‘You fucker, what you done to him!?’
Horta lunged with his knife, all thoughts of dealing out a private punishment lost in his rage as his mate whimpered on the ground, a hand clutching his bloody face. Saratos took the stabbing blow on the blade he’d torn from the other soldier’s grasp and pushed it wide, feinted with his free hand to distract the soldier and then stepped in to hammer his knee into his assailant’s testicles. Dropping his weapon, the agonised man staggered backwards and then sat down hard, clutching at his bruised manhood with a groan of agony.
‘What the fuck …?’
Sanga stared aghast at the fallen soldiers, his gaze turning to Saratos as the Sarmatae dropped the dagger next to his first victim.
‘They think funny to take me in the dark, cut me to teach me lesson.’
The older man looked at the helpless men with a curled lip.
‘You stupid pricks! I fuckin’ warned you what would happen if you tried to get smart with a bloke that grew up as a barbarian warrior while you were still playing knucklebones. Once you’re done with your crying I’ll take you back to your tent party and let your senior man see what mess he’s made of you both. Wouldn’t surprise me if he gives you another kicking for being too stupid to do the job properly …’
Horta staggered to his feet with both hands on his knees, the dagger still gripped in one of them and with an evil look on his face as he winced from the pain shooting through his groin.
‘This ain’t done, horse fucker, this ain’t finished, not by …’
Sanga snorted, then lifted his knee and smashed the hobnailed sole of his boot into the crouching soldier’s face. Horta went down as if he’d been hit with an axe handle, his cheek bleeding from the iron studs’ tearing impact. Reaching out to grip the fallen man by the ear he dragged him across to where his mate still squatted with both hands clutching his nose. Sanga examined the beaten soldier’s face in what little light there was, grimacing at the bloody marks where Saratos’s teeth had torn the skin.
‘That’ll scar up nicely. I suspect you’ll be going under the nickname “Nibbles” from now on, mainly because I’m going to make sure that everyone knows how your conk came by that interesting little decoration.’ Keeping his grip on the man’s ear he dragged him over to his semi-conscious tent mate, taking Horta’s ear in a similar grip and dragging their heads together. ‘You pair say this isn’t over? Well let me tell you something very clear now, it fuckin’ well is! The next time I catch either of you even looking at my man here funny then I’m going to tell him to do to you what he held back from doing a moment ago.’ He stared down at them with a pitying gaze, shaking his head slowly. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet, you morons? From what I saw when I got here, Saratos here could’ve stuck you both and walked away clean, given you was both stupid enough to come out here to attack him, but he was still willing to let you off with no worse than a few marks and a lesson you’d not forget. Only you pair of pricks — ’ he wrenched Horta’s ear and pulled his face so close that he could whisper his warning and still be heard ‘- are too fuckin’ stupid to take a hint! So, no more hints. Next time you’ll be collecting on your contributions to the burial club, and if he won’t do the deed on the pair of you, I will! And I think you know what a bad mood I’ve been in ever since my old mate Scarface got nailed by the bloody barbarians in Dacia.’
He stood up, keeping a grip of both ears and dragging their owners into uncomfortable crouches.
‘Right then, let’s go and acquaint your senior man with the facts of this little disagreement, shall we? With any luck he’ll do the job for me …’
Marcus slid the last dozen paces to the slope’s foot to find Arminius and Lugos standing over the corpses of the men who had pursued them over the summit’s edge, their weapons black with fresh blood. Ram and Radu were behind them, their swords still sheathed.
‘Half of them were dead before they hit the ground, and the rest were too stunned to offer any resistance.’
A gleam of gold winked from the neck of one of the corpses, and Marcus bent forward to lift it off the dead man’s chest. It was a rope of thick gold links, heavy enough to raise his eyebrows.
‘Somebody was important.’
The Roman nodded at Drest’s comment, looking around to find the Thracian and Arabus close at hand.
‘Probably the leader of the men that were left behind to guard the fortress. I tripped him up there, when he was trying to take the eagle from me, and the mountain did the rest.’
In the distance a dog bayed, and an instant later half a dozen more responded with their own howls, the sound disquietingly alike to that of a wolf pack on the hunt. Gesturing to the scout Marcus pointed out into the darkness towards the river.
‘We need to go now, before whoever’s coming down the hill the long way gets here. Arabus, lead us away.’
Arabus stepped forward, his expression questioning.
‘I fear that if we use the same route by which we approached this place those hunters will beat us to the river. They must know the paths through the swamp better than we do, and they will undoubtedly move faster than us. I recall enough of the map the centurion showed us to take us away from here by a more southerly route, and hopefully avoid their net?’
The young centurion nodded his agreement.
‘We’re in your hands then. Just let me do one thing before we move on.’
He put the staff on which the eagle was still mounted onto the ground, then flashed out his spatha and hacked at the wooden pole, chopping it in two an inch from the point where the proud standard’s metal base met the wood. Sheathing the sword again he unwrapped the heavy wool strips from his boots, winding them around the eagle before dropping it into the cloak’s pouch alongside the golden bowl and the legatus’s head, then gestured to the tracker to proceed. Arabus uncoiled his rope, waiting until they were all holding on to its rough length before moving off.
‘Follow me, and from now no one talks unless necessary. Sound will carry a long way in this place.’
He led them away from the copse at a fast walk, prodding at the ground before him with his unstrung bow. Within moments the path they were following had turned from hard packed gravel to the rotting timber remains of a narrow wooden causeway, and then, with disquieting suddenness, to a carpet of soft waterlogged moss which squelched beneath their booted feet. He turned and whispered to Marcus, who was following him closely.
‘This was shown on the map as a patrol route, as I remember. It led to a river crossing point perhaps two miles from here. The Venicones have torn up the causeway to prevent it being used by an attacking force, but the ground ought to be firm enough for the most part.’
The dogs howled again, closer now and away to the raiding party’s right, and the sound of raised voices reached them across the swamp’s desolate waste. Arabus nodded knowingly.
‘You see, they’re making for the easy crossing. We would never have reached it before they ran us down.’
‘The easy crossing?’