Anthony Riches
The Leopard sword
Prologue
Germania Inferior, September, AD 182
‘Fucking rain! Rain yesterday, rain today and rain tomorrow most likely. This bloody damp gets everywhere. My armour will be rusting again by morning.’
‘You’ll just have to get your brush out again, or that crested bastard will be up your arse like a rat up a rain pipe.’
The two sentries shared a grimace of mutual disgust at the thought of the incessant work required to keep their mail free of the pitting that would bring the disapproval of their centurion down on them. The night’s cold mist was swirling around the small fort’s watchtower, individual droplets dancing on the breeze that was moaning softly across the countryside around their outpost. The blazing torch that lit their section of the fortlet’s wall was wreathed in a ball of misty radiance that enveloped them with an eerie glow, and made it almost impossible to see further than a few paces. Shielding their eyes from the light as best they could, they watched their assigned arcs of open ground, with occasional glances into the fort below them to make sure that nobody, neither bandit nor centurion, was attempting to creep up on them.
‘I don’t mind the polishing so much as having to listen to that miserable old bastard’s constant stream of bullshit about how much harder it was in “the old days”: “When the Chauci came at us from the sea, well, that was real fighting, my lads, not that you children would recognise a fight unless you had a length of cold, sharp iron buried in your…”’
He fell silent, something in the darkness beneath the walls catching his attention.
‘What is it?’
He stared down into the gloom for a long moment, blinking his tired eyes before looking away and then back at the place where he could have sworn the darkness had taken momentary form.
‘Nothing. I thought I saw something move, but it was probably just a trick of the mist.’ Shaking his head, he planted his spear’s butt spike on the watchtower’s wooden planks and yawned widely. ‘I hate this time of year; the fog has a man jumping at shadows all the fucking time.’
His mate nodded, leaning out over the wall and staring down into the mist.
‘I know, sometimes you can imagine-’
His voice choked off, and after a moment’s apparent indecision he slumped forward over the parapet and vanished from view. While the other sentry goggled in amazement a hand gripped the edge of the wooden wall, hauling a black-clad figure over its lip and onto the torchlit platform; the intruder’s other hand was gripping a short spear whose blade was running with the dead sentry’s blood. The attacker’s boots shone in the light, the flickering illumination glinting off the heavy metal spikes that had carried him up the wall’s sheer wooden face. The sentry stepped forward, dimly aware of shouting from another corner of the fortlet, and raised his spear to stab at the attacker even as the other man flicked his hand as if in dismissal, sending a slender shank of cold iron to bury itself in his throat. Coughing blood, he staggered backwards and stepped out into thin air, plummeting to the hard earth ten feet below.
Lying half asleep in his small and draughty barrack, the detachment’s centurion heard the unmistakable sounds of fighting as he dozed on his bed, and he was on his feet with his sword drawn from the scabbard hanging from the room’s single wooden chair before he was fully awake. Thanking the providence that had seen him lie down without removing his boots, he pulled on his helmet and stepped out through the door with a bellowed command for his men to stand to, feeling woefully under-equipped without the reassuring weight of his armour. A shadowy figure came at him out of the darkness to his right, the attacker’s spear shining in the light of the torch fixed to the wall behind the centurion, and with a speed born of two decades of practice he swayed to allow the weapon’s thrust to hiss past him before stepping in quickly to ram the gladius deep into his anonymous assailant’s chest. Shrugging the dying man off the blade to lie gurgling out what was left of his life on the damp grass, he advanced towards the fortlet’s gate, pausing to pick up a shield left lying alongside the broken body of one of the wall sentries. A throwing knife protruded from a bloody hole in the dead man’s throat, and the centurion scowled at the ease with which his men’s defences seemed to have been compromised.
As the centurion advanced cautiously down the wall’s length, in hopes of making out the detail of what was happening around the fort’s entrance, his heart sank. The gate was already open, and a flood of attackers was pouring through it with their swords drawn. Sheltering in the palisade’s deeper shadow he watched as they overran the few men who still stood in defence of the fort, battering them brutally aside in a brief one-sided combat. Having already made the decision to slip away and report the disaster to his tribune in Tungrorum, the centurion shook his head, turning away from the sight of his command’s destruction just in time to spot a dark-clad figure coming at him out of the darkness with a short spear held ready to strike. Smashing the weapon aside with the shield, he punched hard at the reeling assailant’s face with his sword hand, catapulting the other man back against the wall. The intruder’s head hit the unyielding wood with a dull thud and he slumped slackly to the ground, his eyes glassy from the blow’s force. Kneeling to dimple the fallen attacker’s throat with the point of his gladius, the centurion hissed a question into the stunned face, the one question that had been on the lips of every soldier in the province for months.
‘Obduro? Who is Obduro?’
The dazed man simply looked up in mute refusal to reply.
‘Tell me his fucking name or I’ll stop your wind!’ Desperation lent the words a lethal menace that left the victim in little doubt as to the sincerity of this threat.
Regaining his senses, the fallen intruder cautiously shook his head, his eyes fixed on a point behind the vengeful centurion. He spoke quietly, his voice almost lost in the din of the one-sided fight: ‘More than my life’s worth.’
‘Fair enough.’
Nodding slowly, his face hardening with the realisation that they were not alone, the centurion stood, and as he turned to face the men behind him he casually pushed the sword’s point through the helpless man’s throat, putting a booted foot on his victim’s heaving chest to hold the man’s body down while he withdrew the blade with a vicious twist. Half a dozen of the fort’s attackers were standing in a loose half circle around him, all but one with spears levelled at him. Their black clothing, clearly intended to provide them with concealment in the moonless night, gave no clue as to who they might be, although more than one face seemed distantly familiar. The sixth man was armed only with a sword at his waist, but the centurion took an involuntary step back at the sight of the Roman cavalry helmet that completely hid his features. Its thick iron faceplate was tinned and highly polished, the mirror-like surface broken only by a pair of black eye holes and a slit between the thin, cruel iron lips. It reflected a distorted version of the centurion as he raised his shield to fight.
‘You wanted Obduro? Then here I am. And that was an unnecessary death, Centurion, given the fact that your men are already scattered and beaten; and he was a good man, one of my best. You know I can make you pay heavily in lingering torment for that brief moment of revenge, and yet you still chose to pay that price for a fleeting moment of satisfaction. How amusing…’ The words were muffled to the point of being made barely audible by the helmet’s faceplate, and the voice was distorted enough to be unrecognisable, despite the rumours as to the wearer’s identity that were the stuff of soldiers’ gossip across the entire province. ‘Tonight we are taking prisoners, Centurion, recruiting men to join us in the deep forest. You could still live, if you’ll drop the sword and shield and bend your knee to me and promise faithful service. Or you could die here, alone and uncelebrated, no matter how brave your death might be.’