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The once-proud Slaughtered Pig Tavern, converted by decree into the king’s hall of the Bructeri, burned fiercely in the night. The flames had penetrated to the thatch roof, and those dried and tarred straws went up in voracious flames. The Bructeri survivors assembled outside, watching their pride burn, and occasionally helping a man who came stumbling out of the smoke to safety. None thought of entering that inferno.
Inside, another man still struggled. Burning beams cracked and groaned, telling him he had little time. He was halfway through the great hall, dragging his load behind him as one did a sack of milled wheat, when the aft section of the former tavern collapsed in a rumble of fiery destruction. The throne of the kings, with its Ubian occupier, disappeared in a sea of flame. The fall also gave the wounded man a tremendous push. He could not scream, but he could move. And move he did, slowly, stopping only to catch a searing breath or put out a flame wherever an ember had fallen upon him or his brother.
Udo emerged from the door, dragging Ulfrich behind him. The elders, seeing the king alive, rushed to his aid.
“He lives,” whispered the king. The aspirated air passed not through his mouth, but rather through the gaping hole torn in his windpipe. Like Claudius Victor at Gelduba, his throat had been cut, but not deep enough. The heat and searing smoke had helped cauterize the wound, preventing him from drowning inside his lungs, but he would never again speak normally.
Ulfrich had lost an eye from a terrible sword wound, yet the brain beyond was unpunctured. Concussed, but not penetrated. Udo was correct- the king lived.
The single remaining eye opened. “Udo,” he said with a smile. “You live.”
Udo nodded. His voice refused to work any more.
“We live,” Ulfrich said weakly. “It is enough. We shall avenge this another day. But for now... we need to rest, brother. It hurts...”
Udo held his brother tightly, but went slack in doing so.
Ulfrich looked up at his brother, and saw the awful wound to his neck. “I shall avenge you, brother,” he swore silently. “Rutilius shall pay for taking you from me. This I swear by Woden, Wotan, or Odin, however he wishes to be called, and by Donar, and all the gods of Valhalla. He shall pay.”
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Dieter led the ala and the party in a desperate race north. Only once did he stop, and that was to issue an order to cut up their bedding.
“You will not be using it any more,” he said to those who objected. “We shall ride until we are back in civilization where you can get more, or we will be dead. Now cut, damn you!”
The bedding was cut into four pieces, per horse, and then folded and bound around the hooves. After the brief stop, he had them clean up the scraps, pack them away, then moved like lightning again. Those looking behind noticed that the hoofprints left by the horses were no longer as visible as before- and upon a ground covered with leaves- invisible. It was as if the horses floated over the ground without touching it.
Upon reaching a stream several hours later, they marched west in the stream’s silty bottom for several hours, before discarding the now-soggy bedding and racing off to the southwest. The trip lasted all night, and the journey continued for the next day as well. Only a few times did he allow the group to stop during daylight, and only then when he had found a defensible meadow where the horses could graze and drink.
On one of the infrequent stops, he unbuckled the clamshell cuirass and handed it back to Marcus.
“Here,” he said. “I took good care of it, but it is yours again now.”
Marcus took the armor and donned it. While he was buckling it up, he asked why Dieter drove them southwest, when the fords are obvious west-north-west.
Dieter sighed. Had being crucified addled his lord’s wits? “Pretend you are a Bructeri. Your quarry flees on horseback to Rome. How do you catch them?”
Rutilius nodded. It had been a long two days for him. He replied wearily, “I would block the fords and bridges, and sweep my army toward them.”
Dieter nodded. “Exactly. We head southwest, toward where the Bridge of Cordinus once stood. If we are there by nightfall tomorrow, which we should if we hurry, then six vessels of the Roman river fleet will be there to carry us over.”
“And if they are not?”
“Your horse is Batavian,” Dieter replied as if the question was silly. “It can swim. And if it cannot, it will learn from mine, which can.”
Rutilius chuckled. Swimming the river with the horses was an option- but only if a quick raft could be constructed. Even Batavian horses would tire and drown crossing the Rhenus while mounted. Still, if the fleet was there...
“Mount up,” Dieter ordered. He now had the old warshirt of Rutilius on. “It is a long swim if we miss our date, ladies.”
The troop mounted and moved out. Around dusk, Dieter called a quick halt to let the sky darken further and the stars come out. Rutilius used this time to stretch his tired legs and loosen his aching shoulders. Froydis came up behind him and commanded him to sit. He sat, and she began massaging his neck and upper arms where they emerged from his armor. He needed more, but this was all he was going to get. It was enough- the strains and aches began draining away.
“I was worried about you,” she said as she worked on his tense muscles. “When Aelric told of your capture, I had feared you slain instantly. Had I been the king, I certainly would not let a dangerous enemy live longer than necessary.”
“Then I am grateful Udo and Ulfrich were such fools,” he replied. Her hands were working magic on his neck. He could feel the tension melting away. But at his mention of the kings, she ceased her magic.
“Udo and Ulfrich?” she spat. “Were you on such good terms, then, Marcus?””
“Being crucified is an intimate affair,” he laughed lowly. “The drawing close of death brings men together. Besides, I could not help but overhear their names. Not that it matter anymore- Wolf cut down Udo, and my seax here stabbed down Ulfrich. They shall bother us no more.”
“Ah,” she said, the relief evident in her voice.
“Tell me, woman,” Marcus said. “When the Bructeri were closing in there, as we exited the tavern where Udo held his court. You handed me my bow and bade me await the moment. How did you know such a moment was coming?”
“Dieter is correct- hanging by your arms cripples your brain,” she laughed. “I notice things, remember? It is the one thing at which I am exceptional.”
Rutilius had his doubts about that- many nights under the bearskin blanket of their tent had taught him that she was very exceptionally good at other things, too. That bearskin blanket was left in the wagon- another debt the Bructeri owed him.
As if she read his mind, her hand left his neck to smack his gently across the back of the head. Then she smacked him a second time. “You should have seen him, too. A man wearing the hat of a hunter and carrying a bow, hustling through the crowd. Had you shot before he emerged, he would likely have put his first arrow into you, and you with no shield.”
“You were on horseback, Froydis,” he reminded her, rubbing his head playfully where she had smacked. “My eyes were not much higher than your waist.”
She relaxed, and began rubbing his neck again. She kept going until Dieter called the mount-up. Rutilius rose, and thanked her for her efforts- his neck and arms were indeed much better. She drew him down to a deep kiss, then leapt upon her horse and chided him to do the same. Then the group was off again, trailing the Batavian in what little starlight filtered through the trees.
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Rome was coming alive with the spring. The new consuls were installed, and to nobody’s surprise the Imperator was the senior consul and his heir Titus the junior. They began their term with fanfare, and parades, and games. A new term was begun, and it shall be far different than the last one. Promises were made- what had gone wrong the year before shall be corrected.
Domitian watched his father and brother take up the fasces with envy in his heart. He was the outgoing senior consul; it was his failures his brother and father promised to rectify. His failures- but caused by their orders. He simply carried out what they had commanded. A glorified office boy, with the trappings of Rome’s highest official office.
Helvidius was right to quit Rome, he thought. Rome deserves better than to become the personal property of a single family. It is a shame he is in Greece now, headed east. We could use a staunch Republican about now.
While Domitian cursed his fate, others cursed his family. Again the Imperator, thought Eprius. And again young Titus, that man who wasted good Roman seed upon that Jewish princess, diluting Flavian blood and creating a horde of half-blooded bastards. He shivered. Vespasian was old. One day soon, Titus would be emperor. And after him? Half-breed Imperators? Rome led by foreigners?
And from the house bordering the Forum, Aulus Caecina cursed as well. Another chance to create future leaders was wasted, and another chance to be redeemed had past. He would never get command of Germania now. He would have to think of another way to topple that Old Owl and regain what was rightfully his.
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The horsemen emerged from the forest to see the Rhenus spreading before them. It was a broad river, and deep enough to swallow cities. A dangerous river, but one which separated civilization over there from barbarism over here. It was a beautiful river too, with the setting sun reflecting upon it, but the most beautiful upon it were the six river galleys not a mile away, holding station in mid-river and awaiting the return- and promised bounty- of the provincial quaestor.
Less than an hour later the horses were loaded onto the barges and the crammed aboard the galleys. The fleet captain moved the galleys away from the shore, and began setting course upriver toward Colonia.
“Belay that,” Rutilius commanded. “Set your course for Noviomagus.”
“We have our orders,” Titus Piscius, the fleet captain replied. He remembered the man in the silvered cuirass from the summer- this one was a legate, as he recalled. Admirals still outrank legates and it was an admiral who gave him his orders, so it is upriver he was heading. “We are to deliver you to Colonia.”
“You now have new orders,” Rutilius repeated. “Noviomagus.”
Piscius looked from Rutilius to Dieter, whom he remembered as the quaestor picked up in Colonia. Quaestors outranked admirals. “My lord?”
Dieter grinned broadly and held his arms outstretched in a gigantic shrug. “He is the quaestor, fleet captain. I am but his loyal bodyguard. I would do as the lord commands.”
Piscius cursed loudly, then laughed gently. “Turn about, lads. We are heading downriver.”
Satisfied, Rutlius moved away to let the fleet captain command his little flotilla while he checked on his men. The Acilii were sitting side by side, watching the river pass by and Bructeri lands fade away. They looked up at his approach, to which he knew he must admit defeat.
“I lost the map,” he said sadly. “The king burned it before my eyes to torture me with our failure.”
Publius Acilius laughed, prompting a like response from the older Acilius. “That was just a draft anyway, lord,” the former cartographer replied easily. “The real map lies here,” he explained, holding up another scroll. ”In my notes, which I still have, thanks to Titus here. He salvaged them from the wagon before we abandoned it. I use cartographer notes to construct my maps, which I will do once I have a good table and some fine quills- as I had planned to do once we get back to civilization. So he burned nothing, really.”
Rutilius grinned broadly. His mission was a success after all. He wandered further down the galley, and found Dieter and Glam by the prow.
“Dieter here says the Bructeri warhost was holed up to the west of their civitas,” Glam said as Rutilius approached. “A shame, that.”
“How so?” Rutilius wondered. “We circled around them and left them far behind. They troubled us no more, and after the coming summer, will trouble us less still.”
“Well lord, I really don’t like that side of Father Rhein,” Glam admitted, jerking his head over to the east bank he had been pensively studying.. “But we will have to go back. Cordinus and Rome will demand it. We have unfinished business there.”
“The Bructeri are very few now. It will be a short campaign, no matter how many come to their aid,” Rutilius reminded him.
“Its the Eagle, lord,” Glam continued. ”Not the one Wolf hauled down out of the king’s hall, though- that one is safe. It is the other one.”
“The Eagle of the V Alaudae,” Rutilius recalled. “They still have it. But not for long.”
“I know,” Glam replied.. He was smiling now. ”Those drunken fools loved to gossip and tell tales about everything, you know. I heard quite a lot while you were hanging in your cross. Among the tidbits was a gem you would like to hear, concerning Ulfrich, the turd you slashed down. He tried to use it to buy back the favor of the gods his actions in gaining it had cost him. That eagle, lord- it was given to the High Priest of Wotan, who lives near the Sacred Grove- smack in the middle of where the Bructeri warhost was deployed.”
“You mention this now so that I would not be tempted to turn back and recover it?”
Glam nodded. “Yes, lord.”
Rutilius nodded. He too disliked that side of Father Rhein- yet if he had known where the second eagle was, he would indeed have risked them all to recover it. As it was, knowing its location would be enough. He had one located, and recovered the other.
Cordinus cannot help but be pleased, and Rome cannot help but be satisfied. It was a very successful mission.
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