Howl of Blades Read online

  “The smoke has gone.” Neugen looked back at Rappo. “Are you sure it is a pyre?”

  Rappo trotted his mount down the trail, his face troubled.

  “It is, but the flames will not take.” He made a warding gesture. “The people… perhaps you should see them, Caros.”

  Caros pulled his mount up, a quizzical look on his face. The young Masulian was excitable, but he had a solid streak of sense and would not alarm them for no good reason.

  “Warriors?”

  Rappo shook his head, causing the copper coins woven into his thick hair to jingle lightly.

  “Just villagers. Women and children.”

  Caros lifted the helmet that hung from his belt and fitted it over his fur cap. The others tucked away loose folds of cloth, freed blades in scabbards and lifted shields from where they hung at their left knee to prop them on their hips. They were sure of nothing since the Romans had come, least of all their safety.

  The odor that wafted through and over the trees became thicker the closer they rode. The sweet scent of burned kindling and grass was largely countered by the sickly cloy of shit and rank stench of corruption.

  The four men were well acquainted with foul smells and pulled their cloaks across the lower half of their faces. This more to stop swarms of blue and green flies from filling their nostrils.

  A low keening grew as they neared the trees. The sound merged at times with the humming of the insects’ wings and then rose with the breeze like the sigh of a dying man.

  Caros tightened his grip on his mount’s reins, feeling a tremor run through the beast. A frown deepened between his eyes as he spied the first of the mourners.

  There were no orderly circles of well-wishers. No silver-haired priestess or priest. No elders or champions. Those present, stood in groups, swaying unsteadily. Their clothing was filthy and most stood with toes splayed in the thin mud that covered the bowl of land they had chosen to build the pyre in.

  A knot of filthy rags and fur let out a plaintive sob as Caros passed, making his mount clatter sideways in alarm. Calming his mount, Caros regarded the bundle of stinking rags sourly.

  “There are more for the pyre.” Neugen pulled up nearby and Caros looked to where a pyramid of five wrapped and bound bodies was set beside a tree. Flies marched in ranks across the bodies and maggots fell from rents and tears in the bindings.

  Rappo lifted his knuckles to his mouth, eyes streaming with the effort of holding back the gush of vomit that threatened. Caros gestured with his chin back to the road, but the young Masulian turned his face away stubbornly.

  “It is little wonder they cannot light the pyre. They have no oil nor any single thing that is not moldy with damp.” Neugen muttered. “What has happened to them?”

  “I have seen this before.” The deep voice of the Gaul was especially brooding there under the dappled shade of trees whose leaves were falling like tears. “They have no homes, but they did once. They had kin and clan, but those have been washed away by blood.” He grunted and gestured to a mother trying to suck the corpse of her child. “Now they will become shades without even a song to shield them from the beasts beyond death.”

  Neugen spat vehemently, anger ploughing his face into creases.

  “These are Bastetani. We look after our own!”

  Unmoved by Neugen’s anger, Maleric went on.

  “See there,” He watched for a heartbeat as a man, pale and thin, clung to the half-clad body of a woman from whose rear bubbled a stream of bloody shit. “We should leave now. There are dark shades here. They are tearing her guts apart from the inside and she is not the only one.”

  The reek of foul waste emanated from the scores of people laying listlessly beneath the trees.

  Caros grimaced as the breeze blew the stink his way. He became aware of people staring at him and his companions. Some beckoned and called for food, too weakened to rise. Those that could, hobbled towards them, many bent double and clutching their bellies. Maleric edged his mount away, his face both grim and mournful, as though he had experienced such scenes before. Rappo too, backed his mount away, keeping close to the big Gaul.

  Caros had no wish to suffer the same fate as these people, but he was loath to leave them without offering any aid.

  “Go back to the road,” He looked towards the people around the pyre. “I will join you once I have heard what brought them to this.”

  Maleric clicked his tongue at once and rode back the way they had come. Rappo looked around wide-eyed and took off after the Gaul. Neugen unslung his shield and let it hang at his knee.

  “Doubt there will be a need for that.”

  Caros did the same. The people here were no threat, barely able to stand let alone wield a weapon.

  Two men, young perhaps in the spring, but now hollow cheeked and waxen, stepped away from the pyre. The others shuffled up behind them as Caros and Neugen approached and dismounted.

  “Greetings! I am called Caros and my companion is Neugen.” He held his mount’s reins tight and patted its neck soothingly. It was unsettled perhaps by the smoldering pyre or the stink from those standing before it.

  “Greetings.” One of the men rasped. “You bring news?” His voice held a spark of hope that was missing from his dull eyes.

  “None that affects you. My companions and I are travelling to Baria and we noticed the pyre.”

  “Wet wood and no oil.” The man grimaced and clutched his belly.

  “Where are your homes? Your clan?” Caros snapped the last words, angry suddenly to see this suffering among his people.

  The second of the men, shorter and once stout, snorted.

  “Our homes are taken and these are what remains of our clan and two more.” His eyes still held fire despite the sickly yellow hue in his face. “Ride south or west and you will see more like us.” He swayed and sweat oozed from his brow. “If you are wise, you will go back north for here the Turdetani have stolen our land and our lives.

  Caros gritted his teeth. The Turdetani had long been enemies of the Bastetani, yet never before had they been able to drive his people from their homes and land.

  “To where do you journey?” Neugen spoke softly.

  “We have nowhere to go.” The second man gestured to the pyre. “We struggle even to travel to our ancestors.” His hand shook as did his voice. “My son and wife both await a spark to send them on.” His chin dropped to his chest, and he wrenched his hair with both hands, a mournful cry of despair issuing from his throat.

  Caros was forced back a step by the sheer anguish in the cry and Neugen eyes shone with unshed tears.

  “We have no oil, but we will make it so that you can light the pyre if you wish.” Caros offered.

  Marc shook his head slowly, staring into the cup of ale he held. Caros sipped his ale, enjoying the rich flavor and satisfying warmth that spread through his chest while he regarded the aging merchant. Marc’s mane of black hair had thinned in the last season so that blotched skin showed now between ropey strands. Likewise, his prodigious girth had melted away leaving weathered skin hanging in folds at his neck and from his upper arms.

  “Their tale is not unfamiliar.” Marc lifted his chin and blinked wearily. “The opposite in truth. No man or woman escapes the taxes. For each mouthful of bread we take, the tax collectors take three.” He ground the bottom of his cup forcefully into the pitted wood of the table. “More every day.”

  Setting his cup down, Caros placed a hand over Marc’s.

  “What of business? Is trade improved?”

  “It did. After Sagunt fell there were traders in port every other day. I could name my price and they wanted everything I offered.” His once penetrating gaze had turned milky-white since Caros had last seen him. His dry lips drew back in a wry smile. “Problem was, I had to pay twice as much to get anything. The Barcas were buying it all; iron, olive oil and grain.”

  “Now we know why, yes?” Neugen’s usual humor had been missing since they had encountered the sick
and homeless. It had not returned despite the meal and ale they now enjoyed in Baria.

  “Aye, to feed ten thousand dead men.” Marc’s words were bitter.

  “Many more than ten thousand, but yes, to equip the army Hannibal led over the Rhone.” Caros grimaced at the memory of that battle.

  “Even after Hannibal marched, his commissaries continued to buy everything they could.” Marc threw an obscene gesture at an imagined foe. “Your father taught me the value of trust and I used that to get the miners to sell to me first. The fishermen, the shepherds. I put silver in their pockets before the wool was off the sheep or the fish in the net.”

  Caros shuddered at the risk Marc had taken and Maleric belched and whistled. Marc’s smile was bright with the memory but quickly withered.

  “Then they sent the tax collectors. I tried bribing the bastards too.”

  Neugen laughed bitterly.

  “They did not take bribes? Next you will tell me they were honest!”

  “Honest? No, they were Turdetani after all!” Marc grinned and shrugged. “They were making more than I could offer.”

  “Now they have the cow and the bucket.” Neugen growled through clenched teeth.

  “How bad is it, old friend?” Marc’s nostrils flared and his lips press tight at his question. Here was a proud, brave man reduced to a trembling shadow by the Carthaginians’ insatiable hunger for silver. “They have left you enough to continue to trade, surely?”

  “Trade? There has not been sight or scent of buyers since the Roman fleet arrived.” Marc’s hand shook as he raised it to wipe spittle from his lips. “I have silver to keep a roof over our head and a warm pot over the fire come night.” His chest deflated and shoulder’s slumped. “More than the poor bastards you met today.” He nodded at Caros. “I kept aside your funds. Every stater. What will you do now, Caros? You have made a name as a champion. Will you fight on against the Romans or return to your home?”

  Caros twisted his cup between his hands, conscious of his companions’ eyes on him. The plight of the Bastetani forced from their homes, starving and dying had lit an ember in his heart. The emaciated bodies, feverish eyes and the inability of those still living to even torch the pyre was far removed from the horror of battle lines. He had fought at the Tagus where thousands had died, their bodies lost to the muddy waters turned red. He had battled the defenders of Sagunt who had spat at him as they died. He had seen the destruction of Hanno’s army by the Romans and the carpet of dead. In battle, men and women chose to wield spear and shield. To stand shoulder to shoulder with their kin and fight, possibly win and survive. The people losing their homes and lives were not warriors, but simple villagers. It seemed the Bastetani faced a new threat, and he was well placed to reduce their suffering.

  He drained the dregs of ale, savoring the thick stew of grains.

  “Hasdrubal pledged to accord the same rights to the Bastetani as the Turdetani. It is time to see that he does.”

  Neugen eyed him dubiously while Rappo paused in plaiting a length of leather.

  Maleric grinned. “Will you need a thirsty warrior with a long blade?”

  “Perhaps. If I do, where I wonder, would I find one?” Caros scratched his chin and looked around with wide eyes.

  Chapter 2

  Stone set on stone, carved by a stonemason in times past, concealed the entrance. It was further obscured by lichen. Sheep, penned each night in the circular enclosure, dropped their pellets and tramped them into a black crust from which rose a smell to make a person’s eyes smart.

  She glanced around, eyeing the closest hillside for a moment longer. Dropping her gaze, she beat the blanket with a wooden paddle. The hair on her lean forearms stood proud on this winter morning. Turning the heavy blanket, she looked again for spying eyes. She would not normally visit the cache in daylight; the risk was too great, especially recently. This morning she had been hard-pressed with placating her eldest daughter whose belly was as tight as a drum with unpassed stools. Now her fellow villagers were out to tend their livestock, fetch water and perform all the tasks they did during the day.

  A lock of hair, turning to iron gray, floated across her face, catching on her pursed lips. Her dark eyes narrowed anxiously. Creases swept from the corners of her eyes, testament to the elements, birthing of children and nursing her warrior husband made lame in battle.

  Judging the moment had come, she sucked in a breath and stepped quickly to the rock. Holding her breath, she lifted a sturdy wooden pole as long as her arm and wedged it into a cleft in the rock. It took all the strength in her arms and back to move the single rock which ground aside to reveal a dark hole. The smell of damp and grain, hams and root vegetables spilled out as she grabbed for the stoppered jug of vinegar and a sour smelling bundle of cheese the size of an infant’s head. There was little else in the hiding place. She quickly placed the two items on the dung encrusted stone before using the pole to lever the stone back into place, concealing her family’s hard-earned ladder.

  Heart beating hard beneath her ribs, she gathered the jug and cloth-wrapped cheese, wrapping them hastily in the folds of the blanket. Her head jerked from side to side as and seeing no one looking her way, she breathed out in relief.

  It had not always been this way and the woman cursed the gods for this added hardship. Her people had for generations kept the summer’s bounty in the storerooms at the center of the village where they were shared among all. Now they dared not.

  The villagers had always given a portion of their crops to the elders of Tagilit in return for the protection and assistance offered by the large Bastetani town. There had been an understanding and in times of poor harvests they had been spared the need to give anything.

  Then the ones from over the sea had arrived. Tall, dark and sharp eyed. After years of war which claimed the lives of too many of the village’s sons and daughters, peace had been made. It had come at a price. Now the village gave a portion to the elders in Tagilit and a second ruinous share to the men with long curled beards that visited after the summer. They dared not protest for the foreign tax collector and his hungry wagons were accompanied by warriors wrapped in iron.

  With the bundled blanket held before her, she rounded the corner of her home and stopped short.

  “Axleen! You were expected at the gates! Why are you here doing chores?”

  A hard-eyed woman with white hair and a long jaw glared at her, taking in the blanket and her expression. A flicker of understanding crossed her face and was quickly masked.

  “They are leaving now. Hear the whips. If you are coming, you will need to run to catch up.”

  The woman turned away, her eyes resting a half-heartbeat longer on the blanket Axleen held.

  “I will follow. Thank you for coming for me.”

  The other strode out of sight around the corner of the neighboring beehive shaped roundhouse, shoulders stiff under a thin woolen shawl.

  Axleen groaned a frustrated curse after the woman. She glanced back at the wall that hid the family cache to be certain she had covered her tracks. She had, but she noticed something that made her blood run cold. A pair of horsemen rode the face of the hill beyond the village. Warriors. She knew the stance all too well. Another two appeared. She waited, but no more riders emerged and the four in sight rode with no great urgency. They were no threat, she was sure.

  Whips cracked and oxen lowed, reminding her to hurry. She shouldered aside the patched and curled leather curtain that made the door to her home and was immediately beset by her youngest who clutched her knees. Her husband pulled the blanket from her arms and unfurled it on the crushed straw of his cot.

  “Careful. The amphora is old.” She muttered as he grabbed up the cheese in his thick knuckled fist. Turning his feverish eyes on Axleen, he weighed the cheese.

  “How much is it worth?”

  His voice was still that of a man. The one thing that the blades had not altered. They had cut his legs to the bone and torn his soul, but his v
oice remained strong.

  “Grain for a dozen loaves of bread,” she shrugged a shoulder. “That is what we need.”

  “See what you can do, eh?”

  His eyes glittered with pain. The Greek physician. Her husband had heard rumors the Greek could make a potion capable of driving out the shades which crippled his twisted legs with such pain.

  Axleen took the cheese from his trembling hand. Folding it into a sling which she slipped over her shoulder and hid it beneath her shawl. Taking up the amphora, she turned to the door.

  “I will do my best, husband.”

  “This Tagilit, it is large?”

  Maleric chewed a twig, split the end into slivers and dug it into the back of his mouth, working to dislodge a piece of gristle lodged between his teeth.

  “Bigger than Baria and wealthier.” Neugen responded proudly.

  Maleric removed the oversized toothpick.

  “How many warriors?”

  “A thousand fighting warriors. Three thousand if you include the untrained and the old.” He pointed at a little village that lay below them. “Add all the warriors from the villages around and Tagilit can boast an army of five thousand Bastetani.”

  Caros listened from where he rode at the rear. There was a time not long ago when he would have considered five thousand warriors an unstoppable force. He knew better now. It was still a worthy army, but many more that number had died on the Tagus river in a single afternoon. Ten times that number had perished in the battle for Sagunt, the Greek city just a few days ride to the north.

  The grinding squeal of wagon wheels sounded from the village and a single wagon drawn by a pair of oxen trundled into sight from behind the stone and timber palisade that encircled the village. Various sacks and amphorae were stacked on the wagon and on these perched a trio of women and a spearman. A half-dozen warriors followed the wagon ahead of a string of men and women carrying packs or pushing handcarts. It was a sight that Caros had seen a thousand times. Villagers taking their produce to the town less than a day’s journey from here to trade for coin or barter for what they needed for winter. His practiced eye thought the wagon lightly loaded and the provisions the villagers carried or pushed in their carts, meagre.