Octavian stood. “What? Where?”
“On the southern road.” Carisius swallowed hard. “Sir, he’s hit the supply line.”
* * *
There was a terrible stillness in the meadow where the ambush had taken place. The men who’d been driving the supply wagons, and the horses that had been pulling them, were all dead. Even the birds had gone quiet in the trees, as if fearful of what they had seen. The road itself was black and dusty gray, littered with the charred remnants of the inferno that had consumed the supply train. The little air that moved under the mid-morning sun raised ghosts of ashen dust that danced and disappeared like stolen memories. The hot summer air was thick with the sickly sweet smell of burned flesh.
Juba had heard rumors of such attacks on his journey up from the coast. At first they were small, just a few men who’d gone missing on patrol. Then it was a detachment sent out from Amaya to scout the passes, who’d failed to report as expected. Then another. And another.
All of the missing men were found quickly, Juba was told. After all, it wasn’t hard to follow the smoke that was left behind.
Cantabri prisoners had told Caesar who to blame. It was a man named Corocotta, who was said to be the leader of a band of Cantabrian warriors trained to move at speed in what was for them familiar wilderness. Rather than fight the Roman legions on their terms, Corocotta and his men were determined to fight through ambush and terror.
And it was brutally, dangerously effective. The name of Corocotta was whispered among the men like a story told to frighten unruly children. He was a horror who burned men alive. He was a phantom who could appear and disappear at will.
More than once Juba had seen men choose the punishment of a flogging over the fear of following orders to scout beyond the lines.
Which was, Juba suspected, exactly what Corocotta had in mind.
Caesar had dismounted from his horse when they’d reached the site, and he was standing, alone, beside the broken, scorched remnants of just one of the many wagons in the supply train. The fire had burned it down to a slumping hulk on the ground. The spokes of its wheels stuck out from the fire-twisted mess like the bones of a dead animal. What was left of the two Roman drivers lay on the ground nearby, blackened beyond recognition.
Octavian wasn’t looking at the corpses. He was staring at the back of the destroyed wagon, at the gutted crates of supplies.
Tiberius had stayed behind in the encampment, but most of the other Roman leadership had come. Caesar’s praetorian guards had made a securing ring around the perimeter of the meadow, and within that the high-ranking men were fanned out among the wreckage, taking stock of what had been done. The loss, it was clear, was total. Carisius was not far away from Caesar, and Juba could see that he was in a conversation of heated whispers with another of the generals about how soon they could logistically replace the supplies that had been lost—if indeed they could protect the road well enough to get supplies through at all.
Juba himself had remained on horseback. He had no interest in being any closer to the dead than he already was.
“I want a price on his head,” Octavian finally said. So quiet was the ruinous meadow that he did not need to raise his voice to be heard. And the few men who had been talking ceased at once.
Carisius exchanged pointed looks with the man he’d been arguing with, and then he strode toward the emperor. “Caesar?”
Octavian didn’t look up. He was still staring at what was left of the supplies in the back of the wagon. “Corocotta,” he said. His voice was steady. “One million Sesterces to the man who captures him. Dead or alive.”
Carisius actually pulled up short. And Juba imagined that he heard several others swallow hard. “Caesar,” Carisius started to say, “one million Sesterces—”
“Should get the job done,” Octavian said. At last he looked up and met the general’s eye. “Don’t you think?”
Carisius started to say something more, then thought better of it. “It is a wealth unimaginable, Caesar.”
“Good. I want the word sent out through the camp. But more than that, I want it sent in every direction. Pick twenty Cantabri prisoners. Send them out into the countryside with the same message. One million Sesterces for Corocotta. Dead or alive.”
“Yes, Caesar,” Carisius said. He gave a slight bow. “Any orders on which prisoners should be released?”
Octavian’s gaze had returned to the wagon, and he absently waved his hand in the general’s direction as if shooing a fly. Juba had seen the gesture before, years earlier, when his stepbrother had admitted that he’d broken into the Temple of the Vestals to steal Mark Antony’s will and use it to declare war on Egypt. “The old, the lame, the women,” he said to Carisius. “The weak ones, I suppose. Now go. All of you. Send a burial detail in an hour. I want to speak with the king of Numidia alone.”
Carisius and several of the others looked over at Juba quizzically, but they said nothing. Augustus Caesar was not a man to stand for objections. Instead, after saluting the emperor’s back, they remounted the horses and rode back up the road toward their encampment. Only the praetorians remained, silent as statues around the edges of the clearing.
Juba watched the others go, the hooves of their horses kicking up the dust of men, materials, and dry earth. Only when the last of them was gone did he dismount.
Octavian still had not moved, so Juba walked to him, trying hard not to step upon the charred corpses near his stepbrother’s feet even as he tried not to look upon them.
“A hard blow,” Juba said when he got close. It seemed right to speak in a quiet voice here, and so he did.
Octavian nodded, but he didn’t look up from the debris in the back of the wagon. “A smart one. Corocotta is wise to attack our supply lines. We are stretched too thin here.”
“Perhaps your bounty on his head will help inspire the men.”
“Perhaps so.” Octavian shrugged. “But I don’t think it will matter.”
“Won’t matter?”
“They won’t catch him. I have been trying for weeks, but he somehow kills everyone he meets. He burns them.” Octavian’s head raised to scan the meadow, pausing for a moment on the blackened corpses strewn amid the remains. “Like these men here.”
It was the first time he’d actually acknowledged the dead men in the meadow, and it pleased Juba that he’d finally done so. He might hate Octavian and so much of what Rome stood for, but he truly believed that most of the men were loyal, strong, good men. Juba could never hate them for doing what they’d done. “Perhaps the released prisoners,” he said to his stepbrother. “It only takes one to get close enough to him to kill him. And a million Sesterces—”
“Is nothing when weighed against Roman lives,” Octavian said. “And Corocotta not only took the lives of these men, but he also endangered the lives of every man back in camp, my brother. We need this road open. We need the supplies.” He turned his face to the sun for a moment, almost as if he was saying a prayer to the gods. “Coins can be replaced, Juba. The men cannot be.”
It was a noble reason. It was a true and good reason. And not for the first time Juba felt an unsettling appreciation for the man he and Selene were determined to kill. Whatever else he was, Octavian was a leader. Perhaps he wasn’t as fiery as Mark Antony, but he was focused and efficient. These were good qualities in a man who would rule—even if it meant, as Juba knew all too well, that he could be cold and ruthless when needed.
“But this isn’t what you want to talk about,” Octavian said, their eyes meeting for the first time since they’d come to the meadow. “You surely must be wondering why I sent for you, my brother.”