his deception alive.
‘In Arduenna’s name get that gate open! I’ve no time to be wasting!’
The heads vanished from sight, and in an instant Marcus was past Arabus and running hard up the slope’s last few paces, throwing caution aside and risking the danger of stumbling into one of the fort’s mantraps in order to beat them to the gate. As he reached the palisade’s wall a heavy clank of iron inside warned him that the opportunity he sought was upon him, and he pulled the spear back until the thick iron head was alongside the helmet’s elegant replica of a soldier’s plaited hair, poised ready to throw. The man-sized wicket gate opened, and as the gate keeper looked through it, a look of bewilderment forming on his face at the sight before him, Marcus slung the blunt spear into his face. The weapon struck him cleanly in the forehead with a sharp crack of breaking bone, and as he staggered backwards, his eyes rolling up into the sockets to show only their whites, Marcus shouldered the bandit aside and burst through the gate, his patterned sword drawn. The stunned bandit’s companion, the man whose hand Obduro had hacked open demonstrating his sword’s fearsome edge, fumbled for his own weapon with a look of surprise and terror but had the sword no more than half drawn when Marcus swung his own blade in a vicious arc and decapitated him. His corpse crumbled to the ground as though it were boneless, and the Roman looked about the fort’s interior, waiting for either a challenge or an arrow to fly at him from the high wooden walls.
‘They’re all out with Obduro. I told you so.’ Arabus was close behind him, invisible to Marcus with the cavalry helmet’s restricted field of vision, and the Roman swung round to find his prisoner bolting the wicket gate behind them. ‘Now you must show me the proof of what you told me in the forest, so that I may pray to Arduenna for her forgiveness for bringing you here.’
The Roman nodded, wiping his sword and sliding it back into the scabbard.
‘This way.’
He led the tracker around the line of the fort’s walls, keeping to the shadows and moving with as much stealth as he could, until the altar to Arduenna was clearly visible. Raising a hand he pointed to the intricately decorated stone block.
‘There. Obduro hung it from the altar as an offering. He takes a token from every man sacrificed upon that stone, as evidence of his dedication to Arduenna.’
He watched as Arabus moved silently across the open ground, scanning the apparently empty fort uneasily as the tracker circled round to the altar’s far side, then bent out of sight behind it. When the other man remained out of sight Marcus made his way cautiously across the thirty-pace gap between wall and altar, finding the tracker on his knees with a weather-stained leather belt held in both hands, his face contorted in silent grief. The knife sheath was just as Marcus had remembered it — a perfect duplicate of the one on Arabus’s own belt — and he watched in sympathy as the tracker bent over the last remnant of his son’s life, his face contorted into a silent scream of grief. A voice from behind him snapped the Roman from his reverie, the harsh tone at once familiar.
‘What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone to the city for the harvest? The gate guards are dead, and…’
Grumo’s voice trailed off as the Roman turned to face him, and the big man stared harder at the cavalry helmet before raising the bow that he had lowered a moment before, pulling back the arrow already nocked to its string and levelling the missile’s polished iron head at the Roman. Marcus froze, knowing that an arrow loosed at such short range would pierce his mail armour with ease. Obduro’s deputy shook his head as he spoke, his voice hard with suspicion.
‘If you were the man you’re impersonating then that helmet would have a scratch across the faceplate from a fight in the dark a few months ago. But the helmet you’re wearing is perfect, unmarked. Newly made, in fact. Take it off and let’s see what we have here. Quickly, before I get bored and put an arrow in you just for the sport of it!’
Shrugging, Marcus pulled at the helmet’s buckles and dropped it to the ground, looking back up at Grumo as he frowned uncomprehendingly.
‘ You? But I broke your jaw…’
The Roman shook his head with a faint smile.
‘It was a good punch, but you took an age to deliver it. I managed to ride it well enough so that all I got was a bit of concussion and a bruise the size of an apple.’
The big man stepped forward a pace and lifted the bow to aim at Marcus’s face, closing the range to make sure of his kill.
‘And you were stupid enough to come back. I told Obduro that we should never have released you, but he has to indulge his need for the theatrical with these messages he insists on sending back to Tungrorum.’ Marcus raised his hands and stepped back, darting a glance at Arabus who was still kneeling behind the stone altar in silent grief, hidden from Grumo’s view. The tracker seemed frozen in his place, his stare vacant as he continued to hold the leather belt in both hands. The bandit matched the Roman’s step back with a move forward, advancing until his hip was almost touching the altar’s corner.
‘Backing away isn’t going to help you. I’m going to put this arrow into you, and then I’m going to hoist you onto this altar and give your life to the goddess.’
Marcus stepped back again, praying that Grumo would hold his temper for long enough.
‘Like all those others you’ve murdered on that stone? Just kill me cleanly!’
Grumo laughed harshly and stepped forward again, aiming the bow at the Roman’s thigh.
‘Ah yes, that hit a nerve, did it? Yes, just like all those poor fools. I’ll put an arrow in your leg to stop you from running, then open your throat and let your life drain out onto the altar. You can be a sacrifice to the goddess, another of the unworthy for her to chastise in the afterlife. I’d like to think that she pursues unbelievers like you through the endless forest with her whip and bow, tormenting you the way that Rome has tormented us, but whatever it is that happens on the other side of the stone, you’ll know soon enough, won’t you?’
He took up the bowstring’s last few inches of tension, ready to shoot the arrow through Marcus’s thigh. The Roman feigned a stumble and fell to the ground, crawling backwards with his heels and elbows, and raising his voice to ensure Arabus could hear him.
‘They’re not all unbelievers though, are they? The tracker’s boy, he was innocent of any crime against Arduenna!’
Grumo stepped closer again, and the arrow’s iron head weaved from side to side as he sought an aiming point that would cripple his retreating victim.
‘Arduenna demands blood! Any blood! Roman, Tungrian, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s shed from a living man and fit to offer! And the tracker’s boy was a believer, a fine sacrif-’
With an incoherent scream Arabus came to violent life, rising from his hiding place behind the altar and leaping onto its stone surface, his body suddenly coursing with rage as the enormity of what he was hearing finally penetrated his grief. Grumo twisted his body and reflexively loosed the arrow at him, but the tracker was already in mid-air with his teeth bared in a snarl, and the missile flicked harmlessly past his ear. He jumped onto the bandit’s back and wrapped his strong legs around the big man’s waist, forcing the fingers of his left hand into his victim’s eye sockets and dragging his head back, forcing a bellow of pain from the giant as he dropped the bow and raised his hands in an attempt to throw his assailant over his shoulder. Arabus raised his son’s knife in his right hand, the blade rusted from exposure to the rain but still sharp enough to slice through flesh, and screamed a single word at the top of his voice.
‘ Arduenna! ’
He rammed the ochre-flecked bar of iron clean through Grumo’s neck, its point protruding from the flesh in a spray of blood, then he jumped down from the reeling man’s back, raising a hand to Marcus as the Roman went for his sword.
‘Leave him! Let him die in the same way that my boy went to the goddess!’
Marcus nodded, sheathing his sword and picking up the bow, nocking an arrow to its string. As he lay prostrate on his back, Grumo’s mouth was opening and closing soundlessly, his breathing a rattling, bubbling rasp. Arabus joined Marcus and stared down at his victim with a hard face, kicking him hard in the side to get his faltering attention. His voice was still choked with grief, but when he spoke his words were implacable.
‘When you’re dead I’m going to cut you up and scatter your remains in the forest for the pigs, all but your head. That I will keep close to me, to make sure that nobody can reunite it with the rest of you. And for as long as I have it, you will spend forever in the Otherworld awaiting your rebirth. Waiting in vain.’
