from left and right, in case you hadn’t fucking noticed. And you lot, get this fucking thing off the road – now!’
Immediately the soldiers obeyed. The horses were cut loose from the shattered carriage and reined in by fresh cavalrymen called up from behind. An arrow thumped into Lucius’ leather saddle just below his thigh, but he reached down and snapped it off without even looking down. He tossed the shaft contemptuously aside and continued to bellow commands. From the front of the column and Count Heraclian came no sign of life at all.
The broken carriage was levered and poled off the side of the road, where it crashed heavily into the trunk of a tall pine and fell still.
‘You two buggers,’ Lucius yelled at the startled Vandal princes, ‘get in the car in front!’
Beric and Genseric, huddled in their cloaks, ran forward to join the next carriage.
Lucius wheeled his horse again and glared into the rain from under the brow of his helmet. ‘Jesus, what a farce. They’re only bandits, for Christ’s sake. Fucking amateurs.’
‘Under attack again!’ yelled Marco, reining to a violent stop beside him. ‘I don’t fucking believe this.’
‘Me neither,’ Lucius shouted.
‘Remnants of the last lot?’
Lucius shook his head. ‘These are no ex-soldiers. They’re firing from both sides.’
Even as he spoke, arrows were slamming into shields and carriage walls around them, but the two soldiers ignored them.
‘Anyone would think,’ said Lucius, ‘that somebody didn’t want us to get to Ravenna.’
‘Is Count Heraclian…?’ asked Marco.
Lucius pushed himself up in his saddle and craned to see if there was any sign of decisive action from the front of the column yet. He sat down again. ‘Jupiter’s balls,’ he breathed with exasperation. ‘What we have here is, in technical army parlance, a bunch of fucking amateurs. And we’re running around like ants on an anthill.’ He reined his horse round angrily again and started bawling fresh orders.
‘OK, you, Ops, get twenty men, on fucking foot, and get into those trees and slot those bastards. And you there, Trooper Shit-for-Brains, dismount the rear two squadrons and do the same on the right. I don’t want to see any more arrows coming out of that forest there by the time I count to ten.’
The tough-looking trooper and two more squadrons quickly formed up on foot.
‘Come along then, ladies!’ he addressed them cheerfully. ‘Playtime in the woods. Anything you find alive, cut its guts out and hang ’em off the nearest tree.’
He and his men vanished into the trees, and soon there came loud cries and screams from the forest. Another bandit gang was indeed being despatched.
Lucius rode back and stared in at Olympian and Attila.
‘Is it bandits again?’ wailed Olympian. ‘And ex-gladiators too?’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ growled Lucius. ‘I’m quaking in my boots. Fucking amateurs.’ He glared angrily down at the eunuch and Attila from his skittish horse. ‘Trained soldiers attack a marching column from one flank only. Fucking amateurs attack from both sides simultanously.’ He leant over and spat. ‘And why do you think that might be?’
Olympian groaned that he had no idea. The boy thought for a moment and then said, ‘Because they might just as likely be shooting across into each other.’
‘But, my good man,’ wailed Olympian indignantly, scarcely able to believe his ears that this conversation about military tactics was taking place, while he had an actual arrow embedded in his person, and was actually bleeding, slightly. ‘But, my good man, I am wounded!’
Lucius flung open the carriage door and leant in. ‘One in the gut, eh? Lift your robe up.’
‘I couldn’t possibly countenance such-’
Lucius leant forward and nicked the eunuch’s robe open neatly with his swordpoint. The head of the arrow was in fact buried only half an inch into the eunuch’s rolls of flesh, and the barbs were visible under the skin.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Shallow breaths – stop the arrowhead going in deeper. And clench your teeth.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said,’ repeated Lucius – he reached forward, grabbed the arrow just behind the head with his fist, and gave it a sharp tug; with an unpleasant slurping sound, the arrowhead came free of the eunuch’s stomach and Olympian began to bleed profusely – ‘clench your teeth. Ah well, too late now. It’s out anyhow. Get some pressure on that wound, and we’ll clean you up when we get out of this bloody ruckus.’
But Olympian had fainted.
Lucius looked at Attila. ‘Looks like you’ve got a job to do.’
‘You’re kidding.’
The lieutenant shook his head. ‘Just till he comes round again. Lard-arse like that will have sluggish blood – it’ll soon clot. But till then, keep your hand pressed on the wound.’ He punched the boy on his arm. ‘Tough job, I know, but someone’s gotta do it.’
And then he was away into the rain, bawling at the top of his voice to get the column organised.
Attila stared at the unconscious eunuch, blood flowing freely from the hole in his belly, and thought for a moment. Then he leant over and ripped a wide strip of silk from the bottom of Olympian’s priceless blue robe, passed it round the back of the vast, sweat-soaked waist, and tied it in front. But being silk, it was soon saturated in blood, so he made a pad from his own linen sleeve, though he didn’t think lard-arse deserved it. He ripped the robe open a little wider and bound this in a compress tightly under the silk bandage. He watched for a few moments, and, after absorbing a little more blood, the white linen showed no more sign of flow.
He dusted his hands together with satisfaction.
Then the eunuch groaned and woke up.
That wasn’t what the boy had been planning at all.
He could hear the troopers shouting in the driving rain, and another distant rumble of thunder, and he knew his chance had come. His palms were sweating and his heart was hammering in his skinny chest, but it wasn’t fear. He glanced at Olympian out of the corner of his eye, but the eunuch was oblivious of him, clutching his belly and peering out of the window anxiously. He nearly addressed an apology to the man, but decided that would be dishonest. Instead he got to his feet, seized Olympian’s great bald head and rammed it repeatedly against the wooden wall of the carriage.
Unfortunately for the eunuch, the boy didn’t quite have the strength to knock him out cold. But he felt blood trickling down the back of his neck, and a sick, chilly feeling and his head was spinning and dizzy and green spots danced before his eyes, and all he could rasp was a hoarse and confused ‘Spare my life, I pray you, whoever you are. I will recompense you profusely. The rest of this rabble are nothing to me, nothing but soldiers and slaves, but I am a very wealthy man, ranking high in the courts of Rome…’
He sank back in his seat, gasping for breath. His eyes were closed when he heard the carriage door kicked open, and the sounds of the storm came to his ears more strongly than ever. And then the door was slamming jerkily back and forth on its hinges in the wind, and he knew that the boy was gone.
One of the troopers saw the boy run for the trees, and immediately cried, ‘Man escaped!’
Lucius whipped round and gave a cry of despair. ‘Those slippery. .. OK, Marco, our attackers are cleaned up, pretty well. Keep some of them back for questioning, though. The little prince won’t get far in this weather.’ He wiped the sweat and rain from his forehead. ‘Ride to the front and inform Count Heraclian. Tell him – I mean, suggest to him – that he lead the column on. We’ll catch them up later.’
‘They’ll make good progress, I’m sure,’ said Marco sardonically. ‘The Palatine vanguard didn’t take a single hit.’
Lucius stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t mean anything, sir. Not for a simple, bone-headed soldier like me to offer interpretations of anything. I’m just reporting the facts: strange that not a single arrow went into the Palatine Guard, or Count Heraclian. All reserved for us, sir.’
They eyed each other levelly. There was no man in the world whom Lucius trusted more than his centurion. They had saved each other’s backs more times than he could count.
‘What’s going on, Marco?’ he said. ‘Why are they after us?’
‘Is it us, sir?’ said Marco. ‘Or is it those we’re guarding?’
Lucius frowned and shook his head. ‘Ride forward, Centurion.’
‘Sir.’
