Sword of Rome

XXIX

Muffled voices. Fingers hauling at his left hand, which he realized belatedly must be stretched out towards the surface of the snow. Was he hallucinating? No, he could hear the sound of frantically scrambling hands clawing through the snow. The mare shifted against him with a ‘harrumph’ from her nostrils. He whispered to calm her, but the closer the sounds came the more agitated she grew. She shook her head desperately and the heavy skull smashed against him. He cried out as a flare of agony stabbed through his chest, and slipped into a dead faint. When he woke again the trapped air was stale and thick, hardly air at all. The snow holding him in its grip was hard packed, set solid and thick with earth and stones. How much was above him? He felt himself fading and it was a few seconds before he remembered the earlier digging sounds. The scrabbling had stopped. His rescuers must be resting. But time passed and through the fog that threatened to envelop him he was aware of disappointment. They had given up. He tried to move his right arm again, but with as little success as before. His mind conjured up an image of a fly trapped in amber and he laughed aloud, the sound shrill and almost hysterical in his ears. So this was what it felt like. Death. His mind drifted. He had done what he could; no point in wasting his strength fighting it. Life and death would for ever be at the whim of the gods. No regrets. But was that true? He remembered Domitia and the day they had watched the dolphins from the deck of the bireme carrying her to her father in Antioch. What if Poseidon were to grant you the ability to choose, this very moment, to turn into a dolphin and swim away with me, to spend our lives roaming the oceans together? Would you accept or would you stand here and watch me swim away alone? Even as the thought formed, the wall of ice blue in front of his eyes turned into an explosion of blinding white and he gasped as a rush of cold air reached him. A face appeared in the opening.

‘You’re alive?’

It seemed an unlikely question, but Valerius could see the relief written clear in Serpentius’s dark eyes. He produced an approximation of a grin. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘We’d almost given up on you.’ Serpentius continued to work at releasing Valerius’s left arm. ‘There was no heat in your fingers and you weren’t moving. The others wanted to leave you. Then we heard you laugh. Dead men don’t laugh.’ He recoiled as his hand touched something unexpected. ‘Mars’ arse, what’s that?’

‘My horse.’

Valerius sat shivering in a fur after being dug free, Serpentius silent at his side. They had lost Yoni and two pack horses, along with most of the supplies. But Dasius kept the worst news to last. Valtir had disappeared.

‘When we turned back to try to find you I assumed he would follow.’ The Thracian shrugged. ‘We were so intent on digging that no one noticed he’d gone until it was too late.’ He pointed to where a set of tracks disappeared up the valley. ‘At least we know which direction he’s taken, but …’ He didn’t need to say more. It was clear to everyone that without Valtir they could be left wandering for ever in this wilderness.

Valerius winced at the pain in his ribs as he threw off the cloak and got to his feet. ‘Then there is no time to lose. We have to get through the pass before darkness comes or a new storm covers his tracks.’ Dasius ran off to organize his men, and Valerius turned to Serpentius. ‘We’ll never catch up with him trailing the pack horse. I want you to take the best mount and follow his trail. If you find him, bring him back undamaged.’

Serpentius spat. ‘These are his mountains. If he doesn’t want me to find him, he won’t be found.’

‘I know, but we have to try. Unless we find Valtir we’ll never get to Vitellius.’

The Spaniard turned away without another word. Dasius came back just as the former gladiator rode out on Valerius’s horse, following the line of Valtir’s pony. ‘Will he find him?’

‘If anyone can do it, Serpentius can. He’ll make better time than the Celt because he’ll push the horse as hard as he dares. That will give him a chance. For the rest, it depends whether Valtir always intended to abandon us.’

‘Sometimes I think we are just the playthings of the gods,’ Dasius said morosely.

Valerius laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Then let us provide them with a little more entertainment.’

They reached the head of the pass in the late afternoon. Normally Valerius would have called a halt for the day, but he knew it was vital to make as much progress as possible before the weather closed in. Only when the light was fading and they reached a point where the terrain began to fall away did he relent and allow the Thracians to drop from their saddles and build another snow circle. He hid his disappointment that they had seen no sign of Serpentius, but he was not surprised. The Spaniard had the persistence of a hunting dog; once on a trail he would follow until his horse gave up on him, and then he’d continue on foot.

Daylight saw them perched at the top of a precipitous gully leading down to a broad, flat-bottomed valley that ran from north to south. Overnight snow had made any tracks invisible, but they picked their way down the banks of a stream that cut the gully until they reached the valley floor. The horses skittered nervously as their hooves broke through the snow crust into the bog below, but eventually they found their way to firm ground. Here there was a visible track that, judging by the hoofprints, had been recently used. Dasius eyed the trail uneasily.

‘Auxiliary cavalry.’ He frowned. ‘We were fortunate. They must have passed by while we were in the gully or they would have seen us. A small patrol moving south. I don’t understand it. This is Helvetii country and military traffic is strictly regulated. Could they be looking for us?’

‘I don’t know,’ Valerius admitted. ‘It’s possible Valtir ran into them and betrayed us.’ He studied the far end of the valley, which was hidden by scrub and trees. If that was the case, where was Serpentius? And what did Valtir know anyway? He made his decision. ‘It makes no difference. Friend or enemy, I want to avoid contact with any local forces. We go north, which I would have done in any case.’ He kept the confidence in his voice, but without Valtir he knew there must be a possibility that the north road only led deeper into impassable mountains. They rode off, but they’d only travelled a few hundred paces when they heard a shout, and a troop of a dozen or more cavalrymen burst from the cover of the trees.

‘Can we talk our way out?’ Dasius shouted.

‘Auxiliary cavalry a hundred miles from their unit and a man with a wooden hand and a scroll case with the wrong Emperor’s seal?’

‘Then we must fight.’ Dasius barked an order and Laslav dropped the leading reins of the surviving pack animal. Valerius drew his sword, but the Thracian laid a hand on his arm. Dasius’s eyes were bright, but his voice held no fear. ‘Your mission is too important. If we cannot stop them, at least we can delay them. Ride!’ He slapped the rump of Valerius’s horse and in the same instant hauled his own mount to face the enemy. ‘Ride!’ he repeated. Valerius knew he had no option. To hesitate would be an insult to their sacrifice. With his heart feeling as if it were torn in two, he urged his beast up the snowy track. Behind him he heard the distinctive whoop of the Thracian auxiliaries followed by a cry of mortal agony. He dared a glance over his shoulder and was greeted by a whirling free-for-all of mounted men. In that instant he saw that Dasius had failed. Four of the enemy cavalry broke free from the skirmish and galloped in his wake, the iron points of their spears glinting in the low winter sun. With a muttered curse he dug his heels into the mare’s ribs in a vain bid to gain another few yards. His mind whirled as he calculated speed and distance. Could he outrun them? That depended on how fresh their mounts were and how exhausted his own after six days in the mountains. Fight? If it came to it, better sooner, before his horse was blown. But against four? He risked another look, trying to gauge the fighting potential of his pursuers. Germans, or Gauls, judging by the long hair streaming from beneath their pot helmets and the rough plaid of their trappings. Well mounted and riding in close formation, two by two, to make better speed through the snow. When they closed on him they’d spread out to make the most effective use of their long spears. He cringed at the thought of one of those iron blades chopping into his spine. But what choice did he have? If he turned and fought, they’d come at him from four different angles. He might take one, possibly two if he was quick, but by the time the second was dying one of the others would have taken his throat out or pinned him like a rabbit on a spit.

The ground raced past in a blur of white and he almost missed it. A patch of disturbed snow at the entrance to a gully fifty paces ahead. He felt his heart quicken, the heat rising up from his belly. So be it. If he was going to die at least he would die trying to live, not like a frightened deer fleeing from the hounds. The gully flashed past to his left and he let the mare carry on another forty paces before he pulled her up and turned to face his pursuers, throwing away his cloak to give him more freedom of movement. The cavalrymen whooped their encouragement at his defiance. This was better sport than chasing some helpless civilian. Timing. Timing was everything. Every instinct told him to kick the mare into motion. In a cavalry fight a stationary man was a dead man. Speed and mobility were as much his weapons as the sword he held low in his left hand. But for his plan to work he needed them to stay bunched until the last moment. So he gritted his teeth and willed the horse to stay still. It was his good fortune that after Serpentius’s departure Dasius had insisted he take one of the cavalry-trained spares, which would respond to knee and heel in a fight. Now! When the auxiliaries were a hundred paces away he urged her into motion. She came swiftly to the canter, but by the time she reached a gallop the enemy had already covered fifty paces. He saw daylight between two of the horses. Don’t break yet. Not yet. He had deliberately angled his attack to come at them from their right and their attention was concentrated entirely on the fool who wanted to commit suicide on their spear points. None of them noticed the roan blur that erupted from their other flank.

Serpentius’s throwing axe took the rearmost rider precisely on the earpiece of his helmet an instant before the Spaniard’s horse crashed into the shoulder of the man in front’s mount, cannoning him against his comrade. Valerius saw the flash of a sword, a spray of scarlet and a flurry of snow as one of the horses went down. He didn’t have time to enjoy the moment because the rear man on the right flank swerved past the chaos and came directly at him, crouched low in the saddle, spear held loose in his right hand. He would be calculating where his point would strike and rejoicing that his opponent had no shield or armour. Valerius could almost feel the auxiliary’s elation and he knew that in the other man’s mind he was already dead. But Gaius Valerius Verrens had fought Boudicca’s snarling champions without a backward step. More important, he had ridden against Parthian horse soldiers born in the saddle and weaned on mare’s milk. Three months on campaign as Corbulo’s cavalry commander had taught him more about horsemanship and cavalry tactics than another man would learn in a lifetime. When the time came the grip on the spear shaft would tighten, the arm would tense and the iron tip of the spear would whip up to rip his throat or tear through his heart.

The world slowed, every heartbeat an eternity. His rush had taken him on a collision course with the trooper, but now he swerved violently to his right. In his head he saw the eyes narrow in puzzlement beneath the rim of the helmet. Valerius had deliberately kept his sword low. The German would be expecting a right-handed fighter and that meant an attack down the left flank where the pathetically short blade might have a chance of fending away the spear. Too late for the auxiliary to change course, but the lance point followed Valerius and he knew his opponent’s only concern was that he would somehow escape. The cavalryman was aiming for the throat: a sign of his overconfidence. Better and more certain to go for the bigger target. Still, a right-handed swordsman would have been all but defenceless against the blow. But Valerius held his sword in his left hand and now the weapon came up with a gladiator’s speed and a veteran’s timing. The high strike made it easier for the blade to divert the spear past his left shoulder and position him perfectly for a scything counter that would take the cavalryman’s head off his shoulders. He recognized a fleeting moment of terror on the other man’s face and at the last moment remembered Otho’s final words before he had left Rome. I will do anything to save the Empire from the terror and the bloodshed that rides hand in hand with civil war. The heavy blade of the spatha dropped to take the trooper across his mailed chest, smashing the rings into his flesh and cracking his ribs as he was catapulted backwards out of the saddle. In a blur Valerius found himself reining in beside Serpentius. The Spaniard was retrieving his axes and rifling the bodies of the three men he had treated with less mercy than Valerius’s groaning opponent had just received. The downed man tried to speak, but all that came out was a thin stream of bile that hung in strings from his raw lips.

‘Here.’ The Spaniard threw a leather bag and Valerius trapped it between his wooden fist and the saddle.

‘You might have given me more warning.’

‘You’re still alive, aren’t you? More than you can say for these offal.’

‘Dasius …’

‘I saw.’ Serpentius looked towards where the remaining auxiliary cavalry were forming up over the bodies of the Thracian and his men. ‘We should go.’

Valerius nodded wearily. ‘Where?’

Serpentius vaulted into the saddle and rode back towards where he’d emerged from the gully. ‘Why don’t you ask him? Turns out the little bastard speaks better Latin than I do.’

Valerius peered into the shadows where a hunched figure sat like a whipped dog on his rough-haired pony.

Valtir.

Later, when they’d lost their pursuers, they found shelter in a cave Valtir led them to. ‘I feared the thunder of the gods and I ran. Once I had run I was too ashamed to come back.’

‘Why did you not tell us you could speak our tongue?’ Valerius asked. ‘It might have made a difference.’

Valtir continued to quarter the carcass of a small mountain goat he’d trapped before the Spaniard caught up with him. ‘Sometimes it is better not to know.’

He darted a fearful glance at the gladiator as Serpentius growled: ‘He’s been listening to every word we say. We should cut his throat now and take our chances.’ The words were said in the matter-of-fact voice of a man discussing the price of eggs and Valtir shrank back against the wall of the cave.

Valerius shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think he has. Remember how he always slept farthest from the fire? I think he truly didn’t want to know, because the minute you thought he did you’d have got rid of him. We all ran from the avalanche, even you. The only difference is that Valtir was quicker and he didn’t stop.’

The Spaniard produced a bitter smile. ‘First the auxiliary and now a stinking Celt who somehow crawled out after his mother birthed him into a sewer. You’re going soft.’

‘We’re soldiers, Serpentius, even without a uniform or a rank or an eagle to follow. Soldiers. Not murderers. Just because Mars is stirring his cauldron and we’re teetering on the edge, we can’t just jump in.’

‘The auxiliary was trying to kill you.’

‘He was doing his duty. Following orders.’

‘Aye, and look where following orders got us in Syria. Six months on the run with Nero’s assassins breathing down our neck.’

Valerius was reflecting on the truth of the Spaniard’s words when Valtir’s soft voice interrupted from the far side of the cave. ‘I can take you to the soldiers’ road.’