The Sea of Grass Read online

  An hour before dawn, hope returned to the caravan in the form of a far distant thunderstorm and the promise of rain that it brought with it. They saw the bolt of lightning first, a brilliant white flash crackling its jagged path out of the heavens and down to earth. Then, moments later, they heard a roll of thunder rumble across the plains. As if they were one body, every man and woman in the caravan, whether seated or walking, paused to look ahead, wondering if the awesome sight would be repeated and praying that it portended coming rain.

  They waited more than a minute before the lightning returned, crackling straight down to earth before sending another wave of thunder to wash across the plains. A little cheer lifted from the wagons. The sight had been both beautiful and awe inspiring, and it was followed, if not quickly, by many more. At the rate of about one every ninety seconds, the heavens lit up in the glory of the bolts from heaven. Marcus knew intellectually that they did not want to endure such a storm, but like the others, the promise of rain water proved too much for him and he said a silent prayer to Sol Invictus that the clouds would move in their direction.

  After about ten minutes of watching, Marcus remembered what they had to do and passed the word for the caravan to begin moving forward again.

  ****

  When the predawn light finally began to brighten the horizon, the storm continued to rage in all its glory. They could see the clouds now, a surprisingly small patch of blackness on the distant horizon, as the lightning continued to jab at the earth.

  Marcus had worked his way to the front of the caravan to better watch the celestial storm, but Evorik pulled his attention away from the show. Still leading his horse, he walked up beside Marcus. “Tribune, it galls me to say it, but I lost my way in the dark.” He pointed to the northwest—away from the storm in the northeast. “We’ve come too far east. We’ve missed the fort and need to change direction. Walk up this low hill with me and I’ll show you the bad news.”

  Marcus followed the Gota up a very shallow rise from which he could plainly see the earthen walls of what could only be Fort Quartus looming in the distance to the northwest. Evorik was completely correct. They’d come maybe six miles past the castrum and still had a ways north to go to reach it—say ten miles all in all.

  He forced himself not to sigh. Ten miles was half a day’s journey when the men and horses were fresh, but now? “I’ll get the wagons turned,” he decided. “I need you to take your horsemen and ride ahead to the fort. We need help. We’ll give you extra water skins to carry and bring back full, as soon as you can. Warn the commander of the garrison about what we saw at Segundus and suspect is happening at Tertium. Then get him to send some men with more water to help us get this caravan inside the walls.”

  Evorik nodded seeing the sense of it and without hesitation mounted his horse. “We’ll get these people water,” he promised. “You just keep them going in the right direction.” He started to swing his horse around, mouth opening to shout orders when he froze. His eyes squinted against the brightening horizon and he whispered, “Gods preserve us! I think the legion already knows about the savages.”

  Marcus turned to see what had captured the Gota’s attention. The combination of the brightening horizon and the shallow hilltop revealed to his squinting eyes what could only be a battle unfolding perhaps thirty, or at most fifty, miles ahead of them to the northeast. Figures on horseback were the most readily discernible, swarming like ants around what Marcus’ gut told him must be the Fort Quartus garrison. Even as he watched, a lightning bolt pounded hard into the middle of the confusing mass. He could readily imagine that another legionnaire—or more—had just died.

  Rather than depress him, the sight of the horror firmed Marcus’ resolve. His spine straightening despite his exhaustion, the Tribune turned to the Gota lord. “You better get moving. Tell whoever is left in the fort what’s happening to their forces in the east and that we need help now! If the legion is dying out there, the savages will be at Quartus in at most another couple of days.”

  “Tribune…” Evorik started to object but the imperatives of the situation were so obvious that he didn’t finish the thought. Twisting in his saddle, he called to his men. “Odoacer, Richimar, ride down the line of wagons collecting water skins. We’re pushing ahead to Fort Quartus to get help.”

  Men in the caravan still driving their horse teams in the wrong direction, looked up at Evorik’s words. They couldn’t see the battle ahead, but that was only a matter of time. Eventually someone would notice. The best thing to do was to get them turned and making best speed toward Quartus.

  Decision made, Marcus broke into a run back toward the wagons.

  Day Thirteen

  What’s Wrong with the Fort?

  Panic rippled down the length of the caravan.

  “Yes, it’s bad, boys!” Marcus admitted. “But we’re still out ahead of it. If we get to the Fort we can shelter behind its walls while we wait for news of the battle and send for reinforcements from the Jeweled Hills. What we need to do now is move, move, move!”

  It amazed him what a little adrenalin could do to counteract his thirst and exhaustion. The goal was in sight. Fort Quartus was only a few miles distant. Evorik’s riders were already far out ahead. In a couple of hours time, he’d be racing back across the plains with bulging water skins to renew the strength of the horses while a hand or two of fresh legionnaires carried more water skins right behind him. The caravan was going to make it just as long as no new disasters slowed them down.

  Swarms of horsemen—it was impossible to count numbers at this distance—were now branching outward from the main battle but to what purpose Marcus couldn’t say for certain. The most likely explanation was that someone had tried to escape the horde of savages, but that would require cavalry on the legion side of the battle. Evorik had told him that detachments of Jeweled Hill cavalry often worked with the legion out of Fort Quartus but without getting substantially closer to the battle it was impossible to distinguish between Gota and savage riders.

  Closer was not something Marcus wanted to be at this moment—certainly not until he had the wagons safely behind the walls of Fort Quartus.

  A couple of the groups were heading in this general direction, but unless Marcus was badly misjudging the distance, he didn’t think they could probably reach the caravan until very late in the day.

  He forced the battle from his mind and refocused his attention on getting his people to safety.

  ****

  By noon the distant battle was over and Marcus’ gut told him the legion had not been triumphant. Swarms of horses still stood on the field and the thunder storm slowly began to dissipate.

  It looked bad.

  As for Marcus’ own horses, they were dead on their feet and he’d actually had to cut seven of them out of their teams and leave them to walk behind or not as the inclination took them. He had expected Evorik to be back by now, and was very unhappy that he was not. They were still something like four miles away, but without fresh water, he didn’t know if the animals could make it.

  Whatever adrenalin had come with the realization the savages were already here in numbers had long since departed and forcing the body to take each new step forward was a trial for everyone.

  Something appeared and disappeared in his vision, compelling Marcus to stop and concentrate on what he had seen. A dark shape appeared near the fort ahead of them—a dark shape followed by a string of others making pretty good progress coming back toward them.

  Evorik?

  Whether it was or wasn’t the Gota lord, Marcus continued to encourage the caravan to roll forward.

  ****

  “Here, take a sip of this, Tribune,” Evorik told him.

  “The horses have all had a drink?” Marcus asked.

  “Not their fill by any pretense, but enough to keep them moving,” the Gota assured him.

  “And my men?”

  “You’re the last holdout,” Evorik laughed. “You can drink without off
ending your pure Aquilan officer’s conscience.”

  Marcus accepted the water skin and wet his cracked lips. Then he took a little more water and held it in his mouth, enjoying the feel of moisture return to his parched tongue. Finally he forced a couple of swallows down and tried to return the skin to Evorik.

  “You keep that one,” Evorik told him. “Fulgus knows there’s little enough in it. But unlike your men, your work is only going to begin when we reach Fort Quartus.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The Great Tribune in charge of Fort Quartus got word of the siege of Tertium and requested reinforcements from Topacio. We’ve worked together in the past and sent about eight hundred cavalry to reinforce the Great Tribune and together they marched on Tertium. That was three days ago, and like us, the Lesser Tribune left in charge of Quartus is…unhappy at the implications. He’s got one under strength hand to hold the fort with and the malingerers of the garrison who claimed to be too sick to march out with the rest of the legionnaires.”

  That did look bad. It was, in fact, worse than the situation they’d found at Fort Prime. It was likely Marcus was going to have to do something drastic in Quartus if they were to have any chance of survival.

  “First things first,” he said. “We have to get the caravan to the fort. How is its water supply?”

  “It’s the only piece of good news,” Evorik told him. “The fort is built on a low hill—really not a hill at all by my standards. A spring emerges from the hill and forms a little creek that meanders off into the plain. They’ve dug a well to the source of the spring inside the hill at the central plaza you Aquilans build into all of your forts. You won’t die of thirst in there.”

  An idea began to spark in Marcus’ mind. It wasn’t enough to win the coming battle but it might help raise the odds of his success. “We have to get the caravan to Quartus. Did this Lesser Tribune—what’s his name by the way?”

  “Cyrus.”

  “Must be from one of the provinces,” Marcus noted. “Did he send legionnaires to help us move the caravan?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “He said he needed all of his men to prepare the defense of Fort Quartus, if needed.”

  That was a decision Marcus personally regretted, but he could understand it. He already had a number of tasks he planned to put the men to as soon as they were able to work again. “And what are they working on?”

  “Nothing!” Evorik’s flat expression reinforced the word.

  “Nothing?”

  “They’re standing on the walls waiting for word of how the battle went.”

  “And losing their only chance to prepare for it,” Marcus said to himself. “Well I cannot let this stand. I need you and your men to return to Fort Quartus. Take Severus with you. Black Vigils hold a lot of weight in the legion. You tell Lesser Tribune Cyrus that Tribune Marcus Venandus orders him to have his men prepare food and water sufficient for this entire caravan. Furthermore, he is to move all barracks accommodations—those are tents I presume?”

  Evorik nodded.

  “Move them all to the forum and strip anything of use from the outer grounds. He also has to make the parade ground ready for all of these wagons. And I want to know what his supply situation is. How much food does he have? How many pilum? How many extra shields and sets of armor and swords. Praise be to Sol Invictus that we are carrying wagons full of supplies—especially pilum—because I think we’re going to need them. Finally, I want all construction equipment inspected and ready for use when I arrive. If the battle went as badly as we both fear, we are not going to have much time to prepare our defenses—I refuse to let that idiot waste the little we have.”

  Evorik looked pleased. “I’ll send my men back with another round of water, but I’d better stay and help Severus keep this hand in line.”

  Marcus agreed. “Unfortunately, you don’t leave your best hand behind when you march off to battle. I think we’re going to have to remind Lesser Tribune Cyrus of what it means to be a legionnaire.”

  ****

  When Marcus led his caravan into Fort Quartus, his exhausted green-band legionnaires marched in a credible column at the front and rear of the line of wagons. A very unhappy Lesser Tribune Cyrus, flanked by his own vigils, plus Severus and Evorik and a handful of the fort’s legionnaires, stood before him in the mouth of the gates and saluted crisply in his perfectly clean uniform.

  Marcus returned the gesture, pressing his clenched right fist against his heart. “Tribune Marcus Venandus taking command of Fort Quartus until the end of the present emergency!” he barked the order so that everyone within a thousand feet of him would hear it.

  “We don’t actually know that an emergency exists, Tribune,” Cyrus protested.

  Marcus couldn’t fault him for not wanting to give up his command, but he absolutely did blame him for the piss-poor justification for keeping it.

  “Black Vigil Severus!” he bellowed, even though his old friend was standing four feet away.

  Severus saluted. “Tribune!”

  “Did you brief Lesser Tribune Cyrus on the situation we discovered at Fort Segundus?”

  “Yes, Tribune!”

  “And did you brief Lesser Tribune Cyrus on the information related to us by Tribune Lucanus of Fort Prime?”

  “Yes, Tribune!”

  Cyrus began to cringe with each of Severus’ confirmations.

  “And did you brief Lesser Tribune Cyrus on the attacks made on the caravan during our journey both to Fort Segundus and on the trail to Fort Tertium?”

  “Yes, Tribune!”

  “And did you further brief Lesser Tribune Cyrus on the attempt by the half-breed scout, Mataskah, to destroy this body of legion reinforcements and the caravan carrying legion supplies?”

  “Yes, Tribune!”

  Cyrus’ shoulders began to droop with the growing evidence of how serious their circumstances were.

  “And did you also brief Lesser Tribune Cyrus on our theories regarding the situation at Fort Tertium—theories that were confirmed by the request for reinforcements sent by Fort Tertium to Fort Quartus?”

  “Yes, Tribune!”

  “But Great Tribune Rogatus led a substantial army, reinforced by eight hundred Gota horsemen, to Tertium and they must have defeated the savages on the plains because they are legionnaires.”

  Marcus lowered his voice. “Lesser Tribune, they were legionnaires at Fort Segundus too. We can die just like everyone else does, we’re just a hell of a lot harder to kill.”

  “But…”

  It was clear to Marcus that the Lesser Tribune simply had no idea what to do.

  Marcus abruptly shifted his attention to Severus. “Has a meal been prepared?”

  “Yes, Tribune.”

  “Good, get our men fed and let them rest until midnight. Then we’ll get them to work strengthening the fortifications here at Quartus.

  He turned back to Cyrus. “Lesser Tribune, your men need to get my wagons situated, the horses watered and fed, and a meal to the humans. All of that needs to be completed in two hours time and your men assembled—including the sick so long as they are not actually already dead—in the forum and ready for inspection. Unless Great Tribune Rogatus won a totally decisive victory at the Battle of the Thundercloud out there, we have to be prepared to defend Quartus against the savages.”

  Finally he turned to the Gota lord whom he’d come to depend on so much in these past few days. “Lord Evorik, my friend, I don’t know how we would have come so far without the strength and courage of your men. I am afraid that I need to call upon you one more time.”

  The Gota lord scratched his red beard while he waited to hear Marcus’ request.

  “See to your horses and rest your men tonight. In the morning, we will need to send you north to Topacio with word of what has happened.”

  “It might be better to wait until some survivors of the battle reach us.”

  “I know, but if we wait too long and the sa
vages arrive in numbers, we won’t be able to get you out at all.”

  “My wives are still with the caravan,” Evorik protested.

  “Could you switch out two of your men so they can ride with you?” Marcus asked.

  The Gota leader thought about that for a moment before reluctantly shaking his head. “No, they’re fine horsewomen, but they couldn’t keep up.”

  “Then you have my word that I and my legionnaires will die before we let even one of those savages within spitting distance of them,” Marcus swore.

  Evorik nodded gravely. “Then I’ll go at dawn. Perhaps we’ll be lucky and some of the survivors will reach us during the night.”

  Marcus thought that was a definite possibility. If someone was running from a savage horde that had just broken a phalanx of legionnaires and an army of Gota horsemen, they were unlikely to stop to sleep just because it was nighttime. “We can only hope that’s the case.”

  “We’ll wake an hour before dawn and leave as the new day first begins to brighten the horizon.”

  Marcus suppressed a grin. For a moment there, the Gota had sounded almost poetic enough to be one of the Gente.

  “I’m depending on you, my friend.”

  “I’ll bring the reinforcements,” Evorik promised. “You just make certain that my wives are alive and waiting for me when I get here.”

  ****

  Marcus stalked the outer portions of the castrum checking the layout of the land one more time before enacting his defensive changes. Behind him, Seneca Liberus followed after him balancing a book, an ink bottle and a quill pen in his hands as he asked his never-ending stream of questions.

  “So I don’t understand what’s wrong with the fort,” he complained.

  “Nothing is wrong with it,” Marcus informed him. “It’s a solid structure which in many ways is perfect for fighting the savages. The outer ditch and the steep earthen wall will keep them from riding their horses straight into the fort. The interval just inside the wall is wide enough to catch all the savages’ arrows before they reach the legionnaires’ encampment. There is also plenty of growing grass to feed our own draft horses and the larger steeds of our allies.”