute. Gripped in hands that varied in hue from pale skinned to those stained dark by generations of sun. The warriors of a dozen nations cheered as one, their voices thick with excitement, and eyes alight with the joy of adventure.

  With the wind at their backs, the galleys offloaded these same warriors on the shores of southern Iberia. Men, shouts of challenge on their lips, leaped from ships to land in shallow surf and lumber onto the sand and rock. Horses were plunged into the water from fat bellied cargo ships and made to swim ashore while sacks and crates of provisions were rowed to the beach in smaller vessels.

  All this activity did not go unnoticed. Eyes watched from the cliffs and from the tree line. Blades were whetted and bows strung. The people of this land were used to victory. They were numerous and rich. Their weapons and shields had stood their ancestors in good stead and would soon be singing again with the joy of battle. The people of this part of Iberia were the Turdetani. Feared and hated by the neighbouring tribes, the Turdetani rejoiced in battle.

  That joy and their battle lust wore thin in just one season as the warriors from across the sea stood firm time after time against their wild assaults. Villages were burned and the walls of towns that had not been breached in living memory fell.

  Now warriors retreated to the hills or packed the possessions of kin and clan onto wagons and travelled north or west, leaving behind them those that bent their heads and laid down their blades at their enemy’s feet.

  Hamilcar Barca, general of the victorious army, watched as tributes piled up, brought to him by the graybeards and leading men of the Turdetani. He lifted a dull gray ingot from a crate containing many more like it. Hefting it, his smile grew until his teeth shone through his oiled beard. His eyes followed the train of wagons back to the far distant hills that lay in the north and he grinned.

  Chapter 1

  Stones and dirt rattled down a cleft gouged by winter rains into the face of the hill. As suddenly as they had started falling, they stopped and into the silence came a hissed curse. A bloodied hand appeared from a thicket, parting the branches to reveal a man in a torn tunic and battered leather armour. With a pained jerk, he stepped from cover and stood swaying, his sunken eyes fixed on two youths frozen in their tracks below him.

  Dubgetious swallowed and looked closer at the man. “Father? Father!”

  The second youth gave a cry of fear, dropped a half-butchered hare and fled back towards the village. Dubgetious called after him, but the youth never slowed. He turned back and scrambled up the steep slope, reaching for his father who clung weakly to a tree.

  “Father! You are injured.” Dubgetious’ voice failed as he looked closer at the bloodied man, a warrior champion of their clan of Bastetani. The stench of shit and spew that rose from him was enough to cause the youth’s stomach to rebel. Worse was the purple gut that protruded from a gaping wound in the man’s side, like the tongue of a crucified criminal.

  From a distance, cries of dismay floated into the afternoon air. Dubgetious’ companion had no doubt reached their village. His father’s eyes stretched wide and his crusted lips parted.

  “Dubgetious. You must flee.” The words scraped between broken teeth and bloodied lips like a blade on a whetstone.

  Stepping forward, Dubgetious gripped his father’s arm and eased his shoulder under it, wrapping the limb over his own broad shoulders. Taller than the champion, Dubgetious easily took up his father’s weight as the man grunted and went limp.

  Villagers crowded around him on the narrow path as he made his way to the village gates, his father staggering at his side. The first of them had cursed at the sight of Venza’s wounds, then followed others who wept when they saw who it was Dubgetious bore.

  A thin-faced man with weeping sores stippling his throat, stepped in front of Dubgetious forcing him to stop. The man spat at Dubgetious’ feet and spoke to his father.

  “Venza, you led our warriors away to battle with spears held high and words bright with victory. Where now are our Spears?” The man’s face darkened as he stared at the limp warrior slumped against Dubgetious. Without a care for the man’s wounds, he lunged and grabbed Venza by his matted hair, lifting his face. “Where is my wife? My son?” Both had marched with Venza ten days earlier.

  Dubgetious growled at the man who silenced him with a cold glare. A woman called to the man to release the wounded champion.

  With a frustrated snarl, the man cursed and turned, shouldering through the crowd. Dubgetious resumed his path, leaving behind grim faced women and men who stared into the setting sun, their hopes of seeing their kin fading.

  The village occupied a hilltop and was encircled by a thick wall of packed rock and sharpened stakes as thick around as a warrior’s thigh. Smoke from cook fires smeared the sky above the settlement. Goats bleated as they were driven from the surrounding hills to be milked and hounds fought running battles in the dry scrub, their mood infected by the tension of the villagers.

  Dubgetious licked his lips as he bent under his father’s weight and sent a hurried prayer to Endovex to allow his father to heal. With a grunt, he dragged Venza through the gates and towards their house of timber and stone.

  Men and women parted before him and even the most brazen of children fell silent as he staggered on, sweat beading his brow and his breathing laboured. A pair of hands appeared, lifting his father’s right arm and sharing the burden.

  Dubgetious’ eyes slid to the young woman. “Thank you, ‘Ratza.”

  “He is a graybeard and they shun him.” Beratza directed her words at the watching people, her eyes flashing with anger.

  “Do not, please.” Dubgetious whispered. Only one summer his elder, she feared no one and spoke her mind as she pleased.

  “They sicken me.” Her voiced softened. “He is sore injured, Dubgetious.”

  Dubgetious clenched his teeth, his eyes fixed on the curtain that hung slack across the door to his home. Three more paces and he kicked open a gate of woven saplings and edged his father’s body through the curtain.

  Once they had lowered him to the rushes in the centre of the small room, Dubgetious sat back on his haunches with a grunt, his eyes wide and hands shaking. Beratza was already pulling items from the bleached wood shelves where his mother stored sweet herbs and foul unguents. He wiped his brow and caught sight of his hand. It was smeared thick with gore.

  Beratza saw. “There is going to be more of that. Better go fetch vinegar and bring the Herb Queen.”

  Dubgetious looked at his father’s for
m, spread across the floor, his chest rising in short jerks before subsiding with a gurgle.

  “Lyda will kill him if he dies.”

  “He will die if you stand there like a tree. Go!”

  Ducking his head, the tall Bastetani youth stepped into the coming night, his mind fogged with the dust of wild fears. He felt eyes on him and noticed the sullen, fearful faces of neighbours standing in clusters between their small beehive shaped homes. He hawked and spat to rid his mouth of the taste of the stench from the festering wounds his father carried.

  Stepping between homes and angling uphill, he quickly made his way to the circle of buildings at the centre of the village used to store the village oils, cereals and cured meats. Three warriors guarded the stores and the tallest of them nodded to him when he stopped in the light shed by their brazier.

  “Greetings, Silban. I need an amphora of vinegar.” Dubgetious at just fifteen years old, stood as tall as the warriors and looked the tallest in the eye.

  The man studied Dubgetious for a heartbeat before nodding to one of his fellows. “Fetch it for the lad.” A warrior grunted and went off into the deepening twilight.

  Silban nodded. “I saw the wounds, lad. I will send a plea to Endovex. Did he say what happened?”

  “His only words were that we should flee.” He looked into the guard’s eyes. “Perhaps the enemy is nearby?”

  The man lifted his bearded chin and stared into the night for a long moment as though trying to pierce the smoky darkness with his old eyes.

  “Should we flee, do you think?” He directed at his fellow guard.

  The man belched contemptuously before speaking. “Never did before. Leave that kind of thing to the Turdetani or Oretani.”

  The third guard appeared out of the gloom with an amphora swinging in his hand. He thrust it at Dubgetious. “I made your father’s mark against the tally.”

  “Thank you.” Dubgetious felt the cold of the liquid seeping through the fired clay and turned away.

  “If Lyda needs a hand when she returns, you tell her I, Silban, am a friend.” The warrior called after him.

  Dubgetious walked faster, his face stiff. Dodging villagers in the narrow confines between their homes, he quickly reached the house of the village healer, the Herb Queen. The curtain at her doorway was knotted shut, indicating she was not inside. Dubgetious cursed and returned quickly to his home where he heard voices from behind the curtained entrance. Light flared around its edges and a man groaned. He hurried forward and whipped the curtain aside to see the Herb Queen crouched low beside Venza’s naked form. Beratza knelt at Venza’s head, her knees bracing his head and her sinewy arms pinning his wrists to the floor.

  “’Ratza? What are you doing?”

  “Help her hold him!” The Herb Queen ordered, never taking her eyes from the inflamed bulge in the warrior’s side. She spat a wad of chewed green unguent directly onto the wound. Dubgetious set down the amphora and quickly grabbed at his father’s writhing legs, pinning his ankles and pressing down on the man’s knees.

  “I brought the vinegar.” He offered.

  The Herb Queen’s stained fingers pushed wadding down over the protruding gut, eliciting another deep moan from Venza. Dubgetious was hard-pressed to hold his father’s legs still, and he eyed Beratza to be sure she could cope with his arms.

  “He is god-favoured. I smell no shit from his gut in the wound.” The herb queen worked deft fingers into the slash and hooked out a clot of bloody tunic. “Still, best to use the vinegar now that you have brought it.” She cast an eye at Dubgetious and he quickly averted his gaze, staring at his father’s shuddering chest. She rose and slid past him, sleek thighs brushing his shoulder, the smell of her goading a response from his body. He glanced at Beratza who watched him with a knowing grin.

  She hitched her eyebrows and his smile flashed before he caught it and returned to staring at the grievous wound.

  The sharp odour of vinegar filled the air when the Herb Queen struck off the wax stopper on the amphora.

  “Your father took most of our best Spears with him.” The Herb Queen spoke from behind him and then pressed past him and crouched once again beside Venza, the unsealed amphora tucked beneath an arm. She made no move to tend to the man’s wounds, but gazed at Dubgetious.

  “They may still return.” His voice was hollow.

  “He will tell you when he wakes, but I will say it now; they are slain.” She made a gesture to ward off the shades of those who might haunt her.

  Dubgetious looked at Beratza, who scowled back at him. Turning to the Herb Queen he shrugged.

  “Without those Spears we will be overcome. Why are you so certain they are slain? Is that your wish?” His tone hardened as he spoke.

  The corner of the Herb Queen’s lip lifted and the black orbs at the centre of her brown eyes widened. “The pup has some sack! Good!” She grinned a generous smile of white teeth stark behind full, tawny coloured lips. “You will need a warrior’s sack for you must take this news to Batrun. Tonight.”

  Dubgetious reared back, forgetting his grip on Venza’s ankles. “Not I!” He glanced at Venza who lay unmoving now apart from the rise and fall of his chest and the twitch of his sunken eyelids. “Who are you to tell me to do this thing?”

  Beratza hissed at his words, but the Herb Queen gestured to her to remain silent, her eyes never leaving Dubgetious’ own.

  “I tell you because by tomorrow the others will have convinced themselves all will be well.” She spat. “It will not be. The same knives that cut your father will be coming to flay us all.”

  “Batrun though? He is not even Bastetani.” Dubgetious protested.

  “He may as well be. For seven seasons he has been called graybeard by the Bastetani warriors he leads.” She grimaced as wind leaked from Venza’s body and swiftly began dousing the wound with vinegar.

  The blade that had opened his gut had pierced the man’s right arm and again the shoulder. Beratza, oblivious to the acrid stink of the piss-coloured vinegar, began washing the crusted blood and gore from these wounds.

  Dubgetious rose and fetched a length of linen to gird about his father’s loins. As he did so, he was conscious of the Herb Queen’s attention on him. Bristling, he refused to raise his eyes to her.

  For long heartbeats they worked, Beratza cleaning the wounds and the Herb Queen packing them with chewed poultice. Dubgetious dabbed ineffectively at the growing pool of blood and vinegar accumulating between the rushes.

  “It will take me two days to reach the clans that Batrun speaks for. What message shall I give him?” Dubgetious’ heart beat fast and his hands were clammy with nerves at the prospect of delivering a message to the warrior. He knew the Herb Queen’s words were wise and that soon the wolves that hunted for the Barca from Carthage would be howling at their gates. Warriors and graybeards would be needed. He dropped the filthy cloth and sat back on his haunches, letting his eyes roam the Herb Queen’s lithe form, her supple thighs exposed as she crouched, a firm breast that pulled against the sleeveless tunic and the curve of her throat. He and ‘Ratza had unclothed one another and done some adventurous fondling on a handful of occasions and Dubgetious could imagine happily doing the same with the Herb Queen.

  “I have roots that are longer than your little spear, pup.” Her words came from a distance and stirred his fantasy. The next shattered them. “The roots I speak of will soften you for all time.”

  Dubgetious jerked as though awaking from a trance and saw Beratza smirking and the Herb Queen’s eyes hard on him.

  He cleared his throat hastily. “What message? For Batrun?”

  She turned her palm up over Venza’s body. “Perhaps that we have no warriors left to field? That our champion lies pierced through?”

  “But what shall I ask of him? That he should send his Spears to man our walls?” Dubgetious shrank from her look and he grunted as her meaning became clear. “That we will pay him a tithe then for protection.”

  She smile
d, transforming again. “More than just sack then. That is right, Dubgetious.”

  He felt heat rise through the skin of his throat and cheeks at her use of his name. It set his heart beating faster and he forced himself to nod slowly as he had seen his father do when considering grave matters.

  “I shall prepare for the journey. A waterskin. No, two.”

  “I have done what I can. Your father will last the night.” She rose to her feet. “Take a midden heap for all I care, just be sure you set off before the moon rises.” She vanished through the curtain, leaving it swaying gently behind her.

  Chapter 2

  Seven times the sun had risen and still the Barca’s wolves had not come. Neither had the Spears promised by Batrun. A long night guarding the gates had left Dubgetious weary and his father still lay weakly in his cot. A stench rose from his skin, more bitter than the meanest sour wine and his stools were loose and black, as was the piss that leaked from his ever-shrinking manhood. After cleaning the mess and dribbling a thin gruel between his father’s lips, Dubgetious had no desire to take to his cot and breathe the odour, instead he took up a blanket and went outside to await the rising sun.

  He stirred from where he rested with his back against the slowly warming stone wall. His feet had blistered on the arduous journey to the home of the clan of Batrun. They had bled as he raced home. Now, after two days of hobbling, they stung less and he considered walking to the gates to stretch his stiffening legs. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, recollecting the night he had stepped before the Carthaginian who had turned Bastetani. The man was truly a graybeard, for Dubgetious had never seen a beard as thick nor long as the shovel of hair that curled beneath the man’s chin.

  He had delivered the news of the unseen deaths of their clan’s Spears and of his father’s wounds. Batrun had nodded sombrely at the news while his leading men had ceased their drinking to exchange glances and grins. Dubgetious had felt fury then. He clenched his fists even now as he thought of how they had dishonoured the dead. His indignation had earned him a sound kicking at the feet of Batrun’s warriors. When they had finished, and he was a curled ball of bruises, he had cracked an eye to see Batrun grinning at him.