CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The sound that Perennius heard as the Guardian's corpse disappeared was the patter of a pebble against the rocks above him. The agent turned and looked up. The stone, no larger than a walnut, pinged on his mailed shoulder as it followed the earlier corpses into the sinkhole. No one was visible to Perennius at the rim above. He drew the short sword which still hung at his right hip despite the scrambling to which the agent had subjected his gear.
"Aulus?" called Sabellia's voice from the brink. "Where are you, Aulus?"
"Watch out," Perennius croaked. The sword in his hand felt heavier than it should, because of the ring mail clinging to and weighting his sword arm. The agent thought of stripping the armored gauntlets from his hands. "There's another one coming. I think it's human."
The figure striding up the trail was clearly human. There could have been no question had not so many other questions stalked into the agent's life so recently. The newcomer walked at a swinging pace despite his burden of armor and a long, six-sided shield. He did not attempt to run or to clamber up between switchbacks. The man was obviously smart enough to make sure that he was fresh when he reached the agent.
"You're alone, boy," Perennius called to the figure. The man was now only a hundred double-paces from the agent. The portion of trail between them was narrow, picked out by sheep for their convenience. Perennius was considering whether it would be to his advantage to retreat to a wider section of trail with more room for maneuver. "Let's talk about this."
"Sure, let's talk," the other man said. He had a spear but he dropped it to draw instead his long sword from its shoulder-belted scabbard. He continued to walk forward. "How do you like Rome, old man? Are you one of Gallienus' pimps? Maybe that's why he trusted you all this way out here."
Gallic accent, of course. Ursinus had called him Sacrovir, it must be the same one. "Hey, I've never been to Rome," the agent called. Blazes, his legs were too weak for fancy footwork. Even if the kid didn't know his business, Perennius was out of his depth now. The agent drew his dagger. He held the blade thumb-side for thrusting rather than heel-side to stab. "I was with a Fifth Legion patrol from Melitene. You helping these monsters?"
"I saw my mother after what you did to her," the young man said. He wore a mail vest whose waist and short sleeves were trimmed with leather in a zig-zag pattern. The shield had an iron boss and rim, but there was no insignia. The agent suspected the shield had been purchased somewhere nearby instead of being packed the length of Europe to get here. "Burned her alive when she wouldn't tell you what you wanted to know. When I got here, they told me you'd be coming."
The young Gaul was almost close enough to take Perennius out in a rush if the agent looked around. At least the bastard wasn't an archer, like the pair back at the inn.. . . "Who's 'they' who've been handing you such a load of crap?" Perennius demanded. He took a short step forward, then another. If he gave his attacker all the physical initiative, the younger man's charge would be overwhelming. Perennius' own scalp crawled as he glanced at the Gaul's shining helmet, bronze sheet stock stiffened with a frame of iron tubes beneath. Perennius' outfit had been chosen for protection, not for fighting. Certainly not for fighting humans. "You take the word of monsters?"
"By the gods, I saw my mother!" the young man shouted, and Sabellia came down the rocky slope at him naked but for her tunic. It failed as an attack because Sacrovir was
too skillful, and it failed as a diversion because the agent was too sluggish to take advantage of it.
The young man pivoted. His shield rose to deflect the rain of pebbles that had warned him, then jolted up another inch to slam aside Sabellia with similar ease. The woman's knife sprang into the gorge. Sabellia took the initial shock on her chest and the arm outstretched to snatch at the youth's neck. Then her impetus brought her head and the pivoting shield-rim into contact. Her body spilled limply to the side of the trail. Dust and pebbles she had dislodged continued to fall as Sacrovir swung toward the agent in a loping rush.
The younger man covered the twenty feet between them in four strides. Perennius had a moment to wonder if the Guardians could somehow affect minds the way Calvus did. Though that was needless. Humans had been leaping to absurd conclusions for ages without needing outside influences.
Perennius blocked with his sword, not his dagger, the youth's first overarm slash. The agent wanted to try his opponent's strength before he trusted the lighter weapon in the place of the shield he lacked. The shock of the swords meeting made the agent stumble. His right side burned the way his whole torso had when the Guardian's bolt sizzled on his armor. Because Perennius was off balance, his dagger-stroke at the Gaul's knee would probably have missed even if the long shield had not buffeted the agent like a ram as he jabbed. Sacrovir knew how to use that shield.
The agent staggered backward. His opponent - younger, taller, fresher - cut at him sideways, holding his spatha waist high. Perennius stepped inside the blow. Perennius chopped at the Gaul's instep as the other man's wrist struck the agent's side. Perennius' sword gouged the shield when the other dropped it to interpose.
The sword-cut was a feint. Perennius' left hand and the dagger swung over the Gaul's outstretched sword arm. Sacrovir looked a good deal like Gaius, the agent thought, as his armed fist slammed against the base of the other's right ear.
It was not until the instant of jarring contact and the brown eyes rolling upward that Perennius realized that he had not killed the man who toppled away from him. Perennius had struck with the knobbed pommel of his dagger, not the point that would have grated lethally through brain and blood vessels across the younger man's skull.
It had happened very quickly, as it had to happen when both opponents were so skilled and so determined. It had happened too fast for conscious decisions. Perennius had not killed, though it would have been as easy to do so.
The agent knelt at the feet of his sprawling opponent. Sacrovir's left arm hung off the trail. The weight of his shield was threatening to tug the supine body with it further into the chasm. Perennius laid down his sword to lift the iron-and-plywood shield. He laid it across the torso of the youth it had been unable to protect.
A slab of stone that must have weighed six talents hurtled to the valley floor. It was safely outward of the trail and of the agent. Perennius looked up. Calvus, her hands freed of the missile she had not thrown at the Gaul, was descending the wall with ease. The woman's awkwardness, did not matter when each handhold locked her as firmly as an iron piton to the limestone. Calvus stepped down beside the agent while he was bending over Sabellia. At full stretch, Calvus' limbs gave her the look of a gibbon from one of the islands beyond Taprobane.
While Perennius struggled with his gauntlets, Calvus ran a slim finger from the point of Sabellia's jaw, up the reddening bruise, to the bloody patch on the Gallic woman's cheekbone. "Nothing broken," the traveller said softly. "Minor concussion, perhaps. Nothing too serious." Then she said, "You did recognize him then? I didn't think you would. Could. He'll be all right, too."
Perennius back-trailed her eyes from his own face to that of the supine Gaul at whom she had glanced before speaking. Sacrovir was snoring. There was a smear of mucus with no sign of blood in it over the Gaul's moustache. "Him?" the agent said. He was puzzled, but the matter was not important enough to spend time on now.