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Videssian stragglers attached themselves to Scaurus' band by ones and twos,
some afoot, others on horseback. He let them join; some were still soldiers,
and any mounted troops could be useful, as scouts if nothing more.
One of them brought word of Zigabenos' fate: captured by the Namdaleni. One
more piece of bad news among the many  Marcus was dismayed but not surprised.
It was also something he had expected to hear, whether true or not. He asked
the imperial, "How do you know that's so?"
"Well, I ought to. I seen it," the trooper answered; his upcountry accent made
Scaurus think of Phostis Apokavkos. He glared at the tribune, as spikily
indignant as any Videssian at having his word questioned. "They drug him off
his horse; Skotos' hell, if he hadn't been wounded, they never would a-done
it. He gave 'em all the fight they wanted and some besides. The plague take
all Namdaleni anyways."
"You saw him taken and did nought to stay it?" Zeprin the Red rumbled
ominously. The burly Haloga, long an imperial guard, still carried in his
heart the shame of not dying with the regiment of his countrymen who vainly
defended Mavrikios at Maragha. It was no fault of his own; the Emperor had
sent him away to take command of the imperial left wing. He blamed himself
regardless. Now, axe in hand, he glowered at the bedraggled Videssian before
him. "What sort of soldier do you call yourself?"
The trooper hawked and spat. "A live one," he retorted, "which is a sight
better than the other kind." He stared back with deliberate insolence.
Zeprin's always florid complexion darkened to the color of blood. He roared
out something in his own tongue that sounded like red-hot iron screaming as it
was quenched. Before either Marcus or the Videssian could move, his axe jerked
up, then smashed down through the man's helmet, splitting his skull almost to
the teeth. He toppled, jerking, dead before the blow was through.
The Haloga tugged his axe free. "Craven carrion," he growled, cleaning the
weapon on a clump of purslane. "A man who will not stand by his lord deserves
no better."
"We might have learned something more from him," Marcus said, but that was
all. If legionaries broke and ran in large numbers, they could be decimated:
one in ten chosen at random for execution to requite their cowardice. Before
he took service, the tribune had reckoned the punishment hideous in its
barbarity; now he thought of it without revulsion. The change shamed him. War
fouled everyone it touched.
The Arandos was a fat brown stream, several hundred yards across. Bridges
spanned it, but Drax' men held their watchtowers. Perhaps they could be
forced, but that would take time, time the legionaries did not have. Had Drax
not had so many bands of fugitives to hunt down, he would have overrun them
already instead of giving them these three days of grace. The Namdalener was
like a dog surrounded by so many bones he did not know which one to take up
and gnaw. Scaurus, on the other hand, felt like a hare with the nets closing
in.
Hoping against hope, he sent out Videssians to ask the peasants if they knew
of a ford, reasoning that they would be more inclined to talk to their
countrymen than to aliens like the Romans. He almost shouted when Apokavkos
brought back a big-eared codger who came straight to the point: "What's it
worth to ye?"
Another twanger, the tribune thought. He answered, "Ten goldpieces on the
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other side of the river."
"You on a cross if you're lying," Gaius Philippus added. The local scratched
his head at that the Videssians did not practice crucifixion. But the threat
in the senior centurion's voice could not be missed. Still, the farmer nodded
agreement.
He led the legionaries east along the Arandos until they were well out of
sight of any bridge. Then he slowed, squinting across the river for some
landmark he did not name. At last he grunted. "There y'are," he said,
pointing.
"Where?" To Scaurus, the stretch of water looked no different from any other
part of the Arandos.
"Nail the lying bastard up," Gaius Philippus said, but in Latin. Not
understanding him, the farmer pulled the knee-length tunic that was his only
garment over his head and, naked, stepped into the river.
He was promptly in up to his outsized ears, and Marcus thought seriously of
what to do with him. The peasant, though, seemed unabashed. He turned around, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]