The Wolves of the North

XXXII

The horse was at the foot of the kurgan on which they had seen Hippothous. It was tethered by the opening.

Maximus remained off to one side, watching the horse and the opening from a distance. Ballista and Rudolphus scouted all around the kurgan. It was a huge burial mound, big in circumference and tall as a three-storey house. Bald grass on top, it was overgrown with thorns on its lower slopes, although not enough to conceal a man. The only tracks were those going to the top and back, and quite a few around the opening. Hippothous had been in and out several times. There were no other tracks, no other place to hide. He was in there now.

‘I will get his horse,’ Ballista said.

‘I will come with you; cover the opening,’ Maximus said.

All three dismounted. Maximus and Rudolphus each knee-hobbled the horse they had been riding, leaving the others on the lead. Ballista tied his spare mount to the string of Maximus. He got back into the saddle and waited for Maximus to get ready.

The two lines of riderless horses turned their backs to the rain. A couple pulled at the grass, the other five stood in head-down unhappiness. The thunder crashed above them.

Maximus untied his bowcase from his horse and strapped it to his belt. Hunched over to protect it from the rain, he checked his bow and selected an arrow. He held the arrow in his right hand and put the flap of the gorytus back over the bow and his left hand, which he left resting on the weapon. He walked along the base of the kurgan until he was standing just to the left of the opening. He nodded at Ballista.

With pressure from his knees, Ballista got the Sarmatian moving. Taking it up to a canter, he hooked his left leg around the left rear horn of the saddle and leant right forward along the right side of the animal’s neck.

Hippothous’s horse made an ideal ambush. It was right in front of the black opening. All too easy to imagine an arrow whistling out at anyone who went to untether the beast.

Ballista reined up and rolled down on his feet as he came to Hippothous’s mount. Keeping the animal between him and the opening, he cut the tether, grabbed the bridle, and ran, pulling the horses with him as shields. When the angle was too acute for a man to shoot without emerging from the tunnel, Ballista stopped.

Nothing had happened.

Ballista remounted and, leading the Greek’s horse, rode all around the kurgan to rejoin the others without passing the menacing opening.

He got down and added the horses to the strings. Hippothous’s was exhausted, but it was not lame. It could have gone a bit further before foundering. The Greek had decided to make a stand.

‘You could wait him out,’ Rudolphus said.

‘No.’ Ballista and Maximus spoke at the same time.

‘You will need torches,’ Rudolphus said. ‘I will see to it.’ The Herul stomped off into the bushes on the mound.

‘I would be happier if we had bigger shields,’ Maximus said, looking at the small nomad buckler in his hands.

‘These may be handier in a tunnel. Should we take bows?’

Maximus thought it over. ‘Might be worth the second man having one.’ He began to unstrap the gorytus from his hip.

‘I will go first,’ Ballista said.

‘No.’ Maximus looked straight into Ballista’s eyes. Both were blinking from the rain. Maximus was one of a handful who knew of Ballista’s fear of confined spaces.

‘I will go first,’ Ballista said.

‘I use a gladius; the shorter sword is more suited than the spatha you carry.’

‘Calgacus has been with me all my life.’

‘A fair bit of mine too,’ Maximus said. ‘If one of us gets killed, who would your boys mourn most?’

Ballista snorted, but said nothing.

‘You would not send a man who could not handle heights first in a storming party up a wall.’ Maximus put both hands on Ballista’s shoulders, drew him close, spoke in his ear. ‘If you go first, you endanger both of us.’

Ballista still did not speak. After a moment, he nodded. They embraced, kissed on both cheeks and stepped apart.

Ballista strapped on his gorytus. If Maximus was killed, Ballista knew he would not forgive himself. This was cowardice. Some men were naturally brave: Maximus, Calgacus. Courage was something Ballista had to steel himself to display its image. It had always been a test. This was the test he had failed. No matter what happened, he would always feel worse about himself. Someone had once said to him that courage was a treasure house from which you could take things, but never deposit them.

They were either side of the horrible mouth of the tunnel. Swords drawn, they carried the torches Rudolphus had improvised in their left hands. The Herul was back with the horse strings.

They looked at each other. Maximus mouthed, ‘ One-two-three.’ He started to move. He was gone.

Allfather, Deep-hood, hold your hands over me. Ballista forced himself to follow.

Maximus was moving fast.

Ballista had to crouch. Do not think, just act. The tunnel ran down steep. The circular band of the light of Maximus’s torch was racing ahead. Ballista blundered after; helmet, elbows scraping the earth.

The tunnel opened into a chamber. Ballista saw Maximus go left. Ballista went right.

A large, domed space; the soil of the walls very light in the torchlight, a chalky paleness. There were many skeletons. The legs of one sprawled obscenely. It lay next to a decayed cushion, from which spilled desiccated eelgrass. Concentrate — do not think, just act. There were two other openings off the chamber. Maximus was flattened against the wall next to one. Ballista went to the other. He was fighting to get his breathing right.

Ballista looked across the chamber. They would enter the tunnels at the same moment. Maximus mouthed, ‘ One-two-three. ’

Torch and shield thrust out, Ballista threw himself into the entrance. This was higher, some sort of corridor. Age-rotted wood splintered under his boots. A bone snapped as he trod on it. Fifteen, twenty steps in, it ended in a wall of rubble; a burial shaft that had been filled.

Ballista ran back, across the chamber and into the gap through which Maximus had gone. Another corridor, this time faced with wood. Another chamber at the end; weird dancing shadows visible in it.

Something tripped him. He fell forward, skinning his elbows, grazing his face. The torch rolled away. He was face down in the remains of a centuries-dead fire, cooking utensils around him. He scrambled to his feet, snatched up the torch and pressed on. He realized he was panting out monotonous obscenities: fuck, fuck, fuck.

Another round chamber, hollowed out of the pastel-coloured, almost white loess. Just one exit, Maximus back to the wall against it. Ballista joined him. He was gasping for breath. He knew it was fear. Although a long way down, the air was not stale.

‘Fucking rabbit warren,’ Maximus whispered.

Ballista tried to grin.

No noises except their rasping breathing and the hiss of the torches as their flames shifted.

‘Has to have gone up here,’ Maximus said. ‘Take our time, get ourselves set.’

Ballista managed to grin.

Suddenly, a crash of thunder echoed around the chamber. Odd, this far from the entrance.

Ballista very much wanted not to be here. If only they could just retrace their steps; get out of this subterranean hell and not have to face the steel of a madman lurking in the dark.

‘You ready?’

Ballista nodded at Maximus. The Hibernian’s face was sheened with sweat.

This was the tunnel of a graverobber. Low and narrow — little wider than Ballista’s shoulders — it climbed sharply. They had to crawl, wriggle up it. Ballista had to hang back to avoid burning Maximus with his torch. It was slow going. The tunnel twisted. The excavation was crude. There were no pit props, nothing holding the roof. Loose soil sifted down. Ballista tried not to think what that might signify.

A much louder roll of thunder. A gust of fresh, wet air. Maximus was swearing. He was fighting his way out through a thorn bush. He was back on the surface.

It took Ballista a time to join him. Maximus held back some of the branches of the thorn as he hauled himself clear.

‘Not good,’ Maximus shouted over the rage of the storm. ‘Far from fucking good.’

They were out among the scrub on the side of the kurgan. The storm raced all around them. At the foot of the slope, Rudolphus lay dead. The horses were gone.

They worked their way up and around the mound. From the summit, they could see the two strings of horses and the lone rider leading them. They were headed south-west at an easy canter. In the flashes of lightning they appeared frozen, and almost close enough to touch.

The trail would be easy enough to follow. The rain had stopped, and nine horses left more than enough traces. But there were things they had to do before they could leave the kurgan.

They had no food except the small bag of air-dried meat Maximus always had about him. But they had Ballista’s bow, and could hunt as they went. There was game, and wildfowl on the watercourses. More worrying, they had no water. If the Steppe continued well watered, things would not be too bad. However, their flasks and skins had been on their saddles. With nothing to hold water, it could be serious if the walk between streams was long. They went down into the barrow to see if there was anything useable among the grave offerings. There was not; all the cooking utensils were either broken or shallow bowls which would be too much trouble to carry without their contents slopping out. As Maximus said, they might as well try to carry water in their helmets.

Their helmets and armour were another problem. Ballista guessed it was at least three days’ walk to the shores of Lake Maeotis. Somehow, neither had any doubt that was where Hippothous would be headed. The war gear would weigh down men on foot. Mailcoats, helmets and shields were left in the first burial chamber. It would be a lucky traveller who found them; good coats of ring mail were expensive beyond the dreams of most men.

Obviously, there was no question of abandoning their swords, daggers, Maximus’s various concealed knives, or Ballista’s gorytus. Both knew the straps would rub their shoulders raw within a couple of days.

And there was Rudolphus. The Herul lay curled around the arrow in his gut. The two in his back must have finished him off. They searched his body. He had an akinakes and a dagger, which they left, and some coins from the Bosporus, which they took; but nothing of real use. They had not the time to burn or bury him, but could not just leave him on the Steppe. They carried him down into the kurgan, and left him with their armour. Ballista closed his eyes and put a coin in his mouth for the ferryman. He was not sure the latter was right for a Herul, but it could do no harm.

There was only an hour or two of daylight left when they set out. They walked on the virgin grass to one side of the muddied path the horses had left. They did not hurry. There was no point. They had a long way to go.

They had not gone four miles before they saw the vultures. It was Hippothous’s horse. It had been unable to go on, and he had killed it. There was a deep stab wound in its throat. It had bled to death. It was still saddled and bridled, but Hippothous had taken anything of use from its packs.

Although it delayed them, Maximus cut meat from the carcass, stowed it in one of the packs and improvised straps from the leather of its tack. As they walked on, the vultures returned.

When darkness came, they did not stop. There was a line of trees a mile or so ahead. The trail was there when the moon showed between the ragged clouds of the rearguard of the storm.

At the stream, they got a fire going, eventually. The damp wood smoked, hissed and spat, and gave little heat. The horsemeat was raw inside a charred crust. They ate it, and drank water. Far off to the south, the storm flickered and grumbled beyond the horizon.

They did not speak of what had happened, or what might happen. They hardly spoke at all. Wrapped in his cloak, Ballista tried to empty his mind. With every thought came memories of Calgacus. He repeated Julia’s words to himself: the dead do not suffer, that is for those left behind. At last, he slept.

Maximus woke him. The sun was not yet up, the sky just paling in the east. The fire had gone out. Ballista was cold, tired, and his stomach was uneasy. They tried to eat the raw horsemeat. It made Ballista’s gorge rise. He persevered. He would need the sustenance.

The dawn came up behind them as they walked. Their shadows, canted and misshapen, marched ahead. The sky was clear. That was something. If it had rained as before, the trail would have been washed away.

With the warmth of the day, the Steppe came to life. First in patches, then in great swathes, the grass turned green again. Miraculous yellow flowers opened. It was as if the storm had turned back time, ushered in a second springtime. Birds sang, plovers swooped around them. There were butterflies, yellow like the flowers. All of it was superficial, false to Ballista’s eyes. It did not lighten his mood an iota.

They could not go wrong. The trail was the only thing to follow in the immensity of the plain. Ballista kept his eyes on it, a few steps in front of his feet. To look up was to accept the scale of the Steppe, to invite the admission of the futility of what they did.

They crossed small streams with banks that had been swept by flash floods from the storm. Their soil, where it had been undercut, was red; sometimes hanging like bloodied stalactites.

The north wind sang across the Steppe.

That evening, they halted early at a place where a stream broadened out into a mere. They concealed themselves in the cover around the edges. When the ducks had flighted and were on the water, in the lingering light that remained, Ballista shot one. The others rose up, clamorous in their fear.

Ballista lit a fire. Maximus plucked and dressed the bird. Cooked, it was an infinite improvement on the horsemeat.

Ballista did not want to talk about Calgacus. He could tell Maximus did not want to either. There was nothing else to talk about.

There were a few clouds that night, coming down from the north. They gave the moon a fugitive air, as if any one of them might conceal the wolf. Of course, some peoples did not think the moon was masculine, or that it would one day be eaten by a beast. For the Greeks, it was Selene; a goddess riding for eternity in a chariot drawn by shambly-footed oxen. He wondered what Calgacus had thought when he looked into a moonlit sky. He wondered what view Calgacus had held of an afterlife. They had never talked about it seriously. They never would now. It would be a comfort to believe he would be reunited with the old Caledonian, in Valhalla or somewhere. But it was hard to give it credence. This life was unforgiving; no reason to think the next would be better. If it existed.

The third day was much tougher. Ballista’s feet were blistered. He took off his boots and bandaged them. The bandages slipped, chafed, soon did no good. Maximus was walking badly too. The only advantage in their slower pace was the time it gave them to find the trail; it was getting harder to follow as the rejuvenated grass sprang up.

Twice — once to the north, once the south — they saw herds dotted and indistinct in the distance.

The Steppe stretched on, pitiless in its enormity. But they knew they were getting closer to Lake Maeotis. The smell of it was in the air, and the streams they had to cross were much fuller, broadening out into real rivers. Each of the latter was somehow shocking in its sudden declivity, as it brought trees and wildfowl, and a reflection of the sky, things near forgotten and almost unimaginable in the previous hours of their absence.

They cut thin branches to use as walking sticks.

They walked all day. They had nothing left to eat, and did not stop to hunt. As the sun began its final descent — they moved like old men now — they heard the sea birds. Looking up, Ballista saw the overgrown earthworks, and ditches full of brambles and thin trees of some long-abandoned fortification. Beyond, there were reed beds, and beyond them the open water of some quiet inlet. There was the thatched roof of a lone cottage. Off to the right, eight horses grazed in a water meadow.

Dogs hurtled out, three of them: vicious-looking, snarling, eyes popping.

The horses stamped away to the far end of the meadow.

Ballista and Maximus stood still, leaning on their walking sticks.

The dogs circled.

An elderly man clad in rags appeared out of the reeds, an eldritch figure with the low sun behind him. He whistled, and the dogs fell back a little. He put his right palm flat to his forehead.

Ballista cleared his throat to speak.

The old man spoke first. ‘He has taken the only boat. He made my son sail it.’ He used the language of Germania.

Neither Ballista nor Maximus said anything.

‘He said you would come.’ The aged fisherman held his hands out placatingly. ‘It is not our fault. Do not blame us. He was armed; a man of violence. What could we do?’ He fell to his knees.

‘When?’ Ballista said.

‘Yesterday morning, just after first light.’

Ballista felt as if something was broken inside him, something that had been keeping him upright.

‘How far are your neighbours?’ Maximus said.

The old man pointed to the south-east. ‘Near Tanais.’

‘How far?’

‘A long day’s walk.’

‘The other way?’

‘Further.’

Ballista spoke. ‘The horses are ours.’

‘Yes, of course. He said you would want them. We have looked after them.’ The old man showed his teeth like a dog which fears a beating. ‘We had no choice.’

‘Get off your knees. Do you have any food we could have?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ The old fisherman scrambled up, started backing towards the cottage. ‘Fish stew, and bread, good bread.’

‘And chain up those dogs.’

‘Yes, right away, Atheling, right away.’

The dogs winding around his legs, the old man went to the cottage.

‘When we have eaten, we can ride to Tanais,’ Maximus said. ‘Keep the water on our right. We should be there before morning. Good chance of hiring a boat there and then.’

‘No,’ Ballista said. ‘The wind has been set in the north. It would have been on his quarter. He would have reached Panticapaeum some time last night. If he did not stop, by now he could be across the Euxine. It is over.’

‘If the gods ever let me find him…’

‘Yes.’ Ballista felt unutterably weary; vaguely sick, but hungry. ‘Would you check the horses?’

When Maximus was gone, Ballista stared at the dying sun, and tried not to think too much about anything.