‘He walks a greater path than most,’ Cabera had said later, when Renius had been laid out on a cool bed in the house to finish his healing. ‘His feet are strong in the earth.’
Marcus had wondered at Cabera’s tone as he tried to make the young man understand the importance of what he had seen.
‘Never have I seen death take its grip off a man as it did with Renius. The gods were whispering in my mind when I touched him.’
The path twisted and turned and they slowed to let the horses pick their way through the broken surface stones, unwilling to risk a sprain or a fall on the steep slope.
‘What does the future hold for you, I wonder?’ Marcus thought to himself in the comfortable silence. ‘Father.’
The word came to him and he realised the idea had been there for some time. He had never known a man to call father and the word unlocked a door in his mind as he explored his feelings further without pain. Renius was not his blood, but a part of him wished he was travelling these lands with his father, protecting each other from dangers. It was a grand daydream and he pictured men’s faces as they heard he was the son of Renius. They would look at him with a little awe of their own perhaps and he would simply smile.
Renius broke wind noisily, shifting his weight to the left without looking back. Marcus laughed suddenly at this interruption to his thoughts and continued chuckling to himself at intervals for some time after. The gladiator rode on, his thoughts on the descent and his future once he had delivered Marcus to his legion.
As they approached a narrow part of the trail, boulders rose on both sides as if the thin path had been cut through them. Renius laid his hand on his sword and loosened the blade.
‘We’re being watched. Be ready,’ he called back in a low voice.
Almost as he finished speaking, a dark figure rose from the undergrowth nearby.
‘Stop.’
The word was spoken with casual confidence and in good, clear Latin, but Renius ignored it. Marcus part drew his sword and kept the horse walking with pressure from his knees. From the sudden stiffness in the arms around his waist, he knew Peppis was awake and alert, but for once staying silent.
The man looked like a Greek, with the distinctive curled beard, but, unlike the merchants of the town they’d seen, he had the air of a warrior about him. He smiled and called out again.
‘Stop, or you will be killed. Last chance.’
‘Renius?’ Marcus muttered nervously.
The old man scowled, but kept going, digging his heels into Apollo’s flanks to urge him into a trot.
An arrow cut the air, taking the horse high in the shoulder with a dull thumping sound. Apollo screamed and fell, pitching Renius to the ground in a crash of metal and swearing. Peppis cried out in fear and Marcus reined in, scanning the undergrowth for the archer. Was there only one, or were there more out there? These men were obviously brigands; they would be lucky to escape alive if they submitted meekly.
Renius came to his feet awkwardly, yanking out his sword. His eyes glinted. He nodded to Marcus, who dismounted smoothly, using his horse to block the sight of the hidden archer. He drew his gladius, reassured by its familiar weight. Peppis came off the horse in a scramble and tried to hide behind a leg, muttering nervously to himself.
The stranger spoke again, his voice friendly. ‘Do not do anything foolish. My companions are very good with their bows. Practice is the only way to fill the hours here in the mountains, that and relieving the occasional traveller of his possessions.’
‘There is only one archer, I think,’ Renius growled, staying light on the balls of his feet and keeping an eye on the scrub. He knew the man would not have stayed in the same place and could be creeping in to get a clean kill as they spoke.
‘You wish to gamble your life on this, yes?’
The two men looked at each other and Peppis gripped Lancer’s leg, making the horse snort with displeasure.
The outlaw was clean and simply dressed. He looked much like one of the huntsmen Marcus had known on the estate, burned a deep brown by constant exposure to the sun and wind. He did not look like a man given to empty threats and Marcus groaned inwardly. At best, they would arrive at the legion with no kit or equipment, a beginning he might never live down. At worst, death was a few moments away.
‘You look like an intelligent man,’ the outlaw continued. ‘If I drop my hand, you will be dead on the instant. Put your sword on the ground and you will live a few moments more, perhaps until you grow old, yes?’
‘I’ve been old. It isn’t worth it,’ Renius replied, already beginning to move.
He threw his gladius at the man, end over end in the air. Before it struck, he was leaping away into the shadow of the rock-side. An arrow cut the air where he had been, but no others accompanied it. Only one archer.
Marcus had used the moment to duck under his horse’s belly past Peppis, and came up running, throwing himself at the slope, trusting to his speed to keep him steady. He cleared the main ridge without slowing down and accelerated, guessing where the archer must be hiding. As he approached, a man broke from the cover of a grove of fig trees off to his right and he almost skidded as he turned to follow.
He had him in twenty paces along the loose rock surface, bringing him down from behind in a leap. The impact jarred the gladius from his hand and he found himself locked in a struggle with a man who was bigger and stronger than he was. The archer twisted violently in Marcus’ grip and they found each other’s throats with grasping hands. Marcus began to panic. The man’s face was red, but his neck appeared to be made of wood and he couldn’t seem to get a crushing grip on the thick flesh.
He would have called for Renius, but the man couldn’t have climbed the ridge with only one arm, and anyway he could not draw breath with the archer’s great paws on his throat. Marcus dug his thumbs into the windpipe and heaved all his downward weight onto them. The man grunted in pain, but the hairy hands tightened still further and Marcus saw flashes of white light across his vision as his body began to scream for air. His own hands seemed to weaken and he despaired for a second. His right hand came off the throat, almost without his conscious thought and began to hammer the grunting face. The white lights were streaked with flashes of black and his vision began to narrow into a dark tunnel, but he kept striking over and over. The face below him was a messy red pulp, but the hands on his throat were merciless.
Then they fell away, without drama, lying limp on the ground. Marcus sobbed in air and rolled off to one side. His heart was beating at an impossible speed and he felt light-headed, almost as if he was floating. He pulled himself onto his knees and his fingers scrabbled without strength for the hilt of his sword in ever-widening circles.
Finally, they closed on the leather grip and he breathed a silent prayer of thanks. He could hear Renius and Peppis calling for him below, but had no breath to answer. Staggering, he took a few steps back to the man and froze as he saw the eyes were open and looking at him, the heavy chest heaving as raggedly as his own.
Rasping words grated past the man’s smashed lips, but they were Greek and Marcus couldn’t understand them. Still panting, he pressed the sharp tip of the gladius against the man’s chest and shoved down hard. Then his grip slipped off the hilt and he collapsed in a sprawl, turning weakly to empty his stomach onto the ground.
By the time Marcus climbed stiffly back to the path, Peppis had recovered Renius’ sword and the gladiator was holding a pad of cloth to the wound in Apollo’s shoulder. The big horse was shivering visibly with shock, but was on his feet and aware. Peppis had to hold Lancer’s reins tightly as the horse stepped and skittered, wide nostrils and eyes showing his fear at the smell