The Great Game (2 page)

He’d met this type before. Atticus, the champion of the Fourth Cohort, was much the same: a huge brute with fists that could flatten a cart, but slow and unimaginative.

Ducking into the oncoming attack, Rufinus took the opportunity to pull his blade free from the dying warrior beneath him; he’d have liked to use it, but there was too little room in this fight. The barbarian’s huge arms closed on empty air, their target having dipped beneath their reach.

As the man grunted and craned his head to look down past his bulky animal skin, Rufinus sprang upright, delivering a left-handed uppercut that smashed into the brute’s jaw with such force that he worried for a moment that he might have broken a knuckle.

No, but he’d certainly broken the jaw.

The big man slowed in panic, bringing his arm back slowly, probably with the vague intent to deliver a punch.

Rufinus ducked away from the potential blow, though he barely considered it a threat, bending his knee and rotating, delivering a left hook that smashed into the man’s cheek, snapping his head sideways with the force. His instincts now in control, the legionary let go of his sword for a moment, changing his grip as it began to drop and catching it blade-down, held in the fashion of a dagger.

Not giving the barbarian time to recover, he performed a series of sharp jabs, the third of which, delivered with a fist wrapped around the hilt of a gladius, shattered the man’s nose.

The ox of a man slumped to his knees, his face a bloodied mess, and Rufinus’ eyes widened. While he had been dealing with the two warriors, their leader had drawn his straight, Germanic blade and was lunging toward him, intent on an easy kill.

His mind racing in the scant moments before the man ran him through, Rufinus dropped slightly, grasping the falling barbarian by the fur at his neck and, straining, hauled him up into the path of the sword blow.

He heard the Quadi nobleman’s blade slide into the brute’s back and stepped away in momentary consternation as the blade exited the front, raising a section of fur as though raising a tent with a pole.

The warrior’s eyes bulged, and a gout of dark blood vomited forth from his mouth. As the noble pulled his blade free and the huge man fell to the floor, Rufinus stepped to the side, righting the grip on his gladius and drawing his dagger with his free hand.

The two men circled one another.

Somewhere in the distance a cornu call rang out again. The rest of the legion was probably almost at the rally point.

The barbarian barked something at him in his unpleasant language, in a voice that rose toward the end, indicating a question. Rufinus shrugged.

‘Come on then. Let’s get to it.’

With a quick lunge, balanced on the balls of his feet, Rufinus leapt forward, stabbing out with his sword. The nobleman was quick and nipped to one side, bringing his own blade down on the gladius, perhaps trying to knock it from the legionary’s grasp. Rufinus’ grip,
however, was iron-strong, and the blades skittered off one another with a nerve-jangling sound, raising sparks.

The nobleman drew his sword back and spun around quickly, the blade gaining momentum. Rufinus lurched to his left, slamming his gladius in the way urgently to block the blow. The impact rang up the steel and into his knuckles, numbing them momentarily. The barbarian followed on into the blow, perhaps expecting to bring the blade round with a second spin for another.

He knew how to handle his long, Germanic sword well, and was relatively innovative.

Not enough, though; not as innovative as Rufinus.

As the man continued to swing his blade, Rufinus allowed his own gladius to be knocked casually aside; it had been but a parry and a distraction for the real move, anyway.

His left hand slammed into the man’s throat just above the meeting point of the collarbones, driving the dagger so deep that he felt it wedge up against the spine. The barbarian stopped in mid spin, eyes wide as he tried to look down. The movement of the head was simply not possible, the hilt of the pugio protruding from his throat and the hand still wrapped around it holding his chin up as dark blood spat from the vicious neck wound, falling to the ground where it glistened on the forest floor.

The nobleman mouthed something at him desperately; pointlessly, given the language barrier. Rufinus let go of the dagger’s hilt, his crimson hand slick and slippery, as the sword toppled from the man’s grip. The barbarian’s hands lurched forward, gripping the shoulder plates at the top of Rufinus’ segmented armour. The fingers tightened on the armour as the barbarian arched his back, body spasming and juddering, fresh gouts of blood pumping out and splashing onto the steel plates.

Rufinus turned his face away from the desperate mouthings and prized the fingers from his armour, letting the man fall away to die in silence. After six years under the eagle - two of them fighting the barbarian tribes - he was anything but squeamish, but somehow it felt intrusive and wrong to stare into the eyes of a dying man and watch the spirit leave them forever.

Ever since Lucius…

His expression hardening, Rufinus dropped to the ground and drew his pugio from the neck of the hollow, empty vessel that had
once been a man. The blade slipped free, followed by a fresh surge of blood.

With a grim face he wiped the dagger on the nobleman’s tunic, aware that he was doing little more than spreading the blood thinly over a wider surface. Slowly, sheathing the knife, he stood, a shiver of cold running down his spine.

The dell rang with a meaningful silence, four glassy eyes staring up accusingly at their killer, two more gazing into the earth. Rufinus took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, the only sounds: the groaning and creaking of the tortured trees in the freezing wind, ice cracking and snapping on the bark, the distant slump of snow sliding from branches and the rhythmic pitter-patter of melting ice dripping to hard ground.

Rufinus tipped his head to one side.

No.

Nothing as mundane as snow and ice.

His head spun this way and that, taking in the undergrowth around him and the endless trunks of trees marching off into the depths of the barbarian world. The men had bows. What use were bows in deep woodland?

It was not the creak of straining branches he could hear, but the tension in a short wooden bow as the string was pulled taut. His initial fear that a fourth, hidden barbarian was about to put an end to him seemed, however, to be unfounded. As he spun around, there was no glinting arrow head; no lurking figure.

It took a moment, even after his third pass, to realise that the foliage thinned on the side of the dell opposite the point at which he’d entered. Light filtered through the leaves and the twisted carpet of snaking branches there.

A path through the forest, and wide enough that such light was visible, the weak sun reflecting off the snowy ground.

The steady drip of thawing snow?

His heart skipping a beat, Rufinus lunged across the dip and threw himself into the undergrowth, the twigs and leaves crunching and snapping beneath him. A struggle as he pushed branches aside with his elbows and forced himself forward, tearing his tunic on brambles and scratching his skin, and suddenly he was afforded a clear view of the track.

Perhaps five feet across, the path was little more than a game trail through the woodlands.

Not wide enough for horses, certainly.

He shook his head at the idiocy of the Romans who were riding down such a narrow track; the perfect spot for an ambush.

The men wore glittering mail shirts over tunics of white wool with crests, plumes and feathers rising from their decorative helms, riding without a care in the world, as though taking an afternoon trot across a family’s estate.

Praetorians… cavalry, too. It was hard to tell which unit without seeing insignia. They could be ordinary Praetorians, or possibly the Imperial cavalry guard, or even a unit of Speculatores. That would be the most likely reason for them being out here.

The creaking came again, and with echoes. Rufinus’ head snapped back to face directly ahead. There were more archers, lurking in the undergrowth at the far side of the track and poised ready to strike. A target of chance? Circumstances suggested otherwise.

His heart racing, Rufinus tried to settle on a course of action. To charge across the path at them was plainly suicide; their bows were already trained on the open ground, waiting for their mounted targets, and it would take little effort for them to drop their aim and turn him into a hedgepig. No heroics, then.

His glance returned to the riders, perhaps a dozen in single file. The one at the front was clearly an officer, his cuirass of burnished bronze bearing intricate designs, the white and purple pteruges hanging in twin rows at shoulders and waist, purple-bordered white cloak draped across the horse’s rump behind.

He could shout a warning, but that was a gamble in itself. If there were more hidden groups of archers it could cause them to act precipitously, and who knew what might happen then.

Taking a deep breath, his plan forming in his mind, Rufinus sheathed his gladius and shuffled as quietly as he could through the undergrowth to his right. Judging his position carefully, he pushed forward until he was almost at the track, offering up silent prayers to Fortuna that he was still sufficiently concealed. The archers were some five feet off to the left now, on the far side. The riders, led by the officer were less than ten feet away.

He took a deep breath, the clopping of the hooves on the frozen ground muted by the ever-present snow and the oppressive bulk of the forest, yet echoing round his head like the clanging of a warning bell.

The officer was almost here now. His boots were magnificent, enclosed and stitched with a wide tongue that bore a Medusa-head. His full-length Gallic-style trousers, unfashionable among officers but eminently practical for these conditions, were of pristine white wool. The scabbard hanging at his side was of purple leather and decorative silver with intricate designs.

From his low viewpoint, that was all Rufinus could see of the man, but also all he had time to see. Across the path a muted creaking told him that several bows had just reached full tension.

Now or never.

Taking a deep breath, Rufinus lunged from his hiding place and grabbed a tight hold of the officer’s leg just above the boot’s lolling tongue, the medusa flapping in distress. The Praetorian officer barely had time to register his surprise and glance downwards before Rufinus hauled, putting all of his considerable strength into the action. With an undignified squawk, the officer was wrenched from the saddle, collapsing in a crashing, metallic heap on top of his blood-soaked assailant.

As the man landed, driving the wind from Rufinus, arrows thrummed from the trees opposite, two driving deep into the horse’s rump, one thumping into the leather saddle, and two more hissing through the empty air where a moment before the Praetorian had proudly rode.

The officer’s helmet had slipped down over his eyes, the white plume muddied and wet, slapping and sticking to the steel of the cheek piece. As the man bellowed something unintelligible and muffled in a raging voice, Rufinus heaved him over onto his back, releasing himself from the dead-weight.

Suddenly the column was all activity. The nearest guardsman had been struck in the side by another arrow, the point smashing through the mail and ripping into flesh and organs within. The soldier stared down at the shaft in apparently mild surprise. Even as the men behind him were vaulting from their horses and drawing weapons, unslinging the shields from their backs, the dying guard slid slowly sideways and plummeted to the snow with a sigh.

Leaving the furious, bellowing officer floundering in the snow, wrapped in his cloak and with his helmet over his eyes, Rufinus leapt to his feet. The officer’s horse had bucked and reared in pain but as it dropped back to the ground Rufinus ran across, using it as cover and ducking beneath the frightened, injured animal,
running low toward the undergrowth opposite, drawing both his blades.

As he tore into the frozen leaves and branches on the far side of the track, two more arrows hissed out, aiming for the white-clad guardsmen. Just two meant that the other archers had either dropped their bows and drawn melee weapons in preparation or, hopefully, had taken the opportunity to flee through the frozen woods as fast as their uncultured legs could carry them.

Again, brambles tore at his clothes and skin, ripping angry red lines across his face and limbs. Silently condemning the undergrowth that constantly threatened to trip him, and openly cursing the Quadi, the Marcomanni, and any tribe that valued plaited hair and mud over a heated bathroom floor, Rufinus burst through the flora and suddenly found himself on a slope, tumbling forth into a sunken clearing very similar to the one on the far side of the path.

Three men again, so there had to be more than one group on this side of the track, as there had been at least half a dozen shots in the initial volley but nothing he could do about that now. One man still held his bow, reaching down to the line of arrows jutting from the ground beside him. The others had already discarded theirs and drawn hand weapons.

A man holding a large axe ready by his side barked with surprise as a crazed, blood-soaked Roman burst out of the undergrowth at the top of the slope and fell directly onto him, knocking him to the ground and driving the air from his lungs.

Rufinus, instinct combining with training, made the most of his lucky landing, raising himself up from the surprised and winded barbarian and delivering half a dozen powerful punches from fists strengthened by being wrapped around the hilts of blades. The blows would leave bruised knuckles, but he felt the man’s nose and jaw break with the first two punches, the other four delivered for good measure and born from years of prize-fighting burly legionaries and not wanting them to get back up.

It was over in a few heartbeats, the man beneath him unconscious by the fifth blow, the axe falling away from his fingers. Rufinus looked up just in time to see another warrior, glinting sword in hand, lunging for him. Desperately, prone and at a disadvantage, the legionary tried to roll out of the way and barely made it, the barbarian’s sword carving a red line along his arm.