Harry Sidebottom - The Wolves of the North

Small figures crawled like ants over the debris of the terraced houses the earthquake had collapsed down the hill. A man was herding two blond children into the shelter of the Temple of Hadrian. He knew he should have killed the boys too.

The mob spewed out from the commercial agora. Like a huge predatory beast, it sighted him. He turned to run uphill. His legs were not working properly. The Sacred Way reared in front, impossibly steep. The noise swelled. They would break him up like a stag.

He woke, full of apprehension. He forced himself to look.

The daemon was standing at his feet. She was a little girl, no more than five or six. She looked as he had left her; the white tunic bloodied, mud in her golden hair. The daemon never spoke. She just regarded him, almost dispassionately. As she had on that night, she held her hands out in supplication.

Hecate, all the chthonic deities, all you Olympians, make it leave.

As if in answer, the daemon turned and went out.

He raised himself and looked around the tent. The others were sleeping, the scribe snoring hoggishly. He lay back, heart pounding in his chest.

He had made a terrible mistake with the girl in Ephesus. She had been innocent. He should have mutilated her. The unjustly killed cannot walk if they have been mutilated. He had not made that mistake again. If he had only wiped the bloody blade in her hair, he would have been spared this recurring horror.

What he had done, all of it, had been the gods’ will. It was a war on vice. In all wars, the innocent suffer. You should not suffer blood-guilt in a war.

Outside, he could hear men moving. It must be the last watch of the night, near dawn.

Why had the daemon returned now? It had been months since the last visitation. The gods of the underworld must have let her walk for a reason. He had let his work lapse while they were here. In truth, he had been scared of the Brachus of Naulobates. If he had continued his work, Naulobates’ daemon would have caught him. Of course he was not scared to die. The demonstration with the trees was laughable in its barbarian crudity. But if he were killed, the work of the gods could not be carried out, the Scourge of Evil would end.

The gods had sent her to recall him to his duty. They would leave this place soon, and then it would be time to take up the struggle again.

There was no fanfare when Ballista finally led the mission out of the camp of the Heruli. Naulobates had ridden south with the majority of the nomad warriors three days after the feast. The First-Brother intended to join with Hisarna and his Urugundi and, although it would be late in the season, together they would take the war to Safrax in the Croucasis.

Now, two days after the departure of the horde, the few remaining men and the women and children were packing up the great summer camp ready for the annual trek back down to the winter grazing on the banks of the Tanais. Ballista had received word that he and his men were free to begin their long journey back to Lake Maeotis and then on to the imperium.

He pulled his horse out of the line, and shaded his eyes as he looked back into the rising sun. The column was in order so far. There were seventeen riders, including himself. Maximus, Calgacus and Tarchon rode point at the front with the guide provided by the Heruli. They were followed by the surviving members of the staff: Biomasos the interpreter, the scribe and the messenger, and Amantius the eunuch. It was odd seeing the latter in his red cloak and white tunic; odd that he was alive, when so many obviously tougher men had died.

The pack animals came next. There were twenty of them. The Heruli had been generous. One thing they did not lack was ponies. Roped into two strings, they were led by the two remaining slaves. Who owned these slaves was a moot point, given both Mastabates and Hordeonius the centurion were dead.

Castricius and one auxiliary cavalryman were on flank to the north, Hippothous and the other trooper to the south. The two freedmen brought up the rear. These ex-military slaves had the worst of it. Anyone riding drag got to eat the dust raised by the rest.

Their course lay west of south-west across the sea of grass. They would come to the higher reaches of the Tanais on the second day. There was a crossing place. Then they would take a direct line to the town of Tanais. Rudolphus, the guide, said it would be twelve days’ easy ride. Ballista saw no reason not to trust the Herul. Behind the swirling tattoos, Rudolphus had an open face. He had lost three of the fingers on his sword-hand, which accounted for why he was with them.

That first day, they rode under a burnished sky, empty except for the occasional vulture or rook. They plodded along the open land, the sweat running down them. Rudolphus had said they did not need to wear their armour. They were unlikely to run into any serious trouble. Given the heat, they were all glad of that.

In the afternoon, they saw great pulsating clouds of dirty yellow dust off to the north and rolling down towards them. One of the outlying Heruli herds, Rudolphus said. An hour or so later, from a slight rise they saw the ochre plain up there dotted with the tiny black shapes of cattle, hundreds of them. Like the main body of the nomads, these were making their way south. It would be a long journey. Rudolphus told them the herds — sheep, goats or cattle — if grazing as they went, usually travelled at no more than five miles a day.

They came to the Tanais, before noon on the second day. The land here folded up a little more. They saw the trees fringing the river, and smelt the water before it came in view. The river was wide, but mainly shallow. Rudolphus led them straight into the water. They waded their horses out to a narrow island with a line of trees, then across to another. They had to swim the animals the last part. Ballista kept an eye on Tarchon. The Suanian would never make a natural horseman. It was quite a stretch, but the current was slow, and nothing bad happened. In retrospect, the crossing seemed easier than scrambling up a gulley in the higher western bank.

They saw to the horses, lit a fire, dried out themselves and the baggage, and ate lunch. Afterwards, while most rested in the shade of some willows, Maximus inhaled some hemp with Rudolphus. The Hibernian had grown to love that stuff.

Hot and dirty, and not in the mood for narcotics or company, Ballista walked back down the gulley to the Tanais to bathe. Down by the water were the remains of a tiny settlement. The jambs and lintel of the doors of the two huts still stood. Their four-square solidity was strange against the rest. The walls were sagging or gone, and above the roofs were partial skeletons of joists and beams. The wattle of the stock pen wall had fallen and unwoven. Its warped sticks were strewn across the dust, while the sets of twin posts that had once held it upright stuck up at crazed angles, white like bleached bones.

Ballista walked through it, held by the common human fascination for desuetude. How did this happen? Where did everyone go? Any portable possessions had long ago been robbed out. The dust sifted grey and fine on his boots. There was no sign of burning, but somehow he had no doubt violence had been involved in its abandonment. There were fish in the river, wildfowl would flight here, the soil was fertile. He had a vision of two hardworking families, models of rustic virtue. Maybe one had a daughter to betroth to the son of the other. They would sacrifice a specially fattened calf for their bucolic nuptials. And then the riders had come. They had steel in their hands, and quite likely they had red tattoos.

The country beyond the river, while still flat, was not featureless. It was patterned with dry watercourses. The sides of these dropped down suddenly, as if they had been cut by the spade of a giant. Greyish shrubs grew in them, back flush to the level of the surrounding grass. They curved like dark tattoos across the face of the Steppe.