The world slowed, every heartbeat an eternity. His rush had taken him on a collision course with the trooper, but now he swerved violently to his right. In his head he saw the eyes narrow in puzzlement beneath the rim of the helmet. Valerius had deliberately kept his sword low. The German would be expecting a right-handed fighter and that meant an attack down the left flank where the pathetically short blade might have a chance of fending away the spear. Too late for the auxiliary to change course, but the lance point followed Valerius and he knew his opponent’s only concern was that he would somehow escape. The cavalryman was aiming for the throat: a sign of his overconfidence. Better and more certain to go for the bigger target. Still, a right-handed swordsman would have been all but defenceless against the blow. But Valerius held his sword in his left hand and now the weapon came up with a gladiator’s speed and a veteran’s timing. The high strike made it easier for the blade to divert the spear past his left shoulder and position him perfectly for a scything counter that would take the cavalryman’s head off his shoulders. He recognized a fleeting moment of terror on the other man’s face and at the last moment remembered Otho’s final words before he had left Rome. I will do anything to save the Empire from the terror and the bloodshed that rides hand in hand with civil war. The heavy blade of the spatha dropped to take the trooper across his mailed chest, smashing the rings into his flesh and cracking his ribs as he was catapulted backwards out of the saddle. In a blur Valerius found himself reining in beside Serpentius. The Spaniard was retrieving his axes and rifling the bodies of the three men he had treated with less mercy than Valerius’s groaning opponent had just received. The downed man tried to speak, but all that came out was a thin stream of bile that hung in strings from his raw lips.
‘Here.’ The Spaniard threw a leather bag and Valerius trapped it between his wooden fist and the saddle.
‘You might have given me more warning.’
‘You’re still alive, aren’t you? More than you can say for these offal.’
‘Dasius …’
‘I saw.’ Serpentius looked towards where the remaining auxiliary cavalry were forming up over the bodies of the Thracian and his men. ‘We should go.’
Valerius nodded wearily. ‘Where?’
Serpentius vaulted into the saddle and rode back towards where he’d emerged from the gully. ‘Why don’t you ask him? Turns out the little bastard speaks better Latin than I do.’
Valerius peered into the shadows where a hunched figure sat like a whipped dog on his rough-haired pony.
Valtir.
Later, when they’d lost their pursuers, they found shelter in a cave Valtir led them to. ‘I feared the thunder of the gods and I ran. Once I had run I was too ashamed to come back.’
‘Why did you not tell us you could speak our tongue?’ Valerius asked. ‘It might have made a difference.’
Valtir continued to quarter the carcass of a small mountain goat he’d trapped before the Spaniard caught up with him. ‘Sometimes it is better not to know.’
He darted a fearful glance at the gladiator as Serpentius growled: ‘He’s been listening to every word we say. We should cut his throat now and take our chances.’ The words were said in the matter-of-fact voice of a man discussing the price of eggs and Valtir shrank back against the wall of the cave.
Valerius shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think he has. Remember how he always slept farthest from the fire? I think he truly didn’t want to know, because the minute you thought he did you’d have got rid of him. We all ran from the avalanche, even you. The only difference is that Valtir was quicker and he didn’t stop.’
The Spaniard produced a bitter smile. ‘First the auxiliary and now a stinking Celt who somehow crawled out after his mother birthed him into a sewer. You’re going soft.’
‘We’re soldiers, Serpentius, even without a uniform or a rank or an eagle to follow. Soldiers. Not murderers. Just because Mars is stirring his cauldron and we’re teetering on the edge, we can’t just jump in.’
‘The auxiliary was trying to kill you.’
‘He was doing his duty. Following orders.’
‘Aye, and look where following orders got us in Syria. Six months on the run with Nero’s assassins breathing down our neck.’
Valerius was reflecting on the truth of the Spaniard’s words when Valtir’s soft voice interrupted from the far side of the cave. ‘I can take you to the soldiers’ road.’
XXX
The terrain became progressively easier and Valtir more wary with every mile they travelled west through the mountains. On the second day after losing Dasius and his men they bypassed a fortified settlement at the head of the second great lake they had flanked. ‘Dunum,’ the Celt said. ‘More auxiliaries.’ From Dunum a broad valley surrounded by rolling hills led where they wanted to go, but Valtir insisted that they keep to the heights and it was along mountain tracks that they rode, camping where they could with the wind whistling through their fur cloaks, and waking up beneath a blanket of snow. Valtir ignored Serpentius’s accusing stare. ‘Colder, but safer,’ he assured Valerius.