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The other Germans congratulated the one who’d done the beheading. He gri
And things only got worse. Along with heads and other pieces of legionaries hung the eagles of Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX, as well as the lesser emblems from the cohorts that made up the beaten legions. Seeing them there, offerings to the grim German gods, wounded Caldus Caelius almost as much as the rest of the atrocities put together. He wished he could die of shame. He wished he could die any way at all, so long as it happened fast.
A big German came over and looked down at him. The man wore a legionary’s helmet at a jaunty angle and carried a legionary’s shortsword in his right hand. And he proved to speak Latin, too, for he said, “You are the one called Caldus Caelius, eh?”
“That’s right,” Caelius answered automatically. “Who the demon are you?”
“My name is Ingaevonus,” the barbarian answered. “Do you remember me?”
Caelius started to shake his head. Then he stopped, not only because it hurt but because he did remember. “That village,” he croaked.
Ingaevonus nodded. “Yes. That village. My village. Taxes.” He spat the word out through his mustache. “We do meet again, eh?” He thought-fully hefted the gladius.
“Yes.” Caldus Caelius forced the word out through dry lips. He didn’t want to show fear, though the barbarian had to know he felt it.
“I kill you,” Ingaevonus said. “I kill you slow, Roman. I kill you nice and slow, Caldus Caelius. I go think how to do it, then I come back, eh?” He ambled off, testing the sword’s edge with his thumb. Over his shoulder, he added, “Won’t be long.”
Not nearly far enough away, another legionary started screaming for his mother. The Germans were gutting him, the way they might gut a slaughtered boar. But they hadn’t slaughtered him first. They drew out his bowels a few digits at a time, laughing as they worked. The legionary kept on screaming. One of the barbarians had a new idea. He cut again, lower. The Roman wailed again, higher. The German stuffed what he’d cut off into the man’s mouth to muffle the noise.
Caldus Caelius shuddered. His chains clanked again. If Ingaevonus needed ideas . . . “Not me,” Caelius muttered hoarsely. “He wouldn’t do that to me.” But how could he possibly stop the barbarian?
If the Germans wanted to, they could have done it to him already. They seemed to be picking most of the men they tormented at random.
A savage would point at a Roman, a couple of others would seize him, and then they would set to work to see how much horror they could pack into the end of his life.
No one had pointed to Caelius yet. But Ingaevonus would, and soon. Maybe they’d waited for him to come to. They did prefer their victims aware and suffering till the end.
“Not me,” Caelius whispered again. If he’d had a sword, he would have fallen on it. If he’d had a dagger, he would have hoped it could reach his heart, or else slashed it across his throat. If ... But what he had was a head already half shattered and a stout set of manacles and chains.
And then, amidst the stench of blood and the worse stench of terror, sudden mad hope flowered in him. If he could use the manacles to finish the job of crushing his skull . . . But what if he couldn’t? His laugh sounded more than a little mad, too. If he couldn’t, how was he worse off?
He pulled himself to a sitting position. That drew the Germans’ notice, as he’d feared it would. One of them shouted for Ingaevonus. Three more strode toward him, anticipatory grins on their faces. Now or never flashed through his mind. He smashed at himself with all his fear-fueled strength. The last thought he ever remembered having was I hope I spoil their fun.
Vala Numonius’ horse stumbled south and west. The poor beast was on its last legs. The Roman cavalry commander - the Roman fugitive in a land all traps and snares for Romans - urged it on even so. If it foundered, when it foundered, he’d have to use his own legs, and it’s were swifter.
He was, he hoped, still ahead of the news of Quinctilius Varus’ army. He’d seen a few Germans working in their farm plots. They hadn’t paid him much special attention. They still thought of him as a Roman soldier, not as a fugitive from black disaster.
As long as they thought of him so - as a man who was dangerous to approach, as a man who would be avenged if he fell - he was fairly safe. But he knew better, or worse. Even if they didn’t, he knew he was nothing but a runaway. He also knew that scores, hundreds, maybe even thousands of Roman fugitives cluttered the German landscape. The barbarians might not have to hear the news. Just seeing so many Romans wandering at random over the countryside could be plenty to tell them the legions had met catastrophe.
And that wasn’t Vala Numonius’ only worry. Oh, no - far from it. Sooner or later, the cavalry commander knew he’d have to sleep. A German could come up to cut his throat or knock him over the head, and he’d never know it till too late. The legionaries joked about waking up dead if they got stuck in the middle of enemy country. Numonius didn’t think those jokes were fu
Maybe worse yet was that news and rumor would go right on spreading while he slept. They were liable to get ahead of him, even if he still had a lead on them for the moment. If they did ... If they did, the Germans would know he didn’t have the Empire’s might behind him now. They would know he’d suddenly become fair game. And they would hunt him.
He rode past a farm. Women and boys and one graybeard with a crooked back worked in the fields. No warriors. The Romans had wondered about that on their way north. Vala Numonius’ mouth quirked in a bitter grin. By the gods, he didn’t wonder anymore! Sometimes, though, knowledge came at too high a cost. People talked about that all the time. Now Numonius understood it in his belly, in his balls.
The barbarians all stared at him as he went by. They would know where their menfolk had gone, and why. But they wouldn’t - he prayed they wouldn’t - know what had happened. Maybe Numonius was only a scout, with a victorious Roman army not far behind him.
Maybe I am - but I’m not. The nonsense formed of itself inside his mind. It was one more measure of how worn he was. He wondered whether his horse’s head was full of moonshine, too. More nonsense. He was starting to have trouble even recognizing it.
He still had half a loaf of barley bread left. When it was gone, he’d need to buy food from the Germans, or steal it from them. The commander of the Roman cavalry, reduced to chicken thievery! Well, better that than being reduced to what had happened to the poor, sorry foot soldiers.
Numonius was glad when the track went into the woods and he couldn’t feel the Germans’ pale eyes on him anymore. The barbarians watched him like wolves watching a sick, staggering doe. If it fell over, they would feed. If it didn’t, they could catch something else before long.
He hated the German woods. Everything seemed to close in on you. You couldn’t see any farther than you could spit. Anything might lurk in there and lunge out at you. Anything. Wolves. A bear. A wide-horned aurochs, as fearsome as any meat-eating brute. Germans, the most fearsome brutes of all. You’d never know danger drew near till too late.
But when every breath was danger, the woods didn’t seem to matter so much. And, if the hunted couldn’t see far, neither could the hunters. Vala Numonius slid off his horse and led it away from the track. Then he tied it to a sapling and went back and covered its tracks, and his, as best he could. He didn’t know it his best would prove good enough, but you had to try.