Rise of the Spears Read online

  The graybeard had promised the Spears needed to hold the walls and then sent Dubgetious to sleep among the goats on an empty belly.

  Sandaled feet slapped closer and Dubgetious roused himself and squinted against the glare of the early morning sun. Beratza was running up the hill, her hair bouncing like a horse’s mane at her shoulders, muscular thighs flashing. She clutched a spear in her killing hand and a round shield in her left.

  “Dubgetious! Your spear!”

  He rolled to his feet, uncaring of the raw blisters. In a heartbeat, he was through the curtain to snatch his spear from the rafters and slip his feet into his sandals, tramping the leather straps beneath his heels.

  “Dubgetious!”

  “Coming!” His shield was splintered and he had not made time to repair it. Cursing, he batted aside the curtain to hear the familiar blaring of Bastetani warhorns echo from the hills. The sound lifted the hairs on his arms and he shivered. “Batrun’s Spears!”

  Batrun came that day. Dubgetious watched the sun glint off a thousand spear points dipping and rustling like a field of iron-tipped grass as they made their way to the village. The warriors were led by Batrun himself. The man rode a barrel-chested mount and was dressed as a champion should be. His feet enclosed by thick fleece and heavy sandals laced to the knees. His padded tunic reached to his thighs and gray chain hung from his shoulders to below his waist where it was cinched tight by a wide leather belt studded with bronze. His head was crowned by a helmet of worked iron and from under its rim, his eyes glowed with dark intensity.

  Dubgetious’ chest expanded with admiration and he gripped his spear tighter. This was a war leader! This was a champion that could create a victory and at his back were the Spears that would win that victory and stop the Barca.

  The watching villagers and refugee warriors from the west felt the same and their loud whoops and cheers were accompanied by the deep drumming of spear hafts on shields.

  “That is Batrun? You went before him and spoke our oath to him?” Beratza’s voice was breathless and Dubgetious thought he detected a note of approval there.

  “I did. The four warriors at his back kicked the shades out of me while he watched.” He grinned at her, making her laugh and slap his uncovered head.

  “We can win against this Hamilcar with Batrun as our champion, Dubgetious. The Bastetani can lead all other tribes, even the far distant Vettones and Illerget.”

  The village was awash with bodies in every passage, at every doorway, and even among the goats in their pens. Dubgetious stumbled over an unseen limb and heard a grunt from beneath a bundle of furs and leather. He suppressed the urge to throw up and made quickly for the village well. There were few others stirring and those that were, groaned and retched were they lay, ill from the flagons of ale consumed in celebration the night before.

  “Greetings, Dubgetious.” The Herb Queen’s voice pulled his head around to where she stood beneath an ancient apple tree.

  “Greetings. You have not come to see Venza.” He accused her, his mood darkening.

  “He will live till he dies.” She lifted her hand, stilling his retort, and stepped close to him. Dubgetious wanted to back away from her, conscious of the reek of fermented ale on his breath, but was held in place by her presence. “You smell worse than he.” Her nose wrinkled.

  “Then you have seen him. My apologies.”

  She grunted, suddenly impatient. “Take Beratza and go find your mother.”

  “Why? She prefers her own company and that of her Spears.”

  The Herb Queen’s face remained impassive, but Dubgetious was sure he saw a tightening about her eyes.

  He grinned. “Anyway, I am not going anywhere before we have defeated the Barca.” His grin faltered when the Herb Queen’s eyes flashed. “Batrun is a champion, and just look at the number of spears he has.”

  She looked west, past the town walls and to the hills painted in early morning gold. Her jaw clenched, muscles bunching beneath the shells dangling from her pierced earlobes. “The enemy will be here before the sun clears the hills. Not even Batrun and all his spears can stop them, but you Dubgetious can save Beratza. She will go if you do.”

  Dubgetious’ eyes widened as he understood. The Herb Queen and Beratza? Shaking his head at the image, he stuttered, “Wait, the enemy, Barca? How do you know?”

  She gestured to the gates, where for the first time, Dubgetious noticed there was a fire burning and a circle of warriors seated, as though in negotiation. “Bastetani came from the west in the night. They flee the jaws of the enemy who they say snap at their heels.”

  “I cannot go. I owe my father and my people my spear and my blood if the gods ask it.” He flinched at the sorrow he saw shadowed in her eyes, certain suddenly that his own sorrows were about to engulf him.

  The sun, reaching still for the highest point of the sky, cast a ruddy glow through thick smoke. Dubgetious felt his vision swim and his heart beat like a hammer at his ribs. It filled his nostrils forcing a hacking cough between his parched lips. A figure leaped through a fresh cloud of hot, roiling smoke with a battle cry, spear stabbing forward and then flicking left and right. Dubgetious fell back, trying to lift his own spear which weighed as much as a tree in his tired arms. Beratza, bloodied and grunting, threw a rock that struck the large Turdetani warrior’s shoulder. The man laughed, dark eyes glinting savagely under thick eyebrows.

  Screams washed through Dubgetious and he shook at the horrors glimpsed through the curtains of smoke. The mounds of bloodied heaps at the foot of the village walls. The cataracts of crimson washing down the stone stairs leading from the village centre. There was more and Dubgetious’ eyes skittered over the scenes of butchery and violence, his young mind trying to make sense of it.

  He stabbed at the Turdetani whose hungry eyes were locked on Beratza. The point of his blade took him in the groin and with a supreme grunt, Dubgetious used the last strength of his broad shoulders to twist the blade and open the thick blood vessel there.

  More figures flowed around him and a club took him in the head, exploding a wash of searing pain across his vision. He fell to the stones and came face to face with Beratza. Her eyes were wild as she fought off groping hands and then widened in horror at some worse pain inflicted on her.

  The survivors were forced to their knees, Dubgetious amongst them. The youth watched through cloudy eyes as warriors dragged survivors from under piles of dead where they had crawled to hide. A girl was pulled by her ankles from a midden heap, her body black with goat shit and bruises. A warrior, her arm ending at a hand turned to shattered bone and ground flesh, was harassed from a narrow passage between the Bastetani homes and into the circle of captives. A blow to her knee dropped her beside Dubgetious. Silence of a kind settled over the defeated village. From the distance, came the sound of occasional clashes as the Barca’s huge army hunted Batrun’s surviving Spears.

  Hooves clattered on stone and a band of riders appeared, led by a large man with a distinctive curled beard. He wore the armour of a wealthy warrior and the symbol of the Carthaginian’s deity was vivid on his shield. Without preamble the warrior spoke, his voice loud and clear.

  “Bastetani! You would have been wiser to submit at once.” He leaned forward and his eyes locked on Dubgetious. “Tanit has favoured you and spared your lives. From this day forward you will consider Carthage as your protector and you will answer her call through my voice, for I am Hamilcar Barca of Carthage.” With an agility that belied the gray in his beard, he sprang from his mount. “All the warriors here today will march now as levies in my army.”

  The woman beside Dubgetious growled and tried to surge to her feet. Dubgetious reached out and grabbed for her shoulder. Too late.

  “Do not!” He hissed.

  A dark-skinned warrior noticed and darted at them, his sword a blur. Dubgetious fell back as the blade whipped down and bit into the woman’s neck. Its keen edge was dulled by a morning of killing and the warrior wrenched it free t
o hack again while the woman’s eyes rolled back into her head at the pain of the ghastly wound. He struck four times before she slumped across Dubgetious’ knees, her blood arcing across his chest.

  Hamilcar Barca watched impassively. “As brave as any warrior I know. That is why I want your Spears to serve with me. Together we can forge a new alliance that benefits your people greatly. Resist and in a short while the hills and villages will be filled only with the shades of Bastetani!”

  Dubgetious lifted his eyes from the woman’s face and stared at the Barca who strode towards him. A blade touched Dubgetious’ neck and the dark-skinned warrior warned him not to move, speaking a dialect of Greek used in trade ports the sea over.

  “I will not.” Dubgetious answered, his voice steady.

  “You speak Greek, young warrior?” Hamilcar addressed him.

  “I do.” Dubgetious drew his shoulders back and raised his chin, oblivious to the threat of the blade still at his neck.

  “Remove your blade, Keneiss.” Hamilcar instructed the warrior. “What is your name, son?”

  “I am Dubgetious of the Bastetani, son of Venza.”

  “Your father fought here today? Does he live still?” Hamilcar asked.

  Dubgetious shook his head, but a voice, guttural with pain and sickness, croaked from among the captives. “I am and I am pleased to say I blooded my spear today.” Dubgetious started as Venza’s head rose above those of the kneeling captives.

  Hamilcar took in the man’s waxen face and sweating, shivering body. “You killed even as you hover at the brink of death.” Hamilcar spread his arms wide and turned in a circle, addressing all. “Truly the Bastetani are an honourable and brave people. I, Hamilcar Barca, offer you my hand in friendship from this day forth if you would but take it.”

  Venza grunted and looked across bowed heads at Dubgetious, eyes shining with fever. Dubgetious felt a prickle of pride and his eyes filled rapidly with tears as his father nodded once before he toppled to the ground.

  Hamilcar Barca stood watching the broken captives who held their faces low and kept their shoulders bent. The encircling warriors moved restlessly as heartbeats passed with no sign of the Bastetani captives taking the Barca’s offer. Spears lifted and swords rasped. Bloodied warriors sated with killing looked at one another, preparing for a final orgy of butchery.

  Hamilcar Barca’s hands dropped slowly, clenching into fists at his sides. With eyes hardening by the moment, he looked around a final time and then leaped astride his mount. A fellow rider passed him a heavy spear and the Barca couched it in the crook of his elbow and turned his horse. A sigh rose from the bowed captives, men women and children who knew the blades would fall on them now and send their shades hurtling into the land of Saur and his hounds, the land of the god of death.

  “I will.” Dubgetious gripped the blade at his neck with his fist and pushed it away. He rose, allowing the dead warrior’s body to slide off his lap, forcing back the dark-skinned warrior holding the sword. All heads turned to him, warriors and captives alike. “I will accept the friendship of Carthage and Barca. My spear is yours.”

  Chapter 3

  Her shoulders were tight with tension as she led the small column of seven riders along the hillside, keeping shy of the ridge. She flicked a look up at the black smoke that rose from the next valley, worry lines around her eyes deepening.

  “The smoke is thinning, Lyda.” A lanky warrior gestured at it. “Maybe there was just a mishap and only a roof or two burned.”

  Lyda grunted, unconvinced. The warrior had a wife in the village, heavy with child. He was holding onto the hope that they were safe. Lyda had seen villages pillaged in raids and burned by attackers. The smoke was thinning, but the flames that had lifted it had burned more than thatch. She knew it and soon the warrior would as well. Her eyes swept the ridge and found the boulder that marked the trail they would use to descend to the village and discover its fate. At that moment, her mount skittered to the side and snorted. Lyda hissed and lifted her shield, trusting the horse’s keen senses. Behind her, other mounts reacted similarly, causing their riders to curse.

  “There!” She pointed into the valley that fell away to their right. The riders pulled their mounts to a stop, eyes squinting through the thickets of thorn and bush that grew lower down. A flurry of black wings was accompanied by raucous cries as a pair of ravens circled and then dived.

  The dead numbered just a handful. All were stripped and mutilated. Crimson wounds vivid against the white of skin usually covered by clothing.

  “These are not ours, but I recognise him.” The warrior gestured at the body of a man that lay amongst a nest of boulders, his head twisted unnaturally. “He is one of Batrun’s leading men. I think the lad there with his guts around his throat was his son.”

  Lyda was silent, her lips pressed thin and her eyes hard as flint. “We can come back and put them to the pyre. First, we need to return to our home and see what has been wrought in our absence.” She looked long at the hard men and women that sat their mounts beside her and saw them steel themselves for what they might find.

  Descending the hillside, Lyda could see the maze of stone homes and fenced livestock pens within the village walls. She saw the burned thatch of a handful of houses, but she also saw figures moving among the buildings. Her heart lifted with hope which faded again as they circled the walls to enter the gates.

  There had been a hard battle here. The ground was trampled and rutted. Discarded sandals, torn cloaks and scattered belts littered the ground beneath the village walls. Then there were the bodies. So many bodies.

  “What is this?” She whispered. Between her and the wide-open gates was a carpet of dead.

  “These are Batrun’s Spears. There must be a hundred or more here.” Cenos, a middle-aged woman with a sour disposition, stopped to peer down at a cluster of three staring corpses.

  “How did Venza and our Spears fend off so many? Those are our people still alive in the village.” Lyda pointed and then kicked her heels, urging her mount forward, surging up the trail, impatient to know the fate of her husband and son.

  The faces that met her were wan and thin-lipped. Here and there a villager nodded to her in recognition. Lyda ignored them and slid from her horse to the ground when it slipped on blood slick stone a second time. She raced on foot up the hill, the cries of anguish from her fellow riders following her as they discovered the fate of their loved ones.

  She slapped aside the curtain and sprang breathless into her home. Venza lay on a cot, skin clammy and mottled, a multitude of cuts on his arms and torso. A large wadding on his gut leaked pus and the air was rank with his smell.

  “Venza!” She fell to her knees beside his cot and placed a hand on his cheek.

  He opened his eyes with difficulty, crusted accumulations thick on the eyelashes. “You have returned.” His voice was a whisper. “Things have gone badly, Lyda. The gods have turned their backs on us.”

  Lyda’s eyes ranged over his once muscular body, shocked at how he had wasted away. Then her heart lurched again. Dubgetious!

  “My son? Does Dubgetious live, Venza?”

  Tears welled and ran from his eyes. “He is taken as a levy to the Barca’s army.”

  Lyda rocked back on her heels, a cry of despair rising from deep within her and bursting from her lips. “The Barca came here? He has taken my son?” Her hands curled into fists that she used to beat her chest and then she raked at her arms with her nails, raising welts and drawing blood. “Dubgetious! My son!” Her wail filled the small dwelling place.

  Venza groaned at the sight of her anguish and tried to sit. Falling back, he began coughing and choking. Only once his face had purpled, did Lyda relent her mourning and rage. She turned him onto his side and eased his breathing, rubbing his back.

  When he was able to speak, he told her of what had happened. How he and his Spears were defeated fighting the Barca alongside the Oretani. Then Batrun’s promised spears arriving to confront th
e Barca’s powerful army and being overwhelmed outside the walls before streaming away to the east. He ended by admitting to her he had encouraged Dubgetious to offer service to the Barca. How in doing so, her son had led twenty more Bastetani Spears to pledge their service.

  “They would all have been killed on their knees, Lyda. The Barca is pitiless and will not rest until he has taken whatever he sets his eyes upon.”

  Lyda grunted as she rose, her knees popping. She found an amphora of vinegar and poured a little into a cup before filling it with water. Her movements were deliberate and focused. She sipped, nodded and knelt again beside Venza. With no expression or kind words, she held his head and allowed him to drink until he turned his face away.

  Breathing heavily, he spoke with his eyes closed. “I know you will go after Dubgetious.”

  Lyda drank the remaining draught, saying nothing.

  He opened his eyes and gazed at her. “Send me on now, Lyda. I find I wish to visit with my ancestors.” He smiled, eyes cloudy with fever.

  Lyda placed the empty cup on a shelf and drew her short knife, holding it in a reverse grip so the blade ran up along the inside of her arm. Kneeling beside her husband once more, she cradled his head with her left arm and touched his brow with her lips.

  “Better he had died here than in service to the Barca.” She growled suddenly and lifted her killing hand high. The blade flashed once and then she buried it in Venza’s chest, slamming it home with such force the blade snapped at the hilt. Venza’s eyes flew wide and his mouth opened as his back arced, lifting his torso from the cot. He remained like that for a heartbeat before slumping back.

  Lyda stood. Stumbled, trembling. Her nostrils flared as she panted. She stared at Venza’s lifeless corpse and then spat on it. She noticed that she still clutched the bone handle of her knife and hurled it at the dead man with a snarl of fury.