Anthony Riches - The Wolf's gold

Gerwulf instinctively knew that his command was doomed, watching in silence as the oncoming mob of miners swiftly overwhelmed those of his men who were too slow on their feet to reach the turf wall before them. While the rampart was fifteen feet high on the side that faced down into the valley it was necessarily lower on the reverse, and the miners gathered in a howling sea of men around the steps that, were they allowed to swarm up them, would allow them to get at the soldiers who had made their lives a misery over the previous ten days. A determined group of them stormed up a stairway one hundred paces to his left, trading a dozen men’s lives to gain a foothold on the rampart and then railing at the defenders with iron bars, heavy shovels and pickaxes.

‘How long do you think they’ll hold?’

He turned to find Hadro beside him, the grizzled veteran’s face as stolid as ever.

‘Not very long. There are too many of the bastards, and they’re mad with the lust for blood. There’s still time to be away though, as long as the wall to the south remains in our hands. Are you coming?’

The older man shot him a look of pity.

‘No, Gerwulf, and not just because you were about to have me killed to ensure my silence. This is over. These animals are going to kill every soldier in the valley, and how long do you think anyone that escapes will be able to run, with the legions on this side of the mountains and the Sarmatae on the other? I think I’ll stay here and face my fate. Better to die quickly at their hands than to end up on a cross alongside you.’

Gerwulf nodded, dismissing the man from his mind.

‘Suit yourself.’

Gerwulf whistled to his bodyguard, turning away to stride down the wall to the south behind their shields, shouting encouragement to his men as they stabbed and cut at the mob baying for blood below them. He winced as an unwary soldier was dragged bodily from the wall into the crowd, his leg hooked by the blade of a pickaxe. The doomed man surfaced in the sea of blood-crazed men that lapped against the wall, stabbing out once with his sword before a vengeful miner buried an axe in his back and dropped him to his knees to be kicked to death. He shouted to his men to speed up their pace, watching in horror from the corner of his eye as dozens of enraged miners crowded in to stamp the dying man’s body to a pulp. Once they were clear of the fighting he pulled his crested helmet from his head and tossed it aside, speaking to his men as the small party hurried on down the wall’s length.

‘From here on, gentlemen, we are soldiers of Rome no more. We only have to escape from this fucking valley to be the richest men in the whole of free Germania.’

‘I guessed that you’d have a plan to escape, if your scheme went wrong.’

Theodora looked back over her shoulder with an expression of hatred as she climbed the steep path.

‘I’m rapidly growing bored of your smug satisfaction, Tribune. You’re not so valuable to us that I might not just lose my failing grip on my temper and have the sword that’s waiting behind you rammed through your spine. Would a period of silence be preferable to your untimely death?’

He smiled back at her and kept his mouth closed, glancing over her shoulder at the rock face looming before them. Of the four soldiers that her brother had left behind to guard him, only two were armed, one close behind and the other bringing up the rear, while the other two were struggling to haul a heavy wooden chest up the slope. After another hundred paces the path flattened out, and the light of a guard fire twinkled against the stones that surrounded the Raven Head mine’s entrance. Theodora stopped ten paces from the blazing pile of wood, looking about her with suddenly aroused suspicion. Scaurus watched the realisation of the guards’ absence dawning upon her, but said nothing. Theodora swung back to face him, her eyes narrowed.

‘Where are they?’

He frowned at the woman in apparent indifference.

‘Where are who? Your men set to guard the mine? Perhaps they’re underground, looking for gold.’ He raised his voice. ‘Or perhaps they’re still here and it’s just that you can’t see them.’

With a sudden start she realised that there were men all around them, rising from the cover of the bushes and trees around the mine’s entrance. A bow twanged, and the man behind Scaurus yelped and fell, dropping his sword and shield. The soldier at the rear of the column turned and ran, shouting for help, but managed no more than three paces before an arrow took him in the back. A giant figure strode out of the darkness, swinging his heavy war hammer in an arc that ended against the helmeted head of one of the men carrying the chest, smearing his features across his grossly distended skull. He swept the hammer up again, slamming it down onto the last of the soldiers with a sickening crunch of bone as the man scrabbled in terror at his sword’s hilt. Scaurus held up his bound wrists, grimacing in discomfort as one of the soldiers surrounding them stepped in and cut him free, while Theodora glowered at them both. Shaking his hands to restore their circulation he nodded his thanks to the soldier before turning back to Theodora.

‘Thank you, Centurion Corvus. And now, madam, if you thought my smug satisfaction was becoming a little tedious before, you’ll be positively disgusted with what you’re about to witness.’

She drew breath to scream for help, but Dubnus stepped out of the shadows behind her and put a big hand over her mouth while the tribune smiled warmly at her blazing eyes.

‘No, I think I’d prefer it if you didn’t warn your brother off. We’ve got a little surprise for him, something of a reunion. It’ll be touching, I promise you.’

Halfway up the mountainside Gerwulf called a brief halt, looking down into the valley as he sucked air into his lungs. Below him the buildings of Alburnus Major were aflame as the mob of miners ran amok, while what little he could see of the wall in the light of the remaining torches was a mass of angry humanity gathered around a dwindling remnant of his cohort. He chuckled quietly.

‘They’ll ransack the entire valley hoping to find the gold, tearing the place to pieces and then doing the same to each other. Thank the gods for foresight , eh?’

A sudden agonised grunt from behind him made the prefect turn to find one of his men reeling with a sword buried deep in his guts, while one half of his bodyguard tore into their unprepared colleagues with murderous intent. A brief one-sided fight reduced his escort from eight men to four, and he watched dispassionately as the last mewling survivor of the short struggle was finished off.

‘Well done, gentlemen, you’ve just doubled your money. And don’t worry, there are no more coded words. If you’re still breathing now it’s because you’re all men that I would trust with my life. Shall we go?’

He smiled to himself as they resumed their path along the valley wall towards the Raven Head mine, knowing that two of the men following him would be doing the same, waiting for the command to complete the reduction of their party to a size that would excite no interest as they rode south for the Danubius and a new life in the land beyond the river. Another five hundred paces brought them to the mine’s entrance and the unattended watch fire.

‘The cowards must have made a run for it when they heard the commotion in the valley. Probably wise, since I suppose those scum down there will eventually come up here, once they get bored of destroying everything else. Come on. .’

Gerwulf led them into the mine, taking a torch from beside the fire, lighting it in the embers and holding it up to illuminate the narrow passageway. Two hundred paces up the dimly lit passage he frowned as a barely visible figure appeared before them, seemingly conjured out of the tunnel’s wall. He walked on cautiously, drawing his sword with his bodyguards’ footsteps close behind him.