The raiders watched in silence as both men put their backs to the stonework and cupped their hands to provide a pair of platforms into which Tarion put first one and then the other of his feet. The twins silently hoisted the thief until his head was just below the wall’s edge, and Drest stepped forward to grip his calves, holding him firmly in place against the wall. Sliding a knife from his belt, Tarion flattened himself against the wall and waited in silence until the eastern sentry’s footsteps approached them along the curving walkway behind the parapet. As the Venicone walked to within a few feet of them, the thief reached out with his knife and tapped the wall gently with its point to make an almost inaudible sound. Continuing the insistent, almost subliminal rhythm of iron against stone he waited, staring intently up at the rampart’s edge with his body flattened against the stonework and his free hand poised with the fingers hooked wide.
A head appeared over the wall, the sentry drawn by the tiny, insistent ping of metal on the wall’s rough surface to peer out into the darkness in search of its source. Striking with the same blurring speed that had taken Marcus aback in the Lazy Hill headquarters building, the thief whipped up his open hand, grabbing the sentry’s hair and dragging his head down even as he thrust the long knife blade up into the hapless barbarian’s exposed throat. A thick spray of blood cascaded down onto the men below, and with his vocal cords and jugular vein severed the sentry struggled in silence for a moment before slumping onto the parapet as he lost consciousness. Tarion pulled the blade loose and gripped the man’s clothing at the back of his neck, pulling hard to send his victim’s inert body tumbling to the grass below, its thumping impact the only indication of the stealthy attack. He hissed a command down at the blood-flecked Sarmatae who promptly thrust their hands upwards to propel him up and over the wall in a silent, rolling movement. Silhouetted against the stars above them he immediately snatched up the dead sentry’s spear from where it leaned against the wall and assumed the pose of a man watching the ground beyond the rampart, providing any of the sentries whose glance should stray in his direction with the image that they would expect.
When there was no outcry from the other men pacing the wall he shrugged off the rope that was coiled around his shoulder, dropping one end down to the waiting raiders and tying the other to the heavy wooden post of a stairway that rose from the courtyard below. Marcus climbed over the wall first, ducking into the parapet’s shadows and staring across the fortress’s open interior at the indistinct figures of the men standing guard on the south and north walls, less than fifty paces distant. Tarion whispered in the Roman’s ear as Verus came silently over the wall.
‘They won’t notice us unless we give them reason to. They stand here day in, day out without ever seeing anything to excite their interest, so why should tonight be any different?’
Arabus slid over the parapet and into the shadows beside Marcus and Verus with his bow in one hand, the other reflexively reaching for an arrow as he settled into the cover of the deeper darkness. Marcus touched his arm, pointing into the fortress’s interior.
‘I’m going to find the eagle with Verus and the thief. Don’t loose an arrow unless you have to, but if you have to start shooting then put an arrow in any damned thing you see moving. You know the watchword.’
The scout nodded at his centurion, easing down the wall to allow space for Drest who had followed close behind him, leaving Lugos and the Sarmatae twins below to watch their entry point. Marcus tapped Verus on the shoulder, gesturing to the darkened fortress’s interior.
‘Nothing complicated now, just take us to the eagle’s shrine quickly and quietly.’
The legionary led them along the wall’s curving parapet and then down a flight of stone steps into The Fang’s interior, while Drest took up the thief’s role of masquerading as the dead sentry. With each step that he took down into the darkened stronghold, and as they tiptoed carefully into the fort’s gloom, Marcus felt as if he were submerging himself deeper into dark, still water. As Verus stopped and looked cautiously about him at the bottom of the flight of stairs, the Roman tilted his head and listened for any sign that the garrison was awake to their intrusion. The silence was almost palpable, as if time itself had stopped for a moment, and after a while he realised that Verus wasn’t going to move without some encouragement. He reached forward and touched the legionary on the shoulder, feeling a tremor that was coursing through the soldier’s body through his rough woollen tunic.
Before the Roman could comment, Verus padded away into the darkness, staying in the shadows of the southern wall with Marcus and Tarion close behind him, pacing cautiously forward until they were as close to the doorway of the tower that gave the fortress its name as was possible without crossing the thirty paces of open space that lay between them and it. Backing slowly away from the wall, Verus craned his neck until he was able to see the sentry standing guard on the south wall. The tribesman was leaning against the wall with his head supported by his hands, his spear propped against the parapet’s stonework. The legionary waved quickly, beckoning Marcus and Tarion on, then turned and flitted across the open space, his hobnails muffled by the thick rags. Marcus followed with his heart in his mouth, stealing a glance back over his shoulder at the wall to see the sentry still motionless against the parapet, and still apparently staring out over the Dirty River’s valley. Tarion whispered in his ear as the two men followed Verus’s apparently charmed path to the tower’s great wooden door.
‘He’s asleep!’
The soldier’s grin had an almost manic intensity as they joined him at the tower’s door, his whispering voice harsh with anger in the fortress’s slumbering silence.
‘Wait ’til they find out that we’ve got away with the eagle and he saw nothing! That fucker will be beaten to death in a moment!’
For all that his voice was lowered almost to the point of inaudibility, Marcus wondered if he detected an edge of hysteria in its slight quaver, but before he had time to do anything more than narrow his eyes in question, Verus was through the noiselessly opened door and into the towering central redoubt. Motioning the thief to follow him, Marcus took one last look around before slipping into the building, easing the dead legatus’s gladius from its scabbard in a soft scrape of polished iron over the scabbard’s fittings. The tower’s ground floor was empty for the most part, a fifty-pace-wide hall lit by torches suspended in heavy iron sconces, and the room was dominated by a massive wooden throne on a raised platform at one end. A wooden staircase wound around the chamber’s walls up to the tower’s second floor, an open centred platform beneath the tower’s heavily beamed roof. Verus was already advancing up the stairs, and whilst he was keeping to one side of the treads to avoid the inevitable creaking that would result from stepping on the central section, Marcus had the uncomfortable feeling that the situation was getting further out of his control with every step the soldier took.
Exchanging glances with Tarion to find the thief’s expression mirroring his concerns, the young centurion went up the stairs behind Verus with as much speed as he felt he could risk, given the silence that sat heavily upon the building. The legionary was clearly intent on something above them, and as he looked up and across the hall Marcus realised that he was sweating profusely, his lips moving in a silent babble of words, but even as he increased his pace in an attempt to overtake the other man he realised that Verus too was moving faster than before, his steps no longer silent as the treads creaked beneath his feet. Reaching the top of the stairs the soldier moved with complete confidence to one of the four doorways that beckoned them, his sword raised ready to strike as he lifted the latch and pushed the heavy wooden door aside.