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  Howl of Blades

  SONS OF IBERIA

  Book IV

  J. Glenn Bauer

  Copyright © 2019 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 2019 by Bauer Photography and Media

  All Rights Reserved

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Historical note

  Author’s note

  Also by J. Glenn Bauer

  About the author

  Prologue

  The stifling heat of the previous day lurked still beneath the ragged trees and in the tangled branches of thickets. The sun, newly risen, was shadowed behind veils of heavy fog and cast no shade. In the depths of the forest, the gloom of night hung heavy, unwilling to depart; eager to watch the unfolding story of the men who crept in its midst.

  The old man lay awake, reluctant to throw aside his blanket until one of the others had rekindled the fire. His hip ached as did his shoulder ¬even though he had banked an impressive pile of leaves and pine needles for his bed the previous evening. This was the fortieth summer of his life and he feared the coming winter. The cold that would fasten his joints and stifle his breathing. He lifted his good ear to the barest breath of a breeze and listened for the chink of metal he thought he had heard.

  The boy, for he was just thirteen years old and not yet initiated into the ranks of the men, pressed his blanket hard against his groin, almost groaning at the pleasure. He planned to rise before the others. If they noticed his erection, they would laugh at him, but since none of them had made a sound, he risked another moment daydreaming of life as a man. His thoughts of heroism disintegrated when he heard a shuffle and a twig popped underfoot.

  He knew the old man, his father, was awake. The boy too. Only his brother was still asleep. He knew the pattern of his breathing better than his wife’s since they spent more time together, scrambling to earn the coins to feed their families through the winter. Summer had been fortuitous for them. Then their only mule had sickened and died. He prayed this trip from his home in Perusia to Curtun would see him and his kin gain enough to make up the loss. He smiled. The overwhelming sense that his troubles would soon be over warming him.

  The forests in which the four lay, cloaked the hills that overlooked a shallow body of water hidden by a blanket of smoky fog that would burn off by mid-morning. Meandering along the northern shore of the lake beneath the fog was the road that ran from Perusia to Volterra. As the sun rose, flocks of birds many thousands strong, lifted through the fog to circle above the lake. The calls of herons and honking of geese reached the four prone figures, one of whom snorted awake, sitting up abruptly.

  With a curse the man stood hurriedly and freeing his member as he went, stumbled to a nearby tree. One arm propped against the tree, eyes half closed, he called over his shoulder to wake the others. Finished, he tucked himself away and let his tunic fall into place before stretching mightily. Through the trees to his right, he spotted a glint of sunlight reflected from a distance. The roads were busier than usual for the season and he wondered if it was because of the rumors of war. He blew his nose noisily and wiped his hand on his tunic. He had seen the Roman legions marching north that spring and pitied their enemies. He hawked and spat. Too bad for them. There were enough problems without concerning himself with what happen far away in the north.

  Their meal was flatbread baked fresh on a rock beside their cookfire and hard cheese washed down with prosca. Stomachs satisfied if not filled, they took up their sharpened rods and began to forage for the black nuggets buried beneath the ground. He had little faith in this venture, but his brother insisted the truffles would sell well in the markets of Arretium. Since they were passing this way, he saw no harm in spending a day or two in the forest. He kept his sling to hand with a pouch of handpicked pebbles. While some fool might buy lumps of black sponge that looked and smelled like swine shite, he knew for certain that he would be able to trade any game he bagged at the next inn, especially a nice young piglet or two. He picked halfheartedly at the loose ground around the roots of a tree that leaned precariously, while looking ahead, hoping to sight game.

  The boy called out excitedly. He had found a truffle the size of a child’s fist. His father smiled widely as he dropped it into the sack at his belt. A breeze lifted and for a heartbeat the scent of horse washed over the four. While the breeze died away quickly, the animal scent remained strong. They exchanged glances; their faces lined with wariness. The crunch of a brittle pine cone sounded from among the trees to their right. The brother with the sling fitted a pebble into it and stepped to forward. The others lifted their stakes while the old man pulled a worn skinning knife from his belt.

  A heartbeat later their wariness turned to shock as warriors emerged from the trees on all sides. Warriors that looked nothing like the smart legionaries they had cheered weeks earlier as they marched north to crush the barbarian army. Unlike the strutting legionaries, these warriors made the four quake in terror. It was neither their armour nor their blades that terrified the foragers. It was the aura of cold ferocity that cloaked these warriors.

  With wicked looking spears levelled at them, the four Umbrians backed into a tight group. With eyes wide and hearts stuttering, they stared into eyes as hard and cold as obsidian. The youngest grabbed for the amulet that hung at his neck, wrapping his fingers around the phallic charm. His sudden movement brought an instant violent response from the circle of warriors.

  “There is no one here, I tell you.”

  It was the fifth or fiftieth time the auxiliary from Campania had made the remark. The others did not voice their agreement for they knew it would make no difference. The orders were to scout the woods for stragglers from the fleeing enemy column and that is what they would do. Their centurion would not be satisfied until they had beat every bush and flushed every furry denizen from its home.

  “They get to march along a decent road while we bust our toes up here.”

  The auxiliary went on as he prodded his javelin into a bramble thicket, eyeing the still-green fruit speculatively. Sweat trickled into his eyes and he brushed ineffectually at his forehead with his shoulder, grimacing as his eyes burned.

  “No doubt there is a kindly breeze off the water as well. Bastards.” He would have spat, but he was low on water.

  The auxiliaries were moving fast as they scouted through the forests, compelled to keep ahead of the Roman legions marching east along the road from Malpasso. They would not even have been there except for an overzealous tribune concerned over the possibility that the Carthaginian commanders might flee this way with their treasury. The battle would be a one-sided thing, the upstart Carthaginian knew it, Flaminius knew it, and every salt on both sides knew it.

  Thirty thousand of Rome’s finest legionaries versus an army of half-starved barbarians exhausted by an insane march through the Alps. There was no doubt, and that was why the tribune rolled the die thinking the Carthaginians would try to fle
e north. The auxiliary from Campania was secretly pleased that he would likely miss the battle thanks to the tribune’s orders. True, he would not get as much of a share of the loot as the legionaries on the battlefield would, but what could these wild men of Hispania and Africa possess that was of any worth?

  He rounded the brambles and had to trot a little to catch up to the thin line of auxiliaries. No, he was quite happy to be here where it was safe.

  A tall auxiliary pointed at a ring of stones around the charred butts of branches.

  “Campfire here.”

  The line never paused. One small campfire was not their concern. The man from Campania glanced at it as he caught up to his fellows. Fresh. Probably foragers. He turned back and stooped to trail his hands through the crushed summer grass where he thought something had gleamed. He lifted his hand and stared at a laced leather cord and tiny pendent of a cock. The cord was bloody, the cock shiny where the metal had been slashed. The auxiliary groaned at the ill omen while his centurion called his name, irritated and no doubt flexing his cane.

  Forgetting his discomfit momentarily, the implications of the bloody necklace became clearer, and he felt a prickle of alarm. He spun on his heel to show the centurion the object, mouth opening and lungs filling with breath. His eyes widened in fright as the centurion lurched drunkenly to the side, his face turned suddenly bloody. The vine stick dropped and bounced away into the undergrowth and the centurion slumped lifeless into the summer grass. The auxiliary gaped at the sight of the vine stick falling and jerked violently at the sound that rose from the forest. The sound of a hundred angry wasps and the ring and clatter of lead on iron, wood and flesh. His legs buckled as piss trickled down his thighs and he fell to his knees. The maniple of a hundred auxiliaries was stretched fifty wide and two deep. Now that line was abruptly shattered and more than half the auxiliaries he had grown up and trained with lay kicking out their lives in the grass beneath the trees. The rest were cringing from the storm of lead shot hurled by slingers that appeared from the shadows.

  The auxiliary from Campania turned his head to see the forest break apart as another line of warriors burst into sight. These held no mere slings but shields and war spears. Nor did they look like beaten, half-starved barbarians. Curse the tribune. These were wolves; lean and dangerous. The hunters had become the hunted. If they issued a war cry, he did not hear it and neither did the remnants of his maniple. The spearmen crossed the ten paces to the auxiliary lines in the blink of an eye and struck. Spears thrust gleaming and returned bloodied. Their circular shields were not needed; those auxiliaries still standing, flung their weapons aside and fell to their knees, fists in their mouths and tears tracking down cheeks not yet furred. The spears drank greedily in the forest above a road beside a lake.

  The auxiliary from Campania felt the cold wind of the Alps and for a moment puzzled over the scent of fire and ice. The blade that opened his throat was well honed, and he felt no pain as his chin slumped and body folded.

  Chapter 1

  It lifted its long snout, black nostrils quivering in the cold morning air. Chalk white hair stained red from the meal just devoured, bristled beneath amber eyes. A single ear twitched. The other was a ragged scruff of raw scar tissue. In its tenth year, while the old wolf’s sight was dimmed and its hearing muted, it still had the ability to scent danger on the slightest breeze. The scent that reached it now was not of its world and its lips curled back to reveal yellowed fangs. With hackles rising, it dropped to its belly amidst the scatter of plumage from the fowl it had scavenged. The smell grew thicker; acrid and stale. It tucked its tail between its legs and turned, springing into a shallow ravine and up the other side where it paused for a heartbeat, its hunter’s eyes on the beasts that approached. With a low whine, it slunk into the thickets.

  The rider shifted and blinked, brown eyes wary and calloused hand tightening on the war spear resting across his thighs. He watched his mount’s ears as much as he paid attention to the thick growth that covered the slope on his right. With his left hand, he swept back a length of dark hair that had fallen across his forehead, sliding it beneath the fur cap he wore. For a moment his fingers lingered at the lumpen scar above his ear.

  His mount’s right ear flicked and following it like a pointed finger, the rider spotted a flash of russet half way up the hillside, there and gone. He smiled, lips parting over white teeth, the tautened skin around his eyes relaxing. His aspect changed from wary to amused.

  “A wolf. Did you see it?” Caros turned wide shoulders to look at his companions.

  Neugen lifted his eyebrows and grinned.

  “Saw you clutching that spear tight enough to throttle it.”

  A fellow Bastetani, Neugen had ridden with Caros since before the fall of Sagunt and the coming of the Romans. The Boii Gaul, Maleric, withdrew a finger from his ear and inspected his nail with curiosity before looking up.

  “You call these things wolves, but where I come from, they would be eaten whole by real wolves.” His speech was thick with his accent and deep voice.

  The fourth rider had not taken his eyes from the hillside.

  “I saw it. It looked like a jackal.” He turned his unlined face to the others.

  “A what?” Neugen pressed down on his thigh as he spoke, lips tightening with the pain that flared in the partially healed wound above his knee.

  Rappo, the youngest of the riders, was a Masulian from the lands of Numidia in Africa.

  “We say jackal. It prefers to steal scraps from the lion and hyena.” As always, his words bubbled from him like water from a spring.

  Maleric rubbed his nose thoughtfully.

  “Someday I should visit your home and see these beasts you talk of.”

  Rappo lifted his throwing spear and turned his eyes to Caros.

  “We should hunt this wolf-jackal.”

  Caros kicked his heels and his mount increased its pace.

  “There will be time for hunting once we get to Tagilit.”

  They were all weary; men and horses. The journey south coming hard on the back of a bloody defeat in a battle against Rome’s legionaries. Bruised and bleeding, they had been riding for twenty days and while the bruises and wounds had mended, Neugen was still recovering from the deep wound to his leg inflicted by a Roman sword.

  “We will be there before sunset, thank Runeovex.” Neugen made no mention of his wound, bearing the pain stoically. “Looking forward to sleeping under a roof till long after sunrise.”

  Caros pushed them to rise at dawn every day and kept them riding fast enough to cover many stades before sunset. The hard riding and poor provisions helped them sleep deeply through the cold nights. It was not through fear that the Romans would descend on them, but rather a fear of what might be happening in the south. In the lands of the Bastetani.

  Before the disastrous battle between Hanno’s army and the Romans led by Publius Scipio, Caros had learned from Neugen that the Bastetani were being systematically robbed of their land by the Turdetani. They had somehow gained favor with Hasdrubal and his Carthaginian officials in Qart Hadasht. Hasdrubal had promised this would be resolved, but Caros mistrusted the brother of Hannibal.

  “I plan on upending a cask of ale and letting it run down my throat until it is dry and my belly full.”

  Maleric tipped his bearded chin up and mimed drinking, a look of childish bliss on his face.

  Caros grinned.

  “It will be good to eat a proper meal in warm clothes and a fire blazing in the hearth.”

  They were making for Baria, a settlement that overlooked a bay on the Inland Sea. Trading vessels from Carthage, Sicily and Greece docked at the little harbor and brought a modicum of wealth to its inhabitants. Less often, galleys from far away Syria and Egypt also visited, bringing exotic cargoes and merchants seeking the iron and silver mined inland.

  Before his family had been killed in a raid, Caros had been groomed by his father to follow in his footsteps and become a merchant, buying a
nd selling produce and ore. His father’s occasional business partner lived in Baria and Caros looked forward to visiting the man. Not without some trepidation though, for it was the man’s niece who had stolen Caros’ heart only to be abducted and sold into slavery.

  Caros blinked away the bitter memories and studied the road ahead. The sun was gentle and the wind a pleasant breeze. Rappo was quietly murmuring some song of his people while Neugen’s eyelids drooped. Maleric, the fearsome Gaul that had fought beside Caros since Hannibal’s crossing of the Rhone, had his sword resting across his thighs, gently stropping it with a leather strap.

  “I smell fire.”

  Caros turned his head as he spoke, sniffing the breeze.

  “Wet wood.” Maleric inhaled. “No food cooking.” He raised a bushy eyebrow and fingered his sword.

  Rappo’s murmuring ceased and Neugen’s eyes opened, alert.

  “It is early in the day. Perhaps a shepherd?” He too sniffed.

  Caros sighted a wisp of blue smoke rising from a copse of trees a stade or more from the road before it dissolved in the breeze. He was more curious than concerned and was content to pass whoever it was that had lit the fire.

  Rappo guided his pony off the track and onto a hillock, eyeing the distant copse. The others rode on without comment. They were twenty paces along when he whistled.

  Caros glanced back.

  “What do you see?”

  “There is a pyre beside the trees.”

  This was the cold season and death was a common visitor, stealing away children born in the summer past and the elders birthed in summers out of memory.

  “Poor place to build it.” Maleric sheathed his blade.

  Caros flashed a look at Neugen who was frowning.

  “Why build one out here?” He waved a hand around. “There is nothing.”

  His people were sent to the ancestors on the flames of funeral pyres with whole communities gathering to pay their last respects by gifting the dead with all manner of objects from clothing to food. For this reason, pyres were laid on hillsides near settlements.