Looking back over his left shoulder, Ballista saw the Prometheus banner following, many warriors in its wake. It had worked. The resentment and hatred in Saurmag was pulling him after the man who had expelled him from his native land, from the throne he had killed so many of his family and others to attain. Now, all that was left, Ballista thought, was to escape the murderous bastard.
As they entered the trees, the Alani were no more than fifty paces behind. Ballista leant very low over the neck of his mount to avoid the low branches. A pained cry and the sound of a rider falling indicated another had not been so provident.
Ballista wheeled to the right, back to the north, towards where Andonnoballus waited. Men and horses speckled with sunlight weaved through the trunks of trees. An arrow thrummed past Ballista’s ear.
All formation was lost. Men rode for themselves, jinking around thorny undergrowth, jumping fallen boughs. Maximus was still to Ballista’s right, old Calgacus now up on his left. The gods knew where the others of the familia were. The whooping pursuit was loud in his ears.
The ground fell away in front. Water sparkled ahead. The bank of the Tanais. He kicked on, set them to make the jump.
The big horse did not refuse. It jumped down. There was nothing below its hooves. Ballista leant right back in the saddle, stomach lurching as they dropped. The bay stumbled on landing in the shallow water. Ballista was thrown out of the saddle, to the right, up its neck.
The Sarmatian gathered itself, ploughed on through the river. With hands, arms and legs, Ballista fought to regain his seat. He had lost the reins. Lost his balance. The buckler on his left arm was impeding him. It was no good, he was slipping. Slowly, irrevocably, he was heading for a fall. The weight of his mail was pulling him down.
Come off here, and he knew he was dead. Or worse, a prisoner of that evil little shit Saurmag. Better go down fighting. He felt the last of his grip going.
A sharp pain cut into his right shoulder. He was hauled by the baldric of his sword belt back on to his horse. He grabbed the horns of the saddle, fished up the reins — thankfully they had not slipped over the Sarmatian’s head. A quick glance right and he saw Maximus grinning. He grinned back.
They were running fast along a part-submerged spit of shingle. Sliver shards of spray flew. The riverbank here was too high for the horses to jump. They had to find a place where the bank had fallen or where animals had broken it down. He looked along the top of the bank. There were riders up there, bows in hand. Allfather…
Ballista saw their red hair and tattoos. He looked over his shoulder — a straggle of his men and Heruli, not any Alani in sight.
XXVII
The most creditable aspect of Naulobates’ handling of the battle on the Tanais, Ballista thought, had been the running away. As a professional soldier, you could not fault it.
Ballista’s diversion at the height of the fighting had worked reasonably well. Saurmag and the horsemen under his command — exiled Suani as well as Alani — had broken off to chase him. Their pursuit had been curtailed when it reached Andonnoballus’s riders on the riverbank. The gap temporarily created in their encirclement had allowed Aruth, Pharas, Datius and some two thousand of the Eutes to dash to the safety of the Heruli battle line. The men under Ballista had returned for the loss of only ten Heruli and one Roman auxiliary. Of course, the rest of the Eutes who had not escaped, along with the warriors from the tribes along the Rha river and the bandits — some three thousand men all told — had been massacred. The Alani ambushers had been very diligent in hunting down those who had avoided the trap.
The main battle had continued for several hours. The Alani reserve had moved up to face Andonnoballus’s men. All along the line, the bodies of cavalry wheeled, arrows flew, men and animals suffered and died in the choking dust. But it never came to hand-to-hand fighting. In mid-afternoon, it petered out, as stocks of arrows ran low, ponies tired, despite the use of remounts, and hot, thirsty men lost enthusiasm. The Alani had broken off first. But no one in the Heruli horde was in any doubt of the way the day had gone. The Heruli could fight again, but they knew they had lost.
That night, Naulobates had ordered sentries posted, the campfires lit and the evening meal prepared and eaten. Afterwards, in strictest silence, the whole army had saddled up and melted away. All the wounded who could sit a horse had gone with them, supported by their kinsmen. Mindful of the prohibitions surrounding the latter, those too badly wounded to ride had been killed with quiet efficiency by their friends. Most had met it well. To the Heruli, the idea was not alien.
The screen of scouts had followed the main body just before dawn. Later that morning, the Alani would have taken possession of a camp consisting of warm ashes, broken equipment, and the dead.
The march south to the Tanais had taken four days. The hectic retreat was completed in just two, with the loss of only a couple of hundred dead ponies, some of the wounded and a handful of stragglers. While they had been away, the main camp and herds had been driven about thirty miles further north, to near a small tree-lined stream running through the Steppe.
It was now four days since they had ridden exhausted mounts up to the main camp. Naulobates had told them they could rest easy; the Alani would not reach them for another two days. Ballista very much hoped this information had reached Naulobates from intrepid Heruli spies or scouts, and not from Brachus and the world of daemons. In case it derived from a fallible supernatural source, he and the familia now habitually went in full war gear, and never far from their horses.
After the midday meal, Ballista went alone to the tent of Andonnoballus. Two Heruli stood guard at the entrance. Although it was one of the bigger structures, it was crowded with armed men. Andonnoballus was supported by the other two survivors of the Heruli who had met the embassy, Pharas and Datius, the two commanders of the bands of a hundred who had followed Ballista at the Tanais, Sarus and Amius, and the great generals Uligagus and Artemidorus. On Ballista’s side of the circle were Maximus, Calgacus, Tarchon, Hippothous and Castricius. They were all seated cross-legged on cushions, swords close at hand. Some had been talking quietly, with something of a conspiratorial air, but fell silent when Ballista entered.
Without a word, Andonnoballus got up and unsheathed the akinakes from his hip. The colours in the steel shone in the light from the open doorway. A fly buzzed in the stifling quiet.
Andonnoballus pointed the sword at Ballista. ‘Are you of the same mind as me?’
‘Yes.’ Ballista held out his right arm.
With his left hand, Andonnoballus gripped Ballista’s wrist. With his right he drew the edge of the akinakes across Ballista’s hand. The bright blood pooled in Ballista’s palm.
Someone passed Ballista a drinking horn. He tipped his hand, to let the blood run into it. His palm hurt. The fly buzzed in imbecilic patterns. The blood dripped. After a time, someone gave him a strip of linen. He gave the vessel to Pharas, and bound his wound. He was glad the material was clean. He did not let his face betray any pain.
Andonnoballus held out his right arm, and the procedure was repeated. When it was done, Pharas poured wine to mingle in the drinking horn with the blood of the two men.
Ballista and Andonnoballus put an arm around the other’s shoulder, and each gripped the drinking horn with their free hand. They moved close, almost cheek to cheek. Ballista looked sideways into Andonnoballus’s grey eyes, at the moment so like those of his father. Together they lifted the vessel and drank.
‘By the sword and the cup, we are brothers,’ Andonnoballus said. ‘Henceforth, one mind in two bodies; what touches the one, touches the other.’