Polybius leaned forward in his saddle, staring. ‘It’s just where I’d expect a boar to dig for roots, along the treeline. We need to see if there’s a scent trail. Fabius, where’s your dog?’
Fabius started, and looked around. He had forgotten about Rufius in the last awkward stretch up the path. He stood up in his stirrups, peering into the mist that was now rolling down and enveloping the fringes of the forest, reducing the visibility to less than fifty feet. He put his fingers to his mouth to whistle, but then thought better of it. Some instinct told him not to give their position away, or reveal that they knew the dog was missing. The feeling of unease he had experienced earlier returned, stronger than before. ‘Rufius never goes off by himself,’ he said. ‘That’s why I never bother keeping an eye out for him.’
‘Wolves?’ Polybius said.
Fabius shook his head, frowning. ‘They’ve been shadowing us in the forest, but if they’d taken Rufius there would have been a fight and we’d have heard it. You can hear Rufius’ bark for miles.’
Scipio stared at him, and then at Polybius. ‘Could somebody have been following us?’
Fabius felt the blood course through him, and he no longer felt cold. His senses were sharpened, and he suddenly seemed to hear noises more clearly in the forest, branches wavering in the wind, crackles in the undergrowth. He was Scipio’s bodyguard again, no longer just his hunting companion. He slipped off his horse, gave the reins to Scipio and pointed up the slope. ‘Take the horses into the mist and conceal yourselves among those rocks. When it’s safe to come out, I’ll blow three times on my horn.’
Polybius dismounted and came alongside. ‘What will you do?’ he said.
‘If there is someone following us, he may have been doing so for some time and will know that Rufius answers to me, that he comes back as soon as I whistle. If he has taken Rufius he may be trying to induce me to go back along the trail to look for him. If he takes me down, then you two are easier picking. I’m going to whistle, but I’m not going back along the trail.’
Polybius offered him the boar spear. ‘You’ll need a weapon.’
Fabius opened his cloak, revealing the handle of the Celtic dagger his father had given him. ‘I have all that I need. But if he’s stalking us he may well have a bow, and we’re within arrow range of the treeline. You need to get to those rocks. Now.’
He put his fingers to his mouth and blew a long, piercing whistle, repeating it three times. He waited in silence for a few minutes, but Rufius still did not appear. Then he slapped the hindquarters of his horse and watched Scipio and Polybius lead the three animals up into the mist. He took off his cloak, dropped it and then crouched down and ran into the treeline to the left of the trail, ducking forward as he pushed his way through the thicket of spruce and fir that skirted the forest. The dense foliage gave way to more widely spaced pine trees, and he made his way more easily towards a marshy plateau they had passed on the way up, a residue of the mountain torrent where it had overflowed during the spring melt. He worked his way round the edge of the marsh, taking care to keep himself concealed from the trail some five hundred feet to his right.
Midway along the edge of the marsh a small stream cut through and drained the boggy water down the slope, bubbling through the undergrowth below him. It was only about three feet wide, but he knew that the embankments on either side would be less solid than they seemed, saturated with water from the marsh. He spotted a rock in the centre of the stream, leapt over and stood on it, feeling it sink slightly with his weight, and then flung himself towards the far bank, hoping that the sound of the stream would drown out the noise. As he hit the bank it gave way in a cascade of mud and rock, and he scrabbled frantically at the tree roots that had become exposed, grabbing one and hauling himself up onto the bank. He silently cursed the noise. Anyone on the trail would have heard it. He would have to take his chances with an enemy who might now be expecting him to come from this direction, and pick him off with ease if he had a bow.
But suddenly there was another noise, an immense crashing through the undergrowth, a grunting and panting like he had never heard before. A gigantic beast bounded past him, snorting and slavering, its tusks thrust forward and its eyes red like fire. It was gone before he could properly register it, a blur of black, hurtling across the marsh in a spray of mud and crashing into the undergrowth on the opposite side of the trail, intent on some unknown quest. Fabius lay back, trying to control his breathing, and shut his eyes for a moment. The Macedonian royal boar. Scipio would be none too pleased that he had seen one and they had not been able to give chase. But he thanked the gods that they had never had the chance. Their spears would have splintered off its sides like twigs, and they would have been gored like prisoners in the circus. He opened his eyes and held his breath, listening hard. The sound of the boar had been swallowed up by the forest. He had been hoping to hear barking. If Rufius had been alive, then the boar would have set him off and his bark would have been audible for miles. But there was nothing, just the discordant cackle and bubbling of the stream and an eerie whistling in the treetops from the wind that was picking up across the mountain slopes.
His heart sank. Rufius had been his link out here to Eudoxia, and he could hardly bear to think of him being gone. He felt an anger stir up inside him, a bloodlust he had not felt since he had stood in the line at Pydna and watched the Macedonians spear his wounded comrades to death. Whoever had done this would pay.
He thought hard. The sound of the boar would have covered up the noise of his fall. He might still have a chance. He knelt up, listening for anything unusual, and then resumed his trek around the edge of the marsh, keeping below the level of the bank. The mud that now caked his body would camouflage him, help him meld with the underbrush. He would come out on the trail near the last place where he had seen Rufius trotting beside him as he had ridden up towards the treeline. He reached the dried-up stream bed, looked carefully in both directions, and then clambered over the trunks that criss-crossed the bed where they had been felled by the foresters who had cut timbers for Philip of Macedon’s tomb a hundred and fifty years before. The trail followed the line of the stream on the other side, and after making his way over the last trunk, he crouched down beside the marks made by their horses’ hooves less than an hour before. The snow had begun to fall more thickly, swirling down the cut from the mountain slope, reducing the visibility to below a hundred feet. If his gamble had worked, their assailant would be somewhere ahead of him looking upslope, his back to Fabius, expecting him to come down the trail from the treeline.
He took the dagger from his belt, its blade gleaming dully but the edge razor-sharp where he had honed it by the fireside the night before. He held it in his left hand, the blade pointing backwards, and walked slowly forward with the marsh on his right, half-expecting at each step to hear the whistle of an arrow. After about twenty feet he saw a large black crow hopping determinedly over the rocky ground of the trail, and then another. They were bustling around something, pecking at it, pulling away flesh. Fabius saw a splash of blood on the rocks, then the familiar black and white fur, the feathered flights of an arrow sticking out. He shut his eyes, trying to control himself. He could not afford to stop now, or to disturb the crows. He crept past, gripping the dagger as hard as he could, his eyes focused ahead, hardly breathing.