The Trumpets of Mars (Imperium #2) - Chapter 9

Northern Border

Ky was anxious as they neared the border. Even though the agreement between the Caledonii and the Romans was all but certain - since Talogren had agreed to most of the provisions before Ky had returned south - this was still a linchpin in Ky’s long-term plans. If they fell through so would most of his plans for Rome’s survival.

He was enough on edge that he visibly jumped when the comm in his head chimed, indicating Lucilla was trying to get a hold of him.

He waved off Sellic, who looked at him with some concern and sub-vocalized, “Is everything alright?”

Previously, Lucilla had only initiated contact from her side when things went very wrong. In his current state of mind, Ky’s first thought was that she’d ended up in trouble again. With the reports she’d been giving him of murders of prominent figures, it didn’t take much to spark his imagination in the worst ways.

“Nothing’s wrong. Sophus told me you were worried about this afternoon, and asked if I would talk with you for a bit. He has this idea that I could somehow soothe you.”

“He did, did he? And how exactly did you know I was worried, Sophus?” Ky asked, knowing the AI was listening, since it was required to make long-distance communication possible.

“Indicators of your stress level have been elevating steadily as we approach the border, and my understanding of human interaction like that required for the signing of your agreement with the Caledonii leader is that it is best done while calm and focused. I have noticed a significant balancing effect speaking with Lucilla has on you and determined that speaking with her would help regulate your worry.”

Ky continued to be impressed with the independent reasoning Sophus had been showing as its consciousness grew. While everything it had said was logical and based on data inputs, it required several leaps of understanding that wouldn’t normally be present in computer intelligence. Ky was also glad it’d had the idea, since he did feel better after speaking with Lucilla, and could use that this morning.

“Well,” Lucilla said, taking the lead of the conversation like she often did. “I’m glad he did, because I had a very interesting night that I wanted to share with you, but I hadn’t wanted to interrupt you this morning, in case you were in preparations for your meeting with Talogren.”

“Really? What happened?”

“I was touring the damaged sections of town and about to go talk to the guard commander when I was intercepted by some Picts …” she started to say.

“Caledonii,” he said, interrupting her.

“What?”

“It’s important that you start thinking about them in the terms they think of themselves, and not the ones given to them by their ancestors. They generally see the name Pict as an insult, like you would if they called you by the nickname they’ve given your people. You need to get used to doing it in private conversations and even when you’re just thinking about them. It will keep you from accidentally calling them the wrong thing and, if others hear you address them correctly, they’ll start doing the same.”

“Ohh, I hadn’t thought about that. Wait, what do they call us?”

“City Shitters.”

“What?”

“They think you hide behind your walls, defecating yourselves as you tremble in fear.”

“They’ve lost every battle we’ve fought against them.”

“And yet they still control the north of the country. Don’t think too much about it. It’s meant to be an insult. Hopefully, it helps you see how they feel when you call them Picts.”

“I see.”

“So, you ran into a group of Caledonii?” he prompted her.

“Yes. Apparently, they were still impressed by the wrestling match I participated in and demanded I go have a drink with them. I thought about what you said about needing to improve relations, so I put off my meeting with Pullo and went with them.”

“I’m sure Piscius did not approve of that,” Ky said, referring to her current guard commander.

“No, he did not. It actually wasn’t bad. They told tales of their great victories and I told them about the escape from Glevum and the forest ambush. They were duly impressed. Something strange did happen, however.”

“What?”

“They continued ordering wine, insulting it for being weak and a woman’s drink, and got blindingly drunk, several of them passing out on the floor, much to the dismay of our fellow patrons.”

“That seems in line with much of Caledonii culture.”

“Yes. That wasn’t the weird part. The weird thing was that they were actively trying to get me drunk with them, pressuring me to drink as fast as they were and ordering more drinks for me every time they ordered for themselves. By the end of the night, I barely felt anything while they were all unable to walk out of the inn unassisted. I have never been much of a drinker and usually cut my wine heavily, but this time I might of well have been drinking water as anything else.”

“I can explain that,” Sophus said in what was becoming a very familiar refrain as it continued to experiment with them, usually without telling them it was.

“Why am I not surprised?” Ky said, deadpan.

“Don’t listen to him, Sophus,” Lucilla said. “Please tell us.”

“It is a byproduct of the nanobots I released into your system. Part of their programming is to increase the efficiency of most of your biological processes, which includes the processing and elimination of toxins. This is partially to keep your organs functioning well beyond when normal human systems begin breaking down, but also because Rome’s history has an alarming number of poisonings, usually as a solution to a difficult political opposition. The nanobots remove toxins and poisons from your system, breaking them down into harmless compounds if possible, and enveloping them in an impenetrable shell if not, keeping your system from absorbing anything damaging. This includes alcohol, which has numerous damaging effects on a wide array of organs.”

“You’re saying I can never get drunk?”

“Unknown. There are limits to the nanobots in your system, including their inability to self-replicate, due to their altered programming. It is feasible to consume enough that you overwhelm their ability to process the substance, although that amount would be alarmingly high and present other issues, such as blood-sugar imbalances that your already occupied nanobots would not be able to immediately address. It would not be life-threatening unless you consumed that volume every day, which seems improbable.”

“Not that I’m planning on doing that, but how much are we talking about?”

“Roughly twenty-two cubic pes, in your local scale of measurements, if consumed in a several hour period.”

Lucilla had never amazed her tutors with her talent with numbers and figures, but even she was able to work out just how much wine that would be, and it was a lot. The average amphora quadrantal, the large two-handled jars used to transport and sell wine and other liquids, was roughly the volume of one cubic pes. Twenty-two of those was probably more than most inns used in an entire day, let alone one person drink.

She’d probably drown in the wine before she finished drinking it.

“I can safely say I do not plan on drinking that much in a year, let alone in a few hours.”

“I should hope not,” Ky said. “So, what’s happening with these murders? The guardsman was worrying, but going after a senator brings this to a whole new level. We might have survived Silo’s rebellion, but if we lose enough of our supporters, things could become very difficult for us.”

“Unfortunately, there isn’t any good news on that front. So far, Ramirus hasn’t been able to find anything solid on them. He doesn’t think it’s enough to make any large-scale attacks, but that’s as far as he’s willing to commit to answers. He believes the guard commander is reliable, but I’m still not convinced. Both attacks have had some connection to at least one, and probably several, people in the guard. Getting the executioner’s name could have been one person, but it would have taken several to make sure no patrols were in the area when Norbanus was murdered.”

“Not necessarily, but I think it’s best to assume there’s more than one, just to be safe. I’ll get the agreement signed and return as quickly as I can.”

“While I would love for you to come home, don’t rush your dealings with the Caledonii. You’ve made it clear how important this alliance is, so your first concern should be that. We’ll find these men.”

They spoke for a few more minutes, mostly spent with Lucilla relating the funnier incidents from the night before. Ky was almost sad when they saw the first scout from the border guard appear ahead of them, since it meant he had to focus on the job at hand. The brief conversation did make him feel more relaxed, but it had the side effect of making Ky want to return to Devnum as soon as he could. If he did have a limited amount of time left, he wanted to spend it with Lucilla, not arguing about the fates of empires.

Talogren had returned to his village when Ky had gone south, but Llassar had loaned him a Caledonii messenger to let the chieftain know he was coming. He’d received a reply on the trip north that they’d meet him on the Caledonii side of the border roughly in the same place where they’d left him.

Ky had imagined it would be a few tents of Talogren and his guards, as opposed to the sea of tents and men that had been camped in the area previously, since Ky had taken those five thousand men south with him.

Which is why he was surprised, after dropping off the praetorians to begin the process of the fourth legion handing over patrol duties, to ride out of the tree line into the frozen valley and once again find thousands of men camped out, waiting.

Ky was riding into the Caledonii camp with only two of his lictore, not wanting to show disrespect to their new allies by bringing a bunch of guards with him. A small group of riders came out to greet them as they neared the encampment and led them to a large, centrally located tent, where Talogren was standing in front, waiting on them.

“It appears you and I had more in common than I originally thought,” the chieftain said as Ky rode up and slid off his horse.

“I don’t follow,” Ky said.

“One of the things the Romans always proclaimed as proof of how much more civilized they are than us is to point to the fractured nature of our politics. Even as I’ve struggled to bring my people together into a single government, you apparently have had to struggle in the same way. I was glad to hear you were victorious in the conflict. Llassar’s messages to me suggest you single-handedly put down the rebelling legions.”

“He must have been exaggerating. I had my role to play, but the loyal legions, praetorians, and town guardsman did more to win the day than anything I personally did.”

“Of course,” Talogren said, much as one would to a modest child. “Of course.”

“Are you ready to sign this agreement?” Ky asked.

“Yes,” Talogren said, standing aside and waving Ky into his ten. “Before we do, I have one more stipulation that I would like to see met before we sign this agreement.”

Ky paused, turning to face the giant of a man.

“I thought we had everything agreed to before I went south. While both the Emperor and I are firm believers in this alliance, the fact that we had two legions rise up in open rebellion over it should tell you how difficult it was to make this happen at all.”

“It does and I can appreciate the difficulties you’re having and I still plan to sign your agreement just as we discussed. My stipulation doesn’t require anything of Rome itself, just you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. We leave in the morning to begin putting down the first of the villagers who have refused to join the league, finally bringing all of the northlands under one law. I want you with us when we put down these holdouts. If you agree, then I will sign your alliance agreement.”

“Your last messenger already mentioned the holdout villages and I’d agreed to stay here until you managed to pacify your lands, or at least as long as I could until I had to return to Rome in the spring.”

“You mistake my meaning. I don’t just want you with us, I want you to lead our warriors into battle.”

“Why?” Ky asked.

He wasn’t worried about himself, since nothing in this time period could get through his kinetic shielding. He was more confused than anything else, since Caledonii were almost pathologically unwilling to admit that someone else might be stronger or a better warrior than they were. The Caledonii went into battle with their strongest warrior in the vanguard, leading them to victory. To bring an outsider into that position would be an insult to every warrior who followed behind him.

“Word spread about the way you cut through anyone who stood before you. How you moved like death itself and no blade could touch you. There are those who say you are the guide of the underworld, sent to refill death’s horde. With you at their head, they believe there is nothing that can stand in their path.”

“It is important that your people know I am not claiming to be that. While I can do some things no one else here can do, that does not make me a god, or the servant of a god. I only claim to be a man and I am not here to take anyone to their deaths, unless they stand in between me and my goal.”

“Telling them that would only prove to them that it’s true.”

“The Emperor said something very similar to me not long ago,” Ky said, quietly exasperated.

“He is a clever man, this new Emperor of ours. Still, my people aren’t as superstitious as the Romans. They don’t care if you were sent here to shovel horse crap. You proved to them that you are as much of a warrior as any Caledonian man, which is quite the compliment. They want you to lead them because they believe you will guarantee their victory. I want you to lead them because it will make our campaign easier. Those rebel villages who have heard the tale have been discounting them as league propaganda. I want to prove to them it isn’t and I want the cowards that flee to run to the next rebel village and tell them of the unstoppable warrior that will soon be coming for them. It won’t convince all of the holdouts, but it will work on some of them, who will join us for fear of what will happen if they don’t.”

“I think you may be overvaluing one man’s worth, but if you think that is a possible outcome, then I would be a fool to say ‘no.’ I will lead them for as long as I can before I have to return south.”

“Good. The men you have asked me to assign to begin training with these praetorians of yours and patrol the border are ready. Let’s get these things signed and done with, so we can prepare for the campaign ahead.”

Talogren was good to his word, and the entire camp had broken and started riding northwest by the time the sun crested over the horizon. Ky had been impressed with his planning of the campaign. Most of the Caledonii he’d met had been incredibly straightforward, to the point of a single-minded focus, which made them incredibly talented warriors, but from the Roman records he’d seen, also made them generally poor tacticians.

Thankfully, Talogren broke this mold. His plan covered not only a well-planned move to hopefully catch the first village unprepared, but also considered the logistics of feeding and supplying his men. Normally, conflicts in the north involved roving warbands that supplied themselves from the countryside, ravaging and pillaging as it went. War among the Caledonii was more about being able to prove you were stronger than the other side and, if possible, capturing a few people that could be sold off as slaves. They rarely captured territory and never tried to pacify and incorporate rival villages. This was a new way of doing things, and it required a new way of fighting, for the Caledonii, at least.

Ky was pleased to see Talogren had been up to the task. He only had one problem with the plan.

“I want your forces to stand down and wait while I go under a flag of truce and offer them terms,” he told Talogren as they neared the first village.

“Why? These aren’t Romans, they’re north men. They will not surrender or turn aside. The only way to convince later villages to surrender and join us is to make an example of a few.”

“If they don’t then I will personally help you make an example of them, but I am not going to slaughter people without giving them a chance first. I also want to give the women and children a chance to escape. You’ve agreed to the new laws against slavery, so capturing them shouldn’t matter, since you will have to release them or break your word. If we let them escape, they will see the example we make of the men that chose to stay and fight, and they will pass that word on to other villages. It can only help your cause.”

“My men won’t like it.”

“Why? I understand your culture doesn’t do things this way, and I respect the strength of the Caledonii, but some things are going to change. We want to be different than the death worshipers. You said you wanted me to lead these men into battle because they’d seen my strength. Do you think they will suddenly consider me weak because I’m giving the other side a chance to listen to reason first? If I did things your way, where would you and the rest of the people who were at your village the night we first met be? You adapted then, listened to what I had to offer instead of just trying to die a good death. Let them adapt now.”

“It doesn’t matter. The men of the village won’t listen to you.”

“Then I will kill them,” Ky said, his expression hard set.

Ky could hear the shouts below as he rode up to the crest of a hill overlooking the little village which was nestled next to a small river. It was a scenic place to set up a home, and Ky thought it a shame that they would have to destroy it if Talogren turned out to be correct after all.

Talogren’s horde was arrayed across the hill, stretching for a hundred yards in either direction. For the people in the village below, it must look like a huge army was arrayed against them. In reality, there were less than a thousand warriors in total. That was far less than the number he’d sent south with Ky, although large enough to deal with any of the remaining villages, which had, at most a hundred warriors each. Unless they all banded together, there wasn’t much hope they could overcome Talogren’s assault.

Which was all the more reason why Ky wanted to offer them a chance to surrender, especially now that they saw their doom looming above them.

As the horde waited, Ky rode down the steep slope and towards the village. Ky’s hopes rose as a small delegation from the village walked out to meet him, stopping a few hundred feet from the village, waiting for Ky to ride up. One of Talogren’s protests to the entire thing was this wasn’t ever done in their culture, so it was unlikely that they’d even know how to react to one single rider approaching them while warriors waited in the distance. Ky didn’t care much about his warning that they might attack him on sight, since he would be prepared for that and there was little to no chance their attack would succeed. That would, however, send all of Talogren’s men charging down on the villagers, which would defeat the purpose entirely.

Ky pulled to a halt a good distance from them, to make it clear he wasn’t threatening, and called out, “I wish to speak to your village headman.”

“I’m he,” an older man with a graying beard from the center of the group yelled back.

Ky led his horse forward at a slow walk, his hands outstretched away from his body, palms out to show he held no weapon.

“What do you want? The headman asked.

His men were on edge, their hands on their weapons and eyes constantly flicking to the warriors on the ridge. Ky kept his hands out, away from his body, since they probably still suspected the forces above would come crashing down on them as soon as they let their guard down.

“I know messengers have been sent to you by Talogren, imploring you to join the Caledonian league. He is serious about the threats the messenger delivered. This isn’t a display or a chance to bloody young warriors. He is here and he plans to stay, even if it requires killing every one of your men to pacify the village. I want to ask one last time if you’d listen to reason. The league has much to offer, and not joining it offers only death. You see the men on the ridge. You have no chance of success in defying him.”

“We will not bow to that pig. We are a free people and we always will be. We will not submit to any easterner, especially one who has lain with the Romans. We know about his ‘alliance’ and we want no part of it.”

“That is your final word?”

“That it is.”

“Then at least send your women and children north, to the next village. It’s a long walk, but I don’t want to see innocents harmed in this. You know war in your land better than I ever will, and you know how warriors can be after a victory. Get them to safety while you can.”

Ky had already instructed the Caledonii to treat the prisoners well and that he would have the head of any man he could prove violated one of the women. He also knew that these men were used to that type of spoils of victory, and no warning from him could put an end to it entirely. He’d carry through on his threats, and over time incidents would lessen, but this first village would be brutalized, regardless of any threats Ky made.

“Our women will stay with us. Our children will stay with us. We are not afraid of anything or your collection of thieves and cutthroats threaten. They will fight and die alongside their menfolk, like true Caledonii. When this day ends, every one of your pathetic warriors will lie dead at our feet.”

“And you will be the first,” the red-bearded man next to the headsman bellowed, pulling a sword with impressive speed and stabbing it directly at Ky’s exposed chest.

Devnum

“You’re fools,” one of the assembled men said in almost a hiss. “And you’re going to get us all killed.”

This had been going on since the gathering started, and everyone was already tired of it.

“What did you expect us to do? We already agreed we needed to start hitting back, showing the people that there are still those of us who oppose the Emperor’s desecration of everything it is to be Roman.”

“And we made that statement,” the first speaker said again. “The executioner was a good target. He upset the government, but he was a nobody. A city guardsman with ties to the wrong people, and he’d agreed to carry out the executions. He deserved to die. A senator is a completely different situation entirely. Ramirus has tripled the number of men he’s putting out there, and I know we aren’t able to identify them all.”

“All that proves is we were right to kill that traitor. These people don’t care about a simple guardsman, even one who’s a loyal lackey. We’ve touched one of them now, and they know we can get others. We need to put more pressure on them, not less. Every time one of them comes out for one of the ‘Consul’s’ new laws he should be made an example of. We need to make them afraid to go against the will of the people.”

“That’s fine to say, but how are we going to do that? Didn’t you think using the supporters we have in the guard would backfire on us? They’ve already started identifying some of our men and they will find others. They’ve also replaced the patrols around the palace and the neighborhoods where the senators live with praetorians instead of city guardsmen. I don’t think I need to remind you that we have no men inside the praetorians. How exactly do you propose we get to these senators now?”

“It doesn’t matter,” one of the senior men in the back of the room, who’d been suspiciously quiet until that moment, said.

“How can you say this doesn’t matter?” the younger man shot back. “If we can’t act, then what are we even doing here?”

“It doesn’t matter, because we’ve had word from Caesius, and he has instructions.”

“So, he did survive?” one of the other men asked.

Although they’d received some word that he’d escaped the city after its fall, that had been the last thing they’d heard about him that wasn’t third and fourth hand. In the week since their last word, some of them had started to doubt the reports of his survival. Rumors had circulated the city that he’d been captured by Roman patrols, killed by the Carthaginians, or met some other gruesome fate.

“Yes. He is in Londinium, where he has convinced the governor to support his bid to become Emperor and rule Rome. They continued their pledge to help install him as the rightful ruler of Rome and look forward to working with Rome as sisters and allies into the future.”

“Great,” the younger man said, his inflection making it clear he didn’t mean anything of the sort. “We’re all happy to hear that they want to continue supporting our cause, but what about here and now? What aide or support is he or his new allies offering those of us left behind to suffer under the Emperor’s draconian rule?”

“He offers nothing at the moment. He is working with the Carthaginians to send a relief force, but until that happens, he has work for us to do.”

“What does he command?” another of the malcontents said, interrupting the younger man.

“He has heard our reports and the actions we’ve taken so far, and he thinks we are moving too slowly. We need to strike at his father and we need to weaken their control of the legions who, once freed of their disloyal legates, he is certain will rally to his side. He commands that our first step is to kill his sister and that it should both be brutal and public, to send a message to all of those who remain loyal to his father what fate awaits them.”

A collective gasp rose almost unwillingly from the group. While the idea of murdering, or in this case ordering the murder of, one’s siblings wasn’t completely unheard of in Rome, it was still somewhat frowned upon. Worse was contemplating the assassination of a woman, especially in such a brutal manner. It was passably acceptable to poison a woman, in cases where it was seen as a justified killing, but this took it almost a step too far.

“I know. I felt the same way when I read his orders, but he’s right. This will show them the fate that awaits any of them, if they should choose to continue on their path. And going after her will show them that we can get to any of them.”

“Norbanus only had one guard. Lucilla has a small army of them. A gang of hired street thugs will not be enough this time.”

“He’s aware of this and he offers a solution. He has already dispatched men to perform the actual attack. Our job will be to make sure we know when and where she will be accessible and help his men sneak into the city. They should arrive here tonight, so we don’t have much time.”

The men looked around at each other. They were all clearly still nervous, although hearing that Caesius was sending men to do the actual killing, men unconnected to any of them, eased a lot of their nerves.

The short notice didn’t allow them much time to carry out the tasks assigned to them, but that was far preferable to having to dirty their own hands with the actual murder.