Gladius Winter Page 3

  “How does this help us?”

  “Rappo mentioned it.” He nodded to the listening Masulian. “The way they are riding is a pattern to lure us south. They will know we can see their cavalry from any distance thanks to the dust. Naturally, messengers will try to avoid them by skirting to the north.”

  Maleric grinned with sudden illumination. “Ah! Beaters herding boar towards the spears.”

  “And we are the boar. North of us will be a ring of legionaries waiting to ambush us. Thus, we do what they least expect.”

  Rappo beamed and pointed, “Ride south.”

  The burned village was eerily quiet when the four men returned. The warriors had retreated to a nearby wooded hill. Caros rode past the newly blooded block of wood. There was no sign of Saulus’ severed limb and he presumed it had been buried.

  Azulay met them at the edge of the woods, his face a blank shield.

  “Saulus?”

  Azulay lifted his shoulders and opened his palms. “His heart stopped beating not long after you left.” He gestured behind him to the warriors, “They want to send his spirit home on the pyre.”

  Caros cursed silently. It would be expected and only right the brave warrior’s body be treated thus. Still, a funeral pyre would be a clear signal to the Romans.

  Azulay sensed Caros’ reluctance. “We will light the fire at the setting of the sun as it should be. If the Romans see the flame, they won’t stir before first light and if we leave in the dark, we can be far from here when they arrive.”

  Caros nodded. “He was a brave warrior. Let him ride home on the setting sun.” He swung from his horse and led it among the trees before tying the reins to a low branch, allowing the animal to graze the sparse growth at the foot of the tree.

  From his pack tied to the horse’s back, he withdrew a short-handled axe, aware of the warriors’ eyes on him. His gaze took them all in, “Fetch your axes and build a fitting pyre. Tonight, we send one of our own home to his ancestors.”

  A murmur of approval washed over the assembled men and they dispersed with a flurry of energy.

  Evening grew close as men hauled the last armfuls of dry brush up to the pyre. Caros had selected a spot on the bald dome of a low hill with a good view of the western land. Hewn tree trunks had been laid in a grid as high as a man’s waist. The branches stripped from the trees had been placed in the center and dry brush crushed between the trunks. They had no olive oil or animal fat to douse the wood with and so made sure there was plenty of dry kindling to ignite and set the main logs alight.

  It would be a hungry fire and the flames would send the shade of the dead man far on his final journey. There was nothing more they could do for him now except set his body on the pyre and strike the flint.

  The sun slipped lower, flushing the western sky the color of thrice cut wine and casting golden rays through the dust to sparkle and flash on the wings of myriads of flying insects.

  Caros had earlier ordered four warriors to find the villagers water source and fill the men’s waterskins. They had done so, reporting the water was clear and sweet, the Romans having neglected to poison it with corpses as they so often did.

  Now, as the sun’s lower edge flattened and melted into the distant western mountains, every man gathered around the pyre. Two men of the Oretani, warriors who had ridden and fought with Saulus, lifted the man’s stiffened body onto the pyre. They had wrapped him in a blanket patterned with green and orange dyes. The body in place, the pair placed the man’s spear, knife and battered sword on his chest. Before they stepped away, they each left a token gift for his shade. A goat’s bladder waterskin and a pair of looted Roman sandals.

  More men stepped up, each leaving his own small contribution. Maleric went forward and carefully deposited a hide thong adorned with a single large boar tusk, long yellowed with age.

  Caros remained standing closest to the pyre, last to leave a farewell gift.

  He approached, images of numerous pyres from the past etched in his mind. The numbers greater than he had the will to remember. He glanced westward and placed a single silver coin on the blanket above the dead man’s eyes.

  He stepped back and again the pair of Oretani warriors came forward and each struck their flint with brittle cracks. Sparks flew, and the men rapidly coaxed them to life with shaved heartwood heavy with resin. The small fires grew quickly and reached for the dry tinder and kindling, gaining in strength even as the sun slid away, so that their firelight replaced the light of day.

  The twin fires crackled, reaching for and meeting in the center of the pyre, beneath the waiting corpse. Now it roared as the evening breeze lifted and blew from the south. The heat rose high above the pyre, carrying away sparks and embers into the night as though a thousand migrating stars were merging with those already aglow in the dark.

  “A good send off.” Maleric nodded his respect beside Caros.

  “It will see his shade on its way.” Caros’ eyes turned inwards to visions and memories of the woman who would have taken his hand were it not for her death by flames far greater than this. He wrenched his thoughts back from that dark day to those around him and noticed they were all silently looking at him.

  “Nothing more remains here for this brave warrior. He returns to the embrace of those who bore him.”

  He studied the men ranged before him. A collection of Iberian warriors and Masulian horsemen. Although tired and still nursing minor wounds from the battle with the Volcae on the banks of the Rhône, they were resilient men who had already proved themselves in the journey from Africa and Iberia and the battles since. They would push on hard and fast on their enduring mounts. Together they would evade the Romans and reach lands where they would be welcomed. He felt for the heavy pouch containing the missives from Hannibal to his brother Hasdrubal and nephew Hanno. The two Commanders appointed to rule Carthage’s territories in Iberia while Hannibal took the war to Rome. The pouch hung against his waist as it had since the morning the Carthaginian General had handed it to him. He had sworn to deliver the letters and he would. That the enemy was so determined to cut communications only made his task more imperative.

  “We ride tonight and perhaps we will also, each of us, find our own pyre on the next day or the next for we are few and the enemy numerous.” He paused to draw a breath, catching the slick scent of burned flesh. “I do not know how the Romans say farewell to their dead, but if they stand in our way, then they will soon be sending many of them to their ancestors.” He turned a fierce grin on the warriors who grinned back and cheered his words.

  “The Romans think to treat us as quarry, sending their beaters to chase us onto their swords!” The men spat at their feet and rattled their blades. Caros saw their chins lift and shoulders square and he smiled wider, feeling the scar across his scalp stretch. “But it will be our swords, our spears, that drink blood. Roman blood! For behind their shields and helms, they are goat shaggers and tavern drunks far from their mother’s tits!”

  The men whooped and laughed. They knew a rallying cry when they heard one and repeated Caros’ insults.

  The flames of the blazing pyre fell away behind Caros and the rest of the riders. Nights were not for riding the wild and unfamiliar trails they sought out. Caros was grateful for the hunter’s moon that brushed the ground with watery blue light. They could ill afford to lose a horse now to a careless step. He was reassured by the vigilance of the warriors he led. Despite the strain of the recent journey, they called out soft warnings to alert those behind of obstacles, loose rock or pitfalls.

  By the time the night creatures had burrowed into their dens and the first birds were stirring, the pyre had faded into the darkness. If the Romans did notice the smoke at first light, they would already have lost a day. That left only what lay ahead.

  Caros found himself riding alone at the front of the column which had become a necklace of riders in small groups strung about the throat of a high rocky hill. His eyes stung with weariness, but he never stopped swe
eping the land about him. So it was that he spotted the vague forms of men across the valley and parallel to them. Fatigue forgotten, his eyes widened in alarm. It was still too dark to identify the shadows, but every instinct told him that eyes watched him and his warriors. He slowed his mount and eased the bulky scabbard slung beneath his left arm closer. Behind him the crack of hooves on the hard ground fell as loud as hammer blows on a blacksmith’s anvil. Slowing still more, the first warriors began to bunch up behind him.

  He turned his head to Maleric who was gazing into the distance. Feeling the pressure of Caros’ gaze, the Gaul looked his way. He urged his horse up beside Caros and lifted an eyebrow.

  “Is it just me or do those shadows on the opposite slope have the eyes of men?” Caros asked. He heard more horses closing behind him. The line of strung out riders was now coalescing into a unit again.

  Maleric turned his head a little, his eyes stared piercingly into the blacks and grays of the far hill.

  Rappo rode up beside Caros. “You see them too?”

  “What do you think?” Caros asked. He knew now that he was not imagining the figures for the young Masulian’s sight was as sharp as a hawk’s.

  “Difficult to tell, but it looks like men, no mounts. They have gone to ground.”

  “Not Romans then?”

  Rappo shrugged. “I cannot tell.”

  Caros wanted to be gone from this place before the sun rose and exposed them even more, for if they could see the vague shadow forms on foot, then on horseback he and his riders must have been as obvious as the sinking moon.

  He reined in his urge to flee the shadows. There were two columns of Romans in these parts. Were they the beaters he imagined them to be? Beaters armed with sharp blades and fast horses.

  “Go on and scout what lies beyond this range. We will keep up this pace.”

  The young warrior nodded and pushed his horse ahead and the stocky animal bore its rider off effortlessly into the pre-dawn gloom.

  Caros surveyed the horsemen behind him. Azulay preempted his question. “Everyone is here.” He glanced across the valley as did many of the other riders.

  “Good, send a man up this hill. I want eyes on our flank. Watch also for Rappo, he is out ahead of us.”

  Azulay gestured to a Masulian rider close by and sent him up the hillside. The man took little time to make the ascent and disappear over the ride. Already, Caros could see far more detail as dawn sailed closer.

  They kept the same pace, tension locked into shoulders and jaws. The men were silent, their eyes wide and white.

  Rappo appeared from out of the gloom, his horse scrambling as he pushed it hard.

  As one, every warrior reached for his weapon. Caros felt his heart suddenly thundering in time to the hoof beats of Rappo’s mount. He gripped the hilt of his sword, poised to draw the lethal blade.

  From above them, they heard the whinny of the second scout’s horse and the slide and rattle of rocks as he returned at suicidal speed.

  Rappo reached them heartbeats later and twisted his mount to a halt in front of Caros with superb control.

  “Romans. At the bottom of the valley.”

  “Were you seen?” Caros snapped.

  Rappo shook his head and glanced at the second scout who arrived with his horse’s rump dragging and sliding down the hillside.

  “There is a Roman camp ahead and they are making ready to ride. They know we are here.” The warrior spoke fast, his chest heaving.

  “Gods! How many?”

  The two Masulians glanced at one another and the older man ventured a guess. “Fifty horse.”

  Double their own numbers and in better condition no doubt. What he would give to be the hunter and not the hunted.

  Caros remembered the shadows on the far side of the valley. Legionaries? He dismissed them. The mounted Romans posed the more immediate danger and his words at the pyre came back to him. Blades would drink blood this day.

  Chapter 3

  There was little to do and even less space to do it in. Caros took his place at the center of the wedge of warriors. They stood with their shields forward, spears, blades and axes ready.

  Caros thought he could catch the faintest scent of the sea on the early morning breeze. The sun was not yet over the ridge across the steep ravine to their left, but already daylight made every feature ahead visible. Their first view of the Romans was a pair of plumed helms dancing into sight and growing to reveal pale faces beneath. The Romans noticed them at once and slowed. They were the front riders, eyes for the column behind. They stopped beyond the range of a good slinger or archer and surveyed the warriors for a long heartbeat. As one, they spat into the dirt and turned their mounts back, trotting back into the dead ground that hid the rest of their fellows in arms.

  Raising his voice Caros bellowed, “When next you see them, they will be coming hard at us up this path!” He stepped forward and spun to face the warriors at his back. He spread his arms, circular shield strapped to his left arm and honed falcata gripped in his right fist. “Hold this ground! Stand your man! They will hit us hard and I will be right here in front of you. When the screaming is at its worst, follow my lead and drive forward!” He grinned then, the wild and savage grin of a warrior ready to eat iron while sending his enemies to their end.

  Maleric hooted and beat his shield and the rest quickly followed his lead.

  The Romans rose from the ground just as the sun rose above the ridge. Ten horses wide, they boiled into view and hammered towards the small band of warriors. Hard eyes and thin lips, riding low, spears bristling before them.

  Caros braced his shield and felt the shield of the warrior behind him set against his back.

  The Roman riders bore down on him, filling his sight with a melting vision of lather, dust and teeth. Caros forced his eyes to focus on one horse, the one in the center of the first line of the enemy. His eyes took in the long bladed spear, the purple face of the rider and the screaming mouth of the heaving horse. The roar of sound faded and Caros pulled his shoulders back and breathed in deeply, building his strength. The horse baulked and the Roman’s spear wavered, then steadied. The rider roared and plunged it at Caros.

  The Romans had driven at them hard, but their mounts had no intention of running headlong into the tightly packed men at Caros’ shoulders. Instead, their Roman riders found themselves having to fight to adjust to sudden stops before they could drive their spears at the bloodless faces of Caros’ front rank of warriors.

  Caros, hacked. No deft parry, simple brute strength. His blow struck the spearhead from the thick war haft and snapped into the mount’s foreleg. It reared back and lashed out, hooves hammering the air about his head. Caros twisted his face away, the stink of horse fear thick. The jagged-ended haft followed and glanced off his cheek plate, nearly taking his eyes. He pushed his shield to the left and deflected a sword blow about to take the head from the man beside him. The Roman in Caros’ face hurled the spare haft at him and drew his sword. Caros struck, slicing his blade under the Roman’s right arm. Blood pulsed living down the blade and the rider fell away from the thrust, his sword flying useless from his hand.

  There was a shift behind him and the pressure from the man at his back faltered momentarily. Maleric was yelling hard and swinging harder. The big Gaul was almost blinded by a spray of bright blood that surged from the severed throat of a horse that had snapped its jaws at his face. A plumed Roman helm appeared in the corner of Caros’ eye. Another followed. The Romans had cracked the armor and were at the meat of them now.

  He struck again, this time flaying skin and flesh from thigh to knee. The enemy fell back and flowed around his right to widen the gap and turn his small band inside out. Sword blades and blood rose, catching the rays of the newly risen sun. The butchery would be quick, then would come their deaths.

  Caros roared. A Roman leaped from a screaming mount slipping on its own entrails. The rider’s eyes widened as Caros roared again and sprang in his own fashio
n. Behind him, his hard-pressed warriors followed as they could. Some stayed where they were, too heavily engaged in holding back beating blades.

  The sudden change in the warrior band’s stance, caught many of the Romans off guard and they had to wheel to face the sudden furious assault on their flank. They were unconcerned though, for the assault was just the last death throes of a spirited, but beaten enemy.

  They fixed their eyes on Caros, backing from him as yet more unblooded Roman horse joined the melee that spun on the trail. The warrior band that had straddled the trail at the start of the battle, had been turned and forced downhill. The Roman horse now had the best of the fight in all ways and flexed for the final thrust.

  A buzzard circled high on the young day’s rising currents above the hills, its eyes taking in the bloodied creatures below, the coppery reek of blood filling its nostrils. Swooping lower, it let out a shrill alarm as the seemingly dead beasts lunged upright in a shower of loose brush.

  They lay on their flanks among the brush and rock of the hillside, the arms of their riders encircled their necks, thighs pressed tight to chests heaving in tension. From the depression on the face of the hillside, horses more pony than mount, rose as one, lifting their wiry riders with them. Like dust djinn’s, they materialized from the hard terrain above the Romans just as they were preparing to cut down Caros and his bloody-faced Iberians.

  Azulay’s patience had served him well as he watched the battle tip in favor of the Romans. Now the enemy was committed, their riders boiling like blowfly on a corpse.

  He released his mount’s muzzle and whistled. The Masulian riders rose and charged in a single fluid movement. Just twelve men raced their mounts down the hill at the exposed Romans. Their arms pumped in unison as they released their throwing spears before the Romans were aware of their presence. The light spears flew true, punching through leather and armor. Another volley followed and Roman horsemen fell in pairs and then in handfuls.