‘It seems we’ve lost your colleague already, Tribune.’
Scaurus turned his head to look back down the column’s length, following the first spear’s pointing hand to see a small cluster of torches falling behind the last legion century. He laughed bitterly through the pain of the stitch that was torturing his stomach, his face contorted by the stabbing pain.
‘I’ve a fair idea how he’s feeling.’
Frontinius patted his labouring tribune on the shoulder.
‘You’ll get through it. And you have to; they’re all watching you
…’
A voice from behind them spoke over the din of the soldiers’ hobnailed boots rapping on the road’s rough surface.
‘Which side of your body hurts, sir?’
Scaurus looked back at the men following him, finding in their faces the same agony he was enduring. In the wavering torchlight he saw that one of them, a twenty-year veteran from the look of him, had his eyebrows raised in question.
‘It’s in my right side.’
Even the words hurt, and for a moment he found himself wrestling with the thought of falling out of the line of march, the prospect of blessed relief from the pain mixed with the certainty that the column would disintegrate into chaos were he to stop marching. The hard-faced veteran smiled encouragingly at him, nodding his head vigorously, and while the tribune knew that his first spear would be poised to intervene, and tell the soldier to mind his own business, Frontinius was clearly holding back his instinctive retort.
‘I gets the same thing every time we marches this quick! If you breathe out hard as your left boot hits the road it’ll go away soon enough.’
Scaurus nodded at the soldier, consciously exhaling as instructed, and after a hundred paces he found the nagging pain was starting to diminish, only slightly at first, but then more swiftly, as the soldier’s trick took greater effect. Able to speak without agony again he turned to Frontinius with a growing sense of relief that the overwhelming urge to stop marching had passed.
‘I don’t know what difference it makes, but that man’s trick seems to have worked.’
The first spear pointed forward into the darkness beyond the small circle of illumination cast by the column’s torches. As they crested a shallow ridge the city had come into view, still two miles distant but clear enough through the clear night air; the watch fires burning on its high walls were flickering pinpricks of light. Beneath the walls a cluster of lights were gathered around the spot where he estimated the grain store must stand, and the tribune’s mouth tightened as he realised the depth of Obduro’s ambition.
‘You were right, First Spear. I can only curse myself for throwing the entire force west to chase shadows while leaving the city unprotected.’
Frontinius grunted, his attention fixed on the scene before them.
‘Not entirely undefended, Tribune. We’ll have to hope that Sergius and Julius can give a good account of themselves.’
Tornach pulled the last of the three climbers over the city wall’s parapet, then led them down the stone stairs that took them to the city’s west gate. Mounting the steps built on either side of the gate, two men on each side, they lifted the higher of the two weighty bracing bars that prevented the heavy doors from opening, dropping the wooden beam to the ground before repeating the action with the other. Dragging the beams away from the gateway they heaved the doors open, then stepped back to allow their leader to enter the city. Walking slowly into the city at the head of half a dozen men, Obduro stared about him with evident satisfaction.
‘Close the gate!’ He waited while the bracing bars were dropped back into place, securing the entrance and isolating the city from any external aid. ‘And so I return. If only I had the time I could make this excrescence of a city into a name that would echo down the ages for the terror of my revenge.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘The horror that we could visit upon this place, given a day and a night in which to celebrate our worship of the goddess. The streets would run with the blood of these unbelievers.’ Reaching for the cavalry helmet, he pulled it down onto his head and lowered the face mask. ‘No matter. While the inhabitants of this cesspit cower in their houses we have business to conduct. Let’s see just how pleased our colleague Albanus is to be liberated from his captivity, shall we?’ He turned and spoke quietly to Tornach while his deputy stared into the face mask’s impassivity. ‘And you, my brother, you have excelled in your actions, sending that fool Scaurus away on a fruitless chase to the west and opening the city for our entry. The time is coming when we’ll have no more need for deception and deceit, when we can openly rule the forest in the goddess’s name, but I need one more thing from you. Go and prepare our exit from the city while I gather the prize that will set us free from this empire and its restrictions.’
Marcus and Arabus stood together a mile from the city, watching the lights swarming around the grain store from the vantage point where the Roman had watched for Qadir’s signal earlier that day. Their ride from the bandit fortress had been uneventful, and the duty centurion at Mosa Ford had allowed them across the bridge once Marcus’s identity had been proven, albeit with looks of undisguised enmity at the tracker sitting behind the centurion.
‘You want to watch that one; he’ll slit your throat and-’
Marcus had overridden his warning with an uncharacteristic lack of patience.
‘I’ve no time to bandy words with you, Centurion. There are hundreds of bandits attacking Tungrorum and my place is there, not listening to your prejudices, no matter how well founded they might be. And you might want to consider the sturdiness of your gate, and your men. This is their most likely escape route back into the forest, I’d say.’
Night had fallen by the time they had reached the spot from which they were now watching the attack on the city, and all that Marcus could see were the bandits’ torches clustered around the grain store.
‘Just as he planned it. A diversionary attack to keep the defenders pinned down, and with the possibility of capturing enough grain to keep them fed for months, while Obduro himself attends to the main business of the night. All of the gates will be shut and barred, and whichever way he gets in isn’t going to stay open once he’s inside. We’ll just have to hope that the only other way in is still open.’
‘That’s close enough.’
Sergius put a hand on the arm of the soldier standing next to him, restraining the man’s urge to move nearer to see what was happening inside the granary. Dimly lit by the flickering light of the soldier’s torch, the men inside were working frantically, half of them slitting the grain bags and upending them onto the stone floor in streams of golden corn, while others threw handfuls of the grain up into the air. The enclosed space was already thick with a fog of choking dust, and the soldiers were starting to labour at their task, slowing down as exertion and the effect on their lungs began to tell in fits of violent coughing, despite the scarves tied across their mouths.
‘Is that sufficient, do you think?’
Julius stared hard at the scene for a moment.
‘Send fresh men in. We need to get as much dust into the air as we can if this is going to work.’
The work party staggered out into the fresh air at Sergius’s command. They were wraithlike figures, their skin and clothing coated in white dust and their bodies wracked by heaving coughs. The first spear ordered another tent party into the store, and had the stricken soldiers dragged clear. One of them got to his feet and addressed his centurion, his voice a wheezing whisper.
‘Won’t be long… First Spear… I could hear… their voices… through what’s left… of the wall.’
Sergius patted him on the shoulder and turned back to the soldier who was waiting behind him with a spear gripped in one hand, a rag tied about its iron head.
‘Are you ready?’